It looks like we're all Bay Area refugees!

My Camaro was a shark-nose '97.

For classics, I owned a '73 Charger SE and I loved me the hell out of that car, too. It was the size of an aircraft carrier and the engine compartment was bigger than my condo. The scariest thing about that car was how easily the back end would come around in a sharp turn. The first rains of the year were a horror show when the pavement was like oiled glass. "Am I gonna beat that red? Gun it! ... uh-oh."

Now I drive a Mazda 3 and responsibly. Getting old sucks.

No, anti democracy,anti American MAGOTS are not nice….and fuck your feelings snowflake, remember? Grow a pair and put your big girl panties on.

Red states always top in crime, gun deaths, poverty, worst on infrastructure, safety nets, economy, inflation. Worst on civil rights. Clearly the right doesn’t give a shit about crime since they are all criminal traitors who follow a criminal traitor who tried to overthrow the government violently and stole nuclear secrets and you say “nothing burger”…killed 1 million Americans through neglect, nothing burger.

This insanity that somehow refugees replace citizens is just nonsense insanity, bob. You drank the flavor aid and held the gun on the children who wouldn’t.

Lol. 1 million dead- Republican neglect and making public health a political tool they used disastrously.
Jan 6, and the continued destruction of the election systems, Republican.
Trump- porn stars while wife pregnant, friends wives while married, Epstein island, his own daughter…child trafficking, making it legal to marry and have sex with prepubescent girls, exposing themselves to children, ending social security and Medicare people already paid for, all Republicans friendo.
Republicans are well ahead on death, destruction, and debauchery…miles ahead after loser Trump.

Bailouts for poor citizens not wealthy corporations, civil rights for women and non white men, jobs, gdp, healthcare, social security, infrastructure that’s the Democratic platform. 🤦‍♂️

Wasn’t the wall, that Trump said was finished, supposed to slow immigration? Seems like it failed 100%.

I suppose blue city mayors should send bus loads of recently released gang members to San Antonio and Houston….to share the pain…since Texas is sending what it claims are all drug smugglers.

It’s not the numbers, it’s the intentional disruption of services by dumping them without notice in large groups to intentionally overwhelm social services. It’s a stunt with meaningless results that’s costing Texas money much better spent on border security. For the money, they could have stopped ten times as many from entering (but not been a snide dick to NEW YORK CITY! (somebody get a rope).

Texas is incapable of doing anything meaningful about immigration or smuggling because they’re a failed bankrupt state with ethically bankrupt leadership that do nothing useful, only exorbitant stunts costing billions for zero results, so they want to share their failure. Turnabout is fair play, send 6000 MS13 members to Houston and ask “why are you complaining?”, or how about 10000 Afghan refugees in trade? Hilarious that a state that prides itself on standing on its own two feet, never wanting any federal involvement, pawns 100% of blame on the fed for not fixing their failure to secure their border.

I like how the theory is “one day when they have all the levers of power the left will make the illegal immigrants into voting citizens to grab the levers of power”, not realizing the mistake in the “logic”.

@bobknight33, with the exception of the crime of illegal entry, undocumented immigrants commit crimes at levels much lower than citizens. This is historical and statistical fact. Why isn’t Fox screaming bloody murder about the white gangs selling fentenal, or their own members sex trafficking, hiring illegals, and organ harvesting!?

Not if you excuse the invasion and takeover because they were DUE reparations, or even because they were fleeing the Nazis. I think reparations were due….by Germany, not Palestine.
Palestine paid them…and continues to pay them today.
It’s not feasible today, but it was directly after WW2, and that’s what we should have supported, even enforced.

Do you deny a massive influx of Jewish illegal immigrants invited by those who had been generously granted asylum? Do you deny they had the intent to take the land by force for a Jewish state? Do you deny most came after the war ended so weren’t fleeing war or Nazis? If not, where’s the disagreement? If so, citations please.

If they came illegally, absolutely, I object. If they came secretly intending to take the land of their benefactors by force, absolutely, I object. It was mostly in the later 40’s btw, largely AFTER the war ended. They weren’t fleeing Nazi persecution then.
Yes, when you come against the wishes of the local government intending to depose it, install your own, and expel the natives, that’s called invasion. That’s their history.

