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You are here: Home / Open Threads / If I ventured in the slip stream

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    Trollhattan

    She’s now demonstrably pro-West Bank settlements. Or something. Put another way–fvck if I know. Celebrity stuff is the most banal aspect of our miserable media.

  3. 3.

    MomSense

    Richard Engel is reporting that his computer and cell were hacked as soon as got to Sochi. State Department warning that travelers should have no expectation of privacy.

  4. 4.

    Soonergrunt

    Apparently, SodaStream is produced in an Israeli-owned factory in the West Bank. Since a lot of people see this as a sign of Israel’s illegal occupation of that land, it’s a company that has been targeted for boycott.
    I am given to understand that the company employs a lot of Palestinians.

    And that’s all I know about that.
    I don’t care, because I wouldn’t use that product anyway.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    The Soda Stream factory is in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, so people who oppose settlements have been trying to set up a boycott. Oxfam has apparently decided to go along, and they told ScarJo that she couldn’t be a spokesperson for both them and Soda Stream.

  6. 6.

    kc

    It was the Internet outrage du jour, but that was several jours ago.

    In a nutshell, as I understand it, Johansson signed a deal to shill for Soda Stream, cause I guess she needed more money, and then Oxfam, for whom she was a spokesperson, criticized the deal because one of Soda Stream’s factories is in the West Bank. So Johansson resigned from Oxfam.

  8. 8.

    Laertes

    TL;DR: ScarJo is in the wrong and means to stay there.

    She did an ad for SodaStream. The company is in the West Bank. Company says it’s good because they hire palestinians. People say it’s bad because they’re in the settlements, and therefore on stolen land.

    It’s complicated, but the sense I get is that people who honestly give a shit about the Palestinians tend to favor the boycott. I’m sure I’m overlooking some important and authentic voices, though.

  12. 12.

    Warren Terra

    Soda Stream uses factories in the occupied West Bank; Israeli occupation of the West Bank is, to put it very mildly, problematic, and purchasing from or endorsing Soda Stream is seen as accepting the occupation and furthering it.

    The part that may have convinced Johannsen to take the job is that Soda Stream occupies a conflicted position in the debate about the Occupation. Soda Stream takes great pains to insist that its Palestinian factory workers are given an opportunity to work in good jobs, that they are well paid and that within the factory they are treated as equals. Nonetheless, in the larger picture as residents of the Occupied West Bank they are not treated as equals, and are denied opportunities. Is Soda Stream to be praised for having established a superior model of economic exploitation of the West Bank, one that may even be identical to normal employment inside Israel – or is it to be criticized for participating in Israel’s economic exploitation of the West Bank, is an Israeli-owned and Israeli-run company operating in the West Bank fundamentally illegitimate, no matter how fair its pay and working conditions?

    I don’t pretend to have a good answer here, and as with most Israel/Palestinian questions most commentary lends more heat than light.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    @Soonergrunt:

    We haven’t had a decent flame war in ages. Setting aside hackers and privacy and terror threats (oh my!), Sochi sounds like a disaster. The hotels aren’t even finished yet.

  15. 15.

    MattR

    One of Soda Stream’s bottling centers is in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. Some say that doing any business like that in the settlement further entrenches them and makes it harder to undo the illegal occupation as part of a two state solution. Soda Stream argues that it is providing jobs in the region, including to Palestianians who have the same wages and working conditions as Israelis in that plant and others elsewhere in Israel. Scarlett Johnason is in the second camp which has many in the first camp unhappy. Argument for Soda Stream. And one against them.

  16. 16.

    Mart

    I am outraged that a company would leave their home border to exploit cheap labor. Who ever heard of such a thing?

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    Man, DougJ is in the mood for a fight today, isn’t he?

    Anyway, this is the controversy as I understand it: the SodaStream factory is built inside one of the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and staffed by Palestinian workers who are being paid less than Israel’s minimum wage, but more than they would normally get. So the question is, are you supporting Israel’s de facto apartheid system when you buy a Soda Stream?

    As I said in the last thread about this, these kind of controversies make me think that a one-state solution with current Palestinians being given full Israeli citizenship may be the only way to resolve these kinds of problems since the two countries are extremely intertwined economically and total separation would be economically disastrous for both of them, but obviously there would be major problems with integrating current Palestinians as full citizens of Israel. But, to me, the problems that could be caused by a two-state solution would be even worse.

