Google workers arrested after protesting company's work with Israel
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-mini...
Every liberal democracy subscribes to the idea of civilian control of the military, so the distinction between civilian leadership and the military they oversee isn't a new or foreign concept.
Why would you assume MoD use = IDF use? Do you also assume everything the DoD contracts for is used by the U.S. Army?
tbh, I would expect most people assume that.
Just a few off the top
If someone would have told me 5 years ago that in just a few years, Google employees would be accused of anti-semitism, or any -ism, really, I would have never believed it. They were on the frontlines "punching nazis" and fighting rising fascism here in US, and here they are, being accused of anti-semitism, themselves.
Rank-and-file Googlers in the US tend to be young (<30) and from those universities or their like. Certainly seems to be the case in this article.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_sc...
One case I remember, for instance, which illustrates this drone control well was the bakery incident at Oberlin college. At some point during the discovery, there was an email from an "organizer" how they will unleash the students. I thought that a rare case of controller putting in writting and acknowledging how the whole mechanism works.
[1] https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/448711-oberlin-college...
> Raimondo replied saying she would “unleash the students” if she was not convinced “this needs to be put behind us.”
It would be interesting to find out who is unleashing the Googlers in this case...
(No comment from me on the truth or otherwise of that sentiment, I'm just pointing out this isn't exactly a new thing.)
> At an Amazon shareholder meeting in May, anti-Nimbus Amazon employees said they will support a resolution requesting a third-party investigative report on whether “customers’ use of its products and services with surveillance, computer vision, or cloud storage capabilities contributes to human rights violations or violates international humanitarian law.”
That seems like a fairly basic request?
It seems like in a lot of areas, in the last 6 months we can't even have a conversation about what is going on without anything except 100% support for Israel being labeled as "anti-semitism" which is really dangerous to do.
We don't even expect that level of blanket support for the actions of our own government. We should be able to critically look at what is going on regardless of who is doing it without trying to hand wave it away with a single word.
I'm not saying they're antisemitic. I'm not qualified to render that kind of judgement. You can easily argue that the ADL isn't either --- the ADL has problemicized itself in a bunch of ways too in the last few years. But you probably shouldn't be shocked when people make that claim; it's a common one.
"Anti-semitism" is a hatred of Jewish people or discriminatory attitudes towards them.
There is a large contingency of Jewish people who believe Jews are better than other people (this idea is at least one of the beliefs underpinning the existence of Israel).
Calling Jews who push back against this narrative anti-semitic is like calling white people who oppose white supremacy anti-white.
(I don't know what I believe about JVP! My confidence in any assessment is very low. What I do know, though, is that if I were doing persuasive work, like, say, getting a ceasefire resolution passed in my municipality, I would do my best to keep JVP's name off the enterprise.)
For a clearer example of this phenomenon, unrelated to JVP, see Jewish Currents, also frequently cited in discussions to insulate arguments from accusations of antisemitism.
The prime difference between trad-wives and groups like JVP, I think, is that trad-wives advocate for trad-wifery because traditional gender roles appeal to their values or interests, rather than out of a sense of social justice and equity (which are likely not important to them).
However, I'm not at all shocked that there are Jewish people who find JVP problematic, and I'm not sure where you got that idea.
I'd guess something like 50% of practicing Jews in the diaspora hold beliefs that Jews are intrinsically better than non-jews, and perhaps a sizeable minority of non-practicing Jews as well. This is based on my own experiences growing up in a Jewish community as well as the arguments used by Zionist Jews in support of Israel. The Jewish school I went to literally taught that Jews had a more legitimate claim to peace and safety in Israel than the Palestinians, by virtue of being the chosen people.
Reducing all criticism of the ethno-state that results from such beliefs to anti-semitism is an underhanded tactic that twists the meaning of the word in order to manipulate public opinion.
