https://dl.vgmdownloads.com/soundtracks/namco-game-sound-express-vol.4-dragon-saber/cghyovfbyb/2-12.%20Volcano%20(Arrange%20Version).mp3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJTSVG1_f4c

The real school solution is for couples to have more children! Lots of them! It’s easy to do! Dan Savage can tell you how!
Then double the Child Tax Credit! Fund child daycare! And tax those goddam billionaires! Does anyone really need to have more than $10 million in wealth?

Give shitty cops raises. Close the schools. What a town!

"Don't film this public protest" is not a reasonable nor lawful request and they have no authority to demand it.

@4
Doesn’t make sense does it?
It’s not as if criminals really get prosecuted.
Then again, I read where only half of Washington students read at grade level, so the schools are no more effective than the prosecutors office.

“President Joe Biden shifted his tone on Israel’s genocide on Palestine yesterday . . . This may be Biden’s toughest statement against Israel’s genocide… “

omg
@ Wormtongue
if you have Any integrity
atall you’ll stir up another
shitstorm over this Horrific
Abuse of the Lingo and call
OUT tS and in True Protesting
BOYCOTT la Stranger for Eternity.

can you say
Genocide?

@3, 4, 5:
FTW! (sorry
Garbby haven't check-
ed out out yours just yet)

Biden's been "shifting his tone" for months now. You just haven't been listening.

Biden is saying that he would stop all offensive weapons to Israel if the IDF mounts major offensives into Rafah. That's a big deal. No, it doesn't stop defensive arms, but I'm also not sad about Israel being able to defend itself against an Iranian missile barrage. Yes, there are dual-purpose arms, but this is far, far more than any previous US president has done.

The problem is that closing schools doesn't really save that much money. You end up cutting a principal, two custodians, and maybe a lunch lady. The other FTEs all move to the schools you're not closing. Last I looked, it saved $500K/school or something, though that's likely more now with inflation. Even if they save $20M, they'll alienate a whole swath of parents and risk adding to the parents fleeing from the school.

I am generally anti-charter, but SPS seems to be doing their best to encourage parents to leave for charters.

@8

ever since
the biden/bibi
Bearhug cum Blanque
Cheque on 10/8 it's been a
Losiing Battle with Smokin' Joe
playing Catchup but playing quite Poorly

better Late than Never?

oh & how 'Bout
that 'Uncommitted'!?

"Oh,
and if
you forgot, two
Boeing whistleblowers
died in the past two months! Nice!"

Very nice.
so, they're hiring
another Whistleblower?

I just might have
some Excellent
nominees.

@10 It's OK, the Whistleblower Assassin Department has been laid off.

https://theneedling.com/2024/04/01/heartbreaking-boeing-layoffs-hit-whistleblower-assassin-department/

[Yes, this is satire, just in case anyone missed it]

Also, Biden is playing catchup and maybe slower than I'd like. But at least he's playing catchup and not "Go ahead and do whatever you want" like just about every other administration in the last couple decades. Better late than never.

"Frankly, Seattle Public Schools should not be dealing with a budget problem at all. There’s so much hoarded wealth in Washington State, and legislators must act boldly to fulfill their constitutional duty to fully fund our schools. Do me and the students of Seattle a favor and tell your state legislators to find new, progressive revenue streams to fund our schools."

@Hannah: The school board members whom The Stranger endorsed think otherwise! It's amazing how long it is taking your newsroom to understand that school endorsements have serious consequences, and you can't go endorsing willy-nilly without understanding who is is actually progressive and who is progressive only on racial equity but conservative in all other respects. This includes especially current board president Liza Rankin, who is the most pro-austerity (and thus fiscally conservative) school board member of all.

Rankin has literally told the community there is no point in lobbing the legislature because they won't provide more funding. That is who The Stranger endorsed: someone who claims to be focusing on racial equity in schools but has no results to show for her efforts who now thinks all parents opposing the closures plan should sit back and let it happen, despite the known, harmful consequences documented after school closures in Chicago and other cities. She has literally said do not lobby, there is no point.

You could instead have endorsed a queer, labor-supported candidate for Rankin's position. A similar story applies to your awful, awful Briggs endorsement.

The Stranger cannot continue to mislead progressive voters with these consistently weak school board endorsements. A change is needed.

“Put this march to commemorate 76 years since the Nakba on your calendar.”

(On the artwork for the event’s announcement:)

“Until Palestine
Is Free
From the River
To the Sea”

Looks like everyone still needs a little lesson in why eliminationist rhetoric is bad. (Hint: it tends to precede actual genocide.)

How can a “Zone” at the Quad be “Liberated” if it is occupied by a group trying to exert control of said space, including claiming their presence cannot be videotaped?

Is someone perhaps confusing ‘liberated’ with ‘occupied?’

