This is extremely misleading. Fuck Trump 10000 times and kamala is the only sane choice, but stop trying to paint over reality to try and make her look like she’s not just a lesser evil.
She didn’t just “not promise to solve 1000 year conflict” (which the genocide has been going on for the last 75 years),
she did promise to continue funding genocide with American taxpayer dollars. (Of which the US has been giving and average of $5 billion in tax dollars and weapons to Isreal per year for the last 75 years, since they first invaded Palestine).
We are voting for her because she is the lesser evil. We don’t have to be happy about it or stop criticizing her on her bad policies.
Basically: Vote for Harris, but also fuck her for vowing to continue funding genocide. Trump would also keep funding genocide, and he’d also destroy what’s left of the west, on top of every other obvious reason he should never be in power again (and never should have been).
OP consistently makes posts that only divide the Dem base.
Considering they started out with AI posts lying about early voting, I guess it’s an improvement?
Right wing morons and shills can’t exactly base their arguments on how much better Republicans are, so they come at it sideways with this bullshit.
Well, jokes on them because “the left” isn’t made up of complete morons like they have in the MAGA movement. Despite neoliberal whining to the contrary, the left has been consistently the most reliable voting demographic the Democrats have, and that’s despite the fact that the establishment shits on us at every opportunity.
vote third party IMHO
fuck the two party regime that got us cornered here. vote for either party is providing genocide legitimacy.
Sounds good on paper or if not on battleground state. I remember people pissed at DNC in 2016 got us Trump the first time.
Technically running the least popular candidate in history while simultaneously pied pipering the most dangerous candidate in history was not perpetrated by “people pissed at DNC”.
Blame the voters for consistently snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a core tenet of Dem strategy, and of liberalism for that matter.
I remember people pissed at DNC in 2016 got us Trump the first time.
Other people would blame Clinton’s campaign for refusing to move to the left to get more votes.
They had a very “vote for me or fuck you” approach, much like OP’s meme.
But when looking at exit polling, progressives showed up and voted D like we always do. Clinton lost by slim margins in a couple of important battleground states she mostly ignored.
And I’m not saying all that to bring up old wounds, it’s because Hillary’s people became Bidens people who became Kamala’s.
They’re still the ones making these policy decisions that are wildly unpopular.
They shouldn’t be in charge still, but they are.
And voting third party is saying “I don’t care whether we get a bit of genocide or a lot of genocide,” which itself is legitimizing genocide.
“Harm reduction” is not in the vocabulary of these internet addicted “intellectuals”.
Keep in mind that most of them (like OP) are right wing agitators trying to drive a wedge.
While I agree this is definitely a big issue, most of my friends are various leftists. There is a clear line where the white, straight, cis, financially secure, and healthy ones are, or were, definitely of this mind. Though, in my case, few of them are still this way, after years of discourse with everyone else, who don’t have the privilege of not having to vote DNC, lest our lives become quantifiably more dangerous.
Nor are things like “strategic voting.” It’s really unfortunate
No people know what it means to pick the less disgusting turd out of the bowl. They’re just tired of eating shit for “strategic reasons”.
Am I the only one who just realized that these people who are so tired are usually just kids who’ve voted in at most two elections and didn’t even participate in the primaries or local elections?
If y’all put half the energy into being consistent voters that ya did in bitching about “having to” once in a blue moon when you’re dragged by the hair to the polls first.
This has “I don’t care about your principles, lick the boot bigot” energy.
Kinda gave the game away by admitting you get called bigot enough to be seen as a generic NPC complaint to you
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They are doing the same amount of genocide
Try to make your point without spouting misinformation.
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In the above comment, we see the following items directly out of the alt-right playbook:
- Never play defense (doesn’t provide backing for their statement, because they can’t, and instead just tries something else)
- Control the conversation (spins things and tries to change the subject)
- Ship of Theseus (changes fundamental things about their argument without admitting it)
Why is @cowbee@lemmy.ml using the alt-right playbook for their online argumentation? I’ll leave that up to the reader.
I played defense, I never changed the subject, and never changed the fundamentals of the argument. You made the baseless claim that Trump would be far worse for the Palestinian people, while Biden has given Israel everything and then some, without backing it up. You can’t actually answer my point so you slander me as alt-right despite advocating for Marxism.
😂 You see, the socialists are the real fascists. Ian Danskin would be horrified to see this perversion of his work.
Genocide is happening either way. Only option for american peasant is to go into opposition to the two party regime.
Voting 3rd party in this election isn’t the grand protest against the 2 party system you think it is.
Organize. Build a coalition. Those are great things to do to oppose the regime.
Voting third party or not voting aren’t opposing the regime. They’re telling the regime “I don’t care whether you’re a little bit evil or very evil.” Harm reduction comes by voting for the lesser evil in the ballot box. Opposing the regime comes in actually building a coalition for less evil, not advocating for actions that’ll make the more evil option more likely.
Someone who’d go as far as calling them the “American Peasant” probably doesn’t know enough about their interests to be talking at them about what their interests as a class are.
Voting 3rd party for progressivism is the biggest self own in history. We could have had Gore, but nooo.
Behind every upset conservative victory, there was a progressive who insisted they shouldn’t have to be voting for the lesser of two evils.
- There are two choices in the United States 2024 election. No third party stands a ghost of a chance of winning. No, not even if the 30,000 people you can reach on Lemmy all vote for Timothy Greenparty.
- A Trump victory in 2024 would not only be just as bad if not worse for the citizens of Gaza than Harris would, but also pose an existential threat to a large number of vulnerable Americans (trans people, immigrants, women seeking abortions).
- Given the margins of victory in 2016 and 2020, Kamala might not win if leftists don’t vote for her.
- Snoozing fascism for four years is better than inviting it through the door now, and buys us time to build our defenses for when it comes back.
I’d like to focus my counterargument. Which of these statements do you disagree with?
I don’t care if either regime whore wins, either one is L for me.
Y’all keep trying to do this left/right american politics bullshit, which inherently enablers the regime.
They’re both identical, right?
They serve the same function within the regime. But sure one is funded by Exxon and another one microsoft, so they are different in that way.
At least some, like Ralph Nader, regretted it. Now we have those actively seeking to spoil the vote.
The tragic thing about Nader was his activism basically proved to General Motors and later large American corporations in general that political engagement and and public opinion was vital. The corpos learned to fight grass roots activism with astro-turf until they were just as skilled as Nader’s acolytes, only with orders of magnitude more resources.
Every time I see an Oil company do a commercial about their commitment to the environment I think of Ralph.
Similarly, Woodward and Bernstein showed the corporations how dangerous an independent press was.
Back in Watergate Era, there were plenty of locally owned newspapers and TV stations. Today, thanks to ronald reagan’s assault on the Fairness Doctrine, we have six major media companies controlling what we hear.
What does third parties have to do with lifelong Dem voters wanting the Dem candidate to side with the Dem voting base on basic parts of the party platform like:
-
No fracking
-
Better healthcare
-
Climate change is real and producing less fossil fuels is a good thing
What you’re doing is insisting if you’re not 100% loyal to the candidate with a D by their name you really have an R.
That’s the same fucking shit Republicans went thru and it ended up with trump.
Why the fuck do you want to follow down the path of “never criticize the party, and always vote for them”.
Please explain to the class why this time it will work out good for the party that takes that path.
It’s not that it will work out good (though in a sense, it has for the R in that they got what they actually wanted), it’s that if the Rs have ~50% ish support, no matter what they do, because of them going that route, the only way to beat them is to get everyone that isn’t them in a coalition together.
Right and that makes sense…
Unfortunately that’s not what Kamala is doing.
I’ll say it till my face turns blue:
Taking a stand against fracking is all it would take to guarantee trump can’t win, but Kamala is pro-fracking, refuses to give the party voters what they want, and refuses to even explain why being pro-feacking is seen as a good choice by her and her campaign.
That isn’t the only issue she’s to the right of the party on either.
It’s like her, her campaign, and the DNC aren’t focused on beating trump, they want to beat Trump while giving the voters the bare minimum it would take, because the more they give voters, the less they get in donations.
