When I started dealing drugs, I did it because my friends and I were smoking trash weed and we wanted to secure a good supply of quality product. It worked out well. My car was clean. I didn’t sell much.

A few years later when I turned 23 I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. My life fell apart, I was bedridden, I went through a medical bankruptcy. That is when I began to deal drugs to survive. For a few years I paid my bills by selling weed, ecstasy, adderall, mushrooms, acid from the bed where I spent 95% of my time. My car was dirty.

Was I just a regular person? I dont know

It’s a broad generalization, I’m not suggesting some new law of nature.

I think you have to ask: why are people dealing drugs?

Some people sell drugs because they are desperate. These people are dealing with extreme poverty, trauma, mental and physical health issues, etc. Their cars are messy.

Other people sell drugs because of the economic opportunity. In my experience, these people pride themselves on cleanliness, timeliness, and customer service. They have clean cars.

Of course Israel denies that it intends to commit genocide. If you’re looking for genocidal intent, just look at the words of Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and Netanyahu. Or the words of thousands of rabid Israelis on Jerusalem Day as they publically call for ethnic cleansing.

The IDF stopped the knocking-before-bombing system very early on in this conflict. And when you’re bombing refugee tent cities, no warning is possible.

Your genocide denial is disgusting.

But that explanation is lost to time.

One translation I read suggested a probable explanation.

Rasputin’s phone advice was the same as many modern quacks: keep the patient away from modern medicine and doctors.

So the hemophiliac prince was no longer given his normal cocktail of drugs, which probably included a new medicine for the time: aspirin.

Stop giving a blood thinner to a hemophiliac and his condition (temporarily) improved. The best explanation for the people at the time was “magic”.

For any other country, state dept reports like this have to clear before we start shipping weapons.

But for Israel, the Biden administration carves out exceptions and delays the reporting so the illegal weapons shipments can continue.

This is the banality of evil, Palestinian children are starving and exploding and we are arguing over reports.

This is why Biden has earned the moniker “Genocide Joe”.

Civil war? Not even close.

Outright corruption? Business interests have always ruled the country, this is not new.

The bigger picture is that America is the most violent country since Nazi Germany. No other country comes close to our death toll. We spend $1trillion each year on violence and weapons- and those bombs must be dropped, because we need a reason to spend >$1trillion next year.

One of the major issues in this case is that Obama set a precedent when he assassinated 16 year old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki without a trial.

The reality is that the Democrats go low, and Republicans use that as a new standard to go even lower.

…Look in the mirror: The horror, the horror! The butt of your M-16 on my cheekbone The yellow patch it left The bullet-shaped scar expanding Like a swastika, Snaking across my face, The heartache flowing Out of my eyes dripping Out of my nostrils piercing My ears flooding The place. Like it did to you 70 years ago Or so.

I am just you. I am your past haunting Your present and your future. I strive like you did. I fight like you did. I resist like you resisted And for a moment, I’d take your tenacity As a model, Were you not holding The barrel of the gun Between my bleeding Eyes.

…The very same gun The very same bullet That had killed your Mom And killed your Dad Is being used, Against me, By you.

Mark this bullet and mark in your gun. If you sniff it, it has your and my blood. It has my present and your past. It has my present. It has your future. That’s why we are twins, Same life track Same weapon Same suffering Same facial expressions drawn On the face of the killer, Same everything Except that in your case The victim has evolved, backward, Into a victimizer. I tell you. I am you. Except that I am not the you of now.

I do not hate you. I want to help you stop hating And killing me. I tell you: The noise of your machine gun Renders you deaf The smell of the powder Beats that of my blood. The sparks disfigure My facial expressions. Would you stop shooting? For a moment? Would you?

All you have to do Is close your eyes (Seeing these days Blinds our hearts.) Close your eyes, tightly So that you can see In your mind’s eye. Then look into the mirror. One. Two. I am you. I am your past. And killing me, You kill you.

• Dr. Refaat Alareer

Sorry to be pessimistic. Voting local is a good thing, but I just dont see how local elections could ever add up to large systemic change that we agree is necessary. There is no way to vote out the military industrial complex.

What else is there to do? I think broad-based protest movements, like the moment for Palestinian liberation that we are watching today, have a shot at changing things. It’s a long shot though - the same forces that crushed George Floyd, Occupy Wallstreet, anti-WTO, etc. will be back again with their winning tactics.

Overall I think our best hope is with organized labor. Join a union or create one.

But the roots of the compromised DNC are its corporate donors, not your choice of county commissioner. How do you suggest we actually tear it out by the roots?

Hamas would be in a far superior negotiating position if the released hostages were saying that they were treated kindly and cared for

You should read the accounts of released hostages then, many of them have publically stated they were treated kindly.

This horrific recounting of captivity and rape is an outlier.

I dont understand why Israel, deeply reliant on US military assistance for its defense, also routinely humiliates the US in public.

They are busy drawing up plans for their new beachfront condo in Gaza.

I’m not trying to say Jesus was a pacifist, but all of those quotes are Old Testament, written centuries before Jesus supposedly existed…

It’s not racist to be aware of the fact that the US supported the Taliban after the fall of the Mujaheddin.

The Taliban were US-backed and US-funded long before 9/11.

Sanctions are just a tool, they can be used for good things (as you mentioned) but also bad things.

I think sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are valid. I think sanctions against Cuba are unjustifiable and a crime against humanity. I think sanctions against North Korea are justified given the actions of the Kim regime. But the sanctions also perpetuate the problem by punishing and isolating the innocent NK populace.

Sanctions are an act of war, they should never be used lightly.

Also using sanctions, no matter how valid the reason, has been shown to significantly deteriorate human rights in the targeted country.

Depends how you measure “safety”.

Here in the US life expectancy is declining.

I can’t afford a home, healthcare, or retirement. My parents generation could.

Climate change is doing significant damage, and it’s just getting started.

But yeah, I’m less likely to be murdered. I got that going for me, which is nice.

I prefer my doomerism to be vague.

Precise doomerism is just too depressing.