Just one more little reminder that American democracy is an illusion and the choice that most of us get is as meaningful as “coke vs Pepsi”.
Who are you supposed to vote for if you are against sponsoring genocide?
The Democrats think that supporting genocide will still leave them with enough daylight between them and the actual fascists of the GOP, but it isn’t going to make people run to the polls on election night and Americans deserve an actual choice.
I’m not sure how my idea will come across but here goes.
This Gaza conflict is complicated as F. I think most people agree with that.
Pretty much everyone that’s touched it has blood on their hands by this point. And everyone in the fallout has been hurt in some immeasurably painful way.
The US involvement multiples the complexity because there is evidently a proxy between Hamas and Iran, and the US is already in opposition to Iran in other ways.
The US is also in the position of throwing its weight around in many other conflicts at the moment.
Diplomatically, this US is walking a thin line all over the place between needing to show strength vs compassion. Using negotiating finesse vs being strong fisted.
Inside the US, our representatives ideally can think for themselves, but as a party they hopefully work as a team to represent the American best interests, vis a vis “the people.” Specifically, I mean the people don’t always know what they want or how to get there, nor do they educate themselves as a whole about every issue at play. Not to mention that international diplomacy issues are very often not shared with the public.
So, yes, the average human with a functioning soul wants to see a ceasefire yesterday. But what if there is something else at play that we don’t know about, which justifies not pressuring Israel to stop?
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic or serious. I’m being serious. I’d be happy to learn and discuss if you’re willing to reply with more than accusations.
As I understand it, the Hamas Charter says that Israel should not exist. At all. Attacking civilians as opposed to Israeli militants appears to reinforce that assesment. I’m not sure this meets the definition of genocide but telling your opponent they don’t get to exist seems to bark up that tree.
At the same time, Israel is sending missles into populous zones, which absolutely sucks, but isn’t that where Hamas attacks from and stores weaponry? I consent that I only think this because of what I’ve read. I have no idea if it’s really factual. Is Hamas using the Palestinians as a shield to further their goals? That doesn’t sound like symbiosis, it sounds like a parasite.
If it’s true, why is Hamas putting civilians in the line of fire by waging war and then locating their gear in such a location? That sounds a bit genocidal in the same way that cancer kills its host.
You should probably get your news from someplace other than israel if you dont want to sound like a propaganda speaker.
Hamas abusing civilians does not excuse israel intentionally slaughtering the same civilians, and you sound like both a propaganda mouthpiece and a fucking psychopath suggesting otherwise.
So, to answer my question, no. You dont have a justification for genocide. You happily believe the people doing the slaughtering are in the right, and you have no problem with the deaths of innocents.
Glad we cleared that up, you monster in sheeps clothing.
How do you reconcile the fact that Hamas explicitly does not want Israelis to exist anymore though? Does that not mean they intend to carry out a genocide?
You are batshit fucking insane. “We just want you to erase your entire cultural identity, submit to us, and become one nation with us after nearly a century of our people wanting to genocide you. It’s totally not genocide!”
So tell me, queermunist, what do you think would happen to you if you walked up to Hamas members in Gaza with a pride flag and told them you were gay?
Your homophobia aside, that’s exactly what the Israelis are doing. Also, strictly speaking, the conquering and elimination of a national government isn’t genocide. That requires the people to be murdered for being of that national origin. If they aren’t being murdered, there’s no genocide.
I’m sorry, what? My fucking “homophobia” for pointing out that people would be murdered for identifying as LGBTQ in a Muslim country?
You know nothing of suffering and struggle, and I wouldn’t want you to anyways. You have far more privilege and opportunity than others who came before you, despite the economic and social oppression we’re facing today. You take your privilege and access to modern technology, and you use it to be a completely uninformed, uneducated bigot.
People are thrown from rooftops in Muslim countries for being gay. And you have the fucking audacity to call me homophobic for pointing out that Muslims would kill LGBTQ people. You are every vile “snowflake” parody the rightwing says you are. You’re a fucking disgrace. Grow up.