  19. 19.

    Joel

    @me: um, no. the machine is designed to carbonate water. you can add syrup after.

    I own a Sodastream, purchased about five years ago, back when they sold 110L carbonators in addition to the 60L ones. Back then, you could get the 110L carbonator refilled for about 15 bucks and it really was a good deal. The price has more than doubled since, and I’m no longer interested in following their proprietary model. Since my wife and I drink a lot of sparkling water, I went out and got one of these . Problem solved. Now I can refill 20oz paintball canisters for $3 bucks at a local sporting goods store.

  20. 20.

    Crusty Dem

    Sodastream is made from the crushed bones of Palestinian children who have been raped by Woody Allen, and Stephen King covered it all up. Jerry Seinfeld told some jokes about it.

    #outragefatigue

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    @MomSense:

    We haven’t had a decent flame war in ages

    With regards to the question of cracking the shell on a hard-boiled egg, are you a big-endian or a small-endian?

  22. 22.

    some guy

    @Warren Terra:

    purchasing from or endorsing Soda Stream is seen as accepting the occupation and furthering it.

    Article 49, Fourth Geneva Convention. The people who produce SodaStream are War Criminals. Those who purchase SodStream are accessories to War Crimes.

    simple as that.

  23. 23.

    Laertes

    CrustyDem and some guy are firmly in the mainstream of the anti-boycott folks, near as I can tell.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    More interesting than SodaStream: Dylan Farrow’s recent accusations against Woody Allen.

    Per TPM:

    Famed filmmaker Woody Allen has asked the New York Times for a chance to respond to an open letter written by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow and published by the newspaper, in which she resurrected allegations that Allen sexually assaulted her when she was a child.

    This reminds me too much of the Innocence Lost/ Edenton, NC case.

  28. 28.

    MattR

    @Mnemosyne:

    staffed by Palestinian workers who are being paid less than Israel’s minimum wage, but more than they would normally get.

    I do not believe this is true. They are being paid the Israeli minimum wage at SodaStream.

    While Israeli labor laws technically apply in the settlements, labor rights organization Kav LaOved says it is poorly enforced. Inspections, which are considered the essence of labor law enforcement, are reportedly sparse. Abed Dari, the organization’s field coordinator in the Jordan Valley and Mishor Adumim, the industrial zone where SodaStream’s factory is located, estimates that 95 percent of Palestinian employees of Israeli businesses in those areas do not earn the minimum wage of 4,300 shekels ($1,230).

    Dari says SodaStream is one of the few companies in Mishor Adumim that does pay minimum wage, but adds that his organization’s worker hotline received a complaint about some 100 workers being fired recently, due to “seasonal” hiring practices. Workers in Azzariah mentioned that some fellow workers had recently been let go, which they attributed to boycott pressure.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @Warren Terra:
    The working conditions in the Soda Stream plant are beside the point. No matter how you slice it, the plant is on stolen land, and that makes its existence inherently wrong. It’s also taking advantage of conditions of the occupation that make it essentially impossible for a Palestinian-owned factory to do the same thing; they would be denied access to raw materials and markets that are essential for any serious industry to exist. That makes it inherently exploitative.

  32. 32.

    Laertes

    @Crusty Dem:

    If you like, I’ll rephrase: “Crusty Dem and some guy exemplify the sober engagement with the question and the serious tone that I’ve generally found among critics of the boycott.”

    Better?

  34. 34.

    kathleen

    I agree a one-state solution is the only viable one left, given all the settlements. Problem is, that would end Israel as a “Jewish state” either immediately or very shortly.

  35. 35.

    Ernest Pikeman

    So this is the new way to blog, eh?

    Instead of finding interesting things to comment on or a unique or funny perspective on the world, just ask your commenters to explain everything to you? You shoulda titled this “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?”.

    I think it’s time for Cole to shut down this blog and create the local WV one he talked about. Maybe that one would have actual contact surface with the world.

    EDIT: fucking door hit me in the ass as I was exiting!

  37. 37.

    Nutella

    @Roger Moore:

    Oxfam has apparently decided to go along

    Oxfam has been opposed to the settlements for a long time.

    Johanssen really can’t be a celebrity spokesman for an organization that’s against the settlements and an organization that does business in the settlements at the same time. She had to choose and she did.

