- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/48345159
When he launched his campaign last week for a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat, Representative Seth Moulton made sure that one of his first moves was to announce that he is returning campaign donations that he received from individuals affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and would no longer accept campaign support from the group. Also last week, popular podcast hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan pressed Senator Cory Booker to answer whether he considered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal; The Ringer’s Van Lathan told Governor Gavin Newsom that Lathan would not support a 2028 candidate who took money from AIPAC, resulting in the governor literally squirming and using the word “interesting” repeatedly; radio host Charlamagne tha God asked Governor Josh Shapiro if AIPAC donations improperly influence U.S. decisions on Israeli-Palestinian issues; and MSNBC’s Eugene Daniels asked Kamala Harris if Israel’s actions over the last two years constitute genocide.
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One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.
— Omar El Akkad
It will be like that for Israel’s genocide, and it will be like that for MAGA broadly.
It will be like every MAGA nut just up and vanished like a fart in the wind.
This is excellent. The progressive pressure campaign is starting to turn some liberals and the politicians are starting to feel it. I’ve been reading the New York Times’ comment section and
- Lately the comments are just venomous toward Israel where they were previously mostly blaming Hamas or both sides-ing the issue.
- The comment screeners are letting through a LOT more anti-Israel comments. These comments are always the most highly “recommended” (liked). The Times actively shapes the ideology of the comment section, so this is a big deal.
Here are the reasons the article’s author thinks this is happening:
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become one of the defining issues of progressive politics.
- Israeli-Palestinian issues have become a proxy for a broader divide within the Democratic Party.
- The rise of Zohran Mamdani is reshaping Israeli-Palestinian politics within the party.
- The exit of Biden [who held back progress on the issue].
It is cool, but I would hazard anyone excited about this to note that they are by and large dropping AIPAC funding just for J-Street funding. Liberal Zionism is still Zionist, and even if J-Street is nominally critical of Bibi, they still couch the ongoing genocide in dismissive language, to say nothing of their ongoing support of Israel continuing as an apartheid ethnostate.
Yeah my comments still mostly get blocked.
Hey, honestly, that’s great, but frankly, I’m quite tired of the focus on Israel/Palestine situation while the Republicans are doing a speed-run toward fascism here within our borders. I get that it would be covered, but seriously the coverage from outlets like TYT might make you believe it is about 70% of the news or something.
The contrast between what is happening here at home vs. a foreign conflict often feels just a bit gaslighty and disconnected from reality.
A lot of people care a lot more than you.
It’s about the only thing the administration is doing that isn’t a distraction.
I swear to fucking god, I see people respond to news about Gaza with “That’s great, but release the epstein files” and it makes me wonder if we have hope as a species.
“Frankly, I don’t care much that I’m responsible for a literal genocide”
Hows that genocide going under the guy all genocide joe voters helped elect
The person I helped elect lost.
About the same. What’s your point?
We need BDS.
Ack, accidentally hit reply on your comment instead of another, sorry about that if it didn’t delete properly!
deleted by creator
Yeah life would be better for everyone if we’d have voted Harris in.
I am utterly exhausted by the “pancakes vs waffles tweet”-style responses like this. The person you replied to didn’t mention Harris nor even Biden, they talked about a trend in changes they’re wishing the media was better about highlighting, because it and politicians will talk a lot more about elsewhere-issues than here. Ceasing support for Israel is fast and easy, so it becomes, now the they’re finally paying attention, an easy score for “pick me” points, because outright stating in non-hyperbolic language that we’ve got a literal dictator brewing with systems of fascism merging together and coming up with solutions is a lot more complicated than rejecting one PAC donor.
At this point I’m treating these comments as MAGA psyops trying to tear up the left, because no one actually gives a shit about Harris except Republicans in their talking points. Even the Dem politicians shut up about her.
Life would have been better with her and you’d have to have your head buried quite far into the sand to not understand it was literally a choice between her or Trump.
I’m not sure why you’re mentioning Biden here though.
My mistake was reading your post as sarcasm instead of being genuine. There are far too many folks who keep saying that with a very sarcastic attitude when no one was remotely mentioning her and it’s an extremely MAGA tactic to just bring her up out of nowhere as if it was an argument being made instead of the actual conversation.
My apologies on the misinterpretation and launching off of that.
I wasn’t sure if they were being sarcastic or not, either, for exactly the same reasons. It’s honestly hard to tell in certain situations.
I happen to know a few IRL who legit cannot see, or refuse to see, how foolish they were and are about the two choices facing us, and so they constantly, because of their feelings of guilt that they don’t want to admit to, will go on the attack about something something Kamala and argle bargle Biden, even if the topic is something Taco is doing to utterly stripmine and ruin this country.
