We are constantly told that solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing poor and working class people in the U.S. do not exist. Meanwhile, billions taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the genocide of Palestinians.
That very money could have ended homelessness in the United States.
Money for our needs, not the U.S.-Israeli war machine!
By all means, vote independent in state and local elections. We need more choices than a two-party system offers. If the candidate seem qualified, then help new parties establish themselves. Once they build enough followers to make a difference, we can start electing senators. Then the presidency becomes a serious option.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any third party candidates with a realistic chance of winning. The only responsible thing we can do for now is choose the lesser of two evils.
This is not about winning. Putting votes on third parties is a long term investment. It directly shows both evil parties they are missing out on votes.
Votes they would have had if they changed their agenda.
Rewarding a “lesser evil” for not appealing to left wing voters will teach them they need to keep doing evil because that is what makes them win.
Real human beings could suffer because of your decision, but apparently that’s fine, as long as YOU are heard. That’s the kind of selfish hypocrisy we’re supposed to be fighting.
real human beings are already suffering, both abroad due to the genocide and endless wars our country funds, and also at home where people are condemned to the slow deaths of poverty and homelessness. you are privileged enough that the suffering has not reached you yet, but it will. I would argue that the selfish hypocrisy here is voting to preserve your own comfort at the cost of the countless people suffering that you can’t see.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any third party candidates with a realistic chance of winning. The only responsible thing we can do for now is choose the lesser of two evils.
I don’t know anyone who thinks this is about winning. Everyone knows their third party vote isn’t going to result in a win for their candidate, and their candidate also knows this, and they know their candidate knows. When you lecture someone on what they already know, all you do is annoy them. You’re not going to get far with them if you don’t understand what their reasons really are. I can’t tell you; you’ll have to ask them.
One reason for some, that I think you can easily understand, is that unless you live in a swing state, it costs nothing to vote left of genocide. There is no downside, and it may make the Democratic party sweat enough to move slightly left. The party isn’t going to move left if they know you’ll always vote blue no matter who: all that does is make you a reliable and politically irrelevant punching bag.
Swing states aren’t the only states that matter. Also, states “flip”, surprising even experts.
Do you understand how incredibly privileged your stance is? You’re willing to let a horrible person take control of the country just so you can make a point.
Also, states “flip”, surprising even experts.
Everyone also knows that states flip.
Do you understand how incredibly privileged your stance is?
Are the undecided Palestinian-American voters whose families and friends are being slaughtered by the current administration also incredibly privileged?
I wonder if Claudia should rebrand their logo (that they have in the bottom right hand corner of OP) to say something like “*swing state? Vote Harris”
There’s no way she wants 45 to become 47. So she must have some guilt about marketing herself and Karina where a swing state voter might accidentally help get a bad man elected.
(I don’t know anything about her but I’m trusting she has her heart in the right place and is alarmed at all the same things the average Lemming is)
PSL is a Marxist Party. They believe revolution is necessary, and despise the Democrats and Republicans alike. They want their voters to vote in swing states to advertise their party platform and delegitimize the failure of the electoral system in general. They aren’t pulling punches because, like all Marxists, they believe the Democrats are unacceptable as well as the Republicans.
I understand your confusion. The campaign names at the bottom are what set me off. Candidates are taking advantage of people’s anger over the genocide in Palestine and using it to siphon votes. It irritated me, so that’s what I responded to.
The responsible thing to do is to mitigate the damage.
Genocide is inevitable regardless of which candidate wins. I’m not happy about that, but that’s the situation we’re in. The less awful thing to do is pick the candidate who will protect women and immigrants. I am not willing to sacrifice their well being in order to make a political statement.
Genocide is never inevitable. It says a lot about the US’s supposed “democracy” that you think it is.
You should be using your voice to pressure Democrats to change their stance on genocide, not shaming voters into becoming complicit in the genocide. This is the one time you have any power and if you back down now, it will not end. You are a coward if you continuously put yourself above the project of ending American empire.
Either candidate who has a real chance of winning endorses genocide. One hates millions of Americans; the other doesn’t. I don’t understand how siding with those millions means I’m putting myself “above” them. The accusation of cowardice is laughable.
