I kind of understand Bush vs Kerry. Bush had a vision. It was a crazy neocon vision, but it was a vision and he used it to communicate effectively enough that we still occasionally meme about bombing people into freedom.

Obama had a clear vision, and communicated it well. Hope, prosperity for the middle class, international leadership. Biden had a vision, a less divisive America where we came together and worked on overdue problems. Hilary didn’t really, nor did Kerry or Gore. They were more policy administrator types who focused on specific policies and administration, and the idea of incremental improvement just didn’t resonate with people.

Trump, for all his failings, does have a vision he is capable of communicating to the American people. Harris did too, better than Hilary anyway, but it didn’t really come online until fairly late into the campaign and stayed a little too nebulous. I do think she was hurt in this regard by getting such a short campaign with no real prep time, she was evolving in the right direction.

I think we need a Bernie or AOC, someone with a powerful vision and ability to clearly communicate it, to the point of literally cudgeling people over the head with it. And we need to vote them in during the primary, over any competent administrator types, despite the fact that we are fully aware of how effective and necessary those policy administrators can be. Our valuing of them is a place where we’re out of touch with the broader American electorate though.

edit: MLK Jr was good at this. He had a dream, and it was a simple one that any person could visualize in their head. It didn’t require any policy expertise to understand it. We need that.

I think you were really lucky, a pocket knife is a lot riskier than a can of mace or taser or something. Easy to take away. But if it’s what you got, then it’s what you got. Also should’ve aimed a little lower.

Yes, he took all our guns, too. Look, there’s none to be found anywhere.

No, they’ve been getting progressively crazier since 2016.

2000 was fairly divisive, it went to the Supreme Court after all. But it wasn’t even a fraction this dramatic, people mostly shrugged and figured GWB would be like his father, which was unfortunate, but sane at any rate. Nobody was really predicting 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.

2004 was pretty dull. John Kerry challenged GWB but felt sort of like an empty suit.

2008 was nice, Obama was a strong and exciting candidate vs the very known quantity of McCain, who was a moderate repub known for bipartisanship. Sarah Palin provided for hours of entertaining impersonations by people like Tina Fey, but since she was the VP candidate nobody really cared.

2012 was dull. Romney was a strong candidate, another moderate repub. But Obama was fine, he hadn’t broken the country or anything. Brought us out of a recession, even if people were upset about bank bailouts and stuff. Lot of people got health insurance.

Then it starts getting spicy.

Honestly for a portion of the ones here online, I don’t think they actually care that much about Gaza except as a convenient tool to attack Americans. It’s academic to them. I don’t expect it’ll stop once Trump is in, they’ll just switch to criticizing Americans overall. They’re mostly leftist agitators, and I honestly think they hate moderate progressives the most, since we’re trying to improve capitalism which makes it harder to undermine and destroy.

For people that actually do care, it’s a personal, emotional argument about not being able to feel good about it, which I understand. It’s a sort of trolley problem. If they don’t vote, they kinda just walk away and the trolley runs over a bunch of people, but they don’t have to watch and bear a sense of personal responsibility at that emotional level for being a part of it. It doesn’t actually benefit Gaza, but there’s only so much they could really do anyway.

I somewhat agree, though I’ll point out people were doing quite well at the end of Clinton and Obama’s presidencies. They flipped to the other party anyway.

We’ve been seeing a see-saw effect for awhile, where without incumbency, the party last holding the Presidency loses. This reflects a general, vague dissatisfaction with the status quo, mostly felt at the emotional level instead of intellectually reasoned. The world is too complicated for the average person to really figure out, and they don’t like that. While you can distract yourself from this in innumerable ways, or paper over it with something like religion, it’ll surface when it comes time to consider new leadership.

Then, in addition to the various issues people will discuss, I think being a woman hurt Harris somewhat with latinos, where the culture prizes a more Trumpian machismo.

No, not yet. Every service member of our military forces takes a personal oath to defend the Constitution. That is the final guardrail. There are still a couple other, weaker ones as well, we’re not done yet

edit: I do feel bad for the young people that are new to this experience, it does hurt. This’ll likely be the strongest assault we’ve been forced to endure yet. But having lived through GWB and Trump’s first term, this fight is not yet over. Not even close. Their side is not unified in its goals, it’s a coalition just like ours. That’s a vulnerability that can be exploited, just as ours was.

Yes, that’s called a general strike. Fairly common tactic for independence movements and workers rights movements, you still see them in South America sometimes. They’re not easy to organize, you need a lot of pissed off people.

