Kyle Montanio
For all those criticizing #Biden and planning on not voting for him due to current US policy regarding Israel, please keep in mind how much worse it could be.
"I would use certainly the National Guard, if the police were unable to stop. I would absolutely use the National Guard." -Citizen Trump
The very ability to protest is on the line this election. If Trump wins, the genocide continues and students begin getting killed for expressing their very legitimate discontent.
carl marks
@FantasticalEconomics but the ability to protest is on the line now... Sure, Biden isn't literally sending the National Guard but he's been hugely in favor of continuing to militarize the police. Remember when his admin announced that states should use their COVID money on cops? Mass incarceration Joe? Crime bill Biden? This man adores the police.
Even with Biden in place, there is no sacrosanct free speech. If the students don't give in, they will continue to be brutalized and eventually someone will die. It's not unprecedented on or off campus.
I get what you're saying, but it's not so simple as we can protest now but we won't be able to under Trump. We must and will protest under both admins because both of them are genocidal and favor police states. And we'll suffer for it in both scenarios. Voting will not change that.
carl marks
@FantasticalEconomics to be honest, I go back and forth about it. On the one hand, of course I hated having Trump in office & that was before he had cowed the entire party into falling in line behind him.
On the other hand, more and more I am coming to realize how much of the relief that I felt when Trump lost was all an illusion. And the more I read about the past, the civil rights movement, and sundry genocides etc that the US has been involved in with both parties, the more I realize that the Dems are fascistic too. They just try harder to hide it. So I'm divided.
Kyle Montanio
I don't disagree with any of that. No, this election will not solve problems related to militarizing police nor genocide abroad. I also wish we had an option that would fix it.
But looking longer term, I don't think there is much question that we will have a much much better shot of addressing these issues by not moving aggressively to the right into the authoritarian dystopia Trump has clearly laid out.
That's how I see this election, at least.
carl marks
@MisuseCase @FantasticalEconomics it's definitely not a coincidence, because the centrist Dems constantly use their political power to kill any true leftism in their party. Speaking for myself, that's pretty damn telling.
They do this because they are part of a system completely beholden to oligarchy. They reacted to Sanders, the squad, etc the way they did because they recognize the inherent danger in any movement that's influenced by Occupy, Movement for Black Lives, or Palestinian liberation (to take three prominent examples). Any influence the people are able to exert on them represents an existential threat to the power structure that keeps them fed and on top. So when the people started to move, they moved in response.
So yeah, it's definitely not a coincidence. It's a recognition of the fact that despite their rhetoric, their actions betray their true motives. We've been watching it happen for years now.
Misuse Case
@tillshadeisgone @FantasticalEconomics My take is that it’s not a coincidence that we’re all seeing a new version of “both parties are the same” and “voting doesn’t matter” tailored for the left just as this country started emerging from the shadow of Ronald Reagan and leftists started gaining some traction in electoral politics.
carl marks
@GhostOnTheHalfShell yeah I get that, I'm just voting for neither fascism lite nor fascism platinum edition I guess. No fascism for me
GhostOnTheHalfShell
@tillshadeisgone @FantasticalEconomics
There are different levels of fascism. The Dems are not as virulent and they still “represent” at some level (unions, not “libertarians” or “anarcho capitalists”) and maintain rights. As a political party it still has (grudgingly) progressives.
Now the GOP is a pure tool of plutocracy with an absolutely malignant contempt for the public. The Koch Network is the most well known one. It’s own political operations is 3.5x > GOP (wiki).
carl marks
@MisuseCase Just because other governments do bad things, doesn't mean ours ain't doing bad shit too lmao
Misuse Case
@tillshadeisgone @FantasticalEconomics And yet Sanders is still there, and the Squad is still there.
If you really want an example of a major party utterly purging its leftist wing, look at the UK’s Labour Party. Anything we are dealing with here pales in comparison.
But many American leftists, like many Americans, must be exceptionalist. We have the worst! We have the evilest! We have reasons to be the most hopeless!
carl marks
@MisuseCase just like I never said we had it the worst either but you still responded like I did, lol.
What you did say, though, was that what we deal with here pales in comparison, which is also absurd. Maybe your life's struggles pale in comparison but that's not true for all of us. Maybe the political system doesn't affect you the way it affects others, so MAYBE you should think about that before fixing your mouth to tell someone else how fucking good they have it.
Misuse Case
@tillshadeisgone That was never my position, nor did I say it was.
carl marks
@MisuseCase and I'm sure they told you that so you could come on social media later and scold other marginalized folks for complaining about the Democrats.
Like, are you kidding me? Using the formerly homeless colleague as a weapon to shame us for our critiques? This kinda shit makes me sick. Fuck you and your fake ally shit. Pathetic
Misuse Case
@tillshadeisgone A formerly homeless organizer I work with told me that which party is in power in the state or federal government determines how much help poor people can get in terms of SNAP benefits, housing assistance, healthcare, extra support for their kids’ schools, etc. Or whether people in need can get those things at all.
So I don’t really believe this stuff about “both parties are the same to people who are actually struggling.”
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.