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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I disagree that clear examples of oppression are "rare." It's pretty common actually. If one party has a lot of power and the other doesn't, and the party with all the power is doing violence or restricting the freedom of the party with way less power, that's oppression.

There are situations with nuance if course. I hate to wade into this but Israel/Palestine is an example of a highly complex situation that doesn't clearly break down the way I just described. For starters you have to contend with the fact that Israel views itself as representing the plight of Jews in the world and Jews are historically oppressed. That doesn't justify everything Israel dies but it can explain it and muddy the waters. Then on the other side while you unquestionably have oppression if Palestinian people you also have terrorist violence committed by some Palestinians and supported by others, and terrorism can be viewed as a form of oppression. You also have a lot of racism and hatred in both sides. [b]It doesn't fit a model if oppressed and oppressor.[/b]

But just because the most enduring and thorny geopolitical conflict in the world doesn't fit the model doesn't mean it's "rare." Russia-Ukraine is an obvious example of a large and powerful country using its might to try and take over a much smaller, less powerful country. You don't even have to view Russia as unequivocally bad and Ukraine as unequivocally good to conclude that-- the power imbalance is very stark and the oppression ("hello this land is our land and these people are our people now") is very overt.

On a smaller, less life-or-death scale, I see many examples where large corporations try to exploit workers and stomp out unions. Again, it seems obvious to me where the power imbalance is and what actions are "unjust." It is fairly easy for me to pick a side in those instances.

I also don't struggle with siding with kids who are abused by their parents, people who get sexually harassed and assaulted at work, poor people harassed by corrupt police forces, etc. Sometimes it takes time for the facts to come out and you could have instances of someone claiming powerlessness to be manipulative, but where the facts are known it's not that hard to draw conclusions like "Jeffrey Epstein was a bad dude who hurt people and he was supported and abetted by his wealthy friends" or "the LA police department in the 90s had serious problems with corruption and toxicity that led to harassment and injustice in the city." Like these aren't controversial takes.[/quote]

Yeah, my guess is that the person slinging this quote at OP (could be from either side) believes that it [i]does[/i] fit the model and is trying to figure out whether to classify OP as a wrongthinker. [/quote]

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