I generally try to avoid meta comments, but it's ever more absurd the "I'm not going to vote for Biden because of gaza". So you'd rather have elected? Or his son that wants to flatten gaza and...
I generally try to avoid meta comments, but it's ever more absurd the "I'm not going to vote for Biden because of gaza". So you'd rather have
He said on Oct. 11 that a future Trump administration would “fully support Israel defeating, dismantling, and permanently destroying the terrorist group Hamas,” while telling the Republican Jewish Coalition later that month that Hamas fighters “will burn forever in the eternal pit of hell." That month, his campaign also said that, if elected again, he would bar Gaza residents from entering the U.S. as part of an expanded travel ban.
elected?
Or his son that wants to flatten gaza and turn it into a resort?
A stranger hands you a knife and asks: “Would you rather cut off your own ear, or your own hand?” Do you eagerly rush to cut off your ear because that’s less harmful than losing your hand, or do...
A stranger hands you a knife and asks: “Would you rather cut off your own ear, or your own hand?”
Do you eagerly rush to cut off your ear because that’s less harmful than losing your hand, or do you turn and run away because both options are completely fucked and this stranger is insane?
(I’ll personally be in the “sucking it up” camp come November - but hell if I’d judge anyone for peacing out.)
You have to amend that scenario. An omnipotent stranger (omnipotent because you cannot escape from the election and the results thereof) hands you a knife and asks: "Would you rather cut off your...
You have to amend that scenario.
An omnipotent stranger (omnipotent because you cannot escape from the election and the results thereof) hands you a knife and asks: "Would you rather cut off your own ear, or your own hand? If you try to run I'll cut off your hand.”
Not voting helps Trump win. That's the reality. I'll absolutely judge anyone for peacing out. If you (directed at a hypothetical voter) don't vote, and are horrified at what a second Trump administration begins, you have yourself to blame chiefly for your inability to recognize that your inaction is a choice, and a worse choice for your own goals.
No thanks - I blame the stranger with a knife who cut me. E: Put differently, if I’m ever in a real-life trolley problem, my energy is going to go into figuring out who tied a bunch of people onto...
you have yourself to blame chiefly for your inability to recognize that your inaction is a choice
No thanks - I blame the stranger with a knife who cut me.
E: Put differently, if I’m ever in a real-life trolley problem, my energy is going to go into figuring out who tied a bunch of people onto railroad tracks to be slaughtered. Worrying about lever-pulling is secondary to that.
So, un-analogized, the world? You can blame the world all you want, but it is reality that you will often have to make the best of the choices you have available to you. Rarely are things the best...
So, un-analogized, the world? You can blame the world all you want, but it is reality that you will often have to make the best of the choices you have available to you. Rarely are things the best they can be for you.
If someone worried about gaza choose not to vote, and Kushner builds a resort on top of a mass grave in gaza, then you are complicit as any random individual is- you knew what your choices were. They were worst, bad, and better, and you chose bad.
If you want to look at the world through a lens where not cutting off one’s own body parts is a moral failing, more power to you. I’ll prefer to not cut myself even if someone might slash me in...
You are complicit as any random individual is- you knew what your choices were. They were worst, bad, and better, and you chose bad.
If you want to look at the world through a lens where not cutting off one’s own body parts is a moral failing, more power to you. I’ll prefer to not cut myself even if someone might slash me in response.
I mean you're stretching the analogy past the part where it matches reality. The reality is that as a voter in the US, you have three choices if your beliefs align more with the liberal spectrum...
I mean you're stretching the analogy past the part where it matches reality.
The reality is that as a voter in the US, you have three choices if your beliefs align more with the liberal spectrum of politics
Worse - vote for trump
Bad - don't vote
Better - vote for Biden
The first two contribute to Trump winning. If you pick the first two, I do indeed think you have partial moral responsibility for whatever Trump does in his second administration. To believe otherwise, imo, is just putting your head in the sand.
You're only looking at the near term of the actions (or inactions), and only considering a specific context. Participating in a system that is designed to make sure you have little to no choice...
You're only looking at the near term of the actions (or inactions), and only considering a specific context.
