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Vote locally
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Run locally
If you can rally people behind a cause, go for it.
Other than that. Nothing really. Try to spend money with those that align with your values.
Unrelated, but likely more important. Donate to charity, or help the homeless in your own community.
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Unless you’re a billionaire or willing to go full Player 2, there’s nothing you can do on a macro scale.
You can, in your little slice of the world, do good things. When ICE asks you if you’ve seen someone, you tell them you haven’t. If you’re walking past a business getting raided and see a brown person, you tell them to turn around and get away. If you run a school and ICE shows up, you stand up for the kids they’re trying to kidnap. If you see ICE kidnapping someone, at minimum, film and post it. If there’s a group of people willing to physically intervene, join them.
That’s it.
Voting doesn’t solve this because all Democrats have to offer is strongly-worded letters, and Donald uses those letters to wipe Elon Musk’s ass. Their choice was aiding and abetting fascism or getting richer, and they chose the money.
Furthermore:
Be aware of local political groups in your areas that share values that align with yours. Generally, have a practice of being involved. Work out how your state and local elections and party machines operate, run for empty positions or support good candidates who will do the job, and not sell out to the local moneybags.
Attend protests. Sure, it might look like a bunch of people standing outside getting rained on with soggy cardboard signs, but protest works. It shows others that even though you may be afraid, you’re still standing up for what you believe is right. Support protests you agree with - order them some pizzas or something.
There’s no longer a choice about what to do - become an activist, or become complicit.
Attend protests.
Meh, not sure I agree on this one, unless you’re part of the Marsha P. Johnson school of brick throwing and you’re going armed. Protests accomplish nothing (apart from making it easier for ICE to identify people) without a credible threat of violence.
I disagree with you. Protests accomplish a great deal, and send an undeniable message when that message is appropriately scoped and targeted.
Protests show popular support for an issue in ways that are impossible to minimize or ignore, and they are effective in moving the needle on issues. Have a few tens of thousands of people take to the streets sends an undeniable message. Even getting a hundred people to chant something in a town square sends an undeniable message. Just because the outcome isn’t immediately visible doesn’t mean that nothing was accomplished.
NEVER go to a protest armed, that defeats the purpose. Why make a situation worse by making everyone surrounding the protest regardless of whether they’re uniform, or just someone getting to and from lunch fearful for their lives? That’s very bad advice. Additionally, gearing up almost automatically makes for a bad look. Half of what a protest aims to accomplish is to show the other side of an issue “We are here, we aren’t something you should be afraid of, we are people like you” - how is that aim going to be achieved by masking up like a bunch of cosplaying militarized goons? You don’t want that. I don’t want that. Believe it or not, I doubt half of the people co-opted into ICE want that. And part of the message has to be “We don’t need this in our lives”
Just take a look at the campus protests regarding the Palestinian Genocide. First off the students were made out to be violent, which as it turns out is largely untrue, then a bunch of pro-israel actual crazies showed up and started assaulting them (and random people) on the street. Not a good look, even with media minimization. By simply being there, and refusing to give up, they have raised awareness on the issue despite the personal cost. Those people have taken a great personal risk to do something about a situation they find ethically intolerable. I think that deserves respect, at the very least.
Be loud, focused and get your point across, but be respectful. I’ve seen police step in to stop potentially/violent counterprotestors on many occasions, believe it or not they do actually try to be neutral even in the face of provocation - so don’t offer that kind of fear to anyone sharing the local environment whilst making your point. There’s so little respectful middle ground remaining that it is critical to preserve it, because this is now a wasting asset.
This situation is now tilting towards the question of how much the lack of protest and visible popular opposition emboldens a group of self-serving individuals, before the cumulative risk becomes worse than the risk of protesting and possibly getting hurt. Constant, nonviolent protest in even the face of state violence is how to win this, and sure, that puts the protestors at risk. Risk is part of this equation, it’s coming for us - for many it’s already here - and can no longer be ignored.
