Major Critics Of Gaza War Say Trump Will ‘Accelerate The Killing’
The “Uncommitted” movement seeking a change in the Democratic Party’s approach to the war in Gaza on Thursday announced it is not ready to support Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — while urging voters not to back Republican nominee Donald Trump or third-party candidates who could help Trump win the November election.
The “Uncommitted” group “opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” the statement continues. Additionally, the group is “not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
I can get behind this. Sure, we can criticise Team Blue for slow-dragging their feet on protecting Palestinians. Never said we couldn't. That said, there's clear consequences to a Trump victory. The Uncommitted have made it clear they grasp this and ask you to vote for Harris, even if they can't endorse Harris. Staying home, voting third party, or heaven forbid, voting Trump will just make things in the Middle East FAR worse.
“Voting is just a way to pick the person that will be sitting across from me at the negotiation table next year”, is one of the ways to think about it.
Harris‘ policy on Israel is ambiguous, weak and too-little-too-late. But you’ll get further trying to influence her administration than Trump 2.0.
The ambiguity is ironically a good sign. That she isn't outright committed to the status quo. But rather not willing to signal her actual position. If she came out strongly against Israel and for Palestine. Unfortunately that would be a large hindrance to her candidacy in the current climate.
It's a shame that those illegally occupying Palestine have such influence over our government. Especially after their terrorist attacks of the last few days. Not to mention the decades long slow genocide that's only accelerated in the last year.
She saw the Genocide Joe protests and is now "ambiguous" on this matter to pretend she isn't exactly like Biden on this subject.
It's okay to just say you disagree with Harris on some things and still vote for her.
Let's be honest. Without biden/trump it would be a non issue. Trump would smother out all reporting on the subject replacing it with trauma to the American people.
Well, your thought experiment actually just agrees with the uncommitted, since if they don't want to negotiate now that they want your vote, what hope you have after you lost that leverage?
I do agree with the uncommitted: voting third party because of Palestine is for idiots.
That said, if you are a political activist, and you think your one vote is the only thing you have to offer, you need a new ducking job.
The inability to think this way is why we’re in this mess. Happy Cake Day!
For real, that’s all I’ve been saying whenever people start come in and start bashing on Harris and pushing false equivalence. Like, yeah, Biden is super bad on his policy towards Israel and Gaza; I HOPE Harris will be better; I KNOW Trump will be worse.
That’s it. That’s the whole dynamic. That’s the only two choices we have as members of the American electorate.
You claim the Ds and Rs are the same, but you can very clearly see that the Ds are in favor of 10% less infanticide.
The genocidiers have us by the balls, folks. Nothing you can do but voice your full throated support for one of them.
Don’t put words in my mouth. You are a part of the problem that I’m highlighting.
Not only that, you must also shout down anybody who says they don't want to support genocide. Only full loyalty is acceptable.
Oh so you're likely voting dem anyway because you aren't stupid and/or racist but you also say Harris should abide by US law and stop arms sales to Israel? WOW LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A TRUMP SUPPORTER HERE BOYS
It is deeply fucked the way social media has conflated opposing genocide and supporting The Other Team.
Really reeks of the Bush Era "You're with us or you're with the Terrorists!" when it came time to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
Literally. Many people seem to have forgotten all the lessons from 9/11 and the clusterfuck that followed
It's weird when you talk to yourself like this.
What do you mean?
As far as centrists are concerned, opposition to genocide is the other team.
Joining hands to pass the bipartisan "Glass the Middle East Act of 2024"
Don't you understand the difference? All of them can die of rape and starvation as of now or all of them can die of rape and starvation while Trump is president.
CaNt YoU SeE tHE DiFeReNcE? (This was annoying to type on mobile.)
These people are delusional. Somehow there's many situations we can't do anything about (like our politicians cannot even show disapproval over rape country called Israel even though we are their biggest benefactors) yet somehow not voting Democrat is the end of the world. We cannot do anything to make anything better but putting pressure on politicians is also bad. Oh, how convenient. Why can't they admit they have to think of their own interests first (at least the few things the Democrats will allow them).
A for effort
Was listening to a WTYP episode about stealth jets, and they priced all the different kinds of aircraft in "multiples of ending national poverty". ($10B is the current working figure)
The F-22s we used to shot down Chinese
weathersuper spy balloons came in at 20x the cost. That's the only combat mission the plane has flown since it entered service over a decade ago.These numbers are so big and these systems are so vast that it's easy to lose sight of them entirely. The idea that we could all live very comfortable happy lives if a tiny minority were to stop the war profiteering is very difficult for your retail Democrat voter to grasp.
Interesting story. I do wonder if any of this equipment was made to be used or is there "just in case."
This is a great summary of the issue.
So you’re saying I should still vote for infanticide? I don’t want that kind of blood on my hands. That’s the issue in the Trolley Problem.
Not voting is just allowing the worse option which still puts blood on your hands. Inaction still has consequences.
We don't live in a world where we have the ability to be completely pure, it's an option that simply doesn't exist unfortunately. :(
We need some way to denote "not gloating."
The joke of the modern American electoral system is that all the "viable" candidates are bloody. And if you abstain from voting or vote third party, you're accused of supporting the winning candidate, regardless of your personal politics.
That is, I think, a big part of what drives the street protests. Americans who don't want to be complicit in this barbarity have no other actionable way to express their condemnation.
The path to ending the conflict is through boycotts, not the president. But that takes time, so 10% less killing makes sense as a stop gap.
There is precedent for this. See apartheid South Africa. Palestinian freedom will seem impossible until it becomes inevitable.
US House overwhelmingly passes anti-BDS resolution
We've already seen individual states go so far as to issue state sanctions aimed at BDS movements. US House Resolution 246 seems to be an exercise in vote counting by the AIPAC Lobby to advance a national bill to the same effect.
The South African Apartheid system likely would have held up indefinitely if the US was the only country involved deciding its fate. And the Afrikaners had far less influence over the US Congress than the Israel lobby.
