reimaginingJun 16, 2024
reimagining

Last election, I was left with my jaw dropped that during massive protests against racialized police brutality (and policing/the carceral system more generally), the neoliberal establishment ran the guy who is widely known as the principal architect of the 1994 crime bill. This bill is considered the set of laws that put into motion modern mass incarceration.

Now, the same person has been full-throatedly backing a genocide, and we're told it is necessary to vote for him because the other option is worse.

At what point does voting for and supporting the man who is materially facilitating the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians mean one has acquiesced to the view that this genocide is an inevitable prerequisite to sustaining the American Way of Life?

Is the dream of Liberal Democracy people are worried about saving truly a nightmare built on a mountain of corpses of "necessary" victims of historic and current state violence?

When people claim that support for Biden is necessary to protect marginalized groups from Trump (a dangerous piece of shit, to be sure), what does that mean for the marginalized groups facing increasing levels of state violence—such as asylum-seeking migrants, trans youth, communities with dramatically increased militarized policing, and Palestinians facing textbook genocide—under Biden? Do they not exist?

Could it be that many tacitly understand the ethically inexcusable brutality underlying the American system, and when they opine about reluctant Biden-voting to stave off the seemingly inevitable rise of US fascism, they are more honestly concerned with maintaining a stable, yet blood-drenched, status quo in which they find relative comfort from the social positioning they enjoy within it?

I'm not posing a singular solution, but I am 100% saying that it's time to think harder and evaluate one's ethics – no more lazy thinking that functions to perpetuate moral atrocities.

Jun 15, 2024 at 5:14amWeb
Show threadJoshJun 15, 2024
@structuralimage I hugely respect the place that this post is coming from. Nonetheless, the choices are "damage" or "bigger damage." I'm voting for "damage," and then I'm going to do everything I can to keep screaming "STOP DAMAGING!"

I see no reason to vote for "more damage" or to vote for a third party which UNEQUIVACLY CANNOT WIN CURRENTLY THIS ELECTION PERIOD FULL STOP and which will ultimately be points in swing states like I live in to "bigger damage" in order to simply call out the "damage" candidate.

Keep in mind that the "damage" candidate here has the capacity to learn and grow. "Bigger damage" doesn't.

Keep in mind that "bigger damage" is orders of magnitude higher in the damage tally. _This does not alleviate the damage which is being done right now, and does not excuse the third-party backed genocide_, but it is an honest assessment in a time when there are so few honest assessments available.

You can't not participate; you are unable to opt-out. Not participating still has an outcome. Third party has an outcome, bigger damage voting has an outcome, and damage voting has an outcome. Make a bad choice when ALL the other options are worse. And don't stop screaming.
Show threadreimaginingJun 16, 2024

@josh Just to be clear, the "damage" you're claiming must be voted for as a moral necessity is genocide – you'd be co-signing genocide.

If you can think your way out of admitting that voting for Biden is to support a genocide, I reckon you could think up an alternative political framework to function in that doesn't restrict your options to 1) genocide, 2) worse genocide or 3) failed third party.

The people of America are lesser-evil voting themselves further and further to the right – I think your rationale supports this, under the premise of a cynical electoral consequentialist framing that must be rejected to halt it.

Show threadJoshJun 16, 2024
@structuralimage Sure, in large part what you are describing is accurate.

But, I must point out the fallacy in logic here, and that is essentially that if I myself can come up with a better solution, then the problem can be solved, and doesn't take into account the huge gap between solution definition and implementation.

This "immediacy" with no regard for the nearly innumerable steps and time required as suggested is not the case; it requires enough percentage of the US to go along with this, and in many cases will require some very basic and foundational changes to our country's functional government as it is currently set up as a two-majority party system, period full stop.

So sure, let's get a third and a fourth and an nth party going, with reasonable values we can all get behind, get them all funded, and then vote for them instead. This will assume that any of these third/nth party candidates can reach 270 in the electoral college if running for President, and that will require, even if extremely popular, a decade if not two or more of preparation and change. If we're lucky, it /may/ come about in our lifetime.

Otherwise, we have to work within the system we have. I FUCKING HATE GENOCIDE BUT I WILL VOTE FOR LESS RATHER THAN MORE every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

YOU ARE CORRECT (woefully, regrettably, sadly) that we are as you said "lesser-evil voting [ourselves] further and further to to the right," towards fascism even. I'm willing to do something about it. I'm willing to expand the supreme court, to abolish the electoral college, to fund more than a two party system, to do lots of things that are different than the antiquated and overly-complicated machinery that we inherited, and in the mean time to promote the least damage possible, especially from someone who has the capacity to learn and change (see also crime laws, equality and marriage rights, equal pay, equal protection, abortion stances all changed for the better under Biden's more than half a century in national federal government work). Consider though, that commentary on the current status, even if true, does not itself imply a solution; it's what is, and with no regard for getting out of the reality into what could be.

What are you suggesting we can do to make this better? Remember, you can't not play, and simply saying "this is wrong/fucked up" doesn't actually get you anything. What actions do you propose that I can subscribe to and push? I'm all ears, and in the case of workable solutions, I'm all in, side by side with you.
Show threadJoshJun 16, 2024
@structuralimage I re-read what I posted here and I don't want to edit it, but I do want to make a self-commentary note here if I might: I realize I say "sure" a lot as sort of a casual affirmative towards the beginning of my post.

It is not a casual thing to me to be implicated in the participation of genocide, even if it's not what I'm actively 1st party doing (or even in favor of).

I HATE HATE HATE HATE what we're tacitly funding and promoting in some places, particularly for Israel and against Palestine. Even if it is the best case scenario "mistake" which we may regret later, the price is so huge it's hardly believable.

To stand with an ally and to support a cause (e.g. Israel) -- and let's just say to love -- doesn't mean you blank-check rubber stamp sign anything they choose to do. REAL love means saying to people you care about "hey you are fucking up bigtime here, pal."

I love the Israeli people. I loathe nazis. I loathe terrorists like Hamas. And I am still able to say "the Netanyahu government is fucking disgusting, and I am having a hard time understanding why we are not already miles and miles and miles past the 'red line' point." I'm also ok saying "I'm supporting Biden, and Joe listen up, this is SUPER fucked up and you need to come around on this, right now, and even if you do you still have families you will need to tearfully and wholeheartedly apologize to for allowing it to go even this far."

What Joe Biden is doing is fucked up, and I want to make sure that my "sure" cavalier tone doesn't lose that. It's meant in my previous post to be an agreement with you, but one which implies some challenges or caveats.
Show threadRevaleyJun 15, 2024
@structuralimage I'm writing Hind Rajab's name on the ballot, I don't give a fuck anymore.
Show threadMark vWJun 15, 2024
@structuralimage I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump, the man who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, would also "full-throatedly" support the ongoing genocide. I also remember Trump's love of tyrants, like Putin, Erdogan, and Un. Not a hard choice this time.
Show threadreimaginingJun 16, 2024
@markvonwahlde I feel like you didn't take in my points. I'm not trying to debate which tyrant war criminal is "better" but explicate how acquiescence to the choice that's so easy for you is fraught with ethical issues – that is if you possess ethics outside of lesser evil electoralist consequentialism.
Show threadMark vWJun 16, 2024
@structuralimage Ethics is about behavior. When the relevant behavior is an easy choice between binary options, there is no ethical problem. The ethical issues all revolve around the antecedents of the lesser-evil choice problem. In simple terms, the ethical issues revolve around social participation (whether or not and how) in the processes that may create a lesser-evil choice problem in the future.