The one big exception to the left's campaign against hate and prejudice

[BlueCheeseAgain]

Over the last many years, I've learned a lot about discrimination, prejudice, and inequity, based on the ideas and principles that come from the academic left.

I've learned that prejudice isn't limited to outright segregation and bigotry.
I've learned about privilege and how my life is easier than others because of race and sex.
I've learned about gender identity and pronouns.
I've learned about microaggressions.
I've learned about the difference between equity and equality.
I've learned about cultural appropriation.
I've learned about intersectionality.
I've learned about how seemingly fair practices can actually be unfair.
I've learned how our institutions have built-in biases.
I've learned that majority groups should not dismiss how minority groups see certain phrases, symbols, or practices.

In general, I've learned about how a diverse society should behave, in a way that's far more nuanced and sophisticated than what I realized before.

It all makes sense to me. I roll my eyes when Republicans talk about "woke" culture and how schools are indoctrinating kids with critical race theory. All it really means is being more aware, more informed, and more understanding of how life really is.

Except...

When over a thousand innocent civilians were brutally slaughtered and a couple hundred more were kidnapped, many of the same people who built this edifice of understanding and fairness couldn't even bring themselves to even condemn the act. Many of them outright celebrated it.

Professors who study race, gender, and discrimination for a living, who've written books about downtrodden communities. Students at some of the best universities in the country. Activists for justice in other areas, such as for civil rights or LGBT rights. Not everyone, of course. But enough to make one wonder.

On the one hand, they decry "all lives matter". On the other, they justify "from the river to the sea".
On the one hand, they talk about women's rights and LGBT rights. On the other, they look away from a group that subjugates women and murders gay people.
On the one hand, they talk about microaggressions. On the other, well, ...

This doesn't make sense to me. A movement and school of thought that tries to make a fairer, more just, more informed society among diverse groups, turns a blind eye towards the mass murder of babies, the elderly, and everyone in between simply because of who they are.

Why?

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Well said.

[msongs]

2. so who is winning the innocent people killed race these days? nt

[BlueCheeseAgain]

4. Body count is a strange way of looking at it.

The United States killed far more people than we lost in World War II. That doesn't mean we were in the wrong.

In any case, many of the reactions came before Israel's response ramped up. The DSA was out with their pro-Palestinian rally the day after the massare.

[msongs]

12. the OP made it about body count....

it says "When over a thousand innocent civilians were brutally slaughtered..." and when one looks at the numbers of innocent civilians "brutally slaughtered" there is one group way ahead in that slaughtering.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

16. I feel like we're talking past each other.

First of all, much of the reaction I'm talking about on the left happened as soon as the massacre happened, before Israel responded. What explains that?

Second, my citation of the number of people murdered by Hamas was to show how enormous a crime these folks on the left are willing to overlook or even celebrate. If you want to condemn Israel's response, that's certainly fair. But in no sense does it retroactively justify the initial attack or reaction on the left to it.

[EllieBC]

3. We don't act the way white liberal saviors

want the minority groups they support to act.

Instead we fight back.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

6. A lot of it does seem to come down to that.

But a lot of these folks were celebrating even before Israel started fighting back.

[EllieBC]

7. That's also part of it though. How many times

has some group tried to wipe us out? And what do we do? We don’t go away. We get stronger. We figure out how to best fit into whatever population we are living amongst while keeping our traditions. And we don’t give up. We figure out how to do well wherever we live.

None of those things make you worthy of pity which is exactly what people want to be able to do.

[blm]

5. Saddening

And maddening.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

8. It's heartbreaking - but it's sadly not surprising and it pisses me off

I'm not Jewish, but two of my closest friends are, and have shared stories from their personal experience. I remember learning about pogroms in high school, and seeing other kids in my class taunting one of those friends about it the next day.
I hoped that Oct. 7 would be a moment of clarity, something so horrific it would wake up the world, but alas... It seems like people have forgotten Munich, or Entebbe, or Lockerbie, instead I'm reading people trying to draw equivalencies between the Holocaust and the Dresden firebombing.

[TheProle]

9. Good post

The lessons you describe and the underpinning values they represent must be arrived at through critical thought and not simply parroted as academic orthodoxy which, unfortunately, is not always the case.

Right or left, there are few things as disquieting as a wild eyed fanatic who is convinced they are right because they simply adopted a position via groupthink and as a result are incapable of nuance or differentiation.

[ripcord]

10. Seems like they want Israel to retreat behind its border and wait for the next promised terror attack

[DET]

14. Which May Not Be Long

Now that Netanyahu’s arm has been twisted to allow a daily four hour window to escape from Northern Gaza to Southern Gaza. I certainly understand the humanitarian impulse to rescue civilians, but is there any screening process in place - or is it even possible to implement a screening process to weed out the terrorists? It’s not like they wear uniforms or carry Hamas ID cards. What’s to stop Hamas from going South and regrouping? I don’t know if that’s advantageous from a strategic military perspective, but it’s going to get even uglier for anyone left in Northern Gaza.

[CincyDem]

11. Could it be...

…[in my finest Church Lady voice]…the Joos???

This experience, for me, has ripped off the thin veneer covering anti-semitism in a variety of flavors from outright, in your face threats (including from the river to the sea chants and ripping down posters) to being ghosted by large swaths of under represented groups and lifestyles who have enjoyed unwavering long-time support in their tough times from the Jewish community.

