• Veraxus@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    How about: No arms deals with any entity that indiscriminately murders innocent people, women, and children?

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m still not seeing why Israel is being treated as a priority over or at least equal to Ukraine. Ukraine is up against a legitimately strong adversary using human wave tactics. Israel is dropping bombs seemingly indiscriminately on mostly civilians. Ukraine is fighting for its existence. Israel is getting revenge on its much, much weaker neighbor.

    If Iran and its proxies enter the war, that might change the calculations, but that hasn’t happened yet.

    • Habahnow
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      The one that isn’t taking away trans rights, making abortion illegal, and saying the last election was stolen, seems like the lesser evil actually. I can agree that I think our parties would be slightly better if first past the post was changed to allow for multiple parties, but i think it’s ridiculous to say both parties are currently the same. Edit: As I responded to thecrotch, I disagree with the assertion that the Dem party is evil. Flawed? sure, our 2 party system will only allow for flawed parties, but to say their evil is downright showing ignorance of US politics or disinformation given the examples that I gave.

      • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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        1 year ago

        Not to people overseas. There’s no difference between being indiscriminately murdered by a Republican or a Democrat to the people dying.

        • Habahnow
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          1 year ago

          Democrats aren’t getting people killed, Republicans are by not allowing women to get medically necessary abortions. To people over seas, seeinh one group deny the existence of covid, make abortions illegal, and passing laws restricting lgbt+ peoples rights is obviously the evil one.

          • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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            1 year ago

            I’m sure that the people in Syria who are being bombed and the people in Palestine who are being bombed by Israel using US dollars really care about our domestic politics as they watch their families get blown to shreds.

      • thecrotch
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        1 year ago

        They don’t have to be the same to both suck. The lesser evil is, by definition, evil.

        • mindbleach
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          1 year ago

          But less evil.

          Also by definition.

          Who the fuck wants more evil?

          • thecrotch
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            1 year ago

            Fine, vote your conscience. I was replying to a guy who said Democrats aren’t evil. That guy is wrong. Less evil doesn’t mean not evil.

            • mindbleach
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              1 year ago

              And your argument is that someone already called them evil.

              • thecrotch
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                1 year ago

                My argument is that they are evil. I made that argument to someone who said that they are not evil. Do you have a point?

                • mindbleach
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                  1 year ago

                  Restating the conclusion is not what constitutes an argument.

        • Habahnow
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          1 year ago

          You’re right, what I should have also added to my post was that, I disagree with the assertion that the Dem party is evil. Flawed? sure, our 2 party system will only allow for flawed parties, but to say their evil is downright showing ignorance or disinformation for the examples that I gave.

          • thecrotch
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            1 year ago

            Democrats voted for Afghanistan, Iraq, the Patriot act, and countless other evil legislation. They’re absolutely evil. So they’re less evil than the Republicans, so what? Should I give them a cookie?

            • Habahnow
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              You’re like 20 years behind, catch up. Give them a cookie? Give them your vote. The alternative is republicans who RIGHT NOW, IN THIS YEAR are attempting to restrict abortions, deny the elections, restrict lgbt+ rights. Democrats are fighting against that. But yeah you’re right maybe split you’re vote because both sides “are the same”.

              • thecrotch
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                1 year ago

                I didn’t say they’re the same. They don’t have to be the same to both suck. Fuck you for telling me how to vote. You got a lot of nerve.

            • frunch@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No, but you should still vote for them. What else can you do? Vote independent? Change the world?

              • thecrotch
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                1 year ago

                My state is reliably going to be won by the same party no matter what I do, and that party is going to get 100% of our electoral votes no matter what I do. So I vote third party, because if they can get 20% of the popular vote they get to be in the debates next time around. Living in a locked down state, it’s the only way my vote can possibly have a chance of making any difference.

    • NotErisma [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      My thing is, why are some people here just finally throwing away their votes?

      Like I knew from a very young age that this country doesn’t care and will enthusiastically turn it’s back on you if your hardship is an inconvenience to capital in any way, look how they treat the ndns.

      And if anything there is money to be made off our suffering.

      This is why colonization anywhere is colonization everywhere. From the river to the fucking sea, Palestine WILL BE FREE

    • thilo@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      This is nonsense. MAGA is a fascist movement. Don’t let both being neo-liberal blind you.

