• Nobody@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m still not seeing why Israel is being treated as a priority over or at least equal to Ukraine. Ukraine is up against a legitimately strong adversary using human wave tactics. Israel is dropping bombs seemingly indiscriminately on mostly civilians. Ukraine is fighting for its existence. Israel is getting revenge on its much, much weaker neighbor.

    If Iran and its proxies enter the war, that might change the calculations, but that hasn’t happened yet.

      • imgprojts@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Example: we don’t vote for the president or the people who actually elect him. Yet, we are bombarded with ads about which to pick! Why?

        • _bug0ut@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I mean, that’s not entirely accurate - a vote for a presidential candidate is a vote for the slate of electors tied to said candidate - effectively a vote for your candidate, albeit indirectly. Electors can, however, be required to vote according to popular vote as required by the state they’re electors in. Or they could have pledged to vote according to specific party. I don’t know for sure, but I assume state elector requirements override party pledges.

          My understanding is that when it was devised, it was a compromise between direct democracy (which would honestly be potentially dangerous - how many people do you know where you can’t help but go, “Fuck… This guy can vote.”) and election via congressional vote. It certainly ain’t perfect and I have no bias towards it, but it’s a system like anything else that people tend to point at and blame when things don’t go their way or just ignore or even defend when things do go their way.

          • imgprojts@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Biden is president. Things went my way. But let’s imagine that this was how you got lunch.

            Hmm, Josh! I want a hamburger!.. okay buddy I promise I’ll bring you a hamburger. I’m just going to be your food delegate in the food acquisition team.

            Josh! I want a salad! … and I want a spoon full of extra virgin olive oil!. Josh I want an apple! Hey Josh can I get some Doritos crushed in a bowl and mixed with jalapeno and chicken nuggets!

            Then Josh goes to the big food acquisition meeting… My team wants a spoon full of extra virgin olive oil!

            Then you wait half an hour and you get a turkey sandwich but you’re vegan so you eat the three onion rings.

            70 percent of the office was vegan too, but only 5 of the food delegates were vegan. The other 20 were old timers that have been ordering the food for the past seven years. They like turkey sandwiches. So you get turkey sandwich.

            I hope you enjoy your turkey sandwich 🥪. 😂 LOL. At least it wasn’t a lump of lard with a tupee.

            • _bug0ut@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The long, drawn out metaphorical explanation was unnecessary and frankly kind of condescending.

              I’m not over here trying to be some champion of the electoral college and I’d be more interested in seeing a real push for ranked choice or one of its cousins.

              The point I was making was that if you sat at home and didn’t vote at all, your chosen candidate would never see the inside of the oval office and I went into my understanding of why it is the way it is. Ultimately, voting under the current system is not entirely worthless as you seemed to claim in the original post I responded to.

              We’ve had something like 59 elections in total and 5 of them involved the winning candidate losing the popular vote but winning the election by way of the electoral college. Only one of those elections - the very first - involved anything even remotely close to your example (but still not42.3% vs 31.6%). The other 4 had a difference of like 2% or less between the two leading candidates.

              The electoral college was devised as a compromise between direct democracy and congressional voting and I’m sure it was done in good faith to try to make sure everyone was represented, but this system seems to truly show its cracks when we’re facing an insanely stark national split like we see today and there’s no argument that we should probably shake things up and get rid of it.

    • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Biden said something like: “If there was no Israel, we’d have to invent it.”

      The US loves having a highly militarized, violent, totally amoral and 100% US-dependent proxy next to all those oil fields. The last thing the US wants is peace in the middle east. This is just divide-and-conquer 101.

  • krzschlss@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t like this trend! War movies in 10-20 years will be boring. No Rambos, no Schwarzeneggers, no Spielberg and Tom Hanks emotional patriotism! No funny casual racism, no casual homophobia, no casual misoginy… Did Mark Hamil play a terrorist in Star Trek after all? The End of an Era. We’re gonna have to watch films about how a bribed White House politicant struggles to keep up with weapon manufacture demands while managing to convince his wife not to divorce him because she feels neglected since he’s never at home… directed by Clint Eastwood.

    That’s boring. I’m out!

    • krzschlss@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Genocide is illegal (I think, it’s kinda blurry for decades now). Don’t see those people concerned about it. I don’t think these people care about law. They bend it to their will, like they do with their tax-paying citizenry who vote and pay for them.

    • krzschlss@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Genocide is illegal (I think, it’s kinda blurry for decades now). Don’t see those people concerned about it. I don’t think these people care about law. They bend it to their will, like they do with their tax-paying citizenry who vote and pay for them.

    • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Nah fam. Miss me with that nonsense. Why would a tiny nation control the US? They have influence with American interests in many ways, but control it? It makes no sense. The only position that this would make sense from is the same antisemetic cabal bullshit. A small group controls the world alright. The wealthy, most of whom are white Christians. They control things, not Jews.

  • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m not voting for this man a second time. No more harm reduction. I’m not degrading myself by voting for a genocide enabler.

    • fiercekitten@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You getting downvoted for refusing to vote for Biden for a very valid reason is proof of how broken our two-party system is. This is why every state needs to pass ranked-choice voting. Maine did it and proved it could be done, and now they get to vote for who they actually /want/ without having their vote “spoiled”.

      Everyone in the US should be working to get ranked-choice voting in their state.

    • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This is the dumbest take, unfortunately very common amongst otherwise compassionate people.

      • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I will stay dumb and ignorant if it means sticking to my morals of being anti-genocide. Thanks.

        • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          You’re not any more anti-genocide than I am, you’re just being childish. You’re not getting your way so you’re going home. Meanwhile the right wingers are taking advantage of your childishness to enact more sadistic laws at home.

          You’re literally choosing to be indifferent to the suffering of one set of groups because a politician didn’t protect your preferred set of oppressed peoples.

          • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Not saying I am, but voting for someone who enables a genocide goes against my values. If by childish you mean choosing what I want to do with my vote, then sure.

            • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Your logic equates to:

              Biden is enabling genocide so I’m going to effectively throw my vote to his opponent, who not only will also enable genocide, but massively expand it.

              Don’t vote FOR Biden, vote AGAINST Trump/Republicans because while both Democrats and Republicans are awful, Republicans are actively sadistic.

              • moonlit2107@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Great, I’m telling you that it goes against my morals. You can effectively vote for whoever you want and I can effectively not vote for either. Are you going to tell me voting third party is a vote for Trump too?