    I gather from news reports it’s something of a conflict of political issues for her. Apparently she supports SodaStream for environmental reasons (with it you can use less material/energy for soft drinks) and Oxfam for charitable reasons.

    I don’t think anyone’s being unreasonable here. Johanssen made a political decision, Oxfam made a political decision, SodaStream made a political decision. Which ones are ‘right’ depends on your judgement of the settlement issue and its relative importance to other issues.

  39. 39.

    scav

    @MomSense: Some people. Whadja want in a hotel, huh? Running potable water!? Toilets that flush?. Next, you’ll no doubt be wanting snow under your skis or something. Liquids. What is it with the hydrogen dioxide mixed marriage this year? At least my plague of it is flakey, poor old UK isn’t doing so well with the damp version.

  40. 40.

    Amir Khalid

    My mum bought one of them SodaStream things in the late 1970s, off my friend’s dad who was selling them to supplement his schoolteacher’s income. (A SodaStream distributor had a direct sales operation here that didn’t last very long.) I can attest that you get tired of them pretty quick, for the reasons cited in the video at commenter me’s link — it isn’t that cheap, and the drinks you can make with the syrups available don’t taste all that great either. Although another friend and I used to joke about making aerated chicken soup with it.

  41. 41.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    The issue isn’t Soda Stream per se, its that Oxfam is no longer using her as a representative because the Soda Stream spokeperson gig can be turned into a political issue. So now its controversial that Oxfam wants no part in any controversy

  43. 43.

    joel hanes

    @Mnemosyne:

    a one-state solution with current Palestinians being given full Israeli citizenship

    IIRC, this would make Israel a Jewish-minority state, and thus it’s a non-starter even though duh.

  44. 44.

    beltane

    @Roger Moore: Very succinct explanation. The main purpose of the boycott is to bring attention to the fact that 1) land has been stolen; 2) land continues to be stolen; and 3) the United States isn’t inclined to do anything about it. If it’s OK to boycott Chik-fil-A on account of their anti-GLBT policies, it should also be OK for people who disagree with the Israeli government’s West Bank settlement policy to boycott Soda Stream.

  45. 45.

    Mandalay

    As goes our air force…..

    A worrisome culture of fear that made launch officers believe they had to get perfect test scores to be promoted fueled a widening cheating scandal within the military’s nuclear missile corps, according to air force officials.

    Half of the 183 launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in the cheating investigation and suspended, signaling deeper morale and personnel problems in a force critical to America’s nuclear security.

    ….so goes our navy….

    The US navy is investigating alleged cheating on tests by senior enlisted sailors training on naval nuclear reactors, officials said Tuesday.

    The naval criminal investigative service is conducting the probe, which involves allegations of cheating on tests related to the nuclear reactors that provide propulsion for navy submarines and aircraft carriers in the state of South Carolina.

    I know this is all Obama’s fault, but for some reason I can’t quite explain why.

  46. 46.

    Bill Arnold

    @kathleen:

    I agree a one-state solution is the only viable one left, given all the settlements. Problem is, that would end Israel as a “Jewish state” either immediately or very shortly.

    Thus, advocacy of a one-state solution is considered anti-semitic in some circles. The Israeli right have diligently painted themselves into a corner over the last 30-40 years with the WB settlements. (Many of them believing that it is the will of God.)
    There is still room for a two-state solution (with more trade with Jordan).

  47. 47.

    Warren Terra

    @Amir Khalid:
    I know people with a soda stream, who happen to like seltzer water, as indeed I do. The convenience factor is significant, and the environmental factor may be real. The savings don’t exist: here in the US you can buy store-brand seltzer water for about $0.40/liter, which is similar to the per-liter cost of CO2 containers, and the quality is similar. Sure, the SodaStream is more convenient (less lugging of 5-pound 2-liter bottles, less storage space for them), but there’s also the cost of the device itself (and the counter space).

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    @dmsilev:

    When I play the Easter egg cracking game, I always go with the small end although I have never actually won this game.

  50. 50.

    Nutella

    @Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:

    Oxfam wants no part in any controversy

    Oxfam is more than happy to take part in this controversy. They are very clear that they are against the settlements.

