"At the same time, the man who would head America’s gigantic military has tied US foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: “If you love America, you should love Israel.”
Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that the US military should ignore the Geneva conventions and any international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead “unleash them” to become a “ruthless”, "
Fuuuuckin hell!
Indeed and the mofo would start WW III by invading Iran.
This is why we can’t ignore it when the only other option is allowed to do whatever because it’s not as bad.
If more people had made more noise when Biden continually violated the Leahy Law and circumvented Congress to provide arms to an ongoing genocide… We had a chance to fix the system. To hold him accountable and make sure no matter who was the next president, they’d also be able to be held accountable
Instead the majority of Dems ignored it or worse made excuses for why Biden doesn’t need to follow US or international law.
Letting fascists win and still finding a way to put the REAL blame on the LIBS.
Just absolutely astounding.
Libs are not the left. They’re just barely left of the GOP.
Everything looks hard right to my tired eyes.
Didn’t say liberals were ‘the left’. Just said that letting fascists win and putting the blame on the liberals, as every other problem in America apparently lays upon, is absurd.
Who else was responsible for their campaign but them?
The Dems were responsible for running a bad campaign. 2/3s of the American electorate were responsible for approving of, or not caring about, fascism. These fascists are now doing fascist things, which is, believe it or not, the fascists’ fault.
Woah, woah, hold up a minute. Since when are we expected to take personal responsibility? I intend to blame you when I cut off my nose to spite my face. You can’t change the rules now!
The holocaust is Hans Vogel’s fault, ackshually
At that point you’re not far from actual tankie positions.
Did he also run on a platform supporting the holocaust “because it’s in the interest of our country and our ally” despite much of much of his constiuency and nearly the entire rest of the world saying otherwise?
Did his supporters call their fellow party members “stupid, single-issue voters” when they vehemently rejected said platform?
Lol. Ironically, the left at the time (backed by Soviets) attacked liberals for not being left-wing enough. That division allowed the NSDAP to complete their seizure of power when a left+centre coalition could have stopped them.
Sounds like centrist liberals have been causing everyone issues for generations now.
The liberals who tried to stop the Nazis but then had to face attacks from people like you on the left as well? Congratulations, you must be very proud.
If more people had made more noise when Biden continually violated the Leahy Law and circumvented Congress to provide arms to an ongoing genocide… We had a chance to fix the system. To hold him accountable and make sure no matter who was the next president, they’d also be able to be held accountable.
Citizens did make noise, citizens did point out that he violated Leahy Law, and the way to hold politicians accountable in a democracy is getting them out of office and away from the levers of power. Well here we are, Biden and Dems are going out of office and the genocide is going to be actively being accelerated by the Trump administration gleefully flooding Israel with more weapons “cleanse” Gaza so they can build their gaudy hotels and fulfill some Book of Revelations prophesy because the republican party is absolutely flooded with Dominionists.
Good. Fucking. Job.
Exactly.
And the real irony is that of the two candidates, which one is most likely to respond to post-election pressure to adjust the policies?
Sure sure sure, Trump can be influenced by money and flattery, but the people that are going to pay and flatter him are not exactly the ones arguing to save the lives of innocent civilians.
So the irony remains, of the two candidates to choose from, the people complaining about what is happening in Gaza picked the one least likely to do anything helpful once elected (“do” as opposed to what they said to get elected).
which one is most likely to respond to post-election pressure to adjust the policies?
On the issue of Israel, neither. They have exactly the same policies.
And there is no political leverage the proletariat has to push for policy change after the election. The pressure came from “do what we say or at election time we vote for someone else”
Well, every fucking election when it comes time to follow through after they again failed to hold up their end of the bargain the majority gets cold feet and caves to familiarity because risking change is scary.
You’re not wrong.
That’s why 99% of voters pick the same two shitty parties that are driving them to the brink of homelessness.
At this point, we get to make a lengthy explanation about First Past the Post always leading to a 2 party system because of the spoiler effect, we get to a lengthy history explanation about how the (at the time) progressive republican party won the election with Abraham Lincoln because the (at the time) conservative Democrat party split into Dixiecrats in favor of slavery and northern Democrats who didn’t care either way and the Whig party just up and died in 1850 and that’s the only way a 3rd party becomes viable in FPTP. And then we just argue back and forth of “well if people just spontaneously saw things the way I do they would vote third party too!” to “That’s not how reality works.”
I didn’t ask which has the different policy now (ignoring my opinion about the truth of your assertion) but which is most likely to be responsive to public opinion; and I’d add, which one actually cares about the plight of others and which is an unofficially diagnosed narcissist.
