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Bernie Sanders calls war in Gaza a "genocide"
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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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There is a big narrative that loves to pick off the left-est of the left people in the US government, and come up with various bullshit reasons to criticize them.
You'll never hear this kind of argument applied anywhere else. Like, if Beto O'Rourke said Gaza was a genocide, you wouldn't see all these Lemmy comments saying "TOOK YOU FUCKING LONG ENOUGH YOU PIECE OF SHIT" or whatever. When that handful of countries said they wouldn't do sporting events with Israel, I didn't see anyone commenting "YEAH WHERE WAS THIS TWO YEARS AGO WHERE ARE THE FUCKING WAR CRIMES CHARGES" or anything like that. The extensive nitpicking is only aimed at people like AOC and Bernie who are significant leftist voices in government.
If you want to know what Bernie's been actually saying about Gaza, this is it:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uVDPXtnTXUw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFhcSlrJcAU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dd4cg-t8j8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2_AWLQ4gk4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBZreokpA_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRrHfsqg990
And so on. He's been doing what most of Lemmy would like to see someone in the US Congress doing: Yelling about Israel, what a fucking horror it is, and trying to stop US military aid. This extensive nailbiting about him calling it "ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide" is just going to get smoothly replaced by these users with some other reason to nailbite about him, definitely not with any enthusiasm or support for him. I guarantee it.
Support for genocide is not a 'bullshit' reason to critisice someone.
You absolutely would. But it's an verifiable counter-factual anyway, because Beto hasn't said that.
I fucking did.
I know damn well what he's been saying, and it has disgusted me. He literally included outright lies about how many people were killed on October 7th in the statement where he called Gaza a genocide
Mostly he's been doing his best to blame Netanyhu alone and let Israel off the hook, he has also always made sure to condemn Hamas and October 7th more strongly than the Israel's genocide.
Liberals have no principles and operate purely out of political convenience, as such, they can't imagine people actually sincerely holding a firm position. "leftists are criticizing Bernie for his zionism, even though he would make a useful political ally? That doesn't make sense, they must be lying about their actual beliefs."
I feel like you guys have Donald Trump's unerring instinct for just having a wrong take about everything by habit, just from the opposite direction.
Like if Zombie Che Guevara got elected to US congress, you'd all of a sudden be freaking out about how PROBLEMATIC he is on trans issues and how he BETRAYED Fidel by not condemning the CIA on points 6-10 when he condemned the CIA on points 1-5.
Notice how all you have is completely unfalsifiable counterfactuals and a complete inability to understand being motivated by actual principles rather than cynical realpolitik
Yeah my bad I should have sent some YouTube videos or linked to the text of some bills or something lol. I could have asked questions of the people I was talking to about what the factual details of what they were talking about were, I could have done a lot of things. I am sure they never would have just evaporated or refused to answer the factual questions I was asking, I am sure we could have come to an understanding since everyone involved in this conversation is super open to factual conversation
I feel bad now for just insisting super hard that Bernie's a GOOD guy, that was a bullshit approach
I'm done now, there is no point to this, it has been enjoyable chatting with you though. Have a wonderful day
Edit: This is what I'm talking about, I already gave the Bernie-betrayed-the-Palestinians gang an abundance of a chance to prove their case and they just wandered in circles yelling about how they were right.
So once again you're just damning people by making up unfalsifiable counterfactuals.
People are going to criticise Sanders when he says and does things that deserve criticism. Once again, you have a complete inability to understand being motivated by actual principles rather than cynical realpolitik
Feel free to answer the unfalsifiable counterfactual where I asked when Bernie Sanders had voted for aid to Israel, and quite a few times the person who had said that he had, changed the subject or started yelling or pretended not to understand or abruptly fell silent. I really look forward to you helping educate me on this, since it's all just my mistaken ness and you guys are the ones with the super-strong grasp on the facts.
What the fuck are you talking about? You understand that different people are different people right? Don't fucking try to vicariously reiterate arguments you're having with other people with me, asshole.
Yeah! Start yelling and cursing, that's always fun. Who could forgot Lincoln's famous debate with Stephens featuring his immortal words "Don't fucking try to vicariously mischaracterize slavery with me, asshole"?
I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here, but sure:
Are you saying you don't know of a time when Sanders voted for aid to Israel?
Do you know of a time he voted or introduced a bill to cut off aid to Israel? Did that happen? I'm still trying for you to educate me, outside of the realm of unfalsifiable counterfactuals. Maybe you can help me understand.