1y ago

196 stands with palestine

The US primaries and the general election are two different things. Voting uncommitted in the primary expresses support for the Palestinian plight and does not give Republicans any ground.

The uncommitted movement presents a safe and effective avenue for voters to voice dissatisfaction with President Biden’s policies, particularly with the Israel-Hamas conflict. By doing so in the primary, voters can signal discontent without risking a Republican victory in the general election. The purpose is to send a wake-up call to the Biden administration that it is failing to address issues and effectively engage with the party, vis a vis that Biden is enabling a genocide.

That being said, anyone who calls for an uncommitted or third-party vote in the general election i will personally kick in the gender neutral balls (in Minecraft).

117 comments

That's not the message though, so this is disingenuous or misleading. We all 98% agree the US should tell Israel to quit their shit and not give them more funds or weapons, and that it's disappointing Biden and 90% of the US political establishment have supported this. However, what people are told is we should not vote for Biden, and vote third party or not vote, to 'send the Democrats a message'. Enough people doing that would have the predictable result of getting Trump elected, so yeah, it's a decent question why people would suggest that when a Trump admin would surely be worse on the Palestine issue.
- Enough people doing that would have the predictable result of getting Trump elected,
  I agree with this and it's what I'm afraid of. I totally support voting in the primary as you wish, even just to send a message (I support voting how you wish in all cases). But in this case using primary voting to send a dissatisfied message about the Democratic candidate has me worried it will instead send a wider message (or mass media will push this message) that the US populace feels Biden is unpopular compared to Trump.
  Which is absolutely not the case with the vast majority of people voting against Biden in the primary. But that kind of message (accidental or intentional) can do real harm to prevent a literal fascist takeover in November. This is the totality of my concern and if we weren't facing down the potential end of democracy in the US, I'd give a lot less shits about potentially torpedoing Biden's chances. And I feel a lot of the hate against Biden has galvanized right around the time the primary season started which seems convenient for Trump.
  
  It’s almost like sending bombs to kill innocent children might be one of those wedge issues
- you misunderstand the us primary election process.
  The uncommitted movement presents a safe and effective avenue for voters to voice dissatisfaction with President Biden’s policies, particularly with the Israel-Hamas conflict. By doing so in the primary, voters can signal discontent without risking a Republican victory in the general election. The purpose is to send a wake-up call to the Biden administration that it is failing to address issues and effectively engage with the party, vis a vis that Biden is enabling a genocide.
  
  No, I sure don’t. Talking endless shit about Biden will affect more than the primary.
  
  And most people aren't saying you need to vote for Biden in the primary. They're talking about the general.
I agree that Biden is a piece of shit, but if you don't vote for that piece of shit, then you'll end up with an even worse piece of shit. Don't even think that you're "sending him a message" by not voting or voting third party.
It absolutely sucks that things are like this, but sometimes you have to vote for a genocidal cunt to prevent an even worse genocidal cunt from getting elected, even if it makes you feel bad. Trump becoming the new president would only make things worse for you, and for Palestine, and for Ukraine.
- you misunderstand what the primaries are. check out the post body text and the other threads here for an explanation.
- Third party and proud gang. A key reason we're in this mess is because people keep voting for the same two wolves.
  
  Genuinely not true. Our electoral system more or less requires two candidates de facto to function - it is not a failure of the commons, it's a failure of the systems of government. We need ranked choice voting, at which point we can actually begin to meaningfully remove ourselves from this insanity and have more than two de facto political parties.
  Voting third party is the same as not voting in the United States under our current system.
  
  You cant vote your way out of a system that isnt designed for you to manipulate. They wont let a third party candidate get even close. We arent here because we voted our way here when the electoral college decides the election.
Gross. Don't make this sub about this. We can be anti genocide without being pro religious extremist. This reads as pro republican propoganda - no one needs that.
- 196 stands with Palestine —literally the mods of this community
  please self-examine as to why you read religious extremism into a pro-democrat, anti-genocide post.
  
