Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Taco Bell Tower]

THE FUCKING COWARD DELETED HIS POST 

[benji]

B-Dubs already pussied out and deleted it:

[Hap Shaughnessy]

B-Dubs already deleted.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/biden-administration-no-longer-supporting-an-immediate-ceasefire-in-lebanon.1005735/page-9#post-130015344

Honestly, fuck off with this. Seriously. I was going to go back and get rid of it, but nah. Fuck off. Eat the hell out of me. Fuck off.

Sure thing, Boss.

[benji]

Post that pissed him off:

Then you support Harris.

You don't get a line-item vote of a candidate's platform. You don't get to vote for the potential of securing trans care and abortion rights while saying no to the foreign policy and immigration bullshit. You are agreeing to all of it when you vote for a candidate. That is what a vote is- a transfer of political power from you to someone else to do whatever they say on their platform they want to do.

Ergo, you don't get to weasel your way out of the material and moral consequences that your power gives any given candidate. Y'all didn't allow Trump voters to distance themselves from the racism just because they said they only voted for the tax breaks. So stand on that principle then.

You support Harris. You disliking some of her positions doesn't matter, and frankly at this point no one should care whether or not you like a candidate that you say you're going to vote for because those crocodile tears are meaningless. You are going to give her the power to enact all of it come November. So be an adult and stand on that.

Honestly, no. Just no. This is kinda bullshit and I think you know that. Under this logic, anyone voting to protect their own lives or the lives of the people they care about or the lives of their people would be responsible for every single bad thing done by said politician. There's a HUGE difference between the Trump voters who literally run around being racist shitheels and bragging about it, people who have been tacitly endorsing the GOP's bigotry the whole way through, and people who have to hold their noses to vote for people in order to protect the people they love from literal death. Fuck that. Seriously, if Trump gets in office and the ACA goes away I'm dead. So if I vote to prevent that, to protect myself from literally dying or going into a debt that I can't ever really climb out of, then I'm endorsing everything Harris does? If I vote for Harris to protect my LGBTQ+ friends from the literal libsoftiktok people taking over the government and persecuting them then I'm endorsing genocide in Gaza?

Life has hard choices and we're forced to compromise our ideals sometimes. Do I wish it was easier? Yeah, I really really do. But this post really ain't it and while you're saying you're not saying "voting for someone means endorsing everything they do," there's really no other way to read it. The logic ends at holding people voting to protect their families, loved ones, and themselves accountable for a genocide that they have no real say in.

I tend to agree with you more often than not, and maybe you weren't elegant enough here to explain what you meant, but this, as it's written, ain't it.

I am not bullshitting Dubs. You know me. However, you were bullshitting when you earlier compared the Ukranian people to the Palestinians.

We can pretend like voting for only A, B, C of a Democrat's platform is not a wholesale endorsement of the entire platform while simultaneously saying all Trump voters inherently supported a racist platform even while they were insisting to our faces that they were economically anxious and wanted the tax breaks. Or we can maintain some level of actual political and moral consistency and examine our place within a system that constantly promotes imperialist outcomes.

And it's not even really an extremely strong moral condemnation I'm leveling at loyal Democrats, at least no more than what I leveled at myself for voting for Obama and Biden (especially Biden, because hoo-boy I haven't forgotten what he did to my people with the crime bill). I'm not even saying anything I haven't leveled on myself, and I would not necessarily be convinced by anyone in this thread that I was not complicit within this country's awful foreign policies when I cast my vote for these men. I also wouldn't want the assuagement or pity. My choices are mine and mine alone to deal with. Being an American means inherently being stuck as a cog in this death machine and, if you're somewhat empathetic, it's a constant struggle with trying to do your best to mitigate the damage you will wring as an unwilling participant in this system for the time you've got on this Earth.

If anyone votes for Harris to protect their loved ones, then that's the lever they're pulling. But they cannot then turn around to me and say that they care equally for anyone affected by Middle Eastern policy. Like, on the surface, they're admitting that their family and friends come first. And humans being humans are going to act in ways that protect those whom they consider to be part of their proverbial tribe or pack. This isn't really surprising or excessively condemnable, per se; I'm not Peter Singer levels of extreme.

Hell, I imagine if you rig the hypothetical situation enough, I could be convinced to vote for Harris if, like, I was absolutely convinced me and my family were going to be wiped out if I didn't, because I also have an instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, this instinct not being activated right now in this election could be used against me by you and others to say I truly think trans Americans and Americans with disabilities are worth sacrificing. Although, I once again remind you that these demographics have still not been afforded the full protection they deserve, and the lack of protections are also something most Americans don't have a say in because this country is not run off of political will by the people, but by corporate lobbying.