I don't know too much about JVP as they don't have presence in my country, but I just did some reading (including their core values[1] which are far from anti-semitic) and found a lot of the same tired arguments: their "admin" lives in lebanon (not said: one of 18 admins on their facebook page), it's a front for non-Jewish antisemites to rally under the banner of Jewishness (not said: their board and leadership are all Jewish), they said "XYZ" which can be interpreted as antisemitic (not said: either an anti-semitic person or even a plant said something while claiming to represent the group, or what was said was a criticism of mainstream Jewish Zionism taken out of context)
Add to that a lot of the same criticisms typically levied at leftist groups, some of which may actually be good-faith, fair criticisms, but unrelated to anti-semitism.
I certainly agree there can be Jewish anti-semites, but they're much more likely to gravitate to the right than the left.
[1]: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/about/#mandate
edit: I'll say this one additional thing: I've personally observed a high correlation between Jews who call anti-Zionist advocates anti-semitic, and Jews who secretly or not-so-secretly have a belief that Jewish people are inherently better than non-Jews (and for many this goes down to ethnicity, I'm not talking just about spiritual practice). To me, it seems like they're generally oblivious to how similar beliefs (by any group that holds them) are a type of problematic prejudice, and critical of leftist Jews because they represent a threat to those deeply-held beliefs of supremacy.
Whoah, wtf? I don't care what your background is: no, not OK.
I had a relatively straightforward non-normative point to make about how controversial JVP is, which you can easily Google to verify. I wasn't even here to tell you you were wrong: you asked a question, it had a straightforward answer, I provided it. My answer was not out of left field: the ADL literally has a page on JVP, up in the first page of search results on Google.
I'm not interested in litigating the intellectual vices of "practicing Jews" writ large.
Sorry I think you lost the plot here. Can you give me a noteworthy example of such a person or group?
See the person that posted here he'd find it odd for someone to request photos of a white family because white only families are sus
As for US police training in Israel, once again, you show your own profound ignorance, or outright dishonesty, by stating this is a "risible" claim. US police training in Israel has been well documented, and pretending that there aren't any carryover effects of that training is itself the "risible" claim. https://www.amnestyusa.org/updates/with-whom-are-many-u-s-po...
[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-f...
However, If I were an employee at Google, and my company had begun serving DoD / IDF against my wishes - then, I would have a better chance of changing this from inside the company than from outside. So, speaking out internally against taking on undesirable customers seems like a more effective tactic than quitting.
But, by protesting in the way they did, they've likely ensured that they will no longer be inside the company.
As a more practical matter, there is significant amount of technology transfer between Israel and the US, and Israel also is also a friendly and militarily capable country in a region where America doesn’t have many allies.
Also, does America provide much aid to Israel? I don’t think they do.
The national interest should be the collective interests of citizens, you're right. I don't think that what's actually sold to us as "national interest" is that in any meaningful sense, though.
But also, those Jewish citizens of US are, well, citizens of US. It's not that it's wrong for them to also have some interests wrt Israel, but why should it be of any concern to the rest of this polity?
Oracle is lucky TK took off for Google after he lost the cloud boss battle to Don Johnson in 2019. Also fortunate that Safra Katz (current Oracle CEO, previously vocal supporter of Israel) is smart enough to keep a low profile for the time being.
Best wishes to all personkind,
M.D.
p.s. Even Dang gets downvoted sometimes, although to be fair, he doesn't engage in this sort of thread. *Shrug*
A "hackaton" is an event where ivy league students compete to write sloppy code using APIs from different corporations. They also get branded t-shirts and free redbull (paid by said corporations).
Had it been my workplace I would have wished for the same thing.
They took over company offices, including the office of Google Cloud CEO in Sunnyvale, and refused to vacate them for 9+ hours.
And these are (were) employees and it’s quite likely Google already has established mechanisms for hearing employee grievances. Google’s not going to allow a small but vocal and disruptive group to override those existing mechanisms, nor would any serious business.
It isn't nice to go to jail
There are nicer ways to do it
But the nice ways always fail
- Malvina Reynolds, "It Isn't Nice"
In a democracy, you can participate in our system and vote to have it changed, though. And that’s the effective way to address these issues.
The point is that the "right way"--the way that is sanctioned by the system--is deliberately hobbled by many people in positions of power, to be completely ineffective. So you may well have to push the bounds of the system to actually address these issues.
