Where is the outrage? Where have all the "humans" gone? Israel slaughtered over 400 innocent civilians in Gaza last night. Most of them women and children.
None of those with #Ukraine, #Canada, #Mexico and #EU flags on their profile raising their voice condemning this outrageous crime.
-----------
The sheikh wandered around the city with a lamp
I'm tired of all the devils and the death, and seeking one human
They said it cannot be found, we have searched, As we said before
That which cannot be found I desire
Rumi
دی شیخ با چراغ همی گشت گرد شهر
کز دیو و دد ملولم و انسانم آرزوست
گفتند یافت می نشود جسته ایم ما گفت
آن که یافت می نشود آنم آرزوست
#poetry #Rumi #Gaza #Inhumanity #Death #politics #Israel #Genocide #WarCrime
@[email protected] @[email protected] @israel @iran
And this was done with the explicit approval of Trump. Fuck anyone who voted for Trump because "Genocide Joe." Yes, we all know the Democrats are absolutely fucking awful. We also knew before the election that Trump would be far worse for Gaza because he kept telling us he would be.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/middle-east/israel-strike-gaza-death-toll-trump-hamas-ceasefire-b2717304.html
This is why I think Trump can do whatever he wants and get away with it. People keep telling me his supporters have their limits, but I really don't think they do.
sorry, I just literally could not vote for genocide joe.
maybe stop trying to re-litigate an election your guys lost because they refused to give even the smallest consideration to their voters, including letting a palestinian-american speak or giving even the mildest and least binding condemnation of this shit. accept that this is why they lost. because centrists and leftists can't hold their noses and endorse genocide, while fascists get hard at the thought.
Your kind of thinking is extremely dangerous. Strict utilitarian thinking leads to gas chambers. You can excuse a whole lot of evil in the name of the greater good.
There is a difference between utilitarian and practical reality. The practical reality is Palestine will soon be wiped off the map. The utilitarianism would have been to elect someone that talked about possible peace talks while VP, and see if we can come to an agreement.
But I guess "fuck it, blow them all up." is better somehow.
What you call "practical reality" is utilitarian thinking. They're one and the same. Picking a candidate based on lesser of two evils is utilitarian thinking. This is literally undergraduate 100-level ethics.
If you never studied ethics, there are two main branches that ethical systems are often classified by:
Utilitarian - greatest good for the greatest many, ends justifies the means.
Respect for persons - there are some principles you won't violate, full stop.
People have different ethics systems, and you fail to realize that. Then you stamp your feet when someone dares to have a different ethical system from your own.
Some people simply have red lines they will not cross. And it's a damn good thing such people exist. There has to be some people willing to punish Democrats for drifting too far to the right. Otherwise they'll just keep drifting, and you'll end up with an election that's the KKK vs the Aryan Brotherhood. Or the Democrats will be running Mussolini to the Republican's Hitler.
On the other hand, you need some people to vote utilitarian as well. Too many people voting on strict red lines means winning becomes impossible.
It's almost like we live in a diverse society where many viewpoints and backgrounds are beneficial and needed. The Democrats drifted too far to the right, and they were punished by voters who simply would not vote for any pro-genocide candidate. In the values of those voters, you can't excuse your own crimes because your opponent will probably commit worse ones. And that's not some fringe theory; that's how our legal system works. You can't kill someone and claim innocence because the ends justify the means.
You can disagree, it's a free country. I just wish you would demonstrate a little belief in Democracy. Democracy starts with acknowledging we have different opinions and different ethical systems. It doesn't start with stamping your feet and insisting your value system is the only one with any merit. That is the way to dictatorship. That's MAGA thinking.
You do realize none of that matters. One side could be pushed to do the right thing. The other side is actively ignoring judges. You can claim the high road of democracy all the way until it's completely dismantled.
This isn't even a matter of ethics, which I studied, but it's been so long and the real PRACTICAL world has taught more lessons than a fucking ethics class with a professor playing devils advocate. It's a matter of real world happenings and Palestine getting obliterated from the globe because people decided not to "vote for the lesser evil" is something that will happen in the real world.
People voting lesser of two evils is precisely what has gotten us here. You just want to pretend the universe began in 2024.
I understand what you're trying to say, but American politics has always been a two party lesser of two evils voting system. If it was always getting worse, then explain women's rights, civil rights, LGBT+ rights, etc. If voting for the lesser of two evils meant it was always a downward track, then why have we been able to push for good things.
With the dems, we could have at least pushed. There is already a good movement in local and senate for more progressive candidates. That can still spread, but not when one party is unified in completely dismantling the government.
