The Hamas agents holding hostages had intact housing and did not look hungry. Meanwhile, 70 percent of the housing in Gaza has been destroyed and the majority of civilians there are very hungry. Both things can be true.
Many decent, thoughtful people worried about the fate of non-combatant women and children are not talking about members of Hamas and their agents. Pretending that all protestors are advocating for Hamas is a cheap straw man argument. These are not all "brainwashed morons". That is intellectually lazy and beneath Mona.
Damon was so right on with activists reducing down complex events into slogans and advertisements. Also, having gone to college, they emphasize becoming an activist rather than just being a responsible citizen, as if they have to have a cause before they even know about the real world.
I was very surprised that in such a long discussion on why the citizens of democracies feel such discontent that it took such a long time for anyone to mention the internet and social media! There should be no underestimating the level of anxiety social media has brought to people's lives.
There's both the jealousy and resentment of those doing better than us, but also the frazzled nerve endings of people--whose brains are wired to keep up with the goings on of a small village--suddenly getting mainlined "news" from all over the world 24 hours a day. How does the brain keep up?
Honorable mentions:
* 2008 financial crisis -- hit the poor and working classes much harder and for much longer than it hit the educated crises.
* Private equity and financialization -- The degree to which private equity makes its profits parasitically moving money from the poor and working class to the very rich has become epidemic and insane.
I very much appreciated this discussion. Thanks to all the regulars and to Tom Nichols (always a welcome voice) for a direct and frank conversation about topics (Israel, Gaza, Ukraine) that simultaneously require nuanced thinking. That's in such short supply these days that I want to offer a standing ovation when I encounter it!
So, my sincere thanks to all. The Bulwark in its entirety is going to help me stay sane over the next 6 months (fingers crossed).
Thank you all for an outstanding episode. I appreciate that Tom cut through the malarkey being parroted online and beyond about the war in Gaza. Hamas planned it this way.
Where is Mona going over the summer? I hope she manages to host most of the upcoming episodes. I really look forward to this show every week, and it's never quite the same when she's not hosting it.
So basically we have a spoiled self indulgent population across multiple economic layers who incessantly compare themselves, not with the rest of the world, but with their equally spoiled neighbor and bemoan how bad they have it. We've become a late eighties movie cliche about endless greed and micro economic ladder climbing on an increasingly narrowing ladder. 'Bout sums it up
Add to that the real world 'vulture chart'. Productivity high wages for too long stagnant and the insanely wealthy getting even more insanely wealthy. Even with real world gross wages exceeding inflation it just isn't enough to make up for the vibe (and in some ways fair) that the game is rigged.
And yet, so inevitable. I vividly recall how Europeans in the 1980s and 1990s consumed all things American (Dallas, sitcoms, movies, McDonalds, KFC) and believed the McMansions and excesses they saw on film represented the US. Similarly, Americans at that time felt they were falling behind if they didn't have the lifestyles depicted on TV and in movies.
Fast forward to the internet and social media, and no surprise.
It's even worse than that. They're not comparing their lives with the real lives of real people, but with fake online personas constructed to compete in that game. That's why everyone who plays that game feels like they are losing.
RE: The Persuasion article on Climate Change Linda mentioned. The study referenced in the piece was about increases in electricity usage, not CO2 emissions. They are related not the same. The study sites increases in electric vehicle uses and manufacturing as a reason for China's electricity use increase. China is far ahead of the U.S. in electric car adoption/market share. In 2022 India and Indonesia were the top 2 countries in the world in electric car market increase. So while the developing world will see the largest energy use increases, but that does not mean they have all turned maga and reject clean technology.
To be fair to the left about calling W an idiot and that 9/11 was a conspiracy- it was generally understood that any diabolical plot would have had Dick Cheney as the mastermind, and W was a useful idiot.
Nichols with his points of Bolton, Ryan….so on point, just like Mona pointing out the activist gaining moral satisfaction from slogans, Bolton and Ryan are doing the same. The thought that they are “morally superior” to the MAGA’s and Trump but unwilling to lose any professional or financial standing over actually acting to help Trump not be re-elected. They are cowards, history will remember their lack of character and spine.
Sorry, but I think Mona's argument here is ridiculous. Bolton and Ryan, like Mike Pence, have publicly stated that they will not be voting for Donald Trump. That helps to create permission for other conservatives to withhold their votes from Trump. They are doing precisely the thing that Nikki Haley would not do. Bolton and Ryan are not helping Trump, but Haley is.
Furthermore, the argument that they are trying to preserve some imagined viability is even more absurd. In today's GOP, refusing to support Trump is the surest way to destroy your viability. Any party in which Ryan and Bolton would be viable would have to be non-MAGA.
I would add that Bolton voted against Trump in 2020. He was against Trump even before the 1/6 insurrection, and he was public about it.
Your point is well taken however; I think they view “viability” with the Republican Party they used to know and haven’t realized it is now a Trump party and not the Republican Party. Many voters have not accepted this either.
This was an incredible episode with so many good takes on a plethora of issues. I guess I just wanna say that the discussion around the IDF's hostage rescue operation was particularly well-covered. Tom's comparison to Mogadishu is very apt. Once you understand that the exfil vehicle extraction the hostage was ambushed from several buildings and that airstrikes were called in on those buildings to cover the extraction the level of civilian casualties make a lot more sense. Hamas is intentionally embedded themselves within high densities of civilians--a war crime in itself--in order to ensure disproportionate casualty counts in the aftermath of a fight. They are using their own people as martyrdom sandbags and it's terrible.
The Hamas agents holding hostages had intact housing and did not look hungry. Meanwhile, 70 percent of the housing in Gaza has been destroyed and the majority of civilians there are very hungry. Both things can be true.