If I invite a refugee to live in my yard, and they invite their family, neighbors, and groups of armed militants who steal my house, land, and property and put me on skid roe, and the police turn a blind eye, even supporting the squatters because they’ve had it hard lately, do you think I have a right to get my friends to try to remove them, even if I wasn’t prepared to fight to the death unarmed and alone against their mob? If I do, do you still call me the aggressor? Come on. Don’t ignore the primary original crime that precipitated 70 years of atrocities.

Israel declared war by becoming a state by stealing one. I find it bullshit to blame the Palestinians neighbors for supporting their neighbor against a massive invasion and land grab by foreigners. Again, like Mexicans taking Texas back and you complaining if we tried to keep it, especially if we asked our Allie’s for help. Utter nonsense.

The Jewish people had already invaded and expelled the natives, removing all rights from any remaining. The two state solution = just go ahead and keep Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah because there’s already illegal immigrants there, in a few years you can have Kansas and Nevada, then keep expanding….those people are currently in Texas at this time. Again, you ignore the invasion, land theft, and expulsion to pretend Israel was already there…nonsense again.

Yes, it took more force to keep it from the armies of the allies of Palestine than it did to steal it from the recently liberated colony of Palestine that had no military. Duh.

What I see differently is I don’t ignore or forget the violent forced invasion by the Jewish zionists, nor the expulsion, theft from, and dehumanization of the natives, I don’t blame the natives for attempting to regain their ancestral home or properties that the Jewish state outright stole, nor do I ignore the horrific conditions those same people and their descendants have lived under for 70 years, constantly invaded further, no travel allowed, no imports, no water, no medicine, no weapons but treated like the aggressors and the criminal invaders for attempting to fight for THEIR OWN LAND, kept in shrinking ghettos, treated as sub humans to be exterminated, exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews but on a national level.

@newtboy
"I meant in a practical and ethical sense it would have made more sense for them to take part of Germany as actual reparations."
Isn't this a red herring, irrelevant point though unless they were given part of Palestine as 'reparations'? If we're gonna fix history with wishes lets go further and erase WW2.

"When they, as a people, invade a recently sovereign land and take it by force..."
It's your characterization here that you seem to just be asserting as true, but it's the heart of where we see it differently.

Are you objecting to the Jewish refugees illegally taking refuge alongside Jewish people already in Palestine in the 30s and early 40s? Your usage of the word 'invade' seems to suggest that.

Do you think I'm misrepresenting things as well when I pointed out it was the Arab states that declared war, immediately upon Israel embracing a two state solution? And let's be clear, it was a two state solution with borders essentially mirroring the existing land occupied by both Jewish and Arab peoples currently in Palestine at the time.

You declare it was taken by force, but the history as I know it has by far the largest use of force was 100% defensive after the declaration of war by all neighboring Arab states.

What are you seeing so differently at that point of history?

Not what I meant…because it was promised by the British long before WW2…as if it was really theirs to gift. Then they half assed the handoff and just walked away, at least that’s my take. It wasn’t handed to anyone as reparations…I know that.

The Palestinians have bled for that land at least 10 fold the amount Israeli have….just sayin.

I meant in a practical and ethical sense it would have made more sense for them to take part of Germany as actual reparations.

What I mean is the military equipment and funding we gifted them, and continue to gift them, without which they would have been destroyed in the 50’s.

Yes, in the 50’s through 80’s the Arab world was an obstacle to peace at least as much as Israel, but not so much recently….Iran being the main exception. The fact that the Arab world is at least 3 generations of military equipment behind means they aren’t a serious threat and haven’t been since America started defending them in the 50’s.

When they, as a people, invade a recently sovereign land and take it by force, then brutally subjugate the natives in the name of their safety for decades while expanding into their last remaining holdings constantly, all the while playing the victim, I’m 100% prepared to say the Jewish invaders are the bad guys….that’s anyone not granted refugee status by the Palestinians….likely over 99%. The refugees that didn’t take part in the violent bloody nation grab and subjugation and who went back home I do not blame.
.

@newtboy,

And it’s in the origins that I think our disagreement lies. It’s convenient for both the Arab and western worlds to agree that Israel owes it’s existence as a state to Western powers gifting palestine to them as ‘reparations’. That it’s convenient for both parties though is about as far as the truth of it really goes.

As a realist, I don’t see anything going much differently if the west had opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine at the time. The Jewish people were fleeing the anticipated holocaust. In the aftermath of the actual holocaust, it was their own actions of settling in Palestine, and defending themselves once there that made them a state. Nobody gave it to them, they fought and bled for it themselves.