I’m a Mexican-American atheist man who has sucked more dicks in my life than most women have. I live a couple miles from the bridge I slept under in the wintertime as a homeless kid because the Gospel Mission didn’t “take my kind”. I spent my days collecting enough bottles so I could buy a meal every day for my sister and I so we didn’t starve, because one day our mother decided she didn’t want to take care of us anymore and just left. So don’t you fucking dare strut around talking about how only you know what suffering is, you Zionist, genocidal, Muslim-hating, self-righteous piece of shit. You didn’t suffer through any shit countless other people have. The difference between you and I is that I didn’t let it turn me into a fucking shit stain of a human being.
Oh, we’re doing that now? Rejected by my family. Married to a bisexual. Trans. Have multiple genetic illnesses/disabilities. Long COVID. Pulled myself up by my own bootstraps.
Anyways, I have worked in Muslim majority countries for projects and saw first-hand just what they’re like.
I absolutely despise and hate fundamentalist Baptists who follow their holy book to the letter. And you know what else? I also absolutely despise and hate Muslims who follow their holy book to the letter.
Islam isn’t a fucking ethnicity dipshit. It’s a religion. Just like that Gospel Mission that didn’t “take your kind”.
You know nothing about Islam. Nothing about Muslim countries. And then you go around and call people you don’t even know homophobic for saying people with beliefs you don’t even know are homophobic. I could link to videos that would get me banned of gay people being executed and tortured by Muslims.
You’re pathetic. The only positive thing you’re doing today is you’re someone for me to vent at and troll.
The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.
A real hadith quote from Hamas' founding charter, Article VII (1988)
Let's be totally real here, for most of their short history Hamas has been deeply committed to carrying out a genocide against the Jewish people for a mix of reasons including politics, religion and race. Over the last 4-5 years Hamas have made an effort to moderate their language around this topic, but judging by recent events they have done very little to moderate their actions and ideology.
Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.
They oppose Zionism. In 1988 they were just responding to the Zionist propaganda they were being fed, that Zionism is synonymous with Judaism. Their positions have evolved. Also, honestly, the people that wrote that founding document are probably all dead. Being a member of Hamas in the Gaza Strip does not lead to a long life.
I reconcile it like I reconcile any other terrorist organization.
Theyre terrorists, dipshit, and the existence of terrorists doesnt justify slaughtering innocents, using white phos, bombing hospitals, bombing ambulances, murdering journalists, murdering the families of journalists, or starving the people who your bombs missed.
Do you grok that hamas isnt palestine? Do you understand that the existence of the taliban doesnt justify killing every single living thing in the middle east?
This is the line I’ve seen hundreds of times. It’s not complicated. They think by repeating their BS enough It’ll stick, because to republicans, it will
Only the ones filled to the brim with pro-Israeli and pro-colonialist propaganda agrees with you. You are either against white supremacist settler-colonialism or you’re not.
No, this is very productive… more and more people in the world are seeing the monstrosity the west has created in Israel - even USians are waking up to it.
You’re not bemoaning a lack of “productivity” - you are bemoaning the fact that the propaganda shielding Israel which has been preventing “productivity” for the last seventy years is starting to implode.
I know that the “United States of America” is the only country with the word “America” in its name. I know that the “United Mexican States” also has the words “united” and states" in its name – are Mexicans “USians” too?
I know that most Mexicans, by default, refer to people from the United States as “Americanos.” I know that most Canadians are quite happy not to be confused with the “Americans” from south of their border.
I know that people from the United States of America have been referred to as “Americans” for over 200 years. I know that when someone makes it a point to start calling someone else by a different name than the one that’s preferred, that person is usually pushing some outside agenda and should not be taken seriously in the conversation at-hand.
TL;DR: What does any of this have to do with your point about Israel and Gaza?
I don’t directly have a dog in this fight, and I could never hope to properly untangle the moral standing of each side. At best I can comment on what I see as the obvious righteous mess that it has become.
Those who are entrenched in their positions and have resorted to slinging labels or using pejoritaves don’t move others closer to their positions, they move them further. That is what I mean by unproductive.
