this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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Yes, that is 100x more gentle than how the US deals with terrorism. Abu Garib was not giving people job training and setting them up with careers.
Bro, it's not a fuckin contest
I'm not in favor of Abu Ghraib, or Guantánamo, or the Uyghur detention camps, or the genocide in Gaza. From my point of view as a person who likes human rights, it's actually not really that complicated to say that I'm not in favor of any of those things. It wouldn't even occur to me to bring up one of them as a defense for any of the others, because I would have no reason to want to defend any of them.
This is exactly why I wanted to ask you that seemingly unrelated question. I was curious whether you were an overall pro-human-rights person who came organically to your viewpoint about not wanting to vote for the Democrats, or whether that "of course I hate that Palestine protestors in the US are being abused" -- a pretty sensible view, tbh -- came alongside some other views which were incongruous and surprising, and wouldn't commonly be encountered in a person who has strong feelings about human rights as they pertain to domestic US politics.
Sounds like I got my answer.
(Edit: Oh, not that this is the point, because (1) as I said it's not a contest (2) it is actually a little unfair to compare Hong Kong's mini-insurrection against peaceful US Palestine protests -- but Hong Kong protestors absolutely were shot in the head with nonlethal rounds, shot with live ammunition, given brain injuries and broken bones, sexually assaulted, and in some cases had their eyes shot out. Maybe they can get together with the BLM people who had eyes shot out and the lot of them could start working out how we can get these assholes out of power please.)
My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support; the only impact the US will have on those people is further immiseration, thus to criticize them as an American living in America is to carry water for imperialism.
It's why you see people get more worked up about Iranian oppression than Saudi oppression, despite Saudi Arabia being dependent on US military aid to oppress it's people. The context of you, and American, hearing about gay rights in Palestine is to support further oppression of the Palestinian people.
Also, I want to circle back to this for a second. Doesn't this mean that we maybe shouldn't take your advice on how as voters to approach the presidential election?
Or does your "enemies of the US get uncritical support" stance come in conjunction with a "the US election is very important to me and I have some criticisms of the Democrats but they're purely meant from a constructive helping-the-country-get-better point of view" viewpoint on electoral politics?
Yeah, there is a discrepancy, I should be voting for the candidate that would lead to the quickest and least violent destruction of the US, but I live here and I can't give up the admittedly absurd hope that despite all evidence, the US will just you know, stop it, without a revolution or anything.
There is a difference in what libs and I consider "helping-the-country-get-better" is; I feel helping the country get better at imperialism is a bad thing, they don't.
Conversely, I feel helping the country get better at improving material conditions for the working class at the expense of the capitalist class to be good, where libs do not.