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5 hours agoTotally agree about the employers, the two-tier immigration system is a form of modern day slavery where corporations take advantage of illegal immigrants that have zero worker protections
Say no to authoritarianism, say yes to socialism. Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Everyone deserves Human Rights
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Cake day: August 18th, 2023
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I know, farming counties are rural and susceptible to the massive amount of disinformation like every rural American. They believe in the same lies about (other illegal) immigrants being criminals and don’t think Trump is talking about them, when he absolutely is. Either way they are still deserving to be protected from Trump’s policies.
FCWA has repeatedly advocated against Trump’s policies. Undocumented Immigrants can’t vote. Nor do Immigrants duped into voting for Trump deserve to victims of Mass Deportation and Concentration camps.
Yeah, learning about the criminalization of peaceful protests, both is severity of crime but also the fines/time was quite chilling. They have really set up the stage to criminalize protests against Fascism. Things are only going to get more grim in the foreseeable future
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I want to turn now to the J20 protests (named in reference to the January 20, 2017, date of Trump’s inauguration), because these are also extremely interesting and troubling indicators of how elites are responding to legitimate resistance through tactics of criminalization and intimidation… This is what becomes particularly troubling about this case. Rather, merely being at the protest itself was a crime, that is they didn’t find specific evidence of anybody particularly doing anything, but just being there now has turned into a crime… The grand jury, secret grand jury, returned a superseding indictment that added inciting or urging to riot and conspiracy to riot to the list of crimes, turning what would, in many cases, have been misdemeanors into potential felonies. The new charges brought the number of felony counts up from one to eight for each person, and the amount of time defendants faced from ten years to more than seventy years in prison.
The DOJ prosecutors also learned a few lessons from this case. One of the most recent manifestations of those lessons is a bill, H.R. 6054, “The Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018” that was introduced in the last Congress. You can tell by the title it has a fairly specific intent, quite literally unmasking Antifa (that is, the antifascist group). The act now makes it a crime, and includes a prison sentence of up to fifteen years, for anyone who injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person while wearing a mask or disguise, a bill that telegraphs the government’s future attempts to prosecute the masked protesters they failed to criminalize in the J20 trial.
As of January 19, 2017, Republican lawmakers in five states had proposed bills to criminalize peaceful protest. Just four days later, that number increased to ten states. Our old friend ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is behind many of these bills. They have model legislation on how to criminalize protests, including many laws that involve so-called critical infrastructure, by which they typically mean oil and gas pipelines.
In some states, nonviolent demonstrating may soon carry increased legal risks, including punishing fines and significant prison terms. Sometimes these are simply put on the books as chilling measures. If people know they’re facing horrific kinds of penalties, the likelihood that they may come out for a protest, even a very peaceful and legal protest, is enormously discouraged, so the new legislation often includes punishing fines, significant prison terms for people who participate in protests involving civil disobedience.
It will now be an offense to conceal (and this is back to the Antifa unmasking law) voluntarily, totally or partially, one’s face in order not to be identified in such circumstances as would provide fears of a threat to public order. Wearing a mask at a protest was already punishable with a €1,500 fine, but its upper limit will now be increased to a €15,000 fine and a year in prison. Again, you can see the chilling effect this might produce.
- Chapter 6 of Consequences of Capitalism by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone
By promoting the lies that either Biden or Harris can single handedly stop the genocide, and that they’ve made no attempt to do so.
They haven’t. You can’t have a permanent ceasefire when the US is continually supplying military weapons unconditionally to the side committing the genocide.
He was at least placing limits on how US weapons could be used, and trying to negotiate a ceasefire
Only in rhetoric, not in policy. No limits were placed even after the 30 day deadline of Israel continuing to deny aid to a starving population. The same population Israel continually targets civilians, mostly women and children, and civilian infrastructure like hospitals and refugee camps.
Timeline: The Biden administration on Gaza, in its own words
One Year of Empty Rhetoric From the White House on Israel’s Wars
If we just ended our alliance with Israel, do you know what they would do next? They would likely ally themselves with Russia instead.
Reigning in Israel into a permanent ceasefire is not ‘ending our alliance’ it would only force Israel to abide by International Humanitarian Law for once and end the genocide and Apartheid. Nor would that mean they would Ally with Russia, which they aren’t even on great terms with. Peace is also in China’s best interest in order to increase trade with Middle East countries.
Geopolitically, Russia still benefits far more from peace than the current situation.
