You can disagree with Maduro and his autocratic actions without supporting sanctions that mostly harm the civilian population.

We really need to vote her out this round, San Francisco deserves better than this

A publication can be credible and also still be extremely biased. If a right wing publication publishes a story " black people say affirmative action is unfair" the story may be factually correct in that they found a couple black people that said it’s bad and quoted them but at its core it’s just a “people are saying” story. Like any “people are saying” story who these people are?, how many of them are their?, do they represent or have power over the people the article is implying they do? Etc. is conveniently left out.

the fact that they chose the story shows bias as well. If the only justification for calling a story news is the fact it fits your worldview than the publication is biased. The publication is responsible for reporting on stories that are relevant and effect a large amount of people. This story does not as it’s just some anecdotes reported to the IDF. If this was a large scale issue reported by independent aid organizations or shown through polling on the ground than that would be a story as it’s actually effecting a large amount of people.

the primary motivation behind this decision was. Obviously it wasn’t building public housing

That doesn’t mean the intent behind the CCP policy isn’t good, well intentioned, or positive

Can you see how I’m confused, do you think the primary intent is for public housing, or for some political drama?

It could be some political drama, we’ll never know what goes on in the HK city council, but if you read the article you’ll see this site wasn’t selected so much as it’s lease was up and the city would be taking back control of it and they needed to do something with it. Yeah some high official could’ve been waiting for the course to come back into city hands so they could build public housing over it and snub a rival, but I think it’s far more likely that the property fell into the cities hands and they decided to turn it into affordable housing because that’s what the city needs, no sinister or alterior motive is needed.

the CCP can’t possibly do something in the interests of the people, their must be something dastardly behind this.

Your just as bad as the tankies who think u.s. aid is just a CIA front, or the Republicans who think welfare is just Democrats keeping black people poor and dependent.

The u.s government and CCP aren’t just full of villains trying to oppress people, both have the capacity for empathy and compassion and do exercise it often.

The above reply could still be true. If you run this sort of hashtag analysis on other countries you could probably find a bunch that the platform is “favoring” .

Hell you could uno reverse this whole argument and say meta is boosting western aligned content. Claiming Instagram is some sort of unbiased real base for social media is a bad premise.

Can’t you / shouldn’t you be wearing a rain coat or outer shell if you think you might get wet?

I get there are some situations where its impossible to keep underlayers dry, like if your on a boat or Backcountry camping, but for the majority of people and situations some layers of cotton or synthetic under a shell should be fine.

What is a government and what is a terrorist group, is Hezbollah a government or a terrorist group?, was the Jim crow bourbon democratic party a government or a terrorist group?, is the Iranian state a government or a terrorist group?

Governments and terrorist groups aren’t mutually exclusive. Many governments, including the U.S., fund and support terrorist groups and terrorist acts, and many terrorist groups provide social and governmental services. Hamas does both, although there terror wing is where most of the resources and energy go, they still are, or at least were, the government of gaza and provided some governmental and social services. Them being a government doesn’t make there atrocities any better or worse, same with the Israeli state.

So is it alright if Russian civilians are bombed because of their broad support for Putin?, or u.s. and Israeli citizens get bombed for their overwhelming support for the IDF and their atrocities?

Killing civilians is bad no matter their politics.

You know who you don’t see constantly complaining about retail theft, grocery stores. Probably because they have a business model resistant to the real cause of all these losses, online shopping and the decline of retail.

It’s easier for the execs though to blame it on retail theft and tell their shareholders that they’re gonna lobby Congress to lock up shoplifters and solve the problem, rather than tell them the business is slowly dying and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Western nations give into terrorist demands going back to the French revolution. Some of those demands were for the freedom of speech that is being trampled on here or other rights and protections we hold dear. For recent examples look at the troubles or even that guy who shot shinzo abe and got the moonies out of Japan.

The focus shouldn’t just be on the means for political change, though the means can be criticized, but the political change itself. Banning book burnings in this case is an afront to free speech and should not be implemented.

