I was not even born here but it hurts to see this:
Why do we deserve this? Why do we let this happen? Our national symbols are being spat at. This shouldn’t be OK.
These aren’t even the most disturbing images but I was stunned by the hammer and sickle and can’t get over it.
I think it was way worse to have a foreign leader come to the US congress to poop on the first amendment rights of Americans to protest, calling Americans “idiots” and having lawmakers rise to applaud. That was grotesque to see.
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Because they can.
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Really inspiring the PM address the full House of Congress.
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Seeing the graffiti and the vandalism in DC made my blood boil, the National Guard should go in and shoot these worthless bastards. Stuff like this makes me understand my Spanish ancestors who kicked these losers out of Spain, these creatures contribute nothing. As for Anonymous, you are a disgusting anti-Semite. As we say in Spanish, me cago en el cono de su madre
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Lol, being against Netanyahu calling American idiots on national tv makes me antisemitic? You’ve lost the plot, my friend.
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I agree with Netanyahu, Americans who support Hamas are idiots who’ll be the first ones killed if Israel loses. I support Israel because it’s a democracy and because Israelis have contributed a lot to civilization, Palis have done north but blow themselves up and screw their cousins
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Of course you do. But most Americans protesting the genocide do not care for Hamas one way or the other, so the confusion is yours. If you think Jewish Voices for Peace, or any other Jewish activists in the US protesting the stupid war are “idiots”, then maybe you’re the one that needs your American values reexamined.
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“most Americans protesting the genocide do not care for Hamas one way or the other”
then they’re idiots who need to be ignored, because HAMAS STARTED THE WAR! WHAT DID THEY EXPECT? COTTON CANDY PARADES?
And a majority of Palestinians in Gaza supported and still support the Oct 7 attacks.
Majority of Americans protesting the genocide do not support Hamas and are neither idiots nor antisemitic. Try again.
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yes, this is true. For most, it is a pretext and cover for their antisemitism.
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Until the J-6-es are freed – not merely the ones in prison but the ordinary decent citizens being swatted & lawfared for protesting election fraud, and attempting to directly petition Congress for a redress of grievances -!
Until then, all this back-and-forth about the right to protest for or against foreign states is pure kayfabe.
We have 3 letter agencies conspiring with Pfizer to control mass media and directly censor again, ordinary citizens.
Let me know which side of the Israel or Palestine crew is on our side – the side of ordinary Americans- and maybe I’ll care about your beefs.
There are times which make me rethink the whole “freedom of expression” thing. This is one of those times**. Very very sad!
**Yes, people are more important than monuments, but symbols of our past history and culture moor our identity and honor the struggles behind achieving it — it’s wanton and cruel to deface/destroy these (this is only inches away from Taliban destroying Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan).
There is a big difference between someone saying something offensive and a destruction of public property. While I am in favor of people saying whatever they want, defacing national monuments is another issue. I was in DC just last week visiting monuments with my family. It makes me sad to see this.
We are in agreement. But I do not believe it is so easy in the current sociopolitical scenario to draw lines on limits of nonviolent speech and expression. Everyone is so scared of hurting fragile sensitivities and identities and being labeled a bigot/racist, that we seem to have given up altogether any sort of semblance of reasoned control or distinction on this front.
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But there is control enacted. These riots and the mostly peaceful riots that happened in the summer of 2020 were allowed to go on. Don’t dare to deface the pride flag though… I think the message is loud and clear.
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(watches clock, waits for church vandalism to become explicitly legal as ‘free speech’…)
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This is happening in the same country where you can get felony charges thrown at you for pressing the brakes of your car just a little harder on a sacred portion of the road. The purpose of the system is what it does. If the Liberty Bell is defaced, it is because that is what the current regime wants.
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Yes, the Freedom Bell is a replica of a replica. Despite that, I can still see the feds pulling camera footage later to press felony charges for defacing federal property.
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It’s an extremely difficult situation all the way around, because a) the U.S. should aid Israel, but b) Netanyahu is a thug. Biden’s been trying to thread an incredibly small needle where we can support Israel in eliminating Hamas, but stop short at the scorched earth “kill anyone who happens to be in the way” policy. The U.S. isn’t wrong. Israel isn’t wrong. The ICC isn’t wrong.
Nietzsche probably described the situation best when he wrote about Aeschylus’ Oresteia: “All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both.”
And no, people shouldn’t deface national symbols.