Second, Google isn’t a democracy, but we have a democratic system that allows us to influence our representatives to make reprehensible conduct illegal. If you want to change how a business operates, you can arrange a boycott as well. Companies take the threat of losing significant amounts of money very seriously.
If you honestly think that this type of action should be legal, then by all means, go convince our government to make it so. But I don’t think you are considering the long-term consequences such a change would have.
(You're Lawful Good, which is an admirable quality in a fellow citizen, but Chaotic Good can be more effective when the system has been captured by a strong Lawful Evil element.)
If you read any of the articles coming out of this event you'll see that the protestors tried for months to get a dialog going with management in half a dozen different capacities, all of which were denied or swept under the rug immediately. Due to this behavior from management, many of the employees engaged in this cause had decided to quit, but if you were one of them why not try to protest one last time? This was basically the last option they had prior to leaving
Sitting in an office is much nicer.
People throw pies at politicians faces as a protest and they're often arrested afterwards for assault, but it doesn't mean they can't do it.
Can you murder someone? Even if you are physically capable of pulling a trigger, I think you know damn well that’s not what anyone means.
Sit-ins are an old protest tactic. They were used during the civil rights movement, in private property. They were used during labour protest, in private property. They have repeatedly been successful at achieving the protestors ends. They have repeatedly, in hindsight, been viewed in a favorable light and broadly seen as permissible. They were frequently, at the time, viewed as illegitimate and impermissible. Of course, there were other sit-ins which failed and were very much unpopular and were unjustified.
We should all be glad that the view of "she should have just founded her own capitalist, nonwhites-only bus company" did not prevail.
(Google's anti-Gazan defense-dealing is the bus company, in this example)
You’ll find a copy of her arrest warrant here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/rosa-parks-montgomery-...
“It took the police a couple of tries to settle on legal language describing her alleged offense.”
>“It took the police a couple of tries to settle on legal language describing her alleged offense.”
You say that as if we don't all already know that the actual offense was upsetting the order of the apartheid. What took a bunch of racists a couple of tries to eventually settle upon is irrelevant. Similarly, the police in this case may take a couple of tries to eventually settle upon legal language, but we nonetheless all know that the actual offense was upsetting the order of the apartheid. Just like Rosa Parks.
Besides, Ms. Parks herself was impacted by the unjust laws that required her to sit at the back of the bus. It’s unclear how Google’s activities directly and substantially impacted the lives of the protestors here.
To address your edit:
Rosa Parks was protesting the treatment African Americans were receiving, these workers were protesting the treatment Gazans are receiving.
In those cases, it is better to violate the law than to preserve apartheid.
Just like Rosa Parks.
See https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights
Anyway, if the protestors actually believe they changed minds with this, I will forever be disappointed by Google's hiring practices.
- Stonewall Riots (1969)
- Soweto Uprising (1976)
- Tiananmen Square protests (1989)
- Women's Suffrage Movement
- Anti-Apartheid Protests in South Africa
US politician are hostages, opposing Israel on the political stage puts your life at risk.
How are these not a punishment for deviance from the desired positon?
Edit: punish, not publish.
Denying someone employment because of their political views is not punishment...
Second of all - if you really believe changing Israel's borders is not an act against Jewish people (and thus antisemitic) you and I cannot agree on anything.
Freedom to agree to disagree....
Many Jewish people around the world and inside Israel in fact are strongly against Israel's actions. Some even participate in BDS or other protest movements, even calling for sanctions of Israel.
Similarly, many people oppose the USA's actions. Some Texans even want to secede, affecting the borders of the USA. That doesn't make them antisemitic (even though the majority of the world's Jewish population outside Israel lives in the USA), nor anti-caucasian, nor anti-black, nor anti-hispanic (though of course some of them could also be some of these things).
There really is no rational reason to say that opposing Israel's actions or wanting it to accommodate certain borders for the Palestinian territories is antisemitic. It is anti-Israel and that's it.
Being of the opinion that the state of Israel is illegitimate or should stop colonialising its neighbours isn't necessarily an antisemitic position, though some antisemites might surely agree. Many others will however stick to the mainstream zionist opinion that jews should be relocated from their home countries to an israeli territory in the Middle East.