Pressure needs to be applied everywhere, from awareness by friends/family to personal BDS to local representatives to DNC delegates to Presidents. Anti-genocide and anti-apartheid momentum has made great strides in the last year, it's critical to keep that momentum growing. This will definitely be more difficult than the South African Anti-Apartheid movement
Be fair. They're in favor of 10% slower infanticide.
Thanks for this comment, clearing it up!
I was about to ask this - because if they aren't endorsing Harris but also asking folks not to vote for the GOP or third parties, then who should we vote for? Surely they're not saying stay at home and don't vote, right? (That was the only possibility that seemed not covered by the post's description.)
So another way to look at it is - (if one ignores the way they mince words and instead just looks at the practical effect then) they are in fact endorsing Harris, but in a muted fashion to express their displeasure over Harris's stance on Gaza.
HA.
Biden isn't dragging his feet...
He's moving at light ing speed (for his age) to support Israel's genocide in anyway he can, including going around congress illegally to avoid a delay of just a few days.
I just hate how all the blame is put on voters, it's literally Kamala and her campaign teams job to get votes, and despite how much they hate the thought, that means giving Dem voters what Dem voters want.
And they don't want to be citizens of pretty much the only country still supporting the genocide by sending munitions. Especially when it's a violation of the
LegacyLehey law and bare minimum we should be demanding Israel track the use of US supplied munitions.Like. You're completely underselling the damage Biden and other party leaders are causing...
And then claiming you can't understand why people don't like him or the party's stance.
Why dont you spend your time and effort trying to stop a genocide instead of telling people they have to support a genocide?
Your way even if we win. Still a genocide.
If we demand Kamala and party leadership stop breaking US and international law, and they actually listen
Kamala could moonwalk into the oval office and Israel wouldn't be able to continue their genocide.
What's so hard about picking the best path?
We can stop trump and genocide or just stop trump.
Seems like an easy choice to me
I mean if I understand you correctly you're saying bascially the same thing as OP - can hold Biden/Harris feet to the fire while working to re-elect Kamala and defeat Trump.
And the fun part is these aren't my words. These are the words of the "Uncommitted" faction that wants to hold Democrats' feet to the fire. They're saying that at the moment, there's bigger fish to fry -- a MAGAt movement that would make everything Team Blue has done look like child's play in comparison. So, Mr. Give Some Fucks isn't just arguing with me. He's arguing with the guys and gals actually advocating for Palestinians.
Do you honestly think they give a fuck?
Sorry, can't answer that question. I'll be Rule 3'd if I did. :3
Incredibly generous way to put it. They are providing the weapons that maim and kill the innocent children. I criticise them for the blood on their hands
It’s good to get that out explicitly, because it has been the focus of a lot of misinformation out there.
The cause of Palestinians is not served by a second Trump presidency. Preventing it should be a major aim of any pro-Palestinian advocate.
That it's the advocacy group trying to hold Biden and Harris accountable for the continuation of the atrocities in Palestine saying this should make it clear. The actual people on the ground may feel strongly about Palestinian civil rights, they know where their bread is buttered and that the other realistic alternative in this election is "Orange Hitler", to use another poster's euphemism, is just plain horrible.
Pretty sure if Trump gets elected people will be too busy with their own local genocides to care about Gaza.
Yup.
If we're at the point of states doing ethnic cleansing, the president isn't going to matter
You're right in one sense. When Trump gets elected he won't matter at all. It'll get out of his control in days
Well, duh. Anyone who didn't know this hasn't been paying attention. He's (Trump) said as much, himself.
And his advisor on, and ambassador to, Israel literally wrote a book promoting a one state solution where he said that the US has a Biblical obligation to help Israel win. His ultimate plan is to set up an apartheid state where Palestinians do not have the same rights as Israelis.
"Well, let's cross our fingers and hope the Democrats can get out the vote despite our virtue signalling."
This announcement is just pointless.
At least we're not getting the 'vote third party' spiel. I'll never hold a person's opinions on the Dems against them. I just don't want anything done or suggested that will help Trump and his merry band of assholes.
Two people refusing to vote for anyone or voting for a third party has the exact same impact as one person voting for Trump instead of Kamala.
I like how you saying it makes it true.
Do you just not understand how voting actually works?
You do understand you can't force people to vote how you want them to right? Pretty basic concept of voting you are missing.
Who's forcing anyone to do anything? You can stay home and jerk off to how righteous your protest vote was and none of us will actually force you not to. Whether or not you recognize that it was just another vote Trump didn't have to overcome to win is on you.
Force, coercion, manipulation maybe. Pick whichever word is right for you. If your position is that there is only one valid perspective for everyone in this country, then you are part of the problem.
You will never browbeat people into joining your position, but you keep trying and call it a good effort all you want.
If you really wanted to change third party or undecided voters opinions, I'd recommend a different approach.
I notice you left out "Persuasion." If you think the presentation of facts regarding the basic function of our voting system is somehow force, coercion, or manipulation, then I can see why you would want to do your part to get Trump elected, and you're a lost cause.
Either Trump or Harris are going to win the election. No third party candidate has any serious chance of winning, and nobody who actually understands how the election works thinks they do. You are ALLOWED to vote third party if you want to (see how nobody is FORCING you not to?) but doing so is just another vote the real contenders don't have to beat. If you're more left leaning, that means it's a vote Harris would have had that Trump doesn't have to beat.
The huge mistake you make in the freedom to vote is that people are free to vote for WHATEVER REASONS THEY WANT TO.
No matter how many times you say it, if I vote for the green party, I am not voting for the republican party.
I'm telling you this because your rhetoric is doing the opposite of what you think it is. Putting third party voters on the defensive, and again avoiding any conversation about why they would vote third party in the first place, is an awful way to change someone's mind.
Calling people Russian shills or saying they don't care what happens to the country doesnt help either.