So then telling voters “all that matters is beating trump” it’s obviously bullshit because they’re not doing everything possible to beat trump.
It ain’t complicated.
Like you said:
the only way to beat them is to get everyone that isn’t them in a coalition together.
That’s the opposite of what OP spends their time on, but considering a month ago they were intentionally spreading misinformation about when early voting started, I’m surprised the mods still let them post here.
Every single “meme” OP posts is about how Dem voters should fight with Dem voters rather than band together.
Taking a stand against fracking is all it would take, when the largest swing state this election has an economy that leans heavily on fracking?
It’s not the instant win you think it is.
Not the person you replied to, but 58% of Pennsylvanians support a ban on fracking. It really shouldn’t be surprising. Pennsylvania may be a great hub of fracking, but very few people actually benefit from the wealth it creates. Meanwhile, they’re the people actually on the ground, living there in the areas most affected by fracking. They know its effects better than anyone. It’s their ground water and their wells are being contaminated, all so a few companies owned by out of state wealthy interests can profit mightily. Plus, it’s not like Pennsylvanians aren’t also worried about climate change.
when the largest swing state this election has an economy that leans heavily on fracking?
You’re confusing people and corporations…
Pennsylvania voters continue to be split over fracking. A poll out this week, which surveyed 700 likely voters in September, shows 58% support a ban on fracking while 42% oppose it.
58% of likely voters in PA want it banned…
58% of likely voters in PA want it banned…
Did the environmentalists show up for Gore? No they did not.
Did the environmentalists show up for Clinton who said she’d have a map room to fight climate change? No they did not.
Were the environmentalists going to show up for Biden after he passed green energy and ev policies? Polls said no they were not going to show up.
Harris saying she’d ban fracking is an instant loss. She and everyone advising her knows this.
Yep. When Democrats enact environmental policies, they don’t do it for the votes. Which makes Biden all the more commendable for his environmental action imo.
That assumes that 58% are people who aren’t already voting dem
When people are employed by those corporations, they have a vested interest in their livelihood not disappearing overnight.
A survey of 700 people leaves considerable room for polling error. Without information on how they selected participants, I wouldn’t say that’s an overwhelming margin.
When people are employed by those corporations,
…
The report finds that about 64,000 Pennsylvania workers are employed in fossil fuel-based industries such as natural gas drilling, coal mining, and supporting activities
64k, not just fracking, that’s all fossil fuel jobs in PA.
There’s 12.7 million people in the state
0.5% of people in the state work any job connected to fossil fuels…
You’re confusing corporations and people homie.
A survey of 700 people leaves considerable room for polling error
You didn’t have to tell us you never learned about stats in any educational setting, but I appreciate the transparency.
700 is more than enough
An economy that “leans heavily” on fracking? What sort of economy leans on destroying their water table? What did you say about the economies that “lean heavily” on coal mining?
Like what, West Virginia? Can me when they’re a swing state, but don’t hold your breath.
If the conviction issue depends upon it being a swing state then it isnt a conviction issue.
Taking a stand against fracking is all it would take to guarantee trump can’t win, but Kamala is pro-fracking, refuses to give the party voters what they want, and refuses to even explain why being pro-feacking is seen as a good choice by her and her campaign.
I’m skeptical that there’s a huge swath of voters refusing to vote just because of fracking. And if there are people claiming that, I don’t believe they would be voting even if Kamala did come out against fracking anyway. Everyone knows Trump would be much, much worse for the environment than Kamala, and to refuse to vote over one single environmental issue is either very dumb or completely disingenuous.
It’s like her, her campaign, and the DNC aren’t focused on beating trump, they want to beat Trump while giving the voters the bare minimum it would take, because the more they give voters, the less they get in donations.
because, unfortunately, donations are important. It’s a shitty system, and this is what they have to do to win in the system.
It ain’t complicated.
actually it is.
I’m skeptical that there’s a huge swath of voters refusing to vote just because of fracking
No one said there was.
I said a majority of voters in PA want it banned, and Kamala would gain votes there if she agreed with the Dem voter base nationally and wanted to ban it
58% of PA voters want it banned
What is Kamala gaining by being pro-fracking?
Donations so she can try and convince the people who live by fracking and know how bad it is that they should vote for her anyways because Trump is probably fracking?
Even if that works…
You know that means they still have fracking in their backyards, right?
actually it is.
I can admit when I’m wrong, I really didn’t think it needed this much explaining.
No one said there was.
you clearly implied it by saying, “Taking a stand against fracking is all it would take to guarantee trump can’t win”.
I said a majority of voters in PA want it banned, and Kamala would gain votes there if she agreed with the Dem voter base nationally and wanted to ban it
58% of PA voters want it banned
…which does not mean she’d gain voters from changing her position. How many of those people are voting for her anyway? How many would actually vote for her if she did change her position? you don’t know this, and neither do I, but I’m guessing they have a pretty good idea.
What is Kamala gaining by being pro-fracking?
Donations so she can try and convince the people who live by fracking and know how bad it is that they should vote for her anyways because Trump is probably fracking?
Even if that works…
You know that means they still have fracking in their backyards, right?
Yes. I’m not arguing that it’s a good thing. I’m saying this is the way it is, and this is what they need to do to win in the system we have. If you want to fix the system, you need to vote D to gradually re-take SCOTUS and overturn shit like Citizens United that is fucking our politics with money.
I can admit when I’m wrong, I really didn’t think it needed this much explaining.
again some things are not as simple as you think.
you clearly implied it by saying, “Taking a stand against fracking is all it would take to guarantee trump can’t win”.
That doesn’t say anything about non voters…
How many of those people are voting for her anyway?
If 58% of PA voters were voting for her anyways, why is it still a battleground state?
But why are you questioning every reason for why Kamala should match the party and ban fracking…
And you can’t offer a si gle reason why she’s pro-fracking besides:
I’m saying this is the way it is, and this is what they need to do to win in the system we have. If you want to fix the system, you need to vote D to gradually re-take SCOTUS and overturn shit like Citizens United that is fucking our politics with money.
So are you just admitting that the reason both candidates in 2024 are pro-fracking is because they’re taking bribes in the form of donations?
Like, and I hate that I have to say this:
Just because trump takes fossil fuel bribes doesn’t mean Kamala does.
Like, by that same logic you’re using to defend fracking, a foreign government can buy off the Dem party to support and find their invasion of sovereign countries…
Because trump and the Republicans do it too.
Is that what you meant to say or do you not even realize what you’re defending here?
WHY do you dumbasses always think everyone agrees with your personal beliefs??
A LOT of people like fracking, and even more are indifferent. Harris is not looking at this huge fucking majority of Dems who hate fracking and going “nah, I don’t wanna win this election”. She is accurately representing the positions of a majority of Democrats.YOU are the minority.
(And me too, because I’m also anti fracking, but I’m a realist)
Except Biden repeatedly gave in to pressure from his voter base on a lot of actions, we also got a lot of changes to DNC policy care of Sanders voter base. It’s not ‘‘do or die’’ it’s vote for an administration that will actually respond to pressure and voter’s policy goals, or vote for a dictator backed by industralists who all want an ethnostate of uneducated second class citizens.
Except Biden repeatedly gave in to pressure from his voter base on a lot of actions, we also got a lot of changes to DNC policy care of Sanders voter base.
And Biden got elected despite his age…
2020 was an example of the candidate moving their campaign left and winning the election.
The problem is that the broader Democratic electorate is a much bigger tent, with overall much more moderate politics, than online leftists are typically willing to admit. We’re still only eight years past an election where Hillary Clinton took the Rust Belt for granted, and we all paid the price for that when traditionally solid union votes swung to Trump because he was boosting fossil fuel extraction while Clinton implicitly threatened the livelihoods of families dependent on coal and fracking jobs.
