U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez castigated House Republicans for pursuing massive cuts to Medicaid "in the dead of night" as a committee markup hearing on the GOP's legislation dragged on into the early hours of the morning.
AOC recently voted in favour of an ADL supported definition of “anti-semitism”.
So I’m sorry but whatever leftwing sounding stuff she says has to be assumed to be purely theatre, same as when the DNC assholes claim to care about workers, the poor or minorities.
You can’t be a Leftwinger and support ethno-Fascists like the Zionists at the same time, so one has to conclude from her own actions that AOC’s “leftwing character” is purelly performative and basically the ideology-free business strategy of crafting an image that differentiates oneself from the competition whilst not in fact being any different.
Whomever is the inheritor of Bernie’s politics, it ain’t her.
Sure mate, I’m a Russian troll and a stupid one even who thinks AOC very important for Ukraine whilst Bernie Sanders (who I very clearly supported) would be deliver Ukraine to Russia.
Keep on arse licking your “sacred cows” and not holding them to the principles they claim to have, because that has been so great for America (TWO Trump Presidencies and, if its up to him, counting) and thus by extention to the Ukraine who you claim to want Glory for.
Criticism of Israel is not the same as intolerance of Jewish people. I would think identifying Jewish people with the actions of a rogue genocidal state is pretty anti-Semitic.
Well yeah, that’s exactly my point and why I am critical of anybody actively voting for the ADL-backed definition (even the “darling” of the leftwing of the Democrat Party) exactly because of that.
Israel is a nation state, which definitely is not the same thing as Jewish People. In fact the idea that a political entity like a Nation can represent an entire people defined by ethnicity and religion is the real Racism, since it relies on the idea that “they are all the same”, which is the very foundation of Racist thinking.
Worse, there are actual Jewish Groups which are against the very existence of Israel, so anybody claiming against that the Israel represents all Jews is actually denying the very words (loudly expressed, even) of many Jews.
Even worse (or yeah, this shit has so many layers of bad), given the acts being committed by the Nation State of Israel, equating Israel with Jewishness is the same as implying that that which is Israel does is that which Jews As a People do, or in other words that murdering others for their land, Genocide and even mass murdering children merely because of their ethnicity are, as logically follows from the claim that Israel represents the Jewish People, all in the nature of being a Jew.
In my view it’s harder to, given that Nation State’s actions, be any more anti-semitic than linking Israel to the entirety of the Jewish People.
I can barely begin to describe the level of disgust and repugnance that I feel at anybody who would directly or indirectly (by claiming criticism of Israel is anti-semitism) link the depravity of Israeli politics, actions and even extreme colonialist racism to all members of an entire ethnic and religious group. That this shit is then leveraged to given military help to Israel in their execution of a modern day Holocaust against the Palestinian people just multiplies this disgust and repugnance several fold.
I can understand many people’s arguments about “compromise” and so forth but, shit, if a supposedly leftwing politician cannot even just merely refrain from actively vote in favour of such an extraordinarily racist (at many levels) thing like adopting an ADL supported definition of anti-semitism that actually links the entirety of the Jewish People to the most repugnant and inhumane of crimes being committed right now and second only in their depravity to what the Nazis did, then you have no principles whatsoever.
There are very few truly politically defining acts on can take, and as I see it nowadays “I supported Zionist goals” has risen to be up there with “I supported Nazi goals” in their power to define somebody politically.
PS: But, hey, maybe AOC’s vote is merely the equivalent of Chamberlain’s “peace in our times” - naively “compromising” with Evil ultimately for no actual gain.
She’s consistently voted against of sending weapons to Israel, she attempted to block the sale of arms to Israel before October 7th, and she’s called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide on the House floor. I can count on one hand the number of House/Senate Democrats that have a record like that. She signed on to a mostly symbolic resolution rather than give her enemies ammunition by voting against, “Condemning the global rise of antisemitism and calling upon countries and international bodies to counter antisemitism.” I get not liking the IHRA definition of antisemitism, but please, get some fucking perspective.
From what I read, she diverged from the rest of the Progressives in voting for the resolution so clearly the rest of the Democrat left didn’t share her worry about giving their enemies ammunition
Could she not have abstained? Also why would this be any more damaging for her than for the other ones or than her previous votes?
If indeed she is the only hope of the left-of-center in America (which would explain why some here respondent to my posts by talking about the “need to vote for the lesser evil”) I really hope this was a mistake or had a concrete gain for at least her constituents rather than a start of “becoming pragmatic” - I’ve seen the whole descent into “pragmatism” with Labour MPs in the the UK and it invariably turned out to be them selling out for personal political gains rather than a hard-nosed weighing of pros and cons and deciding to do something they heavily disliked for the sake of a genuine greater gain for their constituents (not the “what’s good for me politically is good for everybody” self-serving open-ended excuse) further down.
Lets hope I’m totally wrong and she’s at the very least deriving concrete gains for her constituents for that (rather than merely political horse trading for her own gain) or just made an honest mistake.
clearly the rest of the Democrat left didn’t share her worry about giving their enemies ammunition
Three members of the squad voted against it. Two of them are Muslim women from districts with large Muslim populations. The third lost her primary after AIPAC targeted her for criticizing Israel.
