More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.
“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads.
“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”
I would like you and others to stop normalizing the genocide of Palestine. If you stop announcing your unconditional support for the people genociding Palestine to any degree then it has been effective.
In terms of being more generally politically effective, it is important to take a step away from the dictates of your political class faction. I think that having a simple red line of not supporting genocide should be enough for any moral person to do so.
Yes, let’s let a fascist who wants to kill the Palestinians even faster into power. It will be super effective to protest against him when he is using military force to suppress us. It’s not like he hasn’t already used BOTAC to kill leftists during the George Floyd uprisings. Surely all the guardrails will allow us to stop the genocide with him in power!
“After Trump, Our Turn” comrades! Don’t vote!
Israel already has unconditional material support from the Biden-Harris administration on which the genocide is entirely dependent.
However, you can help prevent the normalization of genocide by saying it is your red line that you will not cross.
The Biden-Harris regime recently issued an EO, prompting a corresponding memo from the Pentagon, to authorize domestic military use, including lethal force against citizens in the US. Harris’ running mate mobilized the national guard against George Floyd protesters. Harris is a prosecutor known for harsh and unfair treatment of the accused.
They are not oppositional forces in this matter.
The people that killed leftists were cops and right wing stochastic terrorists. The cops are funded and defended and overseen and protected by Dems at all levels of government. And it is a rabbit hole, but the fates of Ferguson organizers are something to follow as well.
There are no guardrails. The question is whether you will take the first step in opposition of genocide by refusing to support it. There is much more work to be done.
Please center Palestine in your thoughts.
I’m aware of literally everything you are talking about but I have historical context that you apparently lack. Look up what happened to socialists in nazi germany. We need to stop the fascists before they take power or everything gets worse. Things can fucking get worse.
My inclination is damage limitation not some bullshit ideal. There are two options on the table, and I voted for Harris because I love my trans brothers and sisters, my many migrant friends, my wife who is a disabled immigrant. I hate Harris and Biden for what they are doing to migrants and Palestinians. Trump would make literally everyone worse off. So I will take my meager power at the ballot box to oppose fascism. Outside of the ballot box I will oppose the democrats for the genocidaires they are.
I don’t need to look it up, of course. Who knows where you got this ides that I don’t know history. Maybe you should just ask instead of presuming? They were killed and oppressed and organized resistance as partisans.
Stop the fascists by doing what?
Remember what the various left factions did in the 192ps and 1930s? How did Hitler become chancellor?
I do need to say that the US is not like Germany leading up to the Nazis, though. If it has similarities to Germany it is Germany from the late 1800s, before they lost status in WWI. But even that doesn’t make sense because the Germany of the late 1800s had a much larger left than the US. The important factor here is that the US is not an embarrassed former imperialiat nation in decline, it is the dominant global superpower overseeing and causing most of the war and intentional death on the planet. Why are you worried about Hitler when you are voting for Himmler while he does a genocide? That is not fighting fascists!
Being against genocide is a bullshit ideal? Tell me more.
There are, of course, more options on the table. Third party candidates and leaving it blank. You did not have to vote for someone that is committing a genocide, let alone rationalize it as just a decision to help marginalized people. You almost seem proud of it.
Not enough to not give them exactly what they want and tell others to do the same.
I don’t think Trump would have had your consent to genocide the Palestinian people. I think you would have had this “bullshit ideal” and there is a decent chance I could have gotten you to mobilize at least once and foment a crisis re: unilateral executive arms donations (which Biden is doing BTW). I don’t think Trump would have been as competent at coordinating European complicity, likely would have thrown a wrench in the works.
I think you are overlooking material impacts and are focused on the reactionary aesthetics.
PS Dems are promoting at least one transphobic D politician now. They will shift right in this just like they now embrace the border wall, introduced and fought for a harsh right wing immigration bill, and are tiptoeing around mass deportation discourse.
One if the reasons they can do all of this is that they don’t need to earn your vote. Ever. You will even vote for them when they commit genocide. Unmoored by any attempt to organize demands they will do whatever they think is best for their donors and can’t be managed by PR goons. And you are helping, not just with your own vote, but in justifying it to others and by being shitty to those who oppose genocide with a coherent, principled stance.