Healthcare you have a point on, but also keep in mind that the last time Dems had the votes for sort of sweeping reform was 2008, and what we got out of that was the ACA, which for all its faults was still a big step up over the status quo. Obama was going for a big bipartisan win, in spite of McConnell’s announcing that he was killing bipartisanship in the GOP caucus, and that was a mistake, but perhaps an understandable one given that up to that point that’s how Congress had always worked.
There have been windows of time since in which Dems have held the Presidency and both houses of Congress, but never with enough margin to defeat a Senate filibuster, and with DINOs like Manchin and Sinema standing in the way of filibuster reform. I do not doubt that progressives in Congress would move an M4A or public option bill through the legislature if, in 2025, the House flips back and the Senate stays Democratic in spite of the unfavorable cycle, but withholding your vote doesn’t get you any closer to that happening.
The problem is that the broader Democratic electorate is a much bigger tent, with overall much more moderate politics, than online leftists are typically willing to admit
Polls show progressive policy isn’t just popular with Dems, but all voters…
That’s life mate, I’m sorry it doesn’t agree with your opinions, but it’s the truth.
That’s why Obama’s 08 campaign did so fucking well, despite not really being that progressive in any other developed country.
The neoliberal experiment has only benefited the wealthy, stop defending them, they got lawyers and lobbyists for them, pick people over corps and we can get something done.
Polls show progressive policy isn’t just popular with Dems, but all voters…
That is until they’re told it’s a Dem policy.
And of course the progressives actually show up to vote.
The neoliberal experiment has only benefited the wealthy, stop defending them
Neoliberals are Republicans, so we’re already not defending them.
What’s your alternative, Trump? Because a 3rd party candidate will never win the general election without a massive overhaul of our election system which will never happen as long as the Rs have a majority in any branch of the government.
-
Bad faith: “I want her to stop sending weapons to the country doing genocide.”
Good faith: “So basically you’re demanding that she solves the entire conflict immediately.”
I think this is a dumb take. Third parties are only used like this in the US because our voting system is incredibly broken and there is little interest in fixing it. If you don’t explicitly highlight the caveats:
- The spoiler effect is a fixable problem, even on the state by state basis.
- Third parties are, conceptually, a great idea
then what you’re doing is attempting to uphold and protect the broken system from being improved.
It is a fixable problem, but it is not a fixed problem. Bringing them up during presidential elections and only during presidential elections doesn’t fix the problem and just leads to it.
Which is why the correct way to bring it up is to mention the spoiler effect.
The problem is when you talk to some republicans they want a 1 party system. They want to ban democrats. If you talk to some democrats they believe we should ban third parties. These are both antidemocracy views that normalize each other.
So what you’re arguing for here (to be very clear) is that it is better to embrace a softer form of anti-democracy messaging than to explain that we should avoid voting third party when spoiler effects are a concern.
I’m saying that if you’re in favor of strengthening third parties in America a lot of work needs to be done and just shouting vote third party every 4 years is none of that work.
And I’m saying damage control for third parties a lot more work needs to be done than simply saying “3rd party bad, 2 parties good.” because idk if you’ve been watching but we’re perilously close to having a 1 party system.
This a prime opportunity to educate voters on their own voting system and people are squandering that to oversimplify their messaging to the degree they sound like republicans.
Edit: To clarify if you wanted to eliminate the republican party, a 3rd party needs to replace it in a 2 party system creating a “catch 22” situation where fptp props up a fascist minority party because 3rd parties can’t compete
because idk if you’ve been watching but we’re perilously close to having a 1 party system.
THAT IS WHY WE’RE SAYING 3RD PARTY BAD
This is NOT the time. Just shut up about 3rd parties. The debates and discussions are still perfectly valid in 3 months, let’s talk about it then.
If you talk to some democrats they believe we should ban third parties.
I have never seen this argument from any democrat before.
Questioned their legitimacy in participating as a candidate in a presidential election? Yes.
But banning third parties? Absolute hogwash, I’ve never once seen that.
Sure you conveniently haven’t, but I’ve seen it floated on these boards and the post in the chain above us we’re replying to is aligned with antidemocratic messaging - it by no means rejects anyone who wants to ban 3rd parties.
But lets make an even easier comparison making it hard for 3rd parties to exist is not wholly different than banning them. This is in fact how republicans approached abortion before the supreme court’s catholic wing decided to allow bans.
Its all working to the same goal. Anti 3rd party messaging without context and rational thought is just anti-democracy messaging which only helps republicans. Every legal tool democrats are using to beat down 3rd parties will eventually be used by republicans to prevent democrats from being elected.
The only way to fix it is to change the way we vote so that 3rd parties don’t produce spoiler effects.
OK, so claims of randos on the internet.
NOT any single elected democrat.
Got it.
Ah so what matters is words not actions? Taking steps to remove 3rd parties from ballots is fine as long as you don’t say it?
So you won’t complain about spoilers during midterms, then?
The spoilers rarely show up, if ever, during midterms, which is very telling.
Then it’ll be really easy to not complain about them.
You improve a broken system by fixing the broken system, not by pretending you’re not using it.
Vote, agitate or even run as a candidate that will pass ranked choice voting, locally or larger. Support the interstate electoral vote compact. Do whatever you can to directly fix the system.
Until then, you mitigate harm within the broken system.
Nobody is arguing that. The problem is presenting third parties as bad without giving any sort of context on how and where harm needs to be mitigated.
For instance: Alaska has ranked choice voting. Why on earth would you waste resources telling people to oppose third parties if you know some of the people you’re talking to live in alaska? It makes no sense. The problem here, as it has always been, is the voting system cannot handle 3rd parties and we should back away from them where spoiler effects are a concern
Contextually, we are discussing the presidential election. That’s what the meme above is about. 49 of 50 states are FPTP. Alaska is the only one using RCV. Since Alaska’s total population is 800k out of 345 million US citizens, the discussion of voting pragmatically for president affects 99.8% of Americans.
In Alaska, which does have RCV for president starting this year, people should fully vote for their ideal candidate, as long as they rank the rest as well so RCV works.
So overall, for every 500 Americans who read this thread and now opt to vote pragmatically, it might adversely affect 1 Alaskan, who may vote pragmatically instead of ideally. That’s not a perfect ideal for those rare Alaskans, but it’s still reasonable.
Right but if only a handful of swing states actually matter here so lets take it a step further, why waste effort telling people from like california or texas not to vote 3rd party because, lets be honest, the margins aren’t big enough for third parties to matter there.
Like I feel like its both more convincing and more honest to just say “Don’t vote third party where the spoiler effect is a concern” or “don’t vote third party in swing states”
It doesn’t matter until it matters. Voting fecklesly for a 3rd party in just one large election every 4 years has not and will not change anything meaninfully. You need changes like Alaska’s, which based on state population size, was like changing a city ordinance. It will take a lot more effort to change over to RCV in basically any other state. A kind of effort fringe candidates should be applying non stop.
The issue with “well just do it in non swing states” is that you can’t contain this empty, contrarian gesturing to just those states without the candiates opting to not put themselves on the ballot in others. If they did that intentionally, only applying to be on the ballot in non swing states, while also actively campaigning for RCV, then I would fully support it. None do.
The reality is the people like RFK Jr and Jill stein are intentional spoilers, heavily subsidized by right wing billionaires and foreign powers to throw the election in those swing states. You can follow the money and see it in action. Until they seriously apply the above efforts, that’s all they will ever be, and they don’t deserve even token gestures of support.
The problem here is that the 2 party FPTP system is propping up the republican minority party creating a catch 22 where in most countries the republican party would split between resulting in a centrist party and a “MAGA” party. Like if you look at the UK that’s kind of what happened. But here in the US its created a zombie republican party controlled by fascists.
Like the fact that more states have not adopted viable ranked choice voting methods and constrained the electoral college system is currently why Trump even stands a chance today. The people deciding the 2024 election are like begrudging centrist-leaning republicans who are being given two choices they don’t like and we’d all be better off if they could just get like a house rep isntead and didn’t decide the president.
Nobody is arguing that.
Actually, a LOT of people are arguing that.
The spoiler effect is absolutely a fixable problem. It would be great if our current third party candidates actually put in effort to exist in the political eye and work for said reform, outside of crawling out of their hole every 4 years to run for President.
