These particular protests at this time appear to be sparked by the ban on certain slogans. You can’t directly change the policies of Israel by waving signs in Queensland. But if your state government is carrying water for Israel by selectively banning political speech, that is absolutely a local issue and one that needs to be addressed. It’s not just an issue of free speech, but also of corrupt politicians serving zionist lobbies. By addressing that local issue, in Australia and elsewhere, we can weaken the grip that zionism has had on large swathes of the global political establishment. The benefits of doing so won’t just be felt by Palestinians. The network of corruption, blackmail and bribery that underpins this worldwide system of control is making us all worse off.

I’ll try not to overlap too much with what shads has said, since they really gave a better explained and more complete answer than I would have.

What interests me here is the disparity between our points of view. In the spirit of finding understanding and common ground, as you have championed, I’d consider digging a little deeper into that. Of course I can only say how it looks from my perspective. It seems that your point of view is that we should all seek to be cogs in the machine, and any concerns we may have about the nature of the machine should be discussed quietly without ruffling anyone’s feathers. The problem I have with that, is that the machine is clearly working to increase corruption and wealth disparity. We are heading for disaster.

So while there is great social value in work and building a strong economy, it is also extremely important to call out injustice and corruption, and fight for the rights and representation of the people. Otherwise those economic benefits will only expand the financial obesity of a few people, while 99% of us are gradually reduced to serfdom or worse.

And this, it seems to me, is where you have a blind spot. You’re saying that protesting and wearing banned slogans on clothing is a bad thing. We’re focusing on a particular act of protest which was clearly successful, as it brought publicity to the absurdity and overreach of this ban on speech, while also combating the chilling effect it was intended to have. But you will not acknowledge that it was successful. You say it only serves to polarize opinion against the protestor. I can only suppose that this reflects your personal reaction to it. You’re applying a circular logic that says because you feel negatively about protest, then protest must be a bad thing because it only causes negative feelings.

But circular logic aside, why else would you feel negatively about this? Is this woman not fighting for your rights? Is she not fighting against corruption and injustice? It seems your principal argument is that you believe it to be ineffective, which rests on your own perception and the aforementioned circular logic.

I wonder where those self-reinforcing negative feelings come from. I would guess they are the product of conservative ideology, which even if you disagree with it on principle, seems to have left a tendency to view certain groups of people, such as students or protestors, in an overwhelmingly negative light. Is further education, or taking a stand against corruption, really such a bad thing? Where does the reinforcement of that mindset come from? Who does it serve?

EDIT : having seen your answer to shads it seems that’s maybe not how you feel about protest and activism as a whole, so perhaps I’ve got the wrong impression of your position here. Well, maybe it is or maybe not, I’ll just leave this up here anyway

By “contributing to society” do you mean stuck at work all week, too busy, too exhausted and too tied up by your financial obligations to ever dare to rock the boat in any way? These students and retirees don’t have too much time on their hands. They have ENOUGH time on their hands to get out there and make a difference, and I’m grateful for those that do. I would hate to live in a world where no person outside the ruling class is ever free enough to do such a thing, but that is the way things are going. I guess you’ll be very happy to get there.

My PC is 15 times faster than the one I had 10 years ago. It’s the same old PC but I got rid of Windows.

You assume that I assume that you disagree with me.

Well, I am making a counterpoint to your comments about people having nothing better to do and not having a common goal as a collective. This woman achieved something extremely worthwhile, and she probably wasn’t working in isolation. She brought attention to an absurd ban on free speech, and by calling the government’s bluff on it, helped to reduce the chilling effect on dissent that such restrictions are intended to create. It takes courage, but the most effective way to oppose an unjust law is to break that law, openly and with as much publicity as possible. It draws attention to what is wrong in a way that an open chat simply fails to do. And how open can that chat be anyway? You say you have free speech, but when it gets you arrested with the threat of serious jail time, your freedom of speech is on very thin ice.

