Okay making a top level comment after quite a bit of research.
The artist of this cartoon has literally never expressed criticism of the US’s participation in genocide nor apartheid—nor even of the involvement of the military-industrial complex—even once since October 7.
So if this post comes off as excessively patronizing to some, there may be a reason for that, as the tone here is not all that different from the rest of the guy’s work.
That does not mean that there is no valid concern from the artist here. Whatever your plans are for November, a Trump win is going to result in some non-zero excess harm against the vulnerable and the environment over what would be involved in a Biden win in the short run—that much most of us can agree on.
But the comic does this point in such a fucking tone deaf way? like hawt damn.
I personally interpered the comic as a criticism of people vowing to vote third party, not a criticism of people protesting Gaza as a whole. I hate what Isreal is doing in Gaza, but I’m not going to throw my vote away on a third parry this election when Trump would make everything including Gaza so much worse.
More of the artist’s work concerning Gaza:
i hear you! but this one isn’t critical of US complicity either.
obviously i cannot know the artist’s intentions, but an analysis of their repertoire can give an indication as to why the “i’m busy” comic felt so condescending and bad faith
Biden can stop the genocide but not only chooses not to at the risk of losing the election, but enables Israel to commit more violence and war crimes.
Nailed them in one picture. Perfectly illustrated.
Damn we’re just posting boomer comics now huh
All those issues are empowered by the public allowing genocide.
No one I know who does serious work on Palestine is only working on that one issue, wasn’t doing anything before and won’t do anything after. Burnout is incredibly high among activist leaders right now. Cut us some slack please
Can we stop being the repost home of r/politicalhumor shitty memes?
It’s not unreasonable to draw a hard line at genocide.
Saw this posted elsewhere and found it poignant
“If Nixon wins again, we’re in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
I am not saying we shouldn’t vote for Biden, but acting like we shouldn’t be protesting the genocide of Palestinians is bullshit. I know Trump would be worse, but it doesn’t mean we should speak out against Biden sending weapons that directly aid in the death of children.
We can’t just pretend he isn’t complicit in war crimes just because the other option is worse. We should be able to speak out against the atrocities.
Stopping gun violence is what the Gaza protestor is trying to to do. Banning bigotry? Yep, same. Save democracy? How? By standing strong with genocide? Not very fucking likely, imo.
For all of the people who will inevitably show up to say “But you can’t criticize Biden, it’s an election year”: man, I can’t imagine offering such a bad take completely unprompted and free of charge. People are throwing tomatoes at you from the shores of history, you just don’t know it yet. Supporting genocide is wrong, period. If Biden doesn’t want to be criticized for it, maybe they should stop supporting it.
For all of the people who will inevitably show up to say “But you can’t criticize Biden, it’s an election year”:
I have never heard anyone say that. In fact, it’s because you can criticize Biden and there’s even an outside chance he’ll listen that makes him the better candidate than the guy who listens to nobody ever, unless the message is how to make him more wealthy.
The only propaganda I want to spread is the propaganda of stopping genocide. I’d love to see Biden do it. Like, unironically. Please, as soon as possible.
Im convinced neoliberals are genuinely heartless.
You are getting downvoted for the context, not because of one line that seems disingenuous in the context of your posts.
They can’t see the forest because all the trees are in the way.
Best we can do is expanding funding for military hardware for police and criminalizing homelessness.
Stopping gun violence is what the Gaza protestor is trying to to do.
Because Palestinians don’t fucking shoot and kill people…? Way to jump the shark.
Hamas murdered more people in 1 day than every American school shooting combined.
Do you listen to yourself? What the fuck are you even talking about?Banning bigotry? Yep, same
Hamas is an Islamic terrorist group founded on an explicit call for genocide against Israeli Jews.
They aren’t flying rainbow flags or celebrating pride month this year, either.Save democracy? How?
By voting against a self-described “dictator” who happens to also be an authoritarian kleptocrat who calls every election he’s ever been in “rigged”, pressured Secretaries of States to just make up votes, coordinated false electors to overthrow the election, pressured his VP to call the certification process into question and who generally doesn’t believe in the peaceful transition of power.
I’m not gonna ask you to suck Biden’s cock or anything, feel free to dislike his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian war (a war he neither started nor wanted to happen in the first place) if you want. It’s my view that America’s actions so far have actually saved thousands of lives in the region, and it’s an objective fact that Biden has delivered more aide to Gazan civilians than anyone else. (Don’t let that stop you from being pissed off at the wrong guy.)