    I don’t know why so many of you want to make this out to be a trivial public relations story just because an actress is one of the players. It’s not. This is about important and serious political issues.

  52. 52.

    Warren Terra

    @Mandalay:

    I know this is all Obama’s fault, but for some reason I can’t quite explain why.

    Back when Obama was slacking off in high school, his stoner outlook convinced our Missile Command (or whatever the real name of the organization is) to set the launch codes to 0000000, and to put labels on the panels revealing the launch code.

  53. 53.

    Calming Influence

    So it’s 29°F here in our little corner of Puget Sound. I took in the hummingbird feeders last night so they wouldn’t freeze, and before I put them out again I warmed them up a little above ambient with a hair dryer (pro-tip: put them in a baking dish or on some paper towels when you do this; the warming air inside the bottle expands and pushes out the sugar water). The sun was just coming up when I took them outside, and I was immediately buzzed by hummers. We have 4 feeders out, and there are currently 4 hummers sitting on different rhododendron branches, jealously guarding their own personal feeder.

    Also too, we got about 1/10 of an inch of snow last night. We get snow here only slightly more frequently than Atlanta does. But when we do get snow, we don’t all freak the fuck out and abandon our vehicles, because we’re all driving fucking Subarus, John.

  56. 56.

    Mandalay

    @Roger Moore:

    The working conditions in the Soda Stream plant are beside the point. No matter how you slice it, the plant is on stolen land, and that makes its existence inherently wrong.

    You nailed it. All further discussion is just window dressing.

  58. 58.

    Calouste

    @Mnemosyne:

    Israel is a de jure apartheid state. For example, someone can get Israeli citizenship if they marry an Israeli citizen, except if they are of Palestinian or Jordanian (and a few other ME countries) descent.

  61. 61.

    jayackroyd

    @Joel: Thanks. I’ve got a warranty replacement for my sodastream on the way, and teh Google tells me there’s a welding shop on w 52nd street that’ll fill a standard tank. I knew I was overpaying for the CO2 but didn’t know what I could do about it.

  62. 62.

    srv

    @Mandalay: Clearly you’ve never been in the military and understand that the Commander-in-Chief sets the standard for good order and discipline.

    What are these heroes on uniform to think when a guy with no birth certificate or grade reports slides is given his position because of Affirmative Action or racist White Guilt?

    There you go.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @Mandalay:

    I know this is all Obama’s fault, but for some reason I can’t quite explain why.

    Because he didn’t just watch it happen. If his administration were just willing to look the other way, we wouldn’t have this problem.

  64. 64.

    catclub

    @Mandalay: “signaling deeper morale and personnel problems in a force critical to America’s nuclear security.”

    Wouldn’t we be safer if they did not know how to launch?

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    @dmsilev: If you personally boiled it, it’s easy to know which end to start with — the end that floated the highest. If the egg floats to the surface, you should toss it because it’s old. However, most store-bought eggs will be fresh enough to eat but aged enough so that one end or the other floats higher while the other end stays on the bottom of the pan. That means there’s an air pocket in that end, so you should start with that end for easier peeling.

    PS: If you boil a fresh-from-the-hen’s-butt egg, it will be a BITCH to peel. This is the only drawback of fresh eggs.

  68. 68.

    KXB

    I am still trying to figure out why so many people regard her as a bombshell. She is rather plain to look at at, and her acting is lifeless.

  69. 69.

    MattR

    @Mnemosyne: But was that the fault of the company employing those black workers during Jim Crow? Were they explicitly encouraging the continuation of Jim Crow? Did the existence of that company employing black workers and treating them the same as white workers implicitly perpetuate the Jim Crow system ? Or did that company make things better for a small group of black workers until the Jim Crow laws could be overturned? Could it even have helped make that possible by tearing down some of the boundaries between blacks and whites by having them work together?

    I understand the sentiment (and Roger Moore’s point about it being stolen land), but I am having a hard time with a bunch of people who are completely outside of the arena telling a group of Palestinians that they should lose good jobs and slide into worse poverty because it is really in their own best long term interests (which is something they have been hearing in one form or another for nearly 50 years)

  71. 71.

    different-church-lady

    @Crusty Dem:

    Jerry Seinfeld told some jokes didn’t know any funny black people who could tell jokes about it, so he made his own lame ones.

    But seriously: Jerry, you don’t know any funny blacks?

