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by atoav 330 days ago
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Cane and stick. Politician who come over to your site get the cane, those who continue to support Netanyahu get the stick. Always give cornered animals a way out unless you want to have them put up more fight than you want.

This is the smart thing to do if your goal is to build a broad movement that achieves effective change in the real world. When serving emotions and looking edgy to your viewers online is more important than stopping the genozide then you should go the vindictive route and purity-test each person joining your side. Pragmatism is not selling well online, the crowd wants to see blood.

That means usually ot serves well to take such unappologetic stances with a grain of salt, while they sound strong, they are not usually effective positions for a broad societal movement. That btw. doesn't mean you have to forget any politicians positions earlier in this conflict. That's what I meant with "We can walk and chew gum at the same time". Makw the movement broad and keep track who was on your side early on.

1 comments

I know this is a trivial thing to point out in the context of such a discussion but the expression you want is "carrot and stick". A cane is a kind of stick that you can also hit with, the verb "to cane" means to hit someone with a stick.
Thanks for the correction. English is not my first language, in German the equivalent is "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" (sugar-bread and whip) I must have somehow made the mental leap from "sugar" via "sugarcane" to "cane" and completely forgot about the carrot.