  The comic you posted doesn’t match what your post says.
This shit is just spam at this point
- Do dead kids in Gaza make tasty spam? I usually only get it pork based
I used to believe Democrats when they said stuff like "unlike Republicans, we accept valid criticism of our politicians"
But they've really gone out of their way to disprove this. Their treament of Palestinians and immigrants at the southern border inspires no confidence that they will protect my rights as a LGBTQ+ person. They'd run me over with a tank if it were politically convenient.
- Nancy Pelosi: "We're capitalists, and that's just the way it is."
  This was an important admission on her part. Corporations didn't start accepting women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and the disabled by hiring them and marketing to them because they had some epiphany that these people were all humans who had intrinsic value simply from existing and being human, and as such they deserved respect. No, of course not, the reason they started accepting the "untouchables" was because their abject greed outweighed their bigotry. They wanted our money. The only color they actually care about is green. Capitalists never changed their minds or their bigotry, they just decided that making more money was worth it to hire women and blacks and gays and to also market to them so their paychecks would be recycled right back into the capitalist coffers.
  There was a wild story the other day where someone actually did say this out loud.
  https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/03/voters-approve-pride-flag-ban-in-first-of-its-kind-ballot-measure/
  “As a tourist community, I want to shake every tourist upside down by their ankles to get money out of them,” he said. “Therefore, we should be open and inclusive of everyone, and everyone should feel comfortable to come here and spend their money.”
  The real issue is that the majority of Democrats (especially the ones at the national level) are Corporate Democrats who absolutely have internalized all this. It's why you got Nancy Pelosi doing useless fucking performative bullshit like kneeling while wearing Kente Cloths while real legislation is somehow always on the backburner or has some Blue Dog fuckwit blocking it. It seems the party always has a convenient scapegoat like Joe Manchin for why we can't pass worthwhile shit when Democrats have a majority. (Last time around it was Joe Leiberman)
  Thankfully, local races are not as abysmal and Democrats on the local level and at least in my area, the Democrats are progressive as hell. The national party is in a incompetent corporate death grip, and they are unlikely to let go any time soon. The national party has been bought and paid for by people who never cared we existed to begin with, they just wanted our cash.
  Further, we're in a no-win scenario. We either accept the abuse at the hands of the Democrats who are holding Trump and fascism over our heads like a cudgel to force us to vote for them even we don't agree with what they're doing or we accept that Democracy in America is Over and that Dictator Trump will take the reigns. The most maddening part about all of it is the implicit admission from the national Democratic Party that they will do nothing to stop Donald Trump because they don't actually care about us, the citizens they supposedly represent. They will berate us if Trump wins, tell us we didn't vote hard enough, and that it's all our fault, while they quickly skip the country to avoid being fucking blackbagged and murdered by Trump Thugs. They're more than happy to let us suffer the consequences while they skirt them, like always. Why?
  “We’re capitalists, and that’s just the way it is.”
  
  at least in my area, the Democrats are progressive as hell
  As someone who lives in South Dakota, I envy you. The Democrats here tend to be even worse than Pelosi. They're Blue Dog through and through.
  I've considered running locally myself, but my "radical" beliefs would definitely be exposed, and I don't want my husband to deal with the death threats. That, and my work schedule.
  To be clear, I agree with everything you've said. You are quite a bit more articulate than I am.
As always, it's hard to separate legitimate and necessary criticism from assholes taking any excuse to talk shit. The latter will amplify and exaggerate whatever the former says.
Bad faith is just a bitch and a half to deal with.
- Wholly agree with your point.
  Off topic: why is the B word the only swear censored on blahaj.zone? I've noticed it in other communities from there and most, if not all other swears are safe.
  B: removed Fuck shit ass cock dick pussy cunt
  Either someone got mad for being called a B or they've got some conflicting thoughts on what justifies swearing and censorship.
  Edit: might not be just blahaj, but that only extends my confusion.
  
  As further testing: bitching, bitchin', bitchass, bitchface, biiitch, biiiiitch, binch, bongo.
  edit: You're on lemmy.ml, my guy. Pretty sure they censor a bunch of nonsense.
- real
Yes, I'm sure that if the democrats lose and Trump gets elected because people demonize Biden everything will get better in Palestine. Get real. Now's not the time to be an idealist.
- a fair and pragmatic outlook!
  just don’t stoop to accusing the people who choose to do an uncommitted vote of being fascist or spreading FUD and we are good 👍
  
  If you want to vote uncommitted, that's on you. If you're trying to delegitimize Biden by arguing that he's complicit in genocide in open forum, you're trying to hand the presidential election to fascists.
- Instead of doing aid packages, Trump would drop bombs disguised as aid.
If the conclusion translates to way stricter conditions for aid (rolling back settlements, carving out pathways for aid, etc.) you won't get called fascist. If your conclusion is to let Trump into office, you are.
The first take is also a problem.
Genocide has a specific definition. The term is probably not applicable to Gaza, and doesn't have to be. A humanitarian crisis also leads to the above mentioned conclusion. Starting to call everything a Genocide that is nowhere near that level primarily has two effects:
First it shuts down any debate about what is happening and what actions to take as a consequence. People who don't agree with the application of the term "genocide" will see you conspiracy theorists or similar. People who agree will write off all arguments as genocide denial. Stunlocking all processes that could lead to action.
Secondly, and most importantly, it muddles the term. Genocide doesn't seem that bad if Israel is doing one or even Canada. While it does draw attention to your current issues, it simultaneously downplays actual recognized genocides.
An example of the second Point is, that a lot of people calling it a genocide are calling for aid to stop and NOT immediate intervention in the ONGOING genocide. Which would be a more appropriate reaction to genocide.
It honestly feels like a psy-op by Trumpels. How is your solution to this Conflict getting Trump - who is all the way on Israels side - into office? The man is one of the reasons for this situation, by cutting aid, by initiating the Abraham Accords, where "The plight of the Palestinians was an afterthought, if even that."
Genious idea, I see no way that can go wrong.
- it simultaneously downplays actual recognized genocides
  Tell me you don't understand the extent of what Israel is doing without telling me you don't understand the extent of what Israel is doing.
- Please do a small service for yourself and educate yourself on what's going on in Gaza. Actual fucking Holocaust survivors have spoken against it. Israel is trying to get rid of Palestinians, and every day the already thin veil comes off more and more.
- src
- https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
  Israel is definitely complicit in genocide
  
