Links - 4th January 2025 (2 - Women)

Meme - "Nohody is actually saying "Your body my choice"
"This one random guy on twitter I cherrypicked said it. That means every man everywhere is saying it as well."
"Amber Heard lied about abuse, does that mean every woman everywhere is lying as well?"

Meme - "F*minists when they realize nobody was saying the phrase "Your body, my choice" until they started making up stories about people saying it:
Did I make it real? Is this all my fault?"

Gia Macool on X - "A fairly attractive man might sleep with a 6/10 woman. She then falsely assumes a man of his status would marry her. That’s why 6/10 women seek 9/10 men. They’ve slept with them but fail to realize their chances of marriage are nearly zero."

Meme - "JFC. There's a group in Australia called Mums Who Wine. It's sold as a way for mums to support each other through enjoying a glass, talking about their issues and having a laugh. What it descends into is boozing, trauma dumping, crying, vomiting and chaos. And that doesn't even mention the raging judgement of each other and bitching about other mums. Sorry, forgot to mention the hookups. Mums hooking up with mums and cheating on their spouses. How do I know? Because, unfortunately in a former career I had to serve at these events."
"The moms hook up with each other?"
"Yep."

French woman perspective : r/thepassportbros - "I am a French woman living in the US more than 10 years. I honestly have no idea how I ended up in this subreddit, but I too have some opinions to share as I dated many American and European men and befriended even more American and European women.
-American men are decent partners/husbands in general, as the culture still values monogamy and loyalty, men providing for women and family. They also make significantly more money than most of European men. Most have great hygiene and they are pretty decent in bed. They usually do very well dating European women. However, Americans are still perceived as materialistic, shallow and uneducated by most of the above average Western European women, so you may have to break this stereotype with some potential matches.
-American women are indeed materialistic and shallow. Most are significantly more religious or traditional than an average Western European woman, desiring a traditional and expensive wedding, a big house, diamonds etc in return of being a wife. I think the odds are in favor of rich men in America, regardless of the looks and any other skills. Unfortunately the material expectations of women are well above most normal men can provide and I don’t understand how this is normalized.
-An average European women with average looks/education/job etc likely will not care about having all the wedding/house/car etc American women desire, but she’d likely want a fully secure, emotionally available, communicative and intelligent man. So if any you American men are after these women, it’s best to improve yourself in these areas. Seek therapy to work on your insecurities, improve your communication skills, improve your emotional intelligence best you can, learn about other cultures, try to have flexible religious and political beliefs, try to learn how to think outside the box best you can, try to avoid living a material centric life. These skills are not as valued in America but still important in Europe. Dating/sleeping with multiple people for months until having a talk with one to be exclusive is still not normalized in a lot of parts of Europe, so be careful about this. Most of my French female friends date one person at a time and expect the same.
-Lastly, I personally never had luck with American men. I am considered universally attractive, so attracting them was not an issue. But most were flakey with poor communication skills and subpar emotional intelligence. Some tried to impress with money in the tackiest ways, some were already seeing 5 other girls (likely to cover up some insecurity), a lot of them had no conflict resolution skills. Most were very good looking and well off though, but those are not the areas of improvement as I said above. I was ghosted numerous times, blamed for being too direct like it’s a problem, blamed for bringing up “issues” when I was just trying to communicate. Having uncomfortable conversations is much more difficult with American men, I still don’t know why. European men are lot less avoidant in discussing problems and much better at directly stating what they really want - maybe because European women are harder to offend and specifically French (and a lot of Scandinavian and German) culture values directness. I ended up marrying a European man. Wanted to write this post after reading comments under another post where a European guy was stood up right before the date by an American woman."

I(27F) screamed at my husband (28M) over his hobbies, and now he's changed and i don't know how to fix this. : r/relationship_advice - "Hey everyone, I need some advice about a situation with my husband. I’m 27F, he’s 28M, and we’ve been married for 4 years. He has a room where he keeps all his hobbies—sim racing, aviation setups, soccer analysis tools, LEGO sets, music production equipment… basically, it’s his sanctuary. He’s super analytical and loves writing down and dissecting things, from sports to politics. He's slightly on the spectrum and very introverted, so he doesn’t have close friends. I’m really the only person he shares everything with.  He’s always inviting me into his space to be part of his interests. I love him and appreciate that he wants to include me, but sometimes I just need some time for myself. Recently, I snapped. I yelled at him, saying some hurtful things that I didn’t mean, like how his interests bore me, that he needs to get a social life, and even questioned why I married him. I regret every word, but my anger got the best of me, and I couldn't control it in that moment.  Since then, he’s completely changed. He stopped spending time in his room, moved to sleeping on the couch, and barely talks to me. He even ignored our usual tradition of watching our home nation’s soccer team play, something he’d never skip before. Instead, he was working on his laptop, breaking our “no work at home” rule. When I asked him about it, he said he didn't care about the game and mentioned that maybe he should be more like his father, who’s a workaholic and whom my husband idolizes. He even added, “I don’t blame him for divorcing at that age now.”  I’ve apologized multiple times, but he just says, “It’s okay, maybe you’re right,” and shuts down any attempts I make to talk about his interests. I’m terrified he’s considering divorce. I know I messed up, but I don’t know how to rebuild trust and help him feel valued and loved again. I don’t want to lose him, but I’m unsure how to approach this and make amends. Any advice?
TL;DR: I criticized my husband’s hobbies, and now he’s pulling away. I’ve apologized, but I’m worried he might be considering divorce—how do I make things right?"

Where do single men in 30s hang out? : r/AskMenAdvice - "No one cares about how "successful" you are. Stop leading with that."
"It boggles my mind how so many woman think we care about this. I’m curious where they are getting this idea from because it is absolutely irrelevant."
"They get it from each other and themselves, because it is something THEY value in a partner."
"Same reason some men think dick pics are a good idea"
"This! Everytime I hear that, I keep thinking it's going to be someone difficult. Someone starting with that loses modesty points right away. I will pass!"
Where do single men in 30s hang out? : r/AskMenAdvice - "That was my first thought. I couldn't care less.  If anything it puts me on guard because the more "successful" a woman is, then typically the harder she will be to please.  Which is probably part of why these women have struggled to find a partner, but I digress."

Where do single men in 30s hang out? : r/AskMenAdvice - "Women spent the last 20 years telling men they were creepy and women didn't need them. Congrats, you won, we'll be at home playing video games. The juice aint worth the squeeze anymore."
#MeToo

Meme - "men be fine as hell then BOOM rainbow light up keyboard and two monitors"
"Women fine as hell then BOOM 3 other men's kids"

Meme - Masculineio @masculineio: "Men with high IQs possess a remarkable ability to dissect and understand logical patterns. However, women, being more emotionally driven, often operate outside the bounds of pure logic. For highly analytical men, the harder they try to apply their reasoned frameworks to understand women, the more elusive and perplexing the dynamics become."

Meme - Amouranth: "Me or the Bugatti?"
Peyton @PeytonRandolp18: "It's pretty much a guarantee that the Bugatti has had fewer guys in it."

Meme - "AITAH for telling my wife that frankly, a sex worker would be cheaper and less stressful than her at this point?
My wife (Megan) and I are both 31. We have been together for six years. We got married eight months ago.  Since we got married, Megan has all but completely stopped contributing to our household in any meaningful way. She doesn’t cook, and when she does, I think she intentionally sabotages the food so I won’t ask her to do it again. She doesn’t really clean either, as she believes that as a college-educated woman, being a SAHW is beneath her.  I would generally be fine with this, but Megan doesn’t work either. Again, she's highly-educated, but her degree is in low demand. My uncle and I run a plumbing company together, and so while I only have a high school diploma, I make very good money and have what I feel is a respectable job. I’ve long felt that Megan looks down on the work that I do, but that's kind of beside the point.  If Megan pitched in and at least made an effort around the house, I would be fine with her not working, but the problem is she doesn’t. At all. Any time I gently suggest she do something, she comes up with an excuse not to do it. I’ve had arguments with her about this because I would come home to a messy house and empty fridge, only find Megan sitting on the sofa on her phone.  Personally speaking, our bedroom has all but given off its final death rattle as well, where intimacy is basically non-existent. This is partially due to Megan’s insecurities about her physique, which to be brutally honest, is about what you would expect of a person who sits around doing nothing all day.  Two days ago, Megan pushed things a little too far. We were having an argument about her neglecting to do one single task (swapping my clothes from the washing machine to the dryer), and she shouted at me, “If you want a bang maid like your boomer uncle's wife, why don’t you just divorce me already?” I didn’t know what a bang maid was, and I assumed it was a sex worker. So I responded, “Honestly, at this point, a sex worker would be cheaper and less stressful than dealing with you.”  Megan absolutely lost it on me, and for the past two days she has completely refused to even have a discussion. I have not apologized, but I wonder if I owe her one for my words."

Meme - "Sarah. 30
Just a single mom of 3 trying to make her way through the world. I live a simple life. My kids will always come first. I like to have fun but I'm also a homebody. If you want kids of your own please just save yourself the time I am not the one."

Meme - ">Be me
> never done laundry in my life. Moved directly from my parents house into a house with my girlfriend
> Mom has always complained about how tough it is to do laundry while my Dad is at work
> Gf complains about how much laundry she has to do with us and our two kids
> Eventually divorce, and I'm living by myselfd
> dreading-laundry.wav
> throw clothes in the machine
> come back two hours later and take them out
What is their problem?"