The closest interference of Britain came in trying to wash their hands of Palestine and declaring a 2 state solution, with borders drawn around the territory in Palestine currently occupied by Jewish and Arab populations. I still hold the key to the ongoing problems are not Israel’s declaration of independence accepting that 2 state solution, but instead the entire arab world’s declaration of war on them and intention to drive them “into the sea”. A declaration like that 3 years after the holocaust, towards a population made up largely of holocaust survivors deserves condemnation. I an’t side with the notion that in that conflict, and the immigration leasing up to it, that the European Jewish refugees are the bad guys and aggressors…

@bcglorf

I only mention the illegal status of the invading Jewish masses in the 40’s because they would deny it. I’ve heard many a person claim all Jewish people there were legal immigrants and legal refugees invited in by Palestinians, but the vast majority came after the war ended…illegally….intent on taking over the country and expelling the natives.

Coming as refugees intending to return “home” would have been fine for everyone, but they didn’t want to try that….it wouldn’t end with a Jewish state.

I’m only anti Zionist because they don’t play fair. Because they claim absolute rights to others land, heritage, water, defense, even lives, then act self righteous about their Nazi like behavior and deny any obvious parallels. I find intolerable the one sided “conflict” where rocks or fireworks are met with bullets and bombs under the excuse that “we have the right to defend ourselves”, where well under 10000 Israeli have died but over 65000 Palestinians have been killed directly not counting the millions who died of disease, malnourishment, lack of water, lack of medicine, etc. from the treatment they received from Israel.
I really dislike the situation because my country involved itself and CAUSED it….without our intervention Israel would have ceased to exist in the 50’s, and it sickens me that my country pays for a genocidal racist nation to continue to exist.

I believe the Jewish state should have been carved out of Germany. I would not complain with them returning the treatment they received from actual Nazis…it’s treating relatively innocent victims like that simply because they can that’s unconscionable.

My gripe is totally about their collective actions, not their genetics or religion. That’s the important difference between my reasoning and the right’s hatred of non white immigrants.

@newtboy,

There's a danger here of having an actual nuanced discussion on Israel/Palestine happening here if we aren't careful...

I agree with your point of difference on illegal immigrants in the US largely not having a plan for 'independence' in their back pocket. The soft equivalence that the right wingers would point to though would be immigrant settling into small area such that they can setup a virtual community without ever needing to learn local languages and pushing hard to keep their 'own' values and way of life. I don't agree with the "Learn English" rednecks or the ones shouting how folks need to act American, but there is at least a soft parallel. virtually the only thing South Park has ever been censored on was depicting the prophet, and that 100% read as fear of violent retaliation, which isn't nothing.

I also think you hit the bigger point on how broken systems of immigration are. Particularly when domestic politics and the situation for legal immigration to refugees is grossly inadequate. I think America today though is just a much more mild example of it than the 30/40s in Palestine. For all the complaints one can level at Zionism, it's very hard to condemn them for encouraging mass emigration out of Europe. It's also clear that waiting on legal immigration routes out wasn't going to get people out fast enough. Thus I really look carefully at any anti-zionist position that includes condemning jewish 'illegal' immigration at the time. It treads dangerously close to saying they should have accepted the alternative, which was by and large remaining in Europe...

I’m against it, it’s a crime.
I believe in work visas, refugee status, and legal immigration. I believe in a system of charging employers who hire illegal immigrants to skirt taxes, wage laws, labor laws, etc. harshly enough to make it not worth the risk (like take the company/assets of repeat offenders, and using the money collected to fund the immigration and naturalization department and figure out how to supply labor without forcing people to be criminals to get a job.

Sadly those systems are broken.

Because those systems are completely broken and don’t serve the needs of either the immigrants nor the employees that need their labor, we have a massive illegal immigration problem because we have a massive labor shortage issue.

There is a parallel, but it’s not the same thing. We have (or had until recently) a strong well defended democracy, and an enormous population and landmass compared to 1917-48 occupied Palestine, and they had only a fledgling government when the Jewish war refugees they invited started inviting and facilitating a flood of illegal immigrants with a plan to take over the small country. Most of our illegal immigrants are here to make money to take home, I’m unaware of any efforts to return Texas (pre-breakup) to Mexican control like 40’s -50’s Israel.