As for the rest of your comment, if you wanted to know why she voted for it, you could look it up. She commented on it at the time. She said it was a non-binding resolution, it didn’t directly use the problematic IHRA definition, but only references a State Department guideline that passively mentions the IHRA definition, and that if it had directly used IHRA language she would have voted against it. I’ll be honest, though, you don’t seem like you want your questions answered, you seem like you want to complain.
Well, for starters you’re one of the first whose response wasn’t merely insults or vague political hand-waving slogans like “compromise”, so thank you for that.
From what you wrote it does not seem as bad as I though it was.
Personally I see supporting any kind of associating Jewishness with Israel as likely politically defining, but even I have to admit that like is so many levels of indirection beyond the actual resolution that it hits an grey area, even in such a subject were the gray area has been squeezed to a very, very narrow band.
I still think she should have abstained rather than voted in favor, though my alarm about the possibility of her true nature being something else than what she portrays has significantly subsided with your explanation.
As a side note:
The third lost her primary after AIPAC targeted her for criticizing Israel.
I am not American, and I have been thinking really hard about “What could I do if I was one, given the deeply flawed Democracy in the US” and fighting against this kind of thing and the politicians gaining from them is it.
Specifically things like actively deploying techniques from political guerrilla propaganda against AIPAC-supported candidates and AIPAC campaigns - we’re talking leaftletting exposing AIPAC’s candidate’s voting records or just hammering pamphlets denouncing those in poles - and actively giving your own time campaigning for the anti-AIPAC (or AIPAC-targeted) candidates in Primaries. AIPAC has money, but people have their own time and have numbers (yeah, even lefties - I’ve been part of political parties in two countries I lived in and only a tiny tiny fraction of all people actually help out campaigning, so motivated lefties can add up to a lot of extra campaigning for a candidate targeted by AIPAC or targeting and AIPAC supported candidate). If you will, grassroots campaigning but at a level more likely to succeed than what Bernie Sanders tried against Hilary Clinton in the Democrat Presidential Primaries.
Such approach also means that the likes of AOC need not fear the effects of being targeted by AIPAC and hence has no need to “compromise” for the sake of keeping representing her constituents.
As I see it the only way that might pivot American politics from its Ever More Rightwing path in a grassroots effort at the basis of the Democrat Party (the Republicans are well beyond salvation, plus their supporters aren’t really the thinking kind) that changes it enough at lower and then higher and higher levels that the next Presidential Primary featuring somebody like Bernie Sanders doesn’t get torpedoed by a thoroughly corrupt DNC.
And this is why Dems lose elections - Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love.
The MAGAs will back anybody with an R, even if they are pedophiles, while a Dems will only vote for a candidate whose every single issue lines up perfectly to their individual demands. If not, they either don’t vote at all, or they vote for an impossible 3rd party candidate whose positions line up even less, but at least they aren’t a Dem.
I’ve been an Unaffiliated Independent since I first registered to vote in 1977. I’ve NEVER voted for a candidate I’ve liked. EVERY single vote I’ve made was the lesser of two evils. Frankly, as an independent who takes positions on both sides of the spectrum, depending on the issue, or often takes a nuanced position in the grey area in between, I doubt there ever could be a candidate who lines up perfectly for me.
AOC isn’t evil because her position on Gaza isn’t exactly what you want. We’ve seen and heard enough of her to understand that she’s a rare example among politicians: someone with authentic principles and morals, and motivated to fight hard for working Americans. She’s still worth following because at least we know that overall, she’ll be working for positive change for all Americans, and not just a tiny demographic.
We can’t make Perfect the enemy of positive change
Take a really hard look at yourself if you think a leftwinger should have no red lines at all in what they support.
Only unprincipled people have no red lines at all, and if you think that somebody who doesn’t have a red line when it comes to supporting an ethno-Fascist ideology like Zionist is going to have a red line when it comes to things like destroying the Environment, further weakening worker rights or further destroying social security, then I have a water crossing piece of real-estate to sell you.
She could easilly had just abstained, but no, she had to support Zionism.
Reminds me of Marx Groucho’s saying “I have Principles. If you don’t like them, I have others” - if AOC acts like that, how is she ethically any different from the likes of Pelosi?
There are other, actually honest and Principled Democrats worthy of your support, most notably Bernie Sanders.
AOC, sadly, with this just proved herself as an unprincipled politician who just talks the right talk but when push comes to shove doesn’t walk the walk.
Actions speak louder than words, and if in her actions she betrays the principles she claims to have for this, what else will she betray when its convenient for her?
Might want to support the Democrats who actually stick by the principles they say they have rather than annoint “heroes” and “saviours” based purelly on the quality of their talkie-talkie and then mindlessly rage when they’re criticized for not following in action the principles they claim to have.
I wish more people could understand that. So many people are still angry that the Dems won’t make him their candidate, but he is NOT a Democrat.
The presidential nomination is the highest award the party can give to a member, and they are going to give it to someone who has been a loyal party member, raised money for them, stuck up for them when they’ve done stupid stuff, etc.
