This is why they should’ve had a primary.

We could’ve watched Biden collapse months ago while figuring out who is actually fit to run a good campaign. Now we’re going to have to go through it the hard way, because they tried to hide from the obvious for about the last 8 months.

That’s true, but I don’t think they can do that with Biden at the top of the ticket. He’s spoiled goods.

I’m not a Democrat. I left and joined the Green Party. I’m that crazy lefty. But even I can readily concede that I’d like democrats to win, and I think they could with someone like Elizabeth Warren. Or Cory Booker.

I’m not demanding Bernie or AOC or that Ro Khana be the nominee. But don’t act like there aren’t a few Democrats who have credibly taken a stand once or twice in their career for the greater good. They aren’t the majority, but they’re not so rare as you couldn’t find one.

We don’t have much control over this, frankly. But if we have any, I say we use it.

My personal attitude is that although I will concede that it is possible for Biden to win, if we don’t want to have to hope for a prayer, the only way things get better is if we all pop the bubble that Biden and his supporters are in that they can just ignore reality and hope for the best.

It has to be so clear to the Democratic party that not only are they likely to lose this election (and obviously with it, democracy), but they’re going to lose their jobs. No one who works in the election industrial complex is going to keep getting invited to cocktail parties and get hired on for whatever Potempkin election follows this one if Trump wins. No LARPing that they’re “the resistance!” in their endless fundraising emails while they enjoy being in the minority FOREVER. Rattle the fucking cage. Make it clear we blame them for this nonsense, and will continue to assign them the blame for choosing to run a failing candidate in a time of crisis because no one wanted to be the one to speak up and suggest doing anything else.

People keep getting mad when I criticize Biden, as if doing so is helping Trump win. My take: NOT doing so is helping Trump win. Protest this guy like our lives depend on him dropping out of the race at the convention. (They might).

Well that’s dystopian and dark.

Sounds interesting. The FF are characters that I really like in concept, but if you ask me my favorite stories I can’t think of one’s outside my head. We’ll see what they do with them.

I really try not to get into litigating each and every instance, but I feel compelled sometimes to point out a few things:

The claim that Abdallah Aljamal was holding hostages is not credible. This claim was made by the IDF without evidence, and they have a very long history of fabricating post-hoc justifications for killing people they weren’t targeting or supposed to target. Examples include the assassination of American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and the killing of medic Rouzan al-Najjar in 2018. In both cases, the IDF was caught lying to justify their murders, and I don’t think the claims about Abdallah Aljamal hold up at all. From what I read, he lived in the building one of the hostages was recovered from, but he wasn’t known as a target before he was killed. He was characterized as one after he was dead.

Overall, the concept of “valid targets” is bullshit. It is used to assuage our innate understanding that killing people – particularly the young, the innocent, the defenseless, the elderly – is WRONG. Israel has, in this particular war, extended the concept in a way that is clearly genocidal. Their target selection, as covered by 972, was wildly more vicious than their own historical limits on collateral damage. An anonymous Israeli intelligence officer called it “a mass assassination factory”.

I’m glad we agree that all the responsible parties for atrocities deserve to be held accountable. I don’t intend the above as a provocation to fight, but I want to make sure anyone reading this comment section is aware of this context.

It’s nuts that this is barely even news. Like… another day another atrocity.

I’m trying not to be numb to it, but it’s hard to remain shocked. I’m still disgusted, though.

I’ll say this, too: I think we too often judge wars by the conduct of the participants as though there are good wars and bad ones. And my hunch is that it’s more like there are bad ones and terrible ones, and as awful as this sounds, this one is more notable because it’s being well documented and it involves a uniquely fucked up context (decades of occupation with the support of the US). I think the way the Israeli right wing discusses it is uniquely brazen, and the degree to which the IDF targets journalists and medics seems high, but I think that this kind of stuff happens so often and is undercovered. I wish Yemen got the kind of coverage this is getting.

In terms of the atrocities, I think most wars are basically just a bunch of atrocities in a trenchcoat. It doesn’t make these any better: I just want this to end, and then all the other wars. Fuck this shit.

AND I want the people who do this shit dragged in front of the Hague. I’m very glad that Netanyahu and Gallant have had arrest warrants requested, but you know what I call that? A good start.