You are contradicting yourself because you are telling everyone here that what you did was good and right and aligned with opposing fascism. If you want to vote for a genocider and never tell anyone to do the same I would accept that compromise.
Is there a single post in your history where you don’t spew absolut bullshit?
Every post of yours is unfounded garbage about how Democrats are complicit or working with the GOP to do some nefarious thing.
Here’s an unfounded claim for you: you’re full of shit and a foreign agent trying to sway votes for fascism.
.ml
They are fighting the good fight to get their very own trump-backed genocide in Palestine while also screwing the US…can’t imagine a bad actor that would want both of those to happen…oh wait.
I’m sure the not-Harris candidate who wins will do wonders for Palestine
Refusing to normalize genocide is an important first step for working against it. The reason Dems can do genocide and not fear a loss is that so many people fall in line over threats that “the other guy” will win.
I get the concept of the Boogeyman opponent, but I’m this case nothing is myth, or fearmongering. We can see what the Biden admin is doing, and assume Harris won’t be very far from it. It’s not desirable but holy shit is there room for more chaos and death.
We have seen how trump handles the middle east, and color that with his modern statements. It’s evident trump’s path will be materially worse for Palestinians.
Given that trump or Harris will be the next president, the best choice for everyone is Harris.
As a bonus, the opportunity to “refuse to normalize” will be in jeopardy with trump, as evidenced by his language to go after dissidents, his treatment of protesters, and the leveraging of stochastic terrorism to motivate his base towards race/ethnicity based attacks, the Muslim ban, the kashoggi murder, the soleimani assassination, his conservative judicial appointments, his under the table relationship with Saudi Arabia via kushner, and his on the record praise of strongmen like netanyahu.
If you think it’s hard to denormalize what’s happening re Israel now, strap in for the trump ride.
Edit by abstaining on principle “you” may bring about the single worst person for progressive ideals, middle east stability, and Muslim security in the US with consequences lasting for decades.
There really isn’t in Palestine, in terms of the US. The US is competently organizing and supporting this genocide precisely because very competent Zionists are in charge, namely Biden, the team he has curated over decades, and Harris. They are actually pushing hard beyond what the Pentagon et al recommend, strategically, due to ideological commitment to the project. Harris is, of course, an empty suit, but one that is fully in line with this set of policies, and has taken on a major role in terms of selling the fake, appropriating “ceasefire” narrative and in running the DNC and its overall messaging, which has been brazenly pro-Israel during a genocide, committing to guaranteeing unconditional material supporting, and not even doing any form of pandering or aesthetic appeasement. Everyone knows that they could have brought on some wishy-washy Palestinian to do some both-sides pro-peace message at the DNC or later, but they are unwilling to do even that. That is how little they will give in on this issue. Those are the monsters created by this political self-disempowerment.
It is not evident. Trump is not as competent as Biden and his admin. He will have the same imperialist state that will of course back Israel, but he will also screw things up in various ways. I do not think Trump would have executed European subservience nearly as effectively as Biden-Harris. That is the primary outcome of their approach to Ukraine: to scuttle an independent Europe. They are now fully dollar-dependent and dependent on the US for energy while slowly deinstrializing themselves. Of course they will now fall in line more strongly on the US-backed genocide of Palestine. Trump actually pushed Europe in the opposite direction. This is not because he is smart and good, but he is inadvertently disruptive to carefully-laid plans, even while adhering to them 95% of the time.
Though to be clear, I do not subscribe to lesser-evilism logic. This is a self-defeating logic that is very shortsighted.
The best choice is to not normalize genocide. I will accept a compromise: if you don’t tell anyone to vote for Harris, nor defend such people, I don’t mind if you cast your vote for her. Deal?
The Biden-Harris administration is heavily pro-cop, and of course Harris called herself California’s top cop. She was known for being particularly cruel as AG. Oppression against dissidents primarily happens via local police and sometimes state police and the military. This faction of the Dems fully coopted and then worked directly against the George Floyd protests to massively fund cops and it is local Democrats that facilitate and run the police departments engaging in naked and disproportionate violence. In addition, it is the Biden admin that just signed an EO to authorize the use of “lethal force” by the US military on US soil, something backed up by a subsequent Pentagon memo. It is important to understand that these are not really oppositional forces, they are co-amplifiers of one another, and the Democratic political class openly enable the slide into oppression and then pretend to be against it when it has a bad look. They are slick, but not reducing harm.