      • cosecantphi [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        And yet the United States continues to slide into fascism despite having elected Biden. What horrific Trump era policies did the Democrats even bother to repeal after they won in 2020 and held both the senate and the house?

        They are still funding the construction of border wall segments. They never repealed the Republican tax cuts. They have done nothing about the concentration camps on the southern border for fuck’s sake. They never codified Roe v. Wade, we literally lost the right to abortions while Biden was in office. They could have stacked the supreme court but they didn’t.

        The Democrats and the Republicans form an obfuscated one party system in the US. Republican leadership aggressively ramps up the oppression of marginalized people, then Democratic leadership does nothing to restore our rights nor proactively prevent the same thing from happening again. Instead they just use their time in office to suck all of the energy out of people’s movements that could actually effect change.

        And much more importantly than all of that, Republicans and Democrats are virtually identically evil when it comes to foreign policy. When the US is dropping bombs on you and destroying your country, you’ll tend not to care whether it was a Red MAGA or Blue MAGA administration pulling the trigger.

        In some specific cases it might be worthwhile to vote for Democrats in local elections where there exists much more leeway for politicians to stray from the party line, but voting for them in national elections is just lending your voice to legitimizing their bullshit good cop/bad cop routine they play with the Republicans.

        • thilo@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yes, that is a feature of democratic systems. Parties want to get voted in. So they bend their programs to achieve that goal. I live in Germany and here all parties are leaning further and further to the right, since the AfD (nationalist-conservative, some party members Neo-nazi) party is gaining in almost every poll.

        • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mlM
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          Looking at it from an economic definition perspective though Biden represents the financial bourgeoisie and Trump represents more industrial bourgeoisie

          • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            It is a fact that the economic policies of Nazi Germany were mass privatization and public-private partnerships, both of which are the hallmarks of neoliberal policy. Your denial of this is factless. Not that it matters to you, because you don’t care about facts. You’re just an empty headed smuglord with Facts and Logic™ aesthetics

    • GreatWhiteNope [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      If they’re both equally evil internationally and mostly equally evil domestically, am I allowed to vote for who is less likely to remove more human rights from women and trans people?

      I would never tell anyone that they should vote, I understand people’s reasons for not doing it. Selfishly, I’m going to give myself the best chance of having access to life saving health care until I’m no longer of child bearing age.

        • GreatWhiteNope [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          If Hitler had actually held an election and the only options were him or a Strasser party, I don’t think it would be immoral to vote for the Strassers. But I also don’t think it would be a moral obligation if you had no reason to believe they would stop the Holocaust.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            A vote for Hindenburg was indeed a vote for Hitler, so I think the moral is that caping for a lesser evil instead of trying to build good (and those two things are normally opposed) is not a constructive behavior. I couldn’t give less of a shit who you personally vote for, that’s the consumer-lifestyle version of political engagement. I do care somewhat what you advocate for, because promoting the lesser evil is still promoting evil over good (using the overly moralistic phrasing of the adage).

            Withholding support from Nazis (on any substantial level) is plainly the better option if you want to not need to keep choosing between two Nazis.

            • GreatWhiteNope [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              The 1932 election had a communist option, it’s unlikely that there will be one on my ballot.

              We’re not going to overthrow fascism in America at the voting booth. I’m not trying to convince anyone to vote for Biden, that’s his job and he’s not doing it very well. I’m also not going to shame anyone for doing something easy like voting in the hopes that it makes them a tiny bit safer.

              I would shame someone if they thought that voting democrat is a step towards bringing about positive change or parroted some bullshit about how we can get more concessions from Democrats than Republicans. If voting is the extent of your political engagement, you aren’t opposing fascism.

            • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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              A vote for Hindenburg was indeed a vote for Hitler

              How so? Hindenburg was Hitler’s biggest political adversary and refused to pronounce Hitler chancellor until 2 consecutive elections failed.

    • mindbleach
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      What is the lesser evil when both the DNC and the GOP work directly for the exact same military industrial complex?

      If you can have that plus corrupt democracy in America or that plus outright fascism in America, I’m not seeing how the choice is difficult.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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    I get why - congress is increasingly useless - but there’s obvious accountability problems there.

    • TKRyer
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      1 year ago

      And other lies we tell ourselves.

      • imgprojts@lemmy.ml
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        Example: we don’t vote for the president or the people who actually elect him. Yet, we are bombarded with ads about which to pick! Why?

