Sorry, to be clear, in my edit I meant if both sides cut US military aid to Israel, not aid in general. And yeah cutting off USAID is horrifying. I don’t think the scale is the same as the genocide in palestine (it’s a lot less money, and I think that money spent buying bombs is probably more effective at killing than money buying aid is at saving lives, but I may be wrong about that), but no doubt that’s one major difference. There are lots of differences, and I don’t deny they matter. I just deny they matter as much as the agreement between the parties to help israel exterminate Palestinians.

I’m also not convinced Harris wouldn’t have us invading Iran all the same; she was extremely hawkish on Iran. Just go look at what she was saying in 2024.

I also don’t see any reason to think Palestinians would have been better off under Harris. Biden gave way more to Israel than Trump has (again, granted, he had more time to do so…i just don’t see any reason to think it would ever go down). Maybe bibi and putin “feel empowered,” and we’re just gonna vibes that into assuming it’s actually worse? IDK vibes don’t make guns go bang, bullets do, and it’s the bullets that I think are the same.

And as for how it helped; it hasn’t yet. If the democrats announce that they’re changing course on Palestine, then win, then follow through I’ll feel like it’s made all the difference in the world. I’m not holding my breath, but that’s how it’ll help. As I said, i don’ think voting for the democrats wouldn’t have helped either, so I’d rather try for the option that has a chance.

Garfield doesn’t work. He hates Mondays because John has to work, and he loves John <3

I’d love to be more than a single issue voter, but yeah I think that issue is completely overriding. I guess i’m a single-issue vote-withholder. And again, I’m not judging anyone who thinks otherwise, or are single-issue voters for the environment or whatever. I just object to being told I’m the problem when I’m not the one arming a genocide.

e: on reflection I’m not really sure that’s right, though, in that if the republicans cut aid to nothing and the democrats cut aid to a thousand dollars, I wouldn’t go vote for the republicans. It’s not that it can’t be overridden inherently or something…its about the scale. The scale is what makes it so overriding.

I don’t mind the sources, it’s got a sprinkling of schadenfreude!

Is that forward motion? Looks more like walking in a circle to me, and like the focus is absolutely not on the suffering of other human beings. Like…bandying about how much we reference god or not while we fund the extermination of palestinians.

If they win without changing, why would they change? The Democrats have shown us over and over that if they win, they take it for granted. When they win they think “well I guess I could scooch a little further right.” Look I’m not saying they gotta guillotine the leadership (though that would be welcome and might in reality be required for my much more reasonable line in the sand), i’m just not going to vote for them until they stop arming a genocide.

So refreshing to see someone so sensitive and sensible <3

Yeah guys, he’s just a history buff! He likes the knights templar for ordinary not fascist reasons. It’s not his fault if, as a white cop in Hamilton, you jump to conclusions about how he displays symbols that…heck, they pre-date the Nazis! That’s why it would also be fine for him to have a swastika on the car. Maybe he’s just into tibetan culture! Oh, it’s clearly the-nazi one, rotated, on a white circle with a red background, from a nazi store? Well maybe it’s the only one he could find, okay? Look the nazis appropriated that symbol. Surely it’s more likely that he just likes tibetan culture…surely!

“When concerns are raised, we respond without delay and take appropriate action. We recognize that matters like this can impact public trust, and safeguarding that trust remains a top priority for our Service,” Penman said.

Oh good, don’t worry guys, the police guillotined the fascist in question. Wait what?

She said the service will be working with Perry’s Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University in April to provide “education and training for our commanders.”

Perry said she agreed to provide the police with training around hate symbols “to enhance their capacity to respond to relevant incidents.”

Huh, I actually don’t think that’s appropriate action without delay.

Yes yes, it was hypothetical, but the Epstein Memorial War on Iran can absolutely spin out of control here. It’s not a very far-fetched hypothetical! I think we should “categorically rule out” involvement in the Epstein Memorial War on Iran.

Is it? Were the dems about to stop supplying bombs to Israel? Boy, news to me, I would’ve been pretty energized to work to help the dems win if I had known! You can see my confusion, given that Biden gave them an extra 18 billion and kamala told anti-genocide protesters to shut up. Is there like…any reason to think that things would have been different for palestinians, or is it just like…a vibes thing? …like the cheering?

Lol jesus…I know the speech at Davos was kinda bullshit, and even it was not like…anti-imperialist, it was just honest about imperialism and our participation in it…

But FFS it was nice enough bullshit to pretend to care about for a few months, no??