@12 So you would rather have a queer, labor supported candidate blow smoke up your butt than have someone tell you the truth? btw what difference does it make if they are queer? That has nothing to do with competency. The bottom line is there is declining enrollment in SPS due to less kids being in Seattle and parents with means making other choices. The only way you can prevent schools from closing is to increase enrollment. It doesn't make sense for the state (and by default us) to pour money to keep school opens that are not being fully utilized. There is a good debate about how many schools need to be shuttered but unless you reverse the enrollment trends they are going to close. Lost in this conversation though is the fact that SPS knew they were facing a budget shortfall with declining enrollment and chose to push forward a new union contract that made the situation worse. Now some teachers are going to lose their jobs and more schools are going to close. That was a bad deal for SPS and for the union who basically knowingly sacrificed some of their members. It's that kind of action that makes you wonder about the stewardship of SPS when it comes to taxpayer funds.

@5 and 14 - Exactly. "Liberated" but only for us. You cannot do what you want, only what we want. Undemocratic and anti-free speech. Pretty awful what radical liberals think is right these days.

@14,@16: You know, “liberated.” As in,

“Palestine
Is Free
From the River
To the Sea”

First “liberated” from current residents, then “occupied” by folks more sympathetic to the protesters in the UW Quad.

@15 I don't entire disagree with you. While there are multiple factors contributing to the declining enrollment, however, we should remember that demographic shift in the context of Seattle's significant overall population growth, which isn't in line with national demographic trends. Increased growth should have mitigated enrollment issues but did not. Private school attendance in Seattle is also currently among the highest among its peer cities at nearly 30%.

The Stranger, despite not positioning itself as conservative, missed an opportunity to advocate for LGBTQ+ representation on the school board, crucial considering the challenges queer and trans students face with bullying. Our student board members have mentioned this explicitly in recent board meetings. You may not personally share progressives' concern for LGBTQ students' wellbeing, but Rankin's inaction on this issue is notable.

Rankin's fiscal conservatism, particularly in her reluctance to lobby for increased state funding, contrasts with progressive values. Austerity measures, like school closures, are contentious and not inherently progressive.

Closing schools also will probably not yield significant financial savings, as demonstrated by experiences in other cities like Chicago and Austin. Additionally, imbalanced special education funding is a key aspect of the financial crisis and deserves attention.

The union contract was a contributing factor, but Seattle teachers have a higher cost of living. Despite this contract, Seattle is not yet among the Washington school districts who actually are under "binding conditions" with OSPI right now, including Marysville. Many more districts will enter binding conditions well before Seattle gets to that point in about 3 years. So, no, this is a state-level revenue problem affecting dozens of school districts, not just Seattle, and it is not a union contract problem. However, Rankin does seem to take generally anti-union stances on key issues and may agree with your take. In the end, The Stranger passed on on two opportunities to endorse labor-supported candidates for school board.

Addressing the budget deficit requires advocating for increased revenue, primarily through lobbying the state legislature. This is something Rankin opposes. Limitations on both state funding and local levies hinder budgetary solutions. Seattle, right now, cannot access previously voter-approved levy money because the state caps this access. Lobbying the state could fix this.

The impact of funding caps on special education students, who often have no alternatives to public schools, also highlights the need for reform in budgeting priorities.

The Stranger's endorsements for the school board were not optimal for the current challenges facing Seattle's education system. For city council, The Stranger made true progressive endorsements, but for school board it did not.

Simac, you’re missing the forest for the trees, just like the school board. The City of Seattle elected two LGTBQ Mayors in recent years, and how did that pan out for the LGBTQ community and Seattle as a whole? The most radical thing any Board member could do or be is a systemwide take on running a school district, not throwing breadcrumbs out to this or that constituency. Spending political capital on defending homeless encampments on school grounds doesn’t make sense. Foreclosing advanced study (HCC) seems counter to learning as an institution the same way underserving SpEd students is. And WHY did the school board not fight harder to reopen schools for COVID?? Competency and ideology are squarely in the crosshairs of this enrollment problem.

We need to abandon the idea the state will save us and do a better job with the tools we have. Bus schedules, union contracts, all things that cost the district more money that it didn’t have, and within their control to rein in.

Stop, stop! You're using words wrong again! Oh the humanity!

@13. That phrase is not eliminationist rhetoric on its face and depends on the context. It is open to interpretation as below.

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211671117/how-interpretations-of-the-phrase-from-the-river-to-the-sea-made-it-so-divisive

Outrage over the phrase culminated in the House of Representatives on Wednesday when it voted, 234-188, to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan after she used the slogan, including in a post on social media.
https://twitter.com/RepPatFallon/status/1722009940653470102

Tlaib said on the House floor that she was calling for a cease-fire.

"My grandmother like all Palestinians just wants to live her life with freedom and human dignity we all deserve," she said.

Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at Arab Center Washington DC, says supporters of Palestine who invoke the phrase are often misinterpreted as threatening violence.

"What they are responding to is the fact that, within this space, Palestinians live along with Israelis, but it's the Palestinians that don't have freedom," he said. "They don't have justice. They don't have equality. They don't have safety. They don't have security."

"Probably it is true that most American college students, for example, who chant 'from the river to the sea' do not mean to evoke this idea of ethnic cleansing, do not mean to call for the erasure of Israel or the destruction of all Jews in that land," said Julie Rayman, managing director of policy and political affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

According to University of Arizona professor Maha Nassar, the phrase "from the river to the sea" gained momentum in the 1960s among a fractured Palestinian population hoping to break free from the rule not only of the Israeli government but also those of Jordan and Egypt.