Very convenient when you’re the one making strong claims with no evidence or sourcing. I suppose I don’t really expect you to do anything asides blame someone else for all your problems though. That’s much easier.

You yourself mentioned “fundamental truths”, not me. It’s not lies to call you out on it.

You don’t know why I ask for them, you’ve failed to provide a single one. This is likely due to you knowing they’re political in nature.

You know my point. Seeing the border kibbutz as armed jailors (and thus combatants) is ludicrous. While arms were certainly present, and local security forces certainly returned fire, a heavily armed, fortified camp would have provided heavy resistance. Instead, the attack swept through them quickly, killing many in their shelters. There is significant video evidence of this.

There you go again with “inarguable fact”. No fact is inarguable, that’s not how facts work. Proper intellectual rigor allows the challenging of even the most deeply-held belief, otherwise Einsteinian gravity would have never overtaken Newtonian gravity. In your case, you even misapply it, taking a very natural human reaction against security threats to an illogical conclusion that if those security threats escalate to a certain severity, then the Israelis will lose somehow. This makes no sense.

More cute deflections out of you. But no, again, your materialist philosophy does not actually provide for a concrete path to victory. Your long studies on the psychology of settlers is missing a whole bunch of psychology if all you can focus on is material security. Hate, for instance, is an emotion that can be taught generation to generation, and can motivate independently of material conditions.

Do you think 20somethings cannot be trained to be good soldiers? Do you think the IDF is smaller than 400k? Be clear. And no, you did not mentioned specific examples, except to repeat this claim that they “fall apart” in ground combat. That is not a specific example.

Has there been a widespread invasion into Lebanon that faltered? Or are you arguing they are too scared and weak to even try?

In the 1948 war, Israel had no air force. The Arab countries did. They still lost.

Quoting wastes space. I can recall our previous discussion, if you can’t it’s not hard to scroll back a little. Their goal of ethnic cleansing.

There’s still no path to victory described here. Israel does not have the world against them, because genocide just isn’t that big a deal across the world. You know India still trades with Israel, and has its navy active in the Red Sea area? Israel’s credit rating is still in the A range, it’s not being knocked down “every few months”. I don’t think you should be accusing me of being locked in a box of propaganda when your statements are this exaggerated and untrue.

So, you think Major Generals can frequently be found at checkpoints then…?

Routinely lose to the guerillas where? Using bombardment to prepare for an assault is nothing new, that’s pretty standard going back centuries. Losing the ground assault is notable though. Guerillas popping back up is just guerillas fighting a guerilla campaign, I assume you understand how that’s supposed to operate, and how it isn’t reflecting the IDF being defeated in a pitched battle.

More nitpicking details. Being crushed does not have to mean no longer present. The point remains that the ANC would have never accomplished their goals without international pressure. Had the international community not cared about Apartheid, it would have continued despite ANC resistance, into the foreseeable future.

Actually you did, right here:

otherwise you will be correctly recognized as someone that plays with fairy tales and seems to even believe them!

You could have easily checked this, but I guess you’re not putting much effort in.

You brought up materialism several paragraphs up, around 3 posts ago. You seem to want to give credit for expanding freedom movements solely to violent combatants, while saying nonviolent methods are ineffective. This is simplistic. You are ignoring other factors present.

I see, you cannot remember well. Sorry, but if I quote everything too, for your convenience since you are reluctant to reread I suppose, then these replies will simply get longer and longer as yours have. You’re now up to two full size comments, all because you are wasting space quoting me when I can fully remember what I said. You don’t have to. I won’t start.

We were discussing whether American nonviolent protest was a significant factor in ending the war. I said yes, you said no.

Most of the rest of that looks like trolling and more nitpicking pointless details like me saying “hamas” instead of “Palestinian resistance”. I suppose your rigid mind might actually lack the flexibility to bridge the two, though. You also seem to blame me for confusion when you cannot remember or reread and thus need me to provide quotes for your convenience.

No, not everyone engages in propaganda. It is possible to analyze factual events without applying value judgements, which are a necessary component of propaganda. We are engaged in a propagandistic discussion, certainly, that’s unavoidable I think, but it is not some unavoidable thing.

One minor, but important detail: The First Aliyah began in the 1880s, a decade before Herzl’s work. Land was purchased for settlements, and a few tens of thousands came, mostly from Eastern Europe. Within a couple decades the kibbutz system was established, small socialist communities where it was decided, unfortunately, to try to rely exclusively on Jewish labor and economy. This led to the first significant frictions between the settlers and the Palestinians, setting the stage for our situation today.