Participating in a system that is designed to make sure you have little to no choice that reflects your own choices is supporting that system. You're contributing to the idea that the system is actually usable or works. In effect, by supporting the system, you're as morally complicit in someone like Trump winning as you believe those who are not taking action are. Trump wouldn't be in the situation he is in now if not for those who continued to prop up this system that exists now. There are other countries out there that aren't running Trumps and Bidens, so if you're going to act like those who aren't supporting the system are rejecting reality, well reality says that it's possible to do better than this.
Not to downplay the serious differences between the circumstances, but we all did see what happened with Hong Kong over the past several years right? Every election there is a sham at this point considering what PRC has done. What you're arguing is like telling people of Hong Kong if they don't vote for the candidates China puts before them, it's their moral failing when the outcome is undesirable. No matter who they would vote for, it would only serve the interests of the PRC. That means any vote, even if one is better than another in some respects to your own interests, is still serving PRC interests. The only choices are outcomes that are largely in the interests of someone else.
As long as the US elections work the way they work now, the vast majority of people have no real influence in outcomes because the systems are clearly designed to reduce their influence. A vestige of a time where only a select set of people had any say in how things were run. That's the reality that needs to be acknowledged.
For every opportunity in the past to take a stand against this system, many didn't because the devil was at the doorsteps now. Go back multiple decades and find the same reasoning. Maybe those weren't really the devil before, and Trump really does seem to be one now, but because people just continued to prop up the same system, maybe the devil really finally did show up at the doorstep. And it could have been avoided if people had stopped contributing to the illusion that this system was somehow functional or served our interests.
That’s true if you only look at first-order effects, sure. The more people that protest vote, the more long-term incentive both Biden and Trump have to make concessions to the protestors.
That’s true if you only look at first-order effects, sure.
The more people that protest vote, the more long-term incentive both Biden and Trump have to make concessions to the stabbing victims protestors.
Sure. But you're weighing the likelihood of that with the cost of reality. People thought the same when they chose not to vote for Hillary - and the cost was very large. Did it make up for it?...
Sure. But you're weighing the likelihood of that with the cost of reality. People thought the same when they chose not to vote for Hillary - and the cost was very large. Did it make up for it? Hard to say, no?
In the 4 years of a Trump presidency, Gaza could be wiped out in its entirety. Maybe the first bricks of Kushner's new resort will be laid. Is that an acceptable sacrifice for a mere chance of making the next Democratic candidate more towards your political affiliation?
Maybe they can provide funds for a nice monument in Gaza city? They can place it next to the resort; tourists can go see it while they're there.
If you think that's worth it, then it what it is, but I hope you can reconcile all the effects of your decision. The immediate cost exists just as much as the future benefits - except the latter is always through the lens of probability.
If it's only 4 years, and if it's only a presidency. It's a bit of a sky is falling kind of thing to say, but there is a very real risk that if Trump wins it won't matter if there were protest...
In the 4 years of a Trump presidency,
If it's only 4 years, and if it's only a presidency. It's a bit of a sky is falling kind of thing to say, but there is a very real risk that if Trump wins it won't matter if there were protest votes or not that people in the future can look back on. That seems to be the express desire and intention of Trump with this election, and the overall goals of his followers with Project 2025.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are starving to death right now with Biden as president, because he had the hubris to think he could play Bibi to his ends. Gaza may well be wiped out under four...
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are starving to death right now with Biden as president, because he had the hubris to think he could play Bibi to his ends. Gaza may well be wiped out under four more years of Biden too.
I’d rather signal that I support no genocide rather than less-intense genocide.
The way I see it as is that of the two, Biden is more likely to soften his stance on Israel than Trump. If enough people show that this is a make or break issue, he will have to address it.
The way I see it as is that of the two, Biden is more likely to soften his stance on Israel than Trump. If enough people show that this is a make or break issue, he will have to address it.
Playing with fire like that is how we got 4 years of Trump, a conservative Supreme Court majority for next few decades, and the repeal of Roe v. Wade. And honestly I don't think a lot of people...