I haven't called anyone a Russian Shill, sounds like a guilty conscience. And again, nobody is forcing you to vote in any particular way, you absolutely CAN vote however you want, for whatever reason you want, but there are consequences. You could vote for Jill Stein, you could vote for your neighbor's cat. Both have the same chances of winning the election, and both are another vote Trump doesn't have to worry about overcoming in his effort to win. No matter how hard third parties try, none of them will ever, ever get more votes in a presidential election than the big two, and the more people you sway to your side, the fewer votes the main candidate you otherwise most agree with will get. Welcome to First Past the Post voting, nobody likes it but it's the system we have. If you want third party candidates to stand a shred of a chance, you have to change the system of voting, which would be ideal.
To be clear, I completely understand WHY someone would want to vote third party. The thing is, that literally doesn't matter. Only the result matters. Like you said, people can vote how they want for whatever reason they want, but they still only get one vote. Either your vote will contribute to Trump not winning, or it won't. Nobody said your third party vote is a vote for Republicans, but it's not making their barrier to victory any more difficult, they're already guaranteed to beat any third party opponent as it is.
If you don't care about that, and you just really really want to stage your protest and hope that Mr. Worst Case Scenario still loses, that's on you.
Okay so how about this, you tell me when in allowed to vote for the candidate I like best. Hows that? This elections too close right? How about next one? Do I get to vote how I want then? Or will democracy be at stake yet again, like it always is.
Maybe if you spent as much time trying to convince people its a good thing to vote and that they can vote however they'd like to instead of attempting to discourage third party voters from voting at all, you'd actually be helping the democrats win.
Remind me which group is larger, americans who don't vote or green party members? Maybe your focus is in the wrong place, and maybe the democrats are only throwing the green party under the bus so they don't have to disagree with green party policies that would be wildly popular with the voting public.
The republicans are psychopaths but the democrats are manipulative at best most of the time. Some like it but it turns others off of the party too.
I'm honestly starting to wonder if you're just not a native English speaker and this is purely a breakdown in communication, so I'm going to try to keep this as simple as I can. Please tell me if you just don't understand any of these points.
You are allowed to vote for whoever you want. Nobody is going to FORCE you to vote one way or another.
Attempting to persuade you to vote in a particular way, without threats of retaliation for refusing to do so, is not force.
Having to face the consequences of the result of the election is not force.
I am able to care about more than one thing. Being a part of this conversation doesn't mean that I am not also intent on convincing more people to vote. You don't take up much of my time, interest, or attention, I can do other things too.
Third party voters are already voters. They are already going to vote, it is only a question of who they will vote for.
Green Party voters have more in common with Democrats than they do with Republicans. That means the Green Party is more likely to attract Democrat voters than they are to attract Republican voters. This is why a bigger Green Party vote turnout means more people who would have otherwise voted Democrat, didn't. That is what people call the Spoiler effect when talking about the Green Party, and third parties in general. While the Green Party is all but completely incapable of actually winning an election, it pulls more votes away from Democrats than it does Republicans, thus a more successful Green Party campaign means a more likely Republican victory. This is why Ranked Choice voting would allow Third Parties a chance to win, people could vote for them without making their most hated choice more likely to win.
Again, you are ALLOWED to vote for whoever you want. If you're going to vote third party, you are wasting your time, but you are allowed. If you want Third Party candidates to have any chance of ever winning, we need to change away from the First Past the Post voting system. You could also try campaigning to get your positions and ideas out into the public consciousness before the General Election, rather than just surfacing in time to swing results toward Republicans.
Sure I follow you but its based on hopes and wishes. You are assuming a green party vote would go to a democrat otherwise. Thats another mistake. Again, this isnt how voting works.
I understand that you think voting a certain way really means something else ultimately, but I'm telling you that you don't get to tell people what their vote means. You barely know what your own vote will mean ultimately much less anyone else's.
The fact is you have no idea what will happen, but then try to predict it anyways. But its not just a prediction because you go even further. You can disagree with me all you want but its a difference in perspective and neither of us is "wrong" truly. We wont know until the election.
No, it is basic statistical analysis of outcomes.
Does it really matter the reasoning when the goal is to force people to vote how you want them to?
You would benefit from coming to terms with the fact voting is a free choice no matter what you shout into the void.
Force?... Are people threatening you with harm and watching to make sure you vote the "right" way? The closest to that that I'm aware of is the right-wing "poll watchers" who intend to try to intimidate people and suppress voting rights or, the FPTP, two-party system itself that.
Freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences. You would benefit from taking responsibility for how your decisions impact the lives of others, especially those who are not so privileged as to feel insulated from impact of a possible fascist state.
Fear makes people irrational. Like when they go in public forums and argue there is only one moral way to vote. Sounds kinda preachy to me, huh.
Hey what's good for you must be good for me right? You've convinced me, tell me who to vote for to make your life better please? Is this sort of like trickle down politics?
TIL that 92 million non voters actually voted for Trump in 2020, but somehow Biden became president.
🤦
ELI5?
no
People just make shit 💩 up because it makes them feel good, then others follow along like lemmings, and everyone wonders why we can never get shit done. Think for yourselves people.
And yet they refuse to support the one person that could keep him out of office.
Fucking geniuses they are!
Israel has already slaughtered a full 10% of the population of Gaza.
How many Palestinians will be left to save by the time Biden leaves office?
idk why you put full here, i feel like just saying 10% would work just as well, seems more semantically confusing to me more than anything lol.
I'm not sure what it's trying to imply.
I guess similar to saying at least 10%, to convey that it isn't 9.5% or 9% but more than that.
maybe, i feel like you would just say "10%" or like you said "at least 10%" then, considering that numbers are like, really specific.
If you weren't being specific you would say something like "about 10%" implying somewhere around it, 7-13% probably.
full just reads a little weirdly in that context.
Yawn….
TANKIE DETECTED.
ARGUMENT IS INVALID.
I think everyone who is being intellectually honest knows full well that Trump would be worse. The problem seems to be that the Democratic party has decided it can take the votes of the left wing of its party for granted. If the left is not willing to actually follow through and withhold their votes, then the Democrats know that they never have to appease them. It's really a lose-lose situation until the Harris campaign shows some moral courage or takes seriously the possibility of losing votes over this issue.