You seem to like your “truths”, but that just speaks to your deep and abiding faith. That’s religious talk. I prefer hard evidence, and I don’t trust internet anecdotes. The borders around Gaza have been set for decades, it isn’t the West Bank. These aren’t fresh settlements of right wing settlers that just moved in. There was no evidence of any sort of successful widescale resistance to the Oct 7th attack, which would not have been the case had the border kibbutz been camps of armed jailors, as you attempt to portray.

No more generalized than your sweeping assertion of material causes. Not everything is concrete, ultimately, humans do very stupid shit sometimes. Like I said, fundamentally illogical. Our decisions are based on the firing of neurons in our brains, which are not limited to solely material causes. If you weren’t faith-blinded, you could see this. It’s common sense, and very much an everyday occurrence.

The IDF is 400k strong by last estimate, who knows what it’s up to now. This is more of your faith speaking, a blind trust that without advanced weaponry, Israel somehow falls apart. It makes no sense in the cold light of day. 400k soldiers is a lot. You can man a border and enforce a famine with that many.

Wow. I think Israel’s early wars, where the entire Arab coalition was crushed without the aid of air power, speak to their history of infantry combat. Using advanced tools is a helpful, a convenience. Not a requirement.

Fine, allow me to clarify my question. Does Netanyahu’s government look like it is failing in its current objectives?

Huh, so you’re saying the destruction of Gaza was all part of the plan? An indication of weakness? That’s a pretty twisted path to victory, you’re just going to get them all killed. Unfortunately, far more genocides have succeeded through history than liberation battles. That’s the sad reality of the world we live in, it’s what we have to work with.

That’s cute, but again, your path to victory is a farce. Israel is not losing, except in your fantasies. It’s objectives move steadily closer and closer to success, hamas’ do not.

No, air power is not necessary to man a border or keep checkpoints closed, that’s silly. Okay, so what about the ground assaults the IDF has conducted into Gaza? Quite a large amount of footage came out from both hamas and IDF sources showing ground fighting. The IDF continued to advance. Israel has domestic manufacturing too, by the way, they produce their own tanks and small arms, drones are not difficult.

The ANC was driven underground, its leadership fled or arrested. That’s crushed. Yes, it persisted underground, and eventually entered peaceful negotiations, this is true, but alone it would have never accomplished these goals. Mandela’s imprisonment was a big deal in the west, despite governments labeling him as a terrorist, his story galvanized significant international support.

Cute that you accuse me of fairy tales while you’re the one spouting all the messaging about a clearly losing party that could only win if only the air planes went away. I’m afraid complexity is real, though. Humans are a mess, and do things for all manner of reasons, despite our faiths trying to oversimplify everything into some imaginary god or single philosophy of materialism.

You may have addressed it, but you’re simply nonsensical. All you have is “I’m offended, VC won, end story.” That’s cute, but a little simple.

Nitpicking pointless details. Fine, all fighters for the North Vietnamese were not the sole cause for victory. It takes two sides to end a war, a side has to accept its defeat. The US only accepted its defeat due to domestic factors, there were plenty of war hawks keen to keep going.

No, I am not the one looking at a sole cause. I acknowledged the efficacy of the guerilla campaign. The one looking at sole causes is you, pointing to that guerilla campaign. I am saying it alone is not enough, more factors were necessary.

Uh huh, shift all the blame to cover for yourself, very convenient. It’s pretty clear to see a political agenda instead of an honest intellectual conversation though. Your whole thrust is in defense of hamas. Mine is not in support of Israel’s genocide, though, just in an accurate understanding of what’s going on, no matter who it reflects poorly upon. The real propagandist here is pretty clearly you, you are attempting to positively participate in an ongoing military conflict, and help one of the two sides. I understand, but don’t throw stones when the real agent is yourself.

Kibbutzim near Gaza are armed occupation groups set up for the long term. Violence against those in kibbutzim are the only credible accusations of violence against “civilians” on Oct 7

That’s absurd. Many of the residents of these kibbutz were pro-Palestinian activists doing charity and solidarity work with pro-Palestinian organizations, especially around Gaza.

Calling my criticism of your materialism statement “an unjustified generalization” is amusing, but you’re the one that brought up material causes.