Nassar said there was "no official Palestinian position calling for the forced removal of Jews from Palestine."

The Anti-Defamation League says the "hateful phrase" is a denial of Israel's right to exist and can leave Israelis and their supporters feeling "unsafe and ostracized." The ADL also added that, "It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland."

According to Rayman, it can make American Jews with ties to Israel believe they are unsafe in both countries.

"It is a feeling that the conflict has been exported and that Hamas is on the doorstep, that they are unsafe," she said.

Yet many people insist that "from the river to the sea" is a plea for peace — not violence. Tlaib herself said the phrase is "aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate."

Munayyer says it's critical to listen to what people who use the phrase say they mean and not let the slogan's meaning be dictated by the most "extreme elements" of society.

"It's wrong to put words in other people's mouths and to silence them when they're telling you, 'no, actually, that's not what this means,'" he said. "If somebody uses this phrase, that doesn't mean they get to define what it means for everybody else."

In fact, a lot depends on context. The Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in its original party platform in 1977 that "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."

@18 I appreciate your passion for this and I don't disagree that the state funding is the issue. You have two separate things going on in your post though. The LBGTQ issue has nothing to do with funding. If you want to argue for a different candidate that can possibly address issues that's fine but it won't impact the ability of the board to fix the financial difficulty facing the district. You're also correct closing schools won't yield much is savings as the district owns the property in question and whether the school is open or not will have to maintain the buildings so they don't fall into disrepair. @19 is right though. The district can't rely on the state to bail them out. If it didn't happen this last session it's probably not going to happen next session either and if you wait until then the problem could be worse. As you noted there are many reason for declining enrollment and the district needs to do what is in their power to counter those trends. Stop focusing on equity and get back to education. Offer school consumers what they need so their kids can get a great education and succeed. That is what parents want. As for TS, you noted they endorsed progressives candidates for the council. How did that work out? The city is tired of progressive politics that just divide us into oppressor and oppressed while never doing anything to make things better.

@21: “That phrase is not eliminationist rhetoric on its face and depends on the context.”

I would imagine that persons whose jobs depend on getting re-elected every other year would have a pretty solid grasp of what constitutes good public relations. Here’s what such a group recently said:

‘Whereas the slogan ‘‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’’ is an antisemitic call to arms with the goal of the eradication of the State of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea;

‘Whereas the slogan seeks to deny Jewish people the right to self-determination and calls for the removal of the Jewish people from their ancestral homeland;

‘Whereas Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations and their sympathizers have used and continue to use this slogan as a rallying cry for action to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jewish people;’

(&c.)

If pro-Palestinian organizers want to keep using it, nobody can stop them. If they choose to use it, they should do so with the foreknowledge a large number of Americans regard it as stated by Congress, above.

Israel has already invaded Rafah. Biden is full of shit. He is simply scared about how many people are not going to vote for him in November. He is all in on supporting Israel as he has stated repeatedly that he is 100% Zionist. He works for Israel. I look forward to when he no longer pretends to work for the United States.

@23. Just because the House passed a resolution that defined thst phrase as such, in a largely partisan display of willful activist interpretation that disregards all others, and then used that interpretation to censure Rep Tlaib from being understood, doesn't mean they get to decide what it means for everybody else of declare that all utterances of it constitute hate speech or being in league with Hamas, Hezbollah, et al.

"It's wrong to put words in other people's mouths and to silence them when they're telling you, 'no, actually, that's not what this means,'" he said. "If somebody uses this phrase, that doesn't mean they get to define what it means for everybody else."
--@Garbby

well
you know
our wormmy.

and

“Just because the House
passed a resolution that defined
thst phrase as such, in a largely partisan
display of willful activist interpretation that disregards all others,

and then used that interpretation
to censure Rep Tlaib from being understood,
doesn't mean they get to decide what it means
for everybody else of declare that all utterances of it
constitute hate speech or being in league with Hamas, Hezbollah, et al.”

--also@Garbby

the propagandists
amongst us’re
Always Happy

to put their
Words into
our mouths

say that
Reminds me:

lookitchyu
wormmy formatting
like Horizontal’s goin’
Outta Style! your Flattery is
most Heartworming & Inspirational

keep it up,
fellah! &
Down
too
!

@25: “…in a largely partisan display…”

“The motion passed by a vote of 377 to 44, and was the result of a bipartisan effort led by Democratic Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Jared Moskowitz of Florida, along with Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito from New York. The motion was opposed by 34 Democrats and one Republican.”

As I wrote, nobody can stop anybody from using the phrase. Anyone who uses it should do so with the foreknowledge that many listeners, myself included, consider it to be eliminationist rhetoric, and thus it has no place in civilized discourse.

@26: “I bet most of them would be unable to give a straight answer.”

Starting with being unable even to say ‘Israel,’ and thus going with some variant of “the Zionist entity,” tossing in terms like “imperialist,” “colonialist,” and “racist,” per taste.

