Joshi
@Joshi@aussie.zone
Clean hands, Cool head, Warm heart.
GP, Gardener, Radical progressive
- Comment on Sydney University academics pursued for speaking out against Gaza atrocities 14 hours ago:
Again. I am answering in good faith assuming you will do the same.
I am perfectly willing to concede that I may have understated the size of the initial attacks and for the sake of argument I will concede your claim that there are 10s of thousands of Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
The issue at stake here is that at least 180,000 civilians have been killed to say nothing of the injuries and other traumas. The IDF has deliberately targeted civilian populations who had nothing to do with the attacks.
Again, I may not be opposed to a proportionate response but to killing hundreds of thousands in response to what you claim was a crime of 6000 people is not proportionate, it is brutal and unnecessary and likely to be counterproductive to any hopes of reducing violence from either side in the future.
Do you have a position on this specially? Do you deny the death toll, or do you assume that all 180,000 killed were terrorists?
I am genuinely interested in your response.
- Comment on Sydney University academics pursued for speaking out against Gaza atrocities 16 hours ago:
Certainly there is a justification for a strong response against Hamas. What you need to grapple with is that the response has been against the entire Palestinian population and has caused an enormous death toll of civilian non-combatants.
If I may take your example of the Taliban, a clearly reprehensible organisation. It would not be appropriate for opponents of the Taliban to indiscriminately attack the civilian population of Afghanistan in much the same way that it is not appropriate for the IDF to target the civilian population of Palestine using the crimes of Hamas as justification. Indeed during the Afghanistan war the US and allies took precautions to target fighters and minimise civilian deaths and were rightly criticised when they failed.
Over 10 years of the War in Afghanistan the civilian death toll in Afghanistan was most years less than 4000, in Palestine the civilian death toll is 4 times that in 1 year.
There is no double standard here, no one is saying Israel shouldn’t have responded in a proportionate way to the initial Hamas attacks but what Israel is doing is targeting the civilian population in response to the (admittedly reprehensible) actions of, yes, a few dozen people.
I am genuinely interested in hearing your response here, please don’t take this as a personal attack but I hope you understand my perspective here.
- Comment on Could letting 16-year-olds vote improve youth health? These countries have tried it 19 hours ago:
Original MJA article here
[Young voices, healthy futures: the rationale for lowering the voting age to 16
- Comment on Sydney University academics pursued for speaking out against Gaza atrocities 19 hours ago:
I am answering here assuming you are commenting on good faith. Please give me the same courtesy.
The fact is that the Israeli government chose to respond to actions of a few dozen people by occupying a nation and routinely killing masses of civilians including the bombing of hospitals and schools.
The initial attacks were abhorrent and arguably justified a strong response against the perpetrators, it is difficult for many of us to understand how you can justify punishing an entire nation for the actions of a few dozen people, it is this that draws claims of genocide
The civilian death toll in Gaza is now estimated at more than 180,000. Any argument that this is a proportionate and appropriate response must be either ignorant or in bad faith.
I am happy to respond if you disagree or want to challenge my response here.
- Submitted 20 hours ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Comment on Private health insurance is a dud. That’s why a majority of Australians don’t have it 1 week ago:
Hmmmm. Not sure, opened it from Google News.
- Private health insurance is a dud. That’s why a majority of Australians don’t have itamp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org ↗Submitted 1 week ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 11 comments
- Comment on Which language was spoken in ancient empire armies ? 1 week ago:
Found it
Emperors of Rome: Episode CVIII - A Lesson in Latin II Starting from: 00:08:02
Episode webpage: www.latrobe.edu.au/…/181128-latin02.mp3
Media file: www.latrobe.edu.au/…/181128-latin02.mp3#t=482
- Comment on Which language was spoken in ancient empire armies ? 1 week ago:
Emperor’s of Rome podcast addressed this in a Q&A episode.
From memory the answer is that top level generals would almost always speak Greek and Latin, mid level commanders would speak either Greek or Latin adequately as well as the local language of the troops they were commanding.
