The US primaries and the general election are two different things. Voting uncommitted in the primary expresses support for the Palestinian plight and does not give Republicans any ground.

The uncommitted movement presents a safe and effective avenue for voters to voice dissatisfaction with President Biden’s policies, particularly with the Israel-Hamas conflict. By doing so in the primary, voters can signal discontent without risking a Republican victory in the general election. The purpose is to send a wake-up call to the Biden administration that it is failing to address issues and effectively engage with the party, vis a vis that Biden is enabling a genocide.

That being said, anyone who calls for an uncommitted or third-party vote in the general election i will personally kick in the gender neutral balls (in Minecraft).

  •  horsey   ( @horsey@lemm.ee ) 
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    674 months ago

    That’s not the message though, so this is disingenuous or misleading. We all 98% agree the US should tell Israel to quit their shit and not give them more funds or weapons, and that it’s disappointing Biden and 90% of the US political establishment have supported this. However, what people are told is we should not vote for Biden, and vote third party or not vote, to ‘send the Democrats a message’. Enough people doing that would have the predictable result of getting Trump elected, so yeah, it’s a decent question why people would suggest that when a Trump admin would surely be worse on the Palestine issue.

    •  spujb   ( @spujb@lemmy.cafe ) OP
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      274 months ago

      you misunderstand the us primary election process.

      The uncommitted movement presents a safe and effective avenue for voters to voice dissatisfaction with President Biden’s policies, particularly with the Israel-Hamas conflict. By doing so in the primary, voters can signal discontent without risking a Republican victory in the general election. The purpose is to send a wake-up call to the Biden administration that it is failing to address issues and effectively engage with the party, vis a vis that Biden is enabling a genocide.

        •  spujb   ( @spujb@lemmy.cafe ) OP
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          84 months ago

          Talking endless shit about Biden will affect more than the primary.

          i agree! and so does the uncommitted movement. that’s why a third party or uncommitted vote will not be called after the primary. the shit talking will generally end as soon as the primaries are over, regardless of the outcome.

          you seem to be here in good faith so i encourage you to look more into what the uncommitted movement is thinking. these aren’t stupid folks and they well understand the concerns which you bring up and are strategizing within that very framework. perhaps you will be led to interrogate assumptions you had previously made, perhaps not. :)

          •  horsey   ( @horsey@lemm.ee ) 
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            24 months ago

            I find it pretty unlikely the one sided criticism of the Democratic Party and politicians will end after the primary, and you’re ignoring that not everyone receiving these messages is on board with your theory. Oh, he’s “genocide joe” only til the primary is done, then vote for him! And meanwhile you’re going to continue strangely never saying anything critical or realistic about Trump and Republicans, right?

            •  spujb   ( @spujb@lemmy.cafe ) OP
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              24 months ago

              i agree, genocide joe is kind of a dumbass nickname.

              and you’re wrong, watch: trump, if elected, will go fucking balls to the wall in “finishing” the genocide. trump is a genocidal freak and biden is only slightly better because democrats may have the opportunity to sway him.

              so hopefully that teaches you to make assumptions lol

              •  horsey   ( @horsey@lemm.ee ) 
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                14 months ago

                Okay, great. We agree about that at least. I’m being pragmatic about the election. Pressuring Democrats about Palestine is great, but do we want to help Palestinians? Getting Trump elected will not do that, and the only way to prevent it at this point, short of buying him 10,000 hamberders, is supporting Biden, even though he’s not most people’s ideal candidate.

          •  horsey   ( @horsey@lemm.ee ) 
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            24 months ago

            Who said the issue was I don’t want to hear it? I’m here discussing it. My point is that it’s counterproductive, unfair, and likely to lead to worse outcomes for the US and the entire world. The #1 issue is “gEnOcIdE jOe” which is kind of ridiculous given that not just Biden but 90% of the US political establishment supported the same policies, AND we’ll end up getting genocide Donald, who will throw away Ukraine, run his own genocide on Central Americans in the US, do the same but worse in Israel (Trump recently said Israel should “finish the job”). Hmm, but maybe some people prefer one of those things.

            • My point is that it’s counterproductive, unfair, and likely to lead to worse outcomes for the US and the entire world.

              Seems pretty productive to me, we haven’t even finished the primaries yet and the sudden drop in support has pushed Biden from “Humanitarian pause” to openly calling for a temporary ceasfire.