Exemplary
Playing with fire like that is how we got 4 years of Trump, a conservative Supreme Court majority for next few decades, and the repeal of Roe v. Wade. And honestly I don't think a lot of people have that kind of nuanced thought.
In any case, in the event of a Trump victory, I do hope people reconcile their actions, their goals, and the actual realized results.
That's a vague statement that seems to have an objective tone. Elections are messy, and their outcomes can't be attributed to a single factor. Voters have agency. Telling them not to use their...
Playing with fire like that is how we got 4 years of Trump
That's a vague statement that seems to have an objective tone. Elections are messy, and their outcomes can't be attributed to a single factor.
Voters have agency. Telling them not to use their agency and clamor down is debatably fascist.
Agreed. It took a lot for Trump to win, and a huge part of that was a frankly atrocious and arrogant Clinton campaign. "We did everything we could to fuck this up, and you let us fuck this up!" is...
Agreed. It took a lot for Trump to win, and a huge part of that was a frankly atrocious and arrogant Clinton campaign. "We did everything we could to fuck this up, and you let us fuck this up!" is just blaming the wrong people.
Further I don't agree with "since the other side is so evil, you must silence criticism of ours" mentality we're seeing more and more of.
The depth of this man's ignorance and hubris is truly astonishing. Casually suggesting a mass displacement of a people–an act that verges on the UN's definition of genocide–to gussy up an...
“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner said. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.”
The depth of this man's ignorance and hubris is truly astonishing. Casually suggesting a mass displacement of a people–an act that verges on the UN's definition of genocide–to gussy up an historically contested territory like it's some slum tenement, it's just so monumentally idiotic.
I don't know why this shit continues to amaze me. I should be inured to the stupid by now, but nope.
It's an awful thing for Kushner to say, but I don't think it's particularly ignorant or astonishing. It's certainly not unique. At least one Israeli real estate firm has already put out an ad with...
I felt like it was worth documenting. Israel is a multifaceted community, but among Israel's citizens, leaders and supporters, there are shameless settler colonialists. I hope Israel can choose...
I felt like it was worth documenting.
Israel is a multifaceted community, but among Israel's citizens, leaders and supporters, there are shameless settler colonialists. I hope Israel can choose peace and find reasonable security without genocide.
It definitely does meet the UNs definition of genocide. When you consider the actual implemention of a policy like that (gazans will not take kindly to being told to leave their homes to live in;...
It definitely does meet the UNs definition of genocide.
When you consider the actual implemention of a policy like that (gazans will not take kindly to being told to leave their homes to live in; let's be real, concentration camps operated by Israel because no other country would ever agree to accept that many dirt poor refugees, so they'd need to be forced at gunpoint and executed on the spot of they didn't comply), it crosses into the border into literal Nazi behavior, with zero irony or caveats to that statement.
"Forced removal" has always been a euphemism for extermination.
I feel like it's high time there's a massive write up about the poor and detrimental state of the US Government, it's surrounding employees, the financial incentives and those who stand to gain...
I feel like it's high time there's a massive write up about the poor and detrimental state of the US Government, it's surrounding employees, the financial incentives and those who stand to gain from keeping this macabre display going.
I know this man isn't part of any government but the whole "elite" who happen to end up in places like that is what I meant with surrounding employees. Maybe employees isn't the right wording.
Kushner might not currently be part of any government, but Trump appointed him to broker a peace deal between Palestein and Israel, resulting in the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization...
Kushner might not currently be part of any government, but Trump appointed him to broker a peace deal between Palestein and Israel, resulting in the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement (the "Abraham Accords"). Kushner's firm then received 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia after Trump left office.
(As a side note, the blatant nepotism afforded to Kushner makes the fishing expedition against the Bidens look extremely hypocritical. )
I generally try to avoid meta comments, but it's ever more absurd the "I'm not going to vote for Biden because of gaza". So you'd rather have
elected?
Or his son that wants to flatten gaza and turn it into a resort?
That's what's preferential?
A stranger hands you a knife and asks: “Would you rather cut off your own ear, or your own hand?”
Do you eagerly rush to cut off your ear because that’s less harmful than losing your hand, or do you turn and run away because both options are completely fucked and this stranger is insane?
