General Politics XII World • Page 28

The EPA imposes stricter standards to protect children from exposure to lead paint

 

I can see why you equate the two but Israelis response has some really important distinguishing points that differentiate it from Iraq/Afghanistan. For example, the Israeli dogma since it's genesis is that Palestinian land is their land. That's what makes their efforts go beyond "liberation" and into extermination.

 

A lot of what we're saying is that their actions will demonstrably lead to the same end result. That trump yells it out loud while Harris whispers it doesn't matter.

I've found that you ignore that a lot. You fixate on the "omg these dumb leftists think Dems and reps are identical lolol". We don't literally think that we're not idiots. MTG and AOC are not the same human. But you see through the years what this country does to marginalized people, regardless of who's in power, and you don't really see much difference.

And a big difference is that leftists think that both parties only care to protect the wealthy. We don't care that Republicans actively hurt people on the way there while Democrats pretend to help people on the way there. They exploit the average American to help the wealthy. That's why we don't see a difference between the two.

And I know you've said you don't like the wealth worship either party does. What separates us is we don't care for the subtle differences, big picture is what I said above.

 

Oh yeah fully agreed that they're uh...taking to another level, to say the least. There's a lasting bloodthirstiness there that's abhorrent beyond even anything I saw the US muster for Afghanistan. But, especialyl early on in the bombings and invasion, all the talk and interviews talking about getting revenge for the attack and making them pay and etc, just gave me very October 2001 vibes. You'd think they would have learned from what invading Afghanistan did to us that trying to wipe out what they call a terrorist organization is a bad idea and doesn't actually work or make your people safer. But, you're right...for them it's beyond that. They want the land and will genocide the Palestinians to take it now.

 

I guess what I’d say to this is that - to me - no, the Dems are not the same as Republicans. I think they are insufficient as an “opposition” to the far right, i think they are frequently too willing to make common cause with them, and i do not think they can be pulled meaningfully to the left. I think plenty of things they do would be rightly criticized if republicans did the same thing. I think they’ve contributed to making the world a worse place. I don’t think they’re the same as the Republicans, but mostly as a matter of sensibility and scale. Which, i think you can make the argument that the scale matters, but i see it as coming for all of us one way or the other and therefore don’t think it’s acceptable. So even if they’re not the same or equally as bad as the Republicans, I’d still ship them to The Hague on the same flight if I could. The difference between them and Republicans is enough that I can empathize with people voting as a form of harm reduction, but the lack of difference between them is why I really want to steer more conversations to what are the things we’re willing to do that are not voting, since voting isn’t saving others and won’t ultimately save us.

Fair enough, I can understand that. To me, I try to approach these conversations from the position that I once considered myself a liberal/progressive, and believed the Dems were just doing the best they could and that the right people could make a difference within the same structure. I no longer believe that for a number of reasons, and I think a more worthwhile use of my time is to try and get people to a place where we can even imagine taking a different direction from the one we’ve been taking. So I guess that’s what I’m hoping people lurking see.

 

But see this is where I just have a fundamental disagreement with folks here. It does not lead to the same end result, often times for tens of millions of people. I think the actions demonstrably do not lead to the same results for everyone, and I feel like you have to have memory holed Trumps 4 years as President to believe that to be the case. Like yes, in terms of SCOTUS decisions, it ends up hurting people regardless because the Dems aren't brave enough to pack the court. They suck on that issue. They are bad on that issue. well, most of them....we had some good pack the court pushes back in 2020, I don't know if any of those pols have walked back those positions...we do know one pol said from the get go that he wasn't going to pack the court, and he ended up winning. I think that should cause reflection on tactics---We all know packing the court needs to be done, what can we do to convince more people it's the right way to go? Because the only way it happens is if we win elections, and that means voting. How can we win elections with further left people who are willing to run on packing the court? How can we force the issue to make people and politicians squishy on the issue accept our stance? The right answer here is probably massive, sustained protests. Are those even possible anymore? <---That's a depressing question that keeps me up at night, ngl.