Most of the aid is in the form of weapons, not raw dollars. Something tells me that a homeless person wouldn’t have much use for a THAAD air defense system
Huh? The money is going into the monopolies manufacturing the weapons at a 500% price for the government to send them. If you send them away you have to spend to make more of them (101 war profiteering basics).
Exactly. Just one minor nuance, Much of these weapons were developed and stockpiled years ago, sometimes a decade or more before any current conflict. The twisted logic becomes: since the weapons are already made, they must be used to justify the expense, or it’s seen as waste. What’s even messier is the possibility that these crises and wars are sometimes invented or escalated just to ‘spend’ the stockpile. It’s really disturbing to me, lol.
If you’re in a poorly made boat that has a hole in it with two other people…
And you are all actively sinking in that faulty boat, about to die in the middle of the ocean…
And one of the people states they will make more holes so you all drown…
And the other wants to work to keep the boat floating enough to get to shore, but not to your ideal…
Who do you help in that moment, or do you fold your hands and sink on principle? And you understand that sinking is not a moral victory here, because you’ve effectively supported the person who wanted to make more holes and sink the boat.
If you don’t get to shore, you won’t live to attempt to sue that horrible boat company to hold them accountable and keep others from using their faulty boats. And if you don’t help the person bailing out water, the person making more holes will kill you all with less effort.
The “people” above are to represent general philosophies of the two “sides” in this discussion, not insightful candidates. There is no option to truly stay neutral here, direct action or willful inaction, both have impacts that you are responsible for.
What do you do?
And you are all actively sinking in that faulty boat, about to die in the middle of the ocean…
And who does this represent in your scenario?
This post, at this time, is very obviously pointed at influencing the US election. This analogy represents the entirety of the US population eligible to vote in that election and the two dominant political parties in the US as a country with two party politics - a flawed degradation of the system originally designed to be sure, which is a separate conversation you can have, but there is an objective truth that one of two parties will win this election. Period.
That objective truth acknowledged, there is no neutral or third option here, regardless of how hard some may try to convince themselves otherwise. You have no moral high ground in the middle or to the side, you’ll either vote for assured destruction or you’ll vote for a chance at stopping it. You missed your chance to fundamentally shift our political structure the 4 years, and 200+ years, prior. So now we come to the table as adults, get Harris in as the better option, and then as soon as she’s sworn in and has the power to do so, we fill the streets in protest and demand the immediate end to this.
trump and his people have literally talked out loud about how great the “beachfront property” will be for Israel once they annihilate Gaza and the Palestinian people. There is no maturity in the false vitriol and attempts to solicit votes for trump/stein/no vote (which are all the same enthusiast vote for trump and for the assured destruction of every last Palestinian person.
This post, at this time, is very obviously pointed at influencing the US election.
Criticizing a genocide doesn’t automatically mean someone’s trying to influence an election, especially considering that it been constantly criticized for over a year.
trump and his people have literally talked out loud about how great the “beachfront property” will be for Israel once they annihilate Gaza and the Palestinian people.
If both political parties geopolitical goals align with Israel, what exactly leads you to believe this is meant to influence the election? It’s not telling you to vote for stien, or trump.
Maybe if people didn’t go out of their ways to shield any level of criticism of their representatives we might have a more functional democracy, and maybe there would be less kids dying in Gaza.
More people should play Metal Gear Solid 1-4. Governments don’t exist to “help” people, they exist to expand their influence and ideally take over the world. Us civilians are meat for the meat grinder, and at best, mindless drones to tax to fund the meat grinder.
Depends on what class is in control, this is true for dictatorships of the bourgeoisie.
Biden just wants to see more dead children
When did we go from “oil companies and tech oligarchs want to exercise their influence over governments to clandestinely achieve greater wealth” to “THE PRESIDENT IS A MONOLITHIC DICTATOR THAT DECIDES ALL FOREIGN POLICY UNILATERALLY”?
I don’t know about all that, but I do believe he has been captured by the MIC/Corporate influence and has no choice or control at all. But, I might just be naive in my thinking, lol.
Biden? No. Here’s him in 1982 wanting to kill women and children:
Begin said he was shocked at how passionately Biden supported Israel’s invasion when Biden “said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.”
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-israeli-invasion-lebanon/
