Biden in Israel Says Hospital Blast Appears Done by ‘Other Team’
Biden in Israel Says Hospital Blast Appears Done by ‘Other Team’
President Joe Biden suggested Israel was not responsible for a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital that left hundreds dead and spiked tensions across the Middle East.
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I resent the ubiquity of the language of sports in political matters. It is reductive in framing and trivial in tone.
Me too, well said.
It's incredibly gross to see these two groups as "teams" competing against one another while fans watch from the sidelines for entertainment.
That's why I stopped trying.
People arguing whether babies were beheaded as if they're challenging a ref call. Their team is always right and 100% just, the other is always wrong and 100% evil and no one wants to hear that the truth is always gray and complex.
It's disheartening.
You could copy and paste a list of historical events from Wikipedia and spark a flame war, unfortunately.
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move"
- Douglas Adams
With how many atrocities occur in this messed up world (and the Middle East especially), it’s hard to keep caring and see it as anything other than a sport in a faraway place.
The news is emotionally draining on purpose, or so I think.
@knexcar compassion fatigue? This is something social media can help with, ironically.
I remember a few years ago when I was back on another site, a poster who was trialling 3D-printed field tourniquets (he was a medic) posted about his experience being shot in the leg by Israeli snipers who shot his colleague dead later that day.
Really brought home that these are just people like you and me, with hobbies and jobs and lives... and comment histories.
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"Team" isn't a term used exclusively in the domain of sporting contests. In fact, it is a military term, as well (although not as ubiquitous in that space).
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Analytic and technical terms are sterile and effect a dehumanization of not only the actors involved, but also the outcomes of events.
I was going to say, I hear it plenty in informal settings in politics, business, and military. Probably not a great phrase to let the press get a hold of though.
I would contend in turn that politics, business, and military matters are necessarily either formal or farcical.
That's about the gist of it. Either you are taking it seriously, or using humor to cope. The line between the two isn't always clear.
- "team" by itself just means a group of people working together to achieve a common goal, BUT when used in the context of "the other team" (with the definite article) it implies there are two teams working in opposition to one another specifically.
@Gradually_Adjusting's idea that this is most likely intended as a sports metaphor for Biden's audience seems reasonable.
- I can't decide whether you're saying "team" is analytical and sterile/dehumanizing, or whether you're suggesting that actually calling Hamas "Hamas" would have been dehumanizing.
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