I get that it’s hard work. Sometimes it feels like nothing is accomplished, and it’s not shocking and awe inspiring…but Hard Work is what’s required to correct this trajectory. We spend so much time and effort making entertainment about one special person or one special moment that we’ve given ourselves a social impediment vs. truly understanding the kinds of efforts, risks and suffering it took to get to a more equitable society in the first place.
You and I will just have to agree to disagree on this. Have a good day.
👏👏👏
General strikes
Tax strikes
____ing politicians who support the genocide
Primary, right?
Become Luigi.
When the government is powerful enough to cause genocides, that’s a problem. It’s far easier to just not give your money to a business that engages in such practices.
Not giving money to your government, however, is considered tax evasion.
Talk with people! Discuss it with your friends! Be aware that they might have a very different outlook on this, so be patient with people. Here is a list of things to do when discussing this with people supporting Israel:
- Don’t berate them. These are your friends, not murderers. Direct your anger towards the actual murderers.
- Ask them if they believe Israel is mounting a heavy disinformation/propaganda campaign towards the west. If they do not believe this, it is relatively easy to prove, see example below.
- Show them the Twitter accs of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. These guys are quite outspoken in their intentions.
- Show them examples of heroic acts of Palestinas, rather than just Palestinians suffering. This will help them respect Arabs, as that seems to be difficult for many Americans due to two and a half decades of Indoctrination that all arabs all terrorists.
- Also the obvious things (tens of thousands of children killed, not letting food enter, cutting off water, etc)
Example of Israeli disinformation: They created a fake hamas website (hamas dotttt com) whereas the real website was taken down from all of internet (hamas dottt ps). The fake one was heavily promoted by Israel’s official twitter acc and several Israeli government officials on twitter and recieved heavy traffic during Oct 2023-end of 2024. Use the wayback machine or similar for this, I believe both sites are down now.
There has also been many, many other lies by the Israeli government. Find proved examples and show.
Learn basic electronics and how to solder to weaponize commercial drones.
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leave the country. You are paying taxes, purchasing goods and services, raising families, and just being here enables the genocide machine to continue churning. We have no representation here. It’s all performative. But take their money away and oh boy do they notice that.
Ok moneybags what us poors?
I can’t afford to leave either. Which means I can’t fight back either.
Don’t worry we’ll meaning people with escape hatches will save us, wait no that’s never how it works out. We just die
If you are profitable why are you even alive?
Speak up, tell people what you think and why.
If that doesn’t work: something was added to your constitution for this situation, the second amendment. You can use your six shooter to go up to the government’s tank and gunships. Good luck.
We don’t put it in the tourism brochures, but it turns out guns are really expensive. Which sucks because the fash seem to have all the money at the moment.
bullets add up pretty quick too, depending on your budget. Novice shooters tend to shoot for the head (human target) and hit the target 60% of the time at 3 feet for a stationary target, 24% at nine feet. Its less for moving targets.
Missing a target thats literally 3 feet from you sounds crazy but once you try it you will see how frustrating it can be to hold a pistol right and line it up right to the target. I’ve walked up to stationary grouse on roadways (they come in the morning to eat rocks to aid digestion) and blasted all around them missing each time from 5 feet away. Luckily they are incredibly stupid and just stand there, or look at the spot where the bullet hit on the ground, confused.
–Kreskin, the mighty hunter.
I don’t know, but I know of one thing citizens SHOULDN’T do to prevent their country enabling genocide. That is forfeiting their future by electing a dictator that might genocide poor people on the other side of the world a little less in exchange for giving up freedoms. I get it. Voluntarily making our lives worse/harder because it might help poor people in another country sounds like a grand and noble thing to do. But now they’re sending American citizens to concentration camps. If you think this was a fair trade, just block me right now. Don’t be like gen Z and swing voters in the 2024 US election. Sometimes you just have to choose to save yourself first.
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Next election vote EVERYONE OUT. No Republicans (MAGA) should be left in Congress to make sure they give a hell to Trump and force him to quit (almost near impossible) but that’s the only way
How would that help? The Democrats were also doing genocide
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No, 60 thousand people were positively confirmed to have been directly killed by Israeli munitions. The number of people who died in total was estimated at a quarter million.