IMO, Israel is like if 2/3 of Texas became “Tex-Mex” by force, a new country where only those of Mexican descent have rights, a vote, can own property, etc. and white Texans are forced to live in NW Texas under guard struggling to find food and water with Tex-Mex constantly squeezing them into smaller and smaller areas.
Strangely enough, you will note that those same flag waiving anti immigrant (not just anti illegal immigrant mind you) far right wingers are staunch supporters of Jewish Israel….almost like they don’t know history….wait…

@newtboy,

I have to ask your stance on illegal aliens within the USA today in that case, since you seem to use it as a derogative against 1930/40s Jewish refugees fleeing Europe for Palestine...

Feels to me the confederate flag wavers stance on illegal immigrants in the US parallels the picture you're painting of 1930s/40s Palestinian immigration closer than you maybe like to admit.

I'm suffering from serious confirmation bias on this because it agrees with a lot of what I heard around the 2014 revolution and since.

I was in Russia when they invaded Georgia in 2008. Specifically, I was staying with family in Ossetia, which is a mountain state that was split between Russia (North Ossetia) and Georgia (South Ossetia). Russia invaded because Georgia was attacking a Georgian town in South Ossetia. On the day of the invasion I was working in the mountains collecting water samples, and got a very close view of what was happening, got local confirmation of what was being reported, got to talk to refugees, etc.

Without going into it too much, when I got back to Ireland and saw what was being said and how it was being framed it was absolutely laughable and so obviously wrong. Some were worse than others - Sky News in the UK and Fox News being the worst offenders - but no major news media that I saw was giving the side of the story that I saw.

Also, when the UN report on what happened came out several years later it completely matched with my take on what happened.

The point of all this is that when the invasion happened earlier this year I knew there was no way I'd have the time or expertise to find out what's going on, even though I have friends and family in Ireland, Russia, and Ukraine. All sides are pushing their narrative hard. All sides are lying to us and manipulating us to the best of their ability. Depending on where you live you'll hear one side louder than the other, and the people around you will tend towards that narrative.

Personally I believe both sides have committed atrocities. I don't know who's been worse. I've seen both sides, including journalists, manipulating footage to support their narrative.

My only take on this is that invading a sovereign country is absolutely wrong except in extreme circumstances where every practical diplomatic means has been exhausted.

To come back to this video, my instinct was to promote it because it does seem to be a well informed take on the context of what's happening, but I've been hesitant because of my confirmation bias and because it muddies the message of "war is very very very bad".

Feck it, though. *promote

What’s he mean “young people”? I’m 50, I’ve felt that way since 1990 because I pay attention. We are addicts, addicts use until they die, they don’t quit because their health suffers.

At 3 degrees some developing countries won’t be able to feed their population!?! WTF?! That was the case before any climate changes, dummy. It’s bad now. It will be apocalyptic relatively soon…like decades, not centuries.

WILL cause trillions in damage!?….guess again, already happened. It WILL cause tens of trillions in damage per year, eventually outpacing global gdp.

What scientists are he counting when he says “most agree” we won’t see this kind of future? Certainly not climate scientists, they agree it’s happening, and none see it even slowing, much less getting better. From what I saw, they just went on strike because they’re sick of being ignored.

Leveled off, eh? Look at your own graph to see that China’s coal consumption went up by 5000 twh equivalents since 2010, and is insanely massive…it went up by more than the US used at its highest levels (in his timeline). But he calls that “leveled off”. Who is this guy? He’s insane or lying through his teeth.

Solar and wind have been better than coal economically for decades, but we haven’t switched over, have we?

Where does he get his statistics, because every time I see real numbers we’ve only slowed our increased emissions by 4%, we have not actually reduced them….like saying Obama reduced the military budget because he didn’t increase it as much as previous administrations. It’s asinine.

India isn’t building trillions in solar, they’re building fossil fuel power plants and hydro electric, also disastrous for the environment….and useless after their glaciers fail.

The CO2 in the atmosphere will be there for 300-1000 years, carbon capture is a ridiculous pipe dream that completely ignores the scope of the problem. Methalhydrate is already destabilized, and it’s 25 times as potent as CO2. The total global amount of methane carbon bound up in these hydrate deposits is in the order of 1000 to 5000 gigatonnes – i.e. about 100 to 500 times more carbon than is released annually into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). It’s melting now faster every day, and will surpass human carbon emissions.

