Thanks.

This topic needs to be put on a time out...for an indefinite period of time.

Must be crazy in there

um ... Bernie v Hillary 2015-16. Very divisive for all concerned. So much so that we have a rule against relitigating it.

I put like 100 people on ignore.

Actually, no we don't. We installed a rule about relitigating "the last Primary" when things were heated, but that was two elections ago. Now it's just history and open for interpretation.

just ignore them? That’s what I do to subjects I don’t want to participate in. It’s easy.

Last edited Mon Apr 29, 2024, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

and agree that it's easy. I never use the hide option either. But apparently, many people don't find it easy at all, so I try to accept that. It might kind of be like when I just can't resist tuning into CNN even though I know Tapper is going to p##@@ me off.

I do that too when MANBC has someone on that I don’t follow. But I don’t stay long at CNN. My nerves can’t take it!!😀

But somehow these posts end up in GD.

perhaps it’s time for admin to speak.

GD allows for discussion of current events.

Instead of being relegated to the I/P dungeon, it's current and topical and falls under two categories.

It's divisive because of a lack of unity and presence of disagreement. Oh--and a bit of ill will.

I think we agree on more than we think but disagree as to facts or desired outcome. And we weaponize linguistic means.

I.
Discourse semanticists jocularly call (or called, a generation back) communication a game. One required rule of the game--that's the jocular bit--was good will. The goal on both sides was to communicate propositions or emotions or attitudes, maybe come to a common view about at least the topic at hand. This was sometimes incorrect--intentional miscommunication, mott & bailey arguments, intentional misunderstanding.

"Say, heard you uncle kicked the bucket."
"Yeah, Fred."
"Did he hurt anything when he nailed the thing with his foot?"
"No, he died."
"Seriously? He kicked a bucket and it killed him?"
Intentional miscomprehension, barring pretty clarifying context.

A typical example involves money.
"Say, Fred, I didn't bring any cash and I skipped dinner--only have money for water. Can I borrow $20 to buy a burger at The Burger Joint?"
"Sorry, Fawaz, I don't have $20."
Minutes later Fawaz sees Fred buy a burger, shake, brownie, and hand the cashier two 20s out of the 5 in his wallet.
Did Fred lie?
No: He didn't have $20, he had $50.
Yes: He had more than $20 because he had $50 and 50 > 20.
"Downward-entailing" and "upward-entailing" come to mind. Narrow v wide scope. Lots of ways of understanding it. How literal do we want to be? It's a question because we can manipulate it and with it context.

Mott and bailey arguments are another variant.

One shows ill-will, hostility, one shows a willing participation in "the game." Which is which is obvious in these two cases. But this was a common ploy for some groups and it's become much more widespread. SOP for some groups.

II.
At the same time, I think we often have divergent facts or things we think are facts.

I'll take an NPR story today. The anti-Vietnam-War commentators on today's ATC said they were proud of their participation or the students' participation. And while there's no proof they helped end the war, they liked their accomplishment. Ending the war.

But nobody claimed the consequences of what they want to believe they achieved; it's a leitmotif in modern Western thought--we own the good, but we don't get consequences. 2 million refugees. Numerous killed as boat people. Re-education camps. 49 years of oppression worse than that suffered under the corrupt S. Vietnam regime. Imagine a company like that--"We have income and profits, but no debts." As early as 1997 I watched a progressive white person argue with the son of a "boat family" called a "f**king liar" when he said his grandfather was killed because he was a dentist that treated American soldiers and he was small when he was in a boat hoping to find a safe shore to land on. The claim was that none of that "shit" happened, it's a "Reagan myth."

If you think the likely future consequence of your actions can't possibly happen because what you think is moral must always be right and good, you're simply deluded. "My tribe is good and pure--always--and their tribe is always evil and corrupt ... always." Ludicrous.) My colleague Loc walked away from the uber-idjit saying the fool needed to get a clue and get his head out of his a**. (I guess now Loc would have said, "So you're denying my lived experience as a person of color?", have it on video, and cancel the idjit. This was pre-cell-phone.) But part of that idjit's retort is rooted in denial that those like those he's modeling his actions on did things that had sharply negative results--if only out of self-protection. All rights, no obligations. All mitzvoth, no hatoth. (A sharply un-Xian view, but most aren't traditional Xians or Jews.)

I agree with the OP, the threads serve no purpose but division. But I have no control over all that. I do have control over what threads I see, now.

the thread?

and select the option "Trash Can" you can enter keyword which will automatically trash threads. I believe it only applies to title but should help reduce your stress by filtering at least a portion of the threads.

that’s for sure.

