True great leaders such as Putin do not do the genocides. This is why voting is not good. As we know, Biden does the genocides and we will not be voting because of this. Also I am interfluid attendant of college who is working for community of color.
Surprise! It was the same handful of self-aggrandizing, self-righteous, idealistic short-sighted imbeciles that were driving all of that discussion the entire time.
Reminds me of the mass blocker and mass tagger wars
Someone on twitter created a tool that auto blocks anyone who followed at least 2 of five specific users, and found that it basically entirely shut down the gamer gaters and began spreading the tool to other users.
You can imagine that the gamergaters were less than pleased to see their harassment campaign being obstructed, and even less happy to find out how simply they could all be categorized and dismissed.
People totally underestimate how infuriated trolls get when they're ignored. They want any attention, even negative. Just block them and move on, it works wonders.
Incorrect, he was holding back shipments purposefully, this forces shipments to begin again and while he could veto it given the overwhelming support it would have bought a couple days at best and if you read both of those articles it's very clear that that would have been the outcome.
The act is not expected to become law, but its passage underscored the deep U.S. election-year divide over Israel policy
"It is not a serious effort at legislation, which is why some of the most pro-Israel members of the House Democratic caucus will be voting no," House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told a news conference before the vote.
This was just a house vote, you know it would need to pass the senate too before a veto and it didn't even win with a veto-overriding majority in the house.. Really not sure where you're getting the idea that this actually forces Biden's hand in any way
Engage with politics at the Congressional and local level. The biggest reason Biden refuses to change his stance because Congress and a majority of his constituency still supports it.
So please continue to protest and engage your congressman and local officials. We can change this but we need action.
So like if you're a student you should engage with the University admin to let your stance known, potentially asking them to stop investing endowment money with weapons manufacturers and Israeli surveillance startups?
You SHOULD vote for Joe, but fucking hell this is HIS fault. Voters are a swirling mass of people. It might as well be fluid dynamics. Bad policies and apathy WILL affect support. It's going to. You can't stop it. You can't shame it back again either. You can't win back tent guy's vote by blaming him for Joe Biden's failures.
The most recent weapon shipment is actually on Congress, Joe Biden didn't want to send it and was forced by a congressional resolution led by Republicans because they know people won't look into it and the president will take the fall out.
I left some resources to back up these claims in a previous comment .
That sounds like a classic Republican thing to do and I don't doubt it. But it's a small detail. Biden's soft touch has allowed Netenyahu to commit war crimes without a second thought throughout this whole thing.
Withhold military and financial aid and not veto a ceasefire or vote against Palestinian statehood. Israel is committing it with US weapons, money and political cover.
No one I know who does serious work on Palestine is only working on that one issue, wasn't doing anything before and won't do anything after. Burnout is incredibly high among activist leaders right now. Cut us some slack please
I think there's a lot of anger that anything is being tried at all. The expectation and goal is that nothing be done, which those in your opposition cannot help but reveal every time with their incessant brow beating.
There's still Armenians everywhere too, and Jews for that matter. Just because you didn't get them all doesn't mean you didn't commit a genocide. This is just a ridiculous point.
“If Nixon wins again, we’re in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Lol, I mean I get why you feel this moment is unique, but i'm looking through NYT articles from 1972 and if you take out the dated references you could almost mistake them for articles written in 2024:
To the Editor: When a Democrat for Nixon says “I'll vote holding my nose, but McGovern is not a big enough man to be President,” or “I don't like him, but there is no viable alternative,” or an uncommitted Democrat says “McGovern doesn't turn me on,” such remarks are liberalese for “I'm doing alright the way things are, and can't take a risk of any change in the status quo.” - NYT Letter to the Editor 10/19/72
"Lawrence F. O'Brien, the na tional campaign chairman for the McGovern‐Shriver ticket, accused the Nixon Administra tion yesterday of sanctioning tactics of “political espionage” that bordered on those of “a fascist state.” - NYT O'Brien Charges 'Political Espionage'" - 10/14/72
"Deceit, deceit, everywhere deceit—but especially on the political and cultural left, says Arnold Beichman, and most out rageously in the writings of the youth lovers (Marcuse, Slater, Sontag, Roszak, Reich and the rest). They say “America is al ready a fascist country or is on the road to fascism,” that the country “is guilty of genocide,” that “the Bomber Left ... is a moral force” They claim the white “American worker ... is a retrograde, decadent, self ish creature: a honky,” that “our political system is an ut ter fraud, particularly the two‐ party system,” that “American values are wholly materialistic,” that “America is insane,” and that our primary need is for “a violent revolution.” " - NYT, "Nine Lies About America", 10/8/72
I'm having a great time reading through these actually, it's interesting reading the op-eds from back then.