It does, it just favors the dominant ethno-religous complex. Much of the western proffesional dress code has basis in christian ideals of modesty. These cultural signifiers don’t occur to us though as they’re so normalized. If you came to work dressed like Angela from the office you wouldn’t be cited because the dress code was written with that attire in mind and people view it as normal. You’ll be cited if you violate those ideas of modesty, eg. Showing midriff, or having different views on modesty, eg. A head scarf.

If you want to say it’s completely neutral you’ll have to exorcise all christian biases and assumptions from western culture, which they dont seem to be doing here.

I could see this going either way for emissions. On one hand people being forced to go into the office requires them to make a daily commute which adds emissions. On the other hand though people being able to work remotely encourages even more sprawl and car dependence for other every day tasks. If you start working remotely in the middle of nowhere you might be commuting less but driving further for other tasks.

Those are mostly for sprinters and short distance runners as they are higher impact and use running cleats with less cushion then softer distance running shoes. They’re also more likely to fall in events like hurdles and it’s better to land on that then on concrete. Most of the shock that could be absorbed by those tracks could also be absorbed by good running shoes. Most events above a mile take place on the streets.

The sticking point for diplomacy is not the annexed lands but the right to return. Arafat would’ve accepted most of the border changes, except the ones in east Jerusalem, and maybe even Hamas would. But Israel will not accept a deal with the right to return, as it would change the demographics so much as to make Jewish democracy nearly impossible. Palestinians won’t accept a deal without it as so many are still cramped in refugee camps looking to return. Combine that with the fact that Israel has almost all the power and therefore no reason to negotiate and the idea of a diplomatic solution without heavy outside pressure is impossible

There aren’t any non-violent solutions that would make any impact, Israel has made sure of that. Protests in Israel and Palestine are suppressed and ignored by the increasingly far right Israeli state. Protests in the west are dismissed as anti-semitism and both parties continue to send aid. Boycott divestment and sanctions have been made illegal. Every vote in the u.n. or attempt to try the Israeli government on human rights abuses is vetoed by the u.s.

If you want to see what happens when they give up on violence look at the west bank. Fatah has long ceded military control to Israel and have they been rewarded with any degree of autonomy or rights for Palestinians? No just continual encroachment and violence from settlers and the IDF.

things were happening that seemed like the whole thing could come to a resolution without hamas being involved.

This is utter fantasy. There was/is a growing movement on the left in the west recognizing the abuses of the Israeli regime but that movement was very marginal and would probably remain so in the near future. The governments and ruling elites in the west still overwhelmingly supported Israel and were willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses, even as they have increased under the new far right government that came to power recently. Even the Arab countries that previously championed the Palestinian cause were defecting.

The trajectory of this conflict before Oct 7th was a slow legalistic ethnic cleansing in the west bank backed unquestioningly by the United States. A few more leftists might protest it in the U.S. but they are fundamentally impotent against the inertia of the current system as a majority of the people don’t know or care about Palestine. Doesn’t matter if a tweet calling Israel an apartheid state gets millions of likes if the U.S. Congress still votes 430 to 5 for aid to Israel every time it comes up.

The Palestinian cause needed something to keep it relevant and shake up the status quo that was slowly killing it. Oct 7th was probably one of the worst ways to do it, but at least more people know about how horrible the system is.

Sounds closer to “from sea to shining sea, let freedom ring” but no one calls America the beautiful a call for genocide.

Palestine doesn’t have any oil. There’s some offshore deposits in the Mediterranean but Israel already has full access to those.

That’s asymmetric warfare for you, if hamas operated like Israel and had bases out in the open they’d be annihilated in a week. Israel would probably do the same if hamas had overwhelming air superiority.

Most Palestinians don’t support Hamas but most do support armed resistance, mostly because every other form of resistance has been taken away from them. That’s why they were voted in in 2006, and if Israel does succeed then whoever takes over after will probably just as militant, unless Israel gives them some other way to effectively protest mosque raids and west bank settlements.