Let’s stop voting for Democrats that’ll fix it
I think a whole lot of that comes from right wing bots, just like the whole astroturfed "Walk Away" campaign back in 2018. I wish I could attribute it completely to the right wing, but I'm sure a lot of edgy leftists are doing it too. The arguments are terrible, but some do seem to genuinely buy in. Somehow the answer to "Democrats bad" can't be "Replace bad Democrats with good Democrats".
Are we just going to dump every use of violence as genocide...
No we aren't, and no I didn't. History is packed with countries doing genocides, either of local populations or as part of a colonial project. Russia is currently committing genocide against ethic Ukrainians. China is currently committing genocide against the Uyghurs. I would argue that the US genocide of native Americans never ended, and the current Hispanic purge is clearly going well beyond just undocumented immigrants.
If Israel stopped fighting, there would be peace through Israelis moving back.
You are almost certainly correct. It just has nothing to do with your assertion that they should lose the ability to defend themselves.
If the Resistance stopped fighting, they would all be exterminated.
The resistance is unfortunately pretty irrelevant at this point. This is low key feeding Israeli propaganda that what's going on is a war.
This is a baby-brained tu quoque, and borderline offensive.
Calling you a genocide apologist is only borderline offensive? Anyways, since my position is that AOC is not a genocide apologist, this isn't a "you also" it's a "just you".
Ending a government is not genocide; ending a people is.
And? You think Iran (and others) are only interested in ending the Israeli government? Please. The fact that Israel is evil doesn't make all of Israel's enemies good. As much as Oct 7 has been abused to justify genocide, it's a fact that the attacks were focused on civilians, not military or symbols of the Israeli government.
You don’t seize the party leader position by defeating the party leader. AOC taking Schumer’s seat would result in 2 nominally democratic socialists in the Senate. But what good would it do if they don’t vote differently?
No, you do seize momentum though. A plucky progressive knocking out the highest ranking public face of the Democratic establishment is a pretty big deal. How do you think we get to 3 democratic socialists in the Senate? And again, I have to point out your ridiculous hyperbole. Are you really ignorant enough to think that AOC and Bernie don't vote differently? Are you really ignorant enough to think that voting is the only tool they have to drive change? A tiny number of progressives in congress have been able to drag the Democrats left on a bunch of issues. You don't approve of one vote on one amendment that wouldn't pass anyways for a bill that she also voted against.
You have addressed nothing about my core assertion that coherent appeals and consistency and follow-through is what wins elections.
Agreeing with it isn't addressing it? OK. I guess I have to remind you again that there are exactly two claims you made that I disagree with, and that this is irrelevant to both. No, AOC isn't perfect. No, I don't have any problem with productive criticism of AOC. Calling her a genocide apologist and claiming that she is complicit in genocide based on a bill she actually voted against is not productive criticism. Hyperbolic bullshit is just going to marginalize you. Why the fuck would AOC ever take you seriously?
With that, I'm done. Go ahead and close it out if you want.
Genocidal states don’t deserve self-defense or support of any kind.
We've already been over this, and it's a complete non-sequitur. "Genocidal states" include every state that ever existed. If there are any exceptions, then I sure can't think of them. Even if we only consider ongoing genocides, Russia, China, and I would argue the US (even unrelated to Israel) would not "deserve self-defense".
She either is aware of what Israel is and decides to give it material support, which is genocide apologia.
You keep asserting this, but it clearly isn't. However, if it is, then you are also guilty of the same. If enabling Israel to defend itself is supporting the genocide of Palestine, then preventing Israel from defending itself must be understood as supporting the genocide of Israel. If the withdraw of US support actually had the impact you imply, the lifespan of Israel would be the travel time of missiles from Iran. (Not that a lot of other missiles wouldn't arrive first.) You can claim that Israel "deserves" it, but that would be providing a justification for genocide which would explicitly be genocide apologia. Just to be clear, this is in response to your statement that doesn't deserve the ability to defend itself, not that the US should stop weapons shipments.
