“Genocide Will Continue”: Fury Grows as Harris Vows to Keep Biden’s Gaza Policy
truthout.org
Polls have shown pivoting away from Biden’s Gaza policy is popular among the public — but Harris is refusing the change.
  • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
    2021·
    2 months ago

    If I’m wrong, please educate me.

    What has she proposed that is even remotely leftist? Name even one of her plans that I would easily support that doesn’t have:

    • sneaky means-testing to prevent impossibly large swaths of those that need it from qualifying

    • poorly-disguised handouts to ultra rich multinational corporations that are being marketed as populist reforms

    • weaponized identity politics (making it a crime to say anything critical of or even boycott 🇮🇱)

    • militarization of the police (I wouldn’t even put Trump ahead of her on this one. She is literally the most pro-police militarization politician in the entire United States. She loves “cop city” so much, it’s terrifying).

    Edit: I’m waiting for your replies but I’m not seeing any. Just downvotes! Is it because you can’t name a single policy that I would support?

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
      155·
      2 months ago

      I haven’t downvoted you myself. My habit is if I’m responding to someone I don’t downvote because that must mean I think it’s a worthwhile conversation. I know not everyone does that. I didn’t reply right away because I have a family and shit to do in the morning.

      That said, this is a bit of moving the goalposts, right? You said nothing that would benefit lower and middle class. I can’t say what you would easily support. I don’t really have a response to this for that reason.

      • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
        1310·
        2 months ago

        No problem. Thanks for not being one of those downvotes then.

        I’m happy to lay out what a non-corrupt politician could offer that would excite me and get me to vote for them (obviously this is a big list but any non-corrupt politician would be able to promise/strive for at least one of these):

        • election reform
        • single payer
        • abolish private medical insurance and fold those companies into a 100% taxpayer funded (Single Payer) national healthcare system much like they have in Canada and South Korea. (Anywhere else doesn’t have true Single Payer.)
        • repeal Citizens United
        • bring back Glass Steagall
        • anti-genocide/ cutting off the infinite money tap that the AIPAC/IDF command
        • prosecute Israel (and the politicians that enabled them in the US should also be tried in front of The Hague) for crimes against humanity
        • prosecute George W. Bush and company for the Iraq war. Imprison them for the rest of their lives.
        • publicly execute Jon Bolton in the most brutal way possible using weapons from arms manufacturers that he openly works for 😅
        • student loan reform (without bullshit means testing)
        • reparations
        • stop spying on US citizens and dissolve the CIA/NSA/FBI’s conflict of interest with ALL tech companies in the US. Facebook is a DIRECT feed to the NSA and law enforcement and that needs to stop not be ramped up under the guise of “protecting us from terrorism” like Kamala asserts and ends up being used solely to go after whistle blowers and protesters.
        • break up the conglomerate farms that our government actively encourages to put poison in our food that they then feed to only poor children in our schools while the rich kids get organic diets.
        • reform the FDA and USDA (compare the list of banned chemicals in the EU to here and tell me that someone isn’t greasing someone’s palms in exchange for POISONING us with roundup, etc)
        • police DEmilitarization
        • stop writing blank checks to the military industrial complex under the guise of “helping”, sending vast sums of money that would EASILY pay for Single Payer to be burned in futile proxy wars with Russia
        • force car companies to make self driving car technology open source and introduce rigorous standards and best practices for this software that is responsible for human lives
        • break up the airline industry
        • break up the banking industry
        • audit the Fed
        • disallow Black Rock and other conglomerates from owning homes
        • disallow real estate purchases from non US citizens
        • disallow real estate price fixing and penalize the companies that did it
        • make college free for EVERYONE and raise taxes on the rich to pay for it
        • force NVidia to open source CUDA/ZLUDA
        • decriminalize marijuana
        • fund a high speed rail system in the US
        • reform the Supreme Court and bring Clarence Thomas up on treason charges under the penalty of death
        • immigrants no longer in cages (rather than ramping up putting immigrants in cages and just marketing it differently)
        • end the embargo on Cuba
        • penalize countries and corporations financially for pollution. Make it prohibitively expensive for Temu, Amazon, SHEIN, and Alibaba to ship their goods over oceans on the worst polluting internal combustion engines on earth: container ships. In reality, it was our Clintonite, globalist Democrats (the good guys!) that actively encouraged corporations to manufacture overseas.
        • reward other countries and corporations financially for green policies
        • dissolve the two party system and bring the DNC and GOP up on treason charges
        • give Edward Snowden immunity for his “crimes” and protect him as a whistle blower
        • fund the fediverse and other decentralized technologies that have a direct positive effect on democracy
        • socialize and break up Amazon into twenty companies
        • open source and decentralize Twitter for the crime of election interference
        • force Amazon, Google, Alphabet, OpenAI, Meta, and Apple to open source at least a large chunk of their tech stacks
        • force pharmaceutical industry to open source their tax-payer funded research and products that were created using government funding
        • socialize Google (for the crime of election interference and others)
        • fund RISC-V chip technologies instead of closed source technologies to bring chip manufacturing back to the US
        • socialize Meta (for the crime of election interference and other crimes)

        I could go on all day. Basically, you could easily offer what Bernie had on his platform in 2016 and get me to be enthusiastic about the Democrats.

