• 21 Posts
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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: February 29th, 2024

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  • I loathe the comments saying some version of “I hope everyone who didn’t vote for Harris gets what they deserve”. Dem bullying and refusal to stop 100% support of war crimes (including domestic protest suppression/condemnation) alienated a crucial part of their base, but apparently it’s still not their fault. Now there’s bitter folks here taking a sick satisfaction telling people they’re going to suffer and consoling themselves by viciously insulting everyone who didn’t fall in line.

    Apparently when the horrors happen it’s not because Harris ran a shit campaign courting conservatives, didn’t listen, and promised more of the same (or even a slide right) as Biden, a president with an approval rating in the 30-40% range. It’s not because she refused to promise an immediate stop to support of war crimes as per America’s own laws. It’s the fault of everyone who refused to vote against their conscience because a “lesser evil” platform didn’t convince them to support a party of unrepentant war criminals.

    Downvote me all you want and tell me how idiotic I am. I told people urgently to vote Harris right up until the election, but I also always spoke out against bullying on Lemmy and it’s only gotten worse post-election. The people in this thread talking about how others are going to get what they deserve are abusive people and I don’t want to be associated with them anyways. Their disapproval is something I’m proud of.


  • A lot of people did in fact set aside Gaza until Trump was stopped. As for those that didn’t, they should have listened to Bernie Sanders. I did months ago and went all-in on Dem support. There were multiple times when I wrote up an angry post about US support of Israel and then didn’t post it because I didn’t want to turn a voter into a non-voter or worse a Trump supporter.

    I understand their position of never rewarding ethnic cleansing and war crimes though. They chose to make sure the Dems know they would never “settle” for the illegal killing of civilians. The support for Israel made it especially hard for Arab Americans to vote Dem. It’s difficult to support a party that has been in power during the whole conflict yet gives unconditional support for the internationally condemned murder of Arabs.

    I’m sure a lot also felt disenfranchised by the bipartisan protest suppression and condemnation. Even in Dem states peaceful protesters were punished, and sometimes pro-Israeli protesters who attacked got away with it. Then there was the whole “vote with us or else” pressure that went on for months. Dissenters like the “uncommitted” voters were insulted by the party that wanted their unconditional support.

    So it’s not like it’s completely insane. But as Sanders points out that position only makes things worse and has done so.












  • I like that it’s moderated fairly lightly but reasonably. Often I can have an actual discussion with someone who doesn’t agree with me without either of us getting banned by a mod who likes one side or the other. From what I see generally a user needs to be very obviously abusive/racist/violent before a mod steps in, even if the content is controversial.

    I dislike that I’ve needed to heavily restrict my use for my mental health until after the election. A lot of people (not all by any means) believe it’s ok to bully and abuse other users because their cause is righteous - it’s already shown up in this thread. E.g. the daily posts and comments, with a lot of upvotes/support, that label anyone who disagrees with or criticizes Kamala (used to be Biden)/Democrats a bot, idiot, worse than useless, foreign agent and so on. I’m not talking about downvoting which is just expressing disagreement - I’m talking about outright insults and upvoting those. The attitude of “vote with/support me or else” has no place in a democracy founded on free voting without persecution, even if the bully is sure they’re right. If I didn’t mention it, perhaps even though I have, we might see a version of “but it is actually ok this time” and reasons why. It’s happened before.

    Guess what? Very few “policy bullies” think they are evil - they’re positive it’s justified. Christians demand abortion bans, Muslim deportation, religion in schools/government and so on because they truly believe they are saving eternal souls. I was raised in that environment. That a sizable amount of Lemmy users believe it’s correct/admirable to insult others into “proper” behavior makes them very similar in character to those religious extremists IMO. Apparently when the issue is really important abuse is ok.

    I’ll end by saying Gaza/Palestine is incredibly important to me - I am legitimately very upset frequently by the stories and media. However, Bernie Sanders convinced me to support Biden and then Kamala. Bernie laid out his argument with logic and facts and did not once insult my position. I also doubt the aggressive posts/comments are winning over undecideds. “I wasn’t sure if I should vote Democrat until I was called a harmful idiot and had my concerns dismissed as being in bad faith”.



  • “Hang loose” is what you tell someone who needs to chill out and let the waves carry them away from their problems man. Align your chakras with the Earth and so on.

    Seriously though, the reason I wrote like that is I’m using the slang of roughly 90s/2000s-ish California surfer culture, which is where the hand signal was used to tell people to relax and be happy. Or say hi and let them know you are relaxed and happy. If you imagine it as a gang sign for surfer hippies you aren’t far off.