If our progressives don’t take progressive stances, what good are they?
What the hell are you talking about. AOC takes lots of progressive stances. She does not, however, take the most progressive stance possible on every progressive issue.
That’s my thesis and I’m sticking to it.
Your thesis is pretty muddled. You seem to be under the impression that hyperbole can take the place of strong arguments. I don't even disagree with the general direction of your "thesis", but the amount of inaccurate conflation and hyperbolic generalizations makes it pretty incomprehensible. I promise you that I have personally made those arguments a whole lot better against supporters of the Democratic establishment. I have no problem at all with criticism of AOC, but the way you approach it isn't going to convince anyone.
Principled stances are what makes a change.
Not all by itself it doesn't. AOC is probably gearing up for a run against Schumer. If you don't think her replacing the most Zionist Democratic senator (or arguably the most Zionist Senator period) is going to be an earthquake against Israel, then I don't know what to tell you.
Buckling on a stance is what the conservatives would want.
You have not established that this is what AOC did. Her not supporting your stance (and mine) does not equate to "buckling". She has her own principals, and what's going on in Gaza is not the only relevant consideration. The amendment she voted against wouldn't even have cut offensive weaponry, just iron dome, and AOC ultimately voted against the entire funding bill.
"Israel has a right to defend itself"
You put that in quotes, but I never said it. In fact, I never even implied it. Personally, I don't even know what the word "right" means when talking about states instead of individuals. Countries don't have the right to defend themselves, they have the ability to defend themselves. We know they do, because they still exist as countries.
There is also a consistency lacking here.
Well yeah. That's kind of to be expected when you fabricate my arguments.
The US gives military aid to dozens of countries; why does it give military aid to Israel but not to Palestine?
That's a legitimately good question that has absolutely nothing to do with the argument I made. You are just throwing pre-made arguments at me, not engaging in actual dialog. I'm not sure I want to fund Palestine, but I definitely don't want to fund Israel.
the rules do not apply to everyone equally
No shit. Welcome to foreign policy. No country is altruistic, and they all are acting in their own perceived self interest. I want to foster international relations based on mutual cooperation for the good of mankind instead of self-interest, but that's not how anybody is doing it today.
The Israeli state has been engaged in a slow, grinding campaign of ethnic cleansing since its founding....
Yes? Once again you are just throwing arguments at me instead of engaging in dialog. I agree with this and pretty much everything else you said here. It just doesn't apply to the two questions at argument.
when a state fails to do this, other states have the duty to drop their associations with it.
Tell me more. Has China disassociated with Israel? Russia? As far as I know, neither has broken off diplomatic relations. It's also arguable that every nation on Earth has failed to do this in one way or another. No country should associate with any other country? Now, I know you are going to interpret this as a defense of Israel, but it's not. I am just addressing your pattern of uninformed reckless assertions.
I don't think she's in a position to claim ignorance about the imbalanced nature of the conflict, either,
And I don't think you have established that she has made such a claim.
What that one vote is uniquely useful for is taking a moral stance
And, once again, I have to remind you that I am not supportive of her vote. However, that alone is insufficient to call her a genocide denier, or make her complicit in genocide.
I hope you're on the same page as me that recursion of the "lesser of two evils" leads to expansion of those evils.
I agree to a point. I don't generally support third party strategies for practical reasons, and I do support voting for the lesser evil when there is no viable alternative. However, I also don't throw in with the idea that we should never criticize Democrats because it helps Republicans - and that includes AOC. I support going hard after Democrats in primaries, but I want those resources to be used in the most strategic way possible, given that we are so far behind. I would not support going after a lukewarm progressive when we have a dozen hard-core neoliberals to choose from.
The only way to meaningfully help them is to use any capability in our power to take down the defenses and immunities of the IDF mass murderers.
If you are serious about that, then you better start thinking a lot more strategically. Please do.
