Tuesday's Most Active Threads

Once again the Gaza war thread was the most active. But, with just over 300 new posts, the thread barely held on to the position. The second most active thread was related. Titled, "Please share your ideas for SOLUTIONS to the middle east crisis", the thread was similarly posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster asks others about their ideas for a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Rather than slog through this 17 page thread, I'll address questions that I saw on the first page. The most commonly stated solution to the conflict is the "Two-State Solution" in which a Palestinian state consisting of Gaza and parts of the West Bank coexists with Israel. This solution is the basis of the original United Nations resolution that led to the creation of Israel, was reinforced in UN Resolutions 338 and 242, and was the foundation of the Oslo Accords. The United States officially supports this arrangement and President Joe Biden has restated that position several times in recent days. However, despite the wide-spread support internationally, the idea faces significant hurdles and, under current circumstances, can't reasonably be considered a serious proposition. The first hurdle to a two-state solution is the fact that Israel is a politically divided country. The political spectrum runs from those who would happily accomodate a Palestinian state in the majority of Gaza and the West Bank to those who don't want to give up an inch of the West Bank and would even like to take Gaza back. The Israeli settler movement which has been steadily seizing more and more territory in the West Bank is enacting a fait accompli and leaving less land for a Palestinian state every day. Israeli proposals for a Palestinian state have only allowed for a disjointed, non-contiguous territory that would not be viable. Moreover, Israel expects to maintain significant restrictions and important influence and control over such a country. This is obviously unacceptable to Palestinians. Under the status quo, Israel — which likes to advertise itself as the only democracy in the Middle East — faces a dilemma. It can be a Jewish state, which requires it to rule undemocratically over the Palestinians, or it can be a democracy and provide full rights to those in the occupied territories. But, given the number of Palestinians, in that scenario the country would no longer remain as a Jewish state. As a result, Israelis have a host of solutions that involve annexing territory while either outright expelling Palestinians or leaving them powerless. None are acceptable to the Palestinians. A few Israelis and an increasing number of Palestinians favor a "one-state" solution in which Israelis and Palestinians share a democratic country in which both communities have equal rights. This maintains Israel's democracy while sacrificing its Jewish identity. This is the solution supported by the "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" slogan that has been popular at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. This idea, of course, also has little chance of being implemented in the foreseeable future. In the absence of progress toward a resolution, Palestinians live under harsh Israeli oppression and watch more and more of their land disappear under settler feet every day. This results in a unstable and periodically violent situation. This leaves, at best, incomplete half-measures that might relieve the worst of the Palestinian suffering and reduce violence. Such steps would include crackdowns on settlers including the removal of some settlements, political reform of the Palestinian National Authority, and increased freedoms for Palestinian residents.

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Titled, "If you care about your children, vote Republicans for FCPS school board today", the thread was an attempt by Republicans to encourage support for Republican-endorsed candidates in yesterday's FCPS school board elections. I received complaints all day long yesterday about this thread from posters who were upset by the clearly partisan thread. I finally locked it after polls closed so that a new thread discussing the election results could be created. Virginia school board elections are technically non-partisan, but parties have increasingly explicitly endorsed candidates. As such, while candidates don't have a party affiliation listed on the ballot, their party alignment is generally well-known. School boards have been notoriously politicized in recent years with parent protests occasionally disrupting them and strong Republican opposition to polices the boards have implemented. On DCUM, Republicans have started thread after thread criticizing the state of the Fairfax County Public School System, various policies the board has enacted, and individual board members. Such threads seem to become more prevalent as elections near and this year there have been constant complaints by Democratic posters that Republicans have attempted to exploit DCUM in order to draw attention to their positions. A thread in the Website Feedback forum was even started to complain about Republicans using the forum to advance their talking points. This thread made no bones about it. Republicans were trying to use DCUM to drive votes to their candidates. Whether or not their strategy worked is another story. This thread probably had as many anti-Republican posts, if not more, than posts supporting Republicans. Moreover, the election ended with Democratic-endorsed candidates winning every school board contest. In most cases, the elections weren't even close and were Democratic blowouts. It appears that Fairfax Republicans may have a pressence on DCUM that exaggerates their support at the polls.

