Fact remains, not voting is basically is half a vote for Trump, and Trump is going to be MUCH worse for the citizens of Gaza.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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What is Biden doing which reduces harm?
He reduces harm by not doing whatever trump would be doing if he were elected last election.
He could be doing more to try and reduce harm or at least least to promote harm, but trump would have made it so much worse.
Just remember, trump could have been elected in 2020 and been in office the last few years instead while this was all going on. Does anyone think Palestine would be in a better position if that were the case?
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Oh look, another totally real account (awesome name by the way. Makes it easy).
Huh? I've been here longer than you.
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Not to be pedantic, but wouldn't making an endorsement make them no longer "Uncommitted"? Yes, Harris could and should be better on the genocide happening in Gaza, but "Uncommitted voters still uncommitted after not meeting with candidate" also isn't much of a story.
It's a pretty massive story considering that the uncommitted movement, which did the most to unseat Biden, wasn't given a voice at the convention.
If not for uncommitted, Democrats would have lost this long ago.
So to not come to the table, Harris waves the right to disavow knowing the consequences of ignoring the only movement in the US not interested the genocide of the Palestinian people (to be clear, the Democrats are an objectively pro genocide party, with minority elements of dissent).
So it's Harris's votes to lose. Its not like they are going to Trump, but it's an easy 0.5-1.5% of the electorate that she's leaving on the table.
This is just the same vibe-based reasoning but with sprinkles.
Firstly, was Biden unseated because of uncommitted? Or was he unseated because Democrat donors saw his poor performance during the debate and withdrew their support? Just because uncommitted exists, does not mean that they were effective.
Secondly, surely there's a non-zero number of people who support arming Israel. I freely admit that I haven't been following this conflict, but it doesn't seem much of an assumption to say that some votes would be lost if Kamala withdrew support for Israel. Would she lose more votes than she would gain? That certainly seems like a possibility.
Thirdly, withholding your vote, and convincing others to withhold theirs, is precisely what Russian and Chinese bot-farms want you to do. Well done.
There is no such thing as an "uncommitted voter" anymore. There are just voters who won't say they are committed because they are talking to someone they want something from. Come November, everyone will vote exactly as they would vote today, barring some extreme political tomfoolery, and honestly, even then, it probably won't change.
The only leverage you have as a voter is to not commit too early. Show that youre willing to support kamala no matter what, and she wont move an inch on her policies. But if polls show her starting o lag behind, regardless of how people will actually vote when push comes to shove, the maybe, just maybe, shell make some concessions, like not supporting genocide. All of these "never trump, blue no matter who, kamala girlboss power" voters are just throwing away the only chance you have to actually maybe sway things in a better direction.
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No point meeting them because what they want, the complete defunding of Israel, is a political impossibility.
They aren't going to listen to the reasons it's a political impossibility, so there's no point talking to them.
And here I thought they just wanted Israel to stop their genocide of Palestinians
Shit, I bet if they'd negotiated in good faith people would've been happy for them to just stop butchering the children. I'd personally be happy if they spares one child live for every one they choose to murder - but I'm just a bit more reasonable than most, I guess
That's not what they want of Harris. They honestly believe that if we stop funding Israel, the genocide would stop.
It wouldn't. Israel has never needed our help to commit war crimes, but you can't convince them of that.
If Israel doesn't need the free weapons that cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, then lets stop wasting the money.
Oh, I agree, we should have cut them loose decades ago, but here's why that won't happen:
- The pro Israel lobby is too powerful and has too much money:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q05
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/industry-detail/Q05/2024
- The evangelical vote demands "we" control the holy land so Jeebus can come back.
"A 2017 LifeWay poll conducted in United States found that 80% of evangelical Christians believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ's return and more than 50% of Evangelical Christians believed that they support Israel because it is important for fulfilling the prophecy.[112]
According to the Pew Research survey in 2003, more than 60% of the Evangelical Christians and about 50% of Blacks agreed that the existence of Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy. About 55% of poll respondents said that the Bible was the biggest influence for supporting Israel which is 11 times the people who said church was the biggest influence.[112]"
If Israel never needed the aid to commit war crimes, why would the US continue to send 20000lb bombs etc? Those are not defensive.
We want Harris to deny all non-defensive munition shipments. Stop aid until Israel comes to the table in good faith and stops escalation
We would, because the stated purpose for our support is so that Israel can defend against a potential attack.
No US politician is going to argue Israel can't defend itself.
The problem is Bibi and Likud re-directing that support for defense into offense.
It’s a really simple solution; stop sending aid. Stop wasting billions of tax payer money. Biden can do it today…he doesn’t need to worry about trying to win an election. Harris could win over uncommitted voters if she were to address the situation in good faith. That is not what is currently happening
That won't stop the genocide though. Israel doesn't need us when they are using snipers to kill little kids.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war
Not in good faith
To answer your question, no, I don't believe everything a political party says.
I had to go back to the post from 22 days ago to figure out who you even were. I recommended you read that comment section again, because our conversation was not the most memorable comment chain there. I had a conversation with an openly racist troll. I figured it had to be that user again, but your username and user icon didn't look right.
If the Uncommited Movement won't endorse Harris then they are making a mistake. There's still time for them to change their mind. What the Uncommitted Movement cited seemed to be ethical concerns. Moral reasoning cannot help us against fascism and genocide. We need to think in terms of utility. It is useful to endorse Harris because in a two party system either Harris or Trump will be elected. And Harris is the candidate that will do the least harm to the Palestinians. Where as Trump will allow Israel to complete its genocide.
Withholding votes and endorsements isn't a meaningful way to create change in our democracy. We need to push the Overton window to the left. We do this by both voting for the most viable progressive and/or socialist option in elections and advocating for progressive and/or socialist causes between elections. Allowing fascists to takeover our democracy and kill us in death camps to avoid personal ethical quandaries does nothing to further a progressive and/or socialist agenda.
Also, to be clear, we need a socialist agenda, but a lot of progressives probably haven't realized that yet. Regardless, a progressive majority would still be preferable over the current neoliberal majority. Any legitimate progressive movement is going to realize they will need to redistribute the owner class' wealth. Every reform a progressive enacts will be undermined by the wealthy who are incentivized to overturn our democracy to enrich themselves.
I'm not a Democrat. I have no interest in going to bat for the Democrats. I was referencing an article that had an interview with the Uncommited Movement's preferred speaker and speech. I'm going to advocate for strategies that I think are most the useful for achieving goals such as majority rule democracy, socialism, ending Israel's genocide, etc. So while Biden was the nominee I advocated voting for him. Now that Kamala is the nominee I advocate voting for her.
edit: Also, to be even more clear, Kamala is a neoliberal, but she is the closest we can get to a progressive this election.
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