              At this rate he might even call for a permanemt ceasefire and halt weapons shipments to Israel in time for the general election, but if we don’t let the party know they need to change then they won’t.

              The #1 issue is “gEnOcIdE jOe” which is kind of ridiculous given that not just Biden but 90% of the US political establishment supported the same policies,

              Seems like its long past time to stop supporting 90% of the political establishment, then.

              maybe some people prefer one of those things.

              Admitting that the American public is willing to support genocide out of fear that the wrong genocider might take power is the first step towards changing our political system to send war criminals to the hague instead of the white house.

              •  horsey   ( @horsey@lemm.ee ) 
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                24 months ago

                I saw the ‘undecided’ crowd (which was a concept that came after criticizing Biden and discouraging voters for months) credited themselves with him making that decision, though I doubt it was the only influence. It’s been kind of apparent that political opponents have been using that as an issue against Biden and it is pretty unpopular, not to mention generally wrong, so of course he should change policy. I think they can figure that out themselves too.

                Well, if you have figured out a way to stop AIPAC from influencing US politics, great! It’s only been about 80 years of sending them billions of dollars in weapons and arms each year. The idea that Americans are going to send their own politicians to international criminal court in the EU is pretty far-fetched. I’d start with Bush, Rice and Cheney personally.

    •  Neato   ( @Neato@ttrpg.network ) 
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      264 months ago

      Enough people doing that would have the predictable result of getting Trump elected,

      I agree with this and it’s what I’m afraid of. I totally support voting in the primary as you wish, even just to send a message (I support voting how you wish in all cases). But in this case using primary voting to send a dissatisfied message about the Democratic candidate has me worried it will instead send a wider message (or mass media will push this message) that the US populace feels Biden is unpopular compared to Trump.

      Which is absolutely not the case with the vast majority of people voting against Biden in the primary. But that kind of message (accidental or intentional) can do real harm to prevent a literal fascist takeover in November. This is the totality of my concern and if we weren’t facing down the potential end of democracy in the US, I’d give a lot less shits about potentially torpedoing Biden’s chances. And I feel a lot of the hate against Biden has galvanized right around the time the primary season started which seems convenient for Trump.

  • I used to believe Democrats when they said stuff like “unlike Republicans, we accept valid criticism of our politicians”

    But they’ve really gone out of their way to disprove this. Their treament of Palestinians and immigrants at the southern border inspires no confidence that they will protect my rights as a LGBTQ+ person. They’d run me over with a tank if it were politically convenient.

  • I agree that Biden is a piece of shit, but if you don’t vote for that piece of shit, then you’ll end up with an even worse piece of shit. Don’t even think that you’re “sending him a message” by not voting or voting third party.

    It absolutely sucks that things are like this, but sometimes you have to vote for a genocidal cunt to prevent an even worse genocidal cunt from getting elected, even if it makes you feel bad. Trump becoming the new president would only make things worse for you, and for Palestine, and for Ukraine.

      •  Arctic   ( @Arctic@beehaw.org ) 
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        104 months ago

        Genuinely not true. Our electoral system more or less requires two candidates de facto to function - it is not a failure of the commons, it’s a failure of the systems of government. We need ranked choice voting, at which point we can actually begin to meaningfully remove ourselves from this insanity and have more than two de facto political parties.

        Voting third party is the same as not voting in the United States under our current system.

    • This really shouldn’t be such a controversial take. Every side of this conflict fucking sucks, and they’ve all sucked for decades. Israel sucks for electing a fascist, Palestine sucks due to being religious fundamentalists, the U.S. sucks for doing all this in the first place and building Israel up as a superpower in the region, and all the surrounding Middle Eastern powers suck because they claim a Free Palestine is a priority while doing fuck-all to support it. Even if a miracle ceasefire is called, there is no geopolitical will for a Free Palestine, so Israel will just do this again in 10 years once their stockpiles are replenished.