Meme - "Cassaundra, 40
Single Mom
Looking for a Stepdad for my kids:
Qualification:
Must have a 6 figured salary
Must have a car that can fit all my kids comfortably or willing to buy an SUV
six pack mandatory
Single Dad will not be quali-fled
Willing to marry me in less tha a month, I will need a 30K diamond ring before the wedding.
Must be 6 foot taller
Must have a 4 to 6 bedroom available for my two kids
Must pay all the rent or mortgages
Must adopt all my kids *dog* 2
Must know how to cut grass"

Meme - "Ashley, 31
Let's eat good, f*** everyday and travel the world together
NO WHITE MEN
Please dont be boring. Ask me questions, make me laugh, show me that you're genuinely interested to get to know me. need someone who will be obsessed with me because I'm clingy af
I have 2 daughters who are 8 and 10"

Meme - "I(27F) screamed at my husband (28M) over his hobbies, and now he's changed and i don't know how to fix this.
Hey everyone, I need some advice about a situation with my husband. I’m 27F, he’s 28M, and we’ve been married for 4 years. He has a room where he keeps all his hobbies—sim racing, aviation setups, soccer analysis tools, LEGO sets, music production equipment… basically, it’s his sanctuary. He’s super analytical and loves writing down and dissecting things, from sports to politics. He's slightly on the spectrum and very introverted, so he doesn’t have close friends. I’m really the only person he shares everything with.  He’s always inviting me into his space to be part of his interests. I love him and appreciate that he wants to include me, but sometimes I just need some time for myself. Recently, I snapped. I yelled at him, saying some hurtful things that I didn’t mean, like how his interests bore me, that he needs to get a social life, and even questioned why I married him. I regret every word, but my anger got the best of me, and I couldn't control it in that moment.  Since then, he’s completely changed. He stopped spending time in his room, moved to sleeping on the couch, and barely talks to me. He even ignored our usual tradition of watching our home nation’s soccer team play, something he’d never skip before. Instead, he was working on his laptop, breaking our “no work at home” rule. When I asked him about it, he said he didn't care about the game and mentioned that maybe he should be more like his father, who’s a workaholic and whom my husband idolizes. He even added, “I don’t blame him for divorcing at that age now.”  I’ve apologized multiple times, but he just says, “It’s okay, maybe you’re right,” and shuts down any attempts I make to talk about his interests. I’m terrified he’s considering divorce. I know I messed up, but I don’t know how to rebuild trust and help him feel valued and loved again. I don’t want to lose him, but I’m unsure how to approach this and make amends. Any advice?
TL;DR: I criticized my husband’s hobbies, and now he’s pulling away. I’ve apologized, but I’m worried he might be considering divorce—how do I make things right?"

Meme - "So what am I I actually supposed to do then"
Echo @TheEch...: "Women don't want to be suddenly approached by random men on the street. A woman existing doesn't give you right of access to her. Cry about it all you like, it won't make her more comfortable."
Echo @TheEcho13: "You know when you see a girl and think 'damn, she's really beautiful, I bet she gets approached by men all day'? Men don't approach her, they're all intimidated and thinking the same thing. Go shoot your shot."
When a lady says no, she means...

Meme - "She got a nerve to tell me "My eye's are up here." *top/dress exposing cleavage*"

Danny Masterson's Ex Looking for 'Another Rich Man' to Fund Lifestyle: Report

The dating market is filled with so many single moms around my age. : r/AskMenAdvice - "32M here, and I can't help but feel old seeing that most people my age who are single are moms. Nothing against single moms at all—I even tried dating one when I was 28, a 33F, thinking that was my only option at the time. But honestly, it turned into a complete disaster. The relationship was incredibly messy—so many awkward dynamics with her kid and the father. I felt like I had 100% of the responsibility but zero authority. Anytime I tried to step in or say something, I was labeled the bad guy or accused of not loving her child.  The kid also served as a constant reminder of her ex-husband, and she often compared me to him, claiming he was better—even though, by her own accounts, he was worse. It was incredibly frustrating. Also you can see the disrespect in the kid behavior. Looking back, I’m glad I walked away because, in hindsight, she just wanted someone to act as a father figure for her child and help her out, and then have another kid with her. that relationship left me pretty traumatized, it still haunts me time to time, fuckk i hate ruminating over that relationship.  I’ve realized that the single mom route just isn’t for me—it didn’t work out, and I don’t think I could go through that again.  But man, getting back into dating is rough. It feels like single moms are everywhere, and it just makes me feel even older. Yikes. Just needed to vent."

Meme - "I'll show you my bank account as soon as you remove your makeup."
"Sofia Sofia Franklyn, a content creator from New York, said: I've asked the last three dudes I've dated for their bank account info on the first date. She explained that she 'only wants to date a wealthy guy that has money' and wants to know if she's 'wasting her time'."

My fuckbuddy asked me what I’d rate her /10. She insisted that I was honest. AITAH for doing exactly what she asked? : r/AITAH - "My fuckbuddy and I were hanging out and starting talking about ratings and how people are generally rated. She then asked me what I would rate her. She insisted that I was honest, no sugar coating BS. Since she asked, I shrugged and looked at her a bit before giving my honest answer, which was an objective 3/10. I made it clear that it wasn’t my rating per se but what most people would probably rate her as she’s pretty obese (300 lbs at like 5’6) with bad acne. I told her that it isn’t that she’s ugly, but objective standards are a thing. I also told her that she’d easily be a 7-8 if she lost weight and cleared her skin up because she has a nice figure and facial features.  So yeah that didn’t end well. She told me I really killed her self esteem especially since she told me just beforehand that she’d rate me an 8/10 (I’m definitely more of a 6 but I appreciated the kindness). I told her that it wasn’t my intention to destroy her self esteem and that I was just doing what she asked. Does she really think she’d be rated any higher by the world (at least the western world) as she is currently? I mean obviously she’s still attractive to people- I’m able to fuck her just fine lol. And I’m not even her only fuckbuddy. She’s been with over 30 men! She should know that objective ratings don’t mean you’re undesirable. But she was devastated and made me go home.  Am I an asshole for this?"

Meme - Woman: "I'm gonna see Taylor Swift, wanna go?"
Man: "No thanks, I'm not into that music."
Woman: "You hate powerful, successful women!"
Man: "What"

Lesbian girl who likes men: What sexuality am I? - "Recently, I’ve started having casual hookups with men. And while I’m not actually any more attracted to male bodies than I have ever been, the sex is mind-blowingly better! Even during quickies where I don’t manage to orgasm, I feel more pleasure and come away satisfied. This leaves me in an incredibly confused place in my life. Having sex with men feels incredible, but their bodies aren’t attractive to me, and I have to force myself to put my hands or mouth on a male partner anywhere other than directly on their dick. Meanwhile, women are incredibly attractive to me, and I love playing with their bodies and pleasuring them. It just honestly feels as though half my nerve endings are turned off when I’m in bed with a woman. Every touch just feels duller and less interesting.  Women rarely make me come, but easily 80 percent of the guys I sleep with do."

Meme - "I gaslight my husband when we fight
This isn't anything crazy; just something funny that I want to tell people about but can't risk getting caught. My husband (30m) and I (30f) have been together for 8 years. For the past couple of years I make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday to take to work. I use Welch's grape concord jelly- this is important for later. Everyday he tells me that I make the best sandwiches and I just say make it with love." However, when we're fighting he always says he can taste the difference in his PBnJ, and I say "because I made it with hate." But the truth is, he can taste the hate in his sandwich because when we fight, I use organic, sugar free grape jam. It's in the back of the fridge and he's never seen it, so it's what I use to convince him that he can't make me mad or my anger makes food taste different."

Meme - "Val - 2002 Toyota Avalon"
"Will u take 2 cash"
"2500"
"What about 23 I'm a single mom help me out"
"Is it my kid?"
"Lmao I got it thanks though"

All >Meme - "Marrissa, 25
Just looking for some fun or a husband, whichever comes first. I do have two boys, and almost never have a babysitter so you might have to come kick it in the trailer hood. Serious inquiries only please"

Meme - "Women be fike "ew he collects Lego what a nerd" then date a dude who does coke"

Meme - "Miroslava, 43. looking for a husband. I will make you a millionaire (required condition: before you meet me, you must be a billionaire)
A little about myself: I don't like to cook, clean, iron and do laundry, I sleep until lunch, I swear masterfully, I drink, I smoke, and if necessary I I fight with a frying pan. In case of divorce, I will take all the jointly acquired property for myself. Well, are there any brave ones?!"

Meme - "why are you as a man saying you tired. Men used to die in war & now they tired"
"Why are you as a woman guestioning me ? women used to get slapped for talking too much"
"WHATT"
"Lia has notifiations silenced"

Meme - "A girl approaches you and says, "pretend we're friends. I'm being followed." What would you do?"
"# I'd tell them
>you are not entitled to male protection
It's that simple"
Damn entitled men and male entitlement!

The cult of the keffiyeh

The cult of the keffiyeh

"Whatever happened to the sin of cultural appropriation?... visit any campus in the West and everywhere you look you’ll see white youths dressed as Arabs...

They’re ‘all over Europe’, as one writer says; every time there’s a ‘pro-Palestine’ demo you’ll be confronted by ‘a sea of these garments’. Even the mega-rich are getting in on the act – Balenciaga once made a high-end keffiyeh that will set you back £3,000. But then, you can’t put a price on virtue-signalling...

The keffiyeh wearers will say their scarves are about solidarity, not stealing. They’re showing their support for a political cause, not purloining Palestinian culture. The reason this scarf is ‘worn by non-Palestinians across the world’ is ‘as a sign of solidarity and allyship’, insists Salon. But since when did solidarity involve fancy dress? The 1960s students who protested against the Vietnam War did not wear bamboo conical hats in mimicry of the Vietnamese peasants who so often felt the heat of America’s bombs and napalm. Western supporters of the Quit India movement were not known for wearing white dhotis in the style of Mahatma Gandhi. Solidarity was expressed with words and actions, not imitation of style...

That an item of clothing has become so omnipresent among the virtuous set, that the activist class covets this scarf with such relish that there has been an ‘influx of mass- produced keffiyehs’ into our societies, points to a performative streak in pro-Palestine activism. That it has become de rigueur in certain circles to flout all the laws of ‘cultural appropriation’ and pull on this ‘hot accessory [of] the West’ – as the Guardian calls it – suggests the activist set is as keen to say something about itself and its own rectitude as it is about the predicament of the Palestinian people. That so many progressives rarely leave the house without first wrapping themselves in a keffiyeh confirms the extent to which the Palestine question itself has come to be wrapped up in the personalities of these influencers, in their sense of self, in their very social status.

The cult of the keffiyeh is proof that Palestine has become, in the words of Jake Wallis Simons, the great ‘social signifier’ of the radically chic of the Western world. Pitying Palestine, and by extension hating Israel, has become a ‘core part of a suite of views held by the progressives who set the tenor of much of our culture’, he writes. It has become the ‘luxury belief ’ du jour, the means by which one’s social worth is measured. This goes way beyond ‘cultural appropriation’ – it is the wholesale moral appropriation of an entire people and their plight by the political intimates of high society with virtue to advertise...

The 1969 photo of Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled wearing a keffiyeh and holding an AK47 was the thing that really ensured the fame – or infamy – of this item of desert headgear. Khaled was the first woman ever to hijack an airplane, TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv, which she did with her fellow militants in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Visions of this 25-year-old wearing a keffiyeh over her hair were beamed around the world, ‘catapult[ing] the keffiyeh into Western consciousness’, says Niloufar Haidari. The first keffiyeh craze started in earnest. Western radicals wore it as evidence of their edginess. There were handwringing debates about ‘terrorist chic’ and the troubling possibility that some youths think ‘terrorism is cool’.

