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palestine@lemm.ee - The new r/conservative

https://sh.itjust.works/post/31716642

Edit: There used to be a screenshot here. I messed up the link in an edit and don't have a local copy saved.

My comment was roughly 'It already looks like it might be better than things now, at least Biden never advocated for full displacement of all Palestine."

I had already seen half the comment section of the post with ban marks. This single comment copped me a fully-expected permaban. Unfortunately my comment doesn't show up in modlogs so I had to retype it more or less from memory.

The bloodshed:

Screenshot edited as per mod request.

Most of the banned comments are actually still visible. If you browse the thread you'll notice there's nothing particularly inflammatory or banworthy about any of them.

Best part, in the middle of all that banning, our buddy found the time to mod the one guy in that post who supported his opinions. Welp, another echo chamber in the making.


Follow up:

The mod posted in a similar post in this comm. FWIW, while I stand by my actions and opinion, I did msg them to offer them a personal apology.

69 comments
  • YDI man. I'm normally Johnny on the spot for all kinds of Biden Gaza argumentation but this is different.

    Imagine if your mom just died. Imagine if Trump did it, maybe it was during the fucked up Covid response and he deliberately broke up your public health office and seized all the masks and she couldn't get what she needed, and now she's gone, gone forever.

    Now imagine someone in a MAGA hat is trying to talk to you about how Covid is fake, and won't shut up about it. How much do you want to debate them about it? Would you welcome them into your space so they can do their thing?

    That's what you're doing, going to a Palestinian community and shooting off about how fucked they are now, under Trump, "whooooo boy." I actually agree with the point you're making here, factually. And the inclusion of Biden in the original post was unnecessary, and this poster sure does a lot of that. But you can't come into someone's community that is directly dealing with such a sensitive topic and start shooting from the hip about US politics and how important it is, being careless and mean about it, even if they started it by talking about Biden.

    I've had friends from near that part of the world. They don't give a shit who's president. They don't want to hear about someone in US politics who did something good. The US is a source of sanctions and drone strikes and unlimited weapons for Nazis, and that's pretty much it. Someone who's in charge of the US is their enemy. That's all. We're the Empire from Star Wars, and we keep blowing up Alderaan. New emperor? Okay, whatever. How good is this one going to be? You must be joking to ask that question.

    My feeling on Biden-hating Palestinians changed during the "uncommitted" time and how it extended past the primary. I thought that was pretty short-sighted, for reasons that will be obvious to you, and then I saw a picture of an event and saw Rashida Tlaib and the look on her face during the event. Just the expression was enough. Okay, I got it, you have rights to do what you're doing, lady. I don't agree with you, I'm not joining up with you, but I won't try to tell you you're wrong when all you're doing is fighting to save your life and your people. You kind of don't give a shit if Trump comes to power and blows up the US. "Okay, well, our country's getting blown up and no one cares, so sure, sounds good."

    Like I say, that's not my point of view, at all, not least of which because Trump is going to blow up plenty of stuff outside the US including Palestine. I definitely think there were skilled people who latched on to that movement and tried to use it to hurt Democrats as a US political tool, too. I'm just saying that in a Palestinian-specific community you can't really use the same rules and level and style of debate about it that you would in a US politics community.

    I'm just saying it's different when someone is fighting to save their life. You can even make the same point you tried to make. But you have to be kind. You have to be at least a little bit sympathetic. You probably still would have been banned for it, in which case it's a lot closer to PTB, but as it is, it looks to me like you and the other commenters were unkind enough that YDI regardless of anything else.

    • This is like a super well written version of what I was trying to explain. Glad to see someone was able to put words to it! Thx 😊

    • Hey! I love your arguments, they're always really well reasoned and laid out.

      I agree fully with your logic, emotional people are hurting and not going to make the best calls. I get that. The problem is, when an interaction exists only online, with no way that participants can know each other IRL. What is to prevent just about anybody who is acting in bad faith from hiding behind that emotion as a shield to justify all kinds of bad behaviour? Using this logic online means surrendering to any such party with bad intentions looking to benefit, such as the groups you mentioned in the following quote.

      I definitely think there were skilled people who latched on to that movement and tried to use it to hurt Democrats as a US political tool, too

      I don't think there's any real conflict between how we are seeing things, only in the way we are choosing to respond to them. You're saying (I think) that we should give the bad actors free rein because to do otherwise would be to further hurt the ones who are already hurting. I think that to allow them to do whatever they want with impunity by allowing them to hide behind the victims is unacceptable, not least because it's going to lead to even more victims in the long run.

      Pinging @spujb@lemmy.cafe since I think you'd be interested in continuing to follow this discussion.

      • What is to prevent just about anybody who is acting in bad faith from hiding behind that emotion as a shield to justify all kinds of bad behaviour? Using this logic online means surrendering to any such party with bad intentions looking to benefit, such as the groups you mentioned in the following quote.

        Yeah, that is absolutely a concern. You raise an excellent point. I'm just saying that you have to give the benefit of the doubt.

        I actually want to show you an example of me arguing with someone that's a good example of that situation. She's criticizing Biden for reasons I think are kind of nuts, and brings up that she's queer, and then when she gets emotional about her argument it makes it hard for me to disagree because through some alchemy I'm going to look prejudiced if I try to tell her how wrong she is.

        Is it possible she's an anti-Biden troll who's hiding behind a queer identity? Sure. But you have to give the benefit of the doubt and assume she's legit. That doesn't mean you can't disagree with her, you just have to do it within some parameters. I'm just saying that someone who's claiming to be representing Palestine, you have to give some massive, massive leeway. You can disagree factually while still respecting where they're coming from, or claiming to be coming from. Is it fair that it gives an advantage to the propaganda accounts? Not really. But that's the nature of the beast.

