Mr. Cooper- I've listened & subscribed for a long time, and I'm very appreciative for all of the work that you've shared. It's enriched my life a great deal. This is the first time I've commented or engaged. While my deepest sympathies (as a free and unfuckingstoppable woman, with many lgbt people and Jews and other assorted haram types …
Mr. Cooper- I've listened & subscribed for a long time, and I'm very appreciative for all of the work that you've shared. It's enriched my life a great deal. This is the first time I've commented or engaged. While my deepest sympathies (as a free and unfuckingstoppable woman, with many lgbt people and Jews and other assorted haram types in my closest personal circle) will always lie with the democratic West and it's imperfectly executed but ultimately superior ethical framework, I have been grateful for the nuance and provocation to deeper thinking that your own worldview has provided. I was touched by this girl's note. It is a good object lesson in the ways that we all essentialize each other. She spoke about "Americans" in the same way that she seems to think that all Americans talk about "Palestinians", as if we are a monolith. It's human nature. I'm sure people on the internet are engaging in all kinds of Neanderthal rhetoric around this nightmare, on all sides. In the vein of "most people are basically decent", I have to believe that the vast majority of people around the world understand that Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians. However, the horrible truth is that until the many Palestinian people of good heart and good faith decide to rise up, and reject with force and conviction the monstrous ideology that has grown up within their community, they will never be free. The outside world cannot free Palestinians (or Muslims more broadly) from the darkest tendencies that exist in their group, any more than any outside force could save America from the moral crime of slavery. We had to fight nearly to our national death to become righteous, and we are fighting still. The Palestinians will have to fight themselves for liberation, before Israel or any other power can set them free. If they do, they will find that they have more allies in their fight against external oppression than they can even imagine. I believe the Israelis would be first among their allies, in fact.
I would like your young letter writer to know: how many of us pray every day that the decent people in her world will gain the upper hand against the terrorists and the merchants of hatred. We know you are there, and we know that you are the first, and most numerous, and most tragic victims of Hamas/ISIS/Taliban/Hezbollah etc. All decent people are weeping for you, and are yearning for you to be free, so that you may put your desperately needed shoulders to the wheel beside us, as we continue to strive towards the ideal of universal human freedom. Godspeed.
The slave states of the United States were stopped by an outside force. The people of the slave society did not rise up and overthrow the slave owners. The change did not come from within. The slave south refused to do what outsiders told it to and then the outsiders forced their states to change.
If the northern states had imposed a regime as cruel as Israel’s on the south, you can bet that vicious guerrilla fighting would have continued for decades until the cycle of reciprocal atrocity tore the country back into two. White southerners railed against the occupation of the north as unjust and oppressive, but ultimately the north’s policy it forced on the rebellious states has nothing of the brutal dehumanization that Palestine has experienced. The extremist resistance movements of the south such as the ku klux klan were suppressed with targeted anti-insurgency campaigns. Not with indiscriminate massacre. Because while the north was an outside power imposing its moral will on the south, it did not dehumanize southerners or treat them like animals.
All of that is to say, your analogy to the US Civil War is completely inappropriate, because the population that practiced slavery did not rise up and overthrow the institution. The north did not rise up against its own leaders. The south seceded and formed another country whose leadership was overthrown from above and then the occupiers proceeded to rebuild the society they had invaded.
To be somewhat fair I think that after Sherman and Reconstruction the people of places like Atlanta might disagree that what they faced was less dehumanizing than what Israel is doing to Palestine. Israel has done some rotten things but they haven’t gone scorched earth. Yet.
I take your points, and thank you for them. However, your story about the American Civil War, while consisting of statements that are not facially false, doesn't exactly qualify as a definitive description of what I think most people could agree was a fairly complex period in history. We could do point/counterpoint forever, I suppose- I could bring up Southern Unionists and the fact that the north bothered to fight at all, you could bring up the northern need for southern raw materials and the cynicism of politicians...but it's already a bit boring, no? Tedious legalistic arguments aside, I hope you agree at least a little with my heartfelt well-wishes for the blameless souls whose wicked lot in life it is to be the victims of history, which was really the only point I cared about making.
