Decapitated small children. Children burned alive. Elderly women burned alive. In a refugee camp in tents next to an UN facility. In a designated safe zone they were told to flee to.
You may delude yourself into thinking you have to prop up Biden now instead of demanding an end to this genocide, because “Trump would be worse!!!”, but you will always be complicit in these crimes. You will have chosen your comfort over the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civillians brutally murdered and millions more brutally occupied, beaten, sexually assaulted and starved.
If you don’t make it clear that your vote depends on the end of this genocide, apply pressure, demand this from your representatives and take to the streets, you will be complicit when voting Biden in November.
I’m not convinced that Democrats wouldn’t just happily go down down with the ship, so to speak, if they believed stopping the genocide was the singular issue that people’s votes hinged upon. I don’t know where that really leaves us all either, given how horrible the alternative is. If the Citizens United decision hadn’t of happened we might have politicians that didn’t act beholden to far-right Israelis, but, even considering the unfettered money poured into politics, it’s ridiculous the hold that they seem to wield over both main parties in the US.
Do you honestly think that Trump would be better? Have you read what he has to say about this subject?
I’m disgusted with Biden too, but sometimes choosing between the lesser of two evils is the responsible thing to do. Ethical choices are often the most difficult. One-topic voting is almost never ethical. The ultimate results do matter.
You fall into the trap of believing that these are you only two options. But you can demonstrate now. You can put pressure on your represantatives now. You can organize Union action now. But you also need to ask yourself seriously, which factual differences are there between Trumps reign an Bidens reign. Biden still runs the internment camps. Biden increased the crackdown on immigrants. Biden is building the wall we all mocked Trump for for years. And also Biden did not push for Trump to be held accountable sooner and better. He did not push to address Jan 6. with the attention it deserves. He tried to go back to business as usual quite fast and his business as usual is more or less the same as under Trump, with the difference that he is now actively endorsing and supporting a genocide. Maybe not through his words but through his actions.
You’re seeing only ideals and not reality. I’m all in favor of applying pressure toward better goals to both parties. That does not change the fact that a candidate of one of those two parties is going to win the election and run the country.
False equivalence is another problem with ignoring practical results in favor of pure ideology. There is a vast difference between Biden and Trump. It’s obvious from looking at what they’ve done already. It become even more stark if you pay attention to what Trump is saying he intends to do if re-elected. Trump genuinely wants to destroy our system of government, eliminate democracy, and rule as a dictator. He badly wants to persecute those who have offended him or who disagree with him. And he now has detailed plans for how to go about those things. When someone tells you who they are you should believe them.
Biden will run things the way he has been, which does not make me happy, but provides an opportunity for change within the system. How do you expect to enact progressive changes under a right-wing autocracy?
Even if your only concern is the Gaza genocide, Biden and Trump have significantly different positions. Biden has making a weak and unsuccessful attempts to rein in Israel. There is reasonable hope that he does have a limit for how far he’s willing to go in that direction, as evidenced by his temporary halting arms shipments. Trump has said that he supports what Israel is doing, but thinks they aren’t going far enough. He has, in the past, suggested using nuclear weapons to resolve situations like this.
It all comes back to false equivalence. We are not talking about two of the typical business-as-usual candidates. We are on the verge of becoming Nazi Germany. If you aren’t doing everything you can to prevent that, whatever efforts you make toward other goals are going become irrelevant.
The famous change within the system - please tell me more about where that has led us - surely in the direction of more transparency and democracy right? definitely and not just pushing the needle further and further right.
But hey keep swimming in the pot and telling the other frogs that the water may be getting warmer but you know at least the cook hasn’t burned us alive yet…
even if joe wins this time - next time it’s gonna be worse - that’s why the lib dems nowadays are holding policy views similar to moderate conservatives of the past - like fucking Reagan of all people signed the immigration reform act to give 3 million immigrants legal status - and now we’ve got joey being hounded by conservatives for trying to do something similar…
don’t take this as an excuse to call me a russian/chinese/4chan or w/e else “bot” for trying to get people to think rationally about the trajectory of US politics - fucking vote for biden for all I care - but more importantly - take to the streets, toss a fucking shoe at his head - just don’t think you’re “doing your part” by voting once every 4 years for the marginally less genocidal power tripping fuckwit - like how can you expect them to do anything if they know you’ll vote for them no matter what? how is that any different than the maga zealots?
it’s not about one-topic voting - its about the very obvious slow slide into authoritarianism - because nobody is willing to do anything to disrupt the status quo - and frankly it’s kind of disgusting to say the more “ethical” choice is letting a proxy state massacre children because the opposition will massacre them more. that’s not progress, that’s just pretending to wash you hands off the blood you’ll never have to experience firsthand…
Taking an absolute stand may be comforting, but it has not and will not actually accomplish anything.
Our existing system is broken. Our current choice is between continuing with it, and trying to influence, or exchanging it for an authoritarian government run by a vindictive child. In the long run there may be other options, but right now you aren’t going to get a third choice. One or the other of those outcomes is going to happen.
Trump has said, at various times, that he would enact violence against protesters, have them arrested and held without due process, or have them deported. How effective do you think your efforts to push for more progressive government policies are going to go under those conditions?
Burning it all down sounds good in theory, but nothing happens in a vacuum. If we allow the current system to fail it is not going to be replaced with an idealized new system. It is going to be replaced by whatever existing movement is in a position to assert itself. Right now, that is will be the right-wing authoritarians.
That’s why you should start building an alternative system that isn’t right-wing instead of just voting for Hitler^lite - by choosing the lesser of two evils election after election you will always be actively choosing evil - that may be fine for you but it sure isn’t fine by me - and saying that any alternative is too idealistic means that you’ve already given up.
Trump is truly awful but let’s not pretend that police haven’t arrested students at pro-Palestine encampments without solid grounds under Biden either - sure vote for Biden now to mitigate the biggest calamity that is Trump - but it just signals to the dems that so long as they’re a smidge left of neo-Hitler they’ll get voted for.
And if you really think Joe will listen to protestors about the genocide after he’s in office, that’s what I call naïve idealistic thinking…
Also by saying the only option in case of systematic collapse is the emergence of right wing authoritarianism what you’re implying is that you’d much rather wait for that to happen than to create a left wing environment now that can establish itself in the power vacuum - to me this shows that you have so little faith in yourself that you would much rather do nothing and just let the right wingers trample you over and over - no wonder things keep sliding right when even so called leftists think they’re such massive losers.
“The Israelis have said this is a tragic mistake,” Kirby said, referring to the airstrike and fire in an area crowded with refugee tents that Gaza health authorities said killed at least 45 people on Sunday.
“We’ve also said we don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah that would really make it hard for the Israelis to go after Hamas without causing extensive damage and potentially a large number of deaths. We have not seen that yet,” - John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson
“but we are secretly eagerly awaiting it and already have the popcorn on order!” - also this fucker (probably)
Bonus content. There is absolutely a major ground offensive going on in Rafah. The administration is playing a game of, “I can’t see it if I don’t look for it!”
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