You’re very sweet, man. I really hope you keep at it and make the world a better place. If you want to call the ghouls running the democratic party voters (I’m sure they vote too), be my guest, but they’re not “the voters,” they don’t represent the voters, and they don’t listen to the voters. The voters don’t control the platform…they don’t even have a meaningful voice on the platform. No matter how many people show up to the meetings saying “we should not arm genocide,” the platform will not change. You will be asked to leave, and if you don’t leave you’ll be arrested. And if, by the grace of god, you take over a caucus, the DNC can and will simply ignore you.

I’m all for compromise and letting people have wins and doing politics. But not around genocide. We don’t compromise on that. It’s not “because I think it” it’s because of the tens of thousands of dead palestinians rotting in shallow graves with american bullets and shrapnel riddling their bodies.

People have approximately no impact on policy. You may be familiar with the Gillens & Page (2014) paper. It’s obviously a little long in the tooth at this point, but I don’t see any reason to imagine it’s less true now. Customers probably have more impact on the design of a car, because focus groups are actually trying to get info to make you buy the car rather than not buy the car. However politicians don’t care whether you vote or not, it’s just that if you vote they need you to prefer them just a little.

And the particular analogy here is between the Ford Pinto blowing up and the parties arming the genocide of palestinians. So no, we don’t have a mechanism to say whether we want that to be the policy, just like consumers don’t get to decide if the Pinto being dangerous is a design choice or not. I’m not sure how the coverup is relevant to the analogy. The point is that the customers/voters don’t have power to change the car/policy…so stop blaming them.

Anyway, the Ford case doesn’t help you see what I mean? Sure it’s an analogy, there are always all kinds of ways analogies don’t work, but the point is that I’m using it to point at a way it does work.

I mean…i’m only explaining why I will not vote for the Democrats if they don’t change. If they change, this kind of thing isn’t making non-voters, it’s drumming up potential energy. Like…if they changed their tune and said “if you vote for us, the genocide of palestinians will end, and if you don’t it will continue,” can you imagine how many people would turn up to canvas and make calls and all that? Like…if we could spend our weekends working to prevent a genocide in a clear and tangible way, you think we wouldn’t be out pounding doors? That would become the most important thing in my life, to get democrats elected.

I’ll stick with my answer on your other comment. I think these threads have gotten back to the same place.

I disagree that a non-vote in a solid blue state doesn’t matter. The democrats lost the popular vote. That’s NEVER happened. Nobody turned up. If the Democrats don’t see that that’s a problem they’re morons and they’re too conniving to be morons.

Okay, I slept on it, and I think this may help explain why I think it’s ludicrous to blame individual voters for not choosing the “lesser of two evils” when each of the “evils” is itself a moral agent. I’m sure you’ll find this analogy doesn’t fit your mental model, but it fits mine very well so if you’re trying to understand where folks like me are coming from (and I think you are), see if you can try it on for size.

Sophie has two children, Eva (8) and Jan (11), with the same life-expectancy. Eva is a sweet child, very kind. Jan’s a brat…a bit of a jerk, with a cruel streak. Anyway, two Nazis with guns are arguing “I am Ralph and I wish to kill your younger daughter. This is Dirk and he wishes to kill your older boy. You may choose!” Sophie chooses for Ralph to kill Eva, or Sophie refuses to choose and Ralph loses patience before Dirk and, kills Eva. Later, the hand-wringing liberals berate Sophie for not choosing to have the older daughter killed “Jan is a worse person and has five fewer years left to live, Sophie! It’s OBVIOUSLY the worse choice. Why would you choose R? How COULD you? I hope you live with that for the rest of your days! If you had chosen D instead, things would have been better.”

Does that illustrate my point? It’s obviously the nazis that are to blame. If either of them was decent they’d die trying to kill as many on their own side as possible, or at the very least fuck off and leave everyone alone. Blaming Sophie is absurd whether she chose or didn’t choose. The hand-wringing liberals are probably right, Jan is probably a shithead (hearing his mom acquiesce to the murder of his sister probably won’t have helped), and voting D probably would have been a bit better. But like…shut the fuck up, hand-wringing liberals? Maybe no children needed to be murdered, actually, and maybe Sophie’s choice is not something to focus on here?