None of his “requirements” are happening. What we need is less people….like 90% less.

Progress is being made, minor progress in small amounts on tiny scales…so are increases in emissions but on massive scales and unfathomable amounts….emissions that needed to be at zero decades ago to save civilization as we know it. Climate refugees exist today in huge numbers, think how difficult 1 million Syrians were for Europe to absorb, now multiply by 2000 or more when all equatorial nations become uninhabitable. Where will we grow food with refugees covering every bit of land? Get real.

He admits that stopping warming below 1.5 degrees is impossible, and 3 degrees before 2021 likely (many say by 2050). Did he forget that 1.5 degrees warming is where we lose control and feedback loops make our emissions moot?

Do you even science, dude?

He gave me zero hope, because I know most of his pie in the sky “hope” is utterly ridiculous and runs contrary to reality and human nature. I wanted some good news, I got pablum.
Booo Kurzgesagt. Try being honest and not ignoring the facts, please. BOOOOO!

I do….and I can list reasons why I think what I think, unlike yourself who is embarrassed to admit you never actually think yourself and all your arguments come from disgraced and debunked liars who’s jobs are to lie, almost exclusively when it comes to any political topic.

The ship only turns so fast. It needed SO much correction on SO many issues because the last demander in chief refused to steer the nation anywhere but into a reef for the last entire year of his term….the last 3 months totally intentionally while he drilled holes in the keel and cut holes in the sails.

The nation certainly needed serious and immediate correction. Glad to hear you admit it, even accidentally.
You’re complaining about more spending!? You must be joking! Compared to spendthrift Trump, he’s a fucking miser. Every major project he’s put forward has been paid for in the bill, not so with the last administration that thought they couldn’t overspend because they can print more money….the biggest deficit and fastest debt rise (both by dollar and percentage) EVER by a mile. And put us in a recession with high inflation, negative GDP, outrageous unemployment, and near a million dead for the privilege. Joe invested in American infrastructure. Complaining about spending will not be tolerated from you after supporting Trump. Not for a second, you unbelievable hypocrite.

He did many things, leading to a healthy economy and amazing jobs numbers and rising wages among other improvements. All work against inflation.

But you like to say he’s done nothing, so how’s 4 examples on the Afghanistan disaster alone work for you?
He negotiated 6 more months to be gone.
He evacuated any and all Americans that wanted out, including those that waited until the last day.
He set up and staffed new systems (granted too little and late) to assist Afghans that worked for us in getting at least refugee status if not visas. This should have been step 1 in February 2020….likely a big surprise to find nothing started or planned when Joe took office.
He pulled out billions worth of functioning, still owned by America weaponry (what you love to whine about is the weapons in Afghani’s hands, and decommissioned often scuttled vehicles we abandoned….yes, a waste) that before he took office were being left in country.
Simply put, he made a plan and implemented it, can’t say the same for his predecessor. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something….which is a massive improvement.

He’s a mile above the low bar set by your idol, who spent nearly a full 1/3 of his presidency off playing golf (after promising not to play at all), and >1/2 of every day on personal executive time eating junk food and watching TV (but only ever taking softball questions from far right outlets, refusing any non right wing reporters a question much less interview). The remaining 1/6 was largely filled with rage tweeting and executive toilet time (pooping or shredding, you choose).

Your position is old, dementia ridden, no leadership, no question taking, slow, incapable of speaking or thinking, doesn’t know who or where he is Joe kicked fat lazy dumb Don’s ass without even holding rallies, did it in his pjs without breaking a sweat or raising his voice. Odd you love to constantly degrade the guy who’s by every measure head and shoulders above your messiah and proved it by a historic landslide. Seems you wouldn’t want to keep putting Trump down as a massive total loser to such a sad, weak, incompetent opponent, but you gotta be you.

And if they’re here under what was legally called refugee status until the rules, but not the law or the treaties that required creation of certain laws, changed, as most are?

If you go 1 mile over the speed limit, or pass on the right, forevermore you call yourself an illegal driver?

If your school breaks some laws, it’s forever an illegal enterprise?

If your charity breaks a few, or all the rules for being a charity, you are branded for life as one who ran a fraudulent criminal illegal organization?!

LMFAHS!!!

It would be nice to see some consistency in how you would apply rules, and how you would handle rule breakers. I see no chance of that, but it would be nice.