But I can comment on why the elected American representatives may be letting calls go to voicemail in regards to a ceasefire. Since the beginning of time as we know it, the winner of a conflict writes the history book, and Hamas doesn’t have enough apparent support to emerge from this still controlling Gaza.
I can imagine an American calculus that history will blame Hamas for the unnecessary deaths, and another few months of not changing the stance on Israel’s strategy will not impact the rest of the course of world affairs in any other significant way.
The “marketplace of ideas” is a thoroughly debunked idea, Clyde - only the most desperate liberals cling to it these days.
the winner of a conflict writes the history book, and Hamas
The entire propaganda model that the US and Europe has spent untold treasure propping up for the last fifty years or so to protect their little white supremacist “fortress state” in the middle-east is falling apart right in front of our eyes… and there’s absolutely nothing that the (so-called) “west” can do to reverse that now.
This would not have happened were it not for Hamas’ attack.
They don’t get to write the history books in whatever way they see fit any more - those days are long gone. Any historian that pretends US hegemony in the middle-east hasn’t been significantly weakened due to the (so-called) “War On Terror” isn’t one that’s going to be taken very seriously.
In a fair world, I would agree with you. But in every conflict since the beginning of time, at least on this faulty rock careening through space, the wealthy are the winners. Every king became king because he controlled the most resources and squashed his opposers.
If the rest of the world hadn’t gotten involved I don’t think Gaza would have even made it this far.
I’ve never found this sort of argument compelling. Yes, it’s possible there’s things going on we don’t know about; and sometimes tactical and strategic necessities may require hidden actions.
Those actions still need brought to light as soon as it’s feasible to do so; and I struggle to imagine what sort of strategic necessity would require this sort of stance for more than a few months, let alone the years these stances have been in effect. Not to mention the difficulty of keeping something on this scale quiet for this long. At best, things are more or less as they appear - the alternative is there’s things they don’t want their electors to find out.
“Man, it’s too complicated… I don’t know… man… None of my business…”
That’s all that I’m getting from this. This is not the first time in history when people have turned a blind eye to a massacre because “it’s too complicated”.
Leadership of Hamas is in Qatar, money from Qatar was released through Israel by Bibi. So additional to this video showing how not complex it is, the Israeli leader wants Hamas in charge to make sure nothing peaceful happens in a joined Westbank and Gaza.
On the one hand, congressmen know that if they don’t back Israel unconditionally, they will be accused of being antisemitic, in league with Nazis.
On the other hand, Israel routinely violates human rights, it conducts an apartheid regime in the West Bank, it sponsors settlers whose actions clearly violate international law, and its conduct in Gaza looks more like genocide than it doesn’t. And it does all of that with US backing, despite US law forbidding the US from giving military aid to countries that …violate human rights.
So, if you recognize any of that, you’re a Nazi?
It’s so frustrating to know that our elected leaders are made to not recognize actual human rights violations, for fear of being accused of antisemitism even though Israel’s government is not the same thing as the Jewish people.
My social media is full of Jews pointing out that Israel’s actions goes against their faith, that they experience pain and shame knowing that Israel claims to do them in the name of Judaism.
Just once I wish American congresspeople had it in them to exhibit anything like moral courage.
Didn’t Biden already call for a cease-fire not long ago? The best he could do is pulling funding at this stage, putting boots on the ground would be an attack on the spiritual holy land of a variety of religious fanatics and against Zionist beliefs that gentiles should know their place, unless of course Ben himself called on Biden for some imaginary reason 🤔
We now have predator drones there as well. Our military is monitoring the situation and providing strategy research.
I believe the bombing damage has been done. Its leveled. Now its important to force the IDF to focus on Hamas rather than genocide, and that’s a decent pivot.
Is this a joke? If the IDF had any desire to even pretend that they were interested in protecting civilian life, they would obviously refrain from bombing civilian exit routes 24 hours a day, not 4. And even then, the actual point of this burning olive branch is obvious - the only option Israel offers to Palestinian civilians that isn’t certain death is the barely less certain death of fleeing, and after they flee, Israel will settle what remains, as they have done in Palestine for over 70 years.