There's nothing I could say, no matter how neutral, polite or rational I tried to be, that wouldn't result in being flamed by somebody - and life's too damn short to spend a minute of it engaged in a pointless, irrational argument on an internet message board.

I just ignore the threads but maybe it's time to put them back in their own group.

I mean, the student protests are their own story, because they're talking about free speech in this country. But anything about the US response/support for either Israel or Palestine should go into that forum after a week or something.

You don't have to do anything. Just don't click on them to read them.

Israel/Palestine posts. Just use a simple tool the admins have given us and hide by keyword "Israel/Palestine" You might see the headline when you hit the home page but no one will ever twist your arm to make you click on them. I assure you it works.

Easy peasy. Then you never have to suffer the angst of reading those posts.

So sticking ones head in the sand will not help.

I/P nearly took over GD many years ago when DU was very fresh and new. Like there is now, there was ugliness, accusations of all sorts of nasty stuff, and a belief that every keystroke they do is going to change others minds. Some people just don't want to see the I/P conflict being replayed blow by blow on GD. The I/P forum was a place where if you wanted to you could get in depth about the conflict and where the moderators knew their stuff, unlike now. I miss it, tbh, and the old I/P folk like DuctapeFatwa, Aidoneus, bemildred, Jem Note, and even the very angry GabysPoppy...

I have mixed views on it being in GD now. Some days I read for entertainment and marvel at the number of 'experts' on the conflict that post non-stop about it and seem to think all was fine because Israel was going okay before 7 Oct. But I don't like seeing some DUers throwing nasty accusations at each other (antisemitism, supporters of Hamas, supporters of genocide etc). You should all be better than that, though that's just my opinion, not a fact lol...

the decision to ignore what we don't like and let others discuss what they chose to discuss. Sooner or later it will be sent back to the I/P group. But rest assured, if it's not I/P it will be something else.

That's the final word as far as I'm concerned. I'm probs going to wander off again until things settle down and see how many of these 'supporters' of Israel venture down to the U/P forum, which moves at a speed I like. I do think DU has taken a turn for the worse, because back in 2014 when Israel attacked Gaza, there wasn't anywhere near the level I'm seeing of blind rage, hatred, and blaming all of a group for the actions of one, while giving their side a pass on everything. I might stick to the I/P forum, where generally I've found some people who I disagree with but who are happy to disagree and respect each other. There's very little of that in GD.

Nice seeing you again, my friend!

posted on the Israeli Palestinian forum

Now it is a free for all

The danger is this could led up to what happened in 2016

One of the main points of the entire thing is to destabilize the west and specifically the wests left.

It has gotten beyond the 2016 infighting

...it seems that people on all sides of this issue are being prodded into very firm and very hot emotional positions which are designed to wedge apart leftist solidarity.

a current event and as such Israel/Palestine is not sent off into a private group . People are going to talk about it, argue about it and people are going to disagree and take sides. If someone so fed up about a subject they should take a break from it. No one is forcing them to take part. That is why the admins gave us tools so that those who want to know about these thing and voice their opinion can do so and others don't have to be bothered with it.

So well said.

Far less active than what we see in GD, I might add.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1134

something important and news worthy going on. Right now the Israel/Palestine war is a current event. People should contact the admins or not click on those if they are bothered by them. No one is forced to read them and the admins have given members tools to use to avoid them . People should take advantage of them.

If that's a rule, nobody seems to be enforcing it.

(And thus there isn’t a DU solution that doesn’t risk making things here worse).

The problem is a real world issue - that could absolutely devastate the party in November. And there is no way for a super moderator to fix it by just declaring that we shouldn’t talk about it any more.

He said there are too many posts about it. But no one is required to read them.

Spend your first minute surfing the forum (I'll assume it's GD) and trash every single thread with the topic related even remotely to the ME conflict.

It doesn't take that much time, and the payoff is worth the effort. Helps with sanity.

Few become good at it and we can all use more work developing it in ourselves.

I'm just not going to spend a summer arguing over the Internet with the regressive portion of the program. There is a line where progressive - of which I am one - goes off a cliff into the pointedly regressive. Happy trails with all that. I don't spend all day arguing with the illiberal Right. I see no purpose to subject oneself to the other end of illiberalism either. People make their choices.

It's just not a meaningful use of time.

Everyone will receive precisely what they angle for. Although, awareness of what they're angling for is not always as much in evidence as one would hope. "Civil disobedience has consequences?!" Oh my word. These are adults.