In later decades the keffiyeh became a fashion statement of general angst, of a moderate anarchic sentiment, rarely having anything much to do with Palestine. The media’s description of a squatter who was evicted from a pub owned by Gordon Ramsay summed up the sort of people who wore it – he was ‘dressed in a bucket hat, keffiyeh face covering and carrying a skateboard’. Virtually every stall in Camden Market sold them. It had well and truly become a ‘commodity of resistance aesthetics’, in the words of media professor Robert G White. Soon it was on the catwalks. We’ve had ‘peasant glamour’ and ‘hobo style’ – now behold ‘urban combat with a Middle Eastern twist’, wrote fashion critic Charlie Porter in 2001, when the keffiyeh became a must-have again. Belgian fashion designer Raf Simons sent male models down the runway in keffiyehs and ‘skinny black drainpipes and bulky army surplus coats’ – a ‘fiery symbol’, the fashion press gushed.

It featured in the fashion shows of Galliano, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. David Beckham, Colin Farrell and Mary-Kate Olsen took to wearing it. Urban Outfitters stocked them (but later withdrew them following complaints). Even Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City wore a ‘keffiyeh boob tube’ at one point. From being the headwear of female hijackers to the statement top of Western culture’s best-known single girl – such was the curious journey of this old sartorial staple of the Bedouin.

And now the keffiyeh is back. Since Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October, ‘urban combat with a twist of Middle Eastern’ has become the look once more in socially aware circles. You declare your pronouns, you take the knee and you wear a keffiyeh. And this time, apparently, it’s not fashion, it’s politics. It’s not style, it’s solidarity. It’s no mere ‘fiery symbol’ – it’s a fiery statement of one’s deep convictions about Israel / Palestine. And it certainly isn’t cultural appropriation. As CNN somewhat defensively explained, ‘non-Palestinians should be careful when wearing the keffiyeh in the traditional style worn by Bedouins’, and should always do their ‘research about the garment before wearing it’, but, generally speaking, putting on a keffiyeh can be a ‘great show of solidarity’.

The hypocrisy is something else. This is the same CNN that threw its corporate weight behind the cultural-appropriation panic. Which published pieces with headlines like ‘Dear white people with dreadlocks: some things to consider’ and ‘Dear white gay men: stop stealing black female culture’. It’s the same CNN whose writers raged against ‘blackfishing’, which apparently is when ‘white entertainers’ appear to be ‘imitating the appearance of black people’. It’s the same CNN which sternly reminded the good people of the United States that cultural appropriation is ‘when people with power and privilege take customs and traditions that oppressed people have long been marginalised for and repurpose them as a hot new thing’.

That might just be the best description of the fad for keffiyeh-wearing: people with privilege (Ivy League radicals, the laptop elites, latte socialists) taking a custom of a foreign people (the Bedouin and the Palestinians) and turning it into the ‘hot new thing’ – as the Guardian says, the keffiyeh truly has been ‘cemented… as a hot item’...

Clearly, a calculation has been made by the cultural establishment. It has decided that in the case of the keffiyeh, more status points can be accrued through the wearing of it than through the policing of its wearing. That those who wear the keffiyeh have entirely escaped the charge of cultural appropriation confirms how useful this garment is to the activist class, how central it has become to their daily displays of righteousness...

What holy service does this garment play in the lives of the elites? Its prime role is as a signifier of virtue. It is sartorial shorthand for ethical correctness. It communicates to your fellow travellers in the universe of luxury beliefs that you, too, have contempt for Israel and compassion for Palestine – an entirely requisite credo for access to the cultural establishment in the 21st century. Wearing the keffiyeh in public, or posting photos online of yourself wrapped up in one, is fundamentally a statement of your moral fitness for political high society. Far from being an act of solidarity, keffiyeh-wearing is more about raising awareness of yourself, and your goodness, than it is about raising awareness of the Palestinians and their challenges.

Indeed, you can wear the keffiyeh while knowing next to nothing about the part of the world it comes from. Potkin Azarmehr, the Iranian writer who fled Iran for the UK following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has noted the ‘ignorance’ of many of the keffiyeh- wearing agitators against Israel on the streets of our cities. There is a ‘startling disconnect’, he says, ‘between their strong opinions on the Gaza conflict and their shaky grasp of basic facts about it’. The keffiyeh classes ‘seem eager to make excuses for Hamas’, but they are ‘conspicuously uninformed about exactly what or who this terrorist group represents’. He gives the example of Queers for Palestine, who ‘flirt with justifying Hamas’s atrocities’, which is ‘bewildering’ given that Hamas’s Islamist ideology is ‘clearly antithetical to the rights and values these groups claim to champion’. Hamas’s ‘reactionary agenda’, says Azarmehr, is ‘profoundly hostile to women’s rights and LGBT individuals’.

That the keffiyeh set can be staggeringly ignorant of the backwardness and barbarism of Hamas, that they can wear a Palestinian symbol while being utterly unlettered on the present realities of life in Palestine, confirms that this garment is a signifier of feeling more than knowledge. Indeed, a post-pogrom survey of US students, those most likely to be adorned in the keffiyeh, uncovered an alarmingly frail grasp on the fundamental facts of the Middle East. For instance, only 47 per cent of the students who regularly chant the infamous slogan, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, were able to name the river and the sea it references. Some thought it referred to the Nile and the Euphrates. Others to the Caribbean. Some thought ‘the sea’ was a reference to the Dead Sea, which is a lake. Less than a quarter of the students knew who Yasser Arafat was. More than 10 per cent thought he was the first prime minister of Israel. Mercifully, when shown a map of the Middle East, and informed that having a Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea would leave ‘no room for Israel’, many of the students downgraded their support for the ‘river to the sea’ slogan from ‘would chant’ to ‘probably not’...

GQ once ridiculed the white appropriators of Native American garb and white men with dreadlocks as ‘utterly ignorant’ – ‘ignorant of a minority culture’s journey and historical suffering’. It slammed the ‘pale, sickly millennials’ who know nothing of the cultures they steal. And yet not a word of such salty criticism has been raised against the TikTok revolutionaries of the Ivy League who wear the keffiyeh without knowing where Palestine is or what Hamas does. The definition of ‘ignorance’, surely, is Queers for Palestine wearing keffiyehs while being blissfully unaware that if they ever set foot in Gaza their pronouns would be was / were quicker than they could say ‘Free Palestine’.

The keffiyeh classes don’t only have a ‘startling disconnect’ from the realities of the Middle East, but also from the true global injustices of the 21st century. Consider where their keffiyehs are likely to come from – China. The great paradox of the cult of the keffiyeh is that, as Niloufar Haidari reports, ‘the more popular the keffiyeh has become in the West, the less this has translated into a boon for the Palestinian economy’. There is only one Palestinian weavery left that makes keffiyehs. The keffiyehs we see in the coffee shops, campuses and art galleries of the West are ‘mass-produced’ items ‘from China’. The last remaining keffiyeh-maker in the Palestinian territories says it has become ‘increasingly difficult to compete with the low prices of the imported counterfeits’. That the keffiyeh craze of the Western bourgeoisie has hurt keffiyeh-makers in Palestine is a dark irony that will not be lost on those of us who know that the virtue-signalling of the powerful often has unintended consequences.

The ‘Made in China’ radicalism of the keffiyeh classes is commodified resistance summed up... That their noisy displays of moral concern for Palestine are being facilitated by poorly paid weavers in an authoritarian state for whom their moral concern is thin indeed, if not non-existent. It is even possible that Uyghurs made their keffiyehs, given that tens of thousands from this repressed people have been compelled by the Chinese regime to work in factories, including textile factories. Western youths signifying their pain for the oppressed state of Palestine with garments made by genuinely oppressed Uyghurs is surely the most late-stage capitalism thing that has ever happened.

The commodified concern for Palestine over and above every other wrong in the world – including the wrongs visited on the serfs who make the keffiyehs the wealthy wear – speaks to how important luxury beliefs, a term coined by author Rob Henderson, have become to the new elites. As Matthew Goodwin explains, where the ‘old elite’ derived its sense of social status from ‘physical manifestations of wealth, such as fine clothes, jewellery, foreign travel, servants, private carriages and large properties’, the new elite tends to distinguish itself from the ‘low-status’ masses by focussing ‘far more on projecting their “cultural capital” rather than their “economic capital”’. With prosperity ‘spread far more widely across society’ than was the case in the past, ‘ostentatious displays of riches have much less significance’. Instead, says Goodwin, ‘for the sophisticated, financially secure, urban-dwelling, university- educated new elite’, a certain set of ‘fashionable beliefs has become the new signifier of social status’. And chief among them, even more so post-pogrom, is pity for Palestine, combined with dread of Israel. The keffiyeh has become the material expression of this luxury belief. Thus did the headgear of desert-dwelling peasants become the main means through which the rich of the West demonstrate their moral capital and social status. Is that ‘cultural appropriation’?

That the keffiyeh has become a means of moral distinction, a part of the cultural armoury that allows the luxury moralists to ‘distinguish themselves from the “low status” masses’, represents a total negation of what this garment once meant to Palestinians. Where, in Jane Tynan’s words, the keffiyeh was first adopted by the fedayeen to erase any ‘markers of identity’ between them, now it is a marker of identity. Now it is a tool not for burying class differences, but for accentuating them, for saying: ‘I care for Palestine and thus my status is higher than yours.’

In this way, the cult of the keffiyeh is yet another form of ‘radical chic’, to use the term created by Tom Wolfe in his still blistering 1970 essay, ‘Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s’. Taking as his starting point a fundraising party for the Black Panthers that composer Leonard Bernstein held in his opulent apartment in Manhattan, Wolfe mused on how, at certain points in history, the self-styled enlightened elite develops an intense resentment for the ‘striving’ working class and instead finds itself drawn towards a ‘romanticised identification with the seemingly primitive lower classes’. That is, they distinguish themselves from the working masses through adopting a refined concern for the hyper-oppressed. And since radical chic ‘is only radical in style’, wrote Wolfe, ‘in its heart it is part of Society and its traditions’ of social climbing. It is an alignment with oppression that in reality advances privilege.

As British art writer Michael Bracewell put it in his 2004 essay, ‘Molotov Cocktails’, Wolfe had diagnosed a trend whereby the ‘patrician classes’ seek to ‘luxuriate in both a vicarious glamour and a monopoly on virtue through their public espousal of street politics: a politics, moreover, of minorities so removed from their sphere of experience and so absurdly, diametrically opposed to the islands of privilege on which the cultural aristocracy maintain their isolation, that the whole basis of their relationship is wildly out of kilter from the start’. This is the keffiyeh classes, too: ostentatiously identifying with an ‘oppressed people’, not to better understand that people’s pain, or to fashion solutions for its easing, but to fortify their own cultural aristocracy at home.

