Nominative determinism at The Atlantic
Nominative determinism at The Atlantic
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In addition to being an immoderate act, self-immolation is a violent one, indeed one of the most violent, and if you dislike violence, then you should abhor it no matter your view on the war in Gaza.
That war began when Hamas terrorists burned Israelis alive, and the livestreamer showed no appreciation of the irony that it would end, for him, with his own voluntary experience of the same fate.
Cotton candy brain. The Atlantic only lets idiots write this shallow garbage because it’s in support of the West. The few articles in the Atlantic of actual value that challenge dominant Western narratives have to be ironclad in order to be published, whereas if you’re a civility-brained lib you can just mash your head against the keyboard and hit send.
The Palestinian case, in its minimal form, goes something like this: Palestinians have lived in and around the territory of Israel for a long time, and Israel shouldn’t force them to move or mistreat them if they stay. The Israeli case is also simple: Jews have been there a long time too, and have their own right to safety and dignity. I am aware that even these summaries will draw vicious ire. But my point is that a decent person can agree with both, and from that serene starting point negotiation could begin
Israel does not give a fuck about the safety and dignity of Jews, abusing cultural and religious symbols as justification for settler-colonialism, oppressing multiple Middle-Eastern Jewish populations, and opposing Jewish assimilation outside of Israel as they wish to grow their colony by using antisemitism across the world.
if you’re a civility-brained lib you can just mash your head against the keyboard and hit send.
That reminds me of this...
Media is like:
Freelancer, $35,000/yr: “I self-funding a three month reporting trip to a warzone to capture the untold stories of the war crime victims”
Columnist, $300,000/yr: “China’s foreign policy is like an egg roll”
I'm not kidding that for a second I wondered if the tweeter was going to follow up with "Thomas Friedman actually wrote that." I read it in my mind in his voice. I was almost disappointed that it wasn't the case.
Reminds me of a similar one I saw a while back:
It's so wild to me how my socialist friends are expected to have something like a PhD in world history and economics in order to justify their positions while the average liberal can cite two NYT columns and a wikipedia page and call it a day.
Thomas Freidman sometimes cites himself. I'm not making that up.
"The next six months will prove pivotal in the conflict in the middle east."
- Thomas Friedman, 2004
- Thomas Friedman, 2005
- Thomas Friedman, 2006
- Thomas Friedman, 2007
And so on, all the way up to the present day.
Another problem I have with Friedman is that over the past couple years or so his writing has improved. I don't mean it's good. At best it's serviceable. But it's no longer so-bad-it's-good bad and unintentionally funny. I miss his old awfulness. His new stuff tends to be just plain old bad-bad.
I'll leave this here. It's a 2009 Matt Taibbi take down is really great.
Matt Taibbi: Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman.
[...]
[Friedman] says:
I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius.
The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.
And Taibbi is a story unto himself. What a strange guy. He used to be a real journalist. But - for whatever reason - he transformed himself into a total hack for hire who will do anything for the right price even being a stooge for Elon.
And Taibbi is a story unto himself. What a strange guy. He used to be a real journalist.
Holy macaroni, that dude needs the wall, too.
He really wasn't. A real journalist, I mean. He got his big break at The Moscow Times, right as the Soviet Union was being couped by Yeltsin. He's the feddest fed who ever fedded at Fed Inc, sponsored by Fed Force. His entire career has been him jerking readers off about how bad Russia is, as if he wasn't part of the propaganda apparatus that set up present day Russia's political reality.
And that background speaks volumes about how much of a piece of shit Friedman is if even this stupid motherfucker can credibly roast him.