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1210 points jbegley | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.558s | source
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aucisson_masque ◴[] No.43656830[source]
I like to think we are in a better place than russia for instance with all its propaganda and jailed journalists, but then i see these kind of article come over and over....

Most of the people in the 'free world' goes on mainstream media, like facebook to get their news. These companies are enticed to 'suck up' to the government because at the end they are business, they need to be in good term with ruling class.

you end up with most media complying with the official story pushed by government and friends, and most people believing that because no one has the time to fact check everything.

One could argue that the difference with russia is that someone can actually look for real information, but even in russia people have access to vpn to bypass the censorship.

Another difference would be that you are allowed to express your opinion, whereas in russia you would be put to jail, that's true but only in a very limited way. Since everyone goes on mainstream media and they enforce the government narrative, you can't speak there. you are merely allowed to speak out in your little corner out of reach to anyone, and even then since most people believe the government propaganda, your arguments won't be heard at all.

The more i think about it, the less difference i see.

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uniqueuid ◴[] No.43656934[source]
You’re not arrested for posting this, so that is a pretty big difference to Russia (and other authoritarian nations like China and Turkey), no?

https://rsf.org/en/country/russia

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ath3nd ◴[] No.43657520[source]
> You’re not arrested for posting this

Your funds might be cut off though: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/trump-...

Or your president might declare a wartime law to deport all the immigrants: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp34ylep987o

Or you, a honors student (but not a citizen) might find yourself in an unmarked van if you dared to question the powers that be. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrn57340xlo

Sure it happens to immigrants only for now, brings memory to this poem:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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throwing_away ◴[] No.43658205[source]
It's not unreasonable to see the situation as "Then they came for the Jews, and the administration finally deported the people who were coming for the Jews".

The president's literal argument for doing it is that the activist groups are coming for all of American life.

I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but clearly the horseshoe has become a ring.

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mmooss ◴[] No.43661682[source]
It's not at all equivalent.

> The president's literal argument for doing it is that the activist groups are coming for all of American life.

What is American life? Why can't people criticize whatever they want - that is American life.

> "Then they came for the Jews, and the administration finally deported the people who were coming for the Jews"

The vast majority of antisemitism is on the right. The administration does nothing about it (and supports and legitimizes much of it).

Also, the Jews will be next. By attacking critics of Judaism, they are entrapping Jewish people (and others) in legitimzing this oppression, and in making themselves into targets of hate. Then when the white supremecists turn on them, and say Jews are conspiring to control American, what will these Jewish supporters of arrests, oppression, and deportations say?

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subscribed ◴[] No.43662908[source]
But Zionism is not Judaism.

Most of the pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist content I see is denouncing Israeli war crimes and genocide. No one is bashing Jews because of their ethnicity or religion.

Also a lot of this comes from the Jews (who are then attacked for being confused or..... antisemitic)

We're not at the point of people hunting Jews because they're Jews. We are at the point when opposing targeting/killing medics, press, children or hospitals may result in being kidnapped from the street and either locked up without charges or trafficked to the torture camp.

I do not disagree with your comment in general, I disagree with you putting "Judaism" while the almost all the critique and rebuke is aimed at the Israeli war crimes or the Zionist supremacy ideology.

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ath3nd ◴[] No.43663270[source]
> I do not disagree with your comment in general, I disagree with you putting "Judaism" while the almost all the critique and rebuke is aimed at the Israeli war crimes or the Zionist supremacy ideology.

It's good that you brought this up!

It's a common right-wing tactic to conflate themselves with the purest version of something that is highly regarded and hide behind it. E.g the Nazis conflated themselves with "pure" Germanness, the fascists in Italy conflated themselves with "pure" Italianness, the same way now Israel conflates itself with Judaism/Jewishness. Then it naturally follows that if you attack Israel's genocide of the people in Palestine, you are attacking Judaism/Jewishness. If you question Netanyahu's genocidal ultra-supremacist ideology (which many Holocaust survivors, Jewish themselves, have done repeatedly), you are anti-Jewish, and so on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4OdkaTqmDs

A similar thing is happening in the US where the current administration is trying to position itself as America-first, so naturally any critique on them must be anti-American, right? You will find that this playbook is always the same. First will be immigrants, then non-traditional sexual orientations and women's reproductive rights, then the press and universities and finally just whoever they feel like.

Fortunately, if history goes to show us anything, it's these hate-fueled-orders always end up imploding.