The comment section for this type of posts is always such a shit show.
This is essentially saying 2 things:
1 - It’s insane that some here seem to think that to remain “independent” of politics you can abstain or vote third party to show your discontent for how slowly the Dems deal with Natenyahu’s BS. Your abstain or 3rd party vote does nothing to “move the Dems to the left” when in reality you are removing them from power to give it to Trump, who has already promised to triple down on helping Netanyahu achieve whatever he wants.
The election is happening right now. There’s no time and space to negotiate new candidates or parties. It’s either the disappointing Dems, or the christo-fascist GOP. The time for standing on principle was 3 years ago, or next year at the start of the new cycle. Today is about pragmatism - how close we can get to the desired outcome, and which of these parties is more interested in listening to your position moving forward. It should be abundantly clear that Harris is by a huge margin the better choice for your desired outcomes.
2 - The Israel operation in Gaza, that we all want to stop, is not something that can be just ended with the click of a button. A bunch of actors in that region are hell bent on killing each other, like when Hamas did genocide on Israel last year, and now we have multiple state actors moving armies against each other. The brain-dead premise that somehow Democrats “want genocide” makes it impossible to have a serious conversation.
If you don’t vote for Harris over a mess in the Middle East that we didn’t directly create and are not directly responsible for, and that the Biden administration is trying to solve even if it’s too slow for your taste; and instead you act in favor of helping Trump who will absolutely empower Netanyahu to do whatever he wants, then not only are you directly voting against your own interests, but you are engaging in a level of dumb-fuckery of supreme proportions. And fucking all of us over hard while at it.
In short: By opposing Harris right at the finish line of the election cycle, you are going to inflict Trump’s dictator regime and the runaway christo-fascist GOP on the entire planet, because you are dissatisfied with how mediocre Dems have been at trying to stop Israel. You think this makes you virtuous. It does not.
I mostly agree with you, especially point (1), but what are you talking about with “Hamas did genocide on Isreal last year”? They did a terror attack for sure, but that’s not genocide. Wiping out significant percentage of a population because of their ethnicity or culture is genocide (see what Isreal is doing in Gaza) and it takes months to years.
Assuming it’s a difference in scale argument, but it’s hard to take the power dynamics out of the equation when rating “genocide”.
Only one faction currently has the means to actually perform an extermination. I don’t know if the “genocide of Israelis” sotuation would occur if the power dynamics were flipped, but that’s getting to hypotheticals and ignoring other circumstances of their unlawful occupation of Palestinian lands.
I don’t know if the “genocide of Israelis” sotuation would occur if the power dynamics were flipped
“Death to the Jews” doesn’t give you a clue?
There’s no good guys in this conflict except the civilians caught in the middle.
Very disingenuous, Palestinians are fighting against Zionism, not Judaism, which are two very different things. Israel has always been the obstacle for peace, because it is a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate founded on, and ever continuing, ethnic cleansing.
Settlements
Israel does justify the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
- See: The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948, the Transfer Committee, and the JNF which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
State violence – official and otherwise – is part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The regime treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones. At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
One or Two State Solution
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
- Avi Shlaim
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
Source
During the current war, Hamas officials have said that the group does not want to return to ruling Gaza and that it advocates for forming a government of technocrats to be agreed upon by the various Palestinian factions. That government would then prepare for elections in Gaza and the West Bank, with the intention of forming a unified government.
Hamas officials should be held accountable for all war crimes committed, same as all Israeli officials. That said, there are many parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Gaza.
In the Shadow of the Holocaust by Masha Gessen, the situation in Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghettos. The comparison was also made by a Palestinian poet who was later killed by an Israeli airstrike. Adi Callai, an Israeli, has also written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
What the hell is so hard to understand about “Death to the Jews”? It’s a pretty blunt statement. Doesn’t need context or whatever red herrings you’re throwing out.
There are a few reasons. Most importantly, that kind of conflation of Judaism and Zionism needs to be called out, regardless of who says it. That includes any members of Hamas or any Israelis who conflate them, intentional or not.
Secondly, trying to attribute a quote like that to an entire people, as an attempt to contextualize the Settler Colonialist violence of Israel towards Palestinians, is a terrible and disingenuous thing to do. It’s attempting to imply that Palestinians are fighting back out of some inherent Antisemitism, which is completely untrue, instead of fighting back against ethnic cleansing for their livelyhood.
Third, it’s important to recognize where this conflation is coming from. Israel intentionally does this conflation to deflect any criticism as simply antisemitism, which comes at the expense of a rise of genuine antisemitism as they then point to the actions of Israel as representing all Jewish people. Which is obviously untrue. When the IDF destroys your house and kills your family, and then says it’s in the name of all Jewish people, it becomes harder for those people to got their house destroyed to make that distinction between Judaism and Zionism. So it is equally important to condemn the conflation and understand the context behind it.
The 1988 Charter, which is unreasonable for wanting Sharia Law and belief in the antisemitic conspiracy theory of the Elder Protocols of Zion, does not call for the extermination of all Jewish People. Which is what I’m guessing you are trying to reference.
Hamas wants an end to Israel as an Apartheid State, not an extermination of all Israelis. Under Ahmed Yassin in the 1990’s, truces were offered in exchange for Israeli to withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank to the 1967 borders. The 2017 Charter explicitly accepts a Two-State Solution of the 1967 Borders. Check Article 7 and 13 of the 1988 Charter to see yourself, compare it to Article 20 and 24-26 in the revised charter.
There’s a lot you’re saying that I agree with, but it’s undeniable that sending weapons to Isreal is not solving this problem it’s directly causing the problem. Biden is incredibly ineffective at solving this and is not holding any sort of red line for real. He needs to hold Isreal accountable for their actions. We have sent billions and billions of dollars of weapons to Isreal, and we likely aren’t stopping anytime soon even if Kamala is elected. We need to hold their feet to the fire and show them this is unacceptable.
It doesn’t matter. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict isn’t even in the top 10 major threats to our country.
You can be unhappy about it, but this election is literally deciding whether the US will be a fascist, theocracic dictatorship.
I agree with your stance, but it’s a hell of a hard pill to swallow when both action and inaction directly support the continued financing of a genocide.
Vote for the lesser evil now, but make up for it by holding them to account to the fullest of your ability once they’re in.
No politician is going to please everyone. All we can do is keep choosing the less bad option until there’s finally a good option.
Ranked choice voting would be nice, but for that to ever be an option we need the left to overpower the right.
All we can do is keep choosing the less bad option
That’s absolutely not the case. For the Democrats to pull back towards the left, their viability as a choice for left-leaning voters needs to be threatened. It’s too late for this election, so vote Dem, but in the medium term it means taking action to support a better third party that actually champions progressive and egalitarian governance and peaceful foreign policy, and also challenging the Democrats with protests and campaigns.
Waiting did not get women the vote. Waiting did not achieve the victories of the Civil Rights movement. Waiting will not stop US proxy genocide in the Middle East.
Not enough people will ever vote 3rd party to threaten the democrats. It’s a nice thought, but the amount of people who actually care enough to make the switch is still going to be extremely low even with massive campaigning.
Also, times are different; the government and population is vastly different than it was in the 20th century. And the threat of a 3rd party wasn’t what made the change anyways.
it’s a hell of a hard pill to swallow
Welcome to being a functioning adult. Life sucks, and it sucks worse when you throw temper tantrums instead of pursuing harm reduction when you can.
but also fuck you for talking to people like that for caring about human lives.
That’s fair. I have very little patience for people who need to be handheld through making sane, rational decisions. That’s a me problem. It would be more effective if I were more empathetic.
There are extremists on both sides that would ve killing civilians with sticks and stones if they had no other means. Parties like Iran are sending one sided weapons to help them win. The US sending weapons to the other is not the only factor ‘causing’ this problem.
I think most third party voters just assume Dems want to earn their vote. They don’t. They want to earn the vote of undecided people, and republicans that are still somewhat open to another side. It’s the whole reason the Dems are as center-right as they are.
