One of the men goes for her phone. The other grabs at her hands. Ozturk screams. Shock and fear ripple through her voice. Two masked women join them, tugging at her backpack, peeling the straps from her shoulders. “I’m going somewhere, I need to call someone,” she pleads. “We’re the police. Relax,” one of the men says in response.
They surround her. Then, one by one, they pull their neck gaiters up to cover their faces. “You don’t look like police,” a voice off screen says. “Why are you hiding your faces?” The questions continue, but the figures don’t respond. Instead, they cuff Ozturk, cross the street, and put her in an unmarked SUV. She is gone.
What else was the alternative? A mixed-race woman as President?
I’m laughing to keep from crying.
This isn’t about race, it’s about class, at least for the demographics that the democrats are targeting. Kamala is mixed race but she represents the interests of the owning class and she just did absolutely nothing to sway votes in her favor. Trump is arguably much worse, but people should stop pretending a white candidate would have won over republican voters.
Idk bringing out the big guns of a cheney instead I’d her progressive VP pick in the final days of the campaign should have sealed it. Must be racism.
This is THE problem. Statements like this. She did the ONLY thing she had to do. The failing was not hers, it was COLLECTIVELY ours. The failing was not making her president. How are people still not getting that no matter what, she was clearly and without doubt the better choice. THAT is what matters. Everyone trying to split hairs and justify her not winning, still doesn’t get it.
Not to mention people who wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump spouting this bullshit when all evidence directly calls out manipulation from Elon himself as well as Putin himself. Those two factors should be taking precedence in everyone who didn’t vote for Trump’s minds. Not this half baked “she didn’t try hard enough” bullshit.
The failing was decades and centuries ago that led to this. Power has been consolidating in the presidency since the constitution was signed as the legislature and courts are happy to give more and more of their power over to the executive.
We’ve only been protected by being lucky having presidents and their staff with genuine care for the intent of the constitution.
This was only a matter of time. It wasn’t our fault. This is America.
This is getting old. The failing has escalated over the last decades, when politicians of all parties abandoned the working class / middle class and catered towards the ultra rich instead. They gradually shifted to the right and now the republicans are right wing extremists and the democrats are a right wing party too. Biden and Harris allowed the Gaza genocide to unfold and continued many of Trump‘s policies on migration even though they could have reverted them easily. They chose to serve their donors instead of the people and people just got tired of it. The democrats have themselves to blame, not the people pointing their failures out.
The fact that this is still contentious for Americans goes to show how far gone they are. Liberal democrats just can’t seem to fathom the basic reality of what you’re saying, they’re so focused on aesthetics and “we need a mixed race woman president” over “we need to fix wealth inequality.” It’s about as brain dead as MAGA but with virtue signalling, “Yeah I support Israel, no it’s not a genocide, rich people earned that money fair and square, and have no influence on our democracy” meanwhile they put on a rainbow flag badge on Pride month and say “I’m a progressive, and I support protesters (so long as they’re not disruptive.)”
Kamala is part of the problem. Unchecked neoliberal capitalism has created Trump. Yes, obviously, I would prefer the status quo over fascism. We all would.
But as long as the majority of the country is financially insecure fascism will rise. Establishment DNC is just as guilty as the establishment GOP in causing this tragedy
you keep feeding the oligarchs long enough and they attempt a coup.
Yeah, I’m not playing your stupid “pick one zionist or another” game.
I despise republicans, and always have, but I despise traitors on my own side even more. If its a choice between fighting the people we’ve always fought or fighting the murderous traitorous political hostage takers in our own party who espouse the same evils our enemies do, for sure I’m going to clean house of the traitors first, and give them 10x the loathing I would give a traditional enemy. Backstabbing war criminals deserve no less, and Harris was a backstabber who chose to lose rather than throw the Palestinians a bone. That was her choice.
And thats who you want to complain about now? Not bothered that she supported war crimes when the republic was at stake, but just that someone with dark skin and female sex organs didnt win? Seems like a pretty trite and privelaged concern for you to engage in when innocent human children are being blown apart.
and to be clear, I didnt vote for either Harris or Trump. I left just that section blank.
So all based on your last sentence, you’re partially responsible for the shit storm we’re in now?
I dont vote for any mass murderer. You did.
Shall we go back to school and use Humes simple test for ethics? “What if everyone did that?” If everyone votes like you do we’re always going to have a dem who’s merely slightly better than the fascist from here on out. You voted to keep this hostage vting situation going indefinitely. I chose to let it light itself on fire, which happened without the left lighting a single match. If the dems werent on side because they wanted to take zionist money, thats not on me. The dems left their traditional platform, we leftists didnt leave it-- we’re still standing where we’ve always stood. And the zionists were never about to allow the dems to get their own direction back.