        • _bug0ut@lemmy.world
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          I mean, that’s not entirely accurate - a vote for a presidential candidate is a vote for the slate of electors tied to said candidate - effectively a vote for your candidate, albeit indirectly. Electors can, however, be required to vote according to popular vote as required by the state they’re electors in. Or they could have pledged to vote according to specific party. I don’t know for sure, but I assume state elector requirements override party pledges.

          My understanding is that when it was devised, it was a compromise between direct democracy (which would honestly be potentially dangerous - how many people do you know where you can’t help but go, “Fuck… This guy can vote.”) and election via congressional vote. It certainly ain’t perfect and I have no bias towards it, but it’s a system like anything else that people tend to point at and blame when things don’t go their way or just ignore or even defend when things do go their way.

          • imgprojts@lemmy.ml
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            Biden is president. Things went my way. But let’s imagine that this was how you got lunch.

            Hmm, Josh! I want a hamburger!.. okay buddy I promise I’ll bring you a hamburger. I’m just going to be your food delegate in the food acquisition team.

            Josh! I want a salad! … and I want a spoon full of extra virgin olive oil!. Josh I want an apple! Hey Josh can I get some Doritos crushed in a bowl and mixed with jalapeno and chicken nuggets!

            Then Josh goes to the big food acquisition meeting… My team wants a spoon full of extra virgin olive oil!

            Then you wait half an hour and you get a turkey sandwich but you’re vegan so you eat the three onion rings.

            70 percent of the office was vegan too, but only 5 of the food delegates were vegan. The other 20 were old timers that have been ordering the food for the past seven years. They like turkey sandwiches. So you get turkey sandwich.

            I hope you enjoy your turkey sandwich 🥪. 😂 LOL. At least it wasn’t a lump of lard with a tupee.

            • _bug0ut@lemmy.world
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              The long, drawn out metaphorical explanation was unnecessary and frankly kind of condescending.

              I’m not over here trying to be some champion of the electoral college and I’d be more interested in seeing a real push for ranked choice or one of its cousins.

              The point I was making was that if you sat at home and didn’t vote at all, your chosen candidate would never see the inside of the oval office and I went into my understanding of why it is the way it is. Ultimately, voting under the current system is not entirely worthless as you seemed to claim in the original post I responded to.

              We’ve had something like 59 elections in total and 5 of them involved the winning candidate losing the popular vote but winning the election by way of the electoral college. Only one of those elections - the very first - involved anything even remotely close to your example (but still not42.3% vs 31.6%). The other 4 had a difference of like 2% or less between the two leading candidates.

              The electoral college was devised as a compromise between direct democracy and congressional voting and I’m sure it was done in good faith to try to make sure everyone was represented, but this system seems to truly show its cracks when we’re facing an insanely stark national split like we see today and there’s no argument that we should probably shake things up and get rid of it.

  • TheLastHero [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    Spineless, pathetic cowardice. I mean we already knew that about Democrats but this just indicts the entire administration as such. Israel makes no apologies for their slaughter, they just don’t give a shit, but this means that Genocide Joe and Co. KNOW this is wrong and they’ll still bend over backwards just to kill a foreigner.

    Zero attempts at “harm reduction” pfff, they’re actively taking steps to make the harm (literal bombing of children) worse. I live in a swing state, so when I throw my vote away I’ll get to feel proud knowing it was worth even more. Glory to the martyrs and may “Israel” and her American dog be annihilated.

    • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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      Biden said something like: “If there was no Israel, we’d have to invent it.”

      The US loves having a highly militarized, violent, totally amoral and 100% US-dependent proxy next to all those oil fields. The last thing the US wants is peace in the middle east. This is just divide-and-conquer 101.

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    I don’t like this trend! War movies in 10-20 years will be boring. No Rambos, no Schwarzeneggers, no Spielberg and Tom Hanks emotional patriotism! No funny casual racism, no casual homophobia, no casual misoginy… Did Mark Hamil play a terrorist in Star Trek after all? The End of an Era. We’re gonna have to watch films about how a bribed White House politicant struggles to keep up with weapon manufacture demands while managing to convince his wife not to divorce him because she feels neglected since he’s never at home… directed by Clint Eastwood.

    That’s boring. I’m out!

  • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m not voting for this man a second time. No more harm reduction. I’m not degrading myself by voting for a genocide enabler.

