Stop funding Israel’s genocide seems like an easy sensible option. That’s kinda straightforward
But…. But, we can’t do that!
it’s a antisemitic to not fund genocide! The genocidal maniac said so.
He’s in a lose/lose situation now.
He can keep supporting Israel and lose the support of the younger voters he so desperately needs.
OR:
He can reverse course, let Bibi twist in the wind, causing him to lose all support from the pro-Israel lobby, and be met with “yeah, but you didn’t do it soon enough” from the younger voters.
Third option is: you’re misusing our armaments, and we won’t give you more.
That would run him afoul of the pro-Israel lobby and nobody can afford to do that.
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/background?cycle=2024&ind=Q05
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
They can. Satisfies both sides. Why do you think they’re also opening up borders to refugees? It’s so dumb and insane, but seems to be the path.
There’s a big difference between fully sanctioning israel or providing any form of pushback
I’m pretty sure the youth is more receptive to not funding genocide with tax dollars than you make it out to seem
They aren’t though. See the complaints about the economy. The youth vote is very vocal, but they don’t have the money to make up for lost donations from the Pro-Israel PAC.
It’s this mentality that will give the US another Trump presidency. If you are worried about losing money from a Pro-Israel PAC because you won’t stop aiding an active genocide, you aren’t fit to make decisions for a major country. Not aiding genocide is kinda important. And yes, the economy sucks for students and the working class. That’s why they don’t want to send bombs (with their tax dollars) to Israel, when the people here need the funding more.
I’m sorry you find political facts inconvenient.
Here’s what the students and pro-Palestinian movements are up against:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q05
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
There simply is no equivalent on the other side, so instead we get:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/pro-israel-money-progressives-congress-challenges
and:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/aipac-pro-israel-lobby-group-us-elections
The students can barely live, they can’t afford to contribute at this level.
So, yeah, despite all of Israel’s bad behavior, going back decades now, US support will continue going to them, because politicians can’t afford otherwise.
That sounds like something a PAC would say lol. Self-fulfilling prophecies
Well, when the students are actively complaining about not being able to afford rent or food, that’s the big indicator that they don’t have money for political donations:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/16/food-insecurity-us-college-students
Now, I’m not saying you HAVE to donate to get politicians to do the right thing… but, yeah, you kinda do.
Well it sounds like the current government is not providing a path forward for them to support themselves, so I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise when they don’t come out to support the current government. Especially one that is involved in active genocide and shutting down their peaceful protests.
I agree that you cannot dispute the power PACs and the Pro-Israel lobby has. It is unfortunate that money runs the US government. It is even more unfortunate that people apologize for it
Then it’s game over already. We lost.
They aren’t though. See the complaints about the economy.
We should keep supporting genocide because gaslighting the poor hasn’t worked?
Supporting Biden isn’t supporting genocide, that’s a false argument.
Biden is supporting Israel because that’s where the PAC money is and poor college students can’t make up that difference.
Biden is supporting Netanyahu’s genocide. Should he continue because gaslighting the poor hasn’t worked?
He isn’t supporting genocide, he’s supporting Israel, just like every other President since the start, and Bibi is misaporopriating that support.
You wouldn’t say Reagan or Clinton supported war crimes when Israel illegally attacked Lebanon during their administrations. Same deal here.
He isn’t supporting genocide
He’s selling them weapons that he knows will be used for genocide, with no strings attached. He’s running interference for Netanyahu at the UN.
That looks like support from where I’m sitting.
just like every other President since the start, and Bibi is misaporopriating that support.
“That’s the way we’ve always done it” is a lousy justification, since the way we’ve always done it got us here, with the US selling weapons for genocide.
You wouldn’t say Reagan or Clinton supported war crimes when Israel illegally attacked Lebanon during their administrations. Same deal here.
Didn’t Reagan threaten to withhold weapons when Israel illegally attacked Lebanon?
In any event, the article’s about protests from a generation that weren’t even alive for Reagan and were children during Clinton’s administration.
Ah. It’s okay if it’s blood money. Cause only Biden and his Israel money can be our option. So. Fucking. Stupid.
