“I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not gonna change,” said Harris, recounting the horrors of the Hamas-led October 7 attack. “Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself.”
“Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself.”
Obviously I know the answer, but why is such an easily disproven lie uncritically repeated? Does literally no one in the mainstream media have the guts to call it out?
No. You do not have a right to defend yourself from your own illegal occupation for fucks sake.
This is a bog-standard propaganda tactic. It’s the same reason that US corporate media always qualify Ansar Allah (A.K.A. “the Houthis”) with “Iran-backed.”
Welp. It was nice to feel some hope for a couple of weeks. I’ll cherish the memories. I don’t think I’ll be feeling that emotion again for a very long time.
The Biden administration is actively working on brokering a cease fire. Did you know the US is not one of the combatants in this war?
Also your alternative is Trump. Kindly fall in line unless you think that Trump would provide a balanced approach. Spoiler alert,he 100% would not
Is your face all painted blue already?
I was Waiting for Harris to throw the VERY EASY win away!
How is it easy?
Be ethically correct and abandon Israel. Take a highly unadvised risk and lose the election. Uber douche dives headlong into atrocities.
But at least she could sleep at night.
How? You just jerk us off like every other Democrat in the pass and lie to us about shit you are going to do.
Just say you are considering all options.
Give a Gazan Democratic elected official 5 minutes to speak at the DNC.
Hint at things like how Reagan and other presidents have withheld aid or arms for violating US and international law, but just lip services. Make no real commitment.
Just wag the fucking dog and stop leaving money I. the table.
That’s how fucking easy. You just fucking lie and it’s easy.
The fact is, Reagan and Bush sr were both stricter on Israel than Kamala or Harris. So lean into that. We’ve withheld arms and aid from them before for this exact kind of shit.
I’ll be honest and say I don’t understand her reasoning and it baffles me
But regardless, so she didn’t do that. Balls back in our court. Help me understand. What’s the next play? I see people saying they won’t vote for her. I and most people here can totally respect that, but it clearly seems naive and shortsighted to a lot of others at best (no disrespect to the movement), and a legit threat to all the things we’re supposedly aligned on, at worst
The movement seems to be messaging, “do the right thing on this issue or else we won’t vote for you.” But, she’s basically “calling the bluff”. She thinks it’s all smoke or insignificant. Well, will people actually stay home? If not, what are they doing but looking weak and hypocritical? If yes, then what are they planning on doing next if she loses?
I think we have to at least agree that these issues/actions divide us. And that means it weakens us. That means many of us are willingly weakening the movements they claim to support, or allowing our movements to be weakened. There are many ongoing movements and instead of building bridges we’re actively silo’ing ourselves and engaging in antagonist behavior towards each other. Let me know if that’s an unfair characterization - of course, I have the recent division with black folks in mind.
To me, this is the part I struggle with the most, the seemingly sanctimonious disregard for meaningful, tangible change over support for say, real progressive legislation that gives power back to the people instead of corporations and the rich (but I see how this is my number one issue and it clearly isnt for others).
All that said, you certainly won’t ever catch me shouting down genocide protesters or making fun of them. I think it’s noble as fuck. And that shit was one of the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen liberal voters do
Sorry, that got long 😁 this is all so frustrating
The movement seems to be messaging, “do the right thing on this issue or else we won’t vote for you.” But, she’s basically “calling the bluff”.
First step first in bluffing: Don’t. Whats great about that strategy, is that when/ if they call your “bluff”, you now have the opportunity to go all in.
So what does all in look like? I’ve been wondering and thinking about this.
Here is what I propose:
Some kind of simple website maybe similar to an act-blue thing. Effectively it is a map with some numbers and the text “Arms embargo now!”
The premise: you go to this website and sign up (maybe via act-blue so they know we’re not faking it.) By signing up, you are effectively you are making a commitement to withhold your vote in November if the Harris/ Biden administration/ Harris campaign does not commit to an arms embargo. The count of voters who have committed to with-holding their vote is displayed on each state. These numbers are compared to the “tipping numbers” from 2020. Keep in mind that its was counts of votes in the ranges of 10’s of thousands that determined the 2020 election. Every day, a digest of this is sent as a press release to a bunch of left/ progressive/ mainstream media outlets.