I've got popcorn and a list of movies and books a mile long I need to catch up on. The Summer of Sympthsical will not be involving any of this shit. Progressivism in retrograde? No bother. I'll buy some crystals or something.

I just skimmed the Latest and General forums and came up with this list of trigger words in the subject line. No doubt this might turn into a whack-a-mole situation but it's a start.

Gaza
Gazan
Hamas
Israel
Israel's
Israeli
Rafah
Netanyahu
Pro-Palestine
Palestine
Palestinian

Too much dooming and too many faux expert virologists on the forum who didn’t actually want the pandemic to end.

Then you won't even see the threads.

Zapping them one by one would really be a game of whack-a-mole.


My next step might be trashing threads with words containing names of individual universities, but hopefully it won't be necessary - we'll see. The list I already made seems to be working quite well.

Seems that was offensive to some.

contained within this particular conversation (beyond the standard presence of sea-lions and other annoyances).

That alone speaks to a broader issue to me: a failure to apply those standards and measures to ourselves that we expect (and often demand) from others (which in an ironic turn, is a direct action against and counter to the very arguments we make).

It is tiresome and unproductive. But I concur with the thread hiding. Do it for your sanity.

These comments remind me of the old Barbara Bush quote : ‘Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'

It’s not like people are starving or anything.

They’re pointing a finger at those who are not letting aid get into Gaza. Biden has felt the pressure.

Meanwhile, there's a comment in Vox regarding the Sudan crisis (which interests no one) which I think could apply to the U.S. role in multiple parts of the world:

The series of events in Sudan reveals the limits of US influence. “The overall impression is this is a power struggle between Hemedti, Burhan, and their institutions that would have been very difficult for any country alone or in concert to prevent, when each sees the other as an existential threat,” says Jeffrey Feltman, who served as the US’s special envoy to the Horn of Africa from 2021 to 2022.

His successor as special envoy says that the US did everything it could have, and had only bad options, forced to make deals with a military known for its heinous crimes. “At the end of the day, we had to include the military in the dialogue,” David Satterfield, a career diplomat, told me. “And I would argue to you right now, if there is ever an opportunity to return to a path towards restoration of a civilian-led government, you’re going to have to talk to the military then as well.”

In effect, this was the argument that won the day in 2021 among the Biden administration and shapes its policies today.

“I don’t think the US played its hand really well. I also don’t think that if the US had played its hand really well, that it would have necessarily averted a disaster,” says Michael Wahid Hanna of the International Crisis Group. “It’s like nostalgia for a mythical past that never existed.”

The big aid package that Congress just passed has plenty of aid for Sudan in it. Let’s just hope their government has the humanity to allow it to be distributed.

Yes, we do care about Sudan.

I'll bet most Americans have no idea what's going on there. Half the population needs assistance, $8.6 million displaced, 14,000 dead. No interest on social media or anywhere else.

We approved aid to Gaza before we approved aid to Sudan. 53 million in February alone to Gaza. Now the $230 million pier.

Sudan is heading for a famine. The Sudanese Government has been begging for aid since 2020. So has the UN. The aid will be distributed. No need to protest. Gaza is already in the middle of a man made famine. The aid provided has been plentiful, but has for the most part been blocked.

Thanks for proving my point.

To help them deal with food insecurity, the IPC has created 5 levels to show where need is greatest. (1) Minimal/None, (2) Stressed, (3) Crisis, (4) Emergency and (5) Catastrophe/Famine. 30% of Sudanese are category 3. 80% of Gazans are category 4 or 5. Worth protesting, given that distribution of the aid is problematic.

Last edited Tue Apr 30, 2024, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

to call attention to it. The I/P issue has a coalition of well funded and organized groups to present their view.

A Party that prides itself on diversity MUST address its divisions or it will cease to exist. The problem is that one side of this debate is using extremely loaded and, quite frankly, ignorant language that is scaring the bejeezus out of the other side. In addition, the threat not to vote based on this one issue - when the alternative is another four years of Trump - is tantamount to a political murder/suicide pact where the participants don't just take out themselves but all their loved ones as well.

Last edited Mon Apr 29, 2024, 06:35 PM - Edit history (2)

I'm particularly upset when any new atrocity is justified by a previous atrocity.

There are no good guys in a war, any war, no one is "right," and everyone is wrong.

My twelfth grade English teacher, who had noticeable war wounds including a scar across his face and limped heavily, taught me that in the early 1970s and I have never forgotten it. Kurt Vonnegut reinforced that teaching.

