Frankly, one of the prime things the DNC + their pet super-PACs and pundits refuse to understand that we do understand is, that "personality politics" led us to this grim situation we're in now.
They kept polishing hood ornaments, to the neglect of the engine. State and county parties were left to wither on the vine, while national super-PACs and consultancies waxed fat from money and power.
Worse yet, not only did the DNC create that situation; it intends to defend it to the last ditch.
Yep! It really started with Obama. He defunded a lot of the grassroots organizations that supported him, never mind the state seats they lost during his presidency. That requires people to make a leap of faith to vote Democrat, instead of the GOP who has been running their state/city for years.
I beg you to please listen to what Native American activist and poet John Trudell had to say about this on his AKA Graffiti Man album. For that matter, talk with any Native community here in the United States and Canada.
Yeah, think about it like the same sex marriage debate. Humanize Palestinians first. That’s how the left won that debate—humanizing LGBTQIA. Palestinians are so FREAKISHLY dehumanized in America. Who knows how it happened —75 years of US foreign policy, on top of 300+ years of colonialism, not just ‘the power of the Israeli lobby.’
Democrats knew gay people were equal but would go along with them being less. They would cater to the bigots. The thing that worked was showing that catering to the bigots was an attack on someone’s equal humanity.
I observe that it seems to depend a lot on the idea that if you humanize Palestinians you’re advocating something terrible —like killing Jewish people, hatred for Jewish people, some kind of reverse dehumanization. Plus, people face penalties for doing it, which is kind of a deterrent, plus some people think ‘wow, some people are so adamant and they’ve made such an architecture of sanctions…I don’t know anything about Palestinians but if you can be PUNISHED for it maybe it is wrong?’
There’s another strand that also is damaging in my opinion and that is the idea that you are some kind of foaming at the mouth irrational lefty if you care about the struggle of the Palestinians.
Hate to say it but a certain strand on the left is not good at convincing people (about this and a lot of stuff). Some leftists are especially hard to reach when it comes to trying to persuade, and trying to explain to them might even make things worse. Of COURSE it’s upsetting. It can drive a person mad with sorrow— but you’re not honoring dehumanized people more by being hateful to other people because they don’t understand a long complicated history or have background in foreign policy or know a bunch of stuff. There’s ego involved with this, maybe.
But they should also be able to see a breakthrough really started with success at humanizing Palestinians and that’s why there’s been such doubling down on trying to stigmatize them as terrorists and criminals lately.
Current activists have been amazing, and Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans have caused a true change. So I am not criticizing them.
I’m thinking more of old snarky British men or just some general people (often white dudes) who live to be ‘the leftist hero’ and so they pull the narrative towards themselves—and maybe they’re sincere but to have their spittle in my face when I was trying to learn about Israel/Palestine made it difficult so I backed away slowly like ‘OK….uh, I’ll focus on the Americas in my activism…lots of bad stuff happening THERE…’ I missed learning a lot, and I regret it and maybe it’s all my fault but maybe let’s not make it so hard to learn things from leftists.
If we could break though that dehumanizing ideology against Palestinians, there are not so many barriers to understand. And that is the key thing—just human equality. The right of people to live. Terrible things that happen to Palestinians is wrong. We all know about that. It’s not complicated. There’s no good argument to make against it.
The other side is also to flip the script and show that the people who WON’T let us humanize the Palestinians and who insist on their worthlessness as human beings, and who will not even let us have our free speech rights in America because they’re so mad we see Palestinians as human beings ARE extremists. This is where Jewish activists have been so amazing—making this very clear. (Of course, then they get called ‘not Jewish.’)
It should go without saying but the views of people who are OK with all the horrors heaped on Palestinians ARE extreme by definition because they contain an idea outside the most central liberal humanitarian universalist morality that a group to people would have to die and pay and suffer and are inherently a threat.
Censorship is also extreme. They are for these things.
Extremism is normal in America now. MAGA are very extreme. But people need to know that it’s not ‘two equal sides’ here. There is one side standing up for international humanitarian law and equality of all humans and there is another side that is attacking these things, and if you do stand up for that then there are all these things the US helped happen to the Palestinians that violated these very, very fundamental values in our universal rights tradition.
MAGA gives us a good reason to not give those up and to not give up our freedoms of speech and expression and association or the equality everyone is entitled to. Look at how they use the SAME ideas to make more extremism and attack colleges.
The Democrats do not officially stand for these things like targeting a group with stigma and then murdering, imprisoning and torturing them— and the base doesn’t like these things. They are not consistent with liberal humanitarian and democratic values or the basics of the Democratic party.
People just need to see that very clearly, and we could get to the tipping point pretty fast.
Great point about the humanization. We need to find more ways to get normal Palestinian people to share their stories. As you said, most people just see them as "angry Arab." Which is by design, of course.
I read the NYT's profile of Hasan, and they labelled him using the term "genocide" as extreme. Someone on BlueSky pointed out that's NOT an extreme term, as many people use it outside the US. Only in the US is that "extreme."
Frankly, one of the prime things the DNC + their pet super-PACs and pundits refuse to understand that we do understand is, that "personality politics" led us to this grim situation we're in now.