Exactly. We know how bad Trump is, but Biden in his disastrous “hug Netanyahu” policy went out of his way to not just ignore pro-Palestinian voices but actively insult them. He said “I have zero trust of Palestinians” and publicly supported the invasion of Al Shifa hospital despite the ridiculous and debunked claim that there was a 3 story underground Hamas base beneath it. He overrode his advisors and removed pro-Palestine language in all his October and November speeches. He met with Israeli victims but never met a single Palestinian one and even had his tour bus detour around towns in Michigan that had too many Arab-Americans. He claimed he was looking for peace but vetoed ceasefire attempts and bashed Palestinians in general. (He later privately told people he meant to bash Hamas and shouldn’t have use the words interchangeably, but never apologized).
It’s one thing to hold your nose and vote for Biden, but it’s quite another to vote for him when he’s so unapologetically anti-Palestinian. And his attempt to get Arab-Americans to vote for him when he helped kill their relatives is to ignore them and say “Trump would be worse.” That’s not a winning strategy and he wants to claim he both needs our votes to win but also that we aren’t politically relevant.
I hope Biden retires in shame and that Harris does better. She already had been meeting with Palestinian-American families when Biden refused to be seen with one.
Wthholding your vote only helps Trump. Candidates know they have to appease the folks with money. We're fighting the wrong bad guy - focus on reversing Citizens United.
Or maybe listen to your representstives and figure out why they don't agree with you. Maybe they know something you don't.
Everyone knows something I don't. It's a good thing for folks to be involved in the democratic process. Politicians aren't gods or super heroes. They can be wrong as easily as the rest of us.
Citizens United allows those with deep pockets to speak much louder than the rest, and this is a huge problem.
Exactly
What, just because he basically said he would and loves dictators?
UN votes against Israel’s occupation of Palestine: Will it change anything?
Seems like the rest of the international community is moving on this whether or not the US leadership approves of it.
Barking up the "Who will you vote for?" tree, when neither American candidate for President has expressed an interest in ending the holocaust in Gaza or prosecuting the litany of war crimes in surrounding Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, seems pointless.
If anything "Vote for Kamala because hey remember that genocide we're financing via Israel?" seems like its going to scare away more voters than it attracts.
People who are uncommitted because of Gaza are fools to think that their reticence won't have any consequences in the country.
Having said that there is no hope for Gazans from US since both the parties are bought and paid for by the Israelis.
Russia take note - US only lets those foreign countries to influence the election who are willing to buy both the parties.
Nobody is claiming that and you’re attacking a strawman.
The problem is we don’t want to reward politicians for their bad behavior “because Trump is worse” or get blood on our own hands by voting for someone who will continue the same deadly failed policies. Have you ever heard of the Trolley Problem? It’s not as straightforward as you think.
The article is about the group publicly saying it is important to vote with the intention of keeping Donald out even while they cannot endorse Harris. Maybe you should join them?
This trolley problem has a large number of the same people across two tracks, but one of the tracks has a large number of additional people that the other track bypasses. It is not a complicated trolley problem to solve.
“A philosophy problem that has existed for thousands of years can be easily solved by me!”
That tells me all I need to know about you.
If you want to try some reading comprehension you'll see I disagree it is a trolley problem at all. Pretending it is despite having the difference pointed out does tell us a lot about you.
I think on this issue I'll consider the thoughts of the group in the article, instead of someone dead set on describing the issue as something it is not.
The Trolley Problem is all about how there's frequently no good options in a scenario. People are gonna die whether or not you make a decision, and you'd be right to walk away from that lever if there were equal amounts of death on each track. But there frequently are not equal situations. Six people versus one person. A kid versus an old man. 7 Nuns versus 10 Lawyers. The person you love the most in the world versus the person you hate the most in the world.
Sure, you have to be discerning and look for any tracks that don't have something tied to them. That's why I mention that self-driving cars, thanks to their sensors, don't have to hit the bus full of school children or the SUV full of nuns -- they've seen the bus and the SUV and the idiot merging into traffic and the idiot on their phone and everything else due to their 27 different cameras and their LADAR and RADAR and so on, and to the advanced AI computer that can pay attention to all those sensors at once, and have calculated a path to escape to the track that doesn't have anyone being killed in the phony concocted examples of why AI cars are bad.
But in regards to the Presidency, there literally is a Trolley Problem here, and it IS as straight forward as you say it isn't. Come January of next year, one of two people will take the Oath of Office.
Jill Stein, Cornel West, Chase Oliver (seriously, I had to go look this guy up!), and whoever else promises you they can fix a Broken Washington won't be elected to that office. Period. End of line. All they'll accomplish is taking votes away from the major party candidate closest aligned to your positions, and ensure the other guy gets into office. The track of no genocide is an illusion, a mirage that fades the moment you look at it too hard. I know. It sucks. We all want more options for people to represent us. But those are the rules, and have been the rules for literally this country's entire existence. It sucks, but denying reality won't help. Come January, one of two people will take the oath of office: a Republican and a Democrat, just like it has been for the past 150 years, and even before, albeit with Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist or Democratic-Republican vs. Whig.
I'm going to vote for the person who will do the least harm to those I care about. I'm going to push and push hard for everyone else to join me in voting for her. I'm going to constantly call out this 'but third party!' stuff. Because for everything you have accused Harris of allowing, Trump will not only do that, but a dozen other hateful things.
All that talk and you still missed the point. You’re trying to tell me that a liberal version of Genocide is somehow better than a Republican version of genocide and that I should try to enthusiastically make one happen.
Why do you think it’s so hard for others to pull the lever for Harris despite that? Harris is part of an administration that helped kill family members of my neighbors. If you can’t see why this makes it hard, I can’t help you.
Because Russia has a long history of propping up third party distractors, especially those who are friendly to Russia's causes, and another of their tools, useful idiots and bought-and-paid for bad actors (note: Mods, not accusing THIS poster of this, but you can't disagree such people exist and operate here on Lemmy and on other forums across the Internet) spread bullshit across the web to convince people that the Shitgibbon with his plans to directly enable his fellow authoritarian shithead to exterminate and/or subjugate the Palestinians AND his plans to let Russia do the same RE: Ukraine AND his plans to bring that same subjugation/extermination to LGBTQ+, non-Christian, minority, female, and non-Conservative populations HERE IN THE USA is somehow better than letting Team Biden/Harris have 4 more years.