Does Israel look weak to you? Tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and settlers ready to move into Gaza is weak? Does Netanyahu look like he’s failing? This is just idiocy to defend your ideology, no matter how much it appears to fail. Gaza was still there, Apartheid certainly, but it was there. It’s not there anymore. That’s not a generalization, it’s a mammoth strategic blunder by hamas.

You think a blockade and targetting aid workers requires advanced munitions? This is ludicrous. It could be done with bullets, cheap drones. This is just wishful thinking.

You haven’t provided any sources, and its on the person making the claim to support their arguments. “Do your own research” is not a legitimate defense, which is basically what you’re trying to say.

Very conveniently omitting that the ANC was crushed and Mandela was imprisoned. Sure, there was some martyrdom there that inspired a broader global resistance, but it’s that global resistance that got the results. Sorry if this runs counter to your ideology, though, but it’s not “Absolutely incorrect.” Your faith in your ideology is not the sole arbiter of factuality in the world.

Sorry for disgusting you, but the world is a complicated place. Not to say that the VC does not deserve credit for an effective guerilla campaign, but without widespread American resistance to the war, it would have certainly continued. You may like to simplify things down to winners and losers when convenient for you, but its just messier than that. The whys are important, and effective fighting by the VC is not the sole “why”.

Yeeeaah, I’m not the one living in a fairy tale just because I look at all the causes for something, rather than simply focusing in on the ones that make me feel the best. If I am so incorrect, you are more than welcome to source your arguments, though I think we both know your sources are probably all political in nature instead of rigorously historic examinations of all the available evidence.

A concentration camp guard is a combatant. They are armed and keeping you there with violence, right? Responding with violence to violence is pretty widely regarded as acceptable, outside of pacifist movements. Your more controversial question is what we’re really talking about. I think your focus on the “material basis” for their actions is where this goes wrong, as it ignores their ideology, their psychology. This is why such resistance movements fail, humans are not fundamentally logical. Even a total undermining of their peace and security simply draws that overwhelming response you mentioned, as we are seeing evidence of right now. While the nonviolent methods were not working very well, they were working better than this. What works is what’s most important, that’s why I’m dictating right and wrong to others quest for freedom. Even a full cutoff of all foreign weapons to Israel would not resolve the famine.

Any actual sourcing for this primacy of violence in peaceful protest movements or King’s assassination being to preserve capitalism? It seems to me you are simply trying to give all the credit to the few, while ignoring the contributions of the many, because it suits you.

“Every revolution” sure is convenient, when 99% fail. The ANC did not “defeat” South Africa, it was international pressure that ended Apartheid.

On the note of government surveillance and oppression of the civil rights movement, I agree.

Regarding Vietnam, the US could have kept fighting far longer if there was will for it. The reason there was not will for it was domestic opposition.

Again, you’re simply giving all the credit to the violent while ignoring the hard work of the masses in these movements. This is disingenuous.

Well, yes, killing a noncombatant is bad, no question about it. There are other ways to accomplish the goal, from peaceful ways to simply killing actual combatants instead. I know you’re more of a revolutionary, so that kinda undermines your whole thing, but oh well.

Sure, but things like the riots, particularly around race, contributed to a great deal of backlash, and were not exactly the cause of things like the Civil Rights Act. In fact, I’d challenge you to provide historical cases of a leader caving to that sort of violence while they still had their military and police forces to protect them.

Yes, martyrdom is common, assassination is unquestionably a thing that happens in history. If you’re saying his assassination was some conspiracy to preserve capitalism I’d like to see some actual evidence of that, though, from a respected historian.

Almost always fails, though? It’s relatively rarely attempted in any seriousness, but let’s see… Vietnam War, Women’s Suffrage, Civil Rights Act, Prohibition, and that’s just examples from my country. And yes, I know, they were not all exclusively perfectly peaceful. Majority peaceful, though, I don’t think you can logically just unilaterally declare all the positive results were due to the violent aspects, that makes no sense unless you can provide some evidence.

Not necessarily. If that were the case, then peaceful civil rights movements wouldn’t be effective. We can point to things like women’s right to vote to indicate that isn’t the case though. While they’re not as dramatic, peaceful reform movements have a reasonably high success rate, contrasted against all the uprisings and revolts which have been mercilessly crushed throughout history.

Identify good and bad based on what people do. Not why they are doing it. Otherwise you’re simply agreeing that the ends justify the means.

Someone kills a noncombatant? Bad. Doesn’t matter why.

I actually sort of like this idea. People would still figure it out, of course, but it’d shift people’s default attention from the person to the platform.

America isn’t a hellscape

gasp How dare you…