But I’m fairly certain we won’t agree and sadly we’ll never know what Kamala coulda/woulda done. But with trump we’re about to Find Out. I hope we’re both wrong about him.
which is most likely to be responsive to public opinion
Neither. There were states that voted 11% undecided in the Democratic primaries with the explicit public purpose of trying to force Dems to stop sending WMD’s to Israel. That was a fairly significant public statement on administration policy.
The Dems ignored them and sent more WMD’s anyway.
Whether you agree with me or not is immaterial. On the issue of Israel’s genocide, both parties are exactly the same.
I don’t agree that 11% undecided in the primary is a “fairly significant public statement”, I mean, literally 11% is like, you know, small. Nor does a lack of policy change during the election cycle (which has a lot more factors than just Gaza to consider) immediately mean Kamala wouldn’t be open to changing tactics post election. But we’ll never know because, like I said, Trump won and now we get to find out if voting for him was net good or net bad for the Gaza cause.
But I can appreciate the emotional investment you have in “both sides-ing” this and ignoring the material differences between a narcissist that is already talking about lifting arms restrictions to Israel and Kamala.
Weather you agree with me or not is immaterial. On the issue of both parties being the same, you’re wrong. See how easy that is to say and it means nothing to an actual debate?
-Cheers
So…
You think because a small minority tried to hold Biden to a higher standard…
That it’s their fault Kamala lost when people who aren’t politically engaged didn’t want to vote for someone who said she agreed with (literally) everything Biden had done and wouldn’t have changed anything?
You’re saying that since Biden wasnt held accountable and Dems lost, the lesson is for no one to ever try to hold a Dem accountable?
Like, I’ve heard that before, usually I just block people with those opinions because I’d just never have a productive exchange with them…
But you kind of beat around the bush there.
Are you really blaming the voters and not the candidate?
I think Dems lost because a some of missteps along the way and some external factors. I think Biden should have said he wasn’t running again sooner, there should have been a proper primary, there needed to be even more of a focus on economic populism and making actual progress, not just trying to maintain the status quo. There were a lot of people who just didn’t vote. And then Republicans
At the end of the day, the only people who have an opinion about Palestine are politically engaged leftists who want to see the genocide stop and anyone watching Fox News who wants Israel to win. For the rest of America unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to them. That’s a fight happening halfway around the world between 2 nations that aren’t us.
I would have loved to see a peaceful end to the conflict, but that’s wasn’t going to realistically happen either way, but I would much preferred to see as little escalation as possible, and trump is nothing but escalation.
So again, we punished democrats in the way democracy punishes people who actually believe in democratic processes and let republicans who don’t give 2 shits about democratic processes get to run rampant in the government. Good. Fucking. Job.
At the end of the day, the only people who have an opinion about Palestine are politically engaged leftists who want to see the genocide stop and anyone watching Fox News who wants Israel to win. For the rest of America unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to them. That’s a fight happening halfway around the world between 2 nations that aren’t us.
If Kamala had got the “genocide is bad and we shouldn’t fund it” voters, she’d have won and trump would be getting sentenced soon for his crimes…
You can argue that most don’t care. And while I disagree I’m not going to bother looking for a survey.
Because it’s a moot point.
It doesn’t matter if a majority of voters care. It’s the right thing to do, and for a Dem candidate “doing the right thing” still translates to an increase in votes regardless of if people care about the specific victims of this genocide.
So again, we punished democrats in the way democracy punishes people who actually believe in democratic processes and let republicans who don’t give 2 shits about democratic processes get to run rampant in the governmen
You’re still blaming voters…
Kamala, her campaign team, and the DNC lost their election.
Their job is to convince voters to vote for them. Instead every “compromise” they tried to steal republican voters gained zero votes and lost people who were trying to hold their nose for her
Thanks for responding though to clarify. I just don’t think anything we tell each other will be productive
One point of clarification after I say there were people who just didn’t vote, I also intended to say add Republicans launched several purges of voter registrations that tended to hit anyone further to the left of them and employed every voter suppression tactic in the book to depress Democrat voter turnout.
If after making noise, you either voted 3rd party or didn’t vote, you supported even more genocide and allowed Trump to win. Stop with this idiotic line of reasoning that somehow holding Biden accountable was more important than stopping Trump from becoming president.
You Russian stooge.
Removed by mod
Biden didn’t actually violate the Leahy Law. Here’s the relevant section:
No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.
with a later amendment that included DoD-derived funding.