  72. 72.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m with ya. And it isn’t just Litle Rascals, but also the McMartin Preschool case, the Bronx Five, Dale Akiki…amongst others.

  73. 73.

    Mandalay

    @Ernest Pikeman:

    So this is the new way to blog, eh? Instead of finding interesting things to comment on or a unique or funny perspective on the world, just ask your commenters to explain everything to you?

    You miss all those riveting and insightful posts on feefees, bobo and totebaggers?

  74. 74.

    different-church-lady

    @Ernest Pikeman: Sir, it is far better this way — rather than having the bloggers themselves misinform you, we instead get the full spectrum of misinformation from a variety of viewpoints.

  75. 75.

    KXB

    @different-church-lady:

    This was a bullshit story. He said that first and foremost, he was interested in whether the material was funny or not, and not on whether his show met some critic’s notion of diversity. He has worked with Chris Rock, Mario Joyner, and George Wallace was the best man at his wedding.

    Critics gonna criticize. When Chris Rock dressed as a clown for a magazine cover, some critics gave him shit, saying that wasn’t he just bringing up old minstrel shows? His response was that questions like that is why he will never get the same opportunities as Jim Carey. Meaning, Carey is judged on his work, and not on how to reflects on the judgment of critics who don’t work in entertainment.

  77. 77.

    different-church-lady

    @Elizabelle: Dafuq? I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention and I had no idea that the NYT has decided to insert themselves into this.

    I don’t have an opinion one way or another, I’m not on either side. I’m just flabbergasted the Times would choose to publish the letter.

  78. 78.

    Mandalay

    @Laertes:

    people who honestly give a shit about the Palestinians tend to favor the boycott

    Ironically, I think Scarlett Johansson’s stand has unwittingly done far more for the Palestinians than any number of politicians and journalists.

    She is causing many people who were previously indifferent about the Israel/Palestine conflict to try to understand what is happening. And that should be an overall win for the Palestinian cause.

  79. 79.

    different-church-lady

    @KXB: When we get right down to it, they’re all bullshit stories nowadays.

    Still, dude botched his answer pretty damn badly.

  82. 82.

    Mandalay

    @KXB:

    He said that first and foremost, he was interested in whether the material was funny or not

    He did indeed, and most of us probably have a lot of sympathy with that position. But then Seinfeld went further, and sneered about “PC nonsense”, and that’s where he lost me.

    We need ABL to come back. She crystallized why comments like those from Seinfeld are offensive better than anyone I have ever read.

  84. 84.

    Mandalay

    @MomSense:

    State Department warning that travelers should have no expectation of privacy.

    In Sochi – BFD. How about Peoria? They don’t talk about that so much.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @MattR:

    Soda Stream argues that it is providing jobs in the region, including to Palestianians who have the same wages and working conditions as Israelis in that plant and others elsewhere in Israel.

    That just doesn’t cut it for me.

    Shorter Soda Stream: Hey, we treat our slaves very well.

  87. 87.

    KXB

    @different-church-lady:

    He botched the answer because he was probably not expecting the question. He is not an academic or corporate CEO with thousands of employees. One problem I still have with the left, is they bandy about the term “diversity” the way old East Bloc nations had posters in their windows that read “Workers of the World, Unite!” or the way the right talks about “family values” while making it difficult to get health insurance. It was repeated like a catechism, as if that was sufficient.

  89. 89.

    askew

    I caught the tailend of a piece on Soda Stream and they were interviewing Palestinians who worked their and they were happy to have the jobs because they were basically the only employer on the West Bank that was offering them a living wage. They said without Soda Stream they wouldn’t have jobs.

  90. 90.

    Mandalay

    @WaterGirl:

    Shorter Soda Stream: Hey, we treat our slaves very well.

    Taking it a step further:

    Shorter Soda Stream: Hey, we treat our slaves on land we stole from our slaves very well.

  92. 92.

    Cacti

    @KXB:

    He botched the answer because he was probably not expecting the question.

    And the plebes must always watch themselves, lest they ask their betters an uncomfortable question.

  93. 93.

    Mandalay

    @KXB:

    He botched the answer because he was probably not expecting the question

    Nope. He botched the answer because he spoke the truth from his perspective. Nobody tricked Seinfeld into making sneering references to “whitey” and “PC nonsense”. The real Seinfeld came out.