I think these types that I know that genuinely seem to hold these positions are deep narcissists that like to make it all about themselves and how they’ve personally passed a purity test they’ve set up for everyone. If it wasn’t Gaza, it’d be something else. These same individuals definitely found an excuse when the choice was Hillary or Trump. They’ll put themselves on a higher moral plane because of $SINGLE_ISSUE, declare everyone else to be immoral and happily prance off to either not vote at all or vote for Jill Stein or whatever, or, not even kidding, vote for Taco to really stick it to the “liberals” (remember, they use “liberals” as a bad term, because they are so edgy and too cool for liberalism).
When it comes to online, I’m with you - I think a lot of it might be bots, paid psyop agents mixed in with some people that maybe genuinely believe the positions they are taking…
What does “woo” mean?
To court, romance someone would be to “woo” them.
An old fashioned term meaning you are dating someone. The proper term is “pitching woo.”
In other words, you are trying to entice someone to join your side.
I don’t think pitch has to accompany woo like some other fossil words need their counterparts (eg no one says “fro” without the entire phrase “to and fro”). It’s not used as much for romantic dating these days but it’s still relatively common to hear about say, a company trying to woo a potential hire with perks without “pitch” being included. In fact, I’d say when the full phrase “pitching woo” is used is when it sounds truly old fashioned.
And incumbents that have taken AIPAC money will try to distance themselves to keep a job, they first go too
Until after elections… Cast your vote based on previous behavior. Not current.
Did they renounce the dual citizenship as well?
fuck them, don’t care.
I mean to their point, I’m guessing it’s mostly Democrats following the political winds and not getting any actual courage to do something they’ve longed to do. All the Schumers and Pelosies in the party can go straight to hell.
All you’re doing is saying “I don’t care if you start doing the right thing.”
If you give them nothing to value from changing then they won’t. Congrats on the own goal.
fuck off liberal
How mature. Great rebuttal.
Harris or Clinton would have not been the lesser of two evils they’d have been great presidents.
Yeah, they would have given lip service to fighting fascism while laying the groundwork for continuing the march to the right as soon as they left office. Way better.
It’s funny that we’re living what we’re living and people still think this.
This is the conclusion that a material analysis of the world reveals. Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is owned by capitalists. Republicans exist to do whatever terrible shit capitalists want to do, and Democrats exist to pull the Overton window to the right so that the capitalists can do whatever terrible shit they want to do.
One makes the country better and the other one tears it down.
We’re twenty three days into a government shut down right now with massive layoffs happening.
I’m describing exactly what Biden did, so I have a pretty good reason to believe this.
It’s called listening to the right wing propaganda without a single critical thought.
I’ll be honest. I would take Aipac money. I can see how there could be an optics issue but as long as I still uphold that Bibi is a war criminal, Palestine should be a country, and the genocide is real/Israel needs to fix and gtfo of occupied areas.
Pretty sure I wouldn’t get donations from Aipac to start but if they’re stupid enough to donate to me I don’t see why I shouldn’t spend their money and go about my business.
Feels like you assume lobbyists are incompetent & that they don’t own you.
What if they make up an important share of your CF, the loss of their monies would default you?
It’s an extremely stupid system to exist, but it’s encoded in the legislation & practices.
And this is without even acknowledging the morals of it all - I would automatically try to distance from ppl that take/have gotten money from such sources.
Nah, I just already have turned down large chunks of money and changed careers over my moral stance without compromising it. Pretty sure I could do the same, much as Irwin took money from whoever and then turned around and put it into conservation regardless.
I’d recommend reading the book Influence by Robert Cialdini. It talks about six mechanisms that are most effective in making people do things, one of which is reciprocity. Getting something from someone makes us significantly more likely to do something for them.
You might believe you’re above these mechanisms of influence, and you may truly be mindful enough to avoid a lot of them, but these things work on our psyche at a deep level and it’s unlikely you’re immune to them.
All of this to say that if you’re ever in a place to accept money or things from people you disagree with or don’t like, think reeeally hard about whether you’d be willing to eventually compromise on your values for that freebie. Because you might eventually find yourself doing that unconsciously.
If you’re the kind of person that feels bad when a friend pays for your dinner then taking thousands of dollars in AIPAC money would influence that relationship in their favor, even if it’s you picking up the phone whenever they call.
The only responsible way to take that money is to donate it all to Palestine.
Pretty sure I wouldn’t get donations from Aipac to start but if they’re stupid enough to donate to me I don’t see why I shouldn’t spend their money and go about my business.
The reason not to is because of the optics. People will always assume anyone you’re accepting money from you’ll show favoritism towards either consciously or unconsciously. That is generally how
briberycampaign finance works these days. Large corporation, state, or billionaire “donates” to a politician, and in exchange they get to write whatever legislation they want or get the politician to vote for or against anything they want.