They kept polishing hood ornaments, to the neglect of the engine. State and county parties were left to wither on the vine, while national super-PACs and consultancies waxed fat from money and power.
Worse yet, not only did the DNC create that situation; it intends to defend it to the last ditch.
Yep! It really started with Obama. He defunded a lot of the grassroots organizations that supported him, never mind the state seats they lost during his presidency. That requires people to make a leap of faith to vote Democrat, instead of the GOP who has been running their state/city for years.
Really well written, like this one
Thanks for the compliment!
I beg you to please listen to what Native American activist and poet John Trudell had to say about this on his AKA Graffiti Man album. For that matter, talk with any Native community here in the United States and Canada.
I'll check it out, but I'm curious to hear it. What was the gist of his statement?
Yeah, think about it like the same sex marriage debate. Humanize Palestinians first. That’s how the left won that debate—humanizing LGBTQIA. Palestinians are so FREAKISHLY dehumanized in America. Who knows how it happened —75 years of US foreign policy, on top of 300+ years of colonialism, not just ‘the power of the Israeli lobby.’
Democrats knew gay people were equal but would go along with them being less. They would cater to the bigots. The thing that worked was showing that catering to the bigots was an attack on someone’s equal humanity.
I observe that it seems to depend a lot on the idea that if you humanize Palestinians you’re advocating something terrible —like killing Jewish people, hatred for Jewish people, some kind of reverse dehumanization. Plus, people face penalties for doing it, which is kind of a deterrent, plus some people think ‘wow, some people are so adamant and they’ve made such an architecture of sanctions…I don’t know anything about Palestinians but if you can be PUNISHED for it maybe it is wrong?’
There’s another strand that also is damaging in my opinion and that is the idea that you are some kind of foaming at the mouth irrational lefty if you care about the struggle of the Palestinians.
Hate to say it but a certain strand on the left is not good at convincing people (about this and a lot of stuff). Some leftists are especially hard to reach when it comes to trying to persuade, and trying to explain to them might even make things worse. Of COURSE it’s upsetting. It can drive a person mad with sorrow— but you’re not honoring dehumanized people more by being hateful to other people because they don’t understand a long complicated history or have background in foreign policy or know a bunch of stuff. There’s ego involved with this, maybe.
But they should also be able to see a breakthrough really started with success at humanizing Palestinians and that’s why there’s been such doubling down on trying to stigmatize them as terrorists and criminals lately.
Current activists have been amazing, and Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans have caused a true change. So I am not criticizing them.
I’m thinking more of old snarky British men or just some general people (often white dudes) who live to be ‘the leftist hero’ and so they pull the narrative towards themselves—and maybe they’re sincere but to have their spittle in my face when I was trying to learn about Israel/Palestine made it difficult so I backed away slowly like ‘OK….uh, I’ll focus on the Americas in my activism…lots of bad stuff happening THERE…’ I missed learning a lot, and I regret it and maybe it’s all my fault but maybe let’s not make it so hard to learn things from leftists.
If we could break though that dehumanizing ideology against Palestinians, there are not so many barriers to understand. And that is the key thing—just human equality. The right of people to live. Terrible things that happen to Palestinians is wrong. We all know about that. It’s not complicated. There’s no good argument to make against it.
The other side is also to flip the script and show that the people who WON’T let us humanize the Palestinians and who insist on their worthlessness as human beings, and who will not even let us have our free speech rights in America because they’re so mad we see Palestinians as human beings ARE extremists. This is where Jewish activists have been so amazing—making this very clear. (Of course, then they get called ‘not Jewish.’)
It should go without saying but the views of people who are OK with all the horrors heaped on Palestinians ARE extreme by definition because they contain an idea outside the most central liberal humanitarian universalist morality that a group to people would have to die and pay and suffer and are inherently a threat.
Censorship is also extreme. They are for these things.
Extremism is normal in America now. MAGA are very extreme. But people need to know that it’s not ‘two equal sides’ here. There is one side standing up for international humanitarian law and equality of all humans and there is another side that is attacking these things, and if you do stand up for that then there are all these things the US helped happen to the Palestinians that violated these very, very fundamental values in our universal rights tradition.
MAGA gives us a good reason to not give those up and to not give up our freedoms of speech and expression and association or the equality everyone is entitled to. Look at how they use the SAME ideas to make more extremism and attack colleges.
The Democrats do not officially stand for these things like targeting a group with stigma and then murdering, imprisoning and torturing them— and the base doesn’t like these things. They are not consistent with liberal humanitarian and democratic values or the basics of the Democratic party.
People just need to see that very clearly, and we could get to the tipping point pretty fast.
Great point about the humanization. We need to find more ways to get normal Palestinian people to share their stories. As you said, most people just see them as "angry Arab." Which is by design, of course.
I read the NYT's profile of Hasan, and they labelled him using the term "genocide" as extreme. Someone on BlueSky pointed out that's NOT an extreme term, as many people use it outside the US. Only in the US is that "extreme."
Yeah, that was gross. I’m so sick of these distortions of reality!