On Russia and the Middle East
But beyond Russia rekindling old ties and worrying about domestic extremism, the big shift in the Russian relationship with Israel is rooted in Moscow’s increasingly close bilateral security relationship with Iran. I don’t think we can emphasize this enough. This development puts the rest of us—the United States and Europe—in quite a predicament. Russia is now engaged with Iran in two different conflicts, Ukraine and Israel/Gaza. Obviously, this is in quite different ways, but the Russia/Iran relationship greatly complicates the situation in the Middle East, Israel, and Gaza, and the battlefield in Ukraine. Russia’s relationship with Iran—not just Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage, or all the Russian speakers of Jewish Ukrainian heritage in Israel—as well as the U.S. role in support of both Ukraine and Israel start to draw the two sets of conflicts into the same geopolitical frame.
I think prior to October 7, the Russians were very interested in the idea of the Israelis having a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia that they could then capitalize on economically and politically. Putin may even think that he can still bounce back with Israel at some point when the dust settles in Gaza, although I doubt that. I heard a prominent Israeli at a recent event say that Russia has now moved itself into the enemy category with Israel after decades of relations improving. And Russia has also always had a somewhat complex and awkward relationship with Saudi Arabia, even though they’ve been recently touting that relationship—we saw Putin on a sort of semi-victory tour of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in early December last year.
In the context of energy relationships, where Saudi Arabia is so important, Russia has often not gone along with what OPEC+ and the Saudis have wanted in terms of committing to production cuts to bolster oil prices. Russia is always thinking about its own bottom line, and volume is often better for Moscow than just price. Putin is continually focused on trying to make sure that Russia’s energy revenues are not imperiled in any way—especially given Moscow’s loss of its dominant position in Europe’s energy markets after the invasion of Ukraine. And then there is Iran, and Saudi Arabia’s difficult relationship and regional rivalry with Tehran. This is one of the reasons why Putin went to the UAE and Saudi Arabia in December 2023, to cozy up to the Gulf Cooperation Council/leading Gulf states and Saudi Arabia to balance Russia’ closer security ties with Iran.
You can rationalize the US’s decision to fund and allow Israel to eradicate the entire people of Palestine all you want. It is unacceptable. It’s causing a rise in genuine antisemitism and islamophobia. I will do everything in my power to support Palestinian sovereignty and emancipation.
They would have been enough to secure the swing states and win Harris the electorial college. Her campaign would have need to promote more progressive policies that addresses the material needs of Americans, instead of running to the right on issues, in order to also pick up the popular vote.
Stop blaming the American people
100% It’s entirely on the campaign to secure votes. That’s the entire job of the campaign. Blaming voters is an easy scapegoat that accomplishes nothing. And when it’s blaming marginalized groups, it seems like it’s only promoting hate against the people most vulnerable to the violence of fascism
However, to those who feel this way, the only acceptable solution is “Get rid of them all”.
And what evidence do you have for that? Because every poll about people’s beliefs on deportation does show the majority support it, yet in the same exact poll a larger majority supports legalization. So no, you are completely wrong that that’s the ‘only acceptable solution’. The biggest reason for the change in public support for deportation is that the Democrats stopped counter messaging and moved to the right, despite their position of legalization since Obama was always significantly more popular. People don’t know the reality because the Democrats never talk about it and share the data.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/647123/sharply-americans-curb-immigration.aspx
https://www.vox.com/policy/368889/immigration-border-polls-election-2024-trump-harris
Harris tried countering bullshit with reality. Voters voted for the bullshit.
No she didn’t. She ran on build the wall like Trump did in 2016. The major problem with that is, if people believe those lies about immigrants, and then the opposition (D) capitulates, all it accomplishes is further entrenching their beliefs in those lies. And if they believe in those lies, then they’ll go with the party that’s been running on those lies for far longer, the Republicans. That change in immigration policy only accomplished pushing people to the Republican party. It’s a losing strategy. There is no way to outflank the Republicans on issues by moving to the right. On the other hand, it’s incredibly easy to attack that message by bringing up how it means concentration camps and the incredible cost to the economy and Americans.
Every state in the US went redder. US voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of “get rid of 'em all”.
Because the Democratics did practically nothing to galvanize their voter base of the working class, causing tens of millions to be apathetic and stay home. You can’t simultaneously say polls are BS and then cite public opinion which we know about from polling. Polling is used to understand public sentiment, exactly why the exact wording of them matter. Not only am I going off of public opinion, I’m also going off the morality of being against mass deportations. If slavery was popular I wouldn’t say the party should run on slavery because it’s popular.
How many elections does Trump have to win before you realize these polls don’t mean shit?
Shows you didn’t look at a single poll. People want progressive policies. The Democrats don’t run on progressive policies. So you’re blaming the fact that they’re losing when they run without progressive policies to justify that progressive policies wouldn’t cause them to win. That makes no sense and goes against all the data that shows otherwise.
