• ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I was here since the start before any such messages appeared, so you’re not fooling me. You started out with “He’s still doing genocide y’all”. An inaccurate and laden statement which you rightfully got a critical responses for, not because people support the policy. You followed this up by calling your critics pro-genocide, regardless of their actual position. I’m sorry, but you don’t exist out of context either, so yeah, people are kind of not going to like you in this thread. It’s why you don’t attack people out of the gate, I warned you about that in my very first message. Hostility often creates more hostility. I don’t necessarily condone that, but you have thrown a little too much dirt to be surprised about being dirty.

    We haven’t even discussed whether or not I think we can do anything about it, yet you call me deeply cynical for a position I don’t hold. I do think more people in the US should be against the support for Israel. I do think the support makes Israel emboldened to commit genocide. I do think people can be convinced. But as I was trying to explain to you, I understand that other people look at different aspects and have different experiences to where they can be unaware of Israels atrocities, or are indeed willing to look away. And often those people are sadly needed for a majority that has chances of actually stopping the genocide. So they must be convinced to get the end result I desire, no more genocide.

    It should be obvious that anyone you ask if genocide is okay, they will say no. But people can have irrational and conflicting beliefs, and to actually make them change their mind the worst you can do is to effectively say “you are a terrible person”, even if it’s effectively true. Because if they’ve rationalized themselves to accept supporting Israel, being called a terrible person only emboldens that rationalization. There exists no magic incantation that will change this. (And it should be said, calling the people who very well might share your opinion on all but your questionable remarks, makes you look really bad)

    If you think you can get 50% of the votes in the US, I really urge you to start a party right now. Because by that logic both Democrats and Republicans could only hold 25% of the vote, so you could win in a landslide victory with the remaining 50%. But I think we both know that will not happen. But according to the data, ~66% voted in the last election. 34% is still enough for a victory, but that’s a tall order.

    I want you to understand that I’m talking to you because I want you to be effective at getting your message across. Having commendable opinions but being terribly self destructive in ways of expressing them is so incredibly wasteful and will at worst create more support for the thing you are rallying against. Clearly you have the vigor to stand up for what your opinion is, but actually changing things means taking on constructive, calm and respectful dialogue, and doing what’s effective over what perhaps more morally clean in the short term, but because you didn’t actually change anything, morally dubious in the long term.

    • queermunist she/her
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      4 months ago

      He is doing genocide! J’Accuse…! The US’s unlimited support for Israel is the only reason the Zionist entity can keep doing what it has been doing, you can’t deny that Biden is 100% fucking responsible here and. The US is materially and geopolitically and financially responsible for this genocide and he is protecting his co-genocidiers from any accountability with the ICJ or ICC or UN. You don’t get to pretend he isn’t doing genocide just because he isn’t personally flying the bombers or personally running people over.

      If you refuse to call that out? If you refuse to stand up against genocide and the genocidiers carrying it out?

      Then your silence is support. Your silence is violence. Your tax money and your labor are already being used to carry out this genocide, so if you don’t do the bare fucking minimum and speak out against it you are a genocide supporter. This thread, filled with people who refuse to condemn Biden or blame him for the genocide, is (in a very small way, admittedly) literally supporting Biden’s ability to do genocide. Our voices join the chorus of all voices of the electorate, so what we say about Biden and his genocide really does matter! We are not powerless, we can force Biden to stop this genocide if we have the courage to actually blame him for it and call him out.

      If you won’t even lift a finger or raise a whisper against the genocide you are materially supporting with your money and labor, you are de facto a genocide supporter.

      And yes, pointing out the truth pissed people off! They don’t like their complicity being rubbed in their faces because they don’t like being genocide supporters. I understand that! They don’t really want their tax dollars or labor to go towards genocide. And yet, they refuse to do literally fucking anything to try to stop it, not even say anything bad about the guy doing the genocide, so that means in every way it matters they literally are genocide supporters.

      If they united their voices against Biden and his genocide the genocide would end. We don’t get to wash our hands of this.