In other ways, though, keffiyeh chic is worse than radical chic. The Lenny Bernsteins of the world might be forgiven for feeling drawn to the drive and passion of ‘street’ movements like the Black Panthers. They must have seemed exciting to an ageing composer in his lonely, cavernous Manhattan flat.

The keffiyeh classes, in contrast, are attracted to the Palestinian people not for their dynamism, but for their wretchedness. Not for their vim but for their victimisation. Where the elite posturing that Wolfe so mercilessly ribbed was ‘vicarious radicalism’, the cult of the keffiyeh is something far more unpleasant: vicarious victimhood. The keffiyeh classes seem keen to ‘appropriate’ not only the clothing of the Palestinians, but their suffering, too. Witness the organisers of the Gaza encampment at Columbia University in New York City mimicking both Palestinian style and Palestinian privation. One student leader said she and her comrades were going hungry and required ‘humanitarian aid’. Do you want us to die of dehydration and starvation?, she asked university bosses. In a viral clip, a group of keffiyeh-wearing students was seen receiving ‘humanitarian aid’ through the college gates. I say humanitarian aid – it was probably a Starbucks order and blueberry muffins from a nearby bodega. Here we had privileged youths on an Ivy League campus cosplaying as victims of a humanitarian crisis; comfortably off Ivy Leaguers masquerading as the wretched of the Earth.

It provided a grim insight into the true nature of ‘Palestine solidarity’. It shone a light on why so many of our young chant, ‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians’. This is a new and unsettling form of activism. It is not 1960s-style solidarity with foreign struggles or even radical chic, that old politics as fashion. No, it is a coveting of suffering. The keffiyeh classes, it seems to me, crave the moral rush of oppression, the thrill of persecution. They pull on the garb of a beleaguered people in order to escape, however fleetingly, the pampered reality of their own lives. In order to taste that most prized of social assets in the woke era: victimhood. In draping the keffiyeh around their shoulders, they get to be someone else for a while. Someone less bourgeois, less white. Someone a little more exotic, a little more interesting. It’s less politics than therapy. They seek to wash away the ‘sin’ of their privilege through mimicking what they consider to be the least privileged people on Earth. That’s what the keffiyeh has become: the cloth with which the rich seek to scrub away their white guilt.  

If the keffiyeh is the uniform of this Palestine politics of victimhood, then its currency is images of Palestinian suffering. Where yesteryear’s purveyors of radical chic revelled in images of revolting minorities, today’s followers of the cult of the keffiyeh savour images of Palestinian destitution. They trade in photos of Palestinian pain, meaning that social media has become ‘oversaturated with traumatic imagery’, as one writer describes it. Log on and you’ll be instantly exposed to a ‘kaleidoscopic view of human suffering without respite’. Not content with commodifying Palestinian attire, they commodify Palestinian trauma, too. They make a spectacle of Palestinian agony. Not to assist Palestinians in any meaningful way – how could it? – but rather to inflame their own satisfying feelings of collective moral revulsion.

Even requests from Palestinians to stop sharing horrific images from their wars have not been enough to slow this grim trade. A few years ago, Palestinian psychiatrist Samah Jabr counselled Westerners against sharing ‘shocking content’ showing ‘shattered people’ in the Palestinian territories, on the basis that such ‘pictures of pain’ violate ‘the privacy and dignity of the subjects’ and can ‘create terror’ among Palestinians who might fear suffering the same fate. These images might ‘provide thrills’ to outside observers, and nurture ‘more “likes” and “shares”’ online, but they can be devastating to ‘public morale’ in the Palestinian territories, Jabr wrote. It was a fruitless plea. Imagery of Palestinian suffering is too valuable to the keffiyeh classes to be sacrificed to trifling concerns about Palestinian dignity. Your pain is ours now, just like your headwear.

The elites’ vicarious victimhood through the Palestine drama is a dangerous game. It seems undeniable now that the more the cultural powers of the West crave and collect depictions of Palestinian distress, the more the ideologues of Hamas will be willing to supply such depictions. Witness Yahya Sinwar’s insistence, in the summarising words of CNN, that the ‘spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza’ will likely ‘work in [Hamas’s] favour’. Sinwar, the then military leader of Hamas in Gaza, callously described the deaths of Palestinians as ‘necessary sacrifices’ to get the Israelis ‘right where we want them’.

Hamas clearly recognises that when the cultural establishments of global capitalism treat every image of Palestinian death as an indictment of Israeli evil, when the West’s activist class, media elites and online influencers hold up every picture of a broken Palestinian as proof of the Jewish State’s ‘uniquely murderous nature’, then it is in Hamas’s interests to prolong the war and allow more such suffering to occur. Having made Palestinian agony the currency of their activism, the activist class cannot now feign surprise at Hamas’s willingness to let this disastrous war continue. Hamas’s intransigence in the face of its far more powerful foe is a direct consequence of the keffiyeh classes’ commodification of Palestinian pain as a testament to both Israeli malfeasance and Western indifference.

The cult of victimhood’s greatest offence is to reduce everything to a simplistic clash between the oppressed and the oppressor, good and evil, light and dark. This movement requires not only victims it might ostentatiously empathise with, but also the opposite: victimisers, the monsters of persecution, who must be noisily raged at... Pity for Palestinians morphs with frightening ease into hatred for the world’s only Jewish nation, courtesy of the morally infantile narrative the cultural establishment has weaved around this most fraught of conflicts.

The end result? Protesters in keffiyehs telling Jews in New York City to ‘go back to Poland’. Activists in keffiyehs shouting on the New York subway: ‘Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist.’ Britons in keffiyehs marching alongside radical Islamists who long for further pogroms against the Jewish State. The aftermath of 7 October is a painful reminder that the facile moral binaries of identity politics are far more likely to resuscitate racism than tackle it."

 

 

Links - 4th January 2025 (1 - General Wokeness)

Maddie🥀 on X - "It’s homophobic for a straight woman to be repulsed by the thought of being in a relationship with a man who likes men now? I don’t want a man who likes men. I don’t want to marry or reproduce with a man who likes men. That makes me homophobic? Are y’all f*cking serious right"

Why is a Labour MP calling for a blasphemy law? | The Spectator - "the Labour MP Tahir Ali asked: ‘Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?’... The fact that we have an MP from the governing party calling for blasphemy laws to be reinstated is part of a terrifying development in politics. It comes alongside a rise in sectarian voting, which has seen minority groups pitted against each other and a splintering of modern society.  Why, for example, did Mr Ali choose only to cite the Abrahamic religions? Would I still be free to say awful things about Ganesh or Vishnu in Mr Ali’s dream society as long as I didn’t criticise the Quran? If I were a British Hindu listening, I would start to feel increasingly concerned about Ali’s intentions. Perhaps most concerning of all was the Prime Minister’s response to Ali’s question. Keir Starmer uttered a bland, robotic reply that, ‘Desecration is awful, and we are committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia.’...   Pakistan, that oasis of good governance, has more prisoners on death row or in life imprisonment for blasphemy than anywhere else on Earth. A new law was passed there just last year further broadening these laws to include criticism of the Prophet Muhammad’s family, his wives and companions.  Extra-judicial enthusiasm for punishing blasphemers is rife in Pakistan: in February, dozens of men stormed a police station in Punjab to kidnap and lynch a man accused of desecrating the Quran. In August, a mob of hundreds attacked the Christian community of Jaranwala, after two Christians were accused of blasphemy.  Britain, unfortunately, has not been immune to blasphemy extremism. There is still a school teacher in hiding and fearing from his life from a baying mob and death threats because he showed an image of the prophet Mohammad in a class. Last year, a 14-year-old autistic boy received death threats after reportedly dropping a Quran in a corridor. This was followed by a Labour councillor stoking tensions by claiming that the book had been desecrated. But at least we do not yet have laws forbidding us from criticising religion – something that would undoubtedly change if Tahir Ali had his way.   Fifteen years ago, before his untimely death, Christopher Hitchens warned us about this. ‘Resist it while you still can,’ he said: ‘and before the right to complain is taken away from you which will be the next thing you will be told you can’t complain because you’re Islamophobic.’"

Police arresting nine people a day in fight against web trolls - "Nine people a day are being arrested for posting allegedly offensive messages online as police step up their campaign to combat social media hate speech. More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums, a rise of nearly 50 per cent in two years... About half of the investigations were dropped before prosecutions were brought, however, leading to criticism from civil liberties campaigners that the authorities are over-policing the internet and threatening free speech. Arrests are expected to rise after Amber Rudd, the home secretary, last week announced a national police hub to crack down on hateful material online... The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) defended the rising arrest figures, saying officers had improved their ability to combat crime online as it continues to grow. Stephen Kavanagh, of the NPCC’s digital intelligence unit, said forces had adapted well to the “changing nature of harm in our society”. Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship, a free speech campaign group, accused police of unnecessarily hunting internet trolls. She said: “These figures bear out what we’ve been saying: that police are wasting more and more time investigating people for comments online that are offensive but not criminal.” Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the Crown Prosecution Service emphasised section 127 was to be used only in “extreme circumstances”. “But the problem is ‘grossly offensive’ is not something you should normally be prosecuted for. It’s not showing harm to other people. It’s not showing that somebody is being harassed . . . attacked or threatened.”"
I was told that it's not that the UK has two tier policing, but it's that policing has collapsed, so the police are incapable of investigating crime, but if you create evidence of your crime the police will happily prosecute you. But clearly Labour is pushing anarcho-tyranny too

Richard Hanania on X - "Now it says that the 3,300 people detained was for “trolling.” Does that mean if you’re a sincere racist you’re fine?"