  In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
  
  ... Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent ...
  The intent is probably the most important part of this definition and I don't believe that Israel fulfills that part. There are extensive measures taken to prevent civilian deaths. However this is still a war, in which civilians die.
  There are also rules about human shields which defines using human shields as "... intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians ...". Which Hamas has undeniably been doing.
  The burden to keep civilians out of military targets falls to the governing authority, which is Hamas.
  It is important to recognize, that all these rules around war are designed to protect some groups (civilians) while still allowing for military operations. The problem is, that if these rules were to prevent nations from pursuing military objectives, because the other party commits war crimes (such as using human shields) nobody would follow these laws.
  For that reason civilians kind of loose most protections when used as human shields (§3). As well as proportionally laws taking effect, that permit civilian harm to an extend if it is necessary to pursue proportionally valuable military objectives.
  THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT BAD, just probably not illegal under international law. It is reasonable to demand change and to condemn Israel on moral grounds however. Personally I also believe Israel needs to do some big changes in regards to settlements and humanitarian aid. But also the status quo needed to change. I don't understand Hamas' goal, they obviously will never win. Idk why they are refusing ceasefire agreements etc. I understand resentment against Israel, but let's be real, their negotiating power just becomes less and less.
  And obviously everything needs to be investigated, but I don't know if any damming convictions actually come from this.
  
  You could take that to mean that Ukraine is committing genocide against the Russians because they are "destroying a national group in part" by "killing members of the group." Literally any warfare would be defined as genocide under this. It's utterly meaningless and needs to be better defined.
Both Israel and Palestine countries are led by killing psychos.
There, i said it.
You can ban me now.
- You mean Gaza? AFAIK the Palestine Authority considers Hamas criminals.
  
  some where in there is Israel and we might need a fourth spiderman for maybe the US.
- and the us! all three
  isn’t that just wonderful
  edit: as others pointed out, Hamas =/= Palestine. so maybe look into why you are equating those two 🫤
- This really shouldn't be such a controversial take. Every side of this conflict fucking sucks, and they've all sucked for decades. Israel sucks for electing a fascist, Palestine sucks due to being religious fundamentalists, the U.S. sucks for doing all this in the first place and building Israel up as a superpower in the region, and all the surrounding Middle Eastern powers suck because they claim a Free Palestine is a priority while doing fuck-all to support it. Even if a miracle ceasefire is called, there is no geopolitical will for a Free Palestine, so Israel will just do this again in 10 years once their stockpiles are replenished.
  
  There's no such thing as a good state. All states gradually trend toward fascism, at varying rates. But this quote from "Anarchism and Its Aspirations" by Cindy Milstein really helped me parse situations like this, especially since it cites Palestine as an example:
  If we understand this sense of negative and positive freedom, what appears as a contradictory stance within anarchism makes perfect sense. An anarchist might firmly believe that the Palestinian people deserve to be liberated from occupation, even if that means that they set up their own state. That same anarchist might also firmly believe that a Palestinian state, like all states, should be opposed in favor of nonstatist institutions. A complete sense of freedom would always include both the negative and positive senses—in this case, liberation from occupation and simultaneously the freedom to self-determine. Otherwise, as both actually existing Communist and liberal regimes have demonstrated, “freedom from” on its own will serve merely to enslave human potentiality, and at its most extreme, humans themselves; self-governance is denied in favor of a few governing over others. And “freedom to,” on its own, as capitalism has shown, will serve merely to promote egotistic individualism and pit each against each; self-determination trumps notions of collective good. Constantly working to bring both liberation and freedom to the table, within moments of resistance and reconstruction, is part of that same juggling act of approximating an increasingly differentiated yet more harmonious world.
- look at this motherfucker and his both sidesing JAQing off lol /s
- I'd use "ruled" instead of "led".
Dialectics people! Biden is complicit in genocide, and far fewer lives are endangered under him than Trump. Biden winning doesn't guarantee life, and we must vote for him to have a CHANCE at living. Even if we survive, I wouldn't call most of it living.
Standard neoliberal and conservative behavior, what a time to be alive
I most certainly don't. Neither do I stand with Israel nor the USA.
I sure wish I knew about the uncommitted movement before election day.
- good news! depending on your state, it hasn’t happened yet.
locking this post. It's causing more discourse than our team can handle.

117 comments