Edit-forgot to add this after the SCOTUS part because I went down a spiral of depression on that last question lol...But yes on things like SCOTUS, the end results end up being the same. But the federal beuracracy is a huge deal that controls and meaningfully changes tons of regs and rules that effect tens of millions of people. For that alone, it very much matters who is in the white house and doesn't always lead to the same results for people regardless. On some issues, it will (Merrick Garland sucks!). On other issues, it will make a difference (Lina Khan rules! Not having a coal or oil exec in charge of the Interior and public lands makes a difference, etc)

It's not that I don't see much difference, it's that I think there's a concerted effort to ignore the policy successes that do end up helping millions or even tens of millions of marginalized people, mostly because they don't go far enough or don't fix the problems completely. I think it's valid to criticize that end of it, but I don't think it's valid or smart to downplay or ignore the things that have helped people. Big picture, yes, we need more. But, for example, to the 18.5 million people that have qualified for medicaid since the ACA expanded it? It's huge for them! A huge huge deal for them. And we're not supposed to say anything good about it around here because the Dems didn't socialize the health care system at the time. I think that's dumb from a strategy perspective of attracting people to the left. I don't think it's smart to ignore the successes just to focus on the failures of the big picture, IMO. I get why other people like to do so, but I just disagree with it.

Yes I mostly agree here, but as you say, the subtle differences. You guys call them subtle differences, I call it health care access for 18.5 million more people, or loan forgiveness for 4 million people, or higher tax credits for however many millions of people with kids got the increased tax credits, etc. That might seem subtle to you or me, but not to the people it benefitted, you know? Yes, criticize the child tax credit for only being a temporary enhancement, but don't, like, pretend the Dems or Biden did it that way for some malevolent reasons lol. They were able to get it into a COVID spending package that was meant to be a stimulus bill, which historically have always been temporary spending boosts, and then one fuckhead senator from West Virginia and 49 Republican senators stood in the way of making it permanent. Pointing out that those are the facts of it doesn't mean you're a Biden or Dem lover, at least it wouldn't in my eyes. Nor does doing so somehow make it harder to pass in the future, IMO.

 

Are the Democrats the same as today's Republicans? No

Are they the same as Republicans 20 years ago? It's pretty damn close

 

also, she wants to put one in her cabinet and walz said there's a lot of "commonality" like it's not us making shit up out of thin air! They're literally telling and showing us how more aligned they are with republicans than they are with the progressive and left wing portions of their own party

 

Not to mention excluding any Pro Palestinian voices from the DNC but they had at least 7 Republicans speak

 

As you say, fair enough on all this. I will say that, while I don’t fully believe it’s just a matter of getting the right people in there to make difference, I do somewhat believe that doing so would make a difference. Like, I think the Democratic Party and its policies would look a lot different if there were 150 AOCs in the House and 30 Bernie’s in the Senate. So I do think it’s important to keep encouraging young leftists to get into politics within the Dem party and run for office as dems, because if they’re all bailing on that, we’re stuck with the neolib staffers instead. Obviously things like ranked choice voting would make operating electorally outside of the Dem party easier, but yeah, in the absence of that, young lefties trying to overtake Dem offices and elected positions would be a positive development. And I don’t mean to make that sound easy of course. But yeah I get your feeling of working outside of electoral politics too.

 

the last two paragraphs here are wildly rude and patronizing, why are you talking to us like we’re your students. get over yourself

 

didn’t you call me Hitler a few weeks ago?

 

I think this whole conversation is a lot of navel gazing. 150 AOCs and 30 Bernie’s in congress? Do they stop the holocaust? No reason to think so! So who gives a shit

 

didn’t you tell me to vote for someone perpetrating a holocaust?

 

No I don’t think you live in a swing state, so.

cmon man, don’t come in here whining or accusing anyone being rude or condescending lol. Thatd be like if I complained about people posting Eric topol tweets. Rude and condescending is your thing!

 

nah, who cares who called who hitler. i was told i supported genocide, lmaooo

 

Oh okay so not me personally you were just telling a bunch of other people to vote for the holocaust perpetrator. And this is an argument that I shouldn’t call you Hitler…?