Again, these right-wing fabrications not based on any evidence and its what the Republican party has run for for years. It is a white nativist sentiment. There is plenty of evidence that disprove those sentiments.
Economic Impact
Myth : Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. Economy and Reducing Immigration would make our economy stronger.
Fact : The United States needs immigrants to stay competitive and drive economic growth, Particularly as our economy starts to reopen, individuals who create jobs are absolutely critical to our recovery. Immigrants are innovators, job creators, and consumers with an enormous spending power that drives our economy, and creates employment opportunities for all Americans. Immigrants added $2 trillion to the U.S. GDP in 2016 and $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. In 2018, after immigrants spent billions of dollars on state and local, and federal taxes, they were left with $1.2 trillion in spending power, which they used to purchase goods and services, stimulating local business activity. Proposed cuts to our legal immigration system would have devastating effects on our economy, decreasing GDP by 2% over twenty years, shrinking growth by 12.5%, and cutting 4.6 million jobs. Rust Belt states would be hit particularly hard, as they rely on immigration to stabilize their populations and revive their economies.
Taxes and Essential Services
Myth : Immigrants are a burden to essential services like schools, hospitals, and highways.
Fact: Immigrants make significant contributions to our economy on virtually every front - including on tax revenue, where they contribute $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. This includes undocumented immigrants, who contribute roughly $11.74 billion a year in state and local taxes, including more than $7 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.1 billion in personal income taxes. These billions of tax dollars fund our schools, hospitals, emergency response services, highways, and other essential services. These revenues would increase by $2.18 billion annually if undocumented immigrants were given legal status as part of an immigration reform package. Additionally, immigrants make enormous contributions to Social Security. If current legal immigration levels were cut by 50%, the Social Security fund would lose $1.5 trillion in revenue over the next 75 years.
IRI
There are 45 million immigrants living in the United States. Making up 14 percent of the national population, immigrants are a vital part of the social, economic, and cultural life of all American communities.
The economic role of immigrants has frequently been misunderstood. On the one hand, immigrants are a big and important part of the economy. And, on the other hand, immigrants are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage jobs. Both things are true at the same time.
Other sources:
They didn’t do this due to public opinion, again legalizing illegal immigrants is far more popular than deportation, despite the Democratic Party not doing any counter messaging against the right-wing narrative. They moved to the right at the expense of voters, it gained them zero voters.
By voting for Harris? By telling others to also vote for Harris even if anti-genocide is their single issue? By voicing my concern that the campaigns strategy of ignoring all the uncommitted voters in swing states and failing to break from Biden on one of his most unpopular positions was risking losing the election? How exactly did I help Trump win?
Do you think I’ve ever supported Trump or something when I’ve repeatedly called out his Hitlarian and Fascist rhetoric and policies?
That’s why the best way to counteract that as a campaign would be to message about conditional military aid for a permanent ceasefire just before voting begins. That way AIPAC doesn’t have time to counter with attack ads. For context, it took AIPAC 25 million and 8 months to unseat 2 members of The Squad for being anti-genocide. Less people would hear about the pivot since it would have happened so late, but it’s still enough time to galvanize grassroots support and convince others to go out of their way to vote.
That’s not true either. The polls I linked take into consideration votes that would be lost, and it’s still a net +6.
For example, 79% of Jewish Americans voted for Harris. Or just shy of 4.6 million voters
25% considered Israel a major policy item. Or just shy of 1.15 million Harris voters.
Looking at how Jewish Americans views on a permanent ceasefire and conditioal military aid, a majority support it
52.5% support withholding military aid compared to 23% to disagree with that decision.
23% of the 1.15 Million that consider Israel a top issue leaves us with 230,000 Jewish Americans.
Even if we assume all of these Jewish Americans are Democrat, which we have no way of confirming one way or the other, let’s compare that to the uncommitted movement. Total uncommitted in the Primary was 706,591 (Which may have been undercounted). On average, general turnout is twice that of primary turnout. Which would reflect over 1,400,000 uncommitted votes in the general as an estimate. Considering how widespread anti-genocide sentiment is, I would expect more than that. But it’s not like we have any data, other than the current results.
4·1 day agoRegardless, I’m instantly suspicious of any person online whose initial response in a comment is an obviously copy-pasted wall of cherry-picked information which paints one side as the forever victim and the other as a infinite aggressor.
One side is the Colonizer one is the Colonized. Of course there is anti-colonialist violence, that’s most of what People have heard about. Except without the context of the history of ethnic cleansing and Apartheid.
But maybe you have a legitimate historical source?