They won’t see people voting third party and go “Oh my god, we need to get these further-left-than-us voters to agree with us!” They’ll go, “We need to pull moderate voters in the swing states that actually dictate our elections over to our side, not only giving us a vote, but negating a vote for Trump too!”
History has proven this time and time again. When faced with a loss, the Dems will always look towards the center to gain voters. Because like it or not, the left wing is heavily outnumbered by moderates who are more focused on their own lives than the intricacies of world and domestic politics.
3 - Participating in and commenting on the voting mechanism is just one bit of the overall development of political, social and cultural history.
What seems to be “normal” or “acceptable” or “possible” to a given person/part of a population, is the outcome of discourse and maybe more important: concrete options.
Tangible options to participate in something solidary that’s useful and provides meaningful participation, make left values and ideas soo much more credible and “in reach”.
IMO these options and experiences can at the moment only really be created from below. Neither corporations nor the government (any time soon) will provide the people with democratic economic solitutions, neighboorhood solidarity, labor organization, collective housing, social movements etc.
You are so much more than voters. You can organize the practical and ideological negation of the BS you oppose so rightfully.
Be it a better third option or leftshifting the dems, anyway the whole voting part of history will become more fun that way, too.
What’s insane is that the US is supporting a genocide and the fascist israel government and there’s still people who have the guts to take government side. Shame on you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Israel_in_the_Israel–Hamas_war
1 - USA is already helping israel with “whatever it needs”. The support of fascist israel government is already tripled up. There’s a disaster already, kids are being murdered daily right now.
2 - Less than a click is needed, usa just have to say that they will stop sending money and weapons to israel if they don’t stop and israel government will have to stop. Israel government is waging war because they have the back of USA.
If you don’t vote for Harris over a mess in the Middle East that we didn’t directly create
Learn your history.
Your abstain or 3rd party vote does nothing to “move the Dems to the left” when in reality you are removing them from power to give it to Trump
If there’s enough of us that it could seriously endanger the elections for the Dems, their analysts likely know this already and have no choice but to consider concessions to try to regain some of those votes, therefore we do have power.
More likely, we just don’t have enough to move the needle, and therefore all this hand wringing is a waste of breath.
Maybe next election people will realize we can’t move the Dems left by unwaveringly voting for them every single election, we have to hold them to account. Otherwise this shitty cycle of choosing the “less bad option” every election because it’s an emergency will not ever end. It is in the Dem’s interest that it does not.
Any concessions to Leftists will cost far more moderate votes than it would buy Leftist votes. Leftists are NOTORIOUSLY fickle, and one of your leading voices this election is an obvious Russian plant who wouldn’t accept any concessions under any circumstances.
I’m supporting Harris, but I think people miss the real argument for Trump on Israel. Honestly, a good case can be made that Trump has a better chance of pulling US away from Israel than Harris will. Historically, Republicans have actually stood up to Israel better than Democrats have. Reagan for instance wasn’t afraid to use US military aid as leverage to rein in Israel.
But moreover, I think the core of the argument for why Trump might be better for Harris on Palestine is that fundamentally, it is extremely unlikely that Harris will do anything to rein in Netanyahu. She will likely continue Biden’s policies and continue to give him carte blanche to do whatever he wants. Anything short of complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank will see Kamala continue aid at current levels.
Trump will largely do the same. However, there is a small, but nonzero, chance that Trump will pull aid from Israel for simple self-serving reasons. At his core he is extremely doubtful of any kind of foreign aid. And at some point he might simply pull aid not because he supports the Palestinians, but because he’s at his core an isolationist and doesn’t want to give money to either side. From the press I’ve read, it seems that Israel would actually prefer Kamala to win. Why? Because while Trump might overall be better ideologically than Kamala, Kamala is at least more reliable. Trump is erratic and could just pull US aid entirely on a whim. From Israel’s perspective, Kamala is expected to reliably deliver the current level of support regardless of Israel’s actions. Trump is a wildcard. He might give more support, or he might just pull the US out of Israel entirely. He’s is chaotic to his core.
Again, I’ll be voting for Harris, but there is a very good argument that Israel would prefer Kamala over Trump. Yes, there’s a chance that Trump would give them even higher levels of support - joining hand in hand in a ware against Iran, giving them full blessing to completely expel the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, etc. But it’s not like Trump at his core is some friend to the Jews. He’s an old-school anti-Semite at heart, despite what he says. It’s entirely possible that one day he just decides to pull all aid, simply because he’s tired of the US paying for it. He is again, at his core, an isolationist, “America first” type. From Israel’s perspective, Kamala represents a guaranteed steady supply of aid at current levels. Trump represents a gamble that could see a massive increase of support or a complete collapse of it, simply depending on how Trump’s mood evolves. And really, Kamala is probably a better bet for them because of it.
I think that’s a misreading of Trump, if it’s even really possible to read him by statements alone.
Trump says a lot of things, but I am assuming he wants to be “hands off” in the sense of not interfering in Israel’s affairs and preserving the status quo, rather than cutting Israel off from American support. Much of his voter base is staunchly pro-Israel, so it would harm his support if he were to break that core pillar of the Republican party so suddenly.
Looking at his actions during his previous presidency, he did demonstrate that he was a strong ally of Israel, going so far as to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested capital of Jerusalem/Al Quds, which is something that had not been done before by any previous administration. Not like Biden made any moves to take the embassy out of Jerusalem either, but Trump effectively cemented US approval of Israel’s expansionist practices by placing American affairs directly in the middle of it.
That’s a LOT of “may” and “might”. Nothing is off the table when it comes to Trump, sure, but I don’t think this is a possibility worth considering.
You’re not wrong. However, this holding-your-nose voting is exactly what the Righties that aren’t team Trump are doing. So if everyone is holding their nose, maybe we fix that problem? And honestly, until it gets truly horrible, nothing will change. The world let Hitler do a lot of shit before intervening. Maybe we let Trump have his second term. He goes full dictator and things get bad. We get a productive civil war and finish what Sherman started. US comes out reformed.
I am not super concerned about a second Trump term. He can’t even campaign without people taking pot shots at him. I think that problem will sort itself out within the first year.
So, you think that if Trump dies in office Vance won’t be worse? Vance is younger and smarter and ready to do anything to stay in power.
Nah, never said that. And if Trump is getting pot shots, you think Vance won’t? The true check against the fascists is always violence. It is the only language they respect. I fully believe if they try their little coup, things will turn to shit real fast.
Fascists have had their asses kicked in numerous elections.
Also, you seem to think that there’s going to be some magic number where the assassinations magically give us a good government. What’s much, much more likely is that as soon as Trump dies all elections are cancelled and all MAGoos are deputized and Kyle Rittenhouse is the new Attorney General.
Yeah, that does seem pretty likely. I also think civil war would become very likely after a stunt like that. Great movie idea actually. The ethnofascists decide that Trump being assassinated could actually galvanize a full white supremacy uprising. So they do it. Vance predictably circles the wagons and declares martial law. The confedernazis start lynching. And then all hell breaks loose.
Life is not a fucking movie or video game. A lot of people would die. It would not be “like, totally awesome dude”.
Ignore the edgelord. That’s what I should have done.
Didn’t say it would be awesome. It would really suck. Lots of people dead. Yep. But given the current status quo, lots of people are already dead. So is it the rate of death that bothers you?
The plan is to dismantle democracy if Trump wins. They’re putting up with him to gain full control. We don’t get another chance after that.
Hence the 2nd amendment and civil war. Unfortunately, you do get a second chance, but it will be ugly and costly.
So you’re voting for war and genocide. Got it
Bro, voting for either of them won’t stop the warring or the genociding. The US can’t not be involved in some kind of armed conflict and also maintain the current hegemony. Just because we put a veneer of democracy on it, doesn’t make it any better, in fact it makes it worse. Either the majority of the populace is cool with it (tyranny of the majority, yay democracy?) or the leaders do it without the consent of the governed and the populace doesn’t immediately depose (tacit consent by virtue of not giving enough fucks to overcome the inertia, yay democracy?). Voting in a two party system is like picking between a shit sandwich and a diarrhea smoothie.