Third for today was a somewhat related thread titled, "2023 Election Day Results Thread" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The thread was created to simply list election results as they became available. Anyone who has read this blog for anytime at all can guess that I am not going to simply summarize the posts in a thread of this sort. I have far too many opinions to limit myself to that. In short, yesterday was as close to a Democratic rout of Republicans as could be expected. The evening started out with an early victory for Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky and, by the end of the night, had seen Democrats hold the Virginia Senate, seize a majority in Virginia House of Delegates, capture a Supreme Court seat in Pennsylvania, gain a majority on the Loudoun County School Board, win every contest for the Fairfax County School Board, and even win an assembly seat in New Jersey that was a Trump +36 district. In addition, an initiative to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio's state constitution passed handily. Just about the only blemish on the night for Democrats was the victory in Mississippi of incumbent Republican governor Tate Reeves. The biggest loser of the night was someone who was not even on the ballot, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin had gone all in trying to keep the House and win the Senate in Virginia in hopes that this would ignite a presidential bid. Instead, that opportunity has gone down in flames. This is fitting because I consider yesterday to have a rebuke of Youngkinism. Youngkin won the governorship on a platform of opposing transgender rights, attacking school boards for supporting imaginary policies favoring critical race theory, supporting book bans in schools, and promoting strict abortion restrictions. Youngkin also benefited from residual anger of covid school closures. His victory convinced many Republicans, as well as an unfortunate number of members of the mainstream media, that this was the recipe for Republican success. Instead, the election was affirmation for the likes of Beshear, who might be described as the anti-Youngkin. Beshear vetoed a bill that would have outlawed gender affirming care for children in Kentucky, provoking a wave of anti-trans advertising against him. Youngkin, in turn, spent heavily on advertising — some of which was anti-Trans — opposing State Delegate Danica Roem, who is transgender. Nevertheless, Roem won a seat in Virginia's Senate. In contrast to Youngkin's last minute commitment to a 15 week abortion limit, Beshear concentrated his campaign on opposing such restrictions. As noted above, even the Loudoun County School Board, ground zero for anti-CRT and anti-Trans activism, was won by Democrats. Whatever misgivings parents might have about transgender students, LGBTQ-themed books in schools, and CRT, last night showed that they are not interested in the Republican side of a culture war. As expressed on DCUM, many parents would love to see the culture war go away entirely. But if they have to pick a side in it, they will choose equity and trans rights over Youngkin and Moms for Liberty led book bans.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Harvard has a secret back door for ultra-rich kids with lousy grades", the original poster quotes from an interview with a college admissions coach who describes loopholes used by Harvard and other universities to admit wealthy students who don't have the stats to be admitted otherwise. In the case of Harvard, the coach says the school maintains a "Z-list" of students who are asked to take a gap year. The year off from school means that their academic statistics are not reported and don't affect Harvard's standing in such lists at the US News and World Report college rankings. Other schools ask such students to take their freshman year at another college and then transfer. The statistics of transfer students are not used for USNWR-type evaluations. Many of those responding agree that these loopholes are unfair, but are resigned to their existence. In their minds, the wealthy always have advantages so this sort of thing should expected. Others are more concerned about the impact these loopholes have on the admissions chances of others. If unqualified rich kids are getting spots, they argue, then qualified poorer kids are being left out. A few posters don't consider these loopholes to be a big deal and don't consider them to have enough of an impact about which to worry. At least one poster thinks this is an equitable solution for students who attend competitive private high schools and might not have GPAs sufficient to justify admissions. But, they are otherwise bright students and loopholes of this sort provide a pathway for them. As I have commented many times about the college forum, almost all forum participants are convinced that the college admissions process is unfair and they are sure that it is specifically biased against their kids. As such, this thread simply provides more supporting evidence confirming their convictions — at least for those lacking the wealth to exploit the loopholes.