    • fiercekitten@lemm.ee
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      You getting downvoted for refusing to vote for Biden for a very valid reason is proof of how broken our two-party system is. This is why every state needs to pass ranked-choice voting. Maine did it and proved it could be done, and now they get to vote for who they actually /want/ without having their vote “spoiled”.

      Everyone in the US should be working to get ranked-choice voting in their state.

    • Zorque@kbin.social
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      Wee! We get full harm because you only want perfection at all times with no effort at all! Woohoo!

      • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        My effort is contributing to my community and the less fortunate. You think me bubbling in a check mark for someone who is giving the thumbs up for an ethnic cleansing and genocide is putting in work? Go outside.

        • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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          I really hope your 2016 vote went to an independent, then. I’m having a hard time seeing how Trump would ever do either of those things. Granted, he might thumbs-up an ethnic cleansing if it meant remaining in power.

            • Habahnow
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              “Things aren’t going how I like when I vote, so now i will encourage everyone to not vote to improve the chances that things will change the way I want them to”

                • Vqhm@lemmy.world
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                  I let perfect be the enemy of good.

                  I’m doing my part, for the Republicans!

                  People are always ready with some morality test but the cold hard truth is trying to enforce your absolutes on others is not going to work out. It just backs you into a corner supporting a turd sandwich. Compromises suck though. Can’t have that. You do you.

            • Bear
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              1 year ago

              Go back to Reddit if you want pats on the back for not voting or voting for someone that wants to strip human rights.

              • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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                I’ve always found it strange how people gatekeep internet culture. Especially when it’s meaningless in the face of a genocide. I don’t care about this perfect utopia you expected the fediverse to be. I will be firmly against genocide and will say it wherever I see fit.

                • Bear
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                  It’s more that you talk like nobody else is against genocide. Nobody here wants genocide. Your “solution” is just a nothing burger. The reality is every government is pretty fucked up, some more than others. There’s no way to change the whole world order, so you try make it as less shit for as many people as possible, not just throw your hands up and say “I’m done with voting”.

    • Poggervania@kbin.social
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      Spoiler alert: This would have most likely happened regardless of the D or R next to the president’s name on the ballot.

      There’s two reasons I could see the US supporting Israel regardless of who’s in charge: the logical one because it has historical precedent is that the US wants Israel as a buffer for Russia due to it’s strategic location in the Middle-East, and the other reason is more conspiracy theory but I wouldn’t be surprised if the US can somehow get access to Palestine’s oil if Israel beats the shit out of the Hamas.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        Or third, Israel has invested a lot in American politics after Eisenhower used American economic power against Israeli allies in the Suez Crisis, seeing that it needed to be on good terms with at least one super power and the USA seemed like the more natural fit. This includes going as far as supporting any primary challenger that pledges Israeli support.

        It was either that or go the way of its apartheid nuclear buddy, South Africa.

      • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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        Palestine doesn’t have any oil. There’s some offshore deposits in the Mediterranean but Israel already has full access to those.

    • mindbleach
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      Yay harm increases! Apathy means innocence.

      • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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        I will stay dumb and ignorant if it means sticking to my morals of being anti-genocide. Thanks.

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            Not saying I am, but voting for someone who enables a genocide goes against my values. If by childish you mean choosing what I want to do with my vote, then sure.

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                Great, I’m telling you that it goes against my morals. You can effectively vote for whoever you want and I can effectively not vote for either. Are you going to tell me voting third party is a vote for Trump too?

        • thisisawayoflife@lemmy.world
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          That’s why I’m shifting to voting for Republicans. Only one way to accelerate the enshittification of politics and that’s by electing religious nutcases that will enforce their system on everyone.

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            Why do we want to accelerate it again? Honestly seems like some Russian “Keep America busy and out of conflicts” plan. I’d rather not vote in a group that will also make it harder to fix anything without a second civil war.

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              Mostly I’m just tired of smoothbrains complaining about the president when they are probably doing jack shit to change FPTP voting at their local, county and state levels. I know for some folks sarcasm doesn’t come across too clearly on the Internet.

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                Small steps, if a few big swing vote states move away from FPTP then we may see a paradigm shift in the national political system of the USA

          • Melkath@kbin.social
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            Being disappointed by one party then immediately latching onto the teat of the other party is exactly what The Party raised you to do.

            Congrats on being a top notch bitch.