      • There’s no such thing as a good state. All states gradually trend toward fascism, at varying rates. But this quote from “Anarchism and Its Aspirations” by Cindy Milstein really helped me parse situations like this, especially since it cites Palestine as an example:

        If we understand this sense of negative and positive freedom, what appears as a contradictory stance within anarchism makes perfect sense. An anarchist might firmly believe that the Palestinian people deserve to be liberated from occupation, even if that means that they set up their own state. That same anarchist might also firmly believe that a Palestinian state, like all states, should be opposed in favor of nonstatist institutions. A complete sense of freedom would always include both the negative and positive senses—in this case, liberation from occupation and simultaneously the freedom to self-determine. Otherwise, as both actually existing Communist and liberal regimes have demonstrated, “freedom from” on its own will serve merely to enslave human potentiality, and at its most extreme, humans themselves; self-governance is denied in favor of a few governing over others. And “freedom to,” on its own, as capitalism has shown, will serve merely to promote egotistic individualism and pit each against each; self-determination trumps notions of collective good. Constantly working to bring both liberation and freedom to the table, within moments of resistance and reconstruction, is part of that same juggling act of approximating an increasingly differentiated yet more harmonious world.

  • If the conclusion translates to way stricter conditions for aid (rolling back settlements, carving out pathways for aid, etc.) you won’t get called fascist. If your conclusion is to let Trump into office, you are.

    The first take is also a problem.

    Genocide has a specific definition. The term is probably not applicable to Gaza, and doesn’t have to be. A humanitarian crisis also leads to the above mentioned conclusion. Starting to call everything a Genocide that is nowhere near that level primarily has two effects:

    • First it shuts down any debate about what is happening and what actions to take as a consequence. People who don’t agree with the application of the term “genocide” will see you conspiracy theorists or similar. People who agree will write off all arguments as genocide denial. Stunlocking all processes that could lead to action.

    • Secondly, and most importantly, it muddles the term. Genocide doesn’t seem that bad if Israel is doing one or even Canada. While it does draw attention to your current issues, it simultaneously downplays actual recognized genocides.

    An example of the second Point is, that a lot of people calling it a genocide are calling for aid to stop and NOT immediate intervention in the ONGOING genocide. Which would be a more appropriate reaction to genocide.

    It honestly feels like a psy-op by Trumpels. How is your solution to this Conflict getting Trump - who is all the way on Israels side - into office? The man is one of the reasons for this situation, by cutting aid, by initiating the Abraham Accords, where “The plight of the Palestinians was an afterthought, if even that.

    Genious idea, I see no way that can go wrong.

    • it simultaneously downplays actual recognized genocides

      Tell me you don’t understand the extent of what Israel is doing without telling me you don’t understand the extent of what Israel is doing.

      spoiler

      I’ma head out tho so I don’t get another strongly worded message in my inbox from the mods

    • Please do a small service for yourself and educate yourself on what’s going on in Gaza. Actual fucking Holocaust survivors have spoken against it. Israel is trying to get rid of Palestinians, and every day the already thin veil comes off more and more.

    • https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

      Israel is definitely complicit in genocide

       In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
      
      Killing members of the group;
      Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
      Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
      Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
      Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
      
      • … Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent …

        The intent is probably the most important part of this definition and I don’t believe that Israel fulfills that part. There are extensive measures taken to prevent civilian deaths. However this is still a war, in which civilians die.

        There are also rules about human shields which defines using human shields as “… intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians …”. Which Hamas has undeniably been doing.

        The burden to keep civilians out of military targets falls to the governing authority, which is Hamas.

        It is important to recognize, that all these rules around war are designed to protect some groups (civilians) while still allowing for military operations. The problem is, that if these rules were to prevent nations from pursuing military objectives, because the other party commits war crimes (such as using human shields) nobody would follow these laws.

        For that reason civilians kind of loose most protections when used as human shields (§3). As well as proportionally laws taking effect, that permit civilian harm to an extend if it is necessary to pursue proportionally valuable military objectives.

        THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT BAD, just probably not illegal under international law. It is reasonable to demand change and to condemn Israel on moral grounds however. Personally I also believe Israel needs to do some big changes in regards to settlements and humanitarian aid. But also the status quo needed to change. I don’t understand Hamas’ goal, they obviously will never win. Idk why they are refusing ceasefire agreements etc. I understand resentment against Israel, but let’s be real, their negotiating power just becomes less and less.

        And obviously everything needs to be investigated, but I don’t know if any damming convictions actually come from this.

        • The more I read it, the more I agree with you. The other part of genocide is you must prove intent to eliminate more than just a political group. Right now the Israeli are killing a lot of innocent people, but they keep saying their goal is to eliminate Hamas, not Gaza. They know what they’re doing, and likely chose that language to avoid being accused of genocide.

      • You could take that to mean that Ukraine is committing genocide against the Russians because they are “destroying a national group in part” by “killing members of the group.” Literally any warfare would be defined as genocide under this. It’s utterly meaningless and needs to be better defined.