Look, I left something unsaid, certainly. I can't say that this particular incident would have happened or not if Israel were not currently engaged in genocidal acts on a daily basis. What I can say is that Israel clearly uses antisemitism as a shield and a pretense for those genocidal acts, and in less dire times, for the decades of lower level but equally unjust and horrific oppression that has characterized the occupation of Palestine from the beginning.

The ONLY time I experienced targeted antisemitism (graffiti & threats at my synagogue) as an American Jew growing up in a liberal area, was in the lead up to the second intifada as the Camp David Accords fell apart. So yes, antisemites are responsible for their own antisemitism, and antisemitism like any kind of prejudice is fundamentally unjustifiable - of course. And no, by that token, of course nothing Israel could do would justify antisemitism. What a moralistic statement like that misses, however, is the reality that antisemitism ebbs and flows with the state of the conflict in the holy land, and that Israel uses it as a self-reinforcing narrative to justify their ongoing crimes against humanity, paradoxically reinforcing the very thing they claim to be fighting against, and making the world less safe for the people they claim to fight for.

And to make it all very clear. I am blaming antisemites for antisemitism. Conflating Jewish identity with the state of Israel is antisemitic. Zionists are antisemitic.

In the US, there are positive and negative stereotypes, too. German efficiency and Japanese perfectionism and perseverance are among them. Jewish intelligence and commitment to education, too. These things have a basis in reality, of course, but they shouldn't be mistaken for reality itself. It seems to me these things appearing in your textbooks were probably attempts by your own government to get its people to emulate what it sees as positive traits in other cultures, rather than an attempt by foreign adversaries to paint Chinese people as inferior. Of course, when the message was a little too unclear or negative as in the "toxic textbooks" incident, your government deflected blame.

The issue, addressed in the article, is that these rural areas used to have industry that gave people a sense of purpose. Now the choices are basically move to a city, die of a heroin overdose, or join a right wing militia. We need to give these people something to do that's beneficial and where they feel they're contributing to their communities, otherwise, they're going to be wooed by groups with ulterior motives that dress their goals up in rhetoric of service and cohesion.

The real mistake may have been attempting to pivot to Iran in an attempt to reinstate the JCPOA. As admirable a goal as that is, I also think it's clear Trump squandered any trust Iran had in the US when he cancelled it. Iran has taken the Biden admin's overtures as an opportunity to test its regional influence, instead of being a good faith negotiating partner - and why would the Biden admin have expected anything else when the US hadn't been a good faith partner? Trump was awful on foreign policy, and set middle-east peace back decades, but Biden has completely failed to understand and adapt to the new status quo.

Humanity divorced itself from nature long before capitalism existed. Without natural bounds on growth, any organism will multiply indefinitely. Every technology we've developed, from stone tools and fire to transistors and fractal antennas, has been in service of removing natural bounds. After the world wars, people were concerned about our ability to feed an exploding population, then the green revolution happened. Today, we're grappling with how to feed 3 to 4 times as many people, as well our depletion of other natural resources and the effect we're having on the planet as a whole. We're developing fusion, solar & wind, carbon sequestration, desalination, vertical farming & hydroponics, and the asteroid mining and extraterrestrial colonization you mention.

It's scary now because it feels like we're truly on the brink of destroying ourselves - outgrowing our planet's ability to host us in multiple different ways - without a nascent technology close at hand to save us from ourselves again. We're smart, but are we smart enough to defeat nature entirely? Either we stay one step ahead of perpetual growth, or we finally realize that perpetual growth is the one natural thing about ourselves that we have not managed to truly grapple with.

I think the intention is to highlight it as a milestone in the development of this aircraft. If you read the article, sounds like it hasn't even been on a test flight yet.

I have replaced your child.

~ Gacek

You're right, punishment is only one of very many factors. Thanks for making my argument for me.

Russia can cry about their red line all they want, but it wasn't in the treaty. The Revolutions of 1989 made it clear Eastern Europeans weren't interested in Russian control, the Balkans were unstable, and the Chechen & Georgian wars stoked fear in the former Soviet states. All NATO had to do was open their doors, and again, nothing in the treaty forbade it.

But it isn’t exactly a cut and dry case to everyone why an old demented goon is any better than a shitty asshole businessman.

You know, I hear you on this one, and I agree we should be understanding of people who vote one way or the other - but that doesn't mean we should tolerate it. Often when I've had conversations with Trump voters, a lot of their opinions are based on ignorance or distortions of the truth, and it's because they've been sucked into a media ecosystem that is purpose-built to feed those distortions to them. A lot of them are working class folks who want to see Trump stick up for the working class and I'm over here like "why would he ever fucking do that have you ever listened to the guy talk what the fuck?" But it simply isn't obvious to a lot of people. I've tried a lot of different approaches with varying levels of success, but I think the most important things are to be open to difficult conversations, to know what you believe and why, and to hold your ground, with a smile of course.

They got them poop scoots.

It appears to be the 4th most important category...