Marc Edwards Is a Sad Victim of Our Modern Political Era - "This is very sad: Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who first exposed toxic levels of lead in the water supply of Flint, Michigan, was initially a hero to the Flint community. Thanks to him, Flint became the target of nationwide outrage, and steps were finally taken to reconnect Flint to the (safe) Detroit water supply. In less than a year, lead levels in Flint water had dropped to safe levels.  So what did Edwards do? Well, he’s a scientist, and just as he had honestly exposed Flint’s problems in the first place, he also continued to honestly report the results of the intervention. When the water was once again safe, he said so—and that turned him from a hero into a pariah... The science, as you’d expect, told us that Flint’s water got better after mitigation measures were taken—but the activists on the ground were too angry and bitter to accept that. Instead, they turned tribal on the guy reporting the results, and at that point you were either with them or against them.   So which were we? As near as I could tell, there were very few progressives willing to take Edwards’ side against the Flint community. We all had our reasons. I was hesitant to say anything that would suggest any level of lead was safe. There were criminal prosecutions getting started against Flint and Michigan officials. And there were hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money still to be fought for. Mostly, though, we were just being subservient to our loudest voices because no one wanted to be on the losing end of a more-progressive-than-thou contest.  Over the course of 2016 I slowly became more outspoken about the safety of Flint’s water, and by 2017 two things were clear. First, Flint’s water was once again safe. Second, the damage done to Flint’s children was probably fairly modest... This is not just a matter of respecting the truth for its own sake. It has real consequences:
Parents are being kept in a state of stress and panic that they shouldn’t have to put up with.
Children are being kept in a state of depression and resignation.
A vast amount of money is being spent to replace Flint’s water pipes, even though they’re probably safe. That money could be used for better things.
Actually, it’s worse than that. The only reason people are still being told to use filters in Flint is because of the pipe replacement program. When new pipes are installed, lead can start leaching back into the water from the points where pipes are connected to each other.
So here we are: anti-science, tribal, and subservient to our most extreme wing. Oh, and a guy named Marc Edwards, who exposed this disaster and got it fixed, is now practically an exile. It’s a sad microcosm of our modern political arena."
Crémieux on X - ""We fixed the problem" can be a taboo phrase in progressive circles."
This would explain why I still see left wingers talking about Flint's Water. Without a problem they cannot grievance monger. So the left doesn't actually want to solve problems

Eric Daugherty on X - "REPORT: After being named TIME's "Athlete of the Year," Caitlin Clark apologizes for her white privilege and says that the WNBA is "built" on black players.  “I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege."  "A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been Black players. This league has kind of been built on them."  "The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important. I have to continue to try to change that.""
Megyn Kelly on X - "Look at this. She’s on the knee all but apologizing for being white and getting attention. The self-flagellation. The “oh pls pay attention to the black players who are REALY the ones you want to celebrate.” Condescending. Fake. Transparent. Sad."

Meme - Wesley Yang @wesyang: "Norm MacDonald's joke from 2016 is now an actual template for news coverage
The Killing Of Two Chinese Men Ignites Anti-Black Sentiment In Chinatown
U of C students say the killing of a Chinese alum has sparked anti- Black sentiment"
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald: "What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?"
"The joke of course was merely translating into slightly exaggerated form the existing template for Islamic terror coverage. But it became the general template for other kinds of crime coverage after 2016. A 2008 survey of 300 strong-arm robberies in San Francisco found that 85 percent of all the physical assaults were done by blacks against Asians."

Why woke is a spin-off from Christianity - minus the mercy and hope - "Woke has a Calvinist pessimism about our Total Depravity. You cannot escape your Original Sin, the best you can do is confess it
They say “woke” is a new religion. Actually, it’s a lot like the old one. Woke picks up where Christianity left off (or chickened out), providing a religion without God that imagines itself to be new yet hammers home themes that are strikingly familiar. Here are the key parallels.  Awaiting the Apocalypse. A basic tenet of Evangelical Christianity is that the world is ending, so you’ve got to get good with God. The end will be horrible; it’s what we deserve. Greta Thunberg says the planet is dying because we consumed too much, and empty shelves, say Remainers, are the price of Brexit.  Why do we vote for, or do, such “stupid” things? Original Sin. For Christians, it’s the rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden. For the woke, it’s pollution and slavery, crimes that happened centuries ago yet were so bad they irradiate the present. Nations are inherently racist; individuals, even the ones that want to be good, are guilty of “unconscious bias”. Woke has a Calvinist pessimism about our Total Depravity. You can’t escape the sin, the best you can do is confess it to the community.  One sign that you might not be so bad is having bad stuff done to you. By dying on a cross, Jesus imprinted in our culture the archetype of the Victim As Hero – emulated now by a woke culture that, like Jesus, says the first shall be last and the last first. The more “marginalised” a voice once was, the louder it should sing.  Victimhood, like sin, is inherited. Entire groups are cast as Martyrs, whether they see themselves that way or not, and suffering is categorised and ranked in a hierarchy of pain. The problem is that a lot of woke people are rich and white (probably most of them). A handful have pretended to be black to appropriate some grace – but the wider path is to present yourself to the world as a Visible Saint.  The Puritans of the 17th century wanted to reserve their church strictly for the elect, but given that we can’t know who is saved or damned, they had to rely on outward signs of holy behaviour. Today, wokeness is displayed to the parish by how one acts, votes, dresses and, crucially speaks, for wokeness, like Christianity, has developed a Litany of magical words (“intersectional”, “heteronormative”).  In the past, you might signal your faith by wearing a cross; today, you write “they/them” on your twitter bio. There is Holy Writ and a Clerical Class of writers, activists and politicians, who will welcome your donation of money or votes. There are also Heretics who must be cancelled (including a number of Sixties feminists for whom this stuff seems a trifle barmy) and Demons to be exorcised or cancelled. Donald Trump, it goes without saying, is The Devil.  And, finally, Wokery does a Supernatural, of sorts. It is anti-materialist: it would rather we were green than generating growth, more equal than individually wealthy. It has challenged the laws of science and maths, arguing in one unironic discussion last year that 2 + 2 might equal 3 or 5 depending upon the subjective experience of the numbers involved. And it has declared that men have become women and vice versa, an act of Transubstantiation whereby physical substance is transformed by faith.  Around the time most mainline churches dropped their more remarkable claims, be it miracles or the end of the world, wokery picked up and ran with them, the mystery of religion replaced with wonder at nature. In ages past we studied Bible stories told in church windows; now we gawp at David Attenborough documentaries on TV, trying to divine a hidden meaning in the sex lives of penguins.  Like any spin off, however, wokery lost the nuance of the original idea. Mercy is gone (the cancelled are never forgiven and the queue to cast the first stone winds around the block) and so is the submission of ego, because while religion plugs the individual into community, encouraging us to stop being so tediously self-absorbed, workery hinges on telling “stories” – struggles, conflicts, the melodramatic psychoanalysis of a person’s life that condemns us to a constant state of “journeying”, with no no hope of arrival.  That’s because woke lacks God. Minus the divine, there is no end point, no perfect justice and, thus, no relief from the anxieties of existence that, ultimately, we all have to endure – because while it would be nice if Jesus came back tomorrow, he hasn’t done so yet and we have to render unto Caesar and get on with our lives.  Woke is a recipe for conflict. The best in religion brings inner peace."

UK lawmaker Iqbal opposes ex-minister’s call to ban first-cousin marriages - "Independent member of Parliament (MP) Iqbal Mohamed has opposed calls to ban first-cousin marriage in the United Kingdom, saying it should “not be stigmatised”, BBC reported on Tuesday.  Experts warn against the irreparable harms of cousin marriage as it could lead to genetic disorders, including thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, and visual and hearing impairment.  While the practice is deeply rooted in cultural and societal norms, it poses a significant health risk to children, primarily genetic disorders, due to the genetic similarity between the parents.   A Conservative former minister, Richard Holden, called for first-cousin marriage to be banned in the UK.  While introducing the proposals in the parliament, he highlighted that the children of first cousins were at higher risk of birth defects and the practice must be prohibited to protect public health.  Under the UK’s current legislation, marriages to a sibling, parent or child are prohibited but not between first cousins.  The MP argued that while the overall prevalence of this practice was low in Western countries, some diaspora communities, such as Irish travellers and British Pakistanis, had “extremely high rates” of 20-40 per cent...   He also said that the practice threatened women’s freedom... an estimated 35pc to 50pc of all sub-Saharan African populations “prefer or accept” cousin marriages, and it is “extremely common” in the Middle East and South Asia."
Clearly, it's racism and Islamophobia that lead to health problems in the Muslim community, and the solution is more anti-racism

Meme - David Hines @hradzka: "remember the time the ACLU tweeted a pic of a white toddler holding an American flag and their followers went absolutely batshit"
"This is the future that ACLU members want."
"When your Twitter followers keep you in check and remind you that white supremacy is everywhere."

B.E. Townsend on X - "I've noticed the equivalency with claims from the Left between white people existing and claims of supremacy. It's not that they oppose white supremacy. They oppose white people."
The left loves to claim that trans people existing is not political and people's existence cannot be political (of course, this somehow becomes denying any TRA demands meaning you're literally saying that trans people don't exist). But of course white people existing is white supremacy

Johnny Somali: Controversial American live-streamer faces prison in South Korea for offensive behavior - "A controversial American live-streamer is facing the prospect of prison in South Korea for his offensive antics, in a case that is shining a light on the rise of so-called “nuisance influencers” seeking clicks overseas.  Ramsey Khalid Ismael, 24, commonly known by his online alias, “Johnny Somali,” has been indicted of causing a “commotion” at a convenience store... Ismael, who has built a reputation online for his provocative, often highly offensive video stunts, has been banned by multiple social media companies, after he was accused by critics of harassing locals in countries across Asia in an apparent effort to boost his online viewership...  Ismael posted an online apology after he was accused of desecrating a South Korean monument to women subjected to sexual slavery in World War II, causing widespread outrage in the country...  The public backlash in South Korea appeared to reflect a broader frustration in the region with foreigners who exploit local customs for online fame, with Ismael being an extreme example of bad behavior.  According to Japanese news reports, foreign content creators have recently been accused of a string of transgressions in the country, from dodging railway fares to doing pull-ups on a shrine gate and “nuisance dancing” on Tokyo subway trains.   It coincides with a souring sentiment on mass tourism among many Japanese people as the country experiences record visitor numbers and a rise in reports of tourists behaving badly.  Earlier this month, a 65-year-old American tourist was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving letters into a shrine gate, just two months after a 61-year-old Austrian man was arrested for having sex on the grounds of a shrine... the live-streamer was arrested in Osaka on suspicion of trespassing in a construction site, according to the Kyodo News agency. Ismael also caused outrage in Japan by posting videos of himself taunting commuters about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while hurling insults.  John Lie, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said Ismael serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of disregarding cultural boundaries in an interconnected world."
The US tolerates thugs of a certain type, but they terrorise the rest of the world at their peril

Meme - Just Another Korean @AnotherKoreanX: "Korean streamer called Johnny Somali and his friend the N word multiple times in front of the Korean police."
Kangmin Lee @kangminjlee: "("niga") means "you" in Korean. It's hilarious because the streamer's saying "you" over and over again and you can see how triggered they get by it. It's not the West, your "muh racism" outrage doesn't work. Korea doesn't care if entitled foreign parasites get offended. They're so used to being pandered to and getting everything they want in the West that when Koreans in Korea have had enough of their harassment and stupidity, they're shocked that they have no power to do anything I hope they get deported and never come back"