I agree the democrats are splintered internally. i think they need to experience a crisis and hopefully some decent people can come out on top. I honestly couldn’t believe Trump 1 wasn’t a sufficient crisis…the ghouls at the top are resilient I guess…

Again, I’m not trying to be a jerk, and poo-poo your decision (or…hypothetical decision I guess, given that you don’t vote in teh US) to vote for democrats, but I think asking this may help you see what I’m talking about if you don’t: you wish the government would do something about palestine but will vote for them even if they don’t do something…so what good are your wishes?

I think it’s a bit silly to imagine Kamala wouldn’t have invaded Iran, she was vocally hawkish about Iran; she was always going on about how Iran was America’s greatest adversary and must be stopped at all costs and it would be her top priority. Oh she’s singing a different tune now, of course, but look for what she was saying in 2024.

Okay, I slept on it, and I think this may help explain why I think it’s ludicrous to blame individual voters for not choosing the “lesser of two evils” when each of the “evils” is itself a moral agent. I’m sure you’ll find this analogy doesn’t fit your mental model, but it fits mine very well so if you’re trying to understand where folks like me are coming from (and I think you are), see if you can try it on for size.

Sophie has two children, Eva (8) and Jan (11), with the same life-expectancy. Eva is a sweet child, very kind. Jan’s a brat…a bit of a jerk, with a cruel streak. Anyway, two Nazis with guns are arguing “I am Ralph and I wish to kill your younger daughter. This is Dirk and he wishes to kill your older boy. You may choose!” Sophie chooses for Ralph to kill Eva, or Sophie refuses to choose and Ralph loses patience before Dirk and, kills Eva. Later, the hand-wringing liberals berate Sophie for not choosing to have the older daughter killed “Jan is a worse person and has five fewer years left to live, Sophie! It’s OBVIOUSLY the worse choice. Why would you choose R? How COULD you? I hope you live with that for the rest of your days! If you had chosen D instead, things would have been better.”

Does that illustrate my point? It’s obviously the nazis that are to blame. If either of them was decent they’d die trying to kill as many on their own side as possible, or at the very least fuck off and leave everyone alone. Blaming Sophie is absurd whether she chose or didn’t choose. The hand-wringing liberals are probably right, Jan is probably a shithead (hearing his mom acquiesce to the murder of his sister probably won’t have helped), and voting D probably would have been a bit better. But like…shut the fuck up, hand-wringing liberals? Maybe no children needed to be murdered, actually, and maybe Sophie’s choice is not something to focus on here?

…is this a puff piece?

because every reader will think this is cool as hell.

I agree; organizing protests is “warm-up” organizing. It’s exercising your “resistance muscles.” it’s “building capacity.” Gotta do it!

All that said, I’m in the same boat as OP on this one lol, I also don’t know where to look for info.

So I should trust them more with power because they’re less competent and more out of touch than I think? Hahaha

FWIW I don’t expect the report says supporting Israel is the main or only factor, but there’s no way this report is not going to address the issue, if for no other reason than the huuuuge swing in Dearborn.

Yeah i heard that after posting this! I’ve also heard that archinstall is pretty user-friendly, really! Do you have any thoughts about that?

I remember you saying it might be easier to stick with Mint, which may very well be what i do!

Thanks for the reply

I never said anything like no one should vote for them period. I absolutely understand the impulse to vote for the democrats even in a solid blue state. I aint judging. I don’t like being told I’m bad because I won’t vote for someone who will fund a genocide.

And hey for downballot races I’m with you, there are some stellar options out there. There are some really cool people running for state and local offices.

Dear god if this conversation hasn’t been nuanced, I don’t know what is lol. Though I don’t think “I won’t vote for candidates that will arm a genocide” is an especially nuanced position. Frankly it’s wild that it’s even a contentious position.

I’ll tell you how it’s not on individual voters: individual voters don’t get to decide what the party platform is. The party does. It’s on the party. Their platform determines what they’ll (hopefully) do, but also whether people will vote for them.

By this logic, we shouldn’t blame Ford for the Pinto (dating myself). How could it not be on the individual customers? Customers purchase (they’re the ones that give Ford power!). Ford can do anything it wants with regard to the design of the Pinto, but it can’t buy the cars from itself. Ford can’t be responsible for each customer’s purchase, because it’s their choice to buy or not buy a Pinto. The responsibly necessarily lies with the purchasers, so if they fuck up so horribly that they blow up in a defective car, it’s very appropriate to blame them.

…er…anyway, no; car companies shouldn’t make dangerous cars, and political parties shouldn’t support genocide. They can choose to do or not do those things, and that’s their choice, not the choice of the individuals who have to deal with them.