I think this is a great example of the rachet effect in action. We are now at the point where it has rachet-ed into the Democratic party enabling genocide versus the Republican party enabling genocide and having a plan for turn the US into an overtly fascist nation.
It's important to vote Biden in the general, it's just as important to criticize and protest Biden (plus the Democratic and Republican parties) for their continued support of genocide militarily and on the international stage
the point the person above was making was that they're always sick of voting for the lesser of two evils and your response is 'but this one is really evil?'
Uh... Nixon was terrible. He resigned in disgrace. Even Republicans shunned him after he left. It's hard to put into words how much Nixon disappeared from modern society.
Without a second Nixon term, Watergate is probably not as big of a deal. Then Fox News is never created. You can see where I'm going with this.
The point is, yes every election is important. Be grateful you can vote, and that your vote counts. It hasn't been the norm for most of human history.
I am not saying we shouldn't vote for Biden, but acting like we shouldn't be protesting the genocide of Palestinians is bullshit. I know Trump would be worse, but it doesn't mean we should speak out against Biden sending weapons that directly aid in the death of children.
We can't just pretend he isn't complicit in war crimes just because the other option is worse. We should be able to speak out against the atrocities.
I am not sure this is effective against those voters. If anything it's shaming, at best, which causes people to dig their heels in. Addressing those voters as petulant children is not the way to bring them on board.
But the point isn't to convince the voters who are being shamed, but to lessen the reach of their talking points to undecided or on-the-fence voters by pointing out the absurdity of the talking points being pushed.
If some clown is out there, trying to convince everyone clown makeup is the new style, the goal of mocking the clown is not to get the clown to take off their makeup, it's to remind everyone that clown makeup being 'the new style' is fucking absurd no matter how many times or how loudly it's repeated, and will make you look like a goddamn clown.
The people who are on the streets organising and protesting for Palestine are the same people who are doing all kinds of organising: unionising workplaces, mutual aid, street medics, etc. to build up communities and create actual positive change in society.
Do-nothing liberals will do absolutely nothing but complain every day of the year. Democracy isn’t a matter of voting once every 4 years.
Besides, most of these people, despite being highly critical of Biden and will show up to vote on the day. They’re just not going to spend the rest of their time campaigning for a lost cause.
Why not put some of the blame on liberals who aren’t doing enough? Or maybe the reactionaries and fascists who do not give a fuck about what the vote says and will do everything in their power to obstruct, ignore, overturn and use violence to get the outcome they want. You’re delusional if you think fascists will just go away if Biden gets the vote.
The comic is highly uncritical of any of the levers of power. In fact it entirely omits any imagery pertaining to politicians or legislators or any political party. So the only people it is directed at are those protesting the genocide in Gaza as though it came at the expense of other issues, while giving those in power who have actually ignored or even fought those issues a complete fucking pass.
Like it doesn't even mention Biden or any sort of strategy or demands the protestors might have, even. Just shames people for protesting a genocide.
The implication is clear, the issues are all matters of voting including "save democracy". It's the statue of Liberty, a clear symbol of American democracy. It is clearly directed squarely at people saying protest by not voting for Biden.
I get the gravity of the situation, but Trump's side has repeatedly made it clear they would go harder on Gaza.
At least Biden allows the protests to happen. Under Trump, the first protest would be the last as he would immediately mobilize the National Guard and authorize the use of lethal force to suppress it.
Is he, though? I know the president isn't directing this stuff directly, but the harshest crackdowns have been in cities run by democrats, in democratically run states. As the leader of the party he could've told local administrators to respect free speech rights of protestors.
You know what? I don't know he isn't directing this stuff directly. All the crackdowns happened at the same time in all those Democratically controlled cities, almost like it was coordinated and that someone at the top ordered it.
I was trying to be charitable to Biden, but yeah, the whole thing of 'Trump would've sent the national guard instead' thing isn't really functionally different.
On the other hand, there's examples of administrators engaging the protestors and giving concessions up to a point where they voluntarily cleaned up their encampments.
As opposed to the police currently beating the shit out of protestors. I understand it would be worse under trump, but that's a really low fucking bar. We should be asking for better, not settling for the regime which is only maiming protestors instead of killing them.
Looks like there is a crystal clear direction Biden can take and win over a substantial amount of voters. I'm not sure blaming people protesting genocide for Biden's drop in approval ratings, rather than Biden himself for tanking them, will encourage anyone to vote for Biden.