Bulletins and News Discussion from July 8th to July 14th, 2024 - Nevertheless, He Persisted

Image is of the Big Wet Boy surviving an assassination attempt with his Matrix-esque bullet dodging skills.

Trump's victory, and the further mass oppression of minorities, is closer than ever before. May god have mercy on our souls.

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I am really starting to think that the liberal infighting and constant media coverage about Biden's age is an attempt at hedging against any argument that his electoral failure is tied to his support for the genocide in Gaza. Biden was not going to win the election against trump before this debate, it was already assured that millions would refuse to hold their nose and vote for him regardless. But now the ruling class can ignore this sort of analysis and focus on, "Biden lost because he was too old, he couldn't connect with young people" and they will hammer that home until they can completely erase the effect of the first anti-imperialist mass movement in the USA since the Vietnam war. The death toll coming out from the Lancet article had really driven this home for me. They have fully convinced themselves they can invent their own reality. The public hand-wringing the Biden admin has done, all while being primarily responsible for the genocide continuing as it has, is just so absurd for anyone paying close attention. This is probably the worst atrocity of the 21st century (so far
) and they will try their best to erase any electoral consequences, and thus erase anti-imperialist discourse from popular understanding of history. Seems even more important now to symbolically vote for an anti-imperialist candidate like Claudia de la Cruz, because even a relatively large, but still marginal vote in a battleground state would be hard to ignore, particularly if liberals decide to demonize and blame 3rd party voters for a Trump victory. "If everyone who had voted for de la cruz in Georgia voted for Biden, he would have won" etc. etc.
- I mean international shit has never been that important to American voters anyways, only economy treats and how woke the candidates are.
- an attempt at hedging against any argument that his electoral failure is tied to his support for the genocide in Gaza
  I find this exceedingly unlikely. The American electorate does not give a single flying shit about foreign policy and hasn't punished an administration over warmongering since Vietnam and the draft. The protests against the war in Iraq 20 years ago were much larger and still bush/Obama were voted in and out based on economic reasons, not their warmongering. Until America's foreign adventures directly and consistently lead to large scale consequences for the civilian population at large, the voting patterns of the American electorate will not be affected by foreign policy. They do not give a shit.
  
  I don't actually think the protests against Iraq were that much bigger in the US, although they were much larger in Europe. I think the biggest protest against Iraq was in NYC with about 500,000 people. There have been sustained protests across the US, with the first few mobilizations getting around 500,000 people in DC and even 8 months later drawing close to 100,000 to DC last month. I think it is also pretty impactful because back then, during the Iraq war, in the US you could be a democrat upset with Bush protesting the war and think plausibly that it wasn't a contradiction even though the Democrats voted for the war too. You could be led to think if you voted really hard the war would end. This war is Biden's and those people in the streets were all by and large current/former democrats. Not to mention the electoral effect of the muslim community turning against Biden, in states like Michigan where it is enough to completely undermine his ability to win. I get that people want to say American's don't give a fuck about the rest of the world, and that is often very true. But the past 8 months has been a sea change in comparison to the last 30 years in my opinion, and the conversation isn't about which bourgeois political clique will do imperialism best. People are involved in an anti-imperialist movement that can't be co-opted by Democrats effectively, which is distinct from a lot of the anti-war activism during the Iraq era- which was firmly ensconced in the end of history
  
  Fair enough, the intent of my comment wasn't to compare these protest movements in detail as much as it is to say that the American electorate does not give a shit about the wars and devastation their military industrial complex and politicians inflict on the rest of the world.
  
  AFAIK (I could be wrong, I was in middle school when this happened), the Iraq war protests were largely single day demonstrations, with the largest occurring on Feburary 15, 2003, involving a few hundred thousand people in several US cities (more globally). A paradigm shift occurred around the time of Occupy Wall Street towards doing encampments and sustained agitation instead of demonstrations. The single-day rallies which stand out (attendence-wise) after this are mostly media-endorsed affairs, like the Womens' Marches, March for Science, March for our Lives, etc. Basically glorified parades.
  The George Floyd Uprising blows everything else the fuck out of the water (in all US history), with an estimated 15-26 MILLION participants in every major city in every state in the union. While Palestine was not the focus of the movement, Palestine Solidarity was a significant undercurrent, with a focus on US police co-training in counterinsurgency tactics with Israeli occupation forces. In addition to the more recent campus encampments against the genocide in Palestine, there have been regular sporadic demonstrations in cities like New York for a while now, many of which don't even make the news and you only catch clips of on social media.
  In 2003, the tactic seemed very much to be do an event which is noteworthy, get the media to cover it, mission accomplished. in 2011, the tactics changed, but the mindset was very much the same. By 2020, it seemed like there was no longer any concern with mainstram media coverage and it has become very much simply about confronting the police who stand between the people and their elected "representatives," and engaging with other people who are willing to do the same.

2246 comments