You don't like me calling that out? Well, you can fuck right off because I'm not going to stop.
Not everyone who opposes Biden’s policies on Gaza is a Russian plant. We know third parties are not viable, but we also want to pressure Democrats. This isn’t hard, and you thinking this is all Russian conspiracy and that you wanna curse out your political allies is a Feinstein-level of out-of-touch rambling. Peace.
None of what this poster said countered a thing of what I said, and all its personal attack did was concede the debate.
American political parties are not in charge of Israel. Believe it or not, Israel has their own elections and elects their own parties.
Maybe it's not that both parties are paid off, but that stopping a still-young and flawed democracy from being swallowed up by a far right religious dictatorship sworn to kill every Jew in the middle east in the name of a new Islamic Caliphate, is an issue with resounding bipartisan support.
Oh, you know what else it could be, has a lot of bipartisan support? Not stabbing our allies in the back, just on principle.
Huh, maybe not everything you find revulsive is a Jewish conspiracy to control on the world.
Anything said against Israel is not anti Semitic. It is just realistic.
Instead of being swallowed by islamic caliphate, the ethnostate of Israel is controlled by a far right, islamophobic government.
Preventing world recognized genocide is not stabbing allies in the back.
oof, that's quite the Islamophobic take there
Nothing of substance to say so call me a racist, couldn't be farther from the truth.
Do you have a more accurate description for the Iranian leadership?
Why would I entertain your a-historical reactionary bullshit with a substantive response? If I said 'Hezbollah was justified in firing missiles into Tel Aviv everyday because Israel is a blood-thirsty religious apartheid state dead-set on killing every Muslim in the middle east in the name of a 'Judeo-Christian crusade'', would you see it as an honest attempt at good-faith debate?
Of course not.
They also acknowledge Biden can stop the killing.
No serious person thinks that's the case.
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I'm honestly doubtful Trump would make any additional difference considering Biden didn't do anything to reduce Israel's insanity. He'd still have to let congress pass the big stuff, and Biden approved every single smaller sale bar holding up one shipment temporarily.
Everyone keeps saying "yeah but Trump would be worse for Gaza" just because he did the whole embassy thing, but this really looks as if it's maxed out.
Even from a purely utilitarian perspective assuming this is true, I'd rather take my final stand and be wiped out than to be continuously subjected to essentially warcrime torture for the remainder of my life.
Harris already made it clear that her policy with Israel won't change. Her campaign decided that the amount of votes in this group do not matter (which I completely disagree with), which is why she barred them from talking at the DNC, despite the fact that they were offering to endorse her. She went all in on the AIPAC funding and lobby though.
This is basically their last desperate call to get the DNC to change their minds (probably won't happen), so I guess I'll see you all in r------- red Michigan this year.
It's a lot more than that. Trump also gave a Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, to Miriam Adelson, a billionaire heiress who is actually more extremist even than Netanyahu. She openly opposes Palestinian statehood, wants Israel to annex the West Bank, and wrote an op-ed saying critics of Israel are "our enemies" and "dead to us". She gave Trump money, so she owns him. The US can do a lot more than send a few weapons to Israel, and this rabid extremist billionaire will ask Trump for everything she can get. And he will do what she says.
Unsurprising. While people opposed to any criticism of the democrats' self defeating and inhumane policy on this issue like to pretend it's all a pro Trump psy op, it's actually more of a DON'T SUPPORT GENOCIDE YOU EVIL FUCKS type of thing.
But for the dems it's fine because the electoral college has the whole country by the balls I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who are you going to vote for dumb dumb? Orange hitler? Spoiler candidates? Lol didn't think so, send the bombs boyos
Try reading the article.
What makes you say that? Is there something I'm missing?
I agree with them. Including about this:
Although I would say obviously people should still vote for her because the political system is broken.
I was responding to this "news" because it is what many of us have been saying the whole time, only to be met with accusations that this must mean we think trump is better. Obviously he would be much worse for this and everything else. But that doesn't excuse the dems position.
I don't disagree with any of that. I didn't read your previous comment as opposing the system in a productive way. The system is garbage but we still have to participate or it becomes worse.
You will likely get the accusations anywhere you are omitting the part about voting for Harris despite opposing an endorsement. That is due to the prolific MAGA campaigners on here urging people to vote third party and using this issue as the reason.
Yeah absolutely. But I don't really see why anyone should need to add a voting disclaimer if they are criticising the government's support for a genocide. People can downvote all they want, some things are just more important than party politics.
Yeah I'm sure there are such people and they can get fucked. But in my experience the people receiving these accusations mainly just don't want the government to support Israel unconditionally. But as you said, without the disclaimer, these people are accused of a bunch of stuff.
Is it really so hard for people to believe that others actually just care about preventing mass murder? The fact someone can say something like that and get many responses talking about Trump and the electoral college system rather than acknowledging the legitimacy of the problem being raised is truly disgusting to me.
Completely feckless. Effectively an endorsement of Harris despite getting absolutely nothing in return. The people who want the genocide to continue (like Harris) were just proven to be strategically correct in writing off this movement because they knew they could and they'd just come crawling back to the lesser evil. What's worse is that this spinelessness discredits any future movements or protests on the issue.
Somehow telling people to vote for Harris is "not an endorsement," because liberals think you can do the exact same action and it's meaningfully different if you feel kinda bad while doing it.
What exactly is your ideal outcome? They successfully prevent Harris from being elected, Trump gets in, funds the construction of the Israeli version of Auschwitz, and the Palestinians getting thrown into gas chambers will think "at least the Americans voted on principle"?
My ideal outcome is that Harris caves and stops the Israeli version of Auschwitz which is already happening. Failing that, my ideal outcome would be that the protesters establish a credible threat going forward that supporting genocide will result in tangible political consequences. Establishing such a threat is far more important is far more important than any one election, especially when both people are pro-genocide.