@26 speaking of BLM they are currently suing the non-profit group that has been funding a lot of these protests:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/blm-nonprofit-says-tides-foundation-mismanaged-33-million

This makes you realize these things aren't as organic as TS would have you believe and it turns out the oppressor funding raising wagon is pretty lucrative.

Of course Israel has the right to exist and have self determination, so long as Palestine is given equal right to exist and self determination and gives and gets in kind with mutual respect.

@26 "You could just try asking one of the river-to-the-sea people: “Do you believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish nation?”"

I'm one of those river-to-the-sea people, and I'll take your question. Yes, I've always believed Israel has a right to exist. But I've never believed that right to exist removes Palestinians' rights to happiness, property, and life, all of which Israel has been taking since its formation, in various ways including horrifically violent. I'm increasingly swayed by an inclusive one-state solution, but it would need a lot of forgiving and reconciliation on both sides. But with the huge gap in power between Palestine and Israel, it is Israel that is acting belligerently and way out of all proportionality following October 7 (which was a tragedy, and a terrorist attack, no doubt -- but not deserving of the scale of destruction and genocidal policies that Israel is perpetrating). How many dead children is enough?

What is not helpful is the reductive arguing on both sides, or pointing to the worst of the pro-Palestine protestors and arguing that represents the common opinions -- like Bret Stephens of the NYT does.

@33 Thank you for demonstrating the "caveats and equivocations" @26 noted while responding to @26. It's rare someone goes so directly to prove someone else's point.

Does Palestine have the right to exist?

@34. Would you please illustrate what caveats and equivocations were employed in The Chicken's response, please?

@31 The only way that closing schools reduces the number of teachers and para-educators is if families leave the district rather than changing schools. Otherwise, that classroom funding goes with them to the new school.

Since all of the painful consequences of selling Queen Anne High School 40 years ago and MLK Elementary 15 years ago, SPS will not sell buildings again. They may lease out space like they do with the Lake City Professional Building, but they will be highly resistant to selling. Because that land can never be bought back, and they don't know when the next baby boom will come.

SPS enrollment was also shrinking in the early to mid-2000s. SPS didn't notice elementary-age enrollment rising, and in 2007 they closed a bunch of schools. They then had to re-open all of those schools about 2 years later, at a cost of over $100 million. They won't do that again if they can possibly avoid it.

Maintenance costs only go down if maintenance is deferred, leading to worse conditions and more expensive re-openings if that ever happens. Security costs don't go down unless you leave the schools vulnerable to being stripped (see Viewlands Elementary).

Maybe the demographic changes we're seeing right now are permanent. But SPS can't depend on that. They need to be ready if enrollment hits 50,000 again. Because it might if the current demographic changes are just a low point in a cyclical system.

This “from the river to the sea” dispute reminds me of all the bullshit about how “defund the police” somehow didn’t really mean cut their funding. The protesters in both cases are presumably native English speakers and should understand that words mean what they are agreed to mean by society as a whole (or even what the dictionary says they mean).

We keep passing bond issues to build more schools, but now we are closing schools?

@38: Well you see, the thing is with words is, impact > intent, except depending on who's impacted, it might be the other way around. The other thing with words is, they mean whatever the Right People say they mean on any given day. Hope that clears things up.

@38. They are saying that Palestine will be free. That seems pretty plain English to me. It's how they attain that freedom that is in dispute.

@41 You don't understand how SPS budgeting works. If enrollment is declining, teacher headcount is cut in the June budget based on enrollment projections, and then adjusted again (can be up or down at any given school) in October based on the number of students who actually show up. The cuts have already been made for declining enrollment for the 23-24 school year.

But go ahead and prove me wrong. Go through the WSS for this year and see what the total staff headcount is for two 300-student elementary schools, then repeat for one 600-student elementary school. You can even assume that there's no significant numbers of SpEd or ELL students if you want to make the math easier. Good luck!

As for major items, you seem to live in an odd world. One where the roof doesn't deteriorate if there's no students in the building. One where machinery doesn't need to be turned over every now and then to keep running. Remember that the district isn't going to sell schools.

@43 they are free. Free to release the hostages, free to lay down their arms and stop trying to kill their neighbors. Free to do whatever they want that doesn’t involve genocidal and murderous intent. They have squandered billions of dollars provided to them and have no one to blame but themselves.

Beyond that who is Palestine free for? Women? Nope. LGBTQ people? Nada. Christians or people of other faiths? Most certainly not. So how do you define this freedom you so desperately seek?

@46. Bro you know that the extremist elements of Noam and the Haredi ultra-orthodox Religious Zionism parties in the ruling coalition are also highly and openly homophobic and anti LGBTQ and that strict orthodox Jewish society also requires women to be segregated from men and subject to other cultural and religious restrictions we largely don't have here. The government is a patriarchy that has threatened women's rights since the judicial reforms of 2023. Of course Tel Aviv and bastions of progressivism keep Israel freer than most of the Middle East, but the ultranationalist elements of their government who are making the decisions on how to conduct their wars and foreign policy and that enable settler violence are not necessarily upholding much better rights for the oppressed in the Palestinian territories. And they are also, you know, killing and injuring tens of thousands of women.

