... oh dear gods, now that you mention it, he literally fucking WORKED FOR Hasbara, in 1996.
I was gonna say "If I was embarrassed about something I did in the past I wouldn't want to bring it up either" but Shapiro literally CREATED some of the rhetoric that tried to brainwash me when I was a kid. What the FUCK man... D:
now to be fair, and maybe shapiro doesn't even DESERVE my charitability but i'm gonna spare it anyway... we're all subject to propaganda in our youth and he's no exception. Apparently his views were more militant back in the 90s when he was in college and he even tried to VOLUNTEER for the IDF.
But ... like ... back then, we didn't KNOW the kind of shit we know today. It wasn't common knowledge or easy to find out for college age (or in my case elementary school age) kids just how BARBARIC the colonizing state of israel was making shit for the indigenous population. Hell, before I KNEW better (to my great shame) I was a snot nosed little zionist when I was little. Because I was also still under the thrall of religion back then too and thought (erroneously) that "israel=always the good guys".
It's fairly likely he didn't know back then the awful shit the IDF gets up to. It's easy to look back on the past from today and think "oh yeah it's obvious" but israeli defense force soldiers RAPING palestinian civilians and then israeli statist simps RIOTING to stop those rapists from facing punishment for their crimes was actually NEWS to me not too long ago.
I WANT TO BELIEVE that he didn't try to sign up for the IDF with the intent of raping and pillaging trapped and marginalized victims of an apartheid police state like some kind of died in the wool mustache-twiddling villain. And I don't want people pretending as though he was, either.
all in all, his history ain't a good look, and looks significantly worse than walz's, who, far from actively agitating for israeli aggression at any point in his life, was just kind of going with the flow possibly not even realizing what he was agreeing to just as many of us used to before we found out the truth.
i'm not gonna hold my breath hoping, but there's still at least a chance that whoever gets picked might grow a better moral compass and come out against this abject fuckery the state of israel is perpetrating. It's merely that, between the two of them, my perception is that walz is more likely to evolve his position to the better than shapiro.
wow viking_hippie did a way better job than i ever could have expressing the things i wanted to communicate in lieu of any ability on my part to streamline and organize my thoughts in a concise but thorough manner...
but even though i'm very much NOT a fan of shapiro and i mostly agree with everything viking just said, that one bit about "Palestinians are too battle-minded", iirc, was from an editorial he wrote in college back in the 90s, and while it IS a vile position to hold... not everyone was gifted with foreknowledge that it was baseless propaganda.
I learned better since the 90s myself that, no, the middle east has NOT in fact 'always been at war throughout all of history', ACTUALLY. If i sound somewhat salty right now it's out of shame for my past. I myself didn't learn until over a decade later that the middle east's history had a shit ton more nuance.
None of us are immune to propaganda. As much as I dislike shapiro's present positions I actually want to give him the benefit of a doubt that MAYBE he no longer actually espouses this position to this day, and I couldn't find evidence (perhaps just skill issue??) either way.
So, TL;DR: it's healthy to pump the brakes and ask ourselves how legitimate some of the criticisms of someone are, EVEN IF the rest of the criticisms are unfortunately accurate.
I'm not out here to demonize someone. I only set out to qualify exactly why I prefer Walz over Shapiro. Thank you both for being good sports about it!
holy shit what if we did a concentrated push to cancel the voter registrations of every republican we could find on facebook JUST HYPOTHETICALLY FOR LEGAL REASONS THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT ONLY
It would be so fucking funny if he had a significantly smaller attendance. Like, just a couple dozen idiots. Nobody in the upper stands. I'd laugh SO HARD.
But knowing the Republicans, they'll probably bus people in to populate the event, because that's what they accuse others of doing and they're always projecting.
I'd be so fucking happy if he lost by a massive margin.
By, like, 30 points difference, 65 to 35. Probably impossible unless Republicans are so disenfranchised and embarrassed that they stay home. exceedingly unlikely because they have no empathy, cannot comprehend hypocrisy, and barely process shame. They make up less than 30% of the total population but they're usually 100% committed to vote EVERY TIME.
And make sure it REALLY IS a "cold gun" this time.
Even then, after the Rust incident, I don't imagine Baldwin is in much of a mood to participate as a trump standee in the first place, let alone in a skit that might give him PTSD flashbacks.
Well seeing as a mod removed the comment and also I was being a gremlin about it, don't actually believe it "for real"--shit is stressful, we need to blow off steam sometimes, it's okay to mindfully indulge in a little personal amusement from time to time, but it has to be mindful and I didn't state it mindfully enough.
If spite motivates me to do the right thing (defeat trump, kill the Republican party's organization and viability for the future, force the Democrat party to split to fill the void, repeat while continuously purging chuds from their positions of office while promoting progressives and socialists) then I will embrace spite. But even then, I have to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't change the actual goal.
Furthermore, if you can find a motivation better for you than spite, it's highly advisable. The difference between poison and medicine is both the dosage and whether the disease it's killing is worse. Make no mistake, I'm pretty fucking diseased >_> but I refuse to stop existing just for the sake of others' comfort.
honestly the moment i read what you wrote it INSTANTLY connected itself seamlessly into my headcanon and it's all right there rendered beautifully in 4k with stirring melodramatic music.
only if harris somehow sneaks a bullhorn/megaphone onto the stage so she can still make sure those fuckers hear her when her mic "malfunctions".
fox deserves no respect.
You know how fascists are always projecting; the way he treats normal news agencies tells us all we need to know - it's exactly how we SHOULD be treating his pet agencies.
Furthermore, the way shit has unfolded has left me considerably more entertained than i had been prior to july 21st, so my fanfictionalizing on events that cannot be confirmed is just icing and a cherry on top for myself and most of my friends who also were marveled to watch history turn on a DIME and zoom off in a much happier and completely unexpected direction.
If you thought I was looking a gift horse in the mouth, I can understand why I might've accidentally come across that way, but honestly I haven't been this happy about politics in years. I just happen to also enjoy having a little extra fun with it on the side. My support for kamala is real. REAL SILLY, but also actually real too.
because after being made the butt of a bad joke for the past nearly-a-decade, america needs a good laugh right now.
[the bard IS the orc and he's getting rizzed by the whole tavern]
XD