I’m not voting at all actually. The whole system is too depressing to engage. Of all the games humans choose to play, we chose this one with all this misery and strife and assholes. Voting won’t make any of it better. Two centuries in with industrial technology, and we can only seem to achieve some kind of bullshit metastability of two steps forward, one step back, for anything. History syndicates generationally with the same dumb things happening over and over. We are capable of so much more than this. We can imagine such wondrous things. Yet we are consumed by avarice, lust for power, tribalism, emotional thinking. Humanity doesn’t deserve the gift of consciousness.
That’s an incredibly privileged take. Who’s to say that you don’t end up a victim under the genocide Trump and friends wish to enact upon the American population? Or your friends and family? Coworkers? Peers?
Accelerationism is not the answer. It will not lead to anything except an unstable country filled with strife and infighting, and it certainly won’t lead to any sort of social progress. Positive change happens slowly, you cannot force it through violence.
Positive change happens slowly, you cannot force it through violence.
I’d argue a guillotine dramatically improved social progress, and for the time period, pretty quickly.
until it gets truly horrible, nothing will change
Accelerationists should just volunteer to walk in the gas chambers right now, since it’s what they want. Rid the world of your insanity.
Hard to do that given suicide is criminalized in many places. So, uh, go vote so we can do what you want, I guess? It isn’t enough to know the train wreck is coming, but I am forced to endure watching it unfold like a sneeze that never comes as the authoritarians do their best to defy entropy. The constant strife and tension is just not worth it. In fact, it is boring. Nothing lasts forever. Institutions should wither and die just like people. We pretend there is some kind of coherent narrative to the institutions when really they drunkenly stumble through time, reacting to the shit as it happens. Tenaciously gripping onto the current world order as if it is our peak is very disheartening. We should just let it go.
suicide is criminalized in many places.
Oh no! What are they gonna do, arrest your corpse? Like, I don’t care, but that’s just a silly statement.
“1000 year old conflict” is already Zionist propaganda.
It’s closer to 5000 years, the only time when the area was really peaceful for a long period of time was when romans destroyed the temple in 71 AD.
Yeah, sure. This specific conflict of Zionist settler-colonialism has been going on for 5000 years. /s 🙄
No, it’s been a little over a 100 years of Settler Colonialist Zionism.
Origins of Zionism
Zionism is a settler colonialism project that was able to really start with the support of British Imperialism. Zionism as a political movement started with Theodore Herzl in the 1880s as a ‘modern’ way to ‘solve’ the ‘Jewish Question’ of Europe.
Since at least the 1860’s, Europe was increasingly antisemitic and hostile to Jewish people. Zionism was explicitly a Setter Colonialist movement and the native Palestinians were not considered People but Savages by the Europeans. While Zionist Colonization began before it, the Balfor Declaration is when Britain gave it’s backing of the movement in order to ‘solve’ the ‘Jewish Question’ while also creating a Colony in the newly conquered Middle East after WWI in order to exhibit military force in the region and extract natural resources.
That’s when Zionist immigration started to pick up, out of necessity for most as Europe became more hostile and antisemitic. That continued into and during WWII, European countries and even the US refused to expand immigration quotas for Jewish people seeking asylum. The idea that the creation of Israel is a reparation for Jewish people is an after-the-fact justification. While most Jewish immigrants had no choice and just wanted a place to live in peace, it was the Zionist Leadership that developed and implemented the forced transfer, ethnic cleansing, of the native population, Palestinians. Without any Occupation, Apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, there would not be any Palestinian resistance to it.
Herzl himself explicitly considered Zionism a Settler Colonialist project, Setter Colonialism is always violent. The difficulty in creating a democratic Jewish state in an area inhabited by people who are not Jewish, is that enough Palestinian people need to be ‘Transferred’ to have a demographic majority that is Jewish. Ben-Gurion explicitly rejected Secular Bi-national state solutions in favor of partition.
Quote
Zionism’s aims in Palestine, its deeply-held conviction that the Land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people as a whole, and the idea of Palestine’s “civilizational barrenness" or “emptiness” against the background of European imperialist ideologies all converged in the logical conclusion that the native population should make way for thenewcomers.
The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat.
An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem ”-the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land" and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.
Settlements, Occupation, and Apartheid
Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
- The Transfer Committee, and the JNF Ethnic Cleansing, which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing
Peace Process and Solution
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
Historian Works on the History
-
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
-
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
-
A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
-
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
-
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
-
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
-
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
-
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
-
10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)
First and foremost, this isn’t a 1000 year war. It’s a bit over 100 years at most. The colonization of Palestine started around 100 years ago. Israel was founded in 1948.
Secondly, Kamala isn’t working towards achieving shit. Her government is literally still sending weapons to Israel as Israel is shooting at UN peacekeepers, burning people alive, attacking five different countries, and much more worse.
The jews had been subjugated by the ottomans well before the 1900s, even after as well. The 29 massacure sucessfully genocided (formal definition) The Jewish population that had lived in that city for literally 1000s of years. There are no Jews left in Hebron, despite being 15% of its population in the 20s.
Denying this shit has been going on for a 1000 years denies history.
The jews are not Israel but Israel definitely wants people to keep conflating them that way.
and the palestinians are not the ottomans, for that matter
No, but there were Jews in that area. And even more Jews all over the peninsula.
How many of them were Israeli?
They were Old Yishv, they were part of the foundation of Israel.
Are they the same as the Yishuv who collaborated with the Nazis?
Unironically I’ve heard this talking point before, when shouting down a nazi at a rally at my school in 2014. You know the english spelling of Yishuv so I’m going to assume you know what demographic they’re from, and that that’s not physically possible. You can down vote me all you like, but at least I can say I don’t agree with nazis
I agree. Those who care about Palestine should vote for Kamala because Trump is fully pro-genocide; but implying that Kamala has a valid plan, or even an existing plan, to help Palestinians, is untrue. She’s going to do nothing or as little as possible.
The choice is between evil and more of the same, it’s not between good and evil.
This shit is so fucking stupid…
People ask why Kamala is so far right on so many issues compared to the Dem voter base…
And rather than say “yeah, I can’t provide a valid reason she keeps going to the right”, we keep getting these posts about how it doesn’t matter?
Imagine if Kamala’s line was just to the right of yours, whatever you care most about, she’s just going to agree with trump on.
And when you go around, asking why you aren’t important enough to be on Kamala’s side of the line, everyone told you to stop being a baby and be happy with what you get, even tho what you want isn’t included in her platform
Like, we don’t gain votes by supporting a genocide.
We don’t gain votes from a border wall and Trump’s other border policies Kamala adopted.
Shit. Just being pro-fracking is going to lose us PA, and trump can’t win the election without PA.
That one fucking issue that not a single person can explain why she holds. That’s all it would take to prevent trump.
But instead of using your time productively to try and get Kamala to change while there’s still time…
You want to shit on the people the party left behind?
Like this doesn’t even seem like trying to bully them into voting anymore, you’re punching down on these people constantly and gleefully…
You’re acting exactly like a fucking trump supporter.
TLDR:
The people trying to pull Kamala left are the ones helping Kamala
You’re trying to do the same thing Hillary supporters tried to do in 2016…
Do you honestly not remember how that worked out?
Or is this all intentional?
@givesomefucks@lemmy.world
Imagine if Kamala’s line was just to the right of yours, whatever you care most about, she’s just going to agree with trump on.
But that is not how it works. If she is to your right, she will hold a position to the right of your position. That’s all. How do you equate her being to your right to her agreeing with Trump? That assumes that to your right everything is one single position. But that is of course not the case. It’s a continuum, and Kamala is probably closer to you than Trump is.
That assumes that to your right everything is one single position.
That’s how these people think. Yes-or-no, black-or-white, totally agree or mortal enemies.
There’s either a genocide or there isn’t, no concept of relative scale. There’s either environmentalism or there isn’t. There’s support for immigrants or bigoted xenophobia. No complexity. No shades of gray.