Bernie is none of that. He may caucus with the Dems, but he has ALWAYS been an independent. For many years, he was the ONLY independent. He doesn’t raise money for them, doesn’t get in on their nefarious little backroom deals, doesn’t defend their nonsense on talk shows, etc. he’s been almost as critical of Dems as Republicans.
So the DNC is NEVER going to give him their nomination, any more than they’d give to a Republican. Imagine if the Dems decided to give the Democratic nomination to John McCain because he had a career of bipartisanship. Bernie is basically the same thing.
Ok, I’m not an American so clarify this for me: was he also not a Democrat when he was a Candidate in the Democrat Primaries against Hillary Clinton (hence then it was allowed only because of that) or has he left the party in the meanwhile (hence we would not be able to run for it now) or was he always an Independent and it was always allowed?
Because if AOC trully is the ONLY hope for the American left, you people are indeed trully fucked if she turns out to have “flexible” principles.
The desperation of having no other viable option would explain the “She’s CANNOT be criticized” style of feedback I’m getting to criticizing her for, in this subject not actually standing for the principles she claims to have, including people talking about the whole “we have to vote for the lesser evil” part, which only makes sense if there is literally no other viable candidate from the left side of the Democrat Party and hence AOC being less than honest being panic inducing for anybody not a full-on neoliberal (which would explain the number of people whose response to me was little more than personal insults)
There are no other candidates for her elected position. So we could not vote and let another republican in or vote for her if you live in her district. Not understanding this is why you are a dumb ass. I’ll keep using personal insults when they fit.
You insulting others is a veritable public service - it quickly signals to everybody else how much of your point is the product of “reasoning” and how much it is mindless emotionalism (exactly the same way MAGAs operate, so congrats on that) so saves everybody else time and effort.
Do keep up tagging yourself like that random internet stranger! 👍
Yes, we are truly fucked, and if you check our political history, have practically always been truly fucked, remain truly fucked, and continue to be truly fucked - as evidenced by our current administration and the last… All of them.
We had to fight a civil war to convince a solid half that slavery had to stop. And then kept doing it anyways, and still do it today. The whole empire sits on the graves of the original people, the survivors of whom still live in reservations we put on the shittiest possible land, and have for centuries now with no change regardless who’s in power.
This is the USA. This has always been the USA, once you peeled off the Hollywood varnish.
Oh man, that explains the rage I’m getting for just being a Skeptic and daring criticize AOCs “inconsistency”.
Sorry for you guys!
It’s always easy to be pretty strict about Principles and Skeptic about the motivations of those in politics, when one sits outside with no real stake in a race and hence no real emotional investment in it.
(Mind you, I’ve been just the same towards the leading figures of the political parties I was a member of in the countries I lived in, so maybe it’s something else - as I see it, the more important the person the more important it is that they behave beyond reproach)
That said, America didn’t seem to always been fucked - surely there was a post war period up until the late 70s were for most things were pretty good (certainly as a kid I used to look up to that America), though with the caveat that it was only true if one wasn’t an Afro-American.
Even if we agree that the US was always somewhat fucked, surely the current level of being fucked is pretty record setting?!
“Compromise” is the ultimate vague excuse for dishonest politicians - it justifies everything and is the ultimate salesman argument.
Talk of “need for compromise” is right now used by the worst amongst the Democrats to support Republican legislation and has backed 4 decades of the Democrat Party moving so far to the Right that they’re as Rightwing Reagan was on Economics and even more to the Right that he was in subjects like immigration.
You keep making bullshit blanket statements. You need to understand that not all compromises are the same – what you compromise on and why matters. AOC was not ever going to get the party to budge on Zionism, so what’s the fucking point of destroying her credibility and effectiveness on other issues by tilting at windmills?
Speaking of which, you have no credibility and I don’t give a fuck about anything you have to say. Go away.
Mate, given the style of your interaction with heavy recourse to personal insults and the low (low, low, oh so very low) reasoning and intellectual level it proves, going away from your posts is a great advice.
Insulting random internet strangers is really just the discourse equivalent of public masturbation: you’re doing it for self-pleasure and most passerbyes just turn their face away so as not to have to see it, except for a tiny fraction of people who actually enjoy seeing somebody have a good wank in the middle of the street whilst caring naught for whatever bullshit they’re saying whilst they wank.
Insulting delivers pleasure to the kind of intellect and type of personality that believes others have a low enough mental age that they will feel bad when a random internet stranger which they’ve never seen before insults them, something that they themselves only believe because they would feel like that in the other person’s shoes.
Meanwhile a fraction of passerbyes will give positive feedback, same as a fight on a street might get a handful of people who stop, stare and maybe even egg on the combatants. However on the street it’s plain to see that almost everybody just moves on and tries to ignore the fight, whilst on the Internet, one can’t seen those who just “move one trying to ignore it” and might convince themselves that they have support for their style of comment.
The real reason for Politeness is not the “you should do it because it’s the right thing to do” that parents tell their rebel teenagers before their brains have fully developed, it’s that the pleasure some people get from being rude, is often more than outweighed by the long term effects on the audience of being frequently impolite, which are worse the smaller the environment and hence the bigger the chance others will cross paths with you having made their minds about your character by a previous display of rudeness.
