Heās had yet another horrible week. The old tricks arenāt working. Kamala Harris does not fear him. And itās showing in the numbers.
Heās had yet another horrible week. The old tricks arenāt working. Kamala Harris does not fear him. And itās showing in the numbers.
Let me try a different tactic: Iāll just ask it as a question. Am I supportive of people protesting at the DNC, trying to get the Democrats to improve their policy on Israel by vocally demanding change, and withholding support unless they do?
Iāve given you the answer as to what my feeling on this is, several times.
Based on your varied responses: sometimes.
It seems to depend a great deal on what you think the likely outcome of that protest is, and if your imagined calculus puts the protest on the wrong side of some imaginary line, suddenly those protestors are āuseful idiotsā at best or ābad-actorsā at worst.
Yes. You have grasped it.
If someoneās protesting with the most likely result being better outcomes for the Palestinian people (because of useful pressure on the Democratic party, or even better some longer-term reform to our broken system that leaves these as the only two options), then Iām in favor of it.
If someoneās protesting in such a way that the most likely result is Trump winning the election and making things 10 times worse for the Palestinians, then Iām against it.
I have no idea why that would be weird or surprising, but yes. Thereās a little bit of overlap between those two goals, and itās impossible to know the future or the impact of any particular action definitively, but a lot of real-world situations are messy. Themās the breaks.
I describe as āuseful idiotsā people who are falling for deliberate propaganda which is being deployed to turn them unconditionally against the Democrats, alongside a lot of objectively false criticism, producing only a vague level of improvement to the Democratsā behavior but a strong result of making it more likely that Trump will win, yes. If youāre not doing that them Iām fine with you. And I have no idea, as I said, how many (if any) of the DNC protestors will fall into that category in practice. I just know how I categorize people based on the outcomes theyāre promoting, and I know I see people in that āuseful idiotā category on Lemmy. I donāt think youāre one of them, for the record; thatās why I laid out some of the specific accounts Iād describe as more specifically promoting propaganda as opposed to good activism and tried to be specific about it.
Hope this all is helpful; glad we could clear it up.
Jesus christ. Do you consider US culpability in the Palestinian Genocide a part of this ādeliberate propagandaā? At what point does someone protesting against democratic involvement and complacency in Israeli war crimes become someone who is protesting against democrats generally? Is there any grey area that youāre willing to acknowledge between these two categorical binaries youāve proposed? Can there be a legitimate protest against the democrats, that hurts their odds at winning, but doesnāt directly result in a change of policy? If the democrats and the protestors both refuse to bend to the other, is it categorically the protestorsā fault if and when trump wins? Even if it isnāt apparent that theyāve lost explicitly because of those protestors? Is it also the fault of the protestors if the democrats adopt a pro-palestinian policy in response to the protestors, AND THEN lose? What iām gathering from you is that it is ALWAYS the protestors fault for the loss, no matter what the democrats do in response.
Fuck off with your electoral reductionism. The democrats are not helpless here, and they could absolutely be fighting to save palestinian lives and it is 100% their own fault if voters decide they canāt support them over it. They are welcome to weigh the electoral calculus to predict how voters might react to their policies but it is completely their own fault if theyāve chosen the wrong ones.
No
When they stop either conditioning their lack of support on Democratic behavior, or advocating for voting reform or some other strategy which can lead to effective replacement of the Democrats with something better. Either one of those sounds fine and sensible to me, but when they reach the point of saying, functionally, āwell if the Democrats arenāt doing what I want then I will let the Republicans win even if they are 10 times worse at the things I hold as priorities in the world,ā that to me stops making sense.
I think if youāre a Palestinian who is still alive right now, and a protestor āon your behalfā enables Trump to come to power, and then Trump supports someone who kills you, the idea that the protestor was mad that the Democrats werenāt doing enough for you before Trump and Netanyahu cooperated to kill you would be cold comfort. I think this whole āharm reduction isnāt worth doingā idea is a childish and entitled reaction from someone who is safely far away from that harm that is very real to very real people in the real world, who have the luxury of poo pooing the entire idea of predicting outcomes in the real world and strategizing how to get them.