I’m not opposed to verbal persuasion, but it has limitations. Sure you might be able to convince one person of something in a face to face conversation. But that’s small fry compared to the influence of internet forums, which have become overrun with bots, paid shills, foreign interference, partisan moderators and hidden algorithms designed to maximize engagement and distort your worldview.

Sure you can try to change people’s minds and/or maintain a balanced worldview in that arena. But any large scale forum for talk tends to create delusion, division and outrage, by design. It keeps dissent in a form that is contained, monitored and manipulated. Keep talking by all means, but people like this woman are doing more to improve the world than mere talk ever could.

If you can get arrested and jailed for wearing a shirt saying “from the river to the sea”, that means your government is suppressing your free speech in service to the genocidal regime of a different country. Even if you don’t care about the genocide, the subversion of your democracy and your civil rights by a foreign power is something that any responsible citizen should be fighting against.

But do you need extra dressing when the whole kitchen staff have already hocked up their chunkiest loogies to hold up their end of the cultural exchange?

OK but hear me out here, I think I have the beginnings of a business plan:

1. Create the Torment Nexus

2. ?

3. Profit

Some components of the plan are still under development, but let’s not lose momentum. We can advance with the initial phase while brainstorming to refine the plan in real time as we progress. It’s an exciting opportunity and we mustn’t forfeit our first-to-market advantage.

Error severity depends on whether you’ve mounted the bus. You wouldn’t want to go to Jupiter by accident

Hold the door!

Past self: “oh look an old person having a stroke”

I’m calling bullshit. Why would anyone sell that? It’s like selling a piece of your soul

The flailing around and constant changing of plans is probably just theater. Whatever else happens, they will always flood the zone with shit. Whatever the plan is, the news is only a vague indicator of it.

The Gargamel Research Institute

After a nine month legal battle, Zurich has reversed its decision and told the BBC it was sorry for the stress caused.

Yeah, very sorry I’m sure. Oopsie, we accidentally fought a nine month legal battle to avoid paying out the exact thing the insurance is for

Next Tuesday then?

deleted by creator

Sometimes, even basically evil people have a line they won’t cross. Deceiving the public and corrupting the rule of law beyond repair, just to protect a cabal of pedophile rapists, seems to be that line, for an alarmingly small number of republicans. I guess she just didn’t think it would come to that. MTG is probably just your basic greedy racist vindictive kind of evil. I can imagine why the sadistic child raping stuff might be a deal breaker for some people.

That’s where you’re wrong. The cow is real but you can’t see it because it has 0% opacity. There’s not many “unexplained” events that still don’t make sense when you know there’s a transparent cow out there somewhere

Your choir has a good reason to be men only, since that creates a certain sound.

That’s true. Which is why I pointed out that my reasons for joining the choir are not just about the sound. I want a male space, and I don’t think I’m wrong to want that.

I don’t think an all-female board game club that is open to the public but only lets women join would be OK.

Personally I don’t see what’s wrong with an all female board game club, especially if it’s the kind of board games that tend to mostly attract male players. It may encourage female participation where they would otherwise feel uncomfortable, and male players would probably have their own club anyway in that case. But then in the absence of a thriving all female club, an all male board game club would be a problematic thing, since it would specifically exclude a female minority. Context matters and it’s important to be inclusive, but inclusivity doesn’t always mean putting everyone in a single group.

But as soon as you do something publicly, you don’t get to say “everybody can come except group X” without a good reason.

OK, but what’s a good reason? We often have groups for limited age ranges, for usually good reasons. You’ve mentioned some good reasons why men should be excluded from some women’s groups. So it’s not like nobody ever gets excluded from anything. And while men may have less compelling reasons to exclude women, in general single sex groups are a valuable social thing for both men and women. One of the reasons you don’t see many strictly single gender clubs is because there are de facto single gender clubs which don’t need to apply a rule. People socialize in a single gender category without having to formally exclude anyone. Which is fine, and avoids unnecessary polemics.

I’m just saying that we should recognize the value in this. It’s a shame that male only spaces tend to be associated with patriarchy or toxic masculinity, when they also fulfill a real social need.