That’s not really true. Pretty much every system needs some buy-in from the masses. Even a king can be swayed by the threat of a peasant uprising.
Also, saying it’s not a democracy isn’t the same as saying that votes have no affect on the outcome. The Holy Roman Emperor was elected, but that doesn’t mean the empire was a democracy.
You’re allowing it to happen by choosing it, which is close to the same thing. To follow Godwin’s law, nobody cares that people who voted for Nazis did not physically commit atrocities, for example.
And don’t think that not voting is a solution. One of the two options will be chosen. I’m aware that the democrats are wrong about Israel, but is it really worth also being wrong about Ukraine and our own country?
I have no power to stop it and am using what little power I have to try to exert pressure to stop it.
I’m not the one firing the guns. I’m not the one giving the guns to the people firing the guns. I’m not the one giving votes to the person giving guns to the people firing the guns.
You are not going to convince me to vote for someone supporting genocide by trying to shift the blame onto me. I know full well that I’m not responsible and that you’re only saying that to try to get your preferred pro-genocide candidate elected.
you’re only saying that to try to get your preferred pro-genocide candidate elected
I mean, yeah, because despite him being pro-genocide I still believe he’s somehow the best option we have by a surprisingly large margin. We’d have a slightly less enthusiastic genocide, one less invasion, and a much more stable nation.
I have no interest in supporting a “less bad” pro-genocide person. I would sooner die, and there is nothing that anyone can say that would cause me to change that position.
Unlike Biden, when I draw a red line, I actually mean it. If that means we go to hell together, so be it. Genocide is fundamentally unacceptable.
Explain that to a diabetic child when Trump gets rid of the insulin price cap that enables their parents to afford it.
Explain that to a trans person who, if the republicans gets their way, will be considered a sexual predator and imprisoned(at best…) for simply existing in public.
Explain that to a woman forced to carry her rapists baby to term when, if Trump gets his way, abortion is federally criminalized. Scratch that, explain that to a child forced to die from their ectopic pregnancy.
Explain that to Ukraine when we stop supporting them against Russia… hell, explain that to Ukraine when we end up supporting Russia against Ukraine.
Explain that to EVERYONE when Trump’s “I’ll be a dictator, but only on day 1” comment becomes a reality and doesn’t stop after day 1.
I could go on.
By all means, continue to delude yourself into believing you are making the just and moral decision. It won’t stop anyone else from seeing that your morals are entirely performative.
Explain that to a trans person who, if the republicans gets their way, will be considered a sexual predator and imprisoned(at best…) for simply existing in public.
Don’t have to do that one. I am a trans person and I have more skin in this than most of you do. I understand the risks very clearly, but the difference is I actually have a spine.
I’d rather explain why I’m not voting for Biden to any of them than explain to a Palestinian child who has only ever known war and hunger why I’m supporting the people sending the bombs.
My sense of solidarity will not allow me to sell out Palestinians for my own safety or the safety of my loved ones. An injury against one is an injury against all. And what you people say about Palestinians today is what you’ll say about trans people tomorrow. If the Democrats decide to nominate someone who wants to exterminate us next time, we’ll be just as much as an acceptable sacrifice.
I have no interest in supporting a “less bad” pro-genocide person. I would sooner die, and there is nothing that anyone can say that would cause me to change that position.
Unlike Biden, when I draw a red line, I actually mean it. If that means we go to hell together, so be it. Genocide is fundamentally unacceptable.
I agree with this 100% and I would go farther. The genocide of Palestinians is a test by the ruling global western order to see how far they can push things before their citizens will revolt.
If we vote for Biden anyway despite this horrific genocide, because Trump!, we are sending a clear message to Biden and the rest of the world that liberal and centrist governments can keep moving forward in a direction of murdering citizens in cities on mass so long as they have a complimentary openly fascist rightwing opposition party to set the Overton window and lend them legitimacy as the only adult choice for voting against the fascists.
Gaza is a prototype make no mistake, we have to reject it existentially NOW. There is nothing to fight for if we don’t because the degree of violence coupled with the degree of willful blindness US media and politicians are engaging in points directly at mass scale violence that is about to come home from the colonies to the colonial powers and world order (there is a good chance if you live in the US that your cities police department trained with the IDF, if that doesn’t terrify you, you are a fool).