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weatherlite ◴[] No.43681028[source]
> the same way now Israel conflates itself with Judaism/Jewishness

And the same way now progressives conflate Zionists with White supremacists / Nazis.

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ath3nd ◴[] No.43709037[source]
> And the same way now progressives conflate Zionists with White supremacists / Nazi

Nazism and Zionism are both ultra-right-wing nationalistic ideologies. The conflation doesn't stop on the surface though, but it runs deep in the actions of the two states: The Nazi state during WW2, and the Israeli state:

1. Dehumanizing of "the enemy"

A) Israel dehumanizing Palestinians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_stereotypes_of_Palestin...

B) Nazis dehumanizing Jews: https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-12-04/how-nazi-propa...

2. Using war crimes like starvation to "get rid of the enemy":

A) Israel starving Palestinians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine

B) Nazis starving Jews: https://www.nobelpeacecenter.org/en/news/hitler-s-hungerplan

3. Detention camps and torture

A) Israel detaining and torturing Palestinians: https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/...

B) Nazis detaining and torturing Jews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps

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weatherlite ◴[] No.43715114[source]
Yes Zionists are the Nazis and Hamas are the good guys I got it. Thanks for all the links I read each and every one of them , especially Wikipedia articles about Nazi concentration camps I've never heard of that.
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1. ath3nd ◴[] No.43722540[source]
> especially Wikipedia articles about Nazi concentration camps I've never heard of that.

Glad to have helped! Here is a quiz to see if you can spot the differences between a Zionist and a Nazi: https://zionism.wtf/

By the ways, nowadays it's called a "detention camp":

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-tei...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7vje365rno

But the torture is still torture. Also, this (satirical?) article by the Onion somehow (tragi)comically seems super relevant:

https://theonion.com/historians-quibbling-over-exact-definit...

I am sure I won't hear the end of it how the torture concentration camp of the Nazis is completely different from the much more civilized and completely different torture detention camp of the Israelis. Israelis' of course, have a high regard for their prisoners' well being, especially considering they call them "animals": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr24GcCDgyM

> Yes Zionists are the Nazis and Hamas are the good guys I got it

I probably shouldn't bite, but here it goes: Here are some stats even before the current war started.

https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-cas...

From 2008 to 2020, the death toll is:

- 251 Israeli

- 5590 Palestinians

Does this seem like a fair exchange, cause it seems like 22x higher death toll on one side?

And the current death toll can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_co...

- 9,901–10,239 Israeli

- 104,701–110,887 Palestinians

Does this look like a fair exchange?

I am sure when some Nazis were killed by the French Resistance, somebody Nazi apologist was saying: "see, French are also bad, because they are killing the poor Germans". However, there is a very important distinction:

Palestinians are not the ones stopping humanitarian aid (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-defense-mi...), nor the ones shooting medics and ambulances (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajBouTY-45c), nor the ones repeatedly blowing up hospitals (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr7l123zy5o) all 100% war crimes.

And nobody says Hamas are the good guys: both the leaders of Hamas and Netanyahu and his genocidal posse are sought to be trialed by the ICC for war crimes (https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu).

But the parallels between Zionism and Nazism are so obvious, that they even have a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparisons_between_Israel_and...

I am happy to provide you a summary of the parallels:

- War crimes and crimes against humanity both by Nazis and by the Israeli state

- Dehumanizing the enemy both by the Nazis and by the Israeli state

- Withholding aid and using hunger as a weapon both by the Nazis and by the Israeli state

- Doing an ethnic cleansing (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/03/tragedy-fore...) both by the Nazis during WW2 and the Israeli state

- Both are far-right ideologies based on some feeling of superiority (racial or national/religious)

I mean, yeah, there are differences in the "flavor", like fascism in Italy was different from Nazism in Germany and is different than the contemporary genocidal Zionism by the Palestinian state, but the similarities are far more than the small differences.

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2. weatherlite ◴[] No.43735910[source]
> And the current death toll can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_co...

- 9,901–10,239 Israeli

- 104,701–110,887 Palestinians

Not sure what "fair exchange" would mean here. It looks like

a) A war / protracted conflict , not some kind of one sided genocide. Jews haven't killed thousands of Germans or tried to bring down the German state. Also, if there is one side that is sympathetic to Nazi ideology it is actually historically the Palestinian side (see Mufti relations with Hitler and his contributions to the final solution).

b) One side is clearly stronger than the other side (however, the weak side is doing everything it can to bring the casaulties numbers up. We know Hamas is doing this).

Israel is not going to try get more Israelis killed just so progressives become happier.