You either agree with me completely about everything, or you are the enemy. It’s why Leftism inevitably eats itself. Completely incapable of compromise.
How do you equate her being to your right to her agreeing with Trump?
The shitty “meme” that your commenting under…
Specifically?
Being pro fracking, for Trump’s border wall…
Pretty much all those policies that she agrees with trump on…
Can you stop making each sentence a paragraph?
It makes it impossible to read.
Can’t follow what goes together.
It doesn’t make you profound.
I see your comments all the time and I just want to say, thank you.
I don’t have the energy or care enough to put forth the effort to try to explain these things to the brick wall that is the standard Liberal viewpoint around here. I’m just glad someone is though.
Sorry but he’s wrong. History shows every time the Dems go left, they lose. The only times the Dems win is when they go center to find voters.
(Ib4 Obama, he saw Gore lose on a progressive ticket. So he learned to stay broad and ran on “hope”. His thanks for the ACA was to lose control of the house of reps for years 3-8 and couldn’t do anything else.)
Take this fracking example of his.
Did the environmentalists show up for Gore? No they did not.
Did the environmentalists show up for Clinton who said she’d have a map room to fight climate change? No they did not.
Were the environmentalists going to show up for Biden after he passed green energy and ev policies? Polls said no they were not going to show up.
Harris saying she’d ban fracking is an instant loss. She and everyone advising her knows this.
You mean they actually had to get up off their arses to support what they preached?
That was too much effort for them man. Easier to bitch about a subject while sitting on the couch and complaining no one is doing anything, and when their preferred candidate loses, they have bragging rights that they are not listened to.
Username checks out
Same.
I’ll just sit out. You can’t reason with extremists.
It condones the genocide, or else it gets the fascist again.
-Lemmy libs
Also Bluesky libs, Reddit libs, threads libs, tiktok libs, podcast libs …
Posting memes on lemmy won’t change Kamala’s positions or strategies, but convincing “both sides” lemmy users how important it is to pick the better of two options could change things. Every time the left-leaning party loses due to lack of turnout (aka punishing them for not being left enough) they move right instead of left. The only way to move the country left is to do whatever you can to get the most left-leaning viable candidate elected. Over time this pushes the whole electorate left.
The only way to move the country left is to do whatever you can to get the most left-leaning viable candidate elected. Over time this pushes the whole electorate left.
The last Dem president before neoliberalism was Jimmy Carter like 50 years ago
Would you say that the current strategy has paid off?
If not, how many more decades before we start thinking the people running the party are at best idiots who shouldn’t be running a lemonade stand?
I agree with you, what we’ve been doing hasn’t worked. Allowing Reagan and Bush and Bush and Trump to get elected hasn’t helped anyone. You could argue Nader got GWB elected but cheating and the Supreme Court were a big part of that too. How different would our current politics be if we had a term or two of Gore instead of Bush? Hard to say. Maybe primary voters wouldn’t have felt like they needed to pick a “safe” neolib over a demsoc in 2016 if they could believe he’d be viable.
Maybe primary voters wouldn’t have felt like they needed to pick a “safe” neolib over a demsoc in 2016 if they could believe he’d be viable.
You think primary voters had a say in 2016 still?
Clinton’s primary campaign was literally running the DNC during that primary, it’s not some secret and it was 8 years ago…
You really never heard?
I can find a link if you need to, it was very well documented.
Edit:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
Went ahead and linked it, because the people who pulled that shit are still the ones running DNC and Kamala’s campaign. Shits not going to get better as long as people like this run the party.
You’re acting exactly like a fucking trump supporter.
Blue MAGA is real, and now that they’ve finally accepted Biden won’t be the candidate, they produce this kind of “support” for Kamala. It’s a shitlib’s shitpost, make no mistake.
Anyway, I think Kamala’s lackluster policy positions can be quite easily explained by the age old Pelosi adage - “lean to the green.” Kamala is a corporate establishment dem through and through - if you’re expecting anything else, prepare to be disappointed.
She’s obviously still a better choice than Trump, but as you point out, she needs to be pressured hard from the left at this juncture in order to still have a chance to win the election. If the donors drag her too far to the right, why would people vote for her, right wing lite, over Trump?
What part of the manifesto did you agree with to get your .ml badge?
“Blue MAGA” is Russian propaganda.
Kamala is so far right on so many issues compared to the Dem voter base
The American voter base, yes including the democrats, is extremely conservative (at least compared to me) on almost every issue. When it comes to global warming, for instance, 1% of them are vegan. Maybe 10% would be on board with disincentivizing car ownership. These people are dumb as shit.
If you’re not willing to interact with reality, you can’t solve any problems, and at this point your refusal to get out of your echo chamber looks like you don’t actually want to solve any problems at all. You just want to hide and play pretend.
is extremely conservative
No, they’re not.
Poll after poll for years have shown progressive policy is popular with voters…
The problem is we never run a candidate who wants progressive policy.
But honestly?
The majority of your last comment was just insulting people you do t understand and is indecipherable from a trumpets comment about a Republican criticizing trump…
I’m probably going to just block you if all you want to do is act like a trump supporter, I honestly probably should have instead of typing this.
progressive policy is popular with voters
Until they learn that Democrats want to do it lol
Wow, for real? Amazing! What percentage of Americans want to end factory farms? What percentage think gas guzzling SUVs should be illegal? What percentage want us to build free housing for the poor, or support a more aggressive version of the wealth tax proposed by Kamala?
I’ll answer that for you: between 3% and 20% across the board. You’re totally goddamned delusional and it’s why we can’t make any progress.
Instead of complaining about politicians who are doing their best you can try converting conservative democrats (which is most of them) to your side. But that would take effort, right? That would take contact with reality.
You’re totally goddamned delusional
Yep, should’ve just blocked you last time.
So weird how all these accounts who spend so much time trying to divide the Dem party always act so much like trump supporters…
And usually just a month or two old…
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You’re trying to do the same thing Hillary supporters tried to do in 2016…
Do you honestly not remember how that worked out?
If liberals were capable of self criticism and learning they wouldn’t be liberals.
Why is it that everything I read from .ml is so stupid
Not everything you can’t understand is stupid. And the more you yell about, the more you draw attention to your significant limitations.
Wow, good one. Been waiting a while to pull that out?
It’s in the Powerpoint training they give to new comrades
Game, set, and match to Soulg.
People ask why Kamala is so far right on so many issues compared to the Dem voter base…
clearly the point of the meme is that the Middle East geopolitical situation is too complicated for the simplistic view that many leftist voters have.
Genocide is not complicated. Israel is doing it because US allows it. Also, this issue started in 20th century when European jews started to colonize Palestine.
If you rely on shiti memes to understand this issue, you are the problem.
Genocide is extremely complicated, people write PhD theses on it, what are you talking about
Yes, we should let those guys decide if it is a genocide after Israel either kills or displaces all of the Palestinians 🤡
If you rely on shiti memes to understand this issue, you are the problem.
I was simply explaining how the person above misunderstood and misrepresented OP. by no means am I “relying” on it to understand anything.
Shit. Just being pro-fracking is going to lose us PA
I don’t particularly disagree with what you’ve said but can you elaborate on this one?
58% of PA voters want it banned, because they’re the ones who are getting fucked over most by fracking.
Even the other 42% want more regulations on it
But the only two candidates for president both think it’s fine, and want to open up more land to it.
If Kamala sided with people over corporations on this issue, it would lock down PA, and also help with the other coal states around them.
The only people who are pro-fracking are fossil fuel executives and the politicians they
bribedonate toThanks for the info! To be honest in my ignorance I kind of assume most people in areas where a large employer is located support that business because their incomes depend on it. As usual there’s nuance to everything though.
You’re demand for perfection over progress will damn/kill us all.
It’s not a demand for perfection…
I’m voting for Kamala.
What were talking about is how to get her the most votes so she beats trump…
She does that by appealing to voters who may vote for her.
By going left on issues such as climate change, foreign aid, education, the economy, fossil fuel production…
If she moves left on those issues. She gets more votes.