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Someone is feeling positive and adventurous, talking about voting and stuff… Do you really think that you’ll be able to vote in a fair election next time?
The work that I’ve seen done to sabotage voting before and after last US elections ntrlls me that cheeto&co are hell bent on making sure no one in the US will be able to vote honestly ever again.
The time to do something was 6 months ago, now its too little, too late
the SPD and KPD should’ve just voted the Nazis out of power, right guys?
It’s worse than that. The guy is suggesting to replace the Nazis with Nazis-lite lol
Is the USA enabling genocide?
The USA was built on genocide goddammit
Whole nations of people wiped out
And yes, obviously, Gaza.
Most nations are built on genocide, it’s an unfortunate part of human nature to be cruel to those not like your group.I mean the last hundred years alone, the of Cossacks if Crimea, the holocaust, Kaiser run Germany committed one before WW2, Ottomans genocide Armenia, China is actively engaged in one now, as well as Israels current actions in Gaza, and that’s just off the top of my head, but somehow only the USA is built on it. You ignore the skeletons in your own foundations and dishonor yourself and their deaths by doing so
I’m honestly not sure what point you’re trying to make.
The USA was built the same way all nations were, by subjugation and eradication but we are one of the few looked down on for it and outright called irredeemable for it
Oh! Lookie here, a fascist for breakfast. My day is off to a lovely start.
The difference is in the history. America has NEVER been honest about its origins. No other modern nation was built on slavery like we were. Britain abolished it decades before America. And after WWII, they gave up the rest of their colonies because it was the right thing to do. That’s when the American Empire took off. Naval bases in every country. Global watchdog, above the laws everyone else has to follow.
America? It only stopped genociding Indians when they were such a small population that they couldn’t pose a threat to the white man, and it still fucks them over every chance it can. Edit: oh yeah, and then it painted them as villains in cowboy movies for half a century. Nice.
Racism is so deeply embedded in America that the simple claim that black lives matter turned into a controversy. You know what a normal nation would’ve done? Examine their police. Us? We said fuck those people, let the racist cops do whatever they want. Do you have any clue what it’s like to raise a black son in America? I’m white myself so I can’t speak firsthand, but I have talked to numerous people who’ve told me about “the Talk”. You know about this? It’s not the birds and the bees, it’s about how to behave around cops so they don’t kill you. How insanely fucked up does your country have to be for that??
This is called honesty. Progress can’t be made without it.
I’ve made it my life’s work to fight white supremacy in the blue collar South and I’ll fucking devour you whole.
Edit: I’d like to print out to anyone stumbling across this that that sumbitch knows I’m right and is lying bloodied in the mud at my feet, crying, like a little bitch. Just like the ones I’ve beaten in real life after they insisted on dancing. Bullies have come after me my whole fuckin life and I’ve learned EXACTLY how they work. I know the strategies fascists use on forums like these. And I’ll bet you’ve logged me, maybe you’ve got someone looking into me. I don’t doubt the fascist Musk’s AI has flagged me for all kinds of shit and it’s just a matter of time now.
I ain’t fuckin scared of you, and your mother should be ashamed.
If anything, enabling is too soft a word
Look guys, we have weapons to sell. It’s what we do.
You make it sound like Israel actually pays for it’s weapons!
You’re saying they don’t pay for their weapons? Pretty sure we would stop selling them weapons if they weren’t ever paying for them.
I am indeed saying that. Remember that the US government doesn’t have state run arms industries: the money is going to private companies regardless of whether Israel buys them, or the US government buys them and gifts them to Israel. It’s not about money.
True we don’t have state run arms industries but never think the military industrial complex isn’t part of the government. In America it’s always about the money.
Yeah, but the military industrial complex still gets its cut when the US gifts Israel weapons, it just comes from the US tax payers.
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Go to gaza
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Is the USA enabling genocide currently? How?
I take it you do not believe Israel is commiting genocide? Or are you genuinely asking in which way the USA is enabling this?
Both.
How the US is enabling it: Sending money, weapons, intellegence etc to the Israeli military. The US is actively enabling the operations of the IDF, this is obvious and I do not think that anyone claims anything different. The US denies that a genocide is being commited, but they do not deny that they greatly help the IDF.
