zaza [she/they/her]

I think both can be true - strategically voting for dems is still a conscious choice to vote for a party that supports foreign genocide.

Like in the trolley problem - you can decide to kill less people but you’re still a murderer either way - and because your hand was forced you can then spend the rest of your life using the guilt to figure out who tied those people to the tracks and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

My fear is that the bread and circus that the dems are selling is too comfortable so people wouldn’t feel the need to rise up in arms against the system since “they haven’t come for them yet” - but so long as blue voters always remember they have blood on their hands and feel remorseful about the choice they made - that can be channeled into positive change via direct action.

As I replied to the commenter above - I’m not telling anyone to not vote for whoever they think has the highest chance of minimizing harm - just don’t rely on voting being the only way to exercise your opinion (as some people have claimed is the only power they have left) - if you remember that voting blue is a just a short term strategy to prevent orange man from getting in and fucking shit up - do it. But don’t forget that voting is only the beginning - and until we have tens of millions out on the streets protesting against the Dems being okay with literal genocide - nothing will change for the better.

We can’t have our freedoms be won on the backs of bombing children - it wasn’t okay when Obama did it - it’s not okay now.

Again, vote for the lesser evil - just don’t forget they’re evil and even after the election cycle is over continue to employ direct action to force the complicit ruling class into actually doing something - instead of being able to rely on “vote blue no matter who” voters to get elected year after year while they’re slowing sliding to the right trying to win over conservatives.

Some of my rights have already been taken away under the current Supreme Court and I’m not willing to risk the rights of myself and others for the sake of some self-righteous quest.

Finally, I respect you for going mask off - you’re not willing to lose your freedom for somebody outside your country - you believe your lives cost more than theirs and doing anything that puts you at risk is not worthwhile.

We can’t completely dismantle the system in a week so what else can we do right now?

Have you tried taking direct action against weapon manufacturers? Going to Harris rallies and calling her out for supporting genocide? Convincing others to take drastic measures instead of just voting for the lesser evil? Those are small things that actually help dismantle the system - voting doesn’t.

The first mistake was bartering with moderates - if a person is willing to compromise on genocide - what would they not be willing to compromise on?

MLK said it 60 years ago and it’s still true today: “…that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season’"

But keep waiting and hoping that next cycle the window wouldn’t have moved further to the right

Is your relative safety worth the lives of thousands of Palestinians? You seem to think so. But always remember - “pragmatic” support for the “lesser evil” isn’t going to result in less genocide - it just teaches them exactly how many atrocities you’re willing to accept.

When you tell politicians they can bomb any country, support any ethnic cleansing, and expand any war while still getting your vote as long as they wave a rainbow flag - you’re not preventing fascism, you’re just giving it a differently colored stamp of approval.

The fact that you think “moral brownie points” are even part of the discussion only shows you view the lives of people as nothing more than a political tool.

And look, if your moral framework tells you to vote blue - vote blue - but don’t let that be the end of it - go out and risk losing your freedom before there’s no-one left to risk theirs to save yours.

“Even if” and “threatening to use military force against political dissidents”? - like how Kamala vowed to unconditionally support the genocide? or Gavin Newsom strategically used violent police force to disband pro-Palestinian encampments but not defend them against counter protestors? - it’s already impossible to push for a change in foreign policy under blue rule - why do you think that will suddenly change when they get another 4 years in office?

But hey they haven’t come for you yet, so you can sleep easy knowing there’s brown people, political dissidents and lgbtq+ folk to be taken away before it’s your turn…

You are!

Don’t just vote - go out on the streets and demand that the Dems condemn the genocide and to stop sending military aid to Israel if they actually want your vote!

If you won’t risk having your rights taken away on the grounds of literal genocide - what would you risk them for?

Why are all your arguments “if you don’t do X you’re doing Y”?

Has the two-party system defeated you so much that you can’t see anything but binary choices? It’s been decades of being forced to choose between two bad choices and you’ve been choosing a bad option every time, on the promise of a better one next election. But you’re never going to get an alternative if you just keep voting for the lesser of two evils every 4 years.

And I hope the Putin comment is just that and not a xenophobic dogwhistle because their name is in Cyrillic…

Anyone who explicitly decides against voting for Harris/Walz implicitly decides that they’re fine with Trump.

And anyone who explicitly decides voting for Harris/Walz explicitly decides they are fine with genocide irrespective of Trump.

If Trump promised to end the Palestinian Genocide, but all other points of his agenda (labor protections, lgbt rights etc.) were the same, would you vote for Trump instead? Would you fuck over every other bit of progress for that one issue?

In a fantasy world where he would actually do it, yes? So you’re saying you are okay with max libertarianism in your own county even if that means ethnically cleansing an innocent population in another? That’s a very backwards understanding of liberty and human rights.

Also saying “that one issue” when we’re talking about a literal genocide is super rich. Would you have said the same thing about the Holocaust? “I know this Hitler guy really hates minorities but look at how much he loves doggos and what amazing things he’s doing for the German economy!”

If the Overton Window can be yanked back to the left and the Christofascists left behind

You see voting for a party that has vowed unwavering support for an oppressor to exterminate a native population as a move to the left? You’d rather vote for Librofascists than Christofascists and that’s your choice - I’d rather not vote for fascists at all.

Just don’t blame voters that draw a hard line at genocide if the Dems lose, rather ask why they are willing to throw an election by not taking a hard stance against the literal worst crime against humanity.