They really don’t care where the money comes from so long as they get it. That’s kind of the whole point.
I love linking to this clip from Bulworth, it never gets old, more people should watch that flick:
That is not the society I would prefer to live in. That being said. That looks like a movie worth watching lol
Man, the absolutist crowd is out in force today.
- I don’t “support” Biden, but there is a 100% chance I will be voting for him in November, simply due to the vagaries of the American electoral system.
- not voting for Biden is leaning in to the electoral system being intentionally skewed to the right through various sketchy tactics
- not combating that rightward skew will likely lead to Trump winning the election
- trump winning the election will likely lead to Trump doing something absolutely heinous in naked support of Israel’s genocidal actions, like carpet bombing parts of Gaza with a few squadrons of B-52s like it was the Vietnam War (amongst a shitload of other terrible things both related to Israel and not)
As always, context kinda fucking matters a lot.
Edit: all that said: I’m pretty sure the downvotes are due to how dismissive you are being of “poor college students”
Let me ask you a hypothetical, given the choice between continuing to ship weapons to Israel or Biden winning the 2024 election which would you choose?
I’m sorry, no, that’s an absolutely idiotically framed question, to the extent that I’m quite confident you’re just trying to push agitprop.
To be clear:
- Biden winning might eventually decrease or cut off weapon shipments to Israel, because though it’s often glacial, Biden DOES sometimes react to public sentiment (though often it’s politically delayed/timed, which is infuriating for people waiting for The Appointed Time where the announcement of some policy will have the greatest political impact)
- Trump winning will likely mean that the USAF may be ordered to just help Israel carpet bomb Gaza into dust with a few squadrons of B-52s.
You’re presenting a dichotomy where there is none.
Edit:
Ok, let’s try this another way: which of the two presidential candidates that are advancing to the general election do you believe will actually stop shipping weapons to Israel, or at least has the possibility of being convinced of stopping the shipments?
I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Trump.
Yup, as I said in another comment:
There are two viable candidates, Biden and Trump. Taking votes away from Biden only helps Trump. So not voting, voting Stein, Kennedy, West, all of that only helps Trump.
Helping Trump is supporting:
- A wanna be dictator:
- Project 2025:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
- War with Mexico:
- Soviet style imprisoning of political enemies:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/30/trump-interview-jail-political-opponents-glenn-beck
- Wiping out Gaza “fast”:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-israel-pr-hugh-hewitt-21faee332d95fec99652c112fbdcd35d
- Surrendering Ukraine to Russia:
- Abandoning allies in Europe:
So, yeah, when the alternative is maximizing negative impact, the only voting solution is to vote for the one person who can defeat that agenda… and that’s Biden.
We finally agree on something. I still don’t know why you allow so much disinformation and false accusations in your community, but at least we can agree on this.
I try to let up and down votes do their job.
Bad opinions aren’t necessarily misinformation.
It’s not the opinions that are the problem. We all should be free to speak them. It’s the bullshit propaganda and flat-out accusations that are. I’ve been accused time after time of supporting genocide, simply for trying to explain nuance… and none of you remove said accusations, yet time after time, you remove the comments of people that call out the bullshit.
I’ve even had one of the mods here bait me for two days tiptoeing around the issue until I just gave up trying.
They also don’t show up when they’re needed.
I just want to point out the latter has been a narrative for decades and “younger voters” just keep getting older with it. It’s also completely hypothetical because listening to anyone younger than Boomers hasn’t been tried.
I’m in my 40s, I vote reliably, I voted for Biden in 2020 to give him a chance. As long as Biden is continuing to ship weapons to Israel I won’t be voting for him again.
As long as the Israel lobby is pumping millions into the political system and you aren’t, yes, nobody is going to listen to you.
Then it’s game over. We lost.
The first step is admitting you have a problem. ;)
Now that we recognize that, the question is “What do we do about it?”
This would be a good start:
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics/public-campaign-financing
The game is over. There’s nothing to be done about it.
Taking the money out of politics would go a long way to neutering the pro-Israel lobby, the problem is there’s too much money interested in keeping things the way they are.
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!
Someone tell Biden there is actually a really easy solution.