The moment you commit yourself to the ideology of lesser-evilism, you have sacrificed every ounce of bargaining power you might have wielded. The concerns of reliable voters don't factor into any politician's calculus. I can't figure out whether liberals just have terrible instincts regarding wielding power, or if it's just that they don't care to wield it because they're satisfied with the status quo.
Your words would have more weight if you weren't in full support of the Uyghur genocide in China.
Oh yeah, just look at all that genociding going on!
No, it's people like you refusing to accept reality but rather willfully hiding in your racist propagandized little bubble who can't be taken seriously.
Another .ml user who also loves the genocide of Uyghurs. I'll make a note that you are a racist like they are.
I still don't understand why any of you so-called "leftists" are carrying water for a state capitalist nation that produces hundreds of billionaires. Must be that you actually love authoritarianism and don't give a shit about economics at all.
the correct strategy here would be to push for full support on harris, under the pretense that "she will do something for palestine" and then after she gets into office (assuming she does) when the "inevitable" nothing gets done for palestine you can then rally support while in office in order to drum up what is more than likely going to be more effective support. Bargaining for something that currently exists in front of you is simply going to be much easier.
Though this still doesn't solve the whole problem of shooting yourself in the foot and ending up giving the republican congress more say, or just doing nothing at all, instead of something minor that would've been impactful.
That's nonsense. Why on earth would she listen to me once she's already secured my vote and the presidency? She knows that she can do nothing and that I'll just "pretend" that she will next time too. Of course, I find the idea of acting based on an obviously false "pretense" that's based on nothing but imagination to be completely ridiculous.
This is just, "You have to give them everything they want while asking nothing in return" with extra, nonsensical steps. You're telling me I'm supposed to wait until I have less bargaining power to try to bargain. Of course, there's already been widespread protests during an election year and the democrats not only did not give an inch, but forcibly suppressed them. So how exactly do you envision people gaining enough leverage for them to actually change?
mid terms are a pretty common swing point for an unpopular candidate. Between the late term push for legislation to increase the chances of re-election, and the initial push after getting into office to appease the voter base, the midterms are the biggest impact in a governmental term. Plus further down ballot votes can harm the institution as well.
regardless, even ignoring this, if you don't think this is going to help. It's going to be a net positive over somebody like trump winning, so it's basically what you're left with here if this problem is so important to you.
no this is "you have to give them your vote, and only vote, in the hopes that you can push them later down the lines, to be more useful to your ideals. And considering that the other option is going to be worse, might as well try for this one"
protests over what? I haven't heard about any, but i guess i also haven't been paying much attention. Unless you mean the vote protest, in which case nobody cares. It's not going to be a significant percent of the voter base anyway.
Oh, ok. So when mid terms come around, and Kamala's done nothing I want, then you'll be fine with me withholding my vote, right? Or are you going to be telling me the exact same thing you're telling me now? If you're genuinely alright with me withholding my vote during the midterms, what's the difference between then and now?
How? What method do you expect me to use to push her? And why should I have any confidence in that method working when it's not working during an election year, when she most needs people's votes and support?
There was a major wave of campus protests this year over the genocide in Gaza, all over the country.
Again, you just want me to give them everything they want while asking nothing in return and you're trying to pretend otherwise without offering any sort of coherent strategy. If that's not what's happening, walk me through what you expect me to do and when.
yeah no fucking go for it. Do whatever the fuck you want, you can even do it now if you feel like it. Especially if you're protest voting for that specific issue, i think that would be a warranted mid term activity to partake it. I mean i might make fun of you for grenading the ability of the government to solve problems, but that's something we're both going to do anyway lmao. That parts free real estate.
The difference between then and now, is that voting now has the substantial potential to prevent trump from being elected which is obviously going to have very negative consequences in this case. Whereas not voting in the midterms, or even changing your vote in the mid terms is going to have a much less significant effect as it's only really going to slow/lessen the ability for the federal government to create and push legislation, although probably specifically with the IP thing. Depends on how that goes.
the same way you're doing it now, just then, signal discontent over certain policy. There's no reason to have any confidence in anything, but in this case it's just basic strategic leverage. If kamala losses, and trump wins, it wasn't your fault, and you didn't have anything to do with it. If kamala wins, and you don't get the IP thing you wanted, then you at least didn't get trump, and you had your part in that. And if kamala wins, and you do get the thing you want, then obviously you're going to get most of everything that you wanted.
As opposed to the current line of thinking where you're more likely to put trump into office, or if kamala wins, do nothing midterms because you've stopped caring by that point. Or maybe you would, but that would be up to chance more than anything.
We take the wins we can get, and we line ourselves up to get the best shots that we can, that's the name of the game.
i know there have been a large number throughout the year, i'm curious about the last 3 or so specifically. Or have those pretty much died down. I know they were all over the place for a few months a while back though.
i mean you can view it like that, i guess, but ultimately that's not really how it works, politics is mostly a take game for the civilian. We don't really give them much, aside from tax dollars, but they give us legislation and policies that reflect our ideals. If your ideals don't match at all you've either got a failure of ideals, or a failure of government, which one probably depends on which one is at a larger scale.
as for the last bit, see previous.
That analysis makes no sense on multiple levels. First of all, since I don't live in a swing state, my downballot/midterm votes are far more important than my vote for president. Second, if my vote for president was so important, that would be all the more reason for me to use it as leverage. Third, the fundamental dynamics are the same for downballot races as the race for president, there is nothing unique about the presidential race that would mean I should treat it differently. If withholding a vote is an effective strategy downballot, then it is an effective strategy in the presidential race. And if the risk of Trump getting elected is too great to employ that strategy in the presidential race, then the risk of another Republican getting elected downballot should be a deterrent too. Lastly, there is virtually no chance that Kamala could be pressured to change her position during the midterms when she herself is not up for reelection.
The only way I can make any sense of your logic is if Trump is uniquely horrible compared to other Republicans, and I don't really consider that to be the case.