Many decent, thoughtful people worried about the fate of non-combatant women and children are not talking about members of Hamas and their agents. Pretending that all protestors are advocating for Hamas is a cheap straw man argument. These are not all "brainwashed morons". That is intellectually lazy and beneath Mona.
Damon was so right on with activists reducing down complex events into slogans and advertisements. Also, having gone to college, they emphasize becoming an activist rather than just being a responsible citizen, as if they have to have a cause before they even know about the real world.
I was very surprised that in such a long discussion on why the citizens of democracies feel such discontent that it took such a long time for anyone to mention the internet and social media! There should be no underestimating the level of anxiety social media has brought to people's lives.
There's both the jealousy and resentment of those doing better than us, but also the frazzled nerve endings of people--whose brains are wired to keep up with the goings on of a small village--suddenly getting mainlined "news" from all over the world 24 hours a day. How does the brain keep up?
Honorable mentions:
* 2008 financial crisis -- hit the poor and working classes much harder and for much longer than it hit the educated crises.
* Private equity and financialization -- The degree to which private equity makes its profits parasitically moving money from the poor and working class to the very rich has become epidemic and insane.
https://www.propublica.org/article/when-private-equity-becomes-your-landlord
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/nyregion/private-equity-apartments-nyc.html
That should have been educated "classes" in the point about the 2008 financial crisis. Darn iphone!
I very much appreciated this discussion. Thanks to all the regulars and to Tom Nichols (always a welcome voice) for a direct and frank conversation about topics (Israel, Gaza, Ukraine) that simultaneously require nuanced thinking. That's in such short supply these days that I want to offer a standing ovation when I encounter it!
So, my sincere thanks to all. The Bulwark in its entirety is going to help me stay sane over the next 6 months (fingers crossed).
Thank you all for an outstanding episode. I appreciate that Tom cut through the malarkey being parroted online and beyond about the war in Gaza. Hamas planned it this way.
Where is Mona going over the summer? I hope she manages to host most of the upcoming episodes. I really look forward to this show every week, and it's never quite the same when she's not hosting it.
So basically we have a spoiled self indulgent population across multiple economic layers who incessantly compare themselves, not with the rest of the world, but with their equally spoiled neighbor and bemoan how bad they have it. We've become a late eighties movie cliche about endless greed and micro economic ladder climbing on an increasingly narrowing ladder. 'Bout sums it up
Add to that the real world 'vulture chart'. Productivity high wages for too long stagnant and the insanely wealthy getting even more insanely wealthy. Even with real world gross wages exceeding inflation it just isn't enough to make up for the vibe (and in some ways fair) that the game is rigged.
And yet, so inevitable. I vividly recall how Europeans in the 1980s and 1990s consumed all things American (Dallas, sitcoms, movies, McDonalds, KFC) and believed the McMansions and excesses they saw on film represented the US. Similarly, Americans at that time felt they were falling behind if they didn't have the lifestyles depicted on TV and in movies.
Fast forward to the internet and social media, and no surprise.
It's even worse than that. They're not comparing their lives with the real lives of real people, but with fake online personas constructed to compete in that game. That's why everyone who plays that game feels like they are losing.
RE: The Persuasion article on Climate Change Linda mentioned. The study referenced in the piece was about increases in electricity usage, not CO2 emissions. They are related not the same. The study sites increases in electric vehicle uses and manufacturing as a reason for China's electricity use increase. China is far ahead of the U.S. in electric car adoption/market share. In 2022 India and Indonesia were the top 2 countries in the world in electric car market increase. So while the developing world will see the largest energy use increases, but that does not mean they have all turned maga and reject clean technology.
Tom was en fuego today. Totally agree with him.
Linda has been awesome as well. I don’t always agree with her positions but she is so thoughtful and sees around corners
To be fair to the left about calling W an idiot and that 9/11 was a conspiracy- it was generally understood that any diabolical plot would have had Dick Cheney as the mastermind, and W was a useful idiot.
LOL! That describes the foreign policy of Bush's first term, which was run by Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Nichols with his points of Bolton, Ryan….so on point, just like Mona pointing out the activist gaining moral satisfaction from slogans, Bolton and Ryan are doing the same. The thought that they are “morally superior” to the MAGA’s and Trump but unwilling to lose any professional or financial standing over actually acting to help Trump not be re-elected. They are cowards, history will remember their lack of character and spine.
Sorry, but I think Mona's argument here is ridiculous. Bolton and Ryan, like Mike Pence, have publicly stated that they will not be voting for Donald Trump. That helps to create permission for other conservatives to withhold their votes from Trump. They are doing precisely the thing that Nikki Haley would not do. Bolton and Ryan are not helping Trump, but Haley is.
Furthermore, the argument that they are trying to preserve some imagined viability is even more absurd. In today's GOP, refusing to support Trump is the surest way to destroy your viability. Any party in which Ryan and Bolton would be viable would have to be non-MAGA.
I would add that Bolton voted against Trump in 2020. He was against Trump even before the 1/6 insurrection, and he was public about it.
Your point is well taken however; I think they view “viability” with the Republican Party they used to know and haven’t realized it is now a Trump party and not the Republican Party. Many voters have not accepted this either.
This was an incredible episode with so many good takes on a plethora of issues. I guess I just wanna say that the discussion around the IDF's hostage rescue operation was particularly well-covered. Tom's comparison to Mogadishu is very apt. Once you understand that the exfil vehicle extraction the hostage was ambushed from several buildings and that airstrikes were called in on those buildings to cover the extraction the level of civilian casualties make a lot more sense. Hamas is intentionally embedded themselves within high densities of civilians--a war crime in itself--in order to ensure disproportionate casualty counts in the aftermath of a fight. They are using their own people as martyrdom sandbags and it's terrible.
I agree Travis.