Why the operations of the IDF is considered genocide: See: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/un-special-committee-press-release-19nov24/ or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
Side note regarding sources and integrity of information: Do you believe that Israel is mounting a large intentional disinformation/propaganda campaign towards western countries? Or do you not believe any such thing? And do you live in the US?
The position that what Israel are doing is a genocide is the sticking point, and one that is highly contested. I don’t believe that what they’re doing is, because they’re not trying to erase an entire national or ethnic group - just Hamas.
I’m not alone in thinking this, but I’m expecting I’ll be banned for saying it with how Lemmy is.
Hamas literally outright call for the genocide of Jews and Israelis btw. Hamas NEED to be eliminated, and the only ones who disagree are people who agree with their calls for genocide.
I see that this is the common point of view for people who sympathise with Israel. I strongly disagree with you but appreciate you wanting to discuss it.
It seems you belive you have to be convinced of to things in order to change your view: A. Genocidal acts are being commited. B. The genocidal acts are being commited with genocidal intent.
A: That genocidal acts are being committed is a fact. Carefully read through the wikipedia article above (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide) if you’re not convinced. Do it. Read the article.
B: You seem to focus on this. i.e that the actions taken by IDF are only powered by a will to protect the security of Israel, and that there is no intent of genocide. I don’t necessarily agree, but let’s say you’re right: Israel only does what it does out of security concerns. This does not warrant the genocidal actions commited. You can’t, out of security concerns, kill 10,000 children. This should be obvious.
Please reconsider your views.
“Genocidal acts” doesn’t mean that a genocide is happening. “Destruction of civilian infrastructure” is an “act of genocide”. That happens in almost every conflict in the world, and not every one is a genocide.
A genocide is a specific thing. For me to be convinced that there is a genocide happening, specific things need to happen and with a specific intent - and those things aren’t happening in Gaza. Hamas want a genocide. They’re very open about this. Israel are trying to eliminate Hamas. If Hamas surrendered, the killing would stop.
Unfortunately in war there are casualties. Casualties will be increased when one of the parties at war - Hamas - use civilians, including kids, as “meat shields”, like putting their military bases in schools and hospitals as Hamas has been factually proven to do. Hamas have been caught faking civilian deaths and casualty numbers too, and they’re an internationally recognised terrorist organisation - they are not to be trusted, no matter what you think of Israel. Again - Hamas openly call for the genocide of Jews and Israelis. Very openly.
A question for you - if you were to agree that Israel are doing what they are doing in retaliation to what Hamas did on October 7, and will not stop until Hamas are defeated, would you still consider that a genocide? If Hamas surrendered and Israel stopped killing Palestinians, would you still say it was a genocide?
Another question - are you open to reconsidering your views? Or are you steadfast in them but expect me to consider changing mine?
I am probably just as steadfast as you, but I try to understand the views of the opposite side. You seem to do that too, given that you’re discussing with me. That is appreciated.
To answer your question: Yes it is still obviously genocide even if it is in retaliation. There are many legitimate ways of retaliating against a militant group - starving an entire population is not one of them. Israel could be conducting this war in a very different way.
Then why don’t they conduct the war in a very different way? Because they want to get rid of Gaza’s population, I say. See this, for example (although just reports for now): https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-reportedly-developing-plan-to-resettle-1-million-gazans-in-libya/ which also points towards the US complicity in the genocide. 1 million Gazans aren’t Hamas fighters. 1 million Gazans are just arabs/muslims, and that’s apparantly enough reason to force them from their homeland?
Also, if a large amount of “genocidal acts” doesn’t amount to genocide, then what does? Is Israel allowed to commit the most horrendous crimes as long as it is in “good faith”?
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Oh hey it’s once again the “freedom advocate” who is always spouting off support for the most fascist oppressive shit going on in the world. I should learn how to block in this new app
Oh look, another lefty who I have no idea who they are whose head I live rent free in :)
And surprise surprise, they have nothing useful to say and can’t answer a simple question.