Well said. I kind of had tunnel vision there for a minute and got fixated on the point, for some reason. (I might be a little sleep deprived today.) Anyway, I share your sentiment for the people involved and I wish you a good night or day wherever you are
Mr. Cooper- I've listened & subscribed for a long time, and I'm very appreciative for all of the work that you've shared. It's enriched my life a great deal. This is the first time I've commented or engaged. While my deepest sympathies (as a free and unfuckingstoppable woman, with many lgbt people and Jews and other assorted haram types in my closest personal circle) will always lie with the democratic West and it's imperfectly executed but ultimately superior ethical framework, I have been grateful for the nuance and provocation to deeper thinking that your own worldview has provided. I was touched by this girl's note. It is a good object lesson in the ways that we all essentialize each other. She spoke about "Americans" in the same way that she seems to think that all Americans talk about "Palestinians", as if we are a monolith. It's human nature. I'm sure people on the internet are engaging in all kinds of Neanderthal rhetoric around this nightmare, on all sides. In the vein of "most people are basically decent", I have to believe that the vast majority of people around the world understand that Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians. However, the horrible truth is that until the many Palestinian people of good heart and good faith decide to rise up, and reject with force and conviction the monstrous ideology that has grown up within their community, they will never be free. The outside world cannot free Palestinians (or Muslims more broadly) from the darkest tendencies that exist in their group, any more than any outside force could save America from the moral crime of slavery. We had to fight nearly to our national death to become righteous, and we are fighting still. The Palestinians will have to fight themselves for liberation, before Israel or any other power can set them free. If they do, they will find that they have more allies in their fight against external oppression than they can even imagine. I believe the Israelis would be first among their allies, in fact.
I would like your young letter writer to know: how many of us pray every day that the decent people in her world will gain the upper hand against the terrorists and the merchants of hatred. We know you are there, and we know that you are the first, and most numerous, and most tragic victims of Hamas/ISIS/Taliban/Hezbollah etc. All decent people are weeping for you, and are yearning for you to be free, so that you may put your desperately needed shoulders to the wheel beside us, as we continue to strive towards the ideal of universal human freedom. Godspeed.
The slave states of the United States were stopped by an outside force. The people of the slave society did not rise up and overthrow the slave owners. The change did not come from within. The slave south refused to do what outsiders told it to and then the outsiders forced their states to change.
If the northern states had imposed a regime as cruel as Israel’s on the south, you can bet that vicious guerrilla fighting would have continued for decades until the cycle of reciprocal atrocity tore the country back into two. White southerners railed against the occupation of the north as unjust and oppressive, but ultimately the north’s policy it forced on the rebellious states has nothing of the brutal dehumanization that Palestine has experienced. The extremist resistance movements of the south such as the ku klux klan were suppressed with targeted anti-insurgency campaigns. Not with indiscriminate massacre. Because while the north was an outside power imposing its moral will on the south, it did not dehumanize southerners or treat them like animals.
All of that is to say, your analogy to the US Civil War is completely inappropriate, because the population that practiced slavery did not rise up and overthrow the institution. The north did not rise up against its own leaders. The south seceded and formed another country whose leadership was overthrown from above and then the occupiers proceeded to rebuild the society they had invaded.
To be somewhat fair I think that after Sherman and Reconstruction the people of places like Atlanta might disagree that what they faced was less dehumanizing than what Israel is doing to Palestine. Israel has done some rotten things but they haven’t gone scorched earth. Yet.
I take your points, and thank you for them. However, your story about the American Civil War, while consisting of statements that are not facially false, doesn't exactly qualify as a definitive description of what I think most people could agree was a fairly complex period in history. We could do point/counterpoint forever, I suppose- I could bring up Southern Unionists and the fact that the north bothered to fight at all, you could bring up the northern need for southern raw materials and the cynicism of politicians...but it's already a bit boring, no? Tedious legalistic arguments aside, I hope you agree at least a little with my heartfelt well-wishes for the blameless souls whose wicked lot in life it is to be the victims of history, which was really the only point I cared about making.
Well said. I kind of had tunnel vision there for a minute and got fixated on the point, for some reason. (I might be a little sleep deprived today.) Anyway, I share your sentiment for the people involved and I wish you a good night or day wherever you are
Bless you, Ethan. Good night from Yonkers, NY 😆