The IDF has zero desire to protect Palestinian lives… that’s why a cease fire is absolutely not happening any time soon and why any amount of time paused to help Palestinians is an actually surprisingly big thing to get from them.
Let’s see how the strategy of ignoring calls from your base a year before a contested election that your opponent polls higher in key states works out for them. It feels like the DNC is trying to lose in 2024 right now.
Sweetie, we’ve already established the gridlock of ‘lesser evil.’ All democrats have to do to win is be slightly less worse than the republicans, which is incredibly easy.
Yeah, like how Hillary would have given massive tax cuts to the rich, ended Roe v. Wade with three extremist SCOTUS judges, and instigated a riot when she lost the election. Just as bad.
No she wasn’t. She would have been slightly less worse for the US only… for the rest of the planet, having a buffoon that was incompetent at neocolonialism was somewhat less worse.
Except that right now Trump polls higher than Biden nearly across the board in the battleground states. You’d like to think it should be an easy victory against someone with multiple ongoing criminal court cases, but Biden is just that bad of a candidate.
Let’s see how the strategy of ignoring calls from your base a year before a contested election that your opponent polls higher in key states works out for them. It feels like the DNC is trying to lose in 2024 right now.
the "vote for the lesser evil" crowd are an overwhelming majority and, they not only don't care that dems don't deserve your vote; but will use that overwhelming majority voice to blame you for enabling trump.
I think the crowd of apathetic voters is much larger than the “lesser evil” crowd. But the lesser evil crowd sends their hate towards third party voters rather than the apathetic.
Okay, but the fact is there are only two viable choices and every vote that isn’t for Biden supports and enables Trump. That is true despite Biden being terrible. And he’s nowhere near as terrible as Trump. Read about Project 2025. People need to know about it. That is what Trump wants.
This election there actually could be 3 viable candidates. Both major parties have such awful candidates that RFK Jr is polling the highest a 3rd party candidate has in a very long time. They show Biden and Trump both in the 30s percentile wise and RFK Jr at 24%. The “protest vote” seems to get stronger and stronger.
It feels like the DNC is trying to lose in 2024 right now.
And this is new, how? It feels like they’re trying to throw every election. They never even bother to call out Republicans on their shenanigans and they spend a lot of time being like “We know the fascists passed these very fascist laws, but everything falls apart if we don’t take the obviously fascist laws they passed with the seriousness they deserve by enforcing those fascist laws. We have to play by these rules they’ve set that benefit them and harm us, because if we did that, it would be unfair and undemocratic.” (Conveniently ignores Republicans being unfair and undemocratic.)
Ehh. It’s more like… what other choice do you have? Don’t gotta outrun the bear…just the GOP.
This is why we need ranked choice voting.
Anyone who’s even brushed the surface of game theory knows fptp is the easiest to manipulate and a race to the bottom.
Why don't they just let the average uninformed and outraged voter set international policy, or answer the phone and calmly explain to them why they're wrong and go over the realpolitik intricacies of this conflict?
If discussing this matter on Lemmy has taught me anything. It's that some people are outraged, partisan, and cannot be reasoned with. It's no wonder they're letting it go to voicemail.
Yeah, what are you supposed to do when someone yells down the phone ‘i saw a meme and now I’m basically an expert on this so you have to do what I say or you’re evil!’ or ‘the joooos control the world bank and eat babies, we should be helping kill them!’
It’s a painfully complex situation with no clear solution and a lot of hard choices, pretending you have some clairvoyant power or simple answer just means you don’t even begin to understand the situation.
Honestly, yeah. From what I’ve heard about Congressional offices, they basically just count the number of people expressing an opinion for/against a particular issue, and report that to the congressperson. Mail, calls, voicemail, emails, everything.
Why should they be expected to have the manpower to answer every single one?
Because they are expected to consider the opinions of their constituents, and as an elected representative and they are supposed to representour interests, not theirs.
