Cory1848

He said (in October 2024), “You’re not going to have a war with me, that I can tell you.” On election night, he said, “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.” Etc. etc. Of course, given the thousands of documented lies he’s told while in office during his first term and this one, one can’t put any stock in the flatulence that comes from his mouth at any given time, nor I’m sure is he able to keep track of it. Just this past week, the stream of lies and contradictions that have come from him and members of his administration on the Iran matter is breathtaking. If this is the kind of “leadership” that blows your hair back, then I’m glad you’re in a shrinking minority.

From your post I assume that you are totally in favor of this war, so just a quick question: further assuming that you voted for (or at least supported) Trump during the 2024 election, what did you think then about his promise that there would be no new Middle East wars, no regime change wars, and that those who favored such wars should vote for Harris? Did you know that he was lying at the time and that of course he would start the wars that you always wanted, or have you totally changed your opinion on this: that when Trump promised no new wars in 2024, that sounded great at the time, and now that we’re engaged in one very hot war and at least a few other foreign conflict situations, well, that’s great, too, because, after all, it’s Trump who’s doing it. Just wondering. P.S. “Another two or three weeks”? When was the last time a war in the Middle East ended after just a few weeks? Where is your head at, man?

Exactly. In plain English, “anti-Semitism” means hatred of Jewish people. That’s how the word is universally used and understood. People I’ve encountered who try to obfuscate this fact by saying that semitic languages include Arabic and Amharic, etc. etc., often have been accused of anti-Semitism themselves, and they’re just trying to muddy the waters by calling into doubt the very legitimacy of the word.

Exactly. Western meddling in Iran goes back to Alexander the Great.

Great summary. The immediate benefits of this attack are: (1) The buried testimony of a 14-year-old girl sexually abused by Trump is no longer in the headlines, at least for now. (whew!) (2) An overseas conflict provides some rationale for meddling in the 2026 elections in some way. (3) A “war president” generally gets higher approval ratings in nationwide polling. (This worked wonders for Bush II, who managed to convince lots of Americans that attacking Iraq was a great idea; though it’s likely to backfire on Trump, as nobody wants what he’s doing.) And while, as you point out, the Saudis and Emiratis (and also Qatar) have plowed money toward Trump (Rachel Maddow a few days ago gave a good summary of the “follow the money” argument), making it look like they’ve purchased this attack, and while Iran has been a rival to the Gulf states in many ways (and has been involved in a proxy war with the Saudis in Yemen), I’m not sure how total chaos in Iran would benefit them, at least over the short term, with their airports getting bombed and tourists staying away, the Strait of Hormuz closed, etc.

Not to belabor the point, but scholars from various fields are in broad agreement about the historical existence of Jesus, and about his crucifixion, based on some existing texts by historians contemporary with the period who mention these events, and based on other evaluative tools that professional historians utilize in piecing together events from antiquity. Wikipedia’s page on <Crucifixion of Jesus> discusses these issues, particular the “Historicity” section, and if you’re a Wikipedia skeptic, the article is heavily annotated, so you can go back to the source articles. Are we absolutely certain that the Jewish Elders condemned Jesus and that the Romans then carried out the execution? No, but I think, based on centuries of research, we can be reasonably certain, which has to be good enough. Are we absolutely certain how Hitler, Eva Braun, and Blondi were killed? You tell me. More pertinent perhaps is the way in which the statement “the Jews killed Jesus” has been twisted into a trope that has been effectively exploited by antisemites for centuries. Actually, if it’s true (as it likely is) that some Jews (the Jewish Elders) had a hand in killing Jesus, that’s the least antisemitic statement you can make. It demonstrates that Jewish people in power, when challenged, behave exactly the same as other people in power; and that Jews are in fact the same as everyone else.

What historians identify as Jesus is just that -- the person, human just like you and me, who lived for some thirty years in Roman Judea and was executed. And you’re right, that should have no relevance to anyone’s life today, but given the subsequent growth of the Jesus cult, the actual facts of his life are necessarily of interest and relevance to scholarship. The historical accounts that you dismiss are actually not as unreliable as you claim. Two millennia of scholarship have enabled researchers to gauge the reliability of historians such as Josephus, Tacitus, and others who wrote about Jesus, and the basic facts of Jesus’s life are pretty widely agreed upon, though details are thin. Simple common sense enables historians and others to distinguish between what’s clearly mythological and what might be real.