(I’ll personally be in the “sucking it up” camp come November - but hell if I’d judge anyone for peacing out.)
You have to amend that scenario.
An omnipotent stranger (omnipotent because you cannot escape from the election and the results thereof) hands you a knife and asks: "Would you rather cut off your own ear, or your own hand? If you try to run I'll cut off your hand.”
Not voting helps Trump win. That's the reality. I'll absolutely judge anyone for peacing out. If you (directed at a hypothetical voter) don't vote, and are horrified at what a second Trump administration begins, you have yourself to blame chiefly for your inability to recognize that your inaction is a choice, and a worse choice for your own goals.
No thanks - I blame the stranger with a knife who cut me.
E: Put differently, if I’m ever in a real-life trolley problem, my energy is going to go into figuring out who tied a bunch of people onto railroad tracks to be slaughtered. Worrying about lever-pulling is secondary to that.
The stranger with the knife in this scenario is reality.
It’s the DNC, actually.
The DNC didn't elect Biden or nominate Trump. Other people in our shared reality did.
So, un-analogized, the world? You can blame the world all you want, but it is reality that you will often have to make the best of the choices you have available to you. Rarely are things the best they can be for you.
If someone worried about gaza choose not to vote, and Kushner builds a resort on top of a mass grave in gaza, then you are complicit as any random individual is- you knew what your choices were. They were worst, bad, and better, and you chose bad.
If you want to look at the world through a lens where not cutting off one’s own body parts is a moral failing, more power to you. I’ll prefer to not cut myself even if someone might slash me in response.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean you're stretching the analogy past the part where it matches reality.
The reality is that as a voter in the US, you have three choices if your beliefs align more with the liberal spectrum of politics
Worse - vote for trump
Bad - don't vote
Better - vote for Biden
The first two contribute to Trump winning. If you pick the first two, I do indeed think you have partial moral responsibility for whatever Trump does in his second administration. To believe otherwise, imo, is just putting your head in the sand.
You're only looking at the near term of the actions (or inactions), and only considering a specific context.
Participating in a system that is designed to make sure you have little to no choice that reflects your own choices is supporting that system. You're contributing to the idea that the system is actually usable or works. In effect, by supporting the system, you're as morally complicit in someone like Trump winning as you believe those who are not taking action are. Trump wouldn't be in the situation he is in now if not for those who continued to prop up this system that exists now. There are other countries out there that aren't running Trumps and Bidens, so if you're going to act like those who aren't supporting the system are rejecting reality, well reality says that it's possible to do better than this.
Not to downplay the serious differences between the circumstances, but we all did see what happened with Hong Kong over the past several years right? Every election there is a sham at this point considering what PRC has done. What you're arguing is like telling people of Hong Kong if they don't vote for the candidates China puts before them, it's their moral failing when the outcome is undesirable. No matter who they would vote for, it would only serve the interests of the PRC. That means any vote, even if one is better than another in some respects to your own interests, is still serving PRC interests. The only choices are outcomes that are largely in the interests of someone else.
As long as the US elections work the way they work now, the vast majority of people have no real influence in outcomes because the systems are clearly designed to reduce their influence. A vestige of a time where only a select set of people had any say in how things were run. That's the reality that needs to be acknowledged.
For every opportunity in the past to take a stand against this system, many didn't because the devil was at the doorsteps now. Go back multiple decades and find the same reasoning. Maybe those weren't really the devil before, and Trump really does seem to be one now, but because people just continued to prop up the same system, maybe the devil really finally did show up at the doorstep. And it could have been avoided if people had stopped contributing to the illusion that this system was somehow functional or served our interests.
That’s true if you only look at first-order effects, sure.
The more people that protest vote, the more long-term incentive both Biden and Trump have to make concessions to the
stabbing victimsprotestors.Sure. But you're weighing the likelihood of that with the cost of reality. People thought the same when they chose not to vote for Hillary - and the cost was very large. Did it make up for it? Hard to say, no?
