Michael - I agree with John - You - Under Biden, Netanyahu is "ethnically cleans[ing] Gaza, brib[ing] the Egyptians to accept as many Gazans who make it over the border --- squeez[ing] the West Bank even more", and the US and Israel (via the Abraham Accords) are "doing its best to unite with the Sunni Arabs against Iran (in fact might even go to war with Iran)".
John - So what's so different? On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 10:46 PM Michael Meeropol <[email protected]> wrote: but punishing Biden by electing Trump won't help save a single life in Gaza ... me - I am not aware of any Gazan lives saved by Genocide Joe! Of course, Trump would be as bad for the Palestinians as Biden is - one cannot be worse - but the left must make a statement that it will settle for neither evil as the first step towards a possible political realignment. Yes, we'd have to pay a price in the short term, but sometimes life requires us to take a step back in order to take a big step forward. (I caught myself from using the phrase Great Leap Forward!) Michael - a hypothetical - does your allegiance to lesser evilism include supporting a Biden/Nikki Haley or even a Biden/Liz Cheney ticket to win support from anti-Trump Republicans? If so, you would be forgiving the war crimes of her father and W Bush in their 2002 *illegal* (according to international law) war against Iraq, allegedly to remove WMDs, but as reality the past 22 years has clearly demonstrated, to get US hands on their oil. Between 400,000 and 800,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by this war and who knows how many others suffered from the US torture (also *illegal *according to international law, signed onto by the US) that was part of it at Abu Gharib and Guantanamo. Of course, the criminals were never prosecuted, but what the hell, as long as they give lip service to opposing Trump (while endorsing for years most of his reactionary agenda for both foreign and domestic policy), all is forgiven! Another hypothetical - if Trump wins in November but doesn’t install the fascism and concentration camps that frightened liberals are convinced will happen, and if a David Duke-type runs against him in 2028 in protest against his “going soft” on the left, will you then support The Donald as the latest deadend tactic of “lesser evilism”? This would be the ultimate abandonment of any semblance of political principle, and it wouldn't be new. In Germany of the late 1920s/early 1930s, the largest socialist party in Europe (SPD) followed the same policy in every national election. They would refuse to run a leftist campaign, settling for supporting a bourgeois liberal against a conservative, then for the next election, they would support the victorious conservative party against a more reactionary party, and then support the successful reactionaries against the Nazis. In January 1933, the victorious reactionary party appointed Hitler as Chancellor, and the game was up. Must we refuse to learn from history until it’s too late? Dennis -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29434): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29434 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104916504/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