I personally don’t think the “from the river…” slogan should be outlawed, being speech, but it does indeed eliminate the country of Israel by referring to its land as “Palestine”.
The country of Palestine would then stretch from the river (in the West Bank) to the sea (in Gaza).
Of course, it is also sometimes used to call for the dissolution of the state of Israel. Even that is not per se antisemitic (not that I suport this - Israel has won it's right to exist). There are just as many Jewish people living outside of Israel as inside.
Looking at the trends, it's looking extremely bleak for Israel, considering that US support is largely artificial and not organic.
The support arises first and foremost from the work of the israeli lobby AIPAC which takes advantage of America's legalized bribery [1] that results in undue influence on congress.
Another big factor are evangelicals, who are misguided by corrupt pastors and televangelists like John Hagee who are in a business relationship with the israeli lobby and thus have a vested interest in forcing a zionist misinterpretation[4] of the bible to artificially create support for israel. A key factor in the changing landscape of evangelical Christianity is generational differences. Younger evangelicals are often less aligned with traditional evangelical positions and are harder to misguide with misinterpretations that have no sound basis.
[1] So You Want to Bribe a Politician - https://youtu.be/QZcLuT3RasA
[2] Why evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhT7oyDlBIk
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hagee
[4] Eschatological Madness about Israel, James White - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmd90XJyhA
Genius!! Why doesn’t everyone do that?!
Cmon man hahah
Again, some journalists (and others) are constantly hoping for radical change; during periods of societal stability, that constant hope will result in their focusing on very slim hopes for radical change -- resulting in ridiculous exaggeration in the press of the importance of movements like Occupy Wall Street.
You'd never see a any level of this **** for any conflict unless people are drafted
The difference between the Israel/Palestine conflict and most other conflicts that people bring up with “why aren’t protestors attacking this” (including the inverted side of the Israel/Palestine conflict: “why aren’t people protesting against Hamas?”) is the combination of widespread US disapproval for Israeli action in the conflict [0] with substantial ongoing US military assistance for the Israel. People aren’t protesting Israel, they are protesting US policy in support of Israel while Israel acts in ways that are opposed. This is in common with both the anti-apartheid movement in the US (where, again, US government support for South Africa was the target) and the Iraq War protests (where the US was a direct party to the conflict), though while substantial opposition to US policy was involved in both cases, neither (at least at the beginning of substantial protest) had nearly the level of domestic opposition as exists to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
(This is spreading
[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-isra...
Losing a $1.2B contract for Amazon or Google due to subterfuge is nothing.
Wonder how the US government would respond though, especially since Israeli government is one of their most highly regarded allies (highest amount of foreign aide, critical trade partners). Would the people who inserted exploit into Project Nimbus be prosecuted for espionage?
Please don't say "communism" as they would be sent to the gulag or worse in every communist regime that has ever existed.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_uni...
It wasn’t a coincidence that communist countries had massive police forces and widespread crime. They are both parts of the same function.
Let me guess, you want power to control what people and companies can or can not do? I don’t trust you enough to put you in control of that.
Instead, as far as I've seen even from the Daily Wire, these people just walked into the offices of their company's boss (at worst breaking a lock?) and were sitting there without disturbing his papers or breaking his computers or anything violent.
If you didn't work at all or didn't work the job you were assigned, you were sent to prison.
If you didn't work, the state could take away your children and offer them for adoption.
People don't know what un-freedom is, so they don't know what freedom is.
A person can be authentic without being inappropriate.
In principle, yes. But when your work collides with your values, that stops being the case.
Good news is there should be some reqs opening up soon in Google Cloud for people looking for work.
“Yet you participate in society. Curious!”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/google-employees-occupy-offic...
the dw is a fascist publication that only cares about making money off people with misdirected anger by spreading hate. it has no value.
Or maybe they want to quit and figured going out in a ball of fire would be more effective than resigning?
I have founded three startups and currently work as a self employed consultant and coach.
The obvious question here is "how old were these employees?". The article doesn't even bring it up.