@39 It is 100% on the Biden administration and its DOJ that Trump is even able to run for president again. Bullying people to vote for a genocidal asshole who spends hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars on supporting Israel is no different than Trump bullying Republicans to vote for him or else. I won't do it. And if Biden loses he only has himself to blame. This country is fucking done no matter who wins. I will not submit to the BS of "vote blue no matter who" when most of the rights that have been taken from the people in this country by Trump's corrupt judiciary appointments have all happened while Biden has been president. So please spare me your BS.

@47: In other words, if the Ultra-Orthodox get the powers the Christian Right have in the US, Israel will become as intolerant as Palestine?

@47 that wasn’t the question. True or false, today, right now in Israel women enjoy full and equal rights? There are openly LGBQT people who are able to be themselves? There are people of different faiths? If you’re stumped the answer to all is true. In Palestine and other fundamentalist Muslim countries the answer is false. Nice try on the whataboutism but in this case even your point to distract from the topic is not true.

@50. So you are saying that Israel and Palestine cannot have mutual respect and that is conditional? So it is zero sum to you then? Black and white binary thinking? Israel cannot exist without Palestine being eliminated? I am sorry that mututal respect granting each other self determination is such a high condition for your brain to meet. You know, the golden rule, love your neighbor as yourself, and make sure Palestine doesn't elect a government whose platform is to expel Israel from existence and vice versa. You know, the conditions for peace?

@33. I provided a citation that says otherwise. But yes, spin to win! At least make a good faith effort to consider other perspectives before you just parrot lies to my face about what my opaque meaning is.

Meanwhile, while we are splitting hairs over slogans, the IDF continues its genocide in Gaza while it commits the war crime of forcefully displacing hundreds of thousands of people while in bad faith ignoring their own ceasefire conditions, so that Netanyahu can keep his stranglehold on power by appeaseing the extremist nationalist maniacs in his cabinet who feel they are beyond reproach for their actions due to divine favor.

Uh yes, that goes without saying. Israel deserves to exist as a Jewish nation with self determination, and the same fundamental principles of peace apply of mutual respect with their neighbors.

But Israel has multiple religions and ethnic groups and Druze etc. which are also due representation in the Knesset in order not to make it an exclusively Jewish populated country, given the thousands of years that other populations have lived there, unless to you that means Israel must ethnically cleanse lands that are home to the holiest sites of many religions including Christianity in order to be a Jewish Israel. I am not sure what you mean by making this distinction, but I think that bears explanation.

And your all lives matter example is and false equivalency that misrepresents my position completely. Besides, the whole point of black lives matter wasn't to invalidate that all lives matter, but that black lives matter too, just as much, especially in equal justice under law. And that they were shown in reality that they did not matter. And that is the treatment Palestinians are shown, that their lives matter less and their autonomy matters less than the nationalists who uphold a mutually exclusive ethos that removes self determination from the former inhabitants of the land who, thanks to the sins of the Europeans and the whims of the British Mandate of Palestine, were forcefully removed by the millions and continue to be removed by force in order to uphold a double standard and remove accountability, which is ironically the actual tactic the all lives matter folks used to invalidate the meaning of BLM and uphold the status quo.

As such, asking for mutual respect in this instance is the answer to equal justice and treatment under the law through statehood and freedom from the need to have to live in this twisted bondage of oppression and be free to compete on the world stage and thrive economically without having to be chained down by this legacy. It is a disservixe to all concerned and the same tired wars and killing will never end or bring peace to the Jews and collective citizens of Israel so long as their security comes at the expense of Palestine and vice versa.

@49. When strict theocratic elements take hold of government and the military, they become as oppressive and militant as Iran. And civil liberties and tolerance for diversity of viewpoints and personal freedoms follows suit. These elements have taken power in the Israeli government and have entrenched themselves with seizure of the courts and by leading the spirit of the wars in Gaza and beyond. Divine fervor is a poor pretense for waging modern war.

The ultimate irony of all of you who cheerlead these wars is that you endanger Jewish Iraelis the most by only seeking solutions that constantly subject them and their neighbors to perpetual war and risk of bombardment. The most antisemitic of all actions is subjecting Jewish Israelis to perpetual war and risk. The safest way to secure Israel is to find a path to peace that ensures mutual security for all concerned so that this perpetual call to arms is obviated and the denizens of the Holy Land can coexist peacefully without the need to keep taking land from each other.

@59. That is incorrect. Genocide is trivializing genocide in order to enable it.

@59. This is genocide. This is the very face of genocide. And all of you pretending that it is not and that the Israeli government's irreverence to international laws and the UN definition of genocide that you uphold as the standard and whose authority they completely disregard as they try to burn down the UNRWA in East Jerusalem, whose accountability to the US you ignore and support in this operation, who in bad faith refuse their own ceasefire proposals. You, all of you, are complicit in this genocide. You are genocide itself.

"The Israeli military insists on expanding operations in Rafah and is continuing to pound the eastern part of the city.

In the last 24 hours, there seems to be an increase in artillery shelling in the eastern and western areas where the vast majority of displaced families are sheltering.