    This was one of those rare occasions when a truly awful interviewer created a great interview. The interviewer was such a servile fawning doormat that Seinfeld felt comfortable enough to say whatever was in his head. And he did.

  94. 94.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Betty Cracker: That’s why Nanny always told me to set aside the boilers to get ripe for boiled eggs. Of course “age” is probably the more accurate term.

    ETA Nanny is our family name for my maternal grandmother.

  95. 95.

    kindness

    @Mnemosyne: I used to be a two stater as far as the Israeli paradox is concerned. I’ve changed. I think the only way there will be actual equality is one state. Except let us hope there will be no exiling of the locals in the West Bank to get there. It is sadly one of the fundies (Israeli fundies) dreams to take the land and kick out the Palestinians.

    Would they be able to get along to form a working society? I have to think they’d get along just as well as we do here in the States….Oh….maybe I should aim for a higher bar. Oh well.

  98. 98.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: Why do you think publication of the letter was appalling? I’m glad they published it. These young women have the right to have their side of the story told (at long last).

    Did you read the letter itself? I did. Here’s what I wrote on Booman’s site just after I read the letter:

    One sentence in, my skin was crawling. It was all I could do to make it through the letter, but I felt I owed her that.

    I don’t see how anyone could read that letter and believe she is making this up.

    Thinking the letter shouldn’t have been published is the equivalent of saying these women should be silenced. That makes no sense to me. Since I normally really appreciate what you write, and we seem to be so far apart on this, I am hoping you can clarify.

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    @Roger Moore:

    The working conditions in the Soda Stream plant are beside the point. No matter how you slice it, the plant is on stolen land, and that makes its existence inherently wrong.

    My thoughts when this was discussed on BJ earlier this week: I believed the settlements are wrong, I supported the boycott in general but I wasn’t sure about Soda Stream, and I thought Scarlett J had probably made the wrong choice, given her beliefs, but I thought some guy was a little “out there”.

    Just a few days later, after learning more about it all, I still believe the settlements are wrong, I still support the boycott, and I am kind of shocked that Scarlett J made the choice she did. But mostly it’s become very clear to me that the factory is built on stolen land, that it’s disgusting that Soda Stream and other companies are building businesses on stolen land, and I feel kind of excited and hopeful that maybe the BDS boycott will seriously take off.

  100. 100.

    Cacti

    @askew:

    I caught the tailend of a piece on Soda Stream and they were interviewing Palestinians who worked their and they were happy to have the jobs because they were basically the only employer on the West Bank that was offering them a living wage. They said without Soda Stream they wouldn’t have jobs.

    Desperate people are happy to have employment, and this is proof that SodaStream is doing a good thing?

    As the TPM article pointed out, how many of those Palestinian SodaStream employees could set up their own business in Israel delivering SodaStream products to Israeli stores?

  101. 101.

    askew

    @Cacti:

    I didn’t say it was proof of anything just that this isn’t a simple issue. None of these employees likely have enough money or any capital to start their own business. It’s this business or no job at all. That’s the reality of the West Bank right now.

    A two-state solution is going to be the only option. Jews want 1 country where they are majority after spending ages being persecuted as minorities in other countries. Make it a one-state solution and Israel ceases to be a Jewish state.

  102. 102.

    daverave

    This story gives me hope that one of these days my boycott of every American company that operates on land stolen from Native Americans will finally have an impact.

  103. 103.

    some guy

    @MattR:

    I am having a hard time with a bunch of people who are completely outside of the arena telling a group of Palestinians that they should lose good jobs and slide into worse poverty

    BDS was initiated by, and continues with, the active involvement Palestinian trades unions and other civil society groups. If someone born in Nablus or Ramallah are “outsiders” then you seriously need to rethink your notion of inside/outside. seriously. not that the ideology of scabs that would rationalize away crossing a picket line is anything new under the sun

  104. 104.

    Roger Moore

    @askew:

    A two-state solution is going to be the only option.

    Then you can’t realistically accept settlements, because the settlements are actively undermining the possibility of a two state solution. I also think that anyone who wants a permanent solution other than letting Israel ethnically cleanse the whole area should support anything that puts pressure on Israel to negotiate in good faith. As long as the US protects Israel from any negative consequences of their actions, they have no reason to do anything but continue expanding the settlements until there’s no Palestine left.