Look at the Herero genocide in Africa among other colonial genocides (Belgium should have been leveled to the ground for what it did in the Congo as well) and WW1 suddenly becomes quite clearly an inveitable slingshot of massive amounts of colonial violence turning inwards back towards Europe.
If Biden can successfully win without having to acquiesce to progressives and normal humans with empathy and stop the genocide of Palestinians… the resounding message it sends is that this is a new world paradigm where that is ok and it is open season for everything up to and including genocide being committed in broad daylight in the western world.
We aren’t necessarily on the precipice of WW3, but rather on the precipice of a period of increasing genocidal violence from state and pseudo-state actors (see the rightwing Gaza zionist colonialists for an example) applied to citizens, not only in manufactured events of mass murder but also in complete abandonment of the state’s duty to mitigate environmental crisis (example A being Hurricane Katrina and the US’s lack of giving a shit about the mass suffering in both Louisiana and the Caribbean).
At that point, the magnitudes of violence that are going to continue to unfold in rapid fire will make this question of Trump vs Biden pretty meaningless though Trump is of course an out in the open fascist wannabe dictator and is worse than Biden.
I will happily vote for Biden if he picks up the phone with Netanyahu and tells him it is over full stop. It isn’t even a long phone call if Biden isn’t too much of a coward to lay things out in crystal clear non-negotiable terms.
As it stands, Biden along with the rest centrist democrats are aiding and abetting conservative violent movements in the construction of an alternate reality where the genocide of 50,000 + innocent starving people can be written off with a simple phrase like “but what about the Hamas tunnels!”.
I too would rather die than live in that world and I don’t say that lightly, so yes this is where I put my chips on the table. Others can join us or not join us shrugs but this isn’t a time to live to fight another day, this is a time to escalate what was a minor tactical fight (from Biden’s perspective) into an existential one where Biden has to either give up his close ties with Israel or lose the election.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
^some internet commenter probably? not sure where the quote came from
That’s correct. When the policy change in question is “stopping genocide,” I consider that a completely valid position, tyvm.
Even if it means the break down of democracy in your own country so you will never be able to use voting as negotiation in the future?
The US doesn’t have a democracy and never has.
Trump was already president once and we didn’t have “a complete breakdown of democracy.”
If the US doesn’t have democracy then “negotiation voting” will do nothing either.
That’s not really true. Pretty much every system needs some buy-in from the masses. Even a king can be swayed by the threat of a peasant uprising.
Also, saying it’s not a democracy isn’t the same as saying that votes have no affect on the outcome. The Holy Roman Emperor was elected, but that doesn’t mean the empire was a democracy.
You aren’t actually stopping it though, you’re continuing it and making things worse for everyone else
I’m not doing any of that. The people who are doing it are.
You’re allowing it to happen by choosing it, which is close to the same thing. To follow Godwin’s law, nobody cares that people who voted for Nazis did not physically commit atrocities, for example.
And don’t think that not voting is a solution. One of the two options will be chosen. I’m aware that the democrats are wrong about Israel, but is it really worth also being wrong about Ukraine and our own country?
I have no power to stop it and am using what little power I have to try to exert pressure to stop it.
I’m not the one firing the guns. I’m not the one giving the guns to the people firing the guns. I’m not the one giving votes to the person giving guns to the people firing the guns.
You are not going to convince me to vote for someone supporting genocide by trying to shift the blame onto me. I know full well that I’m not responsible and that you’re only saying that to try to get your preferred pro-genocide candidate elected.
I mean, yeah, because despite him being pro-genocide I still believe he’s somehow the best option we have by a surprisingly large margin. We’d have a slightly less enthusiastic genocide, one less invasion, and a much more stable nation.
I have no interest in supporting a “less bad” pro-genocide person. I would sooner die, and there is nothing that anyone can say that would cause me to change that position.
Unlike Biden, when I draw a red line, I actually mean it. If that means we go to hell together, so be it. Genocide is fundamentally unacceptable.
Okay then.
Explain that to a diabetic child when Trump gets rid of the insulin price cap that enables their parents to afford it.
