On Wednesday, the US Senate will hold a vote on whether to approve the Pentagon’s request to send another $20bn in armaments to Israel, after a year in which the Biden administration has supplied billions of dollars of arms used in Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
Among the weapons to be approved are 120mm tank rounds, high explosive mortar rounds, F-15IA fighter aircraft, and joint direct attack munitions, known as JDAMs, which are precision systems for otherwise indiscriminate or “dumb” bombs.
Separate resolutions are being brought forward for each weapon type, including its cost to US taxpayers. However, together, the initiative is known as the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs).
As a result of intensive lobbying from pro-Israel groups like Aipac and the Democratic Majority For Israel, no arms transfer to Israel has been blocked.
The resolutions likely to gain the highest levels of support are expected to involve the tank rounds, which have been responsible for killing hundreds of civilians in northern Gaza in particular, and the JDAMs, which caused the death of well-known figures such as Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon, and six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza City.
He filled stadiums with his message, she couldn’t fill half a highscool gym. It’s time for a new party on the actual left.
We don’t need a new party.
We need to get the neo liberals out of leadership positions at the DNC.
We’re the party of FDR, not billionaires and fossil fuel corporations.
Changing a party from the inside when its leadership is Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton is a tough ask. When push comes to shove every democrat falls in line for the center right candidate. Including the ‘progressives’.
“Democrats” aren’t enough to win. We need the people who normally aren’t engaged, and the most common reason they give is "both parties only care about the rich’.
Dems continually moving to the right just depresses turnout and allows Republicans to win
Buddy, progressives hold their noses and show up to vote for the least worse option. Personally I’ve been doing it for decades.
Progressives aren’t the problem, they’re some of the most politically engaged people in America.
They just get blamed by the neo liberals everytime a neoliberal loses.
Because:
If the DNC wants wins elections, they need to start giving Dem voters what they want, not aiming for “slightly more than trump would do”.
Doesn’t matter that they should still vote D, the politically disengaged won’t vote unless they want the candidate to win or the incumbent out of office.
When a moderate Dem is in office, that means Republicans win the election
It’s very very important we finally learn this lesson. So I’m willing to put some time in to help you understand, even if it’s incredibly frustrating explaining this for the millionth time.
I’m willing to put the time in help.
Rewarding Democrats bad behavior is what got you into this mess.
No, neoliberals and Republicans working together to destroy campaign fundraising regulations is what led us down this path.
The wealthy just buy both parties now in the primary so they don’t have to even worry about the general.
Not holding our noses and voting for the least worse option just means the Republican wins the general. That won’t make the DNC change the type of candidate they run, they’d rather lose to a Republican and keep their positions at the DNC.
So we try to fix things in the primary by getting a progressive.
If we cant then in the general, we still vote D to mitigate the amount of damage.
Like, that’s not just what I do, it’s what literally every progressive I know in real life has been doing for decades now.
What have you been doing if not that?
By holding your nose instead of organizing around alternatives you are perpetuating the crisis.
Or as Briahna Joy Gray worded more aptly yesterday;
The irony that you can’t see she’s saying the same thing I am is too much bub
If you really think me and her are disagreeing, then me repeatedly explaining this won’t help anyone
My advice would be asking someone else for assistance, maybe how I’m explaining it is the problem. But I don’t think it is.
Edit:
So no one else has to click on a twitter link:
When election day rolled around, she still did the same as me:
Advocating for mitigating damage when that was the only other option.
When talking about next election, she says we need a better candidate. Same thing I’ve been saying.
Like, I understand that we agree, but trying to get you to understand that has been insanely frustrating
…
https://x.com/briebriejoy/status/1853879761077944576
is it really that hard to change? I think if push came to shove, both of them would fall over, they’re octogenarians.
And how do you suggest we do that?
The same way the Tea Party primaried out moderate Republicans.
Show up and vote.
Democrats protect centrist incumbents and ONLY centrist incumbents. When they have primaries at all.
For who you’re ordered to and didn’t have a say in.
The RNC saw moderates kicked out by voters in primaries, and candidates made sure to run.
Why can’t the DNC and progressive voters do the same?
Because the DNC is structured explicitly to prevent progressive challengers.
There are many examples, but one big one is the DNC vendor banlist. The DNC says that any vendors who work with progressive primary challengers will be banned from any future work with the party.
This means that progressive challengers often cannot find vendors to do basic things like print flyers and signs, and finding experienced staff to hire is nearly impossible. And of course, “centrist” candidates have not been bothered by this.
And then at the top of the DNC you have hundreds of superdelegates and party officials who are overwhelmingly center right or rightwing. These people cannot be voted out directly.
Because the moderates running the DNC would rather keep control of the party with a republican president than let a progressive into the general.
If a progressive wins the general, they get to nominate DNC leadership, and if the DNC fights it, that’s four years for the Dem president to start a new party in retaliation.
08 Obama was a wake up call for the DNC. Unfortunately what they learned wasn’t how to win an election, it was what they need to do to keep their position as leaders for the only other viable option besides fascism.