I weep for everyone, all the victims, irrespective of the "side" they are alleged to be "on," though I suspect any more than a small number of victims chose, in fact, to have a "side."

General Discussion.
Discuss politics, issues, and current events. Posts about Israel/Palestine, religion, guns, showbiz, or sports are restricted in this forum

To accomplish the same, I use a trash list. (shared upon request)
It also includes a lot of annoying people.
If I want to read about them, the home page ignores trash filters.

THAT'S HOW I FOUND YOUR POST!

I've learned a lot about the issue from the Fact People, and who has been correct about most things. Thank you, Fact People!

I'd suggest cracking open a book or two to get a better understanding of what is a complex conflict, something that's the furthest thing from what's supplied from the one-dimensional 'Good vs Evil' with no grey areas 'Fact People' that take up far too much oxygen in GD.

I'd recommend some great books on the conflict, among them books from Tom Segev, Benny Morris, Albert Hourani, and Avi Shlaim, but I've sensed that those who post the most in GD about this topic are probably not all that interested in real history and facts

Perfect! After all, what else can be said in response to a personal swipe like that? Some antagonistic bait is too obvious.

Effective personal insults really should, like comedy, be based on something true.

And nowhere did I say you hadn't read books. I was referring to books in the I/P conflict. And I'd suggest the same to anyone who sees simplistic nonsense in GD as anything valuable. If you find that insulting, that's something for you to work through

funny what anyone suggests online when they don't know Anything about you.

To Books and to the Fact People who Also Read Books in GD.

and think for themselves!

who don't fall for Propaganda.. You can spot them pretty easily.

and listening to the Fact People instead of the No Fact Emotion People and Propaganda People is very bad and I am stupid. Fine. I like being stupid!

..and pretended that I'd said you don't read at all. Let me clarify what I clearly said. I think you need to crack open some books on the history of the I/P conflict. I asked you what books you'd read on the conflict. You didn't want to answer?. That's fine. But please don't keep on posting and replying to others and talking about what I supposedly said. It's a tad passive aggressive and tbh I'd rather waste my time on DU with people who as EarlG said want to shed light, not heat when it comes to I/P.

Anyway, my apologies for not recognising you as the I/P scholar and expert you clearly are. What would I know about the topic, after all? I bow to you and your crowd of Fact People who can see straight through propaganda and know Israel is always right now matter what.

Have a lovely night. I'll be leaving you here, but feel free to natter with your crowd of Fact People about what they claim I said, that I actually didn't. And thanks to all of you for showing why this topic is so toxic in GD

Also that they seem to think there's some black and white 'fact people' in GD, which from what I can make out seems to be anyone who spits out a simplistic sentence accompanied.by multiple emojis.

YMMV, but I've got no time for anyone who does plus whatever's to posts denying that Palestinians exist as a people. I've got little time for anyone who chooses a 'side' and thinks everyone who doesn't agree with them is a terrorist or loves genocide, and that their side is NEVER wrong. And someone who didn't recognise the historians I mentioned and appears to have zero interest in them is not someone who imo would have any more than a shallow and one dimensional interest in the topic

Hope that helps

We Democrats like facts.

this is nothing new.


I bet if this was a tract of drought filled land in western Sudan nobody would care, but since it is the birth place of modern religion the fight continues at the expense of civilians

I posted in-depth articles that I found informative.
Much less flaming than in GD, because only a handful of members see the post.

I figured if someone wanted to share the articles in GD, they would repost them here.

Earl G posted yesterday, that since this is a current event that it is at the forefront of all of news, they can stay in GD.

... third way-ers left to form Lone Pine Radicals, it seemed like we lost about 25% of DUers. The certain primary cost us a lot of members, too.

If a discussion goes mosh-pit on you, step away from it. If the ToS is violated MIRT and the jury system works well and will clean it up. A couple of hides usually cures a lot of runaway topics.

the divide is not real, I suppose. But there is no benefit to that, in my opinion. It reflects a divide in the party, and it is better to recognize that and deal with it. Some community members might try not reading those OP/threads if they upset you.

But I don't see it stopping anytime soon

I don't think you can say that for sure.

My mind hasn't been changed with regard to concerns about the human beings, especially children, being killed and/or starved. That will always be a problem for me. However, a few people who I respect--President Biden, Malcolm Nance, a few posters on DU--have responded and reacted in a different way.

I'm open to the possibility that there's some aspect of this situation that I'm blind to or not seeing. Or maybe it's not anything that I'm blind to but just the cold / harsh realities of US policy (a policy that cannot be changed by one sitting president). Honestly, I'd appreciate just hearing the real reason stated coldly and flatly as opposed to the gaslighting thing. That's when I get pissed off.