But, seeing everything we’ve seen over the last 10 years, are you seriously going to deny that Trump and the Republicans are an existential threat to American democracy?
Supporting genocide is wrong, period
The Palestinians aren’t innocent in this either–they (and the Arab League) threw the first punch back in 1948, and they (Hamas) threw the first punch on October 7th of last year. It takes 2 to tango. Both sides of this fight have been complicit in doing evil shit building up to the conflict we have today. When people say things like “Palestine should be free from the river to the sea”, how can you read that as anything other than a call for genocide against Israeli jews? Hamas surrendered any facade of legitimacy when they conducted a terrorist attack on Israel last year (intentionally killing more people in a single day than Israel has been killing in Gaza on average). Hamas has fired something like 10,000 rockets at Israel (and that’s not counting the attacks from Iran, Hezbollah, etc.), so how many thousands more people do you think would be dead today if Israel didn’t have the capability to defend against those kinds of attacks?
The only peaceful, non-genocidal solution to this ~80 year war is a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians learn to put aside their mutual hatred, dis-empower the extremists who run their societies, and coexist. Neither Hamas nor Netenyahu are capable of delivering this. Hamas will soon pay the ultimate price for their cowardice and terrorism (as they should), and hopefully the Israeli people will see that Netenyahu has failed to protect them and democratically remove him from power.
Yes, you have persuaded me that the only rational course of action remaining is to leave babies to die of neglect after you force hospital staff out at gunpoint, murder ambulance crews and their patients, murder aid workers, murder anyone in the same building as a militant in one of the highest density populations on earth, force men, women, and children to starve when the world is ready to deliver aid, tell people to go to refugee camps and then bomb the refugee camps, massacre people for rushing to a food truck to get food for the crime of being desperate and hungry, destroy their homes and possessions, reject peace deals that include the abolition of hamas as an organization, close off every means of escape, and then move your people into their land once you’ve sufficiently killed them off.
Of all the cases for genocide, you made, well, one of them. I would say that I hope you feel as good about it in the future as you do now, but I wouldn’t mean it, because it’s a fucking genocide and you’re defending it. I get that you don’t seem to want the extermination of all Palestinians, but you’re going to bat for a government that does.
You engaged with a grand total of 0 of the points that I made. So A+ dodging I guess. Congratulations on being a classic bad faith actor.
Hamas are a terrorist organization that openly advocates for genocide and commits war crimes, murdering civilians in cold blood, taking hostages, operating out of hospitals and aide organizations, and using innocent people as human shields. They have a PR department, and they don’t need any new hires right now, sorry.
The only peaceful, non-genocidal solution to the Israeli-Palestinian war is a two-state solution. Fuck Hamas, fuck Netenyahu, and also to a much lesser extent, fuck you. I didn’t “make a case for genocide”, you did. If you think Hamas are going to go down in history as heroes or freedom fighters, you’re as dumb as you are ignorant of history.
I don’t think they’ll go down as heroes, I think this is going to go down more or less how native American genocide happened in the US west. Native Americans would do cattle raids or revenge killings, which were often used as justifications for even more violence against non-combatants (followed by the taking of that sweet, sweet land). Which is more or less what’s happening here. I think the formation of the modern Israeli state was a huge mistake, and now we’ve got to deal with it. Ultimately, no solution’s going to be popular, but letting the IDF commit genocide while saying “but HAMAS” ain’t it. HAMAS has offered to disband itself in the latest peace talks, which Israel rejected. That really just leaves the naked truth that what Israel wants in the land, and if they’ve got to murder everyone there for it, that’s a small price for the US to subsidize.
Yeah. Save the “democracy” which puts the whole force of the law on you when you protest for Palestine or against Cop City.
Uh oh, looks like someone is sharing
communistunpatrioticterroristundemocratic speech. Undemocratic speech is any time you:- Oppose fascism
- Skip an ad
- Don’t buy something
- Take the bill of rights seriously at face value
- Encourage someone else to do any of the above.
Please lie down on your stomach with your arms at your sides and someone will be along to pepper spray you and charge you with domestic terrorism shortly.
Go home, Russian propaganda.
Remember kids, any criticism I don’t like is propaganda.
I’m critical because we could be doing better, not just for ourselves, but the whole world. Instead, our leadership is threatening to attack the ICC if they hold Nettanyahu accountable for genocide.
