Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you implying? Genuinely I can’t tell who you think these “men on speeding motorcycles” are? I don’t see anything obviously suspicious in that - if your family was starving would you sit back and let them die? Or maybe hop on a motorcycle and cut to the front of the queue?
I don’t think the people who are starving are the ones with motorcycles and gasoline.
The United States withdraws from UNESCO
651–660 of 989 posts
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#652Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to sign a document saying you won't boycott Israel, academic journals cancel editions which talk about Palestine, you can't be part of UNESCO for Israel. You can't write a college article critical of Israel or we'll kidnap you off the streets into an unmarked van. You can't be a business and not give a contract to Israel or your employee will tip off the Anti Boycott Office against you. Your Congressmen wear…
The right (same people behind project 2025) planned (and are now executing) an effort to use opposition to Israeli policy (calling it anti-Semitic) as a way to crack down and disrupt liberal and progressive groups across the Us. It’s all out in the open, they don’t hide it.
And the left does the same kind of thing when it suits them.
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#653Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hamas, who run Gaza, want to "Globalize the Intifada" and bring violence to Jews worldwide. You speak about ethnic cleansing like if the roles were reversed we wouldn't be seeing the same thing. This is basically just criticizing Israel for having the means. Clearly both have the will. The two parties are locked into a death pact with each other.
Can you link authenticatic sources to back those claims up? Do you even know what the intifada means? Or are you using foreign words to make it sound scary?
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
I deliberately did not answer your question. I refuse to get into the weeds because I reject your premise. I don't know anything about the inner workings of these organizations. (It's really not a "simple question" at all!) It's not my job, I'm just a voter. I have other things to do. You seem to want me to assume that because of this, I have to default to YOUR position. I'm saying, that doesn't match my broad view o…
> If there's one guy who says he's gonna try to slash it, I'll take that guy and hope for the best. Ok, and then what we actually got was elon musk's incompetent "doge" organization. This is literally my point, you have faith that there is this "bad cruft" and so you're willing to believe in, and give power to, incompetent idiots merely because they sound like they agree with your predetermined faith. It's frustratin…
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#655Earlier quoted context omitted.
I deliberately did not answer your question. I refuse to get into the weeds because I reject your premise. I don't know anything about the inner workings of these organizations. (It's really not a "simple question" at all!) It's not my job, I'm just a voter. I have other things to do. You seem to want me to assume that because of this, I have to default to YOUR position. I'm saying, that doesn't match my broad view o…
> I refuse to get into the weeds because I reject your premise. Occam's Razor would indicate that you have made an unsubstantiated claim that you cannot justify and have been deflecting, desperately. Starting discussions in bad faith, is not constructive.
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#656Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some history is called for here. The UNESCO issue extends far beyond Trump. Under the Obama administration, the US stopped financing UNESCO in 2011(!) after it voted to include Palestine as a member state that year. The Trump administration decided to withdraw fully from the agency in 2017. The Biden administration rejoined UNESCO in 2023 and agreed to pay it $600 million(!) in back dues. Now, the Trump administratio…
The 2011 thing keeps getting cited in this thread, but it's wrong . The funding was cut because of what amounts to a booby-trap condition in pre-existing legislation . And they tried to get it overturned by it was blocked in congress. In fact this is an almost perfectly partisan issue, and the 2011 canard is giving cover to some horrifying both-sidesism.
And for what it's worth I never mentioned nor was thinking about "two sides," just multiple distinct administrations. Partisanship wearies me (and the parties have changed a lot over the last 20-30 years)
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#657Earlier quoted context omitted.
A big difference is that in 2022, an estimated five million Ukrainian refugees fled to other parts of Europe - which is more than twice as large as Gaza's entire population. Similarly, many Syrians fled the war there. We could ask why there aren't more Palestinian refugees who fled to other countries? As far as I can tell, leaving Gaza is very difficult, and nobody really talks about making it easier.
it's not that it's hard to leave gaza. it's just nobody willing to accept gazans. and trumps plan that talks about voluntary migration out of gaza is been described as genocide and ethnic cleansing (btw, 75% of them actually registered as refugees by unrwa for past many decades) i never saw anybody been against migration of population out of war zone to safety. in case of ukrainian refugees it was widely discussed th…
I can't think of any comparable historical example of declaring a people's entire territory a war zone and migrating a substantial/majority of the entire population out. Can you? The reality is they'd be unlikely to ever be able/allowed to return, and as such the actual purpose of such a project would be ethnically cleansing the territory.
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s wild to question numbers, but not question the country preventing independent verification of those numbers. You can be skeptical of the gaza MoH all you want, but unless you’re demanding independent verification you’re just enabling what we have to assume is a genocide.
Actual independent verification would be great. Maybe even a coalition of peacekeepers to go in and control Gaza. Hamas could maybe even give up the rest of the hostages. > have to assume is a genocide. ??? Guilty until proven innocent? In what world?
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#659I feel like the US is becoming like China. Very economically important obviously, but will end up culturally irrelevant. It's hard to build up that much ill-will and still be considered glamorous. I can be wrong, and this isn't my personal judgement, but a genuine prediction.
Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO
#660Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're getting ready to bomb Iran's UNESCO sites. They did bomb several UNESCO sites in Yugoslavia and other places while they left. Their boy Grossi also told the whole world that there is a big target on a UNESCO site a short while back.
Which site in Yugoslavia did they bomb?