What’s really trite and “privelaged” is scolding others because they didn’t make Palestine their only voting concern. I guess the death of the US and every vulnerable group in it is worth it to people with that opinion.
On a very personal level, I’m trans. Your voting ideology has directly contributed to the loss of my rights, my safety, and my future. Go ahead and scold me because some bomb I had no say in was used halfway across the world to kill children. I just wanted people to vote for the person who wouldn’t make SS black bag people in broad daylight.
Harris read the polls on the number of people like yourself who would make a deal on her platform. People like yourself who care mostly about your trans rights, even if we’re talking about murder of innocents. With that data she thought she could roll the dice on winning. If fewer people had not projected that they’d allow her platform to win, she would have changed it. And we wouldnt be in this spot. Let me ask, did you vote uncommitted in the dem primary? It wouldnt have cost much of anything in terms of results of that race.
You didnt did you.
EDIT: Can’t stand to keep your bullshit unedited? Not going to go on about how I only choose my safety and trans rights now and I have blood on my hands? Gonna pivot to the dem primaries, which in my state only had Biden on the ballot?
That was a winnable race. Harris dchose to lose listening to her zionist boss, her zionist husband and her zionist campaign manager brother in law. I am just a voter with some ethics unlike you lot of war crimes jrs.
and
yeah I’m sorry that edit button exists. I dont know what to tell you. Theres probably a complaint form around here someplace you can use. Sometimes you need a couple edits to get a concise message. Such is life on reddit and lemmy.
No, you aren’t a voter. You told us you didn’t vote (for president anyway). That’s the point.
Your moral grandstanding helped make the very issue you are championing completely unrecoverable, and a bunch of us are now under the bus as a result. Palestinians are almost certain to be wiped out now, no matter how badly many of us wanted to end the genocide and hold Israel accountable. You have cut off your nose to spite your face.
I see, so its the anti genocide/“basic human rights arent negotiable” side thats at fault for the US falling apart?
I see, so it’s the anti-fascist/“basic human rights apply in our country too” side who are at fault for the genocide of Palestinians? 🙄
So your “fighting fascists” fight is simply to vote for one of their manufactured war crimes choices both of which demanded you personally be accountable for assisting in murder?
Fascism lite is still fascism. Killing fewer people is still killing, and its wildly illegal and immoral, full stop.
Harris’s platform was wildly illegal and immoral. So was trumps. I’m not about to be nagged or threatened into giving my vote to either of those camps.
If that means the country burns itself down then thats fine, we just get a chance to get to the endgame faster where we build it back up to something better. There was nothing down the road of siding with Harris except more zionist puppeteering, and training you all to be nazi prison guards while you deal with the cognitive dissonance of Harris continuing the genocide after you had a hand in getting her in office.
Every month from becoming the nominee until the election Harris campaigned on a cease fire, hostage release, and a two state solution.
These are not “wildly illegal” or genocidal statements. You just refused to see it. Now we have Trump who wants to clear everyone from Gaza for hotels and golf courses. Good jorb!
July: https://www.the-independent.com/tv/news/kamala-harris-says-two-state-solution-is-the-only-path-after-meeting-with-netanyahu-b2586161.html
August: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/23/politics/gaza-israel-harris-convention-speech/index.html
September: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-harris-says-two-state-solution-end-of-israel-hamas-war-is-crucial
October: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/harris-dodges-direct-question-on-palestinian-deaths-calls-for-2-state-solution-during-cnn-town-hall/3372480
So your anti-genocide “vote” of “not voting” was to be accellerationist and to maximize casualties? My vote means that I’m immoral and your inaction means you’re some saint? Right. Gotcha.
EDIT: Just editing this to include your current message before you completely change the content of your comment, like you seem to be doing more now that you’re losing your bullshit argument everywhere.
DOUBLE EDIT: I realize how stupid this conversation is. You’re arguing about who we voted for in November and people are actively being black-bagged now. With Trump in office. While you’re bitching that I voted for Harris. I’m going to just… block and move on. You’re not worth engaging with, and I wish I didn’t bother as much as I did.
So sounds like people like you are partially to blame for all this crazy shit.
And Trump will be worse directly with Palestine, just give him time. He’s seemingly already given Israel the go-ahead to kill whoever they want. What was it that Israeli official said in the video a week ago - the worst is yet to come?
Trump will add a cherry on top for you and build a golf course or strip mall in Gaza over the wreckage and remains of dead Palestinians.
