I just did but you didn’t answer. But I guess we can skip that step. I am mainly curious if you are naive enough to accept the statements of these authoritarian leaders unquestionably. Do you really believe Kenya is doing all this just because they believe it’s the right thing to do? I suppose Putin really just wants to protect Ukrainians from Nazis and western imperialism, and Bush just wanted to bring democracy to Iraq too?

I’m just describing the situation as it exists. Whether it’s respectful to the Kenyan government or not is not my concern.

But I am curious what possible interest you think Kenya could have in this matter given that it is a regional power from the other side of the world that had almost no relationship with Haiti before last year. Besides, apparently, an interest in whatever the US is offering in exchange for this adventure.

No of course not. But I don’t see how that’s relevant. Kenya is just a puppet here, they don’t matter at all other than as a tool for the US. Kenya has no interest in this issue beyond what the US directs. The two countries didn’t even have any diplomatic contact before this scheme was concocted.

First, I don’t accept that it can’t work, there are still holders of power in Haitian society, and if you get them to negotiate and agree to a peace then it will happen.

But even more importantly, having order imposed by force by hostile foreign governments is no more guaranteed to improve the lives of Haitians, and it could make things much, much worse. A real solution for Haiti needs to come from and be supported by the people. We’ve had a series of US imposed foreign puppets for about a century, and the current situation is the direct result of this failed policy. This medicine is already killing the patient, applying more won’t help.

You truly can never predict what he will say next.

I’m not making a statement about Kenya, I’m saying I don’t trust the US’s intentions in this case based on their historical actions in Haiti. But no, I don’t think it would be good for Kenya to be involved unilaterally either. I would prefer to see a non-military solution.

I mean you read the article right? It’s all about how the US has created this multinational coalition but that it’s really calling the shots. It almost seems like your excerpt was deliberately chosen to omit all of the other information that supports what I’m saying.

So, I guess there would have to be a large accumulation of information that the US was not directing these efforts, despite members of congress and others having already confirmed that fact.

The whole framing of this conflict as a “gang” issue is very problematic in my view, since these warring factions are more of competing political actors seeking to control the country. While they may or may not be engaged in traditional criminal activity, their primary goals are political, not merely economic as with typical organized crime. Yet there has been essentially no attempt to explain who the various factions are and what their goals are. They are just described as gangs that are going on killing sprees for no reason (with an unspoken implication that Haitians are just violent savages). From my limited research on the topic, this is highly inaccurate.

That said, I really am not too knowledgeable about the situation there which is why I was hoping someone from outside of the US media ecosystem could share some real knowledge.

Is there reason to think this is anything more than a fig leaf? The US is obviously heavily involved in directing this effort, even if Kenya is doing the dirty work.

I am very concerned about the situation in Haiti and the global public seems to have a very poor understanding of the situation. Media coverage of the crisis there has been very biased and superficial. This concerns me because the powers that be may not have Haitians’ best interests at heart and without public oversight these military solutions could end up creating further problems.

If anyone here lives in Haiti I would be very interested to hear any knowledge they could share of what is really happening and how they think it can be solved.

I am somewhat undecided about this action. It gets people talking (as we’re doing now) but it may also risk turning people away from the cause, especially those who are only casually interested or aware of the facts or issues.

But my point was your suggestion that everyone is already aware of climate change is absurd. Especially the follow up that no one can do anything about it. Sure, they’ve heard of it, but everyone is continuing to behave as if it doesn’t exist. There needs to be much greater awareness, discussion, and then action on this topic, and until such time we will need to do disruptive things to get people’s attention. I do prefer to disrupt the people most responsible, personally.

There is much work to be done and not all of it is physical. I don’t know the specifics of your condition but you are here posting on social media. At minimum, there is likely a need for similar work to be done in support of your local orgs.

Again, if you find some local folks doing such work, I am sure they would help you find your niche.

Lots of things but the easiest would be to find local orgs that have already developed political strategies relevant to your local political context and work with them. They can fill you in on the rest.

Climate change won’t be addressed until there is a much larger movement that can flex serious political power. Think civil rights movement—that’s the kind of organizing we need.

and there’s fuck all I can do about it.

Sounds like maybe you are lacking some awareness around this issue.

Whiteness is a social construct so it can be defined in any arbitrary way. Some consider Jews to be white today, though historically they were not considered so, and many white-supremacists today do not consider them white.

In terms of skin tone it would depend on the geographic origin of a person’s ancestors, as with virtually all humans. Jews from Northern Europe tend to have similar skin tone as other people of European ancestry, while those from the Middle East or North Africa are similar to other people from those regions.

But remember that skin tone isn’t really what people mean when they say white. In my social circles there are black people with paler skin than some white people, yet no one questions who belongs with which “race”.

I’m not aware of any left vs right definition that would place the kkk on the left. Can you provide one?

Where did you get the idea that the KKK was left wing from?

The situation in Palestine? I am familiar already. That’s not what any of my comments here have been about. The fact that people keep assuming I’m some apologist for Israel shows how shallow the discourse on this topic is. Like it’s literally unthinkable that someone from the same side of this issue would post a criticism of it this meme. Because “if you’re not with us you’re against us!”, to quite a very wise and reasonable man.

But yeah I mean free Palestinian. That wasn’t the part I was objecting to lol.

If only there was some way to influence people into taking political discourse and educating themselves about complicated topics more seriously. Maybe we could even write something advocating for that on a public forum.

But where would we find the people who need to see this message? Maybe in a highly upvoted meme post that lionizes willful ignorance?

Did the comment in question take an hour or did it take ten seconds? There is a big difference.

The preceding comment is deliberately omitted here, I assume because it wasn’t even particularly long (when I see responses like this it’s usually to comments that are fairly short).

But even if it was long, if someone took the time out of their day to write up something to me personally I think it’s not that hard to at least read it. Even some people who I initially wrote off as bad faith have sometimes surprised me with good points about a topic.

That said, if it’s some low effort thing like a link to a two hour long video or read this 200 page book I would typically ask them to summarize the key points to see whether it is worth my time. But simply saying “this is too long for me” to a short comment sets a very low bar for your intellectual curiosity. People who feel this way are likely very ignorant.