Well, let's see. For the past 20 years, my entire adult life, my ideals have been saying that we should stop slaughtering people in the middle east. In that time, the democrats ran Kerry, a hawk, Obama, a hawk, Clinton, a hawk, Biden, a hawk, and now Harris, a hawk. The result of that was nearly a million people dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, some more in other countries like Yemen, and now more and at a faster rate than ever in Palestine. And what exactly do they have to show for any of it in terms of making people's lives better? I think it's pretty clear which side the failure is on.
ok well in this case it just makes complaining moot, because for some reason, you're admitting that you're going to hold a worthless protest vote that means nothing. So that's cool.
only in the case of third party candidacy voter drain, or a pretty confident election advantage, assuming you have like 5% of all voters or something silly. Otherwise it's more than likely going to mean nothing, or almost nothing. And again this doesn't assuage the previously mentioned problems with the alternate candidate.
in terms of how elections work, i suppose so, in terms of how power works, not really. Down ballots are much more ambiguous and nebulous than primary candidacy, by the virtue of there being like 500 congress members. as opposed to one president.
also, i didn't realize that both trump and kamala were running for downballot positions.
generally... Yes, however only generally, i've already laid out the primary uses and technicalities for this, so i'm not going to repeat myself because you can't read. It's not that complicated of an idea.
do you unironically think that in a vacuum, if you were to elect kamala harris, and one republican congressman for example. That it would functionally equivalent to you not voting at all? And then trump having the potential to win, and you still having no options down ballot. This is an objectively worse position to put yourself in. You simply have less leverage there.
i don't believe the 22nd prevents VPs from running for presidency for a term. That would be weird. Unless you're implying as a russian bot would do, that kamala is literally only a one term pony. Which would be odd.
You do know that politicians generally push for legislation throughout their entire term right? It's not just, the beginning, and only the beginning. Generally you see early legislative policy, some through the mid terms, and then some late in the cycle nearing the end.
??? I mean if you specifically only care about israel palestine maybe but trump literally tried to overthrow democracy. How is that not markedly worse than literally any other republican, who has not yet tried to do that.
curious how you only list 20 years of foreign military policy, and not republican policies. Or domestic policy at all.
Seems to me like you only care about foreign military policy. And don't get me wrong, it's a problem, but the war on terror is over, we've pulled out of afghan. This shit's literally done right now. The war on drugs might be another thing, paired with more democracy war, however unpopular that may be, it's the only realistic way to solve the immigration crisis, the one that republicans constantly make shit up about.
regardless, i'll leave you a link to a wikipedia article, only the most reputable of sources for my internet squabbles.
some "bed side reading" as i like to refer to it.
This is even more incoherent than ever, but whatever, I guess I'll try.
Isn't it your job to show that voting for Harris would be meaningful? If my vote is meaningless, then you should have no problem with me voting however I personally prefer.
How does there being more congress members change anything about the dynamics we're discussing?
I genuinely cannot even begin to follow your logic. Walk me through how you got from point A to point B here.
The fact that Harris isn't running downballot is even more reason why your argument is completely nonsensical. Why should I withhold my vote from a different candidate, who might even be pro-Palestine, instead of withholding it from the person I'm actually criticizing? This is, again, a point in my favor.
No, I think that would be worse than not voting at all, because my vote in down ballot races is more important than the presidential race.
I don't know what this is even saying.
Again, I am extremely confused by your logic here and cannot even begin to fathom how you got from point A to point B.
The only thing I can think of is if you're using "midterms" to refer to the next presidential election in 2028, as opposed to the, you know midterm elections that happen every two years, the next being in 2026. Kamala will not be up for reelection in the 2026 midterms, because, and this is true, presidents serve four year terms. Do you think presidents having four year terms is Russian misinformation?
I'm not invested in protecting the capitalist, imperialist state. It doesn't represent me at all and frequently makes my life worse, I have zero loyalty towards it.
George W. Bush started two major wars that got nearly a million people killed, he instituted unprecedented and illegal mass surveillance programs that removed any semblance of civil liberties that once existed in this country, he used indefinite detention without trial - and he did everything with the full support of the Democrats, who have happily continued his policies without any challenge at all (despite the fact that they were allegedly meant as "emergency powers"). Trump is bad but his presidency was nowhere near as bad as that of Bush.
Yes, I was discussing Democratic foreign military policy because that is the topic that we're discussing. I don't mind discussing domestic policy, but those issues are not unrelated. The only way we'd have the funds to do the kinds of things that need to happen domestically is by cutting the unbelievably massive military budget, which is higher than the next 9 countries combined.
But even if we could, I am opposed to imperialism even if the spoils of that imperialism were distributed to the people. So bad foreign policy but good domestic policy would not be satisfactory. But even that isn't on the table, the profits of all this killing go straight to the top.
And no, it's not over. The war in Afghanistan is (now replaced with sanctions to impose starvation), but we're still involved in other places like Gaza and Yemen. We may not have boots on the ground, but my priority is not on whether American soldiers are being placed in danger, it's with stopping the violence towards the people living there.
What on earth are you even talking about? Going to war with Mexico or something?
Not a single one of these applies to me but your lazy condescension is noted.
i have previously stated why kamala is a good pick in the first post. I laid out why your reasoning was faulty, you were the one originally claiming that your vote had a meaning behind it, since you were going to bother protest voting, otherwise you admit you've been sitting here and screaming at a wall for like a year.