Yes, quite a substantial one.
Yes. If itās only hurting their odds of winning, and not even trying to change their policy, then itās suspect to me, but as you said thereās quite a substantial grey area and itās not easy to tell ahead of time what protest might result in what outcome. You have to just kind of do what you can and hope that youāve worked it out what is going to help the Palestinians and what is going to hurt them, and do the first and not the second as best as you can figure it out.
Not categorically, no. The Democrats have a lot of responsibility, the Republicans and Netanyahu obviously have quite a bit more. The protestors might have some responsibility, but depending on how they were protesting, potentially not much at all.
Honestly, Iām less concerned with assigning āblameā after the fact than I am with strategizing what I could do, or what someone else could do, to get better outcomes. Like I say, I consider this whole thing of it being real important āwhose fault it isā when something horrifying happens to be an entitled mentality from someone whoās not directly in danger. Mostly when peopleās familiesā lives are threatened theyāre more focused on āhow can I keep them safeā than they are on āwhose fault will it be if someone comes to power who kills them, and how can I make sure it wonāt be this personās fault but instead this other personās fault.ā
So this brings up a really good point. To me, it makes a lot more sense to help the Palestinians by educating the American people about whatās going on in Palestine, so the Democrats wonāt have to decide (to any degree) between enabling war crimes and losing the election.
A lot of protests right now are serving a double purpose ā one, theyāre bringing awareness to the issue with the American people (and itās working), and two, theyāre threatening the Democrats electorally and forcing them to change their calculus of what types of Israel policy they should do if they donāt want to lose the election from the other direction (and thatās working, too). Both of those are good things. I keep saying that, and you keep insisting for some reason that I must have a problem with them. I guess because it makes the point that youāre trying to say easier if I am just against all protestors. As I keep saying, I am not.
I donāt care whose āfaultā it is. I am talking about what actions are good (in terms of creating better outcomes in the future), and what actions are bad (in terms of getting people killed). Like I said, this emphasis on āfaultā having any significant importance is the mindset of someone who isnāt watching their family getting killed.
Yea, thatās the point. But you continuously allude to some āotherā type of pro-palestinian protestor, who is putting the pressure squarely on those most directly responsive to their protest, as āuseful idiotā, or ābad actorā, or alluding to them having abuser logic for placing agency on the people currently providing Israel military aid and not, weirdly, on themselves. You even use a double-standard when discussing online behavior: in one instance, the correct way to Do Activismtm is to convince the american public to sway public opinion, and then in the next you hand-wave away activity that is directed at swaying public opinion because āyou doubt the DNC reads your comments on Lemmyā.
That, OR, youāre trying to distinguish between types of pro-palestinian protestors using some weird, āthatās not gonna helpā classification system thatās opaque and/or ambiguously defined, so that at any given moment someone saying ādemocrats havenāt done enoughā can be cast aside as āotherā or ābad actorā. It is almost as if you are defending a naieve enthusiasm from water being thrown on it, simply because you value that enthusiasm even while there is a veritable gulf between what is needed from democrats on Israel and what they are doing. No, you may not return to your brunch, look at the shit that still needs cleaning up. Protestors are there to remind libs (who, as you pointed out, are safe from harm themselves no matter what the democratic policy is on Israel) that the work is not yet done. This includes people on Lemmy who are serving you reminders that things continue to be shit, despite what little democrats have actually done.
And itās not even like the Democrats canāt, also, campaign for that change being worked toward. Youāre pretending as if the desired policy must grow from grass-roots before democrats can take action, but the democrats already know what the right thing to do is, it is just politically inconvenient to have to do it right now. A huge part of the problem is that the Democrats actively use the bully pulpit to deflect blame and run cover for Israel - when they should be using it to make the case to the american public why things need to change.