Which units got arms that were engaged in rights violations? I understand that isn’t very satisfying when we know Israel has committed war crimes, but the law does not specify country, it specifies military unit. So, which unit should be barred from receiving arms? The others will still be able to legally receive them in full compliance with the Leahy Law.
Then we also have:
(b) Exception.—The prohibition in subsection (a)(1) shall not apply if the Secretary of Defense, after consultation with the Secretary of State, determines that the government of such country has taken all necessary corrective steps, or if the equipment or other assistance is necessary to assist in disaster relief operations or other humanitarian or national security emergencies.
This clause frankly creates a legal loophole the size of a Merkava.
edit for formatting
Exactly. Democrats failed to end the genocide in Gaza because they didn’t create a partisan line in the sand to separate the State’s current bipartisan stance towards Israel.
Most Americans support ending the way in Gaza. Kamala should have run with this right out of the gate, breaking away from Biden and cutting any strings she has with him. The reason why Americans and donors pressured Biden to drop out is the same reason why Kamala lost. Both represented more of the same, and that voters felt like the current administration wasn’t hearing their voices.
So out of spite or piss poor messaging on the Dems’ side, people chose Trump instead.
This is absolutely an issue with establishment Democrats. Don’t get discouraged from sharing this idea in a post not having to do with Bernie Sanders or AOC. It’s the truth.
The dems should have been able to run, as another commenter in this thread eloquently put, “a piece of tinder” against Trump and have won. The fault and blame lies entirely in every shitheel that didn’t vote harris, whether they like or hate her and what she represents. Sadly, 2/3s of the country either dont care enough or would rather see a neofascist take office, I’m assuming, including you, based on your response.
Negative señor. The most important issue for voters this past election was the economy. People don’t feel like anything has changed since 2020. So, if the current administration isn’t helping, maybe a different one will.
That sentiment is the reason why Kamala gained so much traction after Biden dropped out, and also the same reason why she lost that traction when she attached herself to Biden’s administration or policies rather than breaking away.
The Democrats have consistently failed to represent their base since Obama won in 2008. Hell, you could make the argument that they haven’t represented their base since before Clinton.
But sure let’s keep blaming the voters for rejecting a party that doesn’t represent them, and not holding the party accountable by continuing to vote them into power since our votes are a given as the Dems move right.
Your stance is basically to shut voters up and let them take it up the ass, whether they want that or not.
L take
This is why we can’t ignore it when the only other option is allowed to do whatever because it’s not as bad.
It doesn’t matter. 99% of voters pick one of the two ruling parties every time, and both of them are pro-genocide.
I don’t believe it’s direct support for genocide, more than that genocide is an acceptable price for others to pay for American Imperialism/Exceptionalism.
I’d consider giving a country more WMD’s in the middle of bombing hospitals, apartment buildings, and kids pro-genocide.
What I mean is that it’s just the means to the end of projecting US power in the middle east.
They’ll maintain power via Israel not matter the price.
Exactly. Can’t have change from within the system when the vast majority willingly throws away their political leverage and uncritically grants power to genocidal imperialists.
How many empty promises must people fall victim to before they decide to do something other than beg for change?
They’ve been trained, from nearly a century of propaganda, to deny the possibility of any alternative forms of the government or economy. It’s the reason for half of the US’s foreign policy.
I have no idea why you’re getting down voted. You’re absolutely right. Lots of sour grapes and copium happening with Dems. I plugged my nose voting for Harris feeling what you mentioned in my bones.
Right? Seems like even on Lemmy, a platform seen as progressive compared to the status quo, you’ll still find Liberals that would rather point blame at their fellow class rather than holding their elected officials and their donors accountable.
Don’t worry they’ll learn a lesson from this that they need to go further right yet again in order to beat the right in an election. Don’t let the fact that they keep losing distract you from the fact that this is a winning strategy.
Funny the cognitive discord on these platforms. You’re paraphrasing me, but aren’t getting down voted.
Half my comments on this subject are the same way too.
When the further right candidate gets more votes, which direction would you suggest they go?
They get more votes because when you only have two candidates, and both are appealing to the right, the one who is fully right wing will beat out the one that is offering half assed attempts at pandering. And that isn’t even beginning to get into the propaganda from the right that Dems are nothing but sleezy liars who will say anything to get their way, and then the Dems literally start doing that, won’t win over anyone from across the isle.
A simple analogy is you have two cake shops, both selling for the same price (a single vote). One advertising a generic square cake and the other a three tier masterpiece with all the bells and whistles. It’s quite obvious who is gonna get the most customers.