Ultimately what defines a vote as meaningful or meaningless is up to the individual voter, you could do math and statistics to figure out how much it matters, but that's extremely complicated, and not completely accurate (as polling demonstrates) it's simply more effective to shift broad public opinion on things like policy and issues, rather than a specific candidate vote.
by dilution, this is the reason the house has so many members, technically its for population representation, and that is true. But you're still fighting against an n/500 or so people, as opposed to like n/2 people. It's harder to influence the president, but the president is also more wholly encompassing of power, whereas it's easier to put a congressman in power, but they have a lot less power.
that was a shitpost, because your statement about downballots made no sense lol.
ok so let me get this one straight, you think electing kamala voting republican downballot is worse than not voting at all, but you also think voting down ballot is simultaneously more important because? I don't understand your comprehension of the voting system at all, it makes no sense. Why would voting down ballot be more important than voting for presidential? Do you not want there to be a president at all?
i listed your available options, the first one being pulling the most optimal strategy to minimize impact as much as possible, vs thinking voting is useless unless the result is exactly equivalent to what you want, which would mean you wouldn't care about voting for downballot, because very few people in downballot are going to agree with your positions, and even less of their positions will matter in the government. Simply due to the dilution of power.
again, shitpost because i didn't understand what you were saying, but it appears you were talking about kamala harris not running for mid terms, without mentioning that, (unless i missed it) who is currently running for president. I thought you were implying kamala couldn't have a second presidential term, because yknow, she's running for president. Which would be really weird.
trump is literally akin to a fascist, his actions are matched to that of a literal dictator, the only difference is that he's so stupid it didn't work. People like hitler, the current president of Venezuela, Haiti i think is currently run by a gang. You would probably also consider netanyahu a dictator, which is probably a reason for you to dislike him.
also, democracy != capitalism?? democracy is just a mechanism for voting, whereas capitalism is a mechanism for moving goods through an economy in the most effective manner.
trump, you mean the guy who thinks haitian immigrants are eating dogs? The guy who literally tried to overthrow democracy, i cannot overstate this enough, this is objectively worse than what bush did. The guy who hired and fired people at will, because they disagreed with him? You mean the guy who fired his AAG (because he couldn't get a real AG who agreed with him) for 3 hours, until his entire fucking DOJ threatened to resign because a guy who deals with oil spills was the current and acting AG?
You mean the guy whose personal attorney said to the public, that chris krebs should be "taken out at dawn and shot" The guy that fired the same guy previously mentioned, chris krebs for saying the election was "the most secure election in history" The same guy that literally told his DOJ to commit a federal crime and lie to the states saying there "was actual voter fraud" when there wasn't. Fun fact, trump suggested multiple times, while in office, that we "use nuclear weapons" as you can imagine, this went nowhere, very fucking quickly, because this is fucking insane.
like obviously the war on terror was bad, and it had implications for security and privacy violations, as well as some rights violations, but i'm not sure those would've even applied considering that was likely within a military context, and we have a separate court for those problems. Also, none of these issues are new. Literally just look back through history, every military everywhere has done this stuff at least once.
But you think that this was worse than what trump tried to do? Which was just straight up ending democracy. Presumably so he could ravage the rest of the global world.
i would like to know what percentage of GDP that the US military budget is. As of the last ten years or so. ::: spoiler spoiler here's a little hint, it's 4% roughly, of GDP. It's roughly 20% of the federal governments budget, as far as per GDP spending goes, we're doing pretty good. The only country rivaling us currently is china, most likely due to their massive economic power. :::
but would you consider overthrowing dictatorships in other countries to also be imperialism? Unrelated, but this is something i've been thinking about lately, with the talk about the border crisis among republicans. There are two things we can do that will ultimately solve it. 1 is to get rid of the cartels, 2 is to improve the living standards of the countries these people are fleeing from.
allowing immigration is good, but the cartel abuses it quite excessively, blocking it helps, but again, doesn't solve the problem. There's not really a great solution here.
anyway getting back to the topic on hand here, even if you don't like imperialism, how do we effectively combat the imperialism of other countries like china? The most effective ironically, seems to be more imperialism. Imperialism in some capacity, whatever definition you have of it, because the classical one doesn't really fit, seems to be a constant throughout human history.
sure, but sanctions aren't a war. Also, as far as sanctions go, they aren't meant to be a good thing, they're meant to be bad, that's the whole fucking idea. If they weren't bad nobody would be using them. And even if it is imposing starvation on afghani people, it's only because of the whims of the taliban. Also due to governmental failure as well, but that's more complicated, especially since this has been a multi decade problem. (the pull out can be blamed on trump btw, just an indication of his foreign policy)
you realize american soldiers literally volunteer to be placed in dangerous situations right? It's not like these people are getting drafted like in vietnam.
the cartels, the mexican government is actively trying to combat it, but it's not going super well, and we have a very clear and definite benefit in assisting the mexican government with that goal as well (trade and illict smuggling of drugs) also the people of mexico as well, they would probably appreciate not being extorted and killed by the cartels.
again, mostly a shitpost to the IP shit especially, for some reason IP people are issues voters, and i don't understand why. They're going nowhere pretty quickly with that one.
So you want Trump to win and you want Gaza eradicated, then.
So you want to reestablish the Third Reich then, got it.
Everyone, don't bother. I have made every reasonable argument against this silly narrative that I could think of since it began and not a single time has any one of these folks gone, "Yeah, Trump/GOP has promised worse" or anything remotely similar. You will receive one of a couple canned responses, which I'll paraphrase below:
They will not listen to things like how you don't support the genocide, don't support war, know things like genocides are horrible, any explanation about how it will get worse, or anything similar.
Just trying to save you some time.
Just assume everyone making those arguments are just Maga trolls trying to siphon votes away from democrats. Saves your sanity
I'm fine with the arguments fundamentally. Like yeah, it's fucking horrible what's happening. Though also for the last 30 years there has always been a conflict, or voter issue, or something that divides the Center and Left and drives voters away. Now we also have a very real threat to our way of life, or what's left of it. So it's frustrating considering how these people may affect even a single person's willingness to vote, even if they are arguing in good faith.
There is no way to distinguish those arguing in good faith vs those who are trolling or arguing in bad faith, because all those parties use the same flawed arguments.
i got banned for a rather unfortunate string of comments regarding IP, though i will say, it was my fault.
IP people are in my experience entirely single issues voters. They do not care about anything else, and cannot be made to care about anything else. It's pretty par for the course as far as issues voters go.
Literally the exact thing I just described. If your actions are indistinguishable from someone who supports genocide, then nobody gives a shit what's going on inside your head regarding it, least of all politicians.
Centrists want to support genocide but not be judged for their support for genocide.