        • MagicShel@programming.dev
          7·
          2 months ago

          I agree with a decent chunk of that, not all, and even what I disagree with, it’s more like lukewarm agreement because I think it would cause as many problems as it fixes. I was just trying to respond to your frustration. Not aggravate you further.

          Kamala isn’t everything anyone would want, but the things you want to see are more likely during or following a Harris administration. I know none of this mollifies you. There are urgent matters that are hurting us to do slowly and in half measures. But Harris moves us closer than Trump and for most of us that’s all we can do.

          Of course I have a Midwest, swing state perspective. And I have the perspective of watching things change over 50 years. I know many of the policies you and I want would lose Kamala the race. I don’t want her to lose either because the far left stays home or because she’s forced to adopt policies that lose the states that the election hinges on.

          If you ask me, gerrymandering is the root cause of much of the polarization and extremism in this country and I think it is urgent to end it or at least let democrats draw the lines. And we need to look at the judiciary. That all takes a lot of time, unfortunately.

          I could go on and on with how much I agree with you and why. But we have two choices, and one moves this country in a better direction whether a little or a lot, and the other makes us all a hell of a lot worse off. I can’t endorse any statement that says they are basically the same.

          But, friend, keep fighting. You are right about a great many things. I just implore you to do it strategically and not let “great” be the enemy of “better.”

          • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
            132·
            2 months ago

            Not sure why it made me reply to myself instead. Pasting in comment here:

            That’s fair. Thanks for at least discussing it with me. I beg to differ on the whole, “we need to appeal to the Centrists and reach across the isle” trap that the two party system put your perspective into. That reaching seems to conveniently only happen in one direction. It’s the one-way valve of corporatism!

            Anyway, thanks for the discussion. It was fun making that list. 😂

            Edit: IMO, gerrymandering is just another effect of a fake democracy where only two parties are actually viable due to FPTP.

        • ravhall@discuss.online
          34·
          2 months ago

          You’re asking for too much all at once. Don’t forget, these people are people and those people have to get things passed within a group. A single administration wouldn’t be able to do that, even if they tried.

          Of your list, what are you top 5 desires from a candidate regarding reform/actions within the country?

          • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
            10·
            2 months ago

            I just made a list that I could think of. The top ones are at the top. Then, I just went into fantasy mode, obviously. TBH, I wanted to keep going. Haha.

            Here’s the only three I will absolutely fight someone over, though.

            • anti-genocide
            • Single Payer (not Medicare For All ^who want it^)
            • ending the two-party system (this one is probably the most important since it prevents the ever-rightward push that corporate personhood foist upon society but the fact that neither party offers my first two is yet another telltale sign of this warmonger vs. warmonger trap we find ourselves in here)
            • ravhall@discuss.online
              11·
              2 months ago

              I do think it would be a lot easier if we did not have any parties at all. However, I don’t think anybody’s going to go for that. I do agree with you that more than two would be a very good thing. I think the only way to accomplish that is by removing the electoral college and putting ranked voting In place. That is going to be difficult because it’s not up to the federal government how a state handles its voting.

              Guaranteed healthcare would be nice.

              I don’t want innocent people to die any more than you do. I also don’t think the US should be handing out weapons and cash to Israel anymore. However, there are relationships in place that are favored by a lot of powerful people. It’s also not a topic that “center” people care about. So when it comes to the presidency, pushing that topic is not going to win them any votes.

              It sucks, I know. One step at a time. And the next step is preventing Trump from getting into office again. I’m not overjoyed about the road we are on either, but that is the road we are on at this moment.

              • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
                11·
                2 months ago

                Here’s a graphic that I like to show people that illustrates just what FPTP does to the voting makeup of Sweden’s government as a point of comparison. what FPTP would do to Sweden

                This graphic is a tad old now but it still paints the picture perfectly of how the two party system fucks us.

                • ravhall@discuss.online
                  2·
                  2 months ago

                  I would like to stop feeling “totally fucked” when the house or senate flips red. A multicolor system—A rainbow if you will—would be far less stressful and I think would get a lot more done.