  105. 105.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t at all think abuse victims should be silenced, and Dylan’s letter is harrowing, but this strikes me as a possible false accusation. I am not saying she is lying, but am not convinced her allegations are true, either.

    I totally believe that Dylan believes her accusations. I just do not jump to the conclusion that Woody Allen is guilty of the charges leveled at him. I kind of think Mia Farrow coached the kid, intentionally or not, because she was so devastated by Allen’s betrayal of her, with Soon Yi.

    The psychiatrists at the time concluded the child had been coached. Medical exams turned up no evidence of molestation. No charges were filed at the time, and the statute of limitations has passed.

    And far be it to assess the Daily Beast as a 100% credible source, but a documentary filmmaker who worked on an American Masters episode about Woody Allen batted down a lot of the accusations. Several of the kids’ nannies disputed Mia Farrow’s account, and one quit because she felt pressured to lie.

    The Woody Allen Allegations: Not so Fast

    Short answer: Dylan believes what she believes, but she might have the wrong culprit. Or not.

    But why is this case being dredged up again, and in a NYTimes column? Why now?

    And how does anyone defend himself against an allegation like this? It’s he said, she said, with horrible allegations and no new evidence.

  107. 107.

    LanceThruster

    @daverave:

    The Lakota have been trying to keep the US honest for sometime.

    “I call you my brother. What you told me yesterday I believe is true, and I slept satisfied last night. The Yanctons below us are poor people. I don’t know where their land is. I pity them. These lower Yanctons I know did own a piece of land, but they sold it long ago. I do not know where they got any more. Since I have been born I do not know who owns two, three, four or more pieces of land. When I get land it is all in one piece, and we were born and still live on it. These Yanctons, we took pity on them. They have no land. We lent them what they had to grow corn on it. We gave them a thousand horses to keep that land for us, but never told them to steal it and go and sell it. I call you my brother, and I want you to take pity on me, and if anyone steals anything from me I want the privilege of calling for it. If those men, who did it secretly, had asked me to make a treaty for its sale, I should not have consented.

  108. 108.

    Cervantes

    @daverave:

    This story gives me hope that one of these days my boycott of every American company that operates on land stolen from Native Americans will finally have an impact.

    Should Israel do to the Palestinians what we did to the Native Americans?

    Or if Israelis and Palestinians can somehow, eventually, arrive at a just solution, can we work to find a way also?

    Which is right? Which would make a better world for our kids?

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @askew:

    Make it a one-state solution and Israel ceases to be a Jewish state.

    Unfortunately for Israelis, they’ve made their bed by pushing their settlements into Palestinian territories. The only way a two-state solution is going to work is for ALL of those settlements to be bulldozed and their residents to move back into Israel proper.

    Israel wants to have it both ways — to expand onto land owned by Palestinians and also keep Israel completely Jewish. But this is the real world, and they’re going to have to act like adults and make a choice between a smaller, purer Israel or a larger state where Palestinians are included as equals. Their current course is completely untenable and it’s their own actions that are making a two-state solution impossible.

  113. 113.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: I appreciate the thoughtful reply, I really do. But we see this so differently; when I read what you wrote it’s as if you are saying the sky gets dark in the daytime, not in the evening and at night. I guess we will have to agree to disagree since I hardly know where to begin in response.

    I look at the letter she wrote, and I don’t see anything in there that seems coached. To me, the first sentences ring completely true in their horror. I cannot imagine a mother supplying that memory when coaching a child.

  114. 114.

    Cacti

    @askew:

    None of these employees likely have enough money or any capital to start their own business.

    Precisely my point.

    And which neighboring nation state would be primarily responsible for that condition?

    The same one that let’s SodaStream set up shop on stolen land, and pretend to be magnanimous for employing people who live in a state of externally enforced poverty.

  115. 115.

    askew

    @Mnemosyne:

    Yeah, I don’t disagree with you. I just don’t see that realistically happening based on Israel’s current political leadership and how the population is changing to be much more conservative than it was in the past. I honestly don’t see anything changing in Israel/Palestine for years to come.

  116. 116.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:

    And that’s why it’s such a terrible case. Someone is lying except we cannot tell who, and there’s been so much pain in that family.