Literally anything to disembody the problem away from your personal electoral goals, while also claiming to support the issue being raised. It is the quintessential āwhite moderateā take that MLK discusses in Letter from Birmingham, but youāre so blinded by self-confidence that you couldnāt possibly see it.
Okay so I just deleted a whole bunch of stuff. Honestly, letās just get to the root of it.
No - I meant you. Youāre safe from harm. You can advocate for something that might get Trump elected, and I think itās safe to say no fighter jets will commence carpet bombing anywhere where your family is, if it happens.
Iām safe from harm too. Iāve flown close enough to see little flashes in the distance, I briefly dated someone who grew up in a refugee camp, Iāve spent a little bit of time staying with someone who was captured and tortured at one point in his life. That kind of secondhand stuff is as close as Iāve come. I donāt want to come any closer. I have my safe, privileged life. But Iāve experienced this stuff second hand; Iāve been friends with people who were crippled by these policies and decisions, had the arc of their lives changed without their consent.
You keep bringing it back to shit that doesnāt matter. I donāt care whose fault it is. I donāt care what you think is opaque or ambiguously defined, or what frameworks you feel like are too complicated to want to spend the mental effort on, so you use simple ones instead. I care about dying people, and how we change it; whatās going to work, and what isnāt.
I can dig up 10 different times when Iāve been doing exactly that, on Lemmy. Do you want me to? If itās useful for you to hear it, Iām happy to show it to you.
I thought about it for a while, and I think the reason weāre not seeing eye to eye is this: The Democrats are not my friends. No one in Washington is my friend. When Iām saying, I want the Democrats to win this upcoming election, itās purely because that will keep some people alive who will die under Trump. Thereās a very few people in Washington, of any party, that I actually think have any kind of human standing on anything, that I would āsupportā in the sense of hey I like this person, I want them in charge. Kamala Harris isnāt one of them.
I feel like ā tell me if Iām wrong ā youāre interpreting all this that I am saying like I āsupportā Kamala Harris, and youāre trying to get me not to. Like I think what sheās doing is sufficient and you need to debunk that. You can stop. I donāt. Put it this way: If one of my neighbors regularly made phone calls and ordered people to be killed, I wouldnāt hang out with them. Thatās pretty much everyone in power in Washington: Biden, Harris, McCain, Trump, Adam Schiff, you get the idea. I look at them all (again, with a very small number of exceptions) as almost like these dangerous robots who somehow have this unimaginable power.
Iām not saying that I think, yes letās change the system and get these fuckin maniacs out of power and also letās Kamala Harris win this particular election, because of any of the stuff you are debunking in your message. Most of your message, I agree with. I am saying blah blah also letās Kamala Harris win this particular election because according to the only other available alternative, a whole fuck a lot (more ā much more) people will die. Thatās not imaginary ā it is real as you or I. Figuring out how to make a non performative change and what will work and what wonāt is important.
If you show me a strategy āhey hereās how we can get better than the Democrats in powerā I will start supporting it instantly. It feels like ā again, tell me if Iām wrong ā you think that what youāre advocating is that, and Iām refusing to support it and so I must love Democrats or something. Thatās not the case. I just donāt think what you are advocating will work (definitely not in the short run which is when most of the Palestinians will die). If you want to talk about, why not, how can we get something that will work, letās rap. But ā I donāt know how many times I have to say it ā stop telling me how important it is to arrive at something better than the Democrats. You can silence that, and move on from it, or just keep wasting your time typing it over and over again, I guess, if you want to, but thatās what youāre doing when you type it.
Doesnāt that make sense? Or no? You tell me.