What you say makes no sense. The comparison with Dionysus discusses attributes of the mythologized Jesus -- the vast fictions that were written about him later. It has nothing to do with whether there was a human named Jesus of Nazareth who, for a brief time, was a bugbear to local Jewish authorities in Roman Judea. I have no argument with what Google AI says here, but it completely misses the point.

You’re quite right: the “Jews killed Jesus” trope has been used endlessly, for more than two thousand years, to rouse up antisemitism. My own brother-in-law, a disgusting antisemite, says this again and again. However, as lots of people here have pointed out, that doesn’t erase the fact that some Jews, namely the Jewish Elders who put Jesus on trial and condemned him for sedition, had a role in killing Jesus. (The Romans of course carried out the execution.) I think there’s historical evidence, and much agreement among scholars, that these events occurred. Of course, in this regard, the Jewish Elders were behaving no differently from other people with power, across all eras and all cultures, when faced with a troublemaker who challenged them. (And also, at the same time, thousands of other Jews were Jesus’s ardent followers.) I think what the simplistic “Jews killed Jesus” trope and its long-lasting power tells us is that it doesn’t take much to rile up a crowd, if you can produce an “other” whom they can blame for their problems, regardless of how illogical -- whether the “others” are Jews, or Muslims, or Tutsis (in Rwanda), or trans people, or Blacks, or people who happen to speak Spanish.

As I understand it, the Romans considered the whole Jesus issue to be a provincial matter, and they were reluctant to get directly involved. So the Jewish Elders convened the Sanhedrin trials, which condemned Jesus of sedition. This, then, gave the Romans the “documents” they needed to step in and carry out the execution (by crucifixion, as you say).

I think you’re only considering the two extreme possibilities. There’s plenty of evidence from historians of the period (Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, and others) that Jesus existed, and was tried and executed. And while he apparently had a sizeable following of commoner Jews, he challenged other Jews who had power (the Elders), who saw him as a big-time troublemaker. So they put him on trial and worked with the imperial power (the Romans) to have him executed; as such, the Jewish Elders behaved no differently from other people with power, across all ages and cultures. Afterward, Jesus’s followers grew into a cult (a few of them writing the Gospels -- part fact, heavily embellished, and much fiction), which over time developed the absurdist superstructure of what became Christian belief (referring to the “son of God” stuff, not Jesus’s actual teachings). Stephen Stills probably has it mostly right -- that Jesus was the world’s “first nonviolent revolutionary.” I’m sure, if Jesus could somehow know, he would be surprised, and more than a little puzzled, that he still holds so much influence in the world today.

She looks like Stockard Channing when she played Rizzo in the movie "Grease."

Israel has indeed taken several wrong turns and has created an apartheid state in the West Bank, a situation that goes back before Netanyahu. However, there are progressive elements within Israel itself (and certainly among Jewish people worldwide), and I can only hope that they can somehow take control of the Israeli state and resume seeking accommodations. There must be ways to encourage them while sanctioning the Netanyahu government. My original point here was that most commentators on the Israel/Palestine conflict, including most people posting here, are 100 percent in one camp or the other, leading them to demonize an entire class of people (whether Arabs, all of whom become “terrorists,” or Jews, and the two-millennia-long history of antisemitism needs no recapitulation). This serves only to stir up anger and prolong the conflict. One can simply be on the side of peace, while acknowledging errors and good intentions on both sides.

Thanks -- that lays it out pretty well. And the trope of aliens coming to rescue us from our own stupidity (and prevent us from destroying an otherwise very valuable planet) is fairly common; take the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original with Michael Rennie or remake with Keanu Reeves, both great movies). Meantime, there’s this, which can be interpreted in a few different ways:

I think it’s entirely possible to acknowledge that, while Israel has every right to defend its security and while Hamas is the worst sort of terrorist organization, Israel’s response to Hamas’s 2023 attack has mostly victimized (and killed) innocent Palestinian civilians, and its ongoing appropriation of land in the West Bank is illegal and wrong. Both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs deserve progressive leadership that honestly seeks peace and accommodation.

Couldn’t agree more. What business does a game show host, for instance, have spouting his political opinions, or even throwing his hat in the ring. He should stick with what he knows (carnival barking and self-promotion) and leave the politicking to those with a better feel for what “public service” really means. Right?

Brilliant -- thanks!