    It’s as possible the abuse happened as it did not. And much better to live in a society where people can come forward, and stigma is reduced. So you never want to tell people they need to hold it in, or not be heard.

    This case, though, struck me as piling on, to prevent Mr. Allen from being awarded further honors late in his career. A longtime vendetta against him by Mia. And I wondered why it hit the NY Times.

    So we peaceably agree to disagree on this one.

    I knew two girls who were abused during our childhood; the first case happened at such a young age that I was not even sure what I was seeing. (Family’s reaction, not the abuse itself. But it shocked me, when I thought back as an adult. It all added up.)

  118. 118.

    low-tech cyclist

    OK, folks, here’s how boycotts like this do some good:

    If you’ve got a fairly sizable dominating/occupying class, like the whites in apartheid South Africa or the Israelis in Israel and the West Bank, then boycotts and sanctions and so forth manage to actually hurt the dominant group, because it’s too large to maintain its standard of living by just increasing its exploitation of the dominated group.

    The natural equivalent of the sanctions on apartheid South Africa would be to boycott Israeli businesses, and ditto American businesses that did business in Israel proper. Even better, actually – unlike South Africa, where the pain of the sanctions was felt by black and white alike, a boycott aimed directly at Israel would hurt Israel while having a good deal less impact on the Palestinians in the West Bank.

    But if anyone’s urging boycotts of specific businesses or products because they’re made in Israel, and Israel is conducting an immoral occupation of the West Bank, I’ve missed it.

  120. 120.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Mnemosyne: It’s not the land, it’s the water. It’s not called the West Bank for nothing.

    The Israelis gave up the Gaza Strip after all, moved their bull-goose loonie “settlers” out of that godforsaken no-water festering rathole and left it to the Palis without a backward glance. The West Bank though, the river Jordan, that’s something else, that’s why a map of the Israeli settlements shows a large concentration in the eastern side of the territory. They’re holding on to the Golan Heights in Syria for similar reasons, for its watershed.

    A lot of the Middle Eastern conflicts haven’t been about oil but control of and access to fresh water.

  121. 121.

    blieker

    But if anyone’s urging boycotts of specific businesses or products because they’re made in Israel, and Israel is conducting an immoral occupation of the West Bank, I’ve missed it.

    Try here.

  122. 122.

    Mnemosyne

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Yet another reason why a one-state solution may be the only viable one, despite all of the other multiple difficulties with it. Again, this is where the Israelis will have to be adults — do they want a pure Jewish state where only Jews are allowed to be citizens, or do they want access to water? Their decision.

  123. 123.

    Roger Moore

    @Elizabelle:

    And much better to live in a society where people can come forward, and stigma is reduced. So you never want to tell people they need to hold it in, or not be heard.

    Also good, though, to live in a society where people are not permanently dogged by unproven allegations. One of the things that makes this case so awful and so emotional is that we simply don’t have enough information to know who is right and who is wrong. No matter which side we take, there’s a possibility that we’re wrong and are allowing a great wrong to go unpunished.

  124. 124.

    Baron Elmo

    When I read “Scar-Jo,” my first thought was that it referred to Joe Scarborough. That’s what my second thought told me, too. Wasn’t until I clicked on comments that I learned just how fucking lame I am.

    I’m off to swig prussic acid. Don’t wait up.

  125. 125.

    Elizabelle

    @Roger Moore:

    Also good, though, to live in a society where people are not permanently dogged by unproven allegations.

    Yes. That competes with letting abuse go unpunished. And this emerged from a very messy breakup.

    This one reeks more of intentional alienation of the other parent’s affections than physical abuse of a small child. At least, to me.

  126. 126.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: I am curious, and I can’t recall from last night’s comments. (I’ve slept since then!)

    Did you read the actual letter itself?

    Because that’s what did it for me. After reading the actual letter written by the grown-up child, I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that the girl was abused.

  131. 131.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: Thanks for posting the link to the letter, I was about to go looking for it when I saw you had already taken care of that.

    I have read some of the he said / she said stuff, but once I read the letter none of the rest mattered to me. I worked with rape victims for a number of years, so that’s part of my background and it’s possible that it may be influencing the way I view this.

    I found the letter totally compelling and completely believable, even as it made my skin crawl to read it. So for me, in the absence of proof that she was not sexually abused, the letter is all I need.

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