Whilst Reddit is a city, were people can get away with a lot of shit (far beyond mere rudeness), Lemmy is still more of a village, so the negative effects will be greater.
I shouldn’t have to explain in a step by step way this pretty basic adult knowledge that most people figure out by themselves when they become mature adults about the actual concrete benefits of behaving in certain ways rather than others in social contexts.
Sure mate, keep up doing the same as until now and not demanding consistency and honesty from supposedly left-of-center politicians.
Blind following politicians making tall promises and not demanding that their actions match those promises (just like the MAGA crowd does) clearly and with now shadow of a doubt is the way for the country to be ruled in the interest of the many rather than the few, as the last 50 years of doing exactly that clearly prove.
Keep on doing the same and expect different results, just like Einstein advised!
Mate, if somebody is willing to cross any and all lines, they don’t really have Principles - they’re practicing that good old Marxist (the Groucho rather than the Karl) adage of “These are my Principles. If you don’t like them, I have others”.
Maybe I’m naive, but in my view a genuine Leftwinger must have Principles and hence red lines, not just talk the talk whilst not walking the walk - in other words, be more than a self-promoting salesman, since a self-promoting salesman is really just a “personal upside maximizer” which is just another way of saying a follower of the “What’s in it for me?!” right-wing mindset.
Again, in my naivity, I see actual direct support for the desires of a ethno-Fascist ideology - Zionism - currently mass murdering children due to their ethnicity, as a red line that nobody with even the smallest shred of Humanitarian Principles would cross.
(I can understand the “I’m not absolutelly sure” statement of abstaining, but activelly voting for it is something else altogether).
In a way, I think you almost got there but just stopped short of following the last step in the logical chain: Trump did got elected a second time because of this shit, not because of the people complaining about the politicians that say one thing and do something else, but because almost all politicians are doing it including the self-proclaimed leftwing ones, so the word of politicians lost is all worth the same and in such an environment a populist shamelessly lying can swindle a lot more people than in an environment were dishonesty in politicians isn’t as widespread and normalized and hence would get punished - in other words, both the election of a shameless lying populist like Trump AND people complaining about dishonest and hypocrite self-proclaimed leftwing politicians are the product of the same things: the normalization of dishonesty in Politics.
You’re not wrong about the dishonesty and hypocrisy—it has poisoned the well across the board. A politician without red lines or real principles isn’t on the left, no matter what they call themselves.
But where we differ is in how we respond to that reality. As much as I agree with your point, I have to take a more pragmatic view. Not voting against Trump is part of how we got Trump. Sitting it out or refusing to engage just hands power to the worst option.
I hate the choices as much as anyone. It’s a shit sandwich. But I’d rather work with what I’ve got and try to make it suck less than give the whole table over to outright fascism.
I’ll keep calling out the hypocrisy, and I’ll keep pushing from the left—but I won’t step aside and let something far worse win by default. Idealism has to live in the real world, or it ends up serving the very thing it claims to resist.
Chose a faker like AOC to be the Democrat candidate and you’re just switching the swindlers, thus maintaing the climated of “say one thing do something else” political dishonesty that leaves the door open for another Trump-like populist to win next time around.
If I was an American in American I would be working my ass off in the Democrat Primaries and even at local level, including guerrila political propaganda tactics, to make sure that the real leftwingers were being pushed forwards in large numbers at that level and doing all I could to screw the AIPAC supported candidates, since continuing the Democract strategy of fielding liars and hypocrites is only going to make sure that the Trump problem happens again and again and again until one day one of them finally succeeds in becoming dictator for life.
I mean, surelly Democrats learned from Trump’s second victory that “more of the same” isn’t a solution for far-right polulism.
I think you and I are going to have to just agree to disagree. I looked through your comments and it is clear the side you are on. You have a nice day.
Only mindless tribalists have “sides” and think others are like that too.
Having Principles, on the other hand, means having no “sacred cows” who are above criticism when their actual actions do not respect such principles.
Tagging everybody who disagrees with their views with a “side” is how people who would otherwise be thinking individuals reduce themselves to easilly led muppets.
AOC recently voted in favour of an ADL supported definition of “anti-semitism”.
So I’m sorry but whatever leftwing sounding stuff she says has to be assumed to be purely theatre, same as when the DNC assholes claim to care about workers, the poor or minorities.
You can’t be a Leftwinger and support ethno-Fascists like the Zionists at the same time, so one has to conclude from her own actions that AOC’s “leftwing character” is purelly performative and basically the ideology-free business strategy of crafting an image that differentiates oneself from the competition whilst not in fact being any different.
Whomever is the inheritor of Bernie’s politics, it ain’t her.
Slava Ukraini you Russian troll.
Sure mate, I’m a Russian troll and a stupid one even who thinks AOC very important for Ukraine whilst Bernie Sanders (who I very clearly supported) would be deliver Ukraine to Russia.
Keep on arse licking your “sacred cows” and not holding them to the principles they claim to have, because that has been so great for America (TWO Trump Presidencies and, if its up to him, counting) and thus by extention to the Ukraine who you claim to want Glory for.
Russian troll, just because you support Bernie doesn’t mean squat.
AOC is growing quite popular and you feel threatened by it.
Oh man, that was something else as arguments go.
Consider your “Russian troll” thoroughly crushed (and entertained) by that argument.
You have a good day: you gave me a good laugh and as I see it you deserve a good day for it.
The ADL is redefining anti-semitism to mean anti-Zionism.
Criticism of Israel is not the same as intolerance of Jewish people. I would think identifying Jewish people with the actions of a rogue genocidal state is pretty anti-Semitic.
Well yeah, that’s exactly my point and why I am critical of anybody actively voting for the ADL-backed definition (even the “darling” of the leftwing of the Democrat Party) exactly because of that.
Israel is a nation state, which definitely is not the same thing as Jewish People. In fact the idea that a political entity like a Nation can represent an entire people defined by ethnicity and religion is the real Racism, since it relies on the idea that “they are all the same”, which is the very foundation of Racist thinking.
Worse, there are actual Jewish Groups which are against the very existence of Israel, so anybody claiming against that the Israel represents all Jews is actually denying the very words (loudly expressed, even) of many Jews.
Even worse (or yeah, this shit has so many layers of bad), given the acts being committed by the Nation State of Israel, equating Israel with Jewishness is the same as implying that that which is Israel does is that which Jews As a People do, or in other words that murdering others for their land, Genocide and even mass murdering children merely because of their ethnicity are, as logically follows from the claim that Israel represents the Jewish People, all in the nature of being a Jew.
In my view it’s harder to, given that Nation State’s actions, be any more anti-semitic than linking Israel to the entirety of the Jewish People.
I can barely begin to describe the level of disgust and repugnance that I feel at anybody who would directly or indirectly (by claiming criticism of Israel is anti-semitism) link the depravity of Israeli politics, actions and even extreme colonialist racism to all members of an entire ethnic and religious group. That this shit is then leveraged to given military help to Israel in their execution of a modern day Holocaust against the Palestinian people just multiplies this disgust and repugnance several fold.
I can understand many people’s arguments about “compromise” and so forth but, shit, if a supposedly leftwing politician cannot even just merely refrain from actively vote in favour of such an extraordinarily racist (at many levels) thing like adopting an ADL supported definition of anti-semitism that actually links the entirety of the Jewish People to the most repugnant and inhumane of crimes being committed right now and second only in their depravity to what the Nazis did, then you have no principles whatsoever.
There are very few truly politically defining acts on can take, and as I see it nowadays “I supported Zionist goals” has risen to be up there with “I supported Nazi goals” in their power to define somebody politically.
PS: But, hey, maybe AOC’s vote is merely the equivalent of Chamberlain’s “peace in our times” - naively “compromising” with Evil ultimately for no actual gain.
She’s consistently voted against of sending weapons to Israel, she attempted to block the sale of arms to Israel before October 7th, and she’s called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide on the House floor. I can count on one hand the number of House/Senate Democrats that have a record like that. She signed on to a mostly symbolic resolution rather than give her enemies ammunition by voting against, “Condemning the global rise of antisemitism and calling upon countries and international bodies to counter antisemitism.” I get not liking the IHRA definition of antisemitism, but please, get some fucking perspective.
From what I read, she diverged from the rest of the Progressives in voting for the resolution so clearly the rest of the Democrat left didn’t share her worry about giving their enemies ammunition
Could she not have abstained? Also why would this be any more damaging for her than for the other ones or than her previous votes?
If indeed she is the only hope of the left-of-center in America (which would explain why some here respondent to my posts by talking about the “need to vote for the lesser evil”) I really hope this was a mistake or had a concrete gain for at least her constituents rather than a start of “becoming pragmatic” - I’ve seen the whole descent into “pragmatism” with Labour MPs in the the UK and it invariably turned out to be them selling out for personal political gains rather than a hard-nosed weighing of pros and cons and deciding to do something they heavily disliked for the sake of a genuine greater gain for their constituents (not the “what’s good for me politically is good for everybody” self-serving open-ended excuse) further down.
Lets hope I’m totally wrong and she’s at the very least deriving concrete gains for her constituents for that (rather than merely political horse trading for her own gain) or just made an honest mistake.
Well, first of all:
Three members of the squad voted against it. Two of them are Muslim women from districts with large Muslim populations. The third lost her primary after AIPAC targeted her for criticizing Israel.
As for the rest of your comment, if you wanted to know why she voted for it, you could look it up. She commented on it at the time. She said it was a non-binding resolution, it didn’t directly use the problematic IHRA definition, but only references a State Department guideline that passively mentions the IHRA definition, and that if it had directly used IHRA language she would have voted against it. I’ll be honest, though, you don’t seem like you want your questions answered, you seem like you want to complain.
Well, for starters you’re one of the first whose response wasn’t merely insults or vague political hand-waving slogans like “compromise”, so thank you for that.
From what you wrote it does not seem as bad as I though it was.
Personally I see supporting any kind of associating Jewishness with Israel as likely politically defining, but even I have to admit that like is so many levels of indirection beyond the actual resolution that it hits an grey area, even in such a subject were the gray area has been squeezed to a very, very narrow band.
I still think she should have abstained rather than voted in favor, though my alarm about the possibility of her true nature being something else than what she portrays has significantly subsided with your explanation.
As a side note:
I am not American, and I have been thinking really hard about “What could I do if I was one, given the deeply flawed Democracy in the US” and fighting against this kind of thing and the politicians gaining from them is it.
Specifically things like actively deploying techniques from political guerrilla propaganda against AIPAC-supported candidates and AIPAC campaigns - we’re talking leaftletting exposing AIPAC’s candidate’s voting records or just hammering pamphlets denouncing those in poles - and actively giving your own time campaigning for the anti-AIPAC (or AIPAC-targeted) candidates in Primaries. AIPAC has money, but people have their own time and have numbers (yeah, even lefties - I’ve been part of political parties in two countries I lived in and only a tiny tiny fraction of all people actually help out campaigning, so motivated lefties can add up to a lot of extra campaigning for a candidate targeted by AIPAC or targeting and AIPAC supported candidate). If you will, grassroots campaigning but at a level more likely to succeed than what Bernie Sanders tried against Hilary Clinton in the Democrat Presidential Primaries.
Such approach also means that the likes of AOC need not fear the effects of being targeted by AIPAC and hence has no need to “compromise” for the sake of keeping representing her constituents.
As I see it the only way that might pivot American politics from its Ever More Rightwing path in a grassroots effort at the basis of the Democrat Party (the Republicans are well beyond salvation, plus their supporters aren’t really the thinking kind) that changes it enough at lower and then higher and higher levels that the next Presidential Primary featuring somebody like Bernie Sanders doesn’t get torpedoed by a thoroughly corrupt DNC.
And this is why Dems lose elections - Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love.
The MAGAs will back anybody with an R, even if they are pedophiles, while a Dems will only vote for a candidate whose every single issue lines up perfectly to their individual demands. If not, they either don’t vote at all, or they vote for an impossible 3rd party candidate whose positions line up even less, but at least they aren’t a Dem.
I’ve been an Unaffiliated Independent since I first registered to vote in 1977. I’ve NEVER voted for a candidate I’ve liked. EVERY single vote I’ve made was the lesser of two evils. Frankly, as an independent who takes positions on both sides of the spectrum, depending on the issue, or often takes a nuanced position in the grey area in between, I doubt there ever could be a candidate who lines up perfectly for me.
AOC isn’t evil because her position on Gaza isn’t exactly what you want. We’ve seen and heard enough of her to understand that she’s a rare example among politicians: someone with authentic principles and morals, and motivated to fight hard for working Americans. She’s still worth following because at least we know that overall, she’ll be working for positive change for all Americans, and not just a tiny demographic.
We can’t make Perfect the enemy of positive change
Well you can vote for the other guy… I’m sure whoever that is will definitely not be a Nazi…
What is that definition, verbatim? She’s been very pro-Palestine as far as I’ve seen, going so far as to call it a “genocide” on the House floor.
I am getting real sick and tired of fake-leftist concern trolls pushing bad-faith purity test rhetoric.
Agree 100% She’s one of the few who take no money from AIPAC. This might be bot activity?
Take a really hard look at yourself if you think a leftwinger should have no red lines at all in what they support.
Only unprincipled people have no red lines at all, and if you think that somebody who doesn’t have a red line when it comes to supporting an ethno-Fascist ideology like Zionist is going to have a red line when it comes to things like destroying the Environment, further weakening worker rights or further destroying social security, then I have a water crossing piece of real-estate to sell you.
She could easilly had just abstained, but no, she had to support Zionism.
Reminds me of Marx Groucho’s saying “I have Principles. If you don’t like them, I have others” - if AOC acts like that, how is she ethically any different from the likes of Pelosi?
Lots of words to try to explain being a dumbshit. It’s moral to support the lesser of evils, full stop.
There are other, actually honest and Principled Democrats worthy of your support, most notably Bernie Sanders.
AOC, sadly, with this just proved herself as an unprincipled politician who just talks the right talk but when push comes to shove doesn’t walk the walk.
Actions speak louder than words, and if in her actions she betrays the principles she claims to have for this, what else will she betray when its convenient for her?
Might want to support the Democrats who actually stick by the principles they say they have rather than annoint “heroes” and “saviours” based purelly on the quality of their talkie-talkie and then mindlessly rage when they’re criticized for not following in action the principles they claim to have.
Bernie is not a Democrat
I wish more people could understand that. So many people are still angry that the Dems won’t make him their candidate, but he is NOT a Democrat.
The presidential nomination is the highest award the party can give to a member, and they are going to give it to someone who has been a loyal party member, raised money for them, stuck up for them when they’ve done stupid stuff, etc.
Bernie is none of that. He may caucus with the Dems, but he has ALWAYS been an independent. For many years, he was the ONLY independent. He doesn’t raise money for them, doesn’t get in on their nefarious little backroom deals, doesn’t defend their nonsense on talk shows, etc. he’s been almost as critical of Dems as Republicans.
So the DNC is NEVER going to give him their nomination, any more than they’d give to a Republican. Imagine if the Dems decided to give the Democratic nomination to John McCain because he had a career of bipartisanship. Bernie is basically the same thing.
Ok, I’m not an American so clarify this for me: was he also not a Democrat when he was a Candidate in the Democrat Primaries against Hillary Clinton (hence then it was allowed only because of that) or has he left the party in the meanwhile (hence we would not be able to run for it now) or was he always an Independent and it was always allowed?
Because if AOC trully is the ONLY hope for the American left, you people are indeed trully fucked if she turns out to have “flexible” principles.
The desperation of having no other viable option would explain the “She’s CANNOT be criticized” style of feedback I’m getting to criticizing her for, in this subject not actually standing for the principles she claims to have, including people talking about the whole “we have to vote for the lesser evil” part, which only makes sense if there is literally no other viable candidate from the left side of the Democrat Party and hence AOC being less than honest being panic inducing for anybody not a full-on neoliberal (which would explain the number of people whose response to me was little more than personal insults)
There are no other candidates for her elected position. So we could not vote and let another republican in or vote for her if you live in her district. Not understanding this is why you are a dumb ass. I’ll keep using personal insults when they fit.
Sure mate.
You insulting others is a veritable public service - it quickly signals to everybody else how much of your point is the product of “reasoning” and how much it is mindless emotionalism (exactly the same way MAGAs operate, so congrats on that) so saves everybody else time and effort.
Do keep up tagging yourself like that random internet stranger! 👍
Was, specifically for the primary, and then left.
Yes, we are truly fucked, and if you check our political history, have practically always been truly fucked, remain truly fucked, and continue to be truly fucked - as evidenced by our current administration and the last… All of them.
We had to fight a civil war to convince a solid half that slavery had to stop. And then kept doing it anyways, and still do it today. The whole empire sits on the graves of the original people, the survivors of whom still live in reservations we put on the shittiest possible land, and have for centuries now with no change regardless who’s in power.
This is the USA. This has always been the USA, once you peeled off the Hollywood varnish.
Oh man, that explains the rage I’m getting for just being a Skeptic and daring criticize AOCs “inconsistency”.
Sorry for you guys!
It’s always easy to be pretty strict about Principles and Skeptic about the motivations of those in politics, when one sits outside with no real stake in a race and hence no real emotional investment in it.
(Mind you, I’ve been just the same towards the leading figures of the political parties I was a member of in the countries I lived in, so maybe it’s something else - as I see it, the more important the person the more important it is that they behave beyond reproach)
That said, America didn’t seem to always been fucked - surely there was a post war period up until the late 70s were for most things were pretty good (certainly as a kid I used to look up to that America), though with the caveat that it was only true if one wasn’t an Afro-American.
Even if we agree that the US was always somewhat fucked, surely the current level of being fucked is pretty record setting?!
Anyways, you take care and good luck.
If you’re too fucking stupid to understand things like compromise and strategic voting, that’s nobody’s problem but your own.
You need to take your own fucking advice and quit being a condescending dipshit.
Were do the compromises stop?
“Compromise” is the ultimate vague excuse for dishonest politicians - it justifies everything and is the ultimate salesman argument.
Talk of “need for compromise” is right now used by the worst amongst the Democrats to support Republican legislation and has backed 4 decades of the Democrat Party moving so far to the Right that they’re as Rightwing Reagan was on Economics and even more to the Right that he was in subjects like immigration.
You keep making bullshit blanket statements. You need to understand that not all compromises are the same – what you compromise on and why matters. AOC was not ever going to get the party to budge on Zionism, so what’s the fucking point of destroying her credibility and effectiveness on other issues by tilting at windmills?
Speaking of which, you have no credibility and I don’t give a fuck about anything you have to say. Go away.
Mate, given the style of your interaction with heavy recourse to personal insults and the low (low, low, oh so very low) reasoning and intellectual level it proves, going away from your posts is a great advice.
For everybody in the back:
Polite isn’t right. Polite isn’t smart. Polite. Isn’t. Nice.
You’re here wasting time painting AOC of all people as a goddamn zionist.
Nobody needs to be polite to obviously bad faith (or deranged) bullshit like that.
Insulting random internet strangers is really just the discourse equivalent of public masturbation: you’re doing it for self-pleasure and most passerbyes just turn their face away so as not to have to see it, except for a tiny fraction of people who actually enjoy seeing somebody have a good wank in the middle of the street whilst caring naught for whatever bullshit they’re saying whilst they wank.
Insulting delivers pleasure to the kind of intellect and type of personality that believes others have a low enough mental age that they will feel bad when a random internet stranger which they’ve never seen before insults them, something that they themselves only believe because they would feel like that in the other person’s shoes.
Meanwhile a fraction of passerbyes will give positive feedback, same as a fight on a street might get a handful of people who stop, stare and maybe even egg on the combatants. However on the street it’s plain to see that almost everybody just moves on and tries to ignore the fight, whilst on the Internet, one can’t seen those who just “move one trying to ignore it” and might convince themselves that they have support for their style of comment.
The real reason for Politeness is not the “you should do it because it’s the right thing to do” that parents tell their rebel teenagers before their brains have fully developed, it’s that the pleasure some people get from being rude, is often more than outweighed by the long term effects on the audience of being frequently impolite, which are worse the smaller the environment and hence the bigger the chance others will cross paths with you having made their minds about your character by a previous display of rudeness.
Whilst Reddit is a city, were people can get away with a lot of shit (far beyond mere rudeness), Lemmy is still more of a village, so the negative effects will be greater.
I shouldn’t have to explain in a step by step way this pretty basic adult knowledge that most people figure out by themselves when they become mature adults about the actual concrete benefits of behaving in certain ways rather than others in social contexts.
Oh yeah, this is the totally brilliant line of thinking that helped put Trump back in office. You’ll forgive me if I discount you entirely.
Sure mate, keep up doing the same as until now and not demanding consistency and honesty from supposedly left-of-center politicians.
Blind following politicians making tall promises and not demanding that their actions match those promises (just like the MAGA crowd does) clearly and with now shadow of a doubt is the way for the country to be ruled in the interest of the many rather than the few, as the last 50 years of doing exactly that clearly prove.
Keep on doing the same and expect different results, just like Einstein advised!
Lol keep rejecting everything but the gold standard even as the country is falling, just like Daddy Putin advised!
Oh man, that’s the second response I had today at the level of a 5-year-old.
Cheers for another laugh.
I understand why you might not agree with her but seeing things in such black and white in what got Trump elected a 2nd time.
Mate, if somebody is willing to cross any and all lines, they don’t really have Principles - they’re practicing that good old Marxist (the Groucho rather than the Karl) adage of “These are my Principles. If you don’t like them, I have others”.
Maybe I’m naive, but in my view a genuine Leftwinger must have Principles and hence red lines, not just talk the talk whilst not walking the walk - in other words, be more than a self-promoting salesman, since a self-promoting salesman is really just a “personal upside maximizer” which is just another way of saying a follower of the “What’s in it for me?!” right-wing mindset.
Again, in my naivity, I see actual direct support for the desires of a ethno-Fascist ideology - Zionism - currently mass murdering children due to their ethnicity, as a red line that nobody with even the smallest shred of Humanitarian Principles would cross.
(I can understand the “I’m not absolutelly sure” statement of abstaining, but activelly voting for it is something else altogether).
In a way, I think you almost got there but just stopped short of following the last step in the logical chain: Trump did got elected a second time because of this shit, not because of the people complaining about the politicians that say one thing and do something else, but because almost all politicians are doing it including the self-proclaimed leftwing ones, so the word of politicians lost is all worth the same and in such an environment a populist shamelessly lying can swindle a lot more people than in an environment were dishonesty in politicians isn’t as widespread and normalized and hence would get punished - in other words, both the election of a shameless lying populist like Trump AND people complaining about dishonest and hypocrite self-proclaimed leftwing politicians are the product of the same things: the normalization of dishonesty in Politics.
You’re not wrong about the dishonesty and hypocrisy—it has poisoned the well across the board. A politician without red lines or real principles isn’t on the left, no matter what they call themselves.
But where we differ is in how we respond to that reality. As much as I agree with your point, I have to take a more pragmatic view. Not voting against Trump is part of how we got Trump. Sitting it out or refusing to engage just hands power to the worst option.
I hate the choices as much as anyone. It’s a shit sandwich. But I’d rather work with what I’ve got and try to make it suck less than give the whole table over to outright fascism.
I’ll keep calling out the hypocrisy, and I’ll keep pushing from the left—but I won’t step aside and let something far worse win by default. Idealism has to live in the real world, or it ends up serving the very thing it claims to resist.
Chose a faker like AOC to be the Democrat candidate and you’re just switching the swindlers, thus maintaing the climated of “say one thing do something else” political dishonesty that leaves the door open for another Trump-like populist to win next time around.
If I was an American in American I would be working my ass off in the Democrat Primaries and even at local level, including guerrila political propaganda tactics, to make sure that the real leftwingers were being pushed forwards in large numbers at that level and doing all I could to screw the AIPAC supported candidates, since continuing the Democract strategy of fielding liars and hypocrites is only going to make sure that the Trump problem happens again and again and again until one day one of them finally succeeds in becoming dictator for life.
I mean, surelly Democrats learned from Trump’s second victory that “more of the same” isn’t a solution for far-right polulism.
Right?!
Right?!..
I think you and I are going to have to just agree to disagree. I looked through your comments and it is clear the side you are on. You have a nice day.
Only mindless tribalists have “sides” and think others are like that too.
Having Principles, on the other hand, means having no “sacred cows” who are above criticism when their actual actions do not respect such principles.
Tagging everybody who disagrees with their views with a “side” is how people who would otherwise be thinking individuals reduce themselves to easilly led muppets.
Have a nice day, sir.
Cheers.
How about you mind your own business since it’s a pretty fair guess to say you cannot vote in my country.
Unless I’m wrong, in which case, carry on.
If you look through thier comments you will see their agenda. I will leave it at that. Best thing to do is just ignore them.