You’ve added another goalpost, so now we have two questions to tackle. 1: Is AOC a “genocide apologist”? 2: Is AOC complicit in genocide? You have also mixed a bunch of other arguments that are not specifically relevant to AOC. I think we are largely in agreement about those, though I do think the idea of applying an ethical standard to an entire people is problematic.
I hate semantic argument, but the definitions I find for apologist are all pretty similar to “a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.” I know of no case where AOC has offered any argument for genocide in general, or for a specific genocide. I also don’t know of any case where she has tried to obfuscate a genocide. So no, I see no evidence to support the idea that she is a genocide apologist.
Complicity is a bit more complicated, just because there are dozens of ethical theories or frameworks, and you have given no indication of how you reached that conclusion. I’m most familiar with deontology. It is the dominant system of western moral ethics, and the system most concerned with determining personal culpability or sin. That is the framework I will use.
First, we have to identify an “end”, a “means” to that end, and any relevant “concomitant ends”. I’m also going to make the untrue (but helpful to you) assumption that AOC's vote was pivotal to continuing US funding. The “means” could be her vote, but it could also be the actual shipping of weapons to Israel. Voting or the shipping of weapons don’t have any inherent moral character, so both are irrelevant.
An “end” is the thing that the actor is trying to bring about, and I would define that as “Israel having the ability to defend itself.” Now, it’s entirely possible that her actual motivation was to enable Israel to commit genocide, but that would not be consistent with anything she has ever said publicly, and would not be fair to assume. An end that is foreseen but unintended is a concomitant end. The primary test is that the end must still be achieved if somehow the concomitant end doesn’t. Israel would still be able to use the weapons defensively if they didn’t commit a genocide, so the test passes.
A concomitant end can still make an act immoral, if the scale of the end is disproportionately large compared to the intended end. I don’t see that here, since the potential downsides to Israel and Palestine are pretty similar in scope.
My conclusion is that I disagree with your assertion that AOC is complicit in genocide. If you think I got the analysis wrong on any point, or if you think I should be using a different ethical framework, I’m happy to discuss it further.
I find both of these less interesting than the question of how best to help Palestine. I see going after AOC as, at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive. However bad you think she is, she is clearly better than most Democrats on this and other issues. I don’t think we even need to talk about Republicans. This obsession that people have with going after AOC really says a lot about their motivations. Anybody who really gave a shit about Palestine would be finding better things to do with their time. And, again, this is coming from someone who is largely in agreement with you on how bad American foreign policy is in this area.
Did I say anything about other Democrats?
No you didn't. That's exactly my point. Pay attention.
We outnumber them and America should feel like it. No, individual acts of defiance won't do it, but whatever does will work better in a defiant country than a cowering one.
This shit is going to collapse under its own weight if nothing else. I'd kinda like the good guys to have an impact on whatever comes next.
Not at all. Just the ones that act like it. One more hexbear for the block list. Pack of fucking hyenas.
Hexbear is cancer.
I don't care. You're going on my block list.
Fuck this bullshit, why do they get a free pass?
OK, got it. No free pass. What are talking about here, on a scale from harsh finger wag to mass executions?
You expect us to believe you care about Palestinians when you helped bring Trump to power?
The only vote I ever made that assisted Trump was a vote for Biden in 2020. I voted Harris, and you are clearly not trying to follow what I'm saying. Quit wasting my time.
You intentionally made things worse for Palestinians just to make a political point.
Such irony. This is exactly my criticism of your misguided efforts to help Democrats by berating voters. Your arguments and especially your attitude aren't sending the message you think they are.
It's funny though, none of them seem to have a plan for how to prevent their new party from being similarly overrun by greed. If they somehow managed to overcome every organizational challenge to get a massive voter migration away from Democrats and to Whatevercrats, they would have to somehow vet the intentions of hundreds or thousands of candidates who never held office before. These are largely the folks who promoted Tulsi Gabbard and Jimmy Dore long after their grifts became obvious.