I’ve been on the receiving end of names such as “Genocide Lover” and man is that just exactly what I wish my Dad who went to get cigarettes and never came back would have called me before he left. I agree with you. People for some damned reason seem to be stuck.
The Genocide sucks balls.
Trump sucks balls.
Trump + Power = Genocide Ball Sucking on a whole new level
Biden sucks a bit less balls, though would suck far less if he stepped up and actually condemned the Genocide properly. Currently, Biden’s big balls are on fire.
Like, none of this situation is good. Most of it is malicious and evil on too many levels, and faaaar more complicated than the majority of us realize. At the end of the day we do have three significant immediate problems:
- Ukraine and Putin
- Gaza and the Genocide
- Trump and the GOP
We CAN focus on all of these and it doesn’t have to be to the exclusion, or support/lack-thereof, of the others. Problem is, every time you say “Shit’s bad and this Genocide is evil, vote Biden for the love of God.” Someone comes screaming in with a, “BIDEN?! YOU SUPPORT GENOCIDE?!” and you can’t get a sideways word in.
I think a lot of it is this weird parasocial thing where it’s like you have to “support” a politician to vote for them. With very rare exceptions I don’t “support” any US politician, like I’m friends with them. I just want to get as good an outcome as I can for me and the other people in the world, and I think that’ll come from a combination of choosing better outcomes within the system that’s presented, and working outside the system to try to change it to introduce as much actual democracy into it in the long run as is possible.
I personally think the alternative perspective is a weird one, where politicians and policies are monolithic and unmovable, and challenging them necessarily means damaging the entire system. I was always taught that the strength of democracy was its enabling of negotiation, but you’re suggesting that there’s no negotiation to be had at all.
I think proactively committing to voting for a morally abhorrent candidate (a candidate promoting a morally abhorrent position, if you prefer) is less than submissive, it’s actually giving up the only possible leverage you might have had in order to accept a reality that hasn’t happened yet.
It’s absolutely a choice you are making, and even if you’d feel better if that didn’t make you guilty of ‘supporting’ genocide, i think it’s kind of self-evident.
I think proactively committing to voting for a morally abhorrent candidate (a candidate promoting a morally abhorrent position, if you prefer) is less than submissive, it’s actually giving up the only possible leverage you might have had in order to accept a reality that hasn’t happened yet.
I talked about this - withholding your vote to put pressure on Biden and communicating to him effectively that that’s what you’re doing makes perfect sense to me. I linked to the Ralph Nader article where he talks about doing that.
If I thought Biden read Lemmy and would read my comments and react differently in Gaza, would I do my comments differently, so as to avoid taking the pressure off him that he’s currently feeling? Yeah, maybe. Probably. I don’t think that’s the reality, but if I thought that, I probably would do my comments differently.
I’m just saying how I look at the election. Unless Biden had some sort of mental break that made him start acting worse than Trump in terms of what he’ll do with power, I’m planning on voting for him. If I thought lying about that would create a positive impact in some way, then yeah, maybe I might. IDK. Maybe not. I definitely wouldn’t be as vocal about how ok a job he’s doing, yeah.
Proactively committing to not voting for preservation of American democracy and prevention of catastrophe around the world, because Netanyahu started a genocide and Biden hasn’t caused a revolution in American statecraft by opposing it for the first time in history, doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, though. Why is the genocide in Gaza a red line but preventing a genocide in Ukraine, or saving a million American lives from the next pandemic, or mitigating climate change (to whatever extent we even still can) moving the needle away from billions of lost lives in the not-too-distant future, why aren’t those red lines?
It’s absolutely a choice you are making, and even if you’d feel better if that didn’t make you guilty of ‘supporting’ genocide, i think it’s kind of self-evident.
It seems kind of weird to get all amped up about how great a job you’re doing at not supporting genocide, by doing something that endangers Palestinians specifically but also apparently makes you feel better. I think I linked somewhere to a comment from someone who claimed to be Palestinian American who actually specifically asked Americans not to do this (use his dead relatives as justification for their political stance which was going to endanger him much more along with many of his still living relatives). It’s on bestof if you didn’t see it.
Yours is probably the correct take, or near enough. The U.S., on a sociocultural level, tends to take sides. It’s nurtured into us. Sports is arguably the biggest reason, though throw in the news, social commentary, and a bit of high divorce rates, amongst other reasons, and you’ll have yourself a cake split down some middle. While far more complicated than this simple explanation, the reality is we are divided. This division makes it really difficult to want to agree with someone who doesn’t take your exact stance. Whatever reason justifies such firm footing on shaky ground is further falsely reinforced by those who exist just to rabble-rouse, 2024 Digital Digger Edition; “Our Words Harm”.
It’s become difficult to look at comments stuck in the social node of Biden=Bad or Bust in good faith, because they often don’t discuss and instead tend to yell.
Which really is sad, because we do need to come together.
I’m not holding hands with a Nazi, and I’m not voting for someone who is doing a genocide. If that makes me a divisive asshole, so be it.