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Hopefully Kamala ends the kids gloves; hope Israel gets rid of their criminal politicians so they can actually face the music, both at home and at the Hague. Putin too. Israel deserves to exist in peace, free from the needless violence from Hamas and the bloodthirsty ghouls at home. And Palestinians deserve peace and a land free of bombs and violence.
Yes, people shouldn’t deface national symbols. And foreigners shouldn’t lecture Americans in halls of congress. What a shame that was.
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“Palestinians deserve peace and a land free of bombs and violence”
Do they? The only peace Palestinians want is the peace of No Jews in the region.
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It doesn’t sit well with me that this de facto applies to the Palestinian children based on the view of their parents.
I know that plenty of Palestinian kids support Hamas and hate Jews. They’re taught to by their families and the environment. I think that if you took an American newborn and magically swapped them with a Palestinian newborn, the likelihood of them supporting Hamas while growing up in Palestine would be exactly the same.
I understand that it’s impossible to separate families and send kids to reeducation camps. It just sucks.
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“if you took an American newborn and magically swapped them with a Palestinian newborn”
It’s cultural (and religious though culture influences religion more than the reverse).
Palestinians relate to each other and the world at large in a very different way than westerners do. A lot of westerners like to project their values onto Palestinians but that’s not how it works.
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Replicate the exact situation happening to Palestinians with any other nation on earth and you’ll get Hamas, the exact same way. The Alamo wasn’t just a bunch of people playing nice with their oppressors. Neither was the Boston Tea Party. As soon as you recognize that human need to resist oppression and colonization, you’ll see the Palestinian struggle more clearly — no matter what their culture/religion is. Same reason why Ukraine will likely fight to the last man. Same reasons the Jews fought their way out of Egypt and Europe out of WW II. Hope is hard to kill. You can try, but history has shown us that you’ll end up in its ash-heap in the end. Just like the Nazis and others.
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UKRAINIANS IN UKRAINE
300 years of the same shit. Zero babies kidnapped, zero grandmas raped, zero music festivals genocided.
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Mr. Arroyo,
We don’t know that, precisely because what’s called “terrorism” changes depending on who’s saying it. To Assad, the Kurds who were funded by the US were ‘terrorists’. To the Soviets, the Taliban were terrorists while they were American heroes in the 80s. To Putin, Ukrainians are terrorists today. To Zionists, the gangs that went into Palestine to help lay the grounds for the state were national heroes. To Palestinians, they were terrorists (fun fact: ask ChatGPT who the first terrorists were, and see if you don’t get plenty examples from those early zionist days — bombing homes and killing children, even bombing US ships). And yes, many of the Christian invaders of Jerusalem were terrorists too, to use an easy example. In short, you can find — if you look — people who have used violent means to resist their oppression or create chaos (see the Zionist examples). George Washington would have been hanged for terrorism had he lost the war. And Moses was a terrorist in Egypt, using today’s definition. Of course, you’re not looking, because you may actually learn something.
Nelson Mandela was a “terrorist” until 2008, so there you go.
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How many people were killed and/or raped at the Boston Tea Party?
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Nelson Mandela was a “terrorist” until 2008, so there you go.
And rightly so. Anyone who supports the idea of putting a tire around a man’s neck and setting it on fire deserves to be called so.
It has been long assumed that Mandela, in prison, would have strongly condemned necklacing. Indeed, it was reported, and widely believed, that after Winnie had raised the issue – in 1986, when she declared that South Africans would liberate themselves with matchboxes and tyres – her husband had summoned her to Pollsmoor prison, in Cape Town and reprimanded her for it. It has emerged, however, from a document that circulated among journalists and academics in South Africa, and which finally dribbled into print in 2005, that Mandela condoned his wife’s statement. The document, the minutes of a meeting between Mandela, Winnie and Ayob inside Pollsmoor prison, said: “NM approved of WM’s necklace speech. He said that it was a good thing as there has not been one black person who has attacked WM.”
The Freedom Bell in DC, a bicentennial gift from the American Legion, was cast in 1975, traveled around the contiguous lower 48 by train, and was dedicated in 1981.
Have you ever been to Berlin and heard the Freedom Bell ring there?
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Sadly, the defacing of historic sites and monuments is widely accepted by the current fearful authorities throughout western civilization. Too many of us have never read any history, especially of Marxist-Leninist behavior, and even fewer have read the Koran, nevermind any of the hadiths.
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“none of them have active terrorist wings…”
Correction… should have left off Turkish Kurds as they have had terrorist groups (not sure about Syrian Kurds)
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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