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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • My reply is to your first paragraph, where you imply the journalists were irresponsible for reporting an imminent ceasefire due to demands from Trump. Despite your expectations, the ceasefire appears to be going forward. You can quibble with the tone or narrative, but this was good journalism from a respected source. Your outrage is misdirected.

    Your second paragraph is entirely in bad faith, as are your replies to me. There is no credible reading of the article that implies Trump is a seasoned statesman who will solve the Israel Palestine conflict. Netanyahu has given indirect support to Hamas as a wedge against Fatah before Oct 7th. The redirection of the conflict into the Fatah-controlled West Bank is consistent with his history of rewarding the most violent actors on both the Israel and Palestinian side. Agreement from Hamas to not substantially interfere in these West Bank incursions to the US and Israel may have been the secret sauce that led Netanyahu to accept the terms.

    You are now shifting the goalposts to Trump solving the conflict entirely. No one thinks that will happen. I’m not impressed.



































  • In run-up to the 1964 election, civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. were given an audience with incumbent president Lyndon Johnson, where he asked them to scale down their protest activity until after the election so he could be confident he could win. They understood correctly that by continuing to protest, they had political leverage.

    Imagine an alternative reality where LBJ had not signed the Civil Rights Act, and instead Barry Goldwater had won and increased the segregation and discrimination facing African-americans. Would you blame them for using the only electoral political leverage they had available, and laugh at their misfortune?

    The only check the worst excesses of the Trump presidency has is the potential for widespread civil unrest. The Democrats aren’t capable of that. Grassroots Palestinian-american organizations are. In building that base of resistance, we shouldn’t make the same mistakes that caused the Democrats to lose the election. In the words of Nate Silver:

    Democrats…often get angry with you when you only halfway agree with them. And I really think this difference in personality profiles tells you a little something about why Trump won: Trump was happy to take on all comers, whereas with Democrats, disagreement on any hot-button topic (say, COVID school closures or Biden’s age) will have you cast out as a heretic. That’s not a good way to build a majority, and now Democrats no longer have one.

    Abbas Alawieh is concerned for the lives of his family and friends under another Trump regime. We all are. He is one of us.



  • I appreciate your transparency. It sounds like this was an honest mistake and not intentional ban evasion. It is true that we hold solarpunks to higher standards of discourse than you may be used to on other platforms. The members may be right to be concerned. I understand many of the people you’ve sparred with in the past have not engaged in good internet etiquette either. But you could really help us out as admins by making a commitment to good-faith debate, at least while using this account.

    I don’t consider your participation in this thread ban evasion. This is not the kind of discussion that should be moved to direct messages. If @auk wants to ban you, we can move this discussion to !meta.