this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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Trump is even worse than Biden on Gaza. I get trying to push Biden to do better, but let’s all keep the truth in mind. The actual truth, not the click bait bullshit horse race covered by the media.
Electoral pressure is literally the only lever we have to push Biden to do better. There's no other way. Biden's team is making a bet that we aren't serious and that they can just use Trump to hold us hostage in the party.
So! No ceasefire, no votes. If this war is still going on by November, and Netanyahu has been saying it will, I will not vote for Biden.
It's so easy to earn our votes! Why is Biden sabotaging his own campaign?
The trouble you guys face is Trump is worse.
Just on Israel-Palestine alone, Trump is the person that recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital city. If that isn't informative about his attitude about the situation...
Yeah, and that's Biden's fault, not the voters. He is letting an unqualified candidate beat him because he won't stop funding the war on Gaza.
If the choices are genocide lite and genocide deluxe, the only answer is for America to be defeated. MLs call it revolutionary defeatism.
Don't know why you have downvotes, this is sound logic, trump will embolden Israel even more while fucking up a lot of other important stuff e.g. Ukraine
While I have serious issues with Biden on Israel, he really has no ability to force a ceasefire. (Short of sending US troops in to enforce it, and that would be a terrible idea.).
Biden could pull all US support for Israel, but that would create a power vacuum that China or (more likely) Russia would gladly fill. It still wouldn't end the genocide, but it would put a wedge between Iran and the Palestinians. (Iran is their only powerful ally.)
Biden's rhetoric needs to change, and we need Israel to feel some real heat for their actions, but the US doesn't have Israel on a leash.
Did you forget about the UN Security Council votes? The ones the US ruined?
No, that is one of the serious issues, but I also know that UN security council votes would make no difference whatsoever.
How do you know that? It's probably the best chance we have, surely?
Resolutions against further settlement were completely ignored. Ultimately, UN resolutions rely on a willingness to use military force if necessary. There is no interest in that, and there shouldn't be. That would certainly spread the conflict.
There actually was a successful vote on humanitarian aid, and that aid is being largely blocked by Israel.
It seems like the problem is with UN security council resolutions not being enforced, so why make it look like America is the issue? Why not give it the best chance? Hell If you cared about the well being of your fellow human beings (controversial I know) wouldn't you be approving resolutions and then fighting to get them implemented? If they ignore it you can fucking sanction them. Use it to justify stopping arms sales and aid.
America cannot escape their responsibility for this, IMO. If they'd voted for a cease fire and Israel had ignored it, it would be Israel's fault. The way it stands America shares the blame, whether they like it or not.
As I mentioned, the best chance for the US to influence Israel is for it to not take an adversarial role. It's like negotiating with a hostage taker. (I hate oversimplified analogies in foreign policy, but this one works really well). A hostage negotiator tries to sympathize with the hostage taker because it's the best way to get the hostages out safely. America has tried to thread the needle between putting pressure on Israel and remaining supportive. It hasn't had much success, but it's the best course open to us.
I am not of the opinion that moral considerations don't belong in foreign policy, but moral judgements like assigning "blame" can be antithetical to achieving moral ends. The second you label a foreign government as "genocidal" you lose all ability to influence them with anything but military force.
I actually agree with you that America gets a lot of the blame for what is happening but, most of the fault comes from things before October 7. I also fault Biden for a lot of that, and I think he has been far too over the top in supporting Israel publicly. What I think they are getting bad press for is the broad strategy of trying to restrain Israel while maintaining the relationship.
Thanks, I appreciate the thoughtful explanation.
I get that this may be the best way to approach it in most cases, but what happens when it doesn't work? As you said it hasn't been successful. In a hostage negotiation, if any attempts had been fruitless, they would send in a team to rescue hostages by force. Not let the negotiator keep fumbling while people were being killed.
Yeah I agree and imo this is deserved. Why is the relationship so important that it justifies undermining your own stated set of morals in such a public and humiliating way? I do not get it.
This happened recently through public statements:
Biden: two state solution is the only way
Bibi: nope
Biden: don't worry we can make it work
Bibi: no we can't, he's wrong
So why exactly do you want to be friends with this asshole again? It's like America is in an abusive relationship and nobody can convince them to leave
Anyone who starts a sentence with "you people" has likely got some morality issues of their own.
Foreign policy has to account for all the consequences of any decision, including counter moves. As a "friend of Israel" the US has some influence (less and less it would seem). From the outside we would have none whatsoever.
Trump is worse than Biden on anything and everything. But if any president can get away with supporting a genocide campaign, is this not the way they get away with it? By simply claiming it will ruin their campaign efforts?
It's sad ppl only read your first sentence and then are fully satisfied with whatever shit you throw on, as long as you don't specifically say 'Biden is really bad'
I think it's Biden's responsibility to not support genocide, he owes it to his voters, and if he wants to keep them, he needs to change.
A president has already gotten away with it. Trying to selectively punish Biden now is actually a bit of hypocrisy. We should have done it in the first place. But we largely got in that position because of people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton, etc.
Biden's moves are optically bad. But make a lot of sense as far as strategy goes. Traditionally. You have a much more powerful position to bargain as an ally than as an enemy. But that does not stop people like yourself from making hyperbolic claims.
