cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5865739

  • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Where? Not in the 2 minute segment I saw linked above.

    That was just a polite "let me finish and here's what I mean". Not like he spent 2 minutes quickly eviscerating the foundation's of the man's belief. Not like he left them speechless. I've seen people eviscerated in debates or curbstomped if you like and this wasn't it. He wasn't left sputtering or angry or flustered or flailing, he just calmly moved the conversation on after injecting a nice neutralizing "not okay for Jews to have ethno-states what about Muslims" with the pre-supposed, pre-programmed context for that for the viewer being that Hasbara says nearly all Muslim majority states are the same as Israel just for Muslims therefore they're just carving out their own little spot and then they go on this diatribe about Muslims kicking out the Jews and they must give them back their lands and now you're bogged down into this ridiculous historical revisionist conversation with them. He let that go by allowing the assumption it was true and condemning it and going on a "I condemn all death penalty, regardless of reason". So he accepted the premise, he validated it by not throwing it out and staked his argument on liberal ground which is weak and ever-shifting.

    Honestly I'm just angry after seeing that clip above because it's the most boring lib-shit objections imaginable and the people on the other side, excuse me the fascist monsters on the other side are just kind of pushing back because they reject the premise, they reject the premise that they should care about apartheid or that these particular Jews don't have a particular special license to break laws and do crimes, they don't feel any shame, they don't feel any reflection, they feel that those people were entitled to that land and fighting back makes the Palestinians the bad guys, you have to hit hard with very eloquently delivered language and metaphors to break through that shameless white supremacist entitlement and he didn't hit hard enough in the clip.

    And probably for the best he didn't curbstomp them. If he did and he delivered a shining few nuggets of truth he'd be blacklisted from all western mainstream media quick as snap your fingers. He'd be castigated and slandered and deplatformed and so on just like Finkelstein and no defense, no matter how tight it is would matter. Because the job of these people is to present a false narrative, the idea of balanced discussion that involves "both sides" being represented but one side is only allowed a stunted, abridged, lousy version of its facts and truth while the other is allowed endless lies.

    • Dessa [she/her]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Nehisi-Coates took complete control of the conversation and framed this as a moral condemnation of the Israelis, when the anchor wanted the topic focused on why Palestinians deserved to be oppressed.

      Dropping little factual nuggets to refute your opponents claim still center the conversation on their claim and shuts you out. And it's also not usually effective either.

      Also, consider the setting. "Israel is an apartheid state, and nothing can justify that" is a brilliant use of 2 minutes over morning coffee before work for a mainstream audience. This isn't a longform Sunday format for political junkies. This is the CBS morning show.

      If people want more context, that's what the book is for