Thread

1. msdz · 1790961668 · focus · HN ↗

   Regardless of what one personally thinks about the ICC, this isn’t a good look for neither the US nor Europe.

   For the U.S., because sanctioning an “unpleasant”, but in essence harmless individual (geopolitically speaking) is ridiculous. Falling victim to de-banking alone can really ruin one’s life.

   And for the EU, because it once again showcases the dependence on U.S. systems for just about anything tech-related in everyday life and work.

   1. nostrademons · 1790963177 · focus · HN ↗

      It undermines the idea of the U.S. as a neutral arbiter for law, order, and free commerce. That may always have been a fiction, but it's a very useful fiction because it underpins U.S. soft power. It's much easier to get consent for being the world hegemon when you act like a benevolent, disinterested hegemon. Once you start becoming a participant - and overriding other institutions that are ostensibly providing neutral, impartial justice just because their decisions are inconvenient for you - you are essentially placing yourself below them and undermining your own legitimacy.

      Neutrality and objectivity may be a fiction, but it's one of the most useful fictions that have been invented in the last 500 years.

      1. jfengel · 1790963945 · focus · HN ↗

         America has apparently decided that the fiction is no longer useful. At least not to us.

         I can't say I'm happy about that, but it's a fact now. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle. Even a change of leadership soon will not alter the realization that it can change back on a moment's notice.

         So... we will find out.

         1. laimewhisps · 1790964089 · focus · HN ↗

            I think we will come to realize that liberalism died in Gaza. It exposed all of the hypocrisy that had always been there, it was just hidden under a mask of propaganda. Exposure to the raw events on social media allowed people to see the difference between what was happening and what we were being told. The mask came off and it's not going back on.

            1. mschuster91 · 1790967261 · focus · HN ↗

               [dead]

               1. Cyph0n · 1790969886 · focus · HN ↗

                  This is a 2024 comment. We are past these talking points.

                  Do you know what Israel did and still is doing in Gaza (and the West Bank)? It goes way beyond “retaliation”. A genocidal, algorithmic rampage that spared no one. “Collateral damage” taken to its extreme. It is a testbed for techniques to crush armed liberation movements. For the US in particular, this is how the 2nd amendment can be rendered obsolete.

                  I am curious. Would you empathize more if Gaza was a Ukrainian enclave in Russia that tried to break free from its status as a blockaded strip of land? Is the involvement of non-white victims the problem? Perhaps it’s because there are Palestinians involved? Maybe if this were a fictional struggle set in some fictional universe involving some kind of “rebel” group; is that what it takes to spare an ounce of empathy?

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