Biden/Harris killed almost 50 thousand people on their watch. It’ll be much more when the bones of dead civilians pinned under rubble are actually counted.
If you were honest you’d say you considered both of the candidate to be equal on the gaza war crimes and you voted to keep the rest of your life going undisturbed
You’re conveniently ignoring the fact that most of that happened in the months immediately following 10/7. Of course Israel was going to be at peak insanity at that point…
Bold your text all you want lmao whoever we voted for here wasn’t going to change the US from sending money and arms to Israel in the short term. Harris at least wouldn’t have deported and locked up protestors. We’d at least have a voice - which would’ve left an opportunity for things to get better. Anyone pro-Palestine here is fucked now when it comes to that.
She’s also not buddy-buddy with Netanyahu like the special needs orangutan. You absolutely knew what you were getting with Trump if you voted for him or abstained. Anyone that says differently is ignorant as hell or has been on a deserted island cut off from the world for the past 10 years.
Well, fuck you. You don’t get a say, then.
Thats fine. Youve got blood on your hands.
You literally have the fact that there’s a fascist in chief in office; a sycophant pillaging the federal reserve and keeping our tax dollars for himself; an entire cult of personality that’s now in charge of our judicial, executive, and legislative branches, giving the fascists complete control our government withdraw literally no oversight; rights are being taken away from everyone; actual natural-born US citizens are being “deported” (read: kidnapped and trafficked) to foreign countries like Venezuela and El Salvador; alllllll on your hands, and millions of others just like you.
Completely understandable on an emotional level, but if you’re not careful this can easily turn into an accidental alliance with Republicans, and it often does.
OK, it seems to me to be very remotely possible but unlikely.
I’d argue that you’re coming from a consequentialism “the ends justifies the means” standpoint wheras I’m coming from deontological ethics.
I think you’re arguing that “you can do whatever you want to as long as it leads to some identified desired outcome”.
If republicans are pushing for fascism, as we all seem to perceive here, my approach is the exact opposite of that. You dont need to take my opinion on it, you can use classic models which are a whole lot better than nothing. If you read up (its 60 seconds, I promise) on consequentialism you will see the Harris campaign outlined pretty spot on, and if you read up on deontology you will see the ani genocide crowd, again spot on. Then take a step back and think which is a better way to fight the vast and sprawling abuses of fascism.
I dont think winging it ends-justifies-the-means style is going to cut it with these stakes. I’m not saying I’m sure I’m right, but I’m positive that I’m doing my best just like I 'd guess a lot of you think you are. When we think of what a bright future is, its a system of laws that irons out basic unfairness and brutality. We all want this. We disagree on how to get there.
Hot take: deontological ethics is a sad way to avoid taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
I don’t think the ends justify the means, and in equal measure I don’t think the means justify the ends.
I’m all for hearing a better way of fighting fascism. Letting a death cult take control of all branches of government was definitely a method. I’m not going to stop listening but like… what the fuck are we doing?
Oh yeah, I want this, and I disagree very heavily with the death cult absolute power method. But I don’t have a choice now, it’s up to you now to prove that fighting alongside the death cult was the better choice.
Wow, you taught Democrats a real lesson there! At the cost of even more Palestinian lives!
“We did it, Patrick, we saved Palestine!”
Seems to me that you’re the type of person who, when faced by a thug asking if you’d like their daughter punched in the face or stomach, would pick a spot, and hold the person who forced the choice blameless. In fact you’d elect them to rule over you.
“Saving Palestine”. was not going to happen under either candidate, and the genocide so far has been under dem leadership. Any of that untrue?
Not making a choice is also a choice.
Your option in your own scenario is walking away from your daughter knowing she will get punched in the face.
You knew that by not voting blue, way more people would suffer. You knew that and you willingly let it happen. Enough of “yous” got us where we are now.
Just because your issue didn’t get adressed by any of the candidates, you willingly walked away, knowing that not voting would inflict more suffering, than voting blue. I want to let you know, that I think you are a garbage person.
By the way, I am not from the US.
I wasnt out to teach a lesson, I was out to let this place implode. I dont export our countries war crimes to other places because thats momentarily more convenient for me-- like you’d prefer.
Ohh, so you’re an accelerationist! Now your comments make sense. Well, except the one claiming you’re anti-genocide, but the rest make sense. Kinda.
If our system requires blood to keep functioning then it needs to be smashed and recreated. You’d have it just continue. Although your desire to limp it along kinda makes a sad sort of sense, if you ignore your own hand in keeping it going.
“This whole system needs to be smashed and recreated, it’s fine if the country burns itself down”
“Btw you’re the one with blood on your hands, I definitely think basic human rights aren’t negotiable”