        I am often accused of defaulting to accusations of someone being a Russian bot or something the instant they criticize Biden, but I do not at all, and I definitely don't recommend doing that. I'll make the accusation maybe once every 1-2 months if someone's being so laughably obvious that I think it's way beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe I shouldn't even do that, just as a blanket rule. I have more to say on that, but I want to think it over more. But anyway, at a minimum in almost all cases, I think taking people to be who they claim to be is the way you have to do it. And definitely more so when sensitive subjects are involved.

        So, I actually can't link you to the example, for some ironic reasons, so I'll cut and paste. Leaving aside the part where I fucked it up and got overly person with her, which I definitely don't think I should have done, this is the good part of what I said, when this vulnerable person (according to her self report) was all upset about how the Democrats fucked up their policies and messaging and so lost the election and so now she's in danger under Trump:

        I still think it would have been more productive for you to support the tiny number of sensible people in Washington, Sanders and friends, and try to give them enough power to withstand the great fuckening that the DNC is trying to give them. Or advocate for reforms like RCV that would give third parties some traction. Or just advocate for local justice and protest to make some progress how you can. I’m not saying you are not doing any of those things, but the only thing you have engaged me on so far is trying to make the argument that voting for the Democrats is a waste of time.

        Let me put it this way: I don’t disagree with you about complicity by the Democrats in this whole death-cult of a government. If the car is sliding towards the cliff, and the controls that are supposed to stop it aren’t doing what they’re supposed to, that is not a good argument for completely abandoning the attempt to control the car. You vocally oppose the Democrats, and then are somehow blaming me when the non-Democrat who actively wants to endanger your safety comes to power instead of the person who merely wasn’t doing enough to stop it. You already can’t get a passport. If conditions in the US get actively urgently dangerous to your safety in the next four years, which they seem likely to, then it sounds to me like you have your own actions to blame more so than mine or other people who voted for Harris while also advocating for better than the Democrats.

        So I get to make the point, and it works whether she's legit about who she claims to be, or not. If I just came in and made fun of her for being in danger now, that's fucked up. I did that a little bit, after, mostly borne out of genuine anger and bitterness because now I know some people who are definitely in real physical danger because of Trump, and so if she helped that happen, it's pretty fucking hard for me to stay even keeled about it. But the point is, I think engaging with people on the merits is almost always right, even if the result is sometimes unfair.

      • yeah thanks for your thoughts i just haven’t seen any evidence of bad actorship. as soon as i see any legitimate harm come about in this community, whether from the mod or otherwise, i will change my tune though promise.

    • Edit: In response to a private message I sent. The mod apologized, and unbanned me. (Lets just say that from his response, the point that the previous poster is making and in part I make below - that people are almost gloating with "see what not voting Democrat made happen" - probably matches very well how people are being perceived by that mod).

      Original text of my post:

      That specific Mod is going way beyond merelly stopping people coming over there to almost gloat that "you're screwed and it's all your fault": I just got banned even though I mostly agree with their criticism of Democrats and the Biden Administration (In summary: had the DNC listenned to anti-Genocide voters, Trump would've lost, IMHO, so don't blame voters for not being able to hold their noses to vote for the lesser of Genociders when the DNC knowingly chose to keep on supporting Genocide against both Principle and their own chances at defeating Trump), but some guy was being all racist about it (claiming it's all a "Westerners" thing) and I challenged just that, very explicitly and ended up banned.

      I would like to think that people who are against Racism as a matter of Principle are naturally against Zionism (an extreme Racist ideology), the Israeli Occupation and even more against the Israeli Genocide, just as they are against all manner of prejudiced takes, so for that Mod to side with a Racist and silence somebody calling that person out in their Racism is something else than "merelly" fighting back against people going to a forum about Palestine to try to score political points in the American political environment using the mass murder of Palestinians.

      • had the DNC listenned to anti-Genocide voters, Trump would’ve lost, IMHO

        fwiw I find this argument very hard to square with the actual voting records. In 4 of the 7 swing states people were focused on, Harris actually received more votes than Biden. And even in those last 3, Trump's vote against Harris increased by a larger amount than Harris's vote, compared to Biden. The myth that people sat it out or voted third party because of Biden/Harris's pro-genocide stance (and to be clear: it was a pro-genocide stance—anyone who questions that is not worth listening to) is a convenient story that allows the left and liberals an excuse to keep yelling at each other, but it doesn't look believable with the data.

  • Acknowledging reality when it doesn't hurt THE DEMONRATS is forbidden. /s

    PTB

  • The most frustrating part of getting banned from there is that having echo chambers like that decreases the likelihood that new Lemmy users will stick around.

    Palestinians have my full sympathy and the Israeli government my full ire, with the past year's bloodshed demonstrating that an independent Palestine being necessary and long overdue if there's to be any chance of a long term peace.

    My problem with the moderator's comments was twofold. First, they themselves are demonstrating an extremist position in suggesting that terrorism committed in retribution to Israel's war crimes is in any way acceptable. While I can sympathize with there being few other meaningful options available when Israel has the US as an ally, any hope of meaningful political support for the Palestinian cause—something will only degrade further under Trump—is lost if Israel is no longer seen as the aggressor. Resistance is one thing, terrorism is another.

    Secondly, setting the goalposts of success as being the proclamation of a ceasefire was meaningless, given that they now have Trump's support to gradually expel the remaining Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank and establish additional Israeli settlements. Like him or not, Biden was at the very least against that, something that means a lot more in terms of the long term ability for Palestinians to remain in Palestine.

    Having been banned, I can't interact with any posts on there now unfortunately, so just added it to my block list. More importantly, however, the more echo chambers that people establish on Lemmy, the harder it'll be to attract new users to the platform.

69 comments