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These are interesting questions, but I don't know they are appropriate for this thread, and I don't want to contribute to thread-drift. In addition, the last time someone opened a thread about these matters it went sideways fast, and I'd rather not spend my mental energy dealing with that. Feel free to DM me and I'll be happy to try to answer these, or else we can just leave this here.

Sorry - busy day with a migraine, just wanted to note I haven't forgotten!

…And where are you seeing the organizers of these protests supporting Hamas? This is classic straw manning. To your broader point, do I suspect pro-Palestinian protests to directly affect policy change? Nope, absolutely not. But you can say that about most protest movements. Based on your logic, the people that participated in the Women’s March, or March For Our Lives, or the host of climate change protests, all should have just stayed home. The impact of most protest movements is an attempt to shift public opinion and - more importantly - politically engage those that otherwise wouldn’t be.

I'm not sure one needs to do it just to win a medal. It's enough that the result is you might win a medal and you act on it. Laurel Hubbard comes to mind. She's someone who, pre-transition, was a junior national competitor (never competed internationally) and stopped competing in 2001, and then nearly two decades later started again, entered international competition for the first time, and won a place to compete in the Olympics, bumping Samoa's Iuniarra Sipaia (she's qualified for the 2024 Olympics, it turns out, so good on her). She didn't go through it all just to win a medal, but it's a pretty extraordinary journey for someone who had stopped competing entirely two decades earlier. Hubbard bombed out at the Olympics, but then again she was in her mid-40s at the time, a decade or two older than her competitors. If there are monetary prizes, sponsorship money, endorsement money, and/or scholarships involved, sports that have traditionally divided the sexes should probably still do so, at least until such time as we come up with some alternative categorization of competition (.e.g handicap systems) to level the field. For things like youth sports (at lower levels, anyways) and intramural co-ed sports, safety should really be the only consideration. As to those who say, well, does it really matter, it's just sports... By 2028, global sports are expected to be a $680 billion industry. People make careers out of it. In the US, young athletes can get scholarships that may change the courses of their lives. Unfair competition for these opportunities is, well, unfair, and does actually matter to those people.

I'm sure Samuele Allardici could be tempted to take a job, as long as it's up to his high standards.

Scot, protest is a legitimate tool, and no, it doesn't have nuance. But nuance isn't always useful or good. Different tools are suitable for different purposes. Nuance alone would not have won universal suffrage.

It’s a good idea for the protestors to disassociate themselves from people who support Hamas. The latter are vicious anti-semites. The same way that Tommy Robinson was told to clear off, when he tried to join a march against anti-semitism in London. Otherwise, you end up tarnishing your cause.

Nope. I don’t recall protestors in 2020 defending or supporting the buring of buildings… do you? I recall most of that violence being perpetrated by “boogaloo boys” who wanted it blamed on the protestors.

Again:

There are protestors overtly supporting Hamas, using Hamas slogans, and claiming all Jewish Israelis are colonists who should be expelled from Israel. Not all of them certainly but some of them. That is what bothers me about aggressive protests. Subtly is usually lost as nuanced goals are not the strong suit of protests: https://apnews.com/article/columbia-yale-israel-palestinians-protests-56c3d9d0a278c15ed8e4132a75ea9599