Yes, the first book referenced in my last section by Nur Masalha. The 8th chapter in particular. The first chapter starts with the history of the Philistines and the subsequent history of the people and region. You may find it interesting
Today’s Israelis and Palestinians both have legitimate historical claims over land in the region dating back hundreds, if not thousands, of years
Nothing about what I’ve posted has claimed that Israelis Don’t have a right to exist. My point is that they don’t have a right to ethnically cleanse the native population and that the solution is a Bi-National One State Solution with equal rights for all.
I have no clue what you’re trying to say here
Why would I expect people who care about ending the genocide to stop caring about that?
Neoliberalism has been dragging this country to Fascism since Democrats went the way of Third Way Politics
Hate to break it to you but it’s Israel who pays for disinformation campaigns to dehumanize Palestinians and erased their history and connections to the land. See the first three books linked in the last section of you want to learn the history of the region. Palestinians have been a people for thousands of years.
First documented in the late Bronze Age, about 3200 years ago, the name Palestine, is the conventional name used between 450 BC and 1948 AD to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands. This work explores the evolution of the concept, histories, identity, languages and cultures of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the modern era. Moreover, Palestine history is often taught in the West as a history of a land, not as Palestinian history or a history of a people. This book challenges colonial approach to Palestine and the pernicious myth of a land without a people (Masalha 1992, 1997) and argues for reading the history of Palestine with the eyes of the indigenous people of Palestine. The Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine; their local roots are deeply embedded in the soil of Palestine and their autochthonous identity and historical heritage long preceded the emergence of a local Palestinian nascent national movement in the late Ottoman period and the advent of Zionist settler-colonialism before the First World War
How? What does blaming voters accomplish exactly?
If the Democratic Party is genuinely democratic, then they would respond to public pressure. If the Democratic party is not and instead only beholden to Donor interests, then we all have a much bigger problem where the interests of the American public is not represented.
It’s crazy how many prefer to blame the uncommitted movement, people who fought the hardest to change the Democratic Party’s unconditional support for genocide through every democratic channel possible, over the Democratic Party for refusing to change position, at the cost of critical voters in swing states.
I would expect a campaign who’s key concern is winning against a fascist to do everything in their power to win as many votes as possible.
It was the Harris campaign that made the decision to not break from Biden on Israel, at the cost of at least a +6 points gain. Those votes were entirely up for grabs. That’s the fault of the campaign’s calculations to ignore those voters, take them for granted, and instead run to the right with having the most lethal Military and unwaivering support for Israel a year into this genocide. That single policy change would have secured her the swing states needed to win the election. Biden is a Christian Zionist, the genocide and de juro annexation of Palestine is exactly what he wants.
I voted for Harris and told others to do the same. It’s still on the campaign to earn votes to win. If they took this election seriously, they would have been going after those votes. Blaming voters is just sowing division when we need unity and solidarity to fight against Fascism.
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Our first matchup tested a Democrat and a Republican who “both agree with Israel’s current approach to the conflict in Gaza”. In this case, the generic candidates tied 44–44. The second matchup saw the same Republican facing a Democrat supporting “an immediate ceasefire and a halt of military aid and arms sales to Israel”. Interestingly, the Democrat led 49–43, with Independents and 2020 non-voters driving the bulk of this shift.
- Split Ticket (July 2024)
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In Pennsylvania, 34% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withhold weapons to Israel, compared to 7% who said they would be less likely. The rest said it would make no difference. In Arizona, 35% said they’d be more likely, while 5% would be less likely. And in Georgia, 39% said they’d be more likely, also compared to 5% who would be less likely.
- New Poll Suggests Gaza Ceasefire and Arms Embargo Would Help Dems with Swing State Voters (Full YouGov Report) (May 2024)
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- Data For Progress Poll (May 2024)
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Majorities of Democrats (67%) and Independents (55%) believe the US should either end support for Israel’s war effort or make that support conditional on a ceasefire. Only 8% of Democrats but 42% of Republicans think the US must support Israel unconditionally.
Republicans and Independents most often point to immigration as one of Biden’s top foreign policy failures. Democrats most often select the US response to the war in Gaza.
The United States Administration is the one enabling Israel unconditionally. Support for this genocide is bipartisan.
Israel does torture, rape, and kill Palestinians (including children). It’s an Apartheid State.
Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Prisons
Palestinians are jailed without charge, forced into false confessions, routinely tortured, raped, denied medical attention, and some killed as a result. This includes hundreds of children.
Palestinians denied civil rights (HRW) including Military Court (B’TSelem)
Palestinian Prisoners in Israel (wiki)
Children are jailed and abused in Israeli prisons (Save The Children)
Torture and Abuse in Interrogations (B’TSelem)
Thousands of Palestinians are held without charge under Israeli detention policy (NPR)
I’ve seen that sentiment plenty in the last few days, unfortunately