My side is right. Your side is wrong. Whatever happens, I will find that your side struck first or otherwise provoked my side into retaliating. Your side killed more people, or killed them more brutally, or otherwise acted more outrageously. There is no shared responsibility for the violence. Your side is guilty, completely and unconditionally. My side is morally and legally justified, completely and unconditionally. Any rumors or reports of your side committing atrocities are true, and are to be believed. Similar reports about my side are propaganda, and at least unreliable, probably outright lies. To sum up, my side good, your side bad. The only resolution is for my side to defeat your side, probably by killing all of them, or at least driving them away.

I will say there are differing opinions and that’s healthy .. I am just getting scared AF that it seems like it may get Drumph elected again … hope I am totally off base about that …

The whole issue has badly ripped the board apart and made this place toxic AF.

I hate seeing people at each others throats

I don't see how one person can do it with the volume of posts right now. But, he managed to solve some problems early on--especially problem issues from a handful of posters/posts that plagued G/D (sans any violative repercussions), so I emphasize once again the value of his efforts.

So I totally agree.

Didn't Cornflake breading for fried chicken scorch a few acres? In a time long ago.

He was the "darling" of many here and if you didn't agree he was a hero, the privacy Nazis went after you...LOL Many changed their avatars to Edward Snowden.
It wasn't until Russia went out of vogue that Snowden went out of vogue.

you've just demonstrated why I don't post more.

Whatever!

They're just expressing their opinion.

and impacting our upcomming elections.

I've been a DU member for over 20 years, and it has never been like this, in my opinion.

I used to have a different handle (IbeaBonehead), but it got wiped out some time ago, and I resurrected this account.

I do not do many posts or even comments.

Good uck fellow DUers!

It’s my somewhat overused friend right now.

That would likely eliminate most of the relevant posts from showing up on your page.

The topic has always been this divisive. It's normal confined to the I/P forum, but right now it's really big national and international news, which means it's going to appear frequently in GD for the foreseeable future.

I've found it useful to put a number of posters on ignore. Some of them are just too bloodthirsty in their attitude for me to stomach, but I do try to keep up somewhat on the latest news. Putting people on ignore makes the discussions easier to stomach for me. I do understand just not wanting to deal with it here at all though.

We are fucked.

What do you propose people do if they don't want to deal with seeing particular types of posts and discussions on here?

I'm frustrated to see so many people buying into a narrative that undermines us.

Just look at the 120 or so replies to my OP.

This wasn't even a post about Palestine/Israel, but a comment merely on how we discuss Palestine/Israel on DU - and it still deteriorated into a blizzard of name-calling, snarky, accusatory, indignant, "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" arguing. Some posts even smack of rage.

I thought my gripe was relatively benign, and I still got called out as either an idiot or as some sort of snowflake who refuses to use the obvious tools DU has to block out these posts.

I thought about using the key word blocking function. But that would result in blocking more informative posts on the subject that I may be interested in.

Yes, I can just look at the first few responses to get the flavor and then click away and ignore that thread. But my greater point was to highlight the acrimony and rage on the subject that - in my opinion - is more of a divisive force than a uniting one on DU.

It was pointed out that spirited discussion in areas of disagreement is a good thing as it helps us consider all viewpoints and shows that we can tolerate dissent and be open to all points of view - a characteristic largely not known on the political right.

But, I maintain that discussions of this issue have gone well beyond noble disagreement and have sailed headlong into bashing, misinformation, name calling, mischaracterizations, turd-tossing and a slam-the-door-in-your-face finality that I feel is eroding our normally cohesive front (more or less) that I come to DU to experience.

I wish I could close my own thread here because it has become one of the ones I dread reading.

Oh, well - that's life on the Internet, I suppose!

I don't start the threads. But if I see shit being spread, I am not going to sit back and not challenge it.

IMO, Putin and Xi were looking for a way to undermine Biden. My cynical side says they encouraged the Hamas attack, knowing what would happen. But even if they didn't, they saw a crack they could easily drive a wedge in to. Even on this board we have so many willing to amplify this wedge. And no one tell me this is a fucking conspiracy theory. We KNOW they are pulling out all the stops to defeat Biden. Ya think they don;t have trolls egging this on?

I this was a bump before. I no longer do. I'm beginning to think we're fucked, and some of our own are cheering it on.

Enjoy the end of American democracy. I hope it was worth it (it wasn't).