Regardless, the point is that I would also not be looking for sympathy or forgiveness from anyone in the Middle East for the decision. I would not be complaining about how "hard" it is because it "conflicts with my morals." I really don't believe this conflict is meaningful for people saying this but yet saying they're going to vote for Harris anyway, because it's not actually influencing your behavior. Indeed, there is nothing to materially lose for the mere act of voting for a Democrat in the overwhelming majority of social positions, especially since your vote is largely private.

All I am looking for is some level of moral consitency and a willingness for people to examine their complicitly in an effort to understand why people like me have taking the position that they have.

[Potato]

B-Dumbs vs Nep

https://www.resetera.com/threads/biden-administration-no-longer-supporting-an-immediate-ceasefire-in-lebanon.1005735/page-9#post-130015242

I am not bullshitting Dubs. You know me. However, you were bullshitting when you earlier compared the Ukranian people to the Palestinians.

Honestly, fuck off with this. Seriously. I was going to go back and get rid of it, but nah. Fuck off. Eat the hell out of me.

Like there's a HUGE fucking gap between wanting to protect people and pulling the lever reluctantly and the GOP pulling the lever so that billionaires can become multi-billionaires and you know that. You know that's different.

Going to be really real, if you're going to hold people accountable for that then they have every right to hold you accountable for staying home if Trump wins.

FIGHT!!! FIGHT!!!! FIGHT!!!!

He deleted the "fuck off with this" post, but Nep quoted him.

Will she delete the quote post?

[Taco Bell Tower]

B-Dumbs was seriously scared of losing his n-word privileges card to delete his post 

[benji]

Some non-Nepenthe/B-Dubs posts:

What is stopping Biden or Harris right now from stopping the genocide and being better than Trump? Why is Trump the baseline for minimum standard on this issue?

As of right now, Harris still has time to court the vote of people who currently cannot see themselves voting for her, if she wants those votes. By expressing to Harris that you can't vote for her at the current moment, you exert pressure. Harris still has the chance to court these votes, if she wants to. She has until November 5th to change their minds.

People are chiding others for not voting, but realize they can be convinced still, by the actual candidate. But we shouldn't be taking these voters for granted and assume they need to vote for harm reduction, just because Trump is worse. Again, there is time still, and if you voice that you will vote for the democrat before Election Day because Trump is worse, the democratic candidate will take your vote for free. What is preventing Biden/Harris from doing better right now?

People say it's realpolitik - they are trying to court more voters that are pro-Israel, that these voters outnumber the pro-Palestinian ones. The greater responsibility here of the democratic party should have been to call out Israel, stop funding genocide, and convince American voters why that's the right thing to do. Instead they have continued to fund Israel, and are appealing to voters who are more likely to be pro-Israel and thus justifying their wrong opinions on this issue.

I'm not voting anymore. This has been the case for some time because voting doesn't do anything and the choices that are provided are so objectionable that pulling the lever doesn't even give me a placebic rush.

Harris is running as a right wing candidate in 2024 in doing her latest media rounds. Running ads to make sure the American people know she is aligned with the Cheneys, Bushes, Bidens, CIA Directors, and Border Cops. There is no distance between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Israel. She was applauding strikes that leveled a block to kill Nasrallah as a kind of justice. I'm fucking sorry, but murdering 300 people to extra-judicially assassinate a person is not a justice I recognize in any way. It's a barbaric, racist justice that deems the lives of Lebanese people as lesser.

The wholesale slaughter that people have justified and made excuses and ran cover for is absolutely disgusting. No one should be surprised about Joe Biden's feelings regarding the Middle East. His entire career has been one of pure racial hatred towards brown people as he was paraded off as "good guy" Joe.

It is no surprise the Democrat who rallied the country to invade Iraq has used his administration to give Israel the push and greenlight to invade, massacre, and subjugate more non-white people.

[Ribosome]

THE FUCKING COWARD DELETED HIS POST 

Fucking disgrace.

[benji]

The rest of Professor Nepenthe's lecture:

You can do all of these things to protect yourself and your community, and you can also vote for the lesser of two evils -- without an endorsement of their unfavorable policies -- as a means of protection.

That is true, but again you cannot vote for someone and then talk out of the side of your neck that you're not endorsing them. We did not allow Trump voters to say "I'm not voting for the racism," so I'm not allowing anyone else any quarter for their chosen candidate. This principle must remain logically consistent. Ultimately, a vote is a wholesale endorsement. It is you saying "I am empowering you to do as much as you can within your term." Again, people need to be honest about this.