So many of these folks blaming Israel for the 10/7 attacks would (appropriately) go apeshit if someone suggested that a rape victim should be blamed for her attack. For being out at night; for wearing clothing of her choice; for her separate, independent choices of earlier sexual activity; for having one extra drink…what reason could exist to rationalize an attack like that. But here, the rationalization for Hamas’ attack comes so easily to so many.

To those who wonder why Israel is so intransigent about a cease fire or pause…Jews depended on the world 80 years ago and the world said “f’ck y’all”…until Pearl Harbor…then it got real. But let’s be fair, it was never about stopping the holocaust. That was just a side benefit to the main attraction, revenge for 12/7/41 on Japan and its allies.

But yeah…I get it…people don’t like Bibi. Hell…I don’t like Bibi. But it’s almost as if Bibi is Israel’s version of “she shouldn’t have worn that dress”??? Like hating Bibi makes this all ok.

The ability of so many otherwise intelligent people to unquestionably open their minds to Hamas propaganda, consume it like prime filet of beef, and integrate it into their reflexive reactions to all things Gaza…it’s easy to understand when you consider the archetype of anti-semitism that exists worldwide just beneath the thin veneer of civility in so many places.

Ok…rant over. I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for almost four weeks. Trying to change minds on the internet is like trying to teach calculus to a golden retriever but still, i try. Lol.

Rant off, I hope for a long time.

[DavidDvorkin]

15. A quibble:

It changed when Hitler invaded Poland and WWII began, well before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[CincyDem]

17. Thanks...I thought the US stayed out of it prior to Pearl Harbor.

[yagotme]

20. Well there was lend-lease, and aid to Russia.

Actual declaration for us was Dec 8.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. Yes, the US did stay out of the war until Pearl Harbor

But what you said about entry into the war forcing people to pay attention to what the Nazis were doing to the Jews applied more broadly than just to the US. The UK turned a blind eye until 1939, the begining of the war, when they reluctantly acknowledged what was happening.

[CincyDem]

23. Fair point. I was bring US centric in my timing.

And even after the US entry and knowing hitler was moving people be train, my recollection is the Allies deprioritized bombing train tracks, a move the would have severely disrupted the final solution.

[Sympthsical]

13. Just the absolute silence is amazing

So many voices who usually can be counted upon to point out bigotry are so very, very, very quiet all of a sudden.

If they're not kind of actually going along with it, as I know we've all seen.

And herein lay the hollowness at the heart of a lot of the rhetoric we've seen in recent years. It's very easy to say you're for social justice when that involves yelling at people who you already hate anyway. It costs little to oppose those everyone else around you opposes as well.

It's calling our friends out that is hard. That takes a bit of spine, a bit of courage, a bit of conviction in one's beliefs. Does someone actually believe in anti-racism, or is it just the trendy thing to say in one's social circle to be part of the group?

So when even passing concern with rampant antisemitism fails to materialize, the emptiness of previous sentiments is exposed.

Maybe people aren't really for social justice. Maybe they just wanted an excuse to yell at the people they hate in a socially acceptable manner.

Seems to be to me.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

27. Excellent point.

[Crunchy Frog]

18. Many of the same people and groups have refused to condemn russia's war against Ukraine.

Have made excuses for Putin and blamed the Ukrainian victims, often making horrific accusations against them.

There are certain sectors of the left that have always been highly selective about which victims of violence and persecution they have sympathy for.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

19. Country with a Jewish leader being condemned as Nazis by Tankies

It does fit the pattern.

[Raine]

21. Perfectly put ... Thank you. nt

[mjvpi]

24. I'm a 66year old woke white guy from Montana.

First, the attack on October 7 was barbaric, period. The ongoing flattening of the north of the West Bank is barbaric, period.I’d say a pox on both of their houses, but I don’t have to. I don’t have to. They.bring it on themselves. My whole lifetime it’s been this same shit. Death and revenge. That old eye for an eye is working out so well for everybody, right? Hate and revenge is all I’ve seen there my whole life, the only time I my life that I felt there was any type of spiritual hope, where the politicians were acknowledging that peace is the only solution, one of those politicians was assassinated by a right wing wacko who wanted to maintain the status quo’.

There are loud voices on both the Israeli and Palestinian citizen level who want peace and Justice.. That’s hard without love and respect. The US needs to only support leaders wh will make that leap of faith. Leaders who won’t let the crazies on both sides derail the goal.

When President Biden comes out and said that my country supports Israel unconditionally, I am glad that we have voices in our country who point out that there are two sides that are behaving baldly on an ongoing basis. I Acknowledge the geopolitical balance of power in the region is three dimensional chess, but it would be wonderful of we could throw our full support only to those who aspire to peace. That is the spirit that I look for in the dialogue around these horrible goings on. There is no room for antisemitism or racism or violence. One love.

[Kennah]

25. 1943 Rabbi's March

Americans knew, but it wasn't as big of a priority.

https://time.com/5327279/ushmm-americans-and-the-holocaust/

[betsuni]

26. Falling into a way of thinking of being 100% morally pure and right and so obvious that anyone

not agreeing must be (racist, corrupt, a genocidal warmonger, evil, immoral, enemy, etc.). No listening or research or thinking or compromise. Poor reading comprehension, no nuance allowed, very black or white. Words, history, slogans don't support your opinions? Change it! You're always right no matter what.

Disturbing.

[uponit7771]

28. "Many of them" like .001% of the aforementioned group?!?!

Using nebulus factors to draw inference isn't cool

[BlueCheeseAgain]

29. Where did you get that number?