This is a good counterpoint – there’s a real career risk here, which is part of what makes it such a meaningful statement – but Kaepernick was in a very different employment situation. For him, taking substandard offers (whatever non-NFL pro league was active at the time) wasn’t worth it because of injury risk. So he had only 32 possible employers (realistically, fewer had QB needs) and they actively collude all the time. Extremely easy to get blackballed in that environment.

Bob Vylan will lose money off this, but they can find smaller venues to play and doing so can’t jeopardize their career the same way a knee injury in the USFL could for Kaepernick. It’s not a career ender.

What do you think DNC means?

“Purposefully” is debatable, but whether intentional or by happenstance, damn it really is odd that so many descendants of Nazis are all over my imperial core countries that backed tons of fascist coups over the past 75 years.

The U.S. is an empire, and Israel is it’s largest military outpost in the Middle East. Israel also gives the U.S. deniability: Israel can do things that align with U.S. interests (e.g., various attacks on Iran), but the U.S. doesn’t risk blowback to the same degree it would if the U.S. pulled the trigger itself.

This is why the U.S. generally supports everything Israel does, only pulling the leash when Israel’s actions start to get inconvenient.

The late state empire problem the U.S. is facing now is that it’s stocked its government with too many true believers to recognize this dynamic. They just support Israel full stop now, no matter what Israel does, no matter if (as Democrats just saw) it costs your party an election. Trump is surrounded by these true believers, but doesn’t give a shit about anything himself and only understands self-interest, so where we go from here is up in the air.

According to Defense Minister Israel Katz, the activists refused to continue watching the film after seeing the brutality of the attacks.

So this headline is probably a lie.

It’s simultaneously:

1. The broader U.S. imperial apparatus (e.g., the State Department) understands Israel’s importance for the U.S. and backs it for that reason
2. All sorts of minor U.S. politicians who don’t really influence foreign policy face a major hurdle from AIPAC if they don’t sufficiently support Israel

The U.S. is predominantly running the show, but Israel has agency too, and its state policy involves filtering out U.S. politicians who might oppose its interests as early as possible. This includes a massive amount of pro-Israel propaganda intended for mainstream consumption, harassing professors at colleges, etc.

or chose to look the other way.

“Or” is carrying a lot of weight here.

That’s a pretty thin criticism.

Every politician who supported this should face a Nuremberg-style tribunal.

Have to apply that thinking to Democrats, too. They were backing Israel unconditionally from the jump, and were so married to that support that it probably cost them the election.