I don’t know, guys. I mean, I used to love going in there too, but it really does start to feel hypocritical going into a store that mocks older generations like mine (ours)…
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I still have both of my original hips, thank you.
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You mean the mass influx of people from wars the west has started/enabled and climate conditions we have exacerbated? I can’t wait for all the right-wing apoplectics about refugee Gazans when the west has done its very best to enable a genocide there. Blame the victims when they resist, blame them when they’re bombed, blame them when they seek safety, blame them when they sit next to our children at school. Miss me with this shit.
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I like what Antony Blinken said today:
“What is striking to me is that … we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see,” Blinken told reporters at his year-end news conference in Washington. “I hear virtually no one … demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that.
“How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim?” he asked.
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Gaza being the aggressor and Israel being the victim in this fantasy scenario? If I had any tears left, I’d laugh.
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I’ve appreciated the fact that the community here has avoided discussing the current crisis as many have impassioned and wildly divergent opinions. I apologize for taking the bait. I won’t be discussing it any further in this forum because I really love the community here and don’t want to see it devolve into pointless mudslinging and divide the community.
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Yeah, I have avoided the discussion here also. And interesting point, my wife and I are on different sides of this discussion, and so the topic of the middle east is literally banned in my house right now.
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Gentlemen, the maturity levels are currently off the scale. Please tone it down, my moustache can only grow so thick.
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Shall we talk about the wisdom of filming yourself in porn in your workplace, when you work in the U.S. Senate?
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Was about to say, I do most of my work outside now with a chainsaw, so I am used to handling substantial lengths of wood.
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Yeah, I’m gonna bite my Jewish tongue here and not mention atrocities like rape and mutilation of civilians and children, much less terrorism against a recognized state. I don’t remember anyone crying over the poor helpless Al-Qaeda or ISIS terrorists when we bombed them, but put Jew in the headline and the narrative quickly shifts.
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In his defense, an Only Fans career is certainly considerably more lucrative. And probably more respected.
I doubt that would be my experience.
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Did I miss something on only fans?
I think the discussion is worth having, FWIW, at least here. There’s a similar divide among my friends. But this is genocide and, along with climate change and global fascism, one of the more critical topics nowadays. If someone doesn’t have strong feelings one way or another, I’d ask why not? The advent of Trump/Brexit was one of the morally clarifying times of the recent past, and so is Israel/Gaza. So many horrors will have been let loose by this particular Pandora’s Box.
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You ask a great questions - why not feel strongly one way or another?
I have spent enough time reading and learning about the history of the region, from Jewish and Palestinian and British perspectives and I have enough knowledge to know that I can never fully understand the situation.
Being an Australian from a family whom, only a couple of generations ago, was English, I don’t have any direct experience with this sort of conflict.
That said, my observations are that all sides have done awful, despicable things and have had awful things done to them.
When the extermination of either group is the objective of the other - either through their actions or intentions, I can’t bring myself to pick sides.
Do I have a solution? Nope. But neither am I going to parrot “from the river to the sea” or compare any question to the existence of a Jewish state as anti-Semitic and akin to the holocaust. Or get into an arguement over whose land it was in the first place.
I don’t buy this at all. If you are going to “both sides” this conflict and not pick sides, that only helps the oppressor. And you’d really have to have your head in a dark place not to know who that is. No one is being asked for a solution…but one of the easy solutions is to stop the genocide now. Imagine how much clarity, professorial acumen, and courage that takes!
The signal has been given that any nation has a green light to rid itself of any troublesome population under its control. What is happening in Gaza isn’t just a genocide, it’s land theft, but that’s in the future. And it’s all funded and applauded by the west, with the exception, IIRC, of Ireland. They have some history with occupation.
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Natus, you are clearly very passionate about this subject. This makes it difficult to engage with you for anyone with a moderate or even opposing viewpoint. You’re not leaving a good faith space for discussion and nuance.
Thats part of the reason I, and most others, have chosen to not engage this subject. The passions on both sides run extremely hot. If you genuinely want a discussion on this horrible conflict, then you’ll need to allow others space to explore their ideas and positions. I suspect, however, that you want to vent your spleen over this catastrophe, which is not an attitude that promotes discussion, only discord.
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I would rather an opposing viewpoint than a “both sides are to blame.” And again, we’re discussing genocide of a people without an army with the whole world watching…it’s not like anyone’s disputing the atrocities anymore. So I totally get that this isn’t the place to discuss socio-political subjects, but if it is, what better issue to discuss? I didn’t look…was the Russo-Ukraine war treated the same way?
What makes you think both sides aren’t to blame? It seems to be widely accepted that the government of the Gaza Strip launched an attack on Israeli civilians. Normally the victim of the first massacre gets to take the moral high ground
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