I wouldn’t be committing to voting for Hindenburg 7 months before casting a ballot, especially if doing so not only doesn’t address the underlying problem that created the NSPD’s popularity but would also likely continue to contribute to those conditions.
Yeah, I feel you on this. I think we’re just looking at it from two different perspectives.
I don’t think Biden’s on Lemmy. I’m not looking at this like he’s going to read my messages and think “Okay I got mozz locked in, I don’t have to change my Gaza policy now.” I’m just saying my thought process out loud; I’m going to vote for Hindenburg instead of Hitler pretty much whatever else happens. I’m not trying to do some kind of bluff where I claim that I’m undecided as a way of putting pressure on, not explicitly telling the Biden campaign that I’m committed to him, so that he’ll be forced into different behavior patterns on Gaza.
But the other way does make sense to me. Like the “uncommitted” voters in the primary, or protests at his events because he’s abetting mass murder, that makes sense to me. If I were directly in contact with Biden, would I try to do this artifice of pretending I was undecided because of Gaza, that even though Trump is directly supportive of monsters who are 10 times worse and more powerful than Netanyahu, abetting Netanyahu is so bad that I might not vote for Biden? So as to put more pressure on him to change his policy? IDK, maybe. I am not a political specialist but it seems like maybe that’s a sensible way to do it.
Protesting biden now wouldn’t be effective if we all -publicly- got in line and said “we’ll sure, he’s complicit in genocide but we’re all still voting for him anyway”. That would be quite a dumb way to protest and put pressure on him to get anything done, wouldn’t you say?
Yeah, I get that. I do think that direct action on Gaza is probably more effective than just typing out on Lemmy that you’re uncommitted in your voting, and I think doing the latter (if it’s a bluff, which it would be in my case) runs a little bit of a risk of some other voter reading it and taking it seriously and being swayed to not vote for Biden and abetting mass murder much much worse than that in Gaza. But basically, the core of what you’re saying, it does make sense to me, yes.
and I think doing the latter (if it’s a bluff, which it would be in my case) runs a little bit of a risk of some other voter reading it and taking it seriously and being swayed to not vote for Biden and abetting mass murder much much worse than that in Gaza.
This is what makes a protest effective. This is why I’ve been quoting mlk and Douglass and Malcolm x. If there’s no threat of harm then no liberty will ever be granted.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
Seems to me like you simply don’t believe this particular cause is worth threatening this particular harm. Which is fine I guess, but it just makes your claims of caring about it sound a lot like white liberals in 1963 telling mlk ‘sure, we agree, but now’s not the time, not like this’.
Were making it everyone’s problem by protesting, that’s the point.
Seems to me like you simply don’t believe this particular cause is worth threatening this particular harm.
Very wrong. I just don’t believe that risking Trump getting elected will help this particular cause. I think there’s an significant chance – I am 100% serious about this – that the United States would come out at the end of it with an apartheid regime for Arabs similar to Israel’s. I think there’s an excellent chance that Israel would be emboldened by Trump to actually go in and literally kill all the Palestinians, completing the genocide. I think Trump’s election would be catastrophic for the Palestinians, far worse than today, in addition to a long list of other people it would be catastrophic for.
That’s why I brought up so many times the example of Boutwell vs Connor. Applying pressure to Boutwell sounds great. Refusing to support him in his election against Connor, because he’s a segregationist, doesn’t make any fucking sense. It seems like you keep insisting that I object to the first, when I don’t and keep telling you that I don’t. What I object to is the second. Surely that difference makes some sense?
I just don’t believe that risking Trump getting elected [risking this particular harm] will help this particular cause
That’s almost exactly what I said. And I agree, it won’t be effective [e.g. ‘help’ this particular cause] if libs keep running cover for his campaign regardless of what he does.
Nothing I’ve said about protesting until the election has changed. Being loud so other people see the lack of support raises the stakes for Biden so he is compelled to reason.
Like I said, you don’t think the risk is worth the cause, that’s fine.