Meme - pagliacci the hated 🌝 @Slatzism: "Incredible things happening on shitlib twitter.  a girl said she reports UberEats drivers when they don’t match their profile pic because it’s safety issue.  because most of the men who do this are illegals, the hivemind has decided she’s a racist and are threatening to kill her"
"Idc if this makes me a Karen, if your UberEats profile picture shows that you're a woman and my delivery person shows up and they're a cis man then I will report every time and so should you!!!"
"Snitching ass. Ppl do this as a matter of survival and to save on paying tech lords over invasive identification requirements. in conclusion, fuck you goddamn Nazis to hell. "Karen" doesn't begin to describe what you really are"
"from the bottom of my heart, fuck you. the undocumented people I know and love who have no other options will suffer because of your delusions that YOU will be the victim of some true crime spectacle. using "women's safety" to endanger other marginalized groups. rethink this"
"American fatties would rather become unpaid cops and report any non white man they deem I as "off" than cook their own food. Also up until very recently all food delivery was anonymous and done by mostly men, you never had a problem then tho."
Another example of how the left calling people a "Nazi" is meaningless
Too bad women aren't victims as much as illegal immigrants, so the left sides with the latter over the former

Meme - "r/LegalAdviceUK
Son pressured to convert to a religion under fear and pressure from bullies. School won't help. Police won't get involved.
My son is 10 years old. He has been pressured into converting to another religion by his classmates. It has gotten extremely bad, with him being terrified when I bring certain foodstuffs into our house in case his "friends" find out. Prior to his conversion we noticed regular bruising on him, which we assumed was from his football. However, this stopped abruptly after he converted. My husband and I are almost certain he was bullied into converting. He is one of the very few in his class who does not belong to the dominant religion in our area. We expressed our concerns to the police, but their investigation didn't go anywhere and it was closed by a detective. We've spoken with our son, but he keeps shutting down when we ask him about the religion. He seems to be constantly in a state of fear, terrified of forgetting prayers, terrified that we bring non-Halal foods home etc. He's just been destroyed in the past 18 months. Who should we speak to about this?"
Time to arrest the parents for Islamophobia

No, patriotism doesn’t alienate ethnic minorities - "According to a leaked internal strategy presentation, Labour must make ‘use of the [Union] flag, veterans [and] dressing smartly’ as part of a radical rebranding project designed to rebuild trust with disillusioned voters. Unsurprisingly, the progressive-activist wing of the party responded in hysterical fashion. Norwich South MP Clive Lewis, the master of poor takes, decried the move as a form of ‘Fatherland-ism’ and argued that there was a better way to ‘build social cohesion than moving down the track of the nativist right’. According to progressive activists, taking pride in the Union flag, respecting those who have served in the armed forces and being smartly dressed is pandering to extreme right-wing nativism.   But what is an especially questionable charge, made by the likes of Aditya Chakrabortty in the Guardian, is that embracing expressions of British patriotism would alienate ethnic minorities. According to this view, the imagined ‘BAME community’ has little to no sense of national pride or appreciation of British life. This assumption is both misguided and divisive.  The 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Study, which remains the only full-scale survey on British ethnic-minority attitudes to date, showed that non-white people are far more likely to express satisfaction with the British democratic system than white Brits. This should come as no surprise. A notable section of Britain’s non-white population moved directly to the UK from unstable parts of the world with dysfunctional political systems and substandard public infrastructure. Part of the reason my Bangladeshi-origin parents decided to set up their stall in Britain was because of the stable nature of British democratic society and the great educational opportunities on offer for their children. This feeds into a naturally positive orientation towards Britain – a country that provided them with an opportunity to start afresh and prosper...   While these progressive activists squirm at the mildest expressions of patriotism, a comfortable majority of non-white people attach importance to their British national identity... many of Britain’s non-white people – who can trace their ancestral origins back to countries with autocratic regimes and rampant political oppression – simply do not share in this domestic progressive-liberal discontent. And while progressive activists look to ‘protect’ an imaginary BAME community from the forces of oppression, they fail to acknowledge that non-white people tend to be more satisfied with their life in the UK.   Progressive activists are either unaware of the culturally conservative attitudes in non-white communities or, worse still, they are fully aware of them but would still rather exploit ethnic minorities to promote their identitarian agenda. This tribe of left-wingers – instinctively hostile to expressions of patriotism, dissatisfied with the democratic system, and always keen to interpret a range of social issues through the prism of race – threatens to lock Labour in a position of neverending electoral misery.  If such people continue to wield considerable influence on the British left, Labour will only be left with offering a miserable form of grievance politics, which is likely to prove very costly at the ballot box."
From 2021. We're still told that left wingers don't hate their countries

What’s really driving Labour’s patriotism problem - "One can’t help but think that the real issue here is less Labour’s (obvious) discomfort with patriotism, and more its discomfort with ordinary people. The two at least are interlinked. As Labour has drifted away from working people, its ranks drawing more and more from the metropolitan middle classes, so it has become increasingly alarmed at the national identity which many of its former constituents still hold to. The sacking of Emily Thornberry from the Labour frontbench in 2014, after she snobbily tweeted that photo of a house draped in the St George flag with a white van parked outside, reminds us that hysteria about nationalism goes hand in hand with plain old snobbery...   The problem here isn’t so much that Labour hates this country — it’s that it hates the people who live in it."

White people's guilty pleasure - "Woke anti-racism is a merciless new religion that offers little in the way of redemption, only eternal damnation. You can never fully overcome any of your ‘biases’ or ‘prejudices’ and declare yourself free. No one would ever believe you. Instead, you must constantly admit to and despair of how racist you are despite desperately not wanting to be.  Genevieve Roth, an anti-racism campaigner, former aide to Hillary Clinton and newly appointed adviser to Harry and Meghan’s Archewell foundation, epitomises this worldview. Roth wrote, ‘Race is an issue in our [mixed-race] marriage because as a white woman of privilege, I have racist tendencies written in at a cellular level’.    ‘Racist tendencies written in at a cellular level’ is a troubling notion. It implies someone is inherently racist. That to be racist is biologically determined. It also implies that someone with those ‘tendencies written in at a cellular level’ would struggle to change. This is the complete opposite of the sentiments expressed by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. ‘No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion’, Mandela said. ‘People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.’...   This new woke anti-racism is actually rehabilitating biological essentialism, which has an ugly history. It also works against any notion of a common humanity – a notion that informs some of our greatest triumphs against oppression and injustice: universal suffrage, the end of Apartheid, the abolition of slavery, the embrace of civil rights.   But in the worldview of Roth and Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, solidarity and universality have been replaced by ‘allyship’ – which is never quite full friendship or togetherness – and ‘unconscious bias’, which implies that people are controlled by psychological forces they forever struggle to control...   In the cause of woke anti-racism, you must constantly confess how bigoted you are and how little you realised it. Nobody would accept any less. The unconscious bias is unending. I once saw an intelligent woman I know, who has been very captured by this movement, write on social media: ‘Anyone who says they don’t have a racist bone in their body is lying.’ That would be an amusing comment if it wasn’t so fanatical. It is the point of view of the Grand Inquisitor, the Witchfinder General, the person who has a deep distrust of human nature and is pessimistic about the human ability to change. How can you bring about real change if you don’t believe people are capable of achieving it in their own lives?   It is also very concerning that people in positions of power and privilege, such as Prince Harry and Hillary Clinton, are drawn to this bleak, unforgiving worldview. Harry said in his interview with Oprah Winfrey that he believed the public was influenced by the racist media. He stopped short of explicitly calling ordinary people racist, but that is what was implied, whether he realised it or not. These are the very same ‘racist’ people whose taxes and land rents fund his family’s lifestyle.   Ultimately, the new woke anti-racism is bolstering elitism, contempt of ordinary people, division, self-hatred and nasty judgmentalism"
Left wingers just hate white people

Links - 2nd January 2024 (2 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

Townsville shopkeeper who shouted ‘filthy Jew’ at Israeli tourists speaks out - "The female shopkeeper who went viral for her shocking anti-Semitic tirade against two Israeli backpackers has spoken out to defend herself.  The footage, taken on Saturday night in Townsville, shows the woman shouting at the young tourists, aged in their 20s, after they spotted a donation sign for Palestine displayed near the counter.  The shopkeeper allegedly became enraged when the tourists recommended she verify where the donations were being directed. “Get the f**k out of my store!” the shopkeeper allegedly yelled at the tourists.  “I don’t give a f**k about Israel but I do care about the fact that you’re a dirty fithy f**king Jew,” the woman, who was dressed in black, said in video footage taken by one of the tourists.  “You wanna listen to what I have to say?” the tourist, dressed in a brown top and pants, asked calmly.  “No. F**k off,” she responded.  “I said check what you say,” the tourist continued.The woman then repeated “f*** off” two more times. When approached by the Townsville Bulletin on Monday, the shopkeeper was unaware of the video’s widespread circulation.  After being shown the clip, she claimed that the video had been cut short so as not to show the backpackers in a bad light. “People can take their own thing away from that video, I don’t really give a s**t,” she said... The shopkeeper said that what appears to be an object in her hand in the video was actually a wooden club kept by the cash register."
She forgot that she was anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic

U of T governing council accused of abandoning Jews on campus by doctors' advocacy group - "Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism (DARA), an organization of health care professionals, is alleging that the university’s governing council recently turned down a motion aimed at condemning antisemitism on campus... DARA says on Nov. 7 that the council’s chair, Anna Kennedy, and vice chair, Sandra Hanington, refused to allow a vote on whether to add the antisemitism motion to the meeting agenda. It alleges council leaders quashed the opportunity to even consider the antisemitism motion... “Encampments and intimidation are not a reasonable exercise of free speech,” said Cooper. He went on to say that the university has “failed” Jewish students. “Imagine the trauma inflicted on Jewish, students, faculty and staff who were subjected to weeks of threats, intimidation, exclusion, and harassment. Shouts that Hitler should have got all you guys, go back to Poland and actual physical assaults.”"