Stop arms exports to israel.
Jesus tapdancing christ there’s a TRIVIAL fucking solution right the fuck in front of us. Stop giving explodey shit to the people committing genocide, and also stop giving them any diplomatic cover whatsoever.
Local leader who is a Zionist is all out of ideas.
You can demonize the current president over one issue that is overseas, or you can not vote or vote for the other guy who will not accomplish anything but Israel support and worse.
Weigh what has been accomplished vs your issue vs the alternatives and vote accordingly.
You could vote for the guy who thinks WiFi gives you leaky brain and vaccines open portals to hell instead. That’d show everyone!
The most fascinating thing about blue MAGATs is how they keep peddling this narrative that leftists will vote for Trump.
None of the leftist discourse online I have ever seen has embraced this idea. Admittedly I never see lemmygrad posts due to instance.
So in your worst case, a fringe group of like 3000 hardcore Putin supporters will maybe vote Trump for fun. The West has fallen.
Maybe when your only talking point is “it’s just a little genocide”, it’s time to reflect.
I was actually joking about people throwing their vote away on RFK. Because with FPTP our choices are assisting with genocide or committing genocide and the murder of political rivals.
I’m not defending anyone. I think what’s happening is fucking reprehensible. The alternative happens to be way fucking worse. And until we can get ranked choice, STAR, or some other voting method that better reflects the will of the people that’s how it’s going to be. All the name calling and progressive purity tests in the world won’t change that.
Our voting method is just one of the many myriad problems with how we elect government officials. Even if that was fixed we’d still be ruled by low-population states, and the president can be elected with 20% of the vote.
ROFL!
If only we had some clue as to how the other guy would handle the protests… oh yeah, we kind of do:
Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op
Trump threatens military force against protesters nationwide
Not only that, he said recently that these protests wouldn’t be happening if he was in the White House. His positions on Palestine and left-leaning protests have not exactly been subtle.
So that’s American tax dollars that could go to funding things that actually impact Americans directly.
Maintaining peace in the Middle East is important- and the one of the most egregious arguments before all this happened is to provide leverage to keep Israel…. From doing … this.
The reality is that argument is a lie. The war in gaza has set back the goal of peace in the Middle East by decades. Maybe even centuries, while bringing us inexorably closer to WW3.
If Biden reverse course now… he has a chance. If he stays the angry old Zionist, though… he’s going to lose in November.
It always amazes me how many people suddenly give a shit about Palestine when less than a year ago, most couldn’t find it on a map.
But predictably… every election year to no one’s surprise, a group of people find something to use as a reason to suggest to everyone listening- that not voting is a good idea.
My guess is these same people- the people that couldn’t point to Palestine on a map less than a year ago…. WILL be voting this year.
Can you guess for what side?
We should all vote for Biden. Biden should stop supporting genocide.
And I get that you want to paint everyone who doesn’t support Netanyahu’s genocide as ignorant children, but it’s just not so. Abuse is not a substitute for defensible positions.
Are you going to follow me everywhere to harass me with your propaganda, or can you maybe take a hint and find something else to do.
Follow you around? This is all in the same comments section to the same article.
You just don’t want your pro-genocide propaganda challenged.
Right…. So you’re going to respond to my every comment because you’re butthutt I shut you down.
Get your last word in, troll.
You seem to have confused “abuse and wild accusations” for “shutting someone down.”
Absolutely protest in order to try to bring about policy changes. But when it comes time to elect leadership, do it wisely.
Sounds like people should be protesting for electoral reform so they can vote for the candidate that represents them best, while still counting their vote against the republicans.
There are easy solutions, just depends on what you’re trying to solve for. If the student protests are the problem, do nothing and wait like 2 weeks until exams and the end of the semester and they will peter out on their own.
If he has to solve Israel/Palestine peace…yeah that’s famously a sticky wicket and there was never going to be an easy solution.
At this point the bigger issue is that the US seems to support what appears to be an ongoing genocide.
campus protests rule
Predictable as ever.
There’s only one moral solution. Support the protesters and stop enabling genocide.
As much as I hate genocide, we still have to get Biden back in office. The other option is the end of democracy.
