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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 03:21:15 JST Paul Cantrell

   I recommend “The Diplomat“ (the US one, maybe the other is good too, don’t know) not just as a gripping and taughtly written television drama, but as a mini education in how to parse news like this, in one particular way.

   1/2
   https://mastodon.social/@arredro/112893716022068260

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 03:26:41 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     It’s a wildly unrealistic show in many ways, but I do suspect one part of it is quite accurate:

     Heated, pointed, clear-eyed, bare-fisted arguments behind closed doors become minuscule, subtle gestures in public statements. An anonymous source saying “the president raised his voice during the meeting” is more or less diplomacy’s version of a public face punch.

     What •actually• got said behind closed doors? We can only guess.

     2/2

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 03:38:08 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     I mention this because people (like me) whose resting place is an activist mindset often get impatient with international diplomacy not using language as strong as we would use in a social media post — failing to realize that, in the communication context they’re in, that’s exactly the strength of language they’re using.

     3/2 [OK, the 2 was a lie]

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 03:40:09 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     One of the problems with access journalism is that it’s premise is to provide a neutral, factual, view from the inside of these processes — when the reality is that every piece of information to which journalists are provided access by competent diplomats is a deliberate communication tool. If we hear about it, the fact that we hear about it is somebody using the press to send a message.

     4/end maybe?

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 03:43:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mybarkingdogs

     @mybarkingdogs
     I very much share your skepticism about •results•. Really I’m only arguing caution about interpreting •intent•. We activists, I think, fall far too easily and too often into the trap of leaping straight to intent as the explanation for everything.

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     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 03:43:34 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands I was just going to comment this. As frustrating as it *is,* it's another way power corrupts and the larger and more rotten and with more moving parts a structure or institution is... at the same time, if such institutions communicated the same way many of us do, the world would be on literal nuclear fire in maybe a few hours. It's not GOOD and I'm not endorsing it, btw.

     That said, I'll actually believe it when I see results (even marginal, miniscule ones)

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:30:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mybarkingdogs

     @mybarkingdogs Yes, it is precisely the idea of divining intent from impact that I’m arguing •against•.

   • Embed this notice
     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:30:21 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands While I'll be the first to say intent doesn't matter and impact *is* all that matters...

     I'm not certain I like the often associated idea of *always* divining (the worst possible) intent *from* impact, if that makes sense, because that leads to helplessness re refusing to analyze horrible things from a "let's prevent this in the future" perspective, primarily - because if everything is solely due to a singular evil, why address anything else?

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:32:30 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Aaron
     • jonathanpeterson

     @jonathanpeterson @harpaa01
     Both readings, sure. I hear:

     “They say one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Well, Kissinger was intelligent. And stubborn. And…[long pause]… Anyway, condolences to his family.”

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     Aaron (harpaa01@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:32:31 JST Aaron

     in reply to

     @inthehands I'm similarly reminded of Biden’s remarks after Kissinger's death.

     On the face of it, it looked like this milquetoast non-statement that vaguely seems positive.

     But to people in the know, it was diplomat-speak for "fuck that guy”

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     jonathanpeterson (jonathanpeterson@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:32:31 JST jonathanpeterson

     in reply to

     • Aaron

     @harpaa01 @inthehands Funny. With that translation in hand, I see "we often strongly disagreed", but he was really smart and had a long term view for getting his way and even after being booted from formal public role he kept on pushing his really bad ideas. We're better off without him, but I feel bad for his wife and kids and anyone who didn't dislike him as much as I did.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:34:00 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mybarkingdogs

     @mybarkingdogs
     People are •grossly• overestimating the degree of direct control the US has over this situation. Not that the US has used its leverage as wisely or as forcefully as it could have, not at all, but the idea that the US cutting off Israel would simply end the war is foolish fantasty.

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     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:34:01 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands like unfortunately, the furthest right, most authoritarian sects of zionism (israel) and islamism (in Iran) are in power, which throws an "unstoppable force meets immovable rock" problem into the mess that already exists of imperialist domination of Palestine, of capitalist exploitation of the entire region. That makes me worried that even *if* an amazing victory like the US cutting off israel happened - things might get worse before better :(

   • Embed this notice
     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 04:34:03 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands (Like, one thing that bothers me about this entire situation is assuming it's some sort of capital cash grab or Western imperial mustache-twirling *alone,* because while those ARE major, serious factors - the other one *is* a local far-right theocratic fascism problem - and obviously addressing that is a whole hornet's nest because of how antisemitic and Islamophobic bigots have flooded the zone of talking about it - it NEEDS to be considered)

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 05:14:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mybarkingdogs

     @mybarkingdogs
     I have no such specific feelings about what the political resolution should be, but it’s quite clear that the current reality is a form of apartheid or worse, and is not acceptable.

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     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 05:14:22 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands And to be clear - I'm not centering *anything* above the Palestinian people with this commentary: personally, I believe israel to be an apartheid state, I want to see it abolished for an independent autonomous zone controlled by no one, the land acknowledged to be equally the mutual heritage of everyone Indigenous to the area (Palestinians, Jewish people, and *all* of the many other peoples)

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     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 05:14:25 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands owning The Bomb has a way of insulating its owners from consequences for genocides and wars and whatever other harm they do. See, the us empire itself, russia, the DPRK, etc etc ad nauseum :(

     I have a creeping nauseated feeling that *might be* what's happening behind the scenes where none of us know what's really going on.

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     mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@freeradical.zone)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 05:14:27 JST mybarkingdogs

     in reply to

     @inthehands Agreed, and that's the other thing - israel has nukes and a stated doctrine of using them all in the event of state collapse.

     As fucked as it is, I think the us empire is (partially) coddling israel for the same reason it isn't boots on the ground for Ukraine (with the added complication of israel being a colonizer "ally" so it can offer carrots rather than sticks, which also looks and *is* terrible to everyone observing)

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 09:06:58 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Brian Marick

     @marick
     Exactly. And if you actually pay attention to what he said at the time with your diplomacy ears on, you’ll notice that he does not in fact say that it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread; it’s much more like “this is a really important step, and we need to take the win.” At no point did I ever, not once, hear him imply that the US healthcare system would need no further improvement after the ACA.

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     Brian Marick (marick@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 03-Aug-2024 09:07:00 JST Brian Marick

     in reply to

     @inthehands I had a similar epiphany when Obama said, publicly and often, that the ACA was the greatest thing since sliced bread, when he surely knew it was an awkward compromise. It was explained to me that saying what all those senators and congresspeople had risked their careers to support “kinda sucks, but it’s the best we could do” won’t exactly keep them as allies next time.

     Iterated, high-visibility games are the norm. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1048424.Governing_the_Commons