This has been forcing people to move to newly designated safe areas, including Deir el-Balah, where thousands of people have been pouring in. They are setting up their tents and trying to find residential units available to stay in.

Not only is Deir el-Balah city running out of space, but it is also running out of resources, particularly water.

In addition, there’s only one operational hospital here running at the lowest capacity imaginable.
1h ago (06:35 GMT)
‘We keep moving from one place to another’
Laila al-Kafarna is one of tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee Rafah this week as Israeli troops and tanks push deeper into the city.

It is her family’s sixth time being displaced during the war.

“We keep moving from one place to another,” al-Kafarna told Al Jazeera, clinging on to her infant. “This child was born during the war. What was his fault?

“They moved us from Gaza City and told us to go south. After that, they told us to go to Khan Younis. After that we came to Nuseirat. After Nuseirat to Deir el-Balah. And then they brought us to Rafah. They said it was a safe place. It wasn’t safe.”

1h ago (06:25 GMT)
Patients left without treatment as Rafah hospitals shut down
Patients and staff are being forced out of hospitals across Rafah as Israel’s attacks on the city intensify, leaving many sick and wounded Palestinians with no way to be treated.

“We have no beds, no hospitals to refer [people to], especially for critical patients,” Palestinian doctor Mohammed Zaqout said.

“Al-Najjar Hospital is out of service. And the Kuwaiti Hospital [in Rafah] is just for trauma and emergency,” he added.

1h ago (06:15 GMT)
Israel subjecting Gaza to a ‘medieval siege’, ‘scorched earth’ policy: UNRWA
Sam Rose, planning director at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said no supplies have entered the Gaza Strip since Sunday and “heavy bombardments” are hitting areas in the centre of Rafah city.

“No aid has come into Gaza now since Sunday. No aid, no fuel, no supplies, nothing. And we really are now down to our last reserves. We have a few more days of flour that we can provide. But everything else will start to shut down very soon without fuel, without water. So the situation is really desperate,” Rose told Al Jazeera from Rafah.

“People are petrified. People have been fearing this for a long, long time and it is now upon us. There is constant bombardment. There is smoke on the horizon. There are people on the move. We estimate that, as of last night, about 110,000 people from Rafah had been displaced and had moved on,” he said.
“People are doing whatever they can to flee for safety and yet where are they going to? There are no safe places,” he added.

“These are populations that are already on the brink of famine who are now being subjected to a medieval siege coupled with scorched earth and heavy bombardment. Already desperate conditions will get worse and we will see multitudes of casualties. Not just from the bombing. But the hunger, the disease and the starvation.”

This must stop now. Never again means never again for all. No one has the right to commit genocide in the name of self defense.

In the name of defeating Hamas, Israel is completely destroying Gaza.

@62: That’s because, as you serial abusers of the word “genocide” bitterly refuse to admit, Hamas spent years (and some huge amount of money, not spent on helping civilians) to turn Gaza into a giant, human-filled shield against the IDF attack Hamas would ultimately and intentionally provoke. As Theodore C. already recounted elsewhere, this was a per se and wholesale violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and thus a massive human-rights violation in Gaza by Hamas.

So yes, the IDF may indeed destroy Gaza to destroy Hamas. That is a direct result of Hamas’ long-term strategy, and Hamas bears the blame for Gaza’s destruction.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/10/peaceful-pro-palestinian-campus-protests

Nearly all campus protests have been peaceful, study finds.

@63. No, Hamas does not bear the agency or responsibility for Israel's commission of war crimes or genocide in kind. You need to wake up and stop absolving the worst actors in the Israeli government from accountability. They murdered 1200 people and took 240 hostages. That doesn't equate to total annihilation in response to the entire civilian population.

What you are using is a propaganda tactic called accusation in a mirror. "Claims that members of the target group pose a mortal or existential threat to the audience, aptly dubbed "accusation in a mirror". The speaker accuses the target group of plotting the same harm to the audience that the speaker hopes to incite, thus providing the audience with the collective analogue of the only ironclad defense to homicide: self-defense. One of the most famous examples is the Nazi assertion, before the Holocaust began, that Jews were planning to wipe out the German people."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror#:~:text=Accusation%20in%20a%20mirror%20(AiM,or%20intentions%20to%20one's%20adversaries.

Your constant equivocation and denial of genocide, even as you acknowledge the total destruction of Gaza in a scorched earth total annihilation of Gaza to defeat Hamas, makes you amd everyone else involved, Hamas included for their part, an accessory to genocide. But that is not mutually exclusive with the IDF and Netanyahu's cabinet of sociopaths. Go sleep in a dry comfortable tent in the snow for a day. Go have your children starved to death and blown to bits. Then you can opine of those topics with perspicacity. Until then you are complicit in genocide. There is no longer any question that is where we are, and you are an accessory.

@65. Anyone not blinded by factionalism can see that this is a genocide. What tensorna lacks is empathy, and everyone else who continuously lowers their standards for the Israeli response and gives them carte blanche to act as they will in total defiance of international law and our own conditions for providing them arms for defense.

