Israeli and Zionist influence in the USA is a purposeful choice of the American government. It allows the American government to circumvent many domestic and international laws by allowing Israeli firms to do the spying and dirty work for them. Israel is essentially a rogue state that is entirely controlled by the American intelligence apparatus (and therefore, American capital). This has created a feedback loop of constantly reinforcing settler colonialism and American economic extraction of the Middle East. If America withdrew support to Israel, this feedback loop would cease and Israel would be greatly diminished or completely collapse.
Saying Israel controls America is simply wrong, stop saying this. I will remove your post. ✌️
edit: altered title for clarification and to avoid nonsensical semantic arguments
You must log in or # to comment.
I (USA) bought a dog(Israel) specifically for fighting the neighbours’ dog(all Muslims), I put it on a leash(literal money and weapons) the length of my block(the world) and now it’s biting everyone(everyone). Somehow this means my dog now owns me.
Chicken and eggs problem. Both are true. Their interests aligns, they don’t need one to control the other.
Please don’t fight about this.
It’s an important distinction to make because actual antisemitic people like neo nazis argue that Israel and the Jewish elites are controlling the US through money or blackmail, and even among many average westerners they think Israel is pressuring the US and buying politicians, which they do, but Israel is a US vassel and can only do what it does with the material support of the west. This framing obscures the driving role of Western governments and helps launder their reputation.
I agree that it’s wrong and bad analysis. I could say more about it but mostly I’m just wondering why more poor judgement interventions being made by mod/admin team. Like are you bored or something? Not enough notifications this weekend?
Obviously a policy decree like this without discussion is going to rub people the wrong way regardless of its content. Like obviously. If you are trying to solve some sort of problem, you should say what the problem is and why you think this is the way to solve it. Instead of unilaterally announcing site political policy, apparently on your own individual initiative. Is there like some sort of schedule where carcosa has to have a reason to make an accountability post every so often? Is it over due? Are you attempting to concoct a learning experience to train new mods in crowd control? Trying to boost site traffic? Why would a person in a position of authority decide to make this particular intervention? On any topic.
Have the discussion then make the rule. Good god. Why always doing it the other way around? Announce a rule to provoke a discussion?
It really makes me thump my head in particular for someone who was on the wrong side of the recent
israel-coolstruggle session that was so upsetting to make announcements of site political policy on the same topic. My feeling is that this is a continuation of that conversation. At least this time you have bothered to come up with a coherent political idea so it shows some progress I guess. But it is not tied to the intervention you have decided upon, so still incomplete. It would have been better for someone with more credibility on this issue to introduce the question. Honestly it does seem intentionally inflammatory.To recap:
The mods/admins (including OP kristina) apparently arrived collectively amongst themselves at a completely ass backwards opinion which was in opposition to the entire rest of the userbase. (Briefly for those who missed it: the then-non-existent emoji of the burning israel flag would, if added, be an antisemitic dogwhistle and/or convey approval of the holocaust.) This was a reflection of some sort of prior discussion and ideas which had at the time had some degree of consensus from userbase. In the intervening years, every person on planet earth had their analysis of this issue sharpened at least a little bit, hexbears included, and the general opinion had changed dramatically which was not understood by the mods/admins. Instead of engaging with the political concepts and moment, they decided to instigate and then all piled on a giant shit show throwdown fight. Which when they understood themselves to be losing badly, told the “stupid” users to stop wasting their time posting on trivial matters. Many different aspects of political argument from users only met with inter-personal, conspiratorial, and emotional from mods/admins.
Eventually, “confused” why anybody (to say nothing of everybody else) cared about inconsequential emoji, the mods/admins backed away from the fight, unbanned numerous users, emoji was added by 1 mod who apparently was able to change opinions with rest of planet earth. The userbase was overall managed into a more peaceful situation because ultimately, that’s how the balance of power goes. Various people left the site or withdrew because the conflict was so hostile. The collective political clarification came at a price.
But unless I missed it (and I could have) there was never any resolution. No indication that any of the minority who were on the incoherent side of that argument changed their mind politically during or after the struggle session. Nor was the question of why mods/admins were permitting and even encouraging each other to go around ratcheting up the hostility on the basis of personal disputes.
It was just a stalemate. Mod applications opened and I assume (?) the team expanded, hopefully adding some diversity of opinions to better reflect the userbase. Everyone awaiting vague reforms.
Even kamala harris knows that everything exists in context and we didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. I am not “relitigating”. I am wondering why again mod deciding to stir shit up by leading with censorious and dismissive assertions instead of attempting to collaborate.
