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.
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.
Yeah, I get that. Makes sense to me.
Like I said, you don’t think the risk is worth the cause, that’s fine.
Not exactly. A different way to say it would be, the cause is so important and the risk to the Palestinian people (among many others) so potentially catastrophic if Trump wins, that I’m hesitant to support this strategy. But yeah I get where you’re coming from.