Explain that to a trans person who, if the republicans gets their way, will be considered a sexual predator and imprisoned(at best…) for simply existing in public.
Explain that to a woman forced to carry her rapists baby to term when, if Trump gets his way, abortion is federally criminalized. Scratch that, explain that to a child forced to die from their ectopic pregnancy.
Explain that to Ukraine when we stop supporting them against Russia… hell, explain that to Ukraine when we end up supporting Russia against Ukraine.
Explain that to EVERYONE when Trump’s “I’ll be a dictator, but only on day 1” comment becomes a reality and doesn’t stop after day 1.
I could go on.
By all means, continue to delude yourself into believing you are making the just and moral decision. It won’t stop anyone else from seeing that your morals are entirely performative.
Don’t have to do that one. I am a trans person and I have more skin in this than most of you do. I understand the risks very clearly, but the difference is I actually have a spine.
I’d rather explain why I’m not voting for Biden to any of them than explain to a Palestinian child who has only ever known war and hunger why I’m supporting the people sending the bombs.
My sense of solidarity will not allow me to sell out Palestinians for my own safety or the safety of my loved ones. An injury against one is an injury against all. And what you people say about Palestinians today is what you’ll say about trans people tomorrow. If the Democrats decide to nominate someone who wants to exterminate us next time, we’ll be just as much as an acceptable sacrifice.
I agree with this 100% and I would go farther. The genocide of Palestinians is a test by the ruling global western order to see how far they can push things before their citizens will revolt.
If we vote for Biden anyway despite this horrific genocide, because Trump!, we are sending a clear message to Biden and the rest of the world that liberal and centrist governments can keep moving forward in a direction of murdering citizens in cities on mass so long as they have a complimentary openly fascist rightwing opposition party to set the Overton window and lend them legitimacy as the only adult choice for voting against the fascists.
Gaza is a prototype make no mistake, we have to reject it existentially NOW. There is nothing to fight for if we don’t because the degree of violence coupled with the degree of willful blindness US media and politicians are engaging in points directly at mass scale violence that is about to come home from the colonies to the colonial powers and world order (there is a good chance if you live in the US that your cities police department trained with the IDF, if that doesn’t terrify you, you are a fool).
Look at the Herero genocide in Africa among other colonial genocides (Belgium should have been leveled to the ground for what it did in the Congo as well) and WW1 suddenly becomes quite clearly an inveitable slingshot of massive amounts of colonial violence turning inwards back towards Europe.
https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/10/how-colonial-violence-came-home-the-ugly-truth-of-the-first-world-war
If Biden can successfully win without having to acquiesce to progressives and normal humans with empathy and stop the genocide of Palestinians… the resounding message it sends is that this is a new world paradigm where that is ok and it is open season for everything up to and including genocide being committed in broad daylight in the western world.
We aren’t necessarily on the precipice of WW3, but rather on the precipice of a period of increasing genocidal violence from state and pseudo-state actors (see the rightwing Gaza zionist colonialists for an example) applied to citizens, not only in manufactured events of mass murder but also in complete abandonment of the state’s duty to mitigate environmental crisis (example A being Hurricane Katrina and the US’s lack of giving a shit about the mass suffering in both Louisiana and the Caribbean).
At that point, the magnitudes of violence that are going to continue to unfold in rapid fire will make this question of Trump vs Biden pretty meaningless though Trump is of course an out in the open fascist wannabe dictator and is worse than Biden.
I will happily vote for Biden if he picks up the phone with Netanyahu and tells him it is over full stop. It isn’t even a long phone call if Biden isn’t too much of a coward to lay things out in crystal clear non-negotiable terms.
As it stands, Biden along with the rest centrist democrats are aiding and abetting conservative violent movements in the construction of an alternate reality where the genocide of 50,000 + innocent starving people can be written off with a simple phrase like “but what about the Hamas tunnels!”.
I too would rather die than live in that world and I don’t say that lightly, so yes this is where I put my chips on the table. Others can join us or not join us shrugs but this isn’t a time to live to fight another day, this is a time to escalate what was a minor tactical fight (from Biden’s perspective) into an existential one where Biden has to either give up his close ties with Israel or lose the election.
^some internet commenter probably? not sure where the quote came from
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html