In the 4 years of a Trump presidency, Gaza could be wiped out in its entirety. Maybe the first bricks of Kushner's new resort will be laid. Is that an acceptable sacrifice for a mere chance of making the next Democratic candidate more towards your political affiliation?
Maybe they can provide funds for a nice monument in Gaza city? They can place it next to the resort; tourists can go see it while they're there.
If you think that's worth it, then it what it is, but I hope you can reconcile all the effects of your decision. The immediate cost exists just as much as the future benefits - except the latter is always through the lens of probability.
If it's only 4 years, and if it's only a presidency. It's a bit of a sky is falling kind of thing to say, but there is a very real risk that if Trump wins it won't matter if there were protest votes or not that people in the future can look back on. That seems to be the express desire and intention of Trump with this election, and the overall goals of his followers with Project 2025.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are starving to death right now with Biden as president, because he had the hubris to think he could play Bibi to his ends. Gaza may well be wiped out under four more years of Biden too.
I’d rather signal that I support no genocide rather than less-intense genocide.
The way I see it as is that of the two, Biden is more likely to soften his stance on Israel than Trump. If enough people show that this is a make or break issue, he will have to address it.
Playing with fire like that is how we got 4 years of Trump, a conservative Supreme Court majority for next few decades, and the repeal of Roe v. Wade. And honestly I don't think a lot of people have that kind of nuanced thought.
In any case, in the event of a Trump victory, I do hope people reconcile their actions, their goals, and the actual realized results.
That's a vague statement that seems to have an objective tone. Elections are messy, and their outcomes can't be attributed to a single factor.
Voters have agency. Telling them not to use their agency and clamor down is debatably fascist.
Agreed. It took a lot for Trump to win, and a huge part of that was a frankly atrocious and arrogant Clinton campaign. "We did everything we could to fuck this up, and you let us fuck this up!" is just blaming the wrong people.
Further I don't agree with "since the other side is so evil, you must silence criticism of ours" mentality we're seeing more and more of.
The depth of this man's ignorance and hubris is truly astonishing. Casually suggesting a mass displacement of a people–an act that verges on the UN's definition of genocide–to gussy up an historically contested territory like it's some slum tenement, it's just so monumentally idiotic.
I don't know why this shit continues to amaze me. I should be inured to the stupid by now, but nope.
It's an awful thing for Kushner to say, but I don't think it's particularly ignorant or astonishing. It's certainly not unique. At least one Israeli real estate firm has already put out an ad with essentially the same premise. Members of the Israeli far-right after pretty openly advocating to "resettle" Palestinians outside of Gaza, as even the Times of Israel reports.
Just because others are saying it doesn't mean it isn't mind-blowingly dumb.
I'd go for "evil" rather than "dumb". I think this is all quite calculated. It's just also villainous.
I felt like it was worth documenting.
Israel is a multifaceted community, but among Israel's citizens, leaders and supporters, there are shameless settler colonialists. I hope Israel can choose peace and find reasonable security without genocide.
It definitely does meet the UNs definition of genocide.
When you consider the actual implemention of a policy like that (gazans will not take kindly to being told to leave their homes to live in; let's be real, concentration camps operated by Israel because no other country would ever agree to accept that many dirt poor refugees, so they'd need to be forced at gunpoint and executed on the spot of they didn't comply), it crosses into the border into literal Nazi behavior, with zero irony or caveats to that statement.
"Forced removal" has always been a euphemism for extermination.
I feel like it's high time there's a massive write up about the poor and detrimental state of the US Government, it's surrounding employees, the financial incentives and those who stand to gain from keeping this macabre display going.
I know this man isn't part of any government but the whole "elite" who happen to end up in places like that is what I meant with surrounding employees. Maybe employees isn't the right wording.
Kushner might not currently be part of any government, but Trump appointed him to broker a peace deal between Palestein and Israel, resulting in the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement (the "Abraham Accords"). Kushner's firm then received 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia after Trump left office.
(As a side note, the blatant nepotism afforded to Kushner makes the fishing expedition against the Bidens look extremely hypocritical. )
I thought you'd meant folks in the civil service.
I also don't know what to call the people you're talking about. Hangers on with power?