It’s my understanding that the UN has not taken up the issue of Somaliland independence as the UN has deferred to the African Union on the matter, and African states are wary of secessionist movements (as they well might be, given the utter randomness of present-day state borders across the continent, thanks to colonial indifference to long-standing tribal boundaries). And while I am in favor of international rules and the UN in principal (though the UN is flawed and often toothless), perhaps you are being overly legalistic here. Somaliland bases its independence on the 1960 border (as someone else pointed out) and since 1991 has built its state from the ground up; it is stronger and more unified than many UN members around the globe. If there were a groundswell of recognition -- whether that starts with Israel or Russia or the United States -- it might force the issue, which to me would be a fair outcome.

I suppose I have mixed feelings on this. You’re right: regions should not willy-nilly decide that they want their own state and then unilaterally create one, and expect international recognition. This would cause global chaos. But states and the borders that separate them are purely political structures, and thus by nature they are temporary. And in certain cases, a new state can be fully justified. Somalia (Mogadishu) had fallen into anarchy, and largely remains so; why should Somalis in the northern part of the country (which already had a separate colonial history as British Somaliland) feel obligated to remain part of such a mess, if they are able to create a better future for themselves? Which they have, for more than thirty years now. Should Kosovo have remained under Serbian oppression? Or Roman Catholic Timor Leste under Jakarta? Should the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia not have dissolved? I’m not in favor of global chaos or trashing the UN Charter, but there are cases when a new state is the best and fairest solution.

None of these posts look at this from Somaliland’s perspective. During the past 30 years, they have developed a viable and relatively stable independent state, completely separate from Somalia, which remains in a condition of chaos. Somaliland deserves international recognition as much as, for instance, Kosovo or Taiwan. If Israel is the first state to offer such recognition, then so be it, whatever Israel’s motives.

It does indeed. Religion in my opinion has a quite useful function, in attempting to suggest a set of general rules of civility upon otherwise disorderly creatures, but it primarily does provide a (false) sense of comfort to many.

I agree that corporate money largely directs politics in the US and many other countries around the world (though many Democrats maintain a sense of civic responsibility as well; Republicans have lost all sense any civic responsibility whatsoever). But trying to tie Epstein, basically a wealthy playboy, into any of this seems a stretch. (Some have tried to connect him with the Mossad. What was he doing on 9/11?—Who cares? This seems like pure speculation.) And it seems an even further stretch to claim that “billionaires” control the United States/the world in any organized sense. They use their vast resources to purchase politicians to fulfill specific ends, and sometimes they form ad hoc coalitions (tobacco companies; energy companies) to secure broader policy aims. But other times they compete against each other, and other times powerful politicians might throw them in jail (e.g., Putin). It’s entirely unpredictable. As graphic novelist and self-professed anarchist Alan Moore wrote, “The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy, or the grey aliens, or the twelve-foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening; no-one is in control, the world is rudderless.”

You Trump sycophants really crack me up -- he really COULD shoot someone in cold blood on 5th Avenue, and you’d find some reason to applaud it! He was on Epstein’s plane at least eight times, although he lied earlier saying he’d never done that. Why would he lie, and who knows whether he’s lying now, when he says he did nothing wrong? (He is documented as having lied more than 30,000 times during his first term in office.) But more than that, during his long association with Epstein and witnessing of Epstein’s lifestyle for more than a decade, including all those flights to Epstein’s island, either he was blind to the point of imbecility in not noticing Epstein’s closeness to child trafficking, or he was OK with it. I’ll go with the latter, given Trump’s many comments on Epstein’s fondness for young girls. Granted, until there’s evidence that Trump himself engaged in child rape, there’s no crime here, but are *you* OK that Trump was OK with it? That would suggest that you, too, don’t see child trafficking and child rape as such a big deal. If you did, you wouldn’t want such a cretin to be president.

Of course Somalia has a raft of problems, and one can no longer continue to blame European colonialism, now more than half a century past. The northern part of the country split off to form Somaliland more than thirty years ago, and things are much better there; they deserve recognition and support. However, Trump calling Somalia (and lots of other places) “s**thole countries,” and his calling people of Somali heritage living in Minnesota “garbage,” is not “straight talking,” as you say. It’s provocation, pure and simple, and red meat to his base, of which you seem to be a part. Trump’s comments denigrate entire populations, and while Trump himself may not be personally invigorated by such comments, they do serve to inflame hatred and sometimes violence among the most ignorant (and, yes, racist) of his followers. For this reason, such comments should be loudly condemned as divisive and worse.

You did when you criticized someone else’s use of the word. I just call it when I see it, that’s all.