I don't really have a way to reconcile those things, other than to say that there is no such thing as a perfect candidate, and that perfect is the enemy of good in situations like this, and we can still vote for the candidate that's generally considered to be good in this instance.

I think it's irrelevant to appeal to this aphorism because people aren't looking for a perfect candidate inasmuch as they're looking for a candidate that aligns 100% with every single political opinion they have. People are looking for a candidate that won't support genocide. That should be a red line that peoeple can unite on but here I am at 12:30 at night on a video game forum fighting to get people to understand why that is a red line.

The fox has vowed to protect us from the wolf, who is the biggest threat to the farm. It's unfortunately possible that some of the chickens won't make it out alive if we accept the fox's help but we can't have a chicken coop, much less any chickens to put in it, if the wolf is allowed onto the farm since the wolf intends to eat us too.

We can accept the fox's help while keeping our eyes open to the reality that the fox is a carnivore that REALLY likes the taste of chicken.

Allowing the fox to eat the chickens is an admittance that the fox is not actually adequate protection from the wolf eating the chickens. Chickens are still getting eaten. It must also be noted that the fox is not actually going to let you build the coop either. After all, how will he get his free chickens? He'll delay things, say that systemic barriers prevented him from killing the wolf, say that another fox friend of his didn't want to vote with the plan, but ultimately assure you that he's definitely going to secure that wood any day now! "Change takes time.".... Huh, would you look at that. The fox and wolf are eating another chicken together. Weird.

Furthermore, the wolf does not intend to eat all of us, nor can he. People who blend into the wolf's pack or aren't easy targets for the wolf to pick off will be fine. We are not actually in this together on equal footing and never have been. It is the convenient veneer of "togetherness and unity" when it suits a person politically on one hand and the self-preservation aspects of the other hand that is part of the reason for why we're here. When Harris wins (I legitimately believe she will), and Era folks are thanking Black people for "saving the country" yet again, I will keep in mind their absence from threads concerning Black oppression, the lack of threads in general on the fights and genocides occuring on African continent, and outright hostility to the discussion of reparations that always happens.

Liberals want our votes but don't actually care to return the favor in terms of material change because it's really about the maintenance of US hegemonic power within their hands and not actually the freedom of Black people. I deserve better fucking allyship than that, and so do those in the Middle East if you claim to care about those lives.

The simple fact of the matter is that your vote DOES count. The simple fact of the latter is that your lack of vote DOES count, and that because of the fact that the Republicans manage to come together and vote as a unit to support right-wing policy, something that those of us on the left can't seem to do, a lack of vote, a write-in, or a third party vote does nothing but split the party and benefits the Republicans.

I don't need to explain that to you either.

I understand that my vote counts inasmuch as Harris would really like for me to give it to her. But I would really like for her to commit to changing the US' Middle Eastern foreign policy. She does that, I vote. It's that simple. She's my potential public servant. I'm not hers. I don't work for her, so I don't owe her shit. However, If she has made the calculus that she can lose my vote in Georgia and still be fine, then we just go our separate ways on the matter.

But once again, I implore you and others to recognize that Republican voters are not this amoprhous force that they're seemingly being characterized as. They are not a tsunami against the dam that is Democratic intervention. They are voters with responsibility just like anyone else. Every single vote Trump gets is the result of an asshole who used their power to try and put him in the White House. It's not the fault of people who didn't vote for Trump.

Sure. In a sane world, that would make sense. If the candidates were low-stakes and if the Republicans were also reasonable but not ideal, this would be a fair strategy.

But we are not in that sane world and the alternative is Donald Trump, a man who actively supports a fascist white supremacist uprising and has repeatedly gone on record proudly exclaiming that he'll make it so that people won't be voting anymore if he wins.

Is this you saying that the Democratic Party is essentially insane? Because this really is a quagmire of their own making.

What we need is massive-scale reform, and the only options to get reform are by voting in candidates who support it... or violence.

Again, this is a patently false dichotomy and is exemplary of the binary and flat thinking that people have towards true revolution (not reform). Mass organization by the masses in various sectors of society absolutely can affect systemic change and has all throughout human history. Violence may come, but acting like violence- both overt state and military violence, as well as slow systemic violence from capitalism utterly raping the planet- is not present within this current system that you are intent on upholding is false.

[Potato]

Now B-Dumbs finds out that Nep has the popular support and he has no more N-word pass.