I think this choice does a real disservice to the ostensible goal of the intervention by winding up feelings of interpersonal power struggle with politics. It is so arrogant, in the specific context of the recent chapter described above.
And look, if you are going to lead with threats it ought to be with an argument which has been better developed. It is clear from comments already that userbase again has a more nuanced understanding of the topic than the person who condescendingly lectures and warns of consequences should they step out of line according to her judgement.
Even those who broadly agree with the core ideas are seeking to develop the point further. Because as posted, it is insufficiently mature. Disagreement, discomfort, confusion, and contributions are being made re the politics and/or the policy. This comment is solely addressed at the policy, its implementation and the broader framework.
At minimum, the political stance that is to be enforced on this website requires significant clarification so that users can understand what the rule applies to, and mods can have clear guidance. Which is good for mods because it avoids the perception that that are arbitrarily enforcing ill-considered, unknown and unknowable rules according to their mood. It’s better if there is some degree of mutual understanding rather than initiating with conflict.
Soon will have a bunch of bans I guess? In this very thread there are outright refutations, yet the comments are not removed. So a rule is announced, then it is immediately ignored? On replies that generate a notification to OP who is so interested to enforce. So what is the meaning?
I’m eating ice cream rn
(edit: dw its not dairy)
@hellinkilla@hexbear.net provided what I thought was well thought out feedback to this moderation post, and I think this is a very dismissive, unproductive reply. Why reply at all?
I agree that it’s wrong and bad analysis. I could say more about it but mostly I’m just wondering why more poor judgement interventions being made by mod/admin team. Like are you bored or something? Not enough notifications this weekend?
I said I was eating icecream :smuglord:
If you’re that busy eating ice cream maybe you shouldn’t be a mod
Jesus why the fuck are you being so dismissive? Is this a thing where mods get drunk and do horribly short-sided and harmful things for fun? If it’s an inside joke, have fun I guess, but it’s unbarably cringe and making me doubt trust in mods at all
and making me doubt [sic] trust in mods at all
My faith in the mods hit rock bottom during the DNS issue and has remained at rock bottom across all the other struggle sessions of the past year. Seeing this thread, Pippi Longstocking has for the umpteenth time put her hand on my shoulder and told me to make an Eigo Kinshi splinter of Hexbear already… Alas, I remain broke, know jack about computers, and don’t like that sort of attention, anyways.
Kristina, you’re not touching grass, you’re being mean.
As I said, no one is making you reply. You can just say nothing, lol.
Oh we got 2 threads about this. I’ll post the same thing in both. I will not argue with anyone about this.
“Isreal has a powerful lobby with lots of Western backing and a far reaching influence as a result” is fine.
“I’m gonna use neo Nazi terminology that originates from white supremacist conspiracy views about how Jews secretly control everything” is not.
It’s honestly not even that complicated. One is factual. The other is neo Nazi propaganda. Hexbear can do better. Death death to the IOF
the issue here is that nobody seems to know who or what the fuck yall are talking about with this nazi propaganda supposedly being an issue on hexbear. who here can say they’ve run into antisemites or antisemitism here? i’ve read about a billion posts on this site criticizing israel, israel’s influence in western governments. not once have i read any sort of antisemitic conspiracy theories, it’s all based entirely in material analysis and using our own eyeballs and ears.
some mod can make a post like this, then suddenly criticizing aipac is antisemitic and posts about who is taking money from israel, or about how you have to sign a loyalty pledge to israel to be a fuckin mailman in the US will be removed for “antisemitism”
i really think mods need to hold some sort of vote on this, because judging by the replies in this thread the userbase seems to really not know what yall are on. i can’t speak for everyone ofc but i do not wanna use a website that conflates criticisms of the zionist entity with being antisemitic. hexbear is quite literally the only place online where at least right now, you can freely criticize israel without being censored or fearing that you’re secretly interacting with a bunch of nazis. granted i dont look at the mod log, maybe there are a ton of antisemites washing their antisemitism with criticisms of israels. i definitely don’t see it tho and it doesn’t seem like anyone else on this site does either?
I’ve seen it here n there. And swift, consistent mod action will obviously discourage it. So it it somewhat a case where absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. On the other instances I have seen a lot and it looks to be very difficult to effectively moderate once the claws get in.
But I agree with you that this OP is confusing and unhelpful. I have no idea why (or even if) anybody thought this would be productive towards the stated goal.