Meanwhile the rest of the population gets further and further disillusioned with the system and stops participating when its obvious that it doesn’t care to represent their interests.
This is the core of the issue.
Left! Most Americans support progressive policies if they’re framed in a palatable way.
The candidates the party run are supported by a very small but very very vocal subgroup of the Dem party who were Republicans before Bill Clinton.
Those candidates almost never win elections, they only have a chance when the Republican is a literal fascist.
The problem is rather than just let a candidate in that the majority of Dem voters want…
They pull shit like Hillary did in 2015 to help the worst Republicans hoping it’s enough to get people to vote for a neoliberal. Because they’d rather have a fascist that agrees with them economically than a progressive Dem.
Fuck the voices in here lamenting democrats. This is 100% republican evil. 100% republican fault. 100% who they are. Blame them entirely. They have the reigns of power so blame them for what they do with it. When they take over next year, never let up on them. They never let up on the left, so nail them to the fucking wall for every terrible move they make. Don’t let any fraud dissuade from the fact that this is the republican party and the blame lies entirely at their feet.
Sorry, but I believe that the people who didn’t vote against Trump and the Republicans share some of the blame.
I obviously primarily blame the people who voted for Trump, but even if you don’t think there were good reasons to vote FOR Harris (I disagree), it doesn’t take much brainpower to recognize that there were a hell of a lot of reasons to vote AGAINST Trump. Those of us who saw 2024 as the moment where not voting or voting stupidly were viable ideas fucked up big time, and now we all are going to suffer the consequences for at least 4 years.
Are we really supposed to pretend to be constantly surprised and outraged over every shithead he appoints and every shitty thing they do? Who has the free time for that? I wasted enough days of my life following and debating every twist and turn of The Trump Show, and all of it was for nothing because a mere 4 years after January 6th 2021 Trump is going to be sworn into office once again as a more unhinged and unmitigated version of himself. Even engaging in this discussion now is a waste of all of our fucking time.
All because 2/3 of this country were too fucking stupid to see that he is a toxic, fascist authoritarian bitch moron. I blame everyone who didn’t vote for Harris (like her or hate her) for what is going to transpire over the next 4 years, and I don’t care if that hurts their feelings.
I don’t agree. The dnc opted to go with a strategy of, “we don’t need to listen to the will of the voters, and we’ll double down on doing the same gd thing we’ve always done, you either get on board, or bad-man wins!”
People want change. DNC refused to make even the hint of willingness to change, it’s no surprise they lost so many voters.
This was entirely avoidable.
My only hope is that the DNC will finally wake the fuck up and introduce an actual progressive platform. But shit, I said the same thing when Hillary tanked. So why would it be different now?
Disagree.
He is such a shithead they should have been able to run a piece of timber against him and still won. The best candidate is any other candidate.
If I asked you to describe the candidates to me, and you started with Trump, I would say, “I don’t need to hear who the other candidates are. I’m voting against this guy.”
If an inanimate piece of timber could have won, then clearly the candidate that actually ran did something wrong.
Now imagine if the DNC would let us have a primary to pick our own special piece of timber…we might actually win an election.
People want change.
Nah, Americans want cheap groceries and they’re willing to kill the world for it because they don’t understand that the President doesn’t control prices of eggs.
actual progressive platform
Compare Harris’ policy with Biden’s and Clinton’s.
People literally were claiming she had no platform and no ideas. You could send them to her platform page and they wouldn’t go.
Unpopular opinion: I would vote that all people who don’t vote are first in line to be drafted with last pick on positions, aka front lines. It would help us to get people to actually care about voting.
Shoot, they are kicking 15,000 trans people out? Guess they should auto fill their ranks back up with non voters.
Oh I agree. Republicans are the originators of all this shit. They are the cause for so much ill effects.
But Democrats are supposed to be that counterbalance in a duopoly. They haven’t lived up to that. They’d rather chase after evil instead of standing up for something good.
I’m not sure what’s worse. To use a historical example: are the Nazis worse, or are those who didn’t speak up and fight back when they could have?
The Nazis are worse. If you analogy the Nazis are very clearly worse. It’s not even close. Yes those who didn’t speak up should have if it was safe (or at least not too dangerous) for them to do so, but the Nazis are worse. By, like, a mile.
Nazis were 100 times worse
Having said that, the potential these guys have in the next 4 years is to become 100 times worse than Nazis
Than the current batch of fascists? Yeah the Nazis were worse but yours have potential. I was referring to the idea that the parent claimed that those who didn’t actively oppose the nazis were possibly worse than the nazis
So like, is it actually impossible for Americans to recreate a left leaning party and just abandon ship on the Democrats? Why care about them at all? You guys need to start using your imaginations.