I have slept in a tent in the freezing snow while homeless. I have suffered immensely in my youth and throughout my life. I studied the the rhetoric of genocide and hold a degree in rhetoric & writing from UT Austin. I have read the literature of white supremacy and Mein Kampf as required of my studies to understand how this propaganda works. That is why I have empathy for all concerned and can identify the tactics employed in racist genocide. And in so doing, Israel is destroying its legitimacy and doing again what was committed to never be done again, anywhere, to anyone.

Garb@64: You’ve already given your definition of “genocide” as “I know it when I see it.” I use the definition in (waddaya know) the Genocide Convention. I honestly cannot “know” what you “see,” so I cannot possibly have dialog with you on this point. You can simply use any criteria you select, applied however you choose, not communicated to anyone else, and then label anyone who dares disagree with you in the slightest as supporting “genocide.” This hasn’t worked with Kristo’, and it won’t work for you, either.

To emphasize what @46 and @51 said, let’s look at the (in)famous slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free.” What does “free” mean in this context? Are women free to apply to jobs, speak as equals to men? No. Are LGBTQ+ persons free to express their personal realities? Not a chance. Freedom of religion? Are you kidding? The word, “Free,” in that context, lacks all of the usual meanings associated with it in America — or in Israel.

So what does it mean? We can see in the UW Quad’ “liberated” zone: ‘free’ to appropriate public spaces for private activities, ‘free’ to demand censorship of critical voices, ‘free’ to stop video recording in the occupied public space — and to commit violent acts, if necessary, to enforce this censorious ban. This is the “free” in that slogan, which is why our House of Representatives has condemned it.

Yes, given the spirit of the law versus the letter, I know it when I see it. Here is the rest of the context. Try to understand.

From https://www.thestranger.com/guest-editorial/2024/04/24/79483068/why-we-held-seder-in-the-streets-this-year/comments

In this case, the spirit of the law takes precedence over statute. But whenever the innocents of any ethnic group are collectively punished, slaughtered, and their human rights annihilated, that is genocide. As you said, a single act can be genocide. But an ongoing and unjust war that de facto slaughters one ethnic group, Palestinian Arabs of Gazan nationality, over six months with aid convoys from international organizations assured of their safety and then intentionally targeted to perpetuate famine, qualifies as genocide from anyone with a conscience. Perhaps you can pull the wool over your eyes with this Schroedinger's human shield and pretend that every innocent civilian and child is killed with kindness, but that doesn't take agency from those that pull the trigger. The de facto situation on the ground is a genocide that is wiping out an imprisoned populace because of who they are.

Tensor, laws as written - words - cannot fully encompass the essence of justice and are not monolithic in themselves. Every year we amend our laws and throw out bills ad infinitum. All in the pursuit of justice. The Holocaust, slavery, and Jim Crow were all codified in the high courts and tomes. But none can truly serve the cause of justice without constant revision and reinterpretation to best approximate all truths. If the official - letter of the law - definition of genocide does fully apply in this instance, it is because it is incomplete. And the spirit of our laws makes clear from what we see that it needs further revision to protect those being slaughtered en masse, 100,000 casualties, mostly women and children. There are not enough Hamas fighters to hide out in every home made foxhole that is blown to smithereens with a 1,000 lb. 2 mile kill zone radius bomb dropped in the one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Genocide is as genocide does.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/29/zionism-jews-palestinians

Of course I hold the IDF to higher standards than war crimes and famine and collective punishment! And why is that? Because I expect the arms we sell them and their methods to follow the oh so stringent requirements they are currently under investigation in the Hague for breaking! Since you are so obsessed with the literal definition and due process for every violation but attribute every mass casualty as a Hamas human shield without evidence and merely apocraphal self-assured hearsay. That's about all the time I have for your wizzeaksauce hypocrisy.

Great article I linked.

Sermon for Gaza

This is a sermon I gave Sunday April 28 at a service held at the encampment for Gaza at Princeton University. The service was organized by students from Princeton Theological Seminary.

--by Chris Hedges; originally published April 28, 2024

In the conflicts I covered as a reporter in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, I encountered singular individuals of varying creeds, religions, races and nationalities who majestically rose up to defy the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. Some of them are dead. Some of them are forgotten. Most of them are unknown.

These individuals, despite their vast cultural differences, had common traits—a profound commitment to the truth, incorruptibility, courage, a distrust of power, a hatred of violence and a deep empathy that was extended to people who were different from them, even to people defined by the dominant culture as the enemy.

They are the most remarkable men and women I met in my 20 years as a foreign correspondent. I set my life by the standards they set.

You have heard of some, such as Vaclav Havel, whom I and other foreign reporters met most evenings, during the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, in the Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague.

Others, no less great, you probably do not know, such as the Jesuit priest Iganacio Ellacuria, who was gunned down by the death squads in El Salvador in 1989. And then there are those “ordinary” people, although, as the writer V.S. Pritchett said, no people are ordinary, who risked their lives in wartime to shelter and protect those of an opposing religion or ethnicity being persecuted and hunted. And to some of these “ordinary” people I owe my own life.

To resist radical evil, as you are doing, is to endure a life that by the standards of the wider society is a failure. It is to defy injustice at the cost of your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic.