Effectively, you put it out there that our votes are on the line, and she can do a thing, and it releases the donations to the Harris campaign.
Sorry, that didn’t answer my main question at all.
I understand what the movements goals are. I’m not interested in discussing the strategy.
My thinking goes like this, say the movement is a major success. And she tries to call your bluff (again lack of a better phrase here) and the movement true to its word and values succeed in being the deciding vote, let’s say. What are the possible results? There’s likely more than two but the obvious groups are either she loses or she wins. My question is then what?
She either won without the movement kinda giving them a political w and proving their power all while demoralizing folks that get invested. Or, she loses and the movement is blamed and scapegoated as the sole reason she lost and whole lot else.
I’m wondering about what folks in this movement think will happen after the election. Are we ready for the worst-caae scenario?
I mean the basic idea here is to make it obvious what the candidate is leaving on the table. Its setting up a basic quid-pro-quo. If she wins without the movement well its not like she was listening anyways, so nothing gained nothing lost. If she loses, its gonna be pretty fucking obvious that she could have won by listening.
The issue is that by allowing the candidate to continue down a deeply unpopular path, you are setting up the worst case scenario. We have an exact historical analog with Joe Biden no less than 2 months ago. There is this brain parasite that got into leftist communities around strategic voting which is just factually and functionally wrong a couple years ago, and its done real fucking damage. Supporting the lessor of two evils actually makes the lessor evil less likely to succeed.
By allowing the candidate with a policy position that 80% of the US voters disapprove of, we’re doing her a disservice and decreasing her chances of success.
Fair enough. We’re talking past each other at this point and I don’t really feel like repeating myself.
I disagree with the movement’s strategy, and lack thereof, and I disagree with your entire first paragraph. There is absolutely a lot to lose and it’s beyond frustrating and disrespectful for someone like you to say there isn’t. I’d implore you to think about even just one negative outcome that could occur because of your movement’s lack of consideration for their fellow citizens.
That said, I’d bet decent money you’re not a Muslim-American, that could be banned from visiting their family in a foreign country, or a Mexican-American that might be at risk of being deported/their family being deported, etc. My guess is you’ll be just fine no matter what happens and you don’t really care about the people that could suffer most due to your reactionary political goals.
So genuine question what does this mean for the protestors come election day. Is there only choice to vote Democrat or Republican? Can they vote for an independent? How would it work?
They can:
- stay home - this results in whomever gets the most votes from everyone else getting the electoral votes for that district/state. In many districts, this benefits trump
- write in someone else - more clearly shows protest, but what that actually does or if anybody really counts it, I have no idea. Effectively the same as option 1 for the outcome of this particular election
- vote for a third party - basically the same as the above, though certain things do happen if a party gets some percentage of the vote, but not until the next election. The outcome for this election is the same
- vote for one of the two major candidates - self-explanatory
How much not voting or protest voting impacts the actual results kinda depends upon the district and state. However, even in a seemingly secure district or state, enough people protest-voting could actually have a negative impact in that particular election (though I find that fairly unlikely). I vote in a rural district that supports trump. Since he’s objectively worse in basically every way and has indicated that he’s willing to let Netanyahu’s government do whatever they want, I feel it unethical to do anything but vote against trump which, given what I wrote above, basically leaves Harris. If I know that trump will be worse, and I know that doing anything other than voting for Harris in my district helps cement trump, then I must vote for Harris or I’m just helping trump.
We are here because nearly everywhere uses first-past-the-post and voter turnout isn’t great, particularly by voters in local and regional elections. I vote as progressively as I can in local elections and advocate for ranked choice or rated voting wherever possible. People in power tend to hate ranked choice voting or similar because it removes what almost always just becomes a two-party fight which often leads to tactical voting rather than properly representing people. The state in which I vote also has a huge gerrymandering problem, but that’s another story.
They have a choice of staying home and not vote
Who even are the two dozen centrists that she thinks she can court?
The donor class, A.K.A. the capitalist class that funds political campaigns.
Awesome. /s