      If you think you can get 50% of the votes in the US, I really urge you to start a party right now.

      🙄

      Only one of the two parties can win, c’mon, you know they have the whole thing rigged right?

      I want you to understand that I’m talking to you because I want you to be effective at getting your message across.

      Okay. Here is my message.

      1. Biden is doing genocide.

      2. supporting Biden = supporting genocide

      3. We can force this genocide to stop, and that starts with raising our voices against it. It isn’t hopeless.

      I think people have no hope. They believe there’s literally nothing anyone can do to affect political change besides vote every few years, and that they can’t change anything by voting either and so voting is just a way to stop Republicans from making everything worse. I don’t think they want to support genocide, they just don’t see any other choice.

      • ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Alright, don’t say I didn’t try. Good luck trying to convince people on a message that far more people disagree with than agree. And on a point that’s at the end of the day irrelevant to actually reducing genocide, even if you do convince them Joe Biden is somehow personally responsible.

        You don’t know me, nor what I have done to try and change things, yet you think because I don’t want to accept your inaccurate beliefs that I’m somehow supporting genocide with that. Good luck trying to make anything but enemies with that mentality. I don’t even work for the US or pay taxes there, and I proudly support efforts in my country to stop funding Israel. My hands are clean when it comes to the money US puts into Israel, yet even I can see what you’re trying to peddle is incorrect.

        By your own logic, you are doing genocide yourself. Because you are not personally flying the planes, but you are funding Joe Biden through your tax dollars, who funds Israel, who pays the pilots that fly the planes. You are also supporting the Uyghur genocide because you can’t get around buying Chinese made products that fund the CCP either. You are also most likely supporting child labor because you basically can’t get around products produced by child labour in Africa and South East Asia.

        If you’re going to take that stance, pretty much everyone is a fucking horrible person. Which is why it’s stupid, because clearly people struggle with these things. You can fight against those things while still being forced to participate in them. Joe Biden definitely has more say in the matter than the average person, but he too is held back by factors which he can’t get around, which we talked about in grand detail. Who doesn’t have those constraints? Israel. The people who have the final say over the money and decide to commit war crimes with them instead of what the money is intended for. Is Joe Biden complicit in his weak response to Israel? Yes. But it doesn’t make him personally responsible because he’s just a figurehead that has certain responsibilities to his base and his country, which he too can’t get around. And Kamala will also inherit that if she takes office.

        Only one of the two parties can win, c’mon, you know they have the whole thing rigged right?

        It was you who claimed 50% of the votes were untapped. Now you’re saying it’s rigged anyways. It almost sounds like you don’t have any hope to change things, which you are readily accusing others of. Could it be that you are starting to recognize that there are barriers in place to get people to stop supporting genocide?

        Okay. Here is my message.

        1. Biden is doing genocide.
        2. supporting Biden = supporting genocide
        3. We can force this genocide to stop, and that starts with raising our voices against it. It isn’t hopeless.

        As long as you keep including #1 (and to a certain extent #2) and militantly defend that position rather than understand the other person’s point of view, you will not change their mind. Even if there is a large majority perfectly willing to agree and fight for #3, and people that are undecided who could be convinced of #3, but not #1 and #2. As such, you are weakening the position to actually change #3. Even doing nothing would be better.

        And yes, by that logic, that makes you a force for genocide, even if your actual opinion is anti-genocide. Actions speak louder than words, and your actions make people more likely to side with genocide because you’re making them irrationally resistant to your ideas, because you package the reasonable stance of stopping genocide with the unreasonable stance of assigning full responsibility to a not necessarily innocent, but still indirectly involved person.

        As I said, my goal was to help you relax your stance so you can be a force against genocide, because I actually want to stop genocide, and so having more people effectively stop the genocide is what I want. But I have seemingly failed with you. Now every person you get to who is undecided, someone else will have to undo in their mind that they don’t mean your position, but a reasonable one. You have made it harder to convince them to drop their support for genocide, and even harder to get them to stand up against it. This will be my last response, and I hope you reflect on our conversation. We want the same thing, at the end of the day.