I could go on more about the examples you listed if you would like me to, I just don’t want to take up too much space away from centering Palestine, particularly if it is not something you would want to discuss at length. Let me know if you would like to or if there is one particularly salient point that is most relevant. I could also continue that discussion in another thread or via DMs.
Under Trump, the people here normalizing genocide would be anti-genocide to the hilt, or at least in how they internalize this red line to themselves. They could be mobilized to protest, they could learn the core lessons at hand, they could demand that Dems et al work against this, and they could get involved with direct actions. When they are normalizing genocide, they tend to work in the opposite direction, and things will get far worse.
I do quite a bit of work against the genocide on Palestine and political work. I am not simply “abstaining” from politics. But I do suggest that those who think of politics as electoralism consider what they are doing when they announce that it’s okay to voter for genociders. What that really means and who you think you are vs. who you actually behave as, and what you will not just tolerate, but openly justify.
In not voting you normalize genocide, effectively turning away, to not look upon the mess.
Edit in a trump presidency activism will be harder, and progressive folks, and minority communities will be at increased risk. The ideal of getting involved and making your.voice heard will be a vanishing opportunity.
Personally, I will be voting for a candidate that is explicitly against the genocide. In this way, the message of my vote will be fairly clear.
Out of decorum, please note an edit may have passed while you were typing.
In reply: if the candidate does not win, the message is lost in the wind.
Ah yes I missed that.
The best situation for not losing the message would actually be a Harris loss and where various pundits and orgs push the message that it was due to support for genocide. The Democratic party and its loyalists will of course do its best to avoid that messaging and either deflect from the topic to blame something else (justifying whatever new stances the party wants to take) or by adopting a “Trump is worse so you deserve it” form of sour grapes.
Re: challenges in activism, it was much easier to organize under Trump than under Biden. But as I do not subscribe to lesser evilism arguments on electoralism, and am against genociders, I would also not vote nor recommend voting for Trump just because he made that part of political work easier.
So, do you agree with these Muslim leaders, or are you saying you know better than them?
An astonishingly racist question.
As a brown person myself I want to know if you agree with the leaders or if you’re saying you know better than us. It’s hardly racist to wonder if we’re being patronized by people who claim to know better than us.
What’s racist is calling the group simply Muslim and then taking a tokenizing approach to them.
Maybe you should read the letter they signed before defending support for genocide, and before trying to weaponize your own identity against solidarity with Palestine.
Shameful.
Who said I was supporting the genocide and the defense of it? I take the same approach as them in the letter. It’s an undeniable genocide and horrific, but the situation is most likely to get better under Harris, not Trump.
If agreeing with that letter is weaponizing my identity against solidarity with Palestine, what do you think of the letter writers?
Do you not believe that is what you are doing when you try to wield this letter as an identity-based cudgel against people that say you should not vote for someone genociding Palestinians? Please do some introspection if you don’t.
As who? You broad-brushed them as muslims before. So eager to push back! Have you read the letter yet?
The genocide already has unconditional support from the Biden-Harris administration and they are extremely competent at securing support from Europe and, as you can see here, earning your complacency, complacency in those around you, and an explicitly Zionist party.
I think that if Trump were doing this you could be mobilized to actually materially oppose the genocide instead of making excuses for why you will support literal genociders, even going after people that reject genocide with bad faith arguments and racist tokenization.
That is, actually, not how you weaponized your identity. Please review what you wrote to me.
I have already answered this question in my criticisms of the letter. If you have read the letter and looked at the signatories, you will find that they correspond to a specific class of people, they have very particular relationships with the party and the wider political apparatus. In short, they are almost entirely the heads of NGOs and party insiders.
This is not a new playbook, Democrats often tokenize identities in this way to have a party-aligned subset of people, people with direct material interests tied to the party and its wider apparatus, sign statements or otherwise present themselves as representing “The [X] community”. Imagine how the process for creating this letter and having it signed happened. How they networks were created, why they exist, who is doing the asks, how they organizations are funded, whose connections they rely on for their work, what the career ambitions of young party leadership groups are. And ask why it is almost exclusively this subset of people.