Wikipedia takes sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict - "Wikipedia, the world's largest and most popular online encyclopedia, has long aimed to establish itself as a trustworthy and unbiased source of knowledge, with neutrality as one of its foundational principles. However, recent alarming occurrences raise fears that this fundamental commitment is being considerably compromised, particularly in publications on sensitive topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The creation of a problematic double standard in source evaluation on these topics casts doubt on the platform's objectivity and editorial procedures' integrity. Based on the primary premise of neutrality, the sources the encyclopedia relies on should provide information that is accurate, balanced, and verified without prejudice. However, recent events have raised serious questions about whether these rules are consistently followed. One striking example is Wikipedia's decision not to accept the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the most prominent civil rights organizations in the world, as a legitimate source. The ADL has a long history of working for human rights and combatting hatred, having published well-researched publications on antisemitism, racism, and extremism. Despite its established trustworthiness, Wikipedia regards the ADL as an untrustworthy source on Israel and Zionism, and only "roughly" trustworthy on antisemitism. This decision is odd, especially given that the ADL's research is frequently cited by academics, journalists, and officials worldwide. In sharp contrast, Wikipedia regards Al Jazeera, a Qatar-funded news organization, as a trustworthy source. While Al Jazeera is a major international broadcaster, its editorial stance has been critiqued for reflecting Qatar's political interests, including its alignment with Hamas. This influence can result in coverage that is viewed as biased, particularly on issues related to the conflict. Despite worries and reporting about its impartiality, Wikipedia has acknowledged Al Jazeera as a reliable source."
First, they came for the Daily Mail and Fox News...
Fighting against civil rights groups only makes you evil when it hurts the left wing agenda

Who Does Wikipedia Consider a ‘Reliable Source’ on Israel-Palestine? - "The decision was made by three Wikipedia editors, known only by the following pseudonyms: The Wordsmith, theleekycauldron, and Tamzin (pronouns: “they/xe”). These three editors—yes, these are the people deciding what we can and cannot see when we’re scrolling Wikipedia late at night—said they made their decision on the grounds that the ADL is both a research and advocacy organization. While they say that the ADL “is a generally reliable source,” they insisted that the organization should not be cited on topics relating to the Israel-Hamas war. On Tuesday, more than forty Jewish groups signed a letter sent to the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, saying that the decision “is stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself from the hatred that targets our community.”... who does Wikipedia consider reliable on this subject? One example is a man named Salman Abu Sitta, a Palestinian activist who wrote that “Nothing can hide the determination and courage of those young people who returned to their land on October 7.” (He was the first cited source on the Wiki page 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.) Wikipedia also considers Al Jazeera—a Qatari-sponsored news organization that has described the October 7 pogrom as “heroic”—a “reliable source”: on its page Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Al Jazeera is cited without skepticism seven times. On the page for the October 7 attacks, Wikipedia absolves Hamas of its antisemitism, describing how in 2017 the terrorist group “adopted a new charter, removing antisemitic language and shifting focus from Jews to Zionists.” We could go on like this all day."

Wikipedia has it out for Israel, and we’ve got the data to prove it - "We conducted a comprehensive analysis of Wikipedia’s structural bias, using as our case study the page about South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Our findings unearthed patterns of systematic bias that can shape and contort public understanding of critical global issues. Through a detailed examination of over 1,000 page revisions, we identified several key mechanisms through which bias can enter and metastasize inside Wikipedia. Our analysis identified 27 highly active editors who contributed significantly to the page. These weren’t hobbyist contributors — they averaged over 200,000 edits across Wikipedia, suggesting they’re highly experienced editors with considerable influence over content. The bias expression analysis identified patterns of anti-Israel bias among power-user editors, highlighting how personal viewpoints can seep into supposedly neutral content. For instance, one high-bias editor consistently removed neutral descriptive terms from the Israeli response section. Another editor systematically changed article titles from neutral legal terminology (“South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention)”) to more emotionally loaded versions (“South Africa’s genocide case against Israel”), demonstrating a pattern of bias in framing the conflict. Another editor imbued the page with selective emphasis in sections like “other international responses,” which skewed the narrative. Similarly, one high-bias editor invoked overt animus, such as labelling Israel as the enemy and actively accusing it of genocide, as opposed to objectively describing South Africa’s legal case. One contributor, “EthanRossie2000,” wrote: “Free Palestine. Israel is the enemy. They’re committing genocide.” That contribution was made when several automated bots and other editors were making category and citation changes. Notably, the comment was surrounded by seemingly routine edits from other users. It appears the comment was made without any attempt to mask its bias and there were no immediate challenges or responses to EthanRossie2000’s point of view. And this, to be clear, was in a page ostensibly documenting the legal case in support of South Africa’s case. EthanRossie2000 was editorializing, not citing data or evidence. These findings illustrate the challenges Wikipedia faces in maintaining objectivity, particularly in articles related to geopolitics and international relations. Neutralizing these biases requires robust editorial guidelines and oversight mechanisms to prevent the dissemination of skewed information that could mislead readers and influence public perception. This concentration of editorial power raises questions about representation and diverse perspectives in Wikipedia’s coverage of complex geopolitical issues. It also raises the spectre that the system is too readily gamed by those with a sharp axe to wield. Given Wikipedia’s increasing reach into classrooms and hundreds of thousands of news sites, these questions demand scrutiny. A 2014 study by researchers at the University of Ottawa found 1,433 full-text articles from 1,008 journals with 2,049 Wikipedia citations. The frequency of Wikipedia citations in academic literature increased over time, with most citations occurring after December 2010. Given the rise in scholarly citations to Wikipedia, evidence of potential agenda-driven bias renders Wikipedia less credible, let alone authoritative, for such purposes... Our analysis surfaced eight biases that go unmentioned in Wikipedia’s own page disclosing the traditional bias reportedly hewn in Wikipedia’s coverage of topics — specifically, how the platform “over-represents a point of view (POV) belonging to a particular demographic described as the ‘average Wikipedian,’ who is an educated, technically inclined, English-speaking white male, aged 15–49, from a developed Christian country in the northern hemisphere.” But the biases we identified in the Wikipedia page about South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice were very different. What’s particularly remarkable is these biases contradict the spirit of a “wiki” — an ethos of bottom-up collaboration and respect expressed toward all its volunteer editors. These biases include: elite theory bias, that is, a preference for academic sources over grassroots knowledge; high-contributor frequency bias (disproportionate influence of frequent editors); citation gaming (strategic use of citations to push particular viewpoints); temporal bias (over-representation of recent events or perspectives); institutional capture systematic bias (from organized editing groups); language complexity bias (use of complex language to obscure bias); and source selectivity bias (selective choice of sources to support particular views). Despite these evident biases, contributors can always claim they are inserting a “neutral point of view” (NPOV) while expressing bias through selective editing. Bias can be readily masked through highly technical and academic language. Perhaps most concerning is how these biases can be amplified through digital ecosystems. Whenever Wikipedia content is cited by news media, on social media, in academic papers and books, or gets used to train AI systems, these biases can be reproduced and magnified, creating self-reinforcing cycles of misinformation. But the implications extend far beyond any single Wikipedia page or topic. Our findings suggest the need for enhanced transparency in Wikipedia’s collaborative editorial processes; the development of better tools for detecting and measuring systematic bias; greater diversity in editor demographics and viewpoints; and improved mechanisms for balancing competing narratives in controversial topics. Just as cigarette packages carry health warnings, our findings suggest the need for explicit literacy guidance on Wikipedia pages covering contentious topics... We encourage new analyses of Wikipedia coverage across other topics such as public health, poverty, war and geopolitics. If Wikipedia’s system is indeed being “hacked,” information on which policy-makers and the public rely turns unreliable. It can be corrupted and deployed for harmful agendas. Our goal isn’t to undermine Wikipedia — an invaluable resource — but to strengthen it by understanding its limitations and biases."
If you accuse Wikipedia of left wing bias, you're a far right extremist

Wikipedia Editors Add “Gaza Genocide” to “List of Genocides” Article - "Wikipedia editors have officially added “Gaza genocide” to the “List of genocides” Wikipedia article following a discussion launched over the summer.  The list itself begins with “Gaza genocide”... The discussion over whether or not to add “Gaza genocide” to the list began in July; those in favor argued that it was only natural to include after an article title was changed from “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza” to “Gaza genocide” earlier the month. They also argued that it fits the list’s inclusion criteria for “acts which are recognized in significant scholarship as genocides” and that other genocides on the list are considered controversial, such as Rohingya genocide and Darfur genocide. Those opposed to inclusion contended that the allegation that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip is too widely disputed to warrant mentioning it in a neutral voice (wikivoice) in the article, especially when the International Court of Justice has yet to make a ruling on the matter.   The discussion was a formal discussion known as a Request for Comment (RfC), where editors put in their “!votes” with their stated position and rationale on the dispute at hand; oftentimes, a closer (an uninvolved Wikipedian in good standing) renders a verdict on the discussion based on the numbers and the strength of site policy arguments. British Wikipedian Stuart Marshall ultimately closed the discussion in September, finding consensus in favor of inclusion based “on the strength of the arguments …  and it’s not close … I discarded the argument that scholars haven’t reached a conclusion on whether the Gaza genocide is really taking place,” Marshall wrote. “The matter remains contested, but there’s a metric truckload of scholarly sources linked in this discussion that show a clear predominance of academics who say that it is. I discarded the argument that it is for the U.N. or the International Courts to decide what’s a genocide and what isn’t. This is Wikipedia, where we follow the scholarly sources.” Marshall rebuked an argument put forward in the discussion where an editor argued against inclusion by citing a piece from The Economist the editor claimed was “significantly more reliable than publications in ideologically captured fields like critical race theory, postcolonial studies, etc.” “The contention that ‘General-audience publications such as The Economist are actually significantly more reliable than publications in ideologically captured fields like critical race theory’ is not one that I lightly set aside. I hurled it aside with great force,” Marshall wrote. “We follow the scholars.”   When the editor “Partofthemachine” told Marshall on his talk page that scholarly sources should receive “editorial scrutiny” over “their obvious prioritization of an ideological agenda over factual accuracy,” Marshall acknowledged that “there are serious scientists with all kinds of insane views” but that the Wikipedia community needs to reach “a consensus that a certain scientist is a nutcase or a certain journal publishes lies.” But Marshall stated the comment in question didn’t cite any such consensus and “was about ‘ideologically captured fields,’ which is a red flag for a U.S. alt-right perspective.”   One editor told me that they “would be concerned about POV-pushing, especially when we say ‘sources say.’ Are those sources objective? Is it really a consensus among experts or just a consensus among motivated academics?”  Other editor sources provided mixed opinions on Marshall’s close. One editor with many years at Wikipedia, almost entirely outside of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict topic area, told me: “When he says ‘we follow the scholars,’ he’s saying ‘we follow a subset of sources guaranteed to find Israel guilty of everything, including the Lindbergh kidnapping’… Anti-Israel bias is baked into the Wikipedia power structure, as he could have easily used his discretion not to have Wikipedia accuse Israel of genocide in ‘wikivoice.’” Another editor told me that “when you have a field filled with partisanship, ‘a predominance of academics’ means nothing. It’s about quality of scholarship, plain and simple, and maintaining a robust and self-critical neutrality that is not common enough in a space currently filled with an abundance of veiled politicking.”... Two of my editor sources pointed to a couple of the scholars’ cited in the survey should be discounted, such as a French sociologist and anthropologist writing an op-ed in Le Monde quoting someone from Jewish Voice for Peace and an international relations professor being interviewed in Anadolu Agency, the Turkish state-run media outlet that Wikipedia considers as being generally unreliable on international politics and contentious topics. “He’s literally quoting an activist in an [Le Monde] op-ed,” an editor who grew disillusioned with Wikipedia after making thousands of edits told me. “That means nothing regarding scholarly consensus and would very rarely even be proper for an article.” Regarding the Anadolu Agency citation in the survey, the editor said that “if the highest quality source for something like this would be, say, a well-known professor of international law publishing a peer-reviewed paper in a high-quality academic journal, then this guy who’s in an ‘adjacent’ field with no specific expertise giving his unreviewed opinion in the state-run media of an enemy state is not very high.” Further, the editor noted that establishing the majority view among scholars “is also somewhat of a numbers game as whoever has more people looking is likely to find more sources supporting their side. There are thousands of academics in many fields.”   That said, another editor told me that “the lack of pro-Israel academics is one of the major gaps here.”  It is also worth noting that the current inclusion criteria in the “List of Genocides” article was changed in April from “that are recognised in significant scholarship as genocides in line with the legal definition of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide” to its current iteration after enough editors argued that it would be better to simply follow what the scholars say as opposed to having it be narrowly toward the 1948 definition and follows the criteria for other lists on Wikipedia. “This definitely seems to be related to recent politics and this sort of discarding precedent, moving target and ground shifting under us is one of the major challenges,” an editor said.   I have previously reported on how editors renamed the “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza” Wikipedia article to “Gaza genocide”; a challenge to the close of that discussion on procedural grounds ultimately failed. An attempt in September to rename the article from “Gaza genocide” also quickly failed after a few days.   One editor told me that they hope Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, which is the site’s version of a Supreme Court of sorts, opens a case “that deals with both the claim calling this a genocide as well as editor behavior.”"
Ideological bias is only a problem when it threatens the left wing agenda