- School lunches, royal tours, foreign wars & the myth of Australia’s classless societyindependentaustralia.net ↗Submitted 3 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 7 comments
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Homeless camps left without electricity or barbecues after Brisbane council cuts power 4 weeks ago:
Yep, that’ll fix the problem…
- Comment on High-profile restaurateur pleads guilty to displaying Nazi symbol at pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney 4 weeks ago:
One has to wonder, did the writers of this law want:
a. to limit the profile of fascists
Or
b. punish people protesting against fascists
🤔
- 'Embarrassing and disrespectful': British man claims birth right to rule over country due to the brutality of his ancestors.www.sbs.com.au ↗Submitted 4 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 4 comments
- Comment on 'You're not my king': [Senator] Lidia Thorpe escorted away after outburst [at Charles III in Parliament House] 4 weeks ago:
I don’t care what it costs. The idea that one person has the right to rule over others is offensive whether it is symbolic or not.
- The shocking truth: Australia has a world-leading health system — because of governmentswww.crikey.com.au ↗Submitted 4 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on How many properties do politicians own? A public register provides the answer 5 weeks ago:
Sensible people have been suggesting that investing in real estate needs to be less attractive for decades. F***ing Paul Keeting tried to end negative gearing in the 80s. Millionaires didn’t like it to the degree that it might’ve swung a couple of marginal seats and it probably didn’t help that Hawke had a few investment properties himself.
When the only people with political power would lose out from sensible policy then it doesn’t happen.
Let’s all agree to stop calling our system a democracy.
- 'Green light for bad bosses': Unions criticise lobby groups as they seek to axe workplace rightswww.sbs.com.au ↗Submitted 5 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Submitted 5 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 4 comments
- Submitted 1 month ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 12 comments
- Submitted 1 month ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on The best thing our pollies have done in decades is also the worst 2 months ago:
Gittins kind of leaves us hanging for a conclusion here. Governments can’t be afraid of actually providing a service, the idea that leaving things to the market is automatically efficient is a myth.
- Submitted 2 months ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Comment on (Religious) What would i be labeled? 2 months ago:
I call myself ‘functionally atheist’. I’m philosophically agnostic in that I hold no strong opinion on the existence of a god/gods as that is fundamentally unknowable but for all practical purposes I act as though there is no god.
- Comment on how do I accept that a doctor earns more than double what I do? 2 months ago:
I’m a doctor and my partner is a nurse and the size of the difference is straight up injustice. Join your union and vote for militant leaders that will push for better conditions and salaries. If you don’t fight you lose
- Comment on Australians should be angry about Coles’ latest billion-dollar profit. But don’t blame the cost of living 2 months ago:
Could you expand on what you mean by presuming human entitlement can subsume the laws of nature? I’m always interested in a good critique.
- Comment on would it be a dumb idea to continue my education paying it myself even though there's no guarantee I'll be hired afterwards? 2 months ago:
Australian doctor here, certainly in Australia There are dozens of jobs for nurses that require minimal or no patient contact.
Things like administration and management would usually require at least a reasonable amount of experience but clinic work is very different to hospital work.
My own fiance works in infection control which is a lot of reviewing charts, advising ward staff on isolation protocol, ensuring staff vaccinations are up to date.
- Comment on Election Promise Tracker | RMIT ABC Fact Check 2 months ago:
Very interesting and deserves to be in the spotlight.
I’d highlight that two of the broken promises seem to be ending high income tax cuts which were a ridiculous inclusion in their platform and another is that they didn’t meet the deadline on urgent care clinics.
I’d also like to highlight the implicit promise of an allegedly “Labor” party to be pro-union. I’d suggest that removing the elected leaders of a union and appointing their own due to the alleged misconduct of individuals is a broken promise far more serious.
- Australians should be angry about Coles’ latest billion-dollar profit. But don’t blame the cost of livingjohnquiggin.com ↗Submitted 2 months ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments