#not to bothside-ism but genuinely

[barnbridges]

not to talk politics while tipsy but men on reddit who mansplain why germany is better than your country and why its administrative system isn't broken would have joined h*tler in a heartbeat.

[alarajrogers]

When one party is actually fascist -- that is, they have stated that they want to end democracy, in those words, their presidential candidate says "I want to be a dictator on day 1", they have a think tank that has put together a publicly available white paper on how they plan to take over the government and prevent themselves from ever losing power again -- this kind of bothsides-ism is deadly.

The only people in Congress who do care about the Palestinians or the Yemenis are Democrats. Not all the Democrats do, but the only ones who do are Democrats. Under democracy, if you don't like a candidate's positions, you will have an opportunity eventually to replace them with a better candidate, though it usually means someone runs against them in the primary, not in the general. Under fascism, if you don't like a candidate's positions and you say so, it is entirely possible you'll end up in jail. The two are not equal!

Votes for Democrats don't necessarily help Palestine right away, but they keep America democratic so that we have some hope of getting politicians who are not totally in bed with the Israelis. Failing to vote at all lets Republicans win, and then they replace our entire government with an autocracy run by people who hate Muslims, passionately, even worse than they hate Jews, who actively support the idea of destroying the Palestinians entirely. And then you can't get rid of them, because right now? This election? They want to be fascists. Actual fascists. Real life fascists. Not "people with disgusting political opinions" fascists, not "war hawk" fascists, not "we like the police way too much" fascists, but actual anti-democratic "we want to jail our opponents and prevent anyone from ever voting against us again" fascists.

We've been using the term fascist to describe our political opponents so long, we don't recognize actual fascism when it's staring us in the face.

For the love of all, this is not the election to engage in both-sides-ism. Both sides haven't been the same ever, honestly, but in this election, the choice is between bad politicians and the destruction of democratic politics entirely, coupled with "politicians" who are monsters. Who support women dying of ectopic pregnancies and call a murdered nonbinary teenager "filth". Who want to send bombs to Israel to use on Palestine, but are fine with American terrorists gunning down American Jews in synagogues.

You want to send a message? The primaries are happening right now, and the people of Michigan sent their message. Something like 20% of the Democrats who voted in that primary chose "Unaffiliated" rather than Joe Biden, to express their displeasure with Biden's lack of action on Palestine. That's the way to do it. The message is clear, but in a way that won't allow Republicans to take over, as voting third party or write-in or failing to vote, in the general election, would. Get registered and send your message during the primary. And then vote to keep the actual genuine real life fascists who are not just a rhetorical device, they actually want to end democracy, out of office.

[ominaterthegreat]

I'm not the best in the world with words and this is obviously a really emotional topic, and with good reason, so I'm going to apologize in advance if this comes off the wrong way.

I just wanna be upfront that I'm not concern trolling or trying to pull any bothsides-isms or trying to dimish any tragedies and I'm coming from a place of genuine sincerity and concern.

But some of the pro-Palestine posts you've been sharing worry me. A fair number of them contain false or debunked information.

It's important to double check claims and to have a healthy amount of skepticism regarding reports from any party involved.

Israel is carrying out a genocide, absolutely.

But it's worth remembering Hamas is an overtly antisemitic organization who would do the same if given the opportunity. Their leadership isn't even based in Palestine snd they have every reason to lie or inflate claims about Israeli activity and have put significant effort into attempting to convert anti-zionism with antisemitism and create dog whistles.

That's ultimately what adds another layer of tragedy to the entire event. Israel is even significantly responsible for Hamas' rise to power but that's a history topic unfit for a small ask like this.

Just be careful and keep a cool head and scrutinize everything you read.

I've been following you for a long time and I'd hate to see you accidentally fall into a propaganda pit.

Hey (sorry idk how old this is cause I never look in here) thanks for the concern! If I'm being real I have 2 responses to this:

You're absolutely correct. Hamas as an org is awful as we all know. I definitely fall trap to the uh, issue where we're so inundated with info and opinions and through being on sites like this and pinterest through the years I got kinda conditioned to just reblogging. Typically if I reblog something it's cause there's some grain of truth strain that I see worth sharing at least - I don't agree with every word in every post and I'm too tired to take the time to specify in the tags of every post which parts are worth sharing. That's probably a character flaw on my part.

In the other hand, I do think it's important to understand that to many Palestinian people, they could see Hamas as the only group bothering to do literally any fighting for them. This comes with two points: A - how do we expect Palestinians to reject the only people they see actively fighting for them? and B - Hamas almost certainly counts on this. I think they saw an opportunity to get power in a nation where people don't have any and propped themselves up as the hero - and to many, they now might very well be. That keeps people from looking too hard at the ugly side. I am aware of this. (note because people on this site do not know how to read in good faith: I am not saying all Palestinians like Hamas or view them as heroes, I do not view a nation of people as unilaterally the same as their government. Common sense disclaimer) While I want to support the only group bothering to physically "defend" Palestinians, I also know that they are vile at the core of their ideology. So please rest assured I am not trying to just blindly support a hate group with no understanding and no limitations of support. I don't support Hamas - I support the Palestinian resistance.

Thank you again legitimately for the reach out. It's good to talk to other people instead of just posts on here.