SevenOfWine @ SevenOfWine @startrek.website Posts 0Comments 51Joined 1 yr. ago
What about these guys? ... Meyer repeatedly argued that there are parallels between the Nazi treatment of Jews leading to (but not including) the Holocaust, and Israel’s dehumanization of Palestinians.
???
Ie. Meyer is explicitly NOT arguing that it is comparable to the holocaust, but only to the treatment of Jews leading up to the Holocaust.
I argue that the act of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people is comparable to the Holocaust.
Your comment above:
if you don’t care about the fact that a Holocaust level genocide
Maybe you misunderstood my criticism, but I wasn't disputing that what was happening was genocide or ethnic cleansing. I was disputing the level or scale of what was happening. Clearly what is happening in Gaza (and the West Bank) is on a smaller scale. 17 million vs. 30,000 in Gaza.
This doesn't make what is happening ok. It just means that it is on a smaller scale than the holocaust.
Please don’t create another straw man to argue over, the number of casualties was never the point
This is not another argument. The number of casualties was my argument from the beginning. The number of casualties may not have been your point, but it was mine when you said that what was happening was on the same level or scale as the holocaust.
This is also not a strawman argument. I am literally adressing something you said in your comment.
On a more general note, this is why comparisons to the Nazis or the Holocaust are rarely helpful, and partly why Godwin's law is a thing.
For example, just because someone isn't Adolf Hitler or a Nazi, doesn't mean they're not a fascist. Calling someone like Ben Gvir or Smotrich a Nazi might feel good, but it allows them to say "Aha! But I don't believe x, y, z. Also, the Nazis hated Jews. I'm a Jew. So you're wrong." It undermines your argument, even if they are quite similar to Nazis. Call them a fascist or racial supremacist, based on things that they actually said and did, and it's far harder to deny.
The comment I replied to said:
a Holocaust level genocide is taking place
30,000 people have died. 17 million people died in the holocaust. That is not on the same level and it is not on the same scale. 30,000 is a significantly smaller number than 17 million.
If you support the Palestinian cause, pretending otherwise is a home goal.
I get that it feels right, because people are understandably angry about all this, but it's not a winning argument. Quite the opposite. If you're provably exaggerating the scale of what's happening, it allows supporters of Israel's far right government to sow doubt and claim you might also be exaggerating about the very very real war crimes and ethnic cleansing they are engaged in.
He's not arguing in good faith.
Here he's arguing that Hamas hasn't rejected anything, ie. they haven't rejected a deal.
Further down in the comments, he says that the Israeli deal is stupid, thereby admitting that there is an Israeli deal which Hamas is rejecting.
Check out his comment history.
I’d argue if you don’t care about the fact that a Holocaust level genocide
17 million people died in the holocaust. IRC the population of Gaza is roughly 2.4 million of which just over 1% have died. That figure includes Hamas militants. The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties in its reports.
It is possible to criticize and condemn Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing, which are without doubt horrific, without distorting the facts.
In fact, it actually makes your criticism more convincing and harder to discount by supporters of the current hard right Israeli government. The fediverse is a bubble on this conflict, but we should be aware that hyperbole does not serve the interests of the Palestinian cause or win the argument outside of this bubble.
Maybe you'll be the exception, but I say this knowing full well that some will call me pro-Israel for this comment. But if anything these extremists are useful idiots for Israel's far right government and its supporters, as they allow them to paint any criticism as anti-semitism or disingenious.
e: this comment already had downvotes within seconds of me posting it. This is not long enough to finishing reading it...
Sorry, but nope.
Attempting to discredit an argument, because of who said it and why they supposedly said it, is a text book ad hominem.
It's especially painful, because you're defending a corporation (run by a white male) with an abysmal record on women's rights, who sell a product that has a track record of damaging young girls' self image, from accusations of purplewashing. Purplewashing being a term, that as far as I know, was originally termed by female feminists. It's a bit like if I quoted Emmeline Pankhurst, and you said the quote was nonsense because I don't know what's it's like to be a woman.
But more generally, I suppose that's the danger of a superficial understanding of identity politics. In practice it is often used to divide groups with a common cause, like how the far right have used TERF ideology in an attempt to divide the LGBTQ+ movement and pit feminists against the trans community, claiming trans women aren't real women, because of (and I quote) "lived experiences". (Luckily actual lesbians don't often fall into this trap, because they know that this is nonsense because they know actual trans people and know they face similar struggles and live through similar experiences.)
And from a feminist perspective it perpetuates gender binaries and essentialism. The whole men are form Mars, women are from Venus nonsense. In the case of the Barbie movie, purplewashing is very similar to pinkwashing, greenwashing, bluewashing, etc. So you don't need to actually be a woman to understand why purplewashing is problematic, just like you don't need to be gay to understand why pinkwashing is problematic.
But hey, what do I know. I'm just Ken.
Anyway, agree to disagree.
is likely coming from a place that is uncomfortable with the kernels of meaning in the film. … in part because the gender of the critic you linked to is also male.
Nah. That's just an ad hominem. The linked article was the second to top link when you do a quick google.
I know the right disliked Barbie because it was feminist. (Mattel denies the movie's feminist, btw. Which should also tell you something. Presumably they were worried it'd cost them money in feminist utopias like Saudi Arabia).
I liked the movie, but was simply pointing out it was also purplewashing for a company with a poor reputation. Which it is. That's a left-wing feminist argument. I mean, the movie's fun and it was super pretty, but patriarchy isn't really all that funny is it? Andrea Dworkin this ain't.
to mere corporate dissent generation when both can be equally true. ... I have to presume is what the creators of the film actually cared about
They can't be equally true in a movie made by a large corporation. IRC Margot Robbie made $50 million. Understandably if you're getting paid that much, you aren't going to spend much time dwelling on stuff like their treatment of women in their factories:
Instead you'll focus on the pretty outfits and avoid mentioning femicide during press junkets.
I remember giving the joystick port on my C64 a wet willy to activate cheat mode on a game. No, I'm not making that up.
Indeed.
This article and my comment are about mugshots not arrest records. But it is good that you point out why arrest records are important.
Why do you think Mattel, a company that's been accused of profiting of child labour and whose dolls have been shown to be damaging to young girls body image, made a Barbie movie?
Nah.
The reality is that this Mattel using feminism to shift product. It's fundamentally no different than when brands pretend to be gay friendly through marketing, to distract from their past and current record. Or when an oil company pretends to be green.
In the case of Mattel, their dolls have causes young girls body image problems and have been accused of using child labour
A relevant bit from a guardian article:
They haven't even been convicted yet, they're supposed to enjoy the presumption of innocence, and yet they're being shamed and punished.
The dead naming really isn't cool either, although that's probably bottom of the list of worries trans people have when interacting with the police given the horror stories I've heard.
Capitalism commodifies dissent. It turns protest movements that argue against the unfairness of the current system into a product or marketing campaign to sell their imaginary solutions. The Barbie is a prime example of this.
I liked the I'm Just Ken song though, and it was a fun movie, but still.