Can’t we start taking offices as independents? Get enough together and force a new party?
If you believe we live in a free and open Democracy, then sure. That shouldn’t be a problem.
Love it!
If you love America, you should love NATO and be using Ukraine to make sure Russia never has power again. If you really want to game geopolitics you convince Ukraine to capture parts of Russia and you help them out. Israel was important for our God the Petro Dollar, but eventually you can’t convince everyone that the kid going around stabbing everyone else is in fact not doing that.
i think the US is already ignoring the Geneva convention.
We’ve said we’ll attack of they ever try to prosecute.
Live long enough to become the villain.
They never completely got rid of their imperialist tendencies. In 50 years we’ll find out what the CIA is going today to destabilise governments.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again - not a single redeeming quality in any of Trump’s picks.
It’s like being at the circus and watching a clown car pull up and having to witness all of the horrible people piling out of it.
No one should be surprised about that
You want your country to use WWI tactics and leave soldiers behind? This dude is your guy because no competent general will follow his orders. You will see a massive exodus of the top brass and we will be left with the incompetent assholes.
I would wager that much of the top brass would stick around just to cause as many legal problems as they can. We’re kinda stubborn that way, though I only made it to mid-brass.
Does the racist Hesgeth fully understand that the Christians are slowly being squeezed out of Israel too? He should replace his Jerusalem Cross crap with the Star of David.
hesgeth wouldn’t know what a christian was even if he met christ himself
I’m willing to bet Christ would refuse to acknowledge knowing hesgeth either, based on Matthew 7:22.
yeah they would definitely not be friends
Yea but those are not his kind of Christians (evangelical Protestants).Armenians, Greeks, Palestinians, who gives a shit for those guys? Definitely not this americanist racist.
Society would be better off without all of these bullshit religions and the delusion non-thinkers who blindly choose follow them.
You were downvoted to 0 when I got here. Poor little xtians getting their feelings hurt
People who believe in a fairy sky daddy are mentally ill and shouldn’t be allowed to hold office or control resources.
Well, people can downvote all they want.
Whatever helps them cope with the fact that they are living their one life in the service of a man-made fantastical construct that’s only purpose is to oppress and limit them in various ways.
I know pre-trying people for crimes they haven’t committed yet is generally a bad thing, but could the ICC make an exception in this case?
Unfortunately the US has a standing legal obligation to invade the Hague in this case cause the 9/11 era Congress had brain worms.
His unit was actually involved in some war crimes. Then he went on fox to defend war crimes.
Ya im sure he’d love it if other nations ignored trade deals with America in response? These people don’t know how anything works. Leaving nato and the UN would be catastrophic for our economy.
We can ignore the Geneva Conventions starting with Pete Hegseth.
Geneva Conventions apply to humans…
Welcome to the dark ages.
Cool. I don’t love America. I fucking despise this country and everything it stands for. Israel can fall with it, never should have existed in the first place.
The world would be leagues better for it.
Cool, may you get your wish and live in a Chinese/Russian dominated part of the world.
Nice false dichotomy you got there bucko.
Imperialism is bad no matter the flavor.
Cool, let me know how that Sino/Russian sphere of influence treats ya!
Cause that’s obviously the only other possibility. Life is black and white, there are no shades of grey or alternatives. /s
Keep licking those boots, bubba.
Hey man I’m wishing you all the best! I hope you get exactly what you are wishing for.
China only has standing boarder disputes with every country it shares a boarder with.
Russia has only invaded 14 countries since Putin has come to power. Your totally fine!
I’m sure you’ll be much better off under their control rather than the big bad USA.
Nice false dichotomy you keep forcing. If you had an ounce of critical thought you’d see how fucking stupid you sound.
Being against the US’s oppressive imperialism doesn’t mean support for other, equally oppressive imperialist countries.
Fuck off already mate. You’re only making a fool of yourself.
It’s fascist thinking. We have to kill them before they kill us! It’s how we get genocides.
Being against the US’s oppressive imperialism doesn’t mean support for other, equally oppressive imperialist countries.
True statement but what you support and how you feel don’t mean very much on the global world stage.
You don’t seem to be able to grasp that nature and politics abhor a vacuum. As soon as the USA leaves the world stage (or more likely a few select regions that don’t fit with a multi-polar strategy) another power will move in to fill the void. Most likely Russia and/or China…
Reading through this … it sounds much worse than I thought.
Puppet state