Sounds like you discovered you could be conservative on some issues. This is a familiar narrative. I've read or heard it quite a few times now. I had a friend who spoke that way for a while, until I asked him what he meant. Turns out, he struggled to give me a single real-life example. The "woke movement" was nothing more than a feeling he had, based on the declarations of the most progressive politician here, some vague rumors of stuff that may or may not have happened at the other end of the country, and lots of stuff he'd seen on the internet. He hadn't seen or heard anything himself, he was just reacting to a reaction, with no first-hand knowledge of what had started the outrage in the first place. It's as if he was begging me to tell him that it wasn't real, and that "woke" was just a loosely connected ensemble of ideas and evolutions with little organizing behind them. After this discussion he never used the word again in my presence. Of course, that's my experience from outside the anglosphere, in a country which isn't *that* progressive, where there is no DEI in the workplace, where trans-identity is not being debated, and religious liberty or affirmative action are very limited... So it's easy for me to see attacks against "wokeness" as being manufactured by the right in my country. For historical reasons (the Revolution), France is not a place that focuses much on individual identity (we do all eat smelly cheese and drink wine, that's our thing), so it's mainly the right and the far-right that have invented the "woke movement" through public declarations and dodgy media outlets. If "woke" is anything here, it's both the right's bogeyman and a label for fasionable things that teenagers tell their middle-aged parents about. But I can't rule out that there is in fact such a movement in the US and UK. Maybe it's not just the right building up moral outrage over minor evolutions. After all, "woke" originally meant being aware of systemic racism, right? So I'm curious. When you speak of "social-justice, identity-focused, purity-over-pragmatism ideology," what do you mean exactly? How do you define "ideology" here? Who represents this movement and what do they say? Is the movement embodied by any specific organization? What have been the concrete real-life applications of the movement's principles? Has the movement had any legislative victories? Or are we merely talking about sociological trends, i.e., peer-pressure?

Dude, read the post you’re responding to: Ironically, it’s your perspective here that lacks nuance in erroneously assuming pro-Palestine = pro-Hamas.

There was a lack of communication overlap between Edmonton and Gothenburg, and no tools in place to foster improved information sharing, and no teams in-between both timezones, to allow for an overlap in communications and creative production. Not sure if Slack, Teams, Jira, Trello, Miro, and Mural were in place back then to faciliate the kind of workflow management needed to get the best out of everyone.

My 70's hardback editions, which I stole inherited from my parents, are also in two volumes. Which is funny seeing them looking all skinny a shelf away from Martin and Jordan tomes.

Support for Hamas by protesters doesn’t equate to support for expulsion (or worse) of Jewish Israelis? Given that is a stated goal of Hamas and to my knowledge Hamas hasn’t moderated that goal how else should overt support for Hamas by protesters and use of its slogans be construed? This isn’t to defend Netanyahu or the Israeli Likud government there actions are reprehensible. But supporting other reprehensible actors doesn’t seem, to me, like a good plan. I support two state solution. I oppose Israeli efforts to expel Palestinians and Palestinians efforts to expel Israeli Jews.

I disagree. As bad as this has been it could have been much worse. Consider how Israel would have behaved if Trump had been office with Netanyahu in Israel. It can, sadly, always be worse.

This is ascribing motives to the protesters that the vast majority of which do not share. And frankly buying into a concerted effort to delegitimize any pro-Palestinian sentiment. Protesting against the indiscriminate violence perpetrated on Palestinians does not necessarily mean support for Hamas. This is like saying since there was looting and property damage during the George Floyd protests, that’s all the protesters were interested in.

Klopp is really fucking off at the wrong time! There is a dearth of really good/excellent managers right now. FYI, Mourinho was at the Fulham game.... just sayin.....

I do. And I’ve never been overly fond of mass protest precisely because nuance isn’t its strong suit and most political issues are more nuanced than the average protester wants to accept.

May the Fourth soon be upon us. Peace folks...

Who knows? They US doesn't appear to have much influence right now. It's not illogical to think that cutting of military aid to Israel is a more direct and sensible option. But the US government has been supporting Israel for a long time. Maybe it's illogical to protestors to think that the US would suddenly rein in Israel by providing them with more weapons. If protestors felt they had better ways of influencing the US government I doubt they'd be out there right now.

Scot, I'm not sure you understand the difference between a protest and a debating society.

I don't think its 2 huge games. I'm pretty sure it's one huge game (described as being even bigger than BG3) and one smaller game. Sort of like how Rockstar worked on Max Payne 3 and GTA V at the same time.

The protesters are not subtle or nuanced in their positions… that I agree on. And I do not personally want US Military hardware sent to Israel. However, I’m also under no illusion that Hamas is the “good guy” or that the use of “from the river to the sea” is anything but a slogan for expulsion (or worse) of entire ethnic groups within the territory of Israel/Palestine whichever side trots it out.

There is a more subtle question here than most protesters like. Does the US have more or less influence in Israeli military choices if it cuts off aid?