ICC decision breaches its own foundational principles, says former minister - "“At the request of the special prosecutor, Karim Khan, and with the cooperation of the prime minister of Israel, I helped facilitate meetings between them,” he explained. “Well, on the very day that the ICC’s team was supposed to come to Israel … Karim Khan, the special prosecutor, peremptorily cancelled that visit and on the same day held a press conference … calling for arrest warrants against both Netanyahu and Gallant, along with Hamas leaders.”Cotler viewed this move as a breach of the ICC’s foundational principles.“To me, that was a breach of his own principle of cooperation, let alone also the principle of complementarity,” he emphasized.Cotler added that when he heard Khan was going to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, he told the ICC prosecutor, “If you do that, the effect will be to incentivize … antisemitism as well.” Cotler accused Khan of applying double standards, contrasting the ICC’s leniency toward Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro with its aggressive stance on Israel: “Previously he [Khan] had visited with the Venezuelan dictator Maduro. … He agreed not to institute arrest warrants with respect to the Venezuelan dictator … but yet he called for arrest warrants against the prime minister and defense minister of a fellow democracy.”“You can’t go ahead and give the Venezuelan dictatorship a waiver from an arrest warrant because you said you cooperated with them, and then call for an arrest warrant against a democracy when they have been willing to cooperate and you have not cooperated with them,” Cotler argued.He underscored the importance of the principle of complementarity, which holds that the ICC should defer to a country’s own judicial processes if they are robust and independent.“I have taken the view that Israel always had to use the very words of the prosecutor, Karim Khan himself, ‘a robust and independent judiciary,’ and that should be sufficient for purposes of combating an ICC warrant,” he stated. Cotler has strongly advocated for Israel to establish an independent state commission of inquiry to investigate any alleged misconduct, which he believes would strengthen Israel’s position against the ICC's charges... He criticized the ICC’s alleged moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.“The United States has called what the ICC has done as outrageous, given as well the false moral equivalence that has been created between a democracy like Israel … and not only a terrorist organization, but a genocidal antisemitic terrorist organization like Hamas,” Cotler remarked... Throughout the interview, Cotler stressed the critical need for democracies to stand united against authoritarian regimes and uphold the principles of justice.“This must serve as a wake-up call … for the community of democracies,” he urged. “We need to have the other G7 countries [take action].”He criticized actions like Australia’s refusal to allow former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to enter the country for a security conference.“I thought that was shocking. … Punishing the leaders of that democracy without any basis whatsoever,” Cotler remarked. “That’s the only way I can characterize what the Australian government did.”"

Canada would arrest Israeli PM if he came to Canada: Trudeau : r/canada - "Where is the arrest wannt for Kim Jong Il? How about Nicolas Maduro? Lukashenko? Oh right, Guterres was hugging him the other day."
"Palestine's government launched the worst attack on Jewish people since WW2. The very same day, Lebanese militia (located less than 100m from UNIFIL bases) launched hundreds of rockets at civilian homes. Where was the ICC in October 2023?"

Victims of Oct. 7 attack file multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against crypto billionaire - "Victims of the October 7 Hamas attack filed a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit in a California court against the CEO of a major cryptocurrency exchange, alleging the platform facilitated Hamas terrorism through cryptocurrency financing, violating international sanctions and US laws."

Michel Juneau's answer to Are you surprised that famine is imminent in northern Gaza? - Quora - "No. I am surprised that you ask the question.  Famine is real in Yemen, and in the Sudan, which have seen over 300,000 and possibly 1.5 million deaths respectively. No one knows because the international press don’t go there: partly because it is really difficult and dangerous to get there, but mostly because you can’t blame the Jews: no Jews, no news.  Meanwhile, in Gaza there may be starvation - there is no way of knowing - but there certainly isn’t famine. Look at the condition of Hamas captives: they are obese, almost to a man.  If there is starvation in Gaza, it is absolutely clear that this is due to Hamas stealing the food provided as relief for the people of Gaza."

The U.N’s Anti-Israel ‘Genocide’ Purge - WSJ - "The United Nations long ago lost credibility as a moral arbiter, but its assault on Israel is hitting a new low. On Wednesday the U.N. will refuse to renew the contract of Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the Kenyan who is the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide. Ms. Nderitu is an accomplished mediator, whose U.N. bio describes her as a “recognized voice in the field of peacebuilding and violence prevention.” She has served in that role since 2020 and her tenure has been marked by careful study of humanity’s worst crime. She is being dismissed because she has stood firm in her belief that Israel’s war with Hamas isn’t genocide. In 2022 her office issued a guidance paper on “when to refer to a situation as ‘genocide.’” The paper noted U.N. officials should “adhere to the correct usage” of the term because of the political and legal sensitivities that surround it and “its frequent misuse in referring to large scale, grave crimes committed against particular populations.” Her paper explains that the term “genocide” was coined in 1944 by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe massacres of entire ethnic groups with the intention of eliminating them. That definition, Ms. Nderitu has said, includes the Holocaust, the Hutus’ genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Serbian slaughter of Bosnian Muslims, and may include the ethnic killings now unfolding in Sudan. As a legal matter, establishing a pattern of violence as a genocide requires demonstrating intent. Israel’s campaign of self-defense doesn’t qualify. The war against Hamas has had many deaths, but Israel’s strategy is intended to dismantle a terrorist regime, not eliminate an ethnic group. The Jewish state has gone to great lengths to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, even as Hamas uses civilians as shields so their deaths can be used as propaganda. That’s not what the anti-Israel cabal at the U.N. want to hear. On Nov. 14 the U.N. Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices issued a report supporting accusations of genocide. The report announced it had found “serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws” and “the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank.” The committee is taking its cues from Austrian Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who has spent the past year assailing Israel. His claims are often echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Israel’s critics. The committee is comprised of member states Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka. Senegal and Malaysia are majority Muslim nations with a history of hostility to Israel. Ms. Nderitu serves at the pleasure of Mr. Gutterres, and Mr. Turk and the anti-Israel faction want her out... Beyond Ms. Nderitu’s fate, the damage here includes defining genocide down. The word has become a weapon of political propaganda that will erode its moral authority when it’s needed to describe genuine horrors. Ms. Nderitu may be out, but her refusal to endorse a lie in service of a political agenda has been a profile in courage. Can anyone with integrity survive at the U.N.?"

An ‘OCTOBER7’ plate triggers overhaul of Ontario’s custom licence process

Meme - Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby: "The photo Bernie Sanders used is a child suffering from a degenerative neuromuscular disease and not starving because of Israel.  Where is the media debunking this? They were all over the “cats and dogs” line from the debate, why aren’t they reporting on this?"

Meme - Josh Howie @joshxhowie: "My kid’s school. This is because of racism. This is because the BBC, and pathetic politicians, and corrupt institutions, and Islamists, and far-left assholes, and far-right assholes, have spent more than a year spouting utter shit about Jews. Thanks you fucking pricks."
"Teen thugs attack and board JFS school buses while shouting 'f**k Israel' at children. Police called after attackers threw rocks at buses carrying children returning from school"
Damn suppression of "pro-Palestinian" speech! This threatens freedom of speech because peaceful protesters aren't allowed to hold "Zionists" accountable!

'Zionists leave Britain or be slaughtered': Leaflets distributed in London Jewish neighbourhood - "Leaflets with the writing “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered” were found spread around the streets of Hendon, a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in north London.  The threatening message was written in Hebrew, and the leaflet also stated in English “Zionist Free Zone.” It also read “Ha, made you pick up litter you zianazi freak.”... This incident comes after the neighbourhood was also targeted in October, when antisemitic messages were left at Hendon Golf Club.  Swastikas and messages reading “f*** the Jews” and “Heil Hitler” were raked into bunkers on the golf course right before the start of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur."
Clearly, death threats and violence are good when directed at "Zionists", as long as we're assured that they're not anti-Semitic

Pro-Palestinians swarm an RCMP vehicle belonging to Justin Trudeau's protection detail. RCMP retreat. : r/Canada_sub - "Wow they let them get away it, amazing, what joke. But when actual citizens start protesting he'll call in the cavalry."
"And yet, a bunch of rowdy truckers honking horns was an “emergency”"
"Interesting...pro-terrorist sympathizers are retreated from. The citizenry of the country treated differently. Almost makes one think that the citizens of the country, are the real problem...are they?"
Pro-Palestinians swarm an RCMP vehicle belonging to Justin Trudeau's protection detail. RCMP retreat. : r/Canada_sub - "Orcs don’t care if you are one of their biggest allies/enablers they will attack anyone who isn’t fully committed to their objectives. Notice how they are all fully masked and unidentifiable while committing their crimes? It’s like they know if they get identified for their criminal behaviour and activities or something."

Meme - "GAZA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL"
Teacher: "JUST IGNORE THE MAN WITH THE ROCKET"

American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra announced dead in Gaza captivity : r/worldnews - "also a reminder that among the hostages are americans who america basically did nothing for.  had this been any other conflict the public would have demanded the US take care of its own. but for whatever reason in this particular instance, half the country basically came out in support of the hostages takers."