No, it’s because you and your ilk only ever criticize Biden/Democrats, as though the roiling dumpster fire that is the Republican Party is beyond reproach. Don’t they control the House, and by extension the purse strings? Haven’t they held up funding for Ukraine more than once? They should be doing the same for funding for Israel, right?
Because Democrats are the only ones who will get us out of this mess, and they are failing epically.
Republicans are snakes, so why would we expect them not to slither? Im just demanding Dems act like snake wranglers for once.
And when Biden goes around congress to fund the genocide, what then? We all know republicans are borderline fascists- there’s honestly no point in calling a spade a spade since republicans will never listen to reason anyway (and many of them are in a death cult). But democrats claim to be better than republicans, so obviously when they do shitty things, they get held to higher standards. When Ronald fucking Reagan is tougher on Israel than Biden, there’s an issue here. Hell, even Obama vetoed UN resolutions more than republicans. Reagan, in contrast, allowed 21 UN resolutions against Israel to pass. It should be clear as day that comparing Biden to Reagan screams “get higher standards”, but it seems like a huge swath of democratic voters are either too comfortable in their life to care about blood being on their hands (mixed with post 9/11 anti-arab racism) or they feel like they have a gun to their head in the form of another trump presidency.
You can’t reason with republicans about this because they literally need the genocide to happen to bring about the end times (and also a mix of white-supremacy/christofascist fueled anti-arab racism). It’s Biden who isn’t distancing himself enough from what we collectively thought was a bar only republicans and literal fascists would fall to.
Must be why Republicans are forwarding legislation that would force Biden to continue sending arms to Israel, and Biden has said he would veto such a thing.
He can say whatever he wants, but just today he’s sent $1 Billion more in funding for tanks and mortars for Israel. Actions speak louder than words.
My ilk? I’m actually a little curious what you think my ilk is.
I expect the republicans to be fascist pieces of shit. I’d see them swept out on their asses tomorrow if given the choice. I have higher expectations for the democrats, which is why I give them shit.
And now you’re spouting off like the Trumpers who scream that they are being silenced.
But I’m not claiming to be silenced. I’m lampooning how the US has been to live in basically for all of living memory. We talk a lot of shit about freedom, but we’re pretty embarrassing when it comes to walking the walk. We’ll shrug helplessly as private equity owned hospital put everyone in two trillion dollars of debt, but God forbid some people protest police overreach, or we’re going to police overreach the shit out of them.
I’m sorry there’s no one here by that name.
I’ve been watching self righteous self proclaimed radicals since I was in middle school. I’ll happily trade a million Abbie Hoffmans for one Thurgood Marshall.
I’ll happily trade a million Abbie Hoffmans for one Thurgood Marshall.
Who tf is this reference intended for?
Whoever needs it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall
You’re welcome
Hope it’s cozy in the retirement home
That’s hilarious. You’re looking at the situation ion Gaza and daring to compare what’s going on in the USA with that?
I have no idea what you’re accusing me of doing, so I’m gonna say: No, I’m not.
We should do something about that. Biden has to win to do something about that. Vote for the most progressive candidates that can win.
He should do something about that.
He won’t unless we demand it. Come on, we know that. He’s not the hero in this story. He won’t lead us to a better future. But if he loses, there will be no future.
If he loses, which it seems like he’s desperately trying to do, we will continue fighting.
Palestinian supporters make up a tiny, insignificant portion of single issue voters.
Anyone who operates such that they’re X until the issue of Israel comes up is a single issue partisan too, they’re just better at hiding it.
Something like 3% of democratic voters. Which would be a margin they could afford to lose if not for the electoral college.
Can I get the citation for this number? Thanks 😊
I had heard it from this video, but she doesn’t cite her source. Gallup says war in the middle east is cited as the most important issue by 2% of voters.
ok boo a citation with no citation i don’t believe 🍅🍅🍅 thanks for your response tho
and i would guess that single issue voters for Palestine are a non-total subset of that two percent. so. yeah. without further evidence your comment didn’t really counter the top comment.
True great leaders such as Putin do not do the genocides. This is why voting is not good. As we know, Biden does the genocides and we will not be voting because of this. Also I am interfluid attendant of college who is working for community of color.
Looks like there is a crystal clear direction Biden can take and win over a substantial amount of voters. I’m not sure blaming people protesting genocide for Biden’s drop in approval ratings, rather than Biden himself for tanking them, will encourage anyone to vote for Biden.