And, perhaps this is the most important point, it is to accept that the dominant culture, even the liberal elites, will push you to the margins and attempt to discredit not only what you do, but your character.

When I returned to the newsroom at The New York Times after being booed off a commencement stage in 2003 for denouncing the invasion of Iraq and being publicly reprimanded by the paper for my stance against the war, reporters and editors I had known and worked with for 15 years lowered their heads or turned away when I was nearby.

They did not want to be contaminated by the same career-killing contagion.

Ruling institutions -- the state, the press, the church, the courts, universities -- mouth the language of morality, but they serve the structures of power, no matter how venal, which provide them with money, status and authority. All of these institutions, including the academy, are complicit through their silence or their active collaboration with radical evil.

This was true during the genocide we committed against native Americans, slavery, the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, the civil rights and anti-war movements and the fight against the apartheid regime of South Africa. The most courageous are purged and turned into pariahs.

--Chris Hedges
May 10, 2024

oodles more, enlighteningly
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/sermon-for-gaza-read-by-eunice-wong

you Go
Garbby!
and THANK YOU.

Meanwhile, you subscribe oh so stringently to the standards of the UN's Genocide Convention, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
I am certain many provisions have been violated to qualify as genocide, I just haven't taken the time to peruse the provisions, but I shall.

Meanwhile, you clearly do not respect the UN as an institution as you are permissive of the IDF and Netanyahu's administration picking and choosing what provisions of international law to uphold and to violate. Because Hamas apparently decided for years to completely destroy their own territory and people by design, then Israel committing war crimes like displacing an entire civilian population, cutting off aid, destroying non military targets indiscriminately, etc. etc. etc. makes your sincerity about upholding the UN's standards hollow, insincere, and laughable.

What you are is a jingoist shill unable to apply your own standards inward and towards the ingroup of the most extremist and criminal factions of Israeli society who have disenfranchised their own electorate and seek perpetual war. And now they are literally setting fire to the UNRWA.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/09/unrwa-jerusalem-hq-closed-after-israeli-extremist-arson-attack

Nothing could be clearer than the lack of respect and legitimacy the Israeli government and IDF have given the UN and its requirements against genocide. Thus, they are committing genocide and you are an accessory to genocide through your unwavering support of their ever more extreme and uncompromising methods. I rest my case, Wormtongue.

bears repeating:

"Your constant equivocation and denial of genocide, even as you acknowledge the total destruction of Gaza in a scorched earth total annihilation of Gaza to defeat Hamas, makes you amd everyone else involved, Hamas included for their part, an accessory to genocide.

But that is not mutually exclusive with the IDF and Netanyahu's cabinet of sociopaths. Go sleep in a dry comfortable tent in the snow for a day. Go have your children starved to death and blown to bits. Then you can opine of those topics with perspicacity. Until then you are complicit in genocide. There is no longer any question that is where we are, and you are an accessory."

again:
thank you
Garbby.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20C

Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defines genocide as an act that aims to destroy a religious, racial, ethnic, or national group, either in whole or in part. This includes:
1)Killing members of the group
2)Causing serious mental or bodily harm to members of the group
3)Deliberately inflicting conditions of life on the group that are calculated to bring about its physical destruction
4)Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
5)Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Thanks for the source of your definition for genocide, tensor! Slog, do any of these sound familiar or apply in this case to Gaza?

@55, layoffs at SPS would take effect until fall 2025, so there is time to issue notices. Leadership is meeting w unions this week. Teachers would be retained over building specific positions (cafeteria crew, security etc). Will union leaders fight for them too? TBD.

@70: “Because Hamas apparently decided for years to completely destroy their own territory and people by design,”

Many years ago, NATO reported on Hamas’ behavior in Gaza, and yet, you seem to have achieved a constant state of total surprise at the magnitude and extent of Hamas’ violations of the Geneva Convention.

(https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf)

I suggest you learn a bit about the IDF’s adversary, before you continue blaming them for everything currently happening in Gaza.

@71

so, as
an Existential
Threat, how did
the Leader of Israel
treat this 'Hamas' group?

shirley, he vowed to have
Nothing to Do with them
put them Down at every
Opportunity and called
them OUT for their
Wicked Ways?

surely
ol' bibi's got At
Least that much Integrity?

oops!
@75 was
referring to
and asking of
@74. I apologize
for all the inconveniences

@57- what you say is at the root of this problem. A government run under principle of one religion because “God said we should do it” is a clusterfuck and an atrocity ever single fucking time. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Iran, Medieval Europe (actually, I very much WOULD have expected the Spanish Inquisition), any other Mideast bonesaw republic you care to name, the India that Modi seems to want to create, Netanyahu’s view of Israel, or Missouri. Theocratic governments simply need to be stomped out.

Garb@70: "I am certain many provisions have been violated to qualify as genocide, I just haven't taken the time to peruse the provisions, but I shall."

In other words, you literally do not know what you are talking about, and yet, you feel totally qualified to act as a moral scold. Perhaps you might consider the existence of a causal connection between those two?

@78. Kindly reread @72 noob.