Since you like to read, go ahead and read Project 2025. We are already a good amount through the playbook that was written out. You want to talk about trusting democracy? One of the steps of Project 2025 is issuing Martial law. A step that is just a few steps after "ignore judges", which I remind you is where we currently are. After Martial Law, is establishing authoritarian regime. I hope your trust in democracy can prevail a literal authoritarian.
It's not always getting worse. It's that things only get better if you have consistent pressure from the left to force Democrats to get better. The pressure to cave to corporate centrism is always there. You have to have some correcting mechanism, otherwise the party will just drift further right. This mechanism has existed for decades and it has served, and continues to serve, to keep the Democrats from decaying further towards conservatism.
Yes, obviously Project 2025 exists. There's no need to gleefully trot out all the horrible things Trump is doing. Obviously he's doing bad things. The problem with Democrats is they think that because Republicans are going to do awful things, that gives them a blank check to do anything they want. They can do any evil they want, just as long as they're a little bit better than the Republican.
And you mention LGBT rights. The same centrist Dems who cited LGBT rights as a reason to throw Palestinians under the bus are now advocating for throwing trans people under the bus. It turns out, when you're willing to sacrifice one minority group to the fire, then you'll be willing to do it again. They justified letting the Palestinians burn in order to protect the queer and trans people. Now they're justifying letting trans people burn, because in the name of the greater good, we have to make sure to protect everyone else.
Centrist Dems are the "first they came for..." poem in human form.
That IS the banality of evil that poem warns about. At every stage of fascist empowerment, a lesser of two evils argument can be made for letting one minority group or another have its rights taken away. Pretty soon all the minority groups are dead, because at every stage you thought sacrificing them made sense for the greater good.
are you suggesting I should have done a write-in? and that he was still meaningful opposition? fuck off.
First, you were never asked to vote for Biden last year. He literally never appeared on any ballots. Not a single person voted for Biden last year. So your entire point here is fucking moot.
Second, nobody is asking you to get married to who you vote for. You aren't required to support every word they've ever said. You aren't even required to support a single thing they do. American elections are a binary choice between the lesser of two evils. That's how they've ALWAYS been. You pick the least bad of two bad options, and Harris was objectively less bad than Trump in every degree. If your candidate wins, you get to work fighting against the lesser evil that defeated the greater one. I've been voting for 21 years now and every single election I had to hold my nose and vote for someone I didn't like because the other option was worse. This election wasn't about you. Get over yourself and grow the fuck up.
Third, electoral politics shouldn't define your life or even the extent of your participation in politics. It's a single theater of political action among MANY. I was out there before the election in the streets protesting the Democratic ticket's support of the Gaza Genocide. I also recognized that putting Harris in the White House over Trump would have been better on MANY other issues (women's healthcare, trans rights, the economy, jobs for federal workers, cost of living, etc, etc). I'm not so petty and self-centered to delude myself into believing one single issue was the only thing that mattered in the entire election.
Nobody is saying Democrats are great or even good. They fucking suck. We don't have good options in our electoral politics. We never have. That's why you need to engage in other forms of politics, too. Your entire "I couldn't vote for genocide Joe" bullshit is just self-indulgence. It's childish.
Where is your personal red line? Do you even have one?
Seriously. I'm asking you. What is your personal red line? What would a Democrat have to do to not get your vote, assuming the Republican running against them was a little worse?
Do you have one? Is there ANY behavior you won't accept, so long as a Democrat is a little bit better than the opposing Republican?
Or would you happily endorse a literal Holocaust as long as it was a bipartisan affair?
I don't see voting for one of the two in a binary as an endorsement of everything that candidate stands for. You're acting as if not voting sends a message. It doesn't it's literally the opposite of sending a message. It's refusing to have a voice at all. You're not condemning the system by not voting. You're saying you're perfectly OK with either of the two outcomes. I'm saying I'm not OK with one of them.
You're also speaking as if voting is the only possible way to engage in politics. It happens twice a year (in years with both primary and general elections). What are you doing the other 363 days? Are you just sitting by and letting whatever happens happen?
For me, personally, voting is an EXTREMELY minor part of my engagement with politics. I also participate in protests regularly. Ever since my early 20s (late 30s now) I've made a point of attending at least 1 protest every month. For the past 8 years, it's been closer to weekly than monthly. I donate a lot of money to different groups, mostly a local abortion fund and bail fund for activists, but I change it up when the need is there. I make food for a local Food not Bombs and help serve when I can (although that's infrequently due to my work schedule and the fact I have kids).
This is not an exhaustive list of my political activities, but it helps paint the picture.
Tell me, if your vote is so direly precious that you're unwilling to give it away to the lesser of two evils in a binary choice where "none" is not an option, how do you engage with politics? What do you do to help improve the lives of the people in your community? Or are you just trying to shitpost a revolution into happening?