And unfortunately for everyone living in America, for them to hold party control, it means every four years a fascist gets elected, and when a moderate Dem does win, they don’t actually fix anything.
But when the DNC lets foreign governments, billionaires, and corporations throw millions into primary campaigns supporting both a D and R to guarantee they always win regardless of general results…
Why the fuck are you still blaming voters?
Because that’s who chooses the leaders.
I vote in primaries; a lot of you online progressives aren’t there voting with me. I voted for Katie Porter for senator in California, but the managerial class that actually shows up to vote wanted Schiff and so they got him.
EDIT: I find it hilarious that people advocating against showing up to vote in every other case always show up to downvote my comments.
LMAO
Good one bub.
Until we get dirty money out of at least the primaries and an actually non biased DNC, it’s not voters deciding.
It’s donors who flood primaries to ensure they don’t need to worry about who wins a general.
For fucks sake, NH didn’t even get a presidential primary this year, because they keep voting more progressive than the DNC wants.
How the actual fuck is trump their fault?
My state votes so late that the DNC calls the primary months before we vote… How am I supposed to have an effect?
If you want to blame primary voters, blame the handful the DNC allows to vote first (or at all) before they call it over.
But it would make a hell of a lot more sense to blame the DNC for all the rat fuckering they do.
AOC and the squad got in there. Some of them got voted out during primaries because progressives were no shows. If progressives can’t show up to vote during primaries, I don’t know how we’re expected to take a general election.
We need to build an actual movement.
I mean I’m not happy about it but Trump might purge a good chunk of them
I don’t think they’ll get filled with progressives if Trump does that.
If the goal is to remove and replace all party leadership, non-compliant party members, and administrative staff, why not just make a new party? Are you just really attached to the name on your ship of Theseus?
We need to rebuild social capital. FDR didn’t just happen by himself, he had a backing of growing labor movement, and a much more community-oriented, civically-involved America.
We have that…
Like, you don’t need to convince voters that shit is broken, everyone is well aware shit is broken.
There’s just not an option that will honestly try to fix the root problem fucking everything up:
When both parties are pro-corps and anti-worker…
The problem isn’t growing a movement of voters, it’s finding a way to get a candidate past the primary so they can win the general.
Every election there’s two fights:
Fight the DNC moderates in the primary
Fight the Republicans and the DNC moderates in the general
If we don’t win the first one, there’s a very strong chance the candidate who makes it to the general won’t be able to beat the Republican in the general. Because they’re not what the politically disengaged want.
The good news tho is that there is very very few voters who would even want to pull another PUMA and vote R in the general if a progressive makes it. Some will 100% try it. And the media will shit their pants trying to convince us it won’t work.
But it can still work just as well today as it did 16 years ago when they voted R instead of for a Black guy with a progressive campaign.
There’s very few neoliberal voters, it’s just the people running the party pretend that’s the base.
We absolutely do not have that. We have a couch-dwelling population that hasn’t been civically engaged in a meaningful way in fifty years and running. Social capital has atrophied since the 60s by every discernible metric.
Maybe with the people you spend time with.
But lots of people are putting work in, all over the country.
Just don’t expect to hear about it from the party, or any of the big media organizations owned by billionaires for the express purpose of maintaining the status quo so they can keep their ill gotten wealth.
Quick edit:
Not sure why you’re talking about the 60s like everyone was hippies…
The majority of the population back then was fighting school busing like Biden was to preserve segregation, or the ones screaming insults and throwing rocks at children for going to the school they were told to attend.
Like, it’s important to understand the present, but you can’t do that when you’re obviously confused about the past…
If you’re spending your time with a large amount of civically involved, mutual-aid-providing people in America, you’re actually in the minority.
EDIT: Because I’m talking about statistical measures of things. Not feels and vibes like you’re thinking. It’s a well-studied subject, but I know nobody believes in reading or studying anymore.
First we need to do [thing that will take decades and which centrists will oppose every step of the way], and once that’s complete, we’ll come up with a new prerequisite,
Yeah these are things that “centrists” can oppose…talking to your neighbors, going to council meetings, joining a union, starting a poker game, or joining a social group. /s
Edit:
I mean hell start a podcast even. There’s literally no place I even know of in my town to build any of this so-called solidarity keyboard leftists talk about as if it’s ubiquitous. I live in a top ten city in one of the most left-leaning states and all I see is “let’s go Brandon” bumper stickers and maga stickers plastered on the backside of my street signs.
Maybe, just maybe, online leftists are full of it and America isn’t on the brink of some great socialist revolution. But who am I kidding, it’s inevitable, right guys? It springs up automatically out of the dirt like dandelions. /s
At this point it would be easier for the progressives in the party to show they don’t approve the status quo (hahahahaha) by forming a new party (even if it means giving the keys to the White House to the Republicans) instead of trying to change the existing party from the inside.