Don't get me wrong. Eileen, libertarian and communist. I have no real investment in Biden. I'm simply intelligent enough to know that he or Trump are going to win. And that he is by far the better choice. Which you yourself said. You just want to make some example of him despite your own face etc.
Unfortunately, the Democrats keep going back to the well of "what are you going to do, vote for the other guy?" Their success on this has been hit or miss the last few cycles. In fairness, it's been a viable strategy in the past, if Democrats can get those few persuadable voters in the middle of the political spectrum to vote Democratic and not Republican, that's a net win for the Democratic candidate. But, that begs the question of "are there enough persuadable voters left to offset losses when parts of your base stay home?" With Biden's continued support for Israel's actions, it seems that their political calculus says, "yes".
However, we've seen this go both ways in the last few cycles. Clinton deployed the tactic in 2016 and commenters were out in force to brow-beat any of the deplorables who offered anything less than a full-thoated support of her turn. It got her the popular vote, but that has never mattered, she lost the election. The "vote blue no matter who" force was on full display again in 2020 and managed to eek out a win. And here you are again, ramping up for 2024. It's going to be interesting to see how it works out this time.
Biden in 2020 had the advantage of being somewhat unknown. Everyone knew him as Obama's Vice President and that provided him some of Obama's popularity. This time around, he's much more of a known quantity and he's going to be running on his own record. Brow-beating people with "anyone but Trump" seems less likely to work when voters may be looking at specific policies and actions which they find at odds with their beliefs. When Biden was more of an unknown, it was easy for voters to map their own views onto him. We see this with polls which include "generic Democrat/Republican" as an option. People map their own views onto the "generic" view and so are more supportive. When a candidate becomes a known quantity, support can drop off, as the voters know which areas they agree and disagree with a particular politician. In the same way, Biden's policies are now more understood by the voters and people may be less inclined to support him based on those policies.
Personally, I'm doubtful this sort of brow-beating is going to work this cycle. Biden's popularity isn't fantastic and he's too well known for people to map their views onto him. Moreover, responding to people being upset with his actions with a brow-beating seems like a poor response to peoples' legitimate issues. It seems more likely to convince them to disengage or push back even harder. Sure, what are they going to do, vote for the other guy? No, probably not, but they may also not show up on election day. And with the closely divided state of the US electorate, that might just be enough to swing things the other way.
Do you, as a group, though?
Every time someone posts an article about how it's a bad thing that Biden is actively contributing to a genocide, the top comment is Trump whataboutism.
Yes, Trump is much worse, both on Israel and in general, but that's not the fucking point!
Biden ain't doing shit. He's gonna go to Michigan and lie, then he's going to maintain the same policies the US has for decades. It's silly to think otherwise. And so it goes.
Except that the only two actual choices for the next 4 year cycle are Trump and Biden. Do that really us the point.
Putting your progressive politics focus on the president is a losing game, anyway. Praxis is local.
Wouldn't this energy be better invested in getting Biden to stop supporting the Israeli genocide so that his Arab and Muslim voters don't abandon him?
When it comes to American politics and actually affecting change, I think the energy is best invested in supporting progressive candidates from the bottom (local) up (national). Go to the primaries and vote for any candidate you can that is closer to your views if there are any. But when the time comes to vote for Biden, Trump, or abstain, anything other than voting for Biden is a vote for Trump, who is far worse in every conceivable way.
Anyone who doesn't vote Biden deserves trump.
Hey yo, bozo, you think Trump would be better?
I didn't realize the primary was over.
It's funny how that and the fact that the Democratic party has already, against it's own rules, removed all candidates other than Biden from the ballots in 10% of the States never gets brought up.
Instead we get a bunch of people posting in an attempt to shame people into voting for someone who supports genocide because 'what else are you going to do'
I wish the Democratic party acted like Trump was the existential threat we all recognize him to be.
So as long as he's marginally better than a deranged fascist rapist, criticism of him isn't allowed at all?
Fuck off with that authoritarianism bullshit!
I definitely feel like so many actual democrats are starting to show similar signs as MAGAts did. It's been there to an extent, but holy shit is it getting bad. Now it's either love him or you're a borderline terrible person.
On foreign policy the US remains a genocidal bully with questionable morals and alliances. But domestically the Democrats present a veneer of somewhat moral, inclusive values. So with the presented choice I would recommend to go with the seemingly moral guy and try to hold him accountable, rather than vote for the fascist maniac that acts the same domestically and foreign.
Just hope you get locally active to organize a stronger left for the future.
He's not my president. Can't do much but protest here and hold my own representatives accountable.
I can't fault anyone for not voting for a war criminal.
Um, what? How are you entirely unaware of the Trump administration's support of Saudi Arabia commiting genocide in Yemen while Saudi officials dumped loads of cash at Trump resorts?
Just for the records, the same Yemen genocide that Biden continued to support and the same Yemen that he is now directly bombing?
The Canadian Conservative party is the one that usually runs on "imagine/look at how bad the other guy would be" as a party platform. It's a bad look and a sign that you have nothing better. It's politicking for the sake of politicking.
It is a bad look and a sign of a lack of good options, but that's the situation.
Also, all Canadian parties run like that except for the Greens and the Bloc, and it's probably because they know they won't form a government