I do t see how talking about any of this is “demand for perfection” tho
Did you mean to reply to someone else?
“By going left on issues such as climate change, foreign aid, education, the economy, fossil fuel production…”
Oh, sounds you are actually voting for Jill Stein
I’m voting D, but it’s disappointing the Dem platform makes you think of Jill Stein supporters…
This is just pro Israeli propaganda. This specific conflict started in 1948. The whole UN has voted against Isreal. And you’re telling me that that region will have all out war if Israeli troops stopped killing children? GTF outta here.
Exert*
“To the people of the Middle East, I say now here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice. You have no scars on your face and you cannot handle the pressure”
- Harris excerpting Billy Joel’s PressureSorry, is that an attempt to lampoon someone’s accent or the audio team?
Hunh.
Also “hotbed”. The fuck is a “hotbead” lol
Trump would be a disaster for the middle east. He wouldn’t even be good for Israel. Sure, he’d support Israel now, but Trump loves strongman leaders, and there are plenty of them in the middle east, so he’d love Netanyahu, but he’d probably also cozy up to any other regional strongmen and destabilize things even more.
But, the Biden/Harris admin has been effectively sponsoring the genocide by giving military aid to Israel. It’s clear that Israel is the biggest military power in the region, and it has been for decades. It has no need for military aid. The best way to help civilians is to make Israel afraid to piss off its neighbors. Right now it’s convinced it could beat them in any war, so it’s happy to grind the Palestinians into dust, daring Iran, Egypt, etc. to interfere.
Yes, it’s a complex geopolitical issue, and an all-out regional war would put many more civilians in danger, not just the Palestinians. But, giving military aid to Israel while they engage in genocide isn’t a good way to prevent a regional war.
Even if you’re a single-issue voter who doesn’t care about women’s reproductive health, doesn’t care about the rule of law, doesn’t care about free speech, doesn’t care about corruption, and is only 100% focused on the fate of Palestinians, even then you should be voting for Harris. Even if you don’t like her policies, there’s still a slight chance she’d listen to reason once elected. Trump would be an utter disaster.
make Israel afraid to piss off it’s neighbors
Yes, but have you considered that those neighbors are Muslims?
They know.
“Dude look at how stupid you look in this strawman I made of you!”
Straight out of the republican playbook. Might as well use “Chad and crying soyjack”.
Hotbed*
Nobody expects Kamala to solve it. They do expect her to stop supporting genocide.
You see, continuing to unconditionally support genocide is actually the best path towards not genocide and if you disagree you hate democracy
What? They aren’t unconditionally supporting it. They’re saying they don’t want the genocide, which might hurt Benjamin’s feelings while he uses the weapons provided by the US to commit that genocide. Trump would enthusiastically give them the same weapons as long as they rent some units from one of his hotels.
unconditionally
Hey its the guy on the right
Well what conditions are they putting on it?
Sorry you’re right
They conditionally support genocide
What gets me is they can’t even give reasons why Kamala keeps moving to the right…
trump has no path to victory without PA.
And 58% of voters in that state want to ban fracking…
It would seem that anyone who knows anything about US politics would be able to work out that banning fracking not only would be a smart policy position this election, it’s what Dem voters across the country want.
But too bad, Kamala wants fracking.
And if anyone brings that up, just pointing out an easy and free way to stop trump…
We get called Republicans for not being pro-fracking.
I swear to god the shit these neoliberals come up with is the same logic as Republicans:
Blind obedience or you’re “them”.
Nooooooo I can’t use the one leverage I hold in an electoral system to demand better things, it’ll make girlboss Himmler sad
What gets me is how none of you have ever offered a single point to support anyone else that is viable-
All you do is complain, and offer nothing. Seems like you’d rather just shit on the election than participate in it.
I wonder who that helps in the long run?
What gets me is how none of you have ever offered a single point to support anyone else that is viable
No one else is viable…
But we’re talking about the best way to get Kamala more votes to stop trump.
That is by pulling her to the left
All you do is complain, and offer nothing
If you don’t think making noise online can have an effect, why are we talking about Harris right now and not Biden?
There’s still time to pull Kamala left, get her more votes, and not only beat trump but the increased turnout would help down allot in the House/Senate
It’s not over, and even after the election it won’t be over. Even when she’s in office, next election is 2 years, we can’t afford to let the only people influencing Kamala being donors and Republicans.
The best way to get Kamala more votes is to vote for Kamala. Full stop. End of arguments.
It’s too late in the game to keep trying to explain this all to you. Either you’re voting for her, or you’re not.
The best way to get Kamala more votes is to vote for Kamala. Full stop. End of arguments.
…
Yes.
I am voting for Kamala, she has 100% of the votes I control.
But we are talking about how to get the most other people to vote her.
We can do that by screaming at them that they should, but we’d have to do that to tens of millions of people.
Or…
We could try and get Kamala to move to the left, which would get her more votes and the added benefit of better policy.
Like, which do you think would be more effective?
. Either you’re voting for her, or you’re not
And I don’t know know why I have to keep saying this: I’m already voting D, we’re talking about the people who aren’t.
It’s too late in the game. Some people are either lost causes, or had no intention to ever vote for her to begin with. I’d wager there are VERY FEW fence-sitters that remain at this point- and that is because all EVERONE needs to know about this election is readily available. That they either deny it as truth and refuse to accept it as reality is irrelevant.
They know what we’re up against. So becaue they’re withholding their vote in spite of the facts- they’re putting a LOT of innocent people against the wall because of their protest. This isn’t up for debate. People WILL suffer under Trump.
And as many others have said- most of these people didn’t even know where Palestine was a year ago. Now they’re willing to sacrifice the freedom of their fellow Americans so they can make a stand?
Every election year this happens. Different things, same result.
It’s too late in the game
You keep saying that…
It’s what people said about replacing Biden too, then we replaced Biden.
Kamala has up till the last vote is cast to try and beat Trump, not a second earlier is “too late”.
Even if it’s after the election tho, we can’t just pay attention once every four years and hope things magically got better.
It’s an ongoing neverending fight, so by definition it’s literally never “too late”.
The lobbyists never stop, the fascists never stop, why do you want the people to stop?
Plus they only shit on Harris, which makes them look like little Jill Stein wannabes.
Among other things.
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Average democrat voter sympathy to Genocide on display. You would have made a great mid century German citizen.
You just won the fastest Godwin point ever.
May I introduce you to : “Everyone I disagree with is Hitler, a guide to internet discussions for beginners” ?
How wild of me to say making light of genocide would make you fit in to a society that did a genocide. If you cant see the connection there I really dont know if I can explain it more.
Yes…
Those are bad…
Specifically to people with empathy, which is who makes up the bulk of Dem voters…
Of course they are, but ask those people what’s up with the Uyghurs and you get crickets in return.
Spreading the lie that you should not vote (in the american election) for Kamala or Trump because “they support genocide” actually supports Trump, you know the guy wanting to buldoze the middle east, give away Ukraine to Russia and throw their NATO partners under the bus…
Spreading the lie that you should not vote
No one is doing that tho, at least no more than any other election.
Treating people who want more out of Kamala than what she’s giving aren’t the same.
We can still get their votes by Kamala moving to the left.
What is confusing?
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This is fake fucking bullshit made up by brunch-munching, mimosa-fueled shitlibs. Very tiring.
Far Left Intellectual: The party is the politically conscious, advanced section of the class, it is its vanguard. Therefore, we must form a vanguard party that pursues the interests of the working class.
MAGA Conservative: This time Trump will fix all the problems.
Lemmy Liberal: If Harris loses, it is because Far Left Intellectuals didn’t vote for her, after she did not sound enough like Donald Trump
The standard D strategy of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - let’s whitewash anti-Trump neocons and bring in Hillary to advise on the campaign to win this election.
Lemmy libs seeing the polls - surprised picachu face it’s all the leftist’s fault!
Also, let’s give Pelosi another term because “we still have more to do”
“Thanks for your service to our country Mr. Cheyney”