No, and I find this reduction to be a huge part of the problem with most of the political discourse on Lemmy. Thereās this intense urge to reduce or interpret discourse into āsupportā or ādonāt supportā, usually electorally and usually as a strict binary. To most Americans, the most interaction they have with politics is voting, sometimes even just for the general. IDGAF if anyone āsupportsā Kamala/Joe/Dems, whatever that means. I view who people end up voting for as almost incidental to the broader direct action that I think is the true driver of political change.
Thatās not to suggest youāre making a reference to that binary - youāre clearly speaking more broadly. But even the way youāre interpreting direct action through its āactualā electoral result is frustrating. Because the people protesting (even the people on lemmy who seem (to you) dead-set against democrats) contain multitudes, and most of them will end up voting for an option thatās not perfectly aligned to their principles in the end (because there are none who are). Thatās not the point of direct action. You (or maybe not you specifically, but liberals generally) complain that people repeatedly casting criticism without proposing an electoral solution are just fanning the flames of division, but what theyāre doing is creating a kind of āpositive tensionā within the electorate that the democrats will eventually need to address if itās allowed to grow. Democrats canāt do x or y policy change because āit just isnāt popularā, but it isnāt popular because people arenāt being confronted with the results of the policy that needs changing. Protesting is a part of that, but so is posting on social media about it. Those are doing the same thing.
But what I specifically take issue with is your objection to protests that have real and legitimate standing, simply on some theoretical calculation where policy doesnāt change but the damage to voter enthusiasm remains, and the āfaultā **implicit ** in that judgement. I realize youāve made explicit statements of affirmation toward Palestinian protests generally, but youāve still defended this abstracted way of assessing advisable/in-advisable protests independent from the ārighteousnessā of the cause itself. From your perspective, it seems that even a protest that is completely justified in its cause can be viewed negatively (and liable to accusation, labels and insults) if your personal judgment has determined it will only cause damage and not result in policy change. Itās a form of dismissal that comes from an intense sense of paternalism that rhetorically allows you to identify yourself with the cause but avoids the uncomfortable work of reflecting on your own complicity. Even if you object to that complicity on grounds that you do direct action yourself, blah blah blah - youāre also vocally defending a system that enables that type of subjugation youāre fighting against. (I can already hear you objecting to this framing on the grounds that you want the system to change, and Iāll just say it now that iām not talking in abstraction. Iām saying youāre defending the electoral system by insisting we must conduct ourselves in a way so we can preserve your desired electoral outcome)
Funny. I donāt care about whose fault āitā is, either! I donāt care if youāve judged a form of protest as ineffectual or not, even. I care about dying people, and the real ways in which our system of power enables and supports the killing of those people. I think the point of direct action is to tie the policy outcomes of the system to the people acting on that systemās behalf in order to pressure them, and tempering that direct action around preserving a desired electoral result is antithetical to that rhetorical goal. You cannot pressure political agents into change if youāre undercutting the protest by implicitly assigning electoral responsibility to that protest. I know āyou donāt careā about fault, but youāre still drawing a causality between the protest and the electoral outcome, when the explicit goal of that protest is to draw causality between the electoral outcome and the policy.
No, that is not what iām advocating. It sure would be great if we had a better system, but placing our political goals behind that fantastic revolutionary goal first is just a way of deferring our problems to a different time, a better season. We have the system we have, and trying to change that system (even simply influence the outcome of that system) without damaging it is like trying to box with both hands tied behind your back. Democrats wonāt do their job better until theyāre made to swim in their own shit, without trying to white-wash it or rhetorically dance around their own complicity in them. Protest helps to reflect the impact of those policies back on the office, and a side effect of that is damaging their electoral chances.
I think judging a form of protest based on its hypothetical electoral impact isnāt just pointless, it neuters and subverts it. It isnāt āabuser logicā to assign responsibility for electoral losses on the policies being protested - if anything itās holding the āabuserā responsible for the harm they themselves are committing. By flipping the responsibility of that loss on protestors it rhetorically excuses democrats for their shit policy.
I hope that makes sense.