How do you explain things like her refusal to let a Palestinian speak at the DNC? Or how she re-commits herself to Israel’s “defense” whenever asked?
I want some of that hope, but it seems like facts are pointing in the other direction.
When a culture completely oppresses another people, then that culture naturally attempts to annihilate any empathy for its victims.
You can see the same pattern in how Nazis treated their victims, and how Americans treated their slaves.
So is your argument that the Biden/Harris administration is blind, or stupid?
If I give my kid an AR-15 and they shoot up a school, I may or may not be culpable.
But if I hand them another AR after the first shooting, they kill again, and then I give them another, and another, and keep handing them weapons for months, and theres a pile of 15,000 dead children, then I am definitely culpable.
It doesn’t matter how many times I tell the kid “this AR is for defense only”.
I think we are in agreement on almost everything here.
The middle class can do nothing in the face of a regional offensive by Islamist warlords. When it gets to that point it’s already too late.
My argument is in agreement with what you have said: a strong middle class is a bulwark against the formation and expansion of warlords.
As for the second issue, I fear my words were unclear here- when I referred to “two decades-long invasions” I was speaking of two separate invasions, each decades long. Namely the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the American invasion in 2001. The 2001 invasion was brutal and unjustified, but we can agree it was not the root cause of Afghanistan’s problems.
One issue we may find disagreement on is the attempts at creating a firm national government. I am not aware of any serious attempts at such a thing since the 70s. Each government has been either a puppet government set up to suit foreign interests, or a reactionary warlord. It may be true that the peculiar circumstances of Afghanistan prevent it from having a firm national government, but that hypothesis goes untested in the face of overwhelming foreign meddling.
Yes not everything is down to ecominics, the bombs and bullets are probably a more significant factor. Being unable to feed your family is bad, burying your family is worse.
And yes, the middle class Afghanis can’t put up a fight for many reasons, one of which is that they largely stopped existing. The moment they are locked out of their personal and business savings, they become poor desperate Afghanis.
Can you explain your disagreement or argument? I dont understand what you are getting at, and “elaborate on pre-2001 afghanistan” is a very broad topic.
Or maybe the two decades-long invasions did extreme damage and brought insane brutality to a poor population?
When America was in control, we set up a strong central bank system to help stabilize the country. Afghans filled the bank with their savings, these funds were outside of the control of the Taliban. The middle class, the opposition to the Taliban, were growing. Then as the US left, we looted every penny. Overnight thousands were bankrupted, leading to economic depression and a huge gain for the Taliban.
Civilization actively rejects Afghanistan.
I think a lot of this comes down to the semantics of “intention”.
I intended to write line 152 exactly as written. I intended to write code that compiles. But that pesky compiler imposes reality on me when it says “bug on line 152”. Did I intend to write the bug?
Similarly, a politician may make a public promise on the campaign trail. They may truly intend to fulfill that promise, but political reality stops them when they are elected. There are hundreds of possible reasons for failure: poor planning and naivety, lack of political capital, or even accepting a lobbyist’s bribe. Which of these cases should be considered lies?
Politicians work product is not information, it is legislation.
“Politician that never lies” is like “Developer that never writes bugs”. I want to live in that world too, but it is a fantasy world.
It is absolutely disgusting how you talk about an ongoing genocide.
He died for his own cause, I am only trying to amplify and honor his message.
I will take advantage of his death to spread understanding, empathy, and a hopeful end to the genocide.
He tried to die for a purpose, why are you so intent on stripping his death of that purpose? You are the one who dishonors the dead.
The war against nazism wasnt just fought on the battlefield, it was also fought on the cultural front.
edit: and even more importantly, the economic front as well.
I think Matt Nelson is a hero. His death was not one of fear and loneliness. It was the ultimate act of empathy, compassion, and humanity.
I’m going to celebrate his heroic deed, and I encourage everyone to do the same.
Israel is an ultranationalist power which has lost its democracy and is now waging an offensive war for the purposes of territorial gain and ethnic cleansing.
In a word, they are Nazis.
Ask yourself: how did we eradicate the Nazi scourge? Then do that.
Why even post if you’re going to add no information?
Worthless bot should be banned.
You keep suggesting that I am uninformed and unresearched, so please correct me if I got any of the facts wrong.
You keep suggesting that my criticism is just a loud cry, but this is just hand waving the problem away. You have failed to directly address any of my concerns.
To add to my list of cocerns, here is a new one: Have you or any other LW mods/admins been paid by MBFC?
Wow so you’re telling me mbfc isn’t staffed by volunteers, instead they are trying to get paid by subs and ad revenue?
The more I learn about mbfc the worse it gets.
Wow you continue to surprise me, I would have never expected this kind of communication to come publically from a mod.
I think I have made my criticisms of MBFC fairly clear, and your characterization of my criticisms is an obvious strawman.
But since I have your attention, let me try to rephrase the problem: Lemmy was built on principles of open source, transparency, freedom of speech, and community input. The MBFC bot does not follow any of these principles.
In it’s current form, the MBFC bot is a stain on the integrity of LW. I urge you to make a change.
The community has largely made their voice heard on the subject, as evidenced by the large number of downvotes on the bot and on your posts here. I urge you to listen to them.
Wow I had no idea the LW team made this bot, how disappointing.
Do the consistant downvotes on the bot give you any concern that you are making a mistake here?
I always thought of LW as the “default” sub here on Lemmy, but all of this: the rightwing bot itself, ‘please block the bot instead of downvoting’, the thinly veiled threats of ban; all of it is pretty strong evidence you are attempting to cultivate an ideological echo chamber here.
Anyway, I’ll continue to do my civic duty and downvote the misinformation bot whenever I happen to see it.
Thanks
You’re right, and none of that gives me hope that Harris will pivot.
The re-elect Harris campaign will start on January 20th, and the political reality you just described will still exist.
Changing stances on Israel’s genocide will take leadership, which is something we haven’t seen from the Harris campaign. It is not Harris leading a campaign on principle, it is the polls leading the Harris campaign, just as you described it.
Those suburban moderates’ views can be changed, they just have never been exposed to an opposing message. The news says Israel is the good guys and Hamas is the bad guys; only those on the fringes say otherwise. If Harris would show leadership and take a principled stance on the side of humanity, she could bring most of these low information moderate voters with her.