Do it you coward. De-mod Nep and ban her.

[Taco Bell Tower]

Now B-Dumbs finds out that Nep has the popular support and he has no more N-word pass.

Do it you coward. De-mod Nep and ban her.

If he did that he's racist BUT then again Ree didn't care for his racist posts from GAF and forgave him.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

It's obviously time for B-Duds to step aside and let Nepenthe be the new general manager.

[remy]

i wonder if nep ban would cause splinter forum

[benji]

B-Dubs ordered all people of color to shut up and help achieve their own genocide. Then deleted the post. Sounds about white.

[benji]

Not only that he attacked one of the tiny number of trans staff members. Then they wonder why trans people are scared to death about posting anything on the forum.

[Taco Bell Tower]

NepNep can thank the Hunchback of Notre Dame who was dressed up as a plague doctor for traumatizing her to hate yt ppl

[benji]

Bans noodlesoup and then orders Nepenthe to "eat the hell out of me"? I think B-Dubs has made his side clear. Nepenthe needs to ban B-Dubs for justifying genocide and finally bring real progressive justice to the forum.

[Averon]

Is it possible B-Dumbs just outright quits as GM soon? Seems he despises everyone on ERA, even his supposed number 2

[remy]

I don't think anyone really likes bdubs. I only see him in anime/manga threads where he has the most dumbfuck normie takes ever (presented condescendingly as if he is the only person smart enough to analyse this comic book for 14 year old boys) and political threads where well see above.

nep has followers and haters... could probably strike out on her own and seize the means of production. get that ad revenue

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

if B-dubs wanted a Neo Liberal bubble he should have weeded out the extremists a long time ago. It's a little too late to rage bait and tell them to fuck off when he's been allowing it up to that point. He's the only one to blame for his current situation and I expect an On Break announcement to come soon.

Noodlesoup should be unbanned too because right now his ban seems very selective compared to a lot of anti-semitism and more being allowed on the forum right now. He was only banned for going against B-dubs narrative and if Nep wasn't an Admin she would've been given a ban as well.

[Potato]

I'll be monitoring the number of "guests" we have with great interest!

Current count - 73!

[benji]

Here's the Jeff Checks from earlier: https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-ot-4-dont-complain-do-something.962805/page-666#post-130008942

There's nothing wrong with this answer per se, but man…it really just feels like the bite has been taken out of this campaign at times doesn't it? Am I crazy for thinking that sometimes?

It's been that way since the DNC and has only been getting worse.

The enthusiasm that existed prior has largely faded away and been replaced with party in-fighting over some of the campaign's decisions.

Jesus fucking Christ.

It can't be any other fucking reason, huh?

This is a ridiculously aggressive response to a a calmly worded statement that's based in logic and historical precedence. That doesn't meant there can't be other reasons -- because they exist -- but you can't simply handwave the very real problem of misogyny that female politicians face.

None of this has happened.

Yes, it has.

Your not looking at anything.

Okay, you're not even trying to argue anything here. You're just getting angry at the most mildly negative takes on the state of the campaign and acting as if Lance and I are claiming she's screwed.

This is complete nonsense. You're in a bubble.

No, I'm not.

I still think she's going to win, to be very clear. But you're not being honest with yourself if you don't think she's lost some enthusiasm since the DNC. As has been discussed a number of times in this thread, she has made decisions that have pushed away progressives who were otherwise quite excited about her campaign beforehand.

[remy]

He also executed all the neolibs in the poliera massacre Lol

[benji]

It wasn't the first PoliEra purge either, there's been at least two others. Then there was the purge of the smarter SocialistEra for the "socialists" they have now.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

He also executed all the neolibs in the poliera massacre Lol

If not then they would have been banned throughout the year for neo liberal takes on the Israel Palestine conflict. His moderation is too extreme and he's now surprised by the takes being posted? The Nep twitter posts should have been the wakeup call he needed but he instead shot the messenger.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

If only brother Noodle would join. He'd at least not be banned for speaking his mind.

[benji]

The Nep twitter posts should have been the wakeup call he needed but he instead shot the messenger.

ENDORSING DOXING?????

What's next, asking her to answer all those posts seeking clarity on her "collective nation of Jewish people" post? The entire reason people started looking at the tweets in the first place?

[benji]

Hey, speaking of tweets, here's previously unposted tweets from a month ago where Nepenthe says that Democrats (and the former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus) are white supremacists for promoting Kamala Harris over Jill Stein:

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Should've called him massa because he's trying to act like one.

[benji]

"Sure thing, Boss."

/