You know why it won’t happen? Because they don’t mind the status quo as long as they get elected.
FDR was the 10th wealthiest President in history, and T. Roosevelt was 4th. They were the neo-liberals of their time, even if they did some things to improve the working class.
Source
FDR was the internment camp guy, right?
Edit: Sadly I don’t find the downvotes as a Japanese American very surprising.
Progressive as long as we ignore atrocities is a weak position.
…
That’s how progress works…
When someone is talking about a progressive from literally 80 fucking years ago, hopefully there’s some stuff they did almost a century ago that modern society finds distasteful
If there isn’t, that likely just means society hasn’t made any progress in the almost century that’s gone by.
I truly hope that makes sense, if not please let me know what’s still causing confusion. This is an important point that comes up regularly, so I’m willing to put some time in to clear this up for you
like today’s democrats, fdr ignored the constructive criticisms that would have prevented such a painful episode; the democrats back then are more alike than unlike to the democrats of today.
Found a policy of his that you actually like?
I liked FDRs policies for the most part. It’s just easy to forget that he went out of his way to imprison Japanese Americans.
Yes, I’m sure that’s why you brought it up.
How could you possibly know my motivations?
I think it’s safe to say that I can be both progressive and critical of authoritarian policies. We can both be elated at FDRs progressive polices that helped usher unprecedented rights to some citizens while condemning him for imprisoning Americans.
Stadiums don’t vote. The last few weeks before the election there were several posts on lemmy about big crowds attending Haris events while Trump struggled to fill venues and bored his attendees. We now now how that turned out…
I agree - too many people mistakenly believe the Dems can be reformed into an actual leftist party. This just isn’t going to happen. They’re corrupt to the core - a center-right fundraising organization eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and they would rather the country burn than do anything against the wishes of their wealthy donors.
Okay. Then you gotta convince every Democrat and then some to agree to leave the party AND join the same new one in order to beat the GOP in a FPTP system. Or your goal is to dilute the power of the corrupt Democrats instead of eliminating them.
Weeding a single corrupt party is easier than creating an entirely new party while simultaneously competing with two existing corrupt parties in a FPTP system.
Nah, I don’t see it playing out that way at all. A genuine populist revolution will easily be able to pull working class voters from all walks of life. In fact, I strongly believe that a true leftist movement in America would force the merger of the neocons and neolibs for their very survival.
For democrats, the problem is that the establishment leverages the DNC delegates to ensure no true populist ever sees the light of day. Plus the usual media smear jobs, etc. Regarding those elitist dems who are in charge and keep forcing these corrupt centrists down our throats, giving us only 5-10% of what’s promised each election at best…they can do whatever they want, which will likely be turning conservative to try for lowering their taxes. We don’t need them, and personally, I don’t want them either.
I just don’t think this is possible with a 3rd party candidate in our system. You’ll never pull GOP voters this way, which means you have to pull a shitload of Democratic voters all in the same direction.
I wholly agree with you the issues with the DNC, but there’s a solution: we show up in the primaries. The DNC is corrupt, but they aren’t flipping primary votes. We can absolutely elect different people to run the party with enough numbers. And if you can’t get enough people to do that with a genuine populist message, how are you ever going to start an entirely new party and convince people to show up?
I used to think like you, that the primaries were the answer. AOC seemed to prove this theory, but the events which unfolded afterwards cast much doubt on this strategy. Consider the race in TX of Henry Cuellar vs Jessica Cisneros. Cisneros was a strong progressive candidate, people loved her in her district, and she would have won…but then Pelosi decided to back the corporate goon Cuellar, dumped millions of DNC money into his campaign, and he stole the win from the progressive. Cuellar, the “democrat”, went on to vote with Trump 83% of the time.
Alternatively, consider this year’s presidential race. There simply was no primary, and it cost us dearly. There’s a lot of finger pointing going on by the Dems right now trying to determine which racial identity is to blame for not showing up to vote hard enough. They’re absolute fools, because blaming the voters is simply wrong. It’s the party’s responsibility to win votes. We could have done that this year with an exciting primary to democratically test ideas and allow the voters to get energized and decide. Meaningful, materially impactful ideas like increasing the minimum wage, paid family leave, and Medicare for all surely would have been center stage here. But no, the oligarchs wanted to continue with Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” approach, with an extra helping of “Israel first policy,” and that was final. There are many other such examples, but unfortunately I no longer believe the Dems care enough about democracy to allow successful primary challenges to begin with.
Lastly, I think there are many Trump voters who are simply feeling immense economic pain right now, and are voting for him as a change candidate mostly out of desperation. My heart goes out to them, because the fake populist Trump has 0 intention of delivering for them. But at least his messaging acknowledged their struggle, and he was able to give them some hope. Dems simply cannot escape Republican framing on social issues, and they’re nowhere to be found when it comes to relating to actual working class struggles. A real populist candidate could change all that. But alas, you’ll never see it from the DNC.
What’s wrong with the Socialism and Liberation Party?