To be able to functionally listen to your constituents, yes, you need the staff to be able to do it.
You think that listening to and transcribing voicemails somehow takes less time than taking a call? Pro-tip, they take about the same amount of time.
I mean, with that attitude, why have any staff at all? Just let it all go to voicemail and never read any of those thousands of emails from constituents! Fuck 'em! Fuck representative democracy, amirite?
computers can transcribe the voice mail messages much faster and more efficiently than an intern can answer the calls and deal with each one individually.
that is, of course, with the assumption that they actually do that.. and don't just hit DELETE ALL or let the voice mailbox 'fill up'.
Agreed. Elected officials need to be reduced to figureheads who craft legislation and whose voting power on legislation is removed and given to the people.
When legislation is introduced, it should be in a Wiki format and with logins tied to your voter registration so only registered voters can comment and edit the Wiki.
All final edits will be attributable directly to who wrote them and version control would be the standard for the documents.
The final text and vote should be with individual voters here in the 21st century.
Honestly, that’s not perfect either. Switzerland has had direct voting for a very long time. They also stopped women from getting the right to vote until 1971 through that direct voting.
Jesus that would be scary, I know here in the left echochambers it feels like we’re the only people that exist but the reality is there’s millions of people who have strong opinions about wacky things and they’re incredibly easy to manipulate through a few social media posts.
Look at how many people know basically nothing about this situation but are completely sure it’s a very simple matter - A dozen bad memes and we’d be at war with Cony 2012 or banning funding NASA or some bullshit.
I don’t understand why it’s not considered harassment of an elected official when they are doing that.
Calling a few times, sure no big deal, but a thousand times for each person? That’s fully in the territory of harassment and abuse.
You shouldn’t be rewarded for that behavior by fucking giving in to it.
Especially when rewarding them is saying “Okay, because you harassed us so much we’ve decided your opinion matters and we’ll actually do something about this issue.”
Politicians have armies of statistics and pollsters to study people's opinions and feedback.
They carefully choose a demographic groups they choose to appeal to, and they pick issues that will allow them to capture enough people who will begrudgingly support them as possible.
They don't need the 1500th phone call saying the exact same thing as the last 1400 to understand who they're representing and what their opinions are.
There are times contacting your representative in this way is important. When your road is fucked up or your local company is doing something they shouldn't and nobody in the media or on the internet is talking about it.
Or sending a letter, answering a poll, so that their data people can sit and count them to figure out what they need to do in the next election cycle.
There are times contacting your representative in this way is important. When your road is fucked up or your local company is doing something they shouldn’t and nobody in the media or on the internet is talking about it.
The representative is very well aware of what's going on in Israel and is very aware of the protests and the opinions people have about it. You're not informing them, and you're not actually contributing anything by spamming them with phone calls about it.
And if you want to see literal genocide, let the Palestinians rule "from the river to the sea". What they do to the Jews will make isis look like children in terms of their cruelty.
So that justifies genocide? Because just over half have been terrorized enough to not be willing to forgive?
Well, advocating for actual explicit genocide and oppression certainly makes one's cause seem less noble. I was pointing out that Hamas aren't the only ones who want Palestine, "from the river to the sea." It's a popular Palestinian sentiment. Perhaps that's related to why calls for cease fire are going to voice mail.
One can make a case that Israel is also performing a genocide, but they themselves deny that it is. I think it's more accurate to say that Israel is under attack by and defending itself from a belligerent monoethnic nation. It's a big stretch to claim that this makes defense against it genocide. If wiping out Arabs were their motivation and not pacifying a belligerent nation they would be behaving very differently. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab with full rights, after all.
Just send out a form letter response, geeze! How hard is it really to ignore your constituents effectively? I’ve been receiving form letter responses for decades now, it’s not hard guys! You don’t even have to functionally address any points made by your constituents, just shit out a form letter with a loose connection to the ideas presented and you’re good.
The number of times an elected official has made it clear that my opinions mean fuck-all to them is extremely high.
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