I didn’t want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I’m right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
An ongoing genocide or a genocide in hindset? And what kind? It would largely depend. Often when we give people money and they happen to use that money to pay for misdeeds, some people come back and accuse us of financing that misdeed. On the contrary, in any situation on Earth at any time, we have to be prepared for any given situation to have unconforming parts and pieces. In this situation, it’s not like the government gives us a contract that says “here, sign this to show you agree to what we’re going to use your taxpayer money for”. If they did, I wouldn’t sign, because my ethics as a relationship anarchist extend to politics, but they’re not playing by relationship anarchist rules, so I become something to squeeze money out of without explanation, and it becomes less understandable how any burden is at play, especially when people start pressuring us to conform and cheat the system so-to-speak. We can try our best though.
At any stage of this process are we being given a choice? There’s the main problem to me. I agree with you that, at some point, we just should try our best. I believe this should include reclaiming some power back to the people.
Leading question.
Edit: For an actual “answer”, some people are in fact taking it to the streets. For your favorite country you can search for it and if you don’t want to do that here’s an article for the US. While you may argue that we should’ve expected this, at the time of financing all we know is that there was a first strike and people were angry. Now it’s different, at least in my local circle.
Either way, this should not be a question for asklemmy. It should be in the politics community or something.
rhetorical “question”
I’m not sure if it constitutes genocide yet, but it’s fair to say it’s going that direction. For every dead group A, group B wants to kill 10 group A people, and vice-versa. There’s two ways that can stop; either they bury the hatchet or one group is entirely wiped out.
As for how I feel about my government, actually kind of hopeful. I was expecting SNAFU but it’s clear the Canadian government is actually having to consider the Palestinian perspective this time around.
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I’m not sure I think Israel is engaged in genocide - although I’m deeply unhappy with some of their military approaches.
Hamas, on the other hand, is unashamedly aiming at genocide. Their started aim is the death of all Jews and they are frequently heard chanting “from the river to the sea”.
I desire the end of America and indeed all capitalist states, ideally before they slide even further into fascism in the near future. Death to the Israeli state, and death to any states that support it.
I think many people in the U.S. do feel extremely shitty about it. People do care, people are upset, and many are protesting and talking and doing what they can to try to mitigate or heal or push back against the actions of their own governments in the ways that they can. I don’t know if you were around for the 2000s, but people protested then, too. It may not feel that way depending on what media you see or what people you know, but many people do strongly criticize their own government and feel awful about the way their tax dollars are used and the rhetoric that comes out of their leaders. I think most americans (offline anyway) do condemn war crimes, do feel icky about our own government’s involvement and motives, and are mourning the suffering on both sides of this conflict. If you’re seeing lots of disregard for human life around you, it might help to seek out some of the groups and voices and people who are feeling unsettled and are doing something. I know there are lots of donations happening and I’ve seen news about events mourning the dead and groups trying to help the people who are there. It might not be on every front page, but it is out there, if you look for it. The people loudly saying that death and suffering is justified for certain groups of people will try to make it seem like everybody feels that way. But in practice, that has never been true. Anyone with a heart hates this shit. So many people are trying to help. Don’t let propagandists convince you otherwise.
Americans are the biggest donors, but Britain, Germany, and to a lesser extent Australia and Canada, and a handful of non-German EU countries also give Israel a lot of money.
All the evidence so far tells me that nobody is serious about stopping the violence. The only way the violence will end in this region is if the entire region is turned into a sheet of glass.
My only interest in the region is ensuring that the violence continues, until such time as an option other than “glass them all” presents itself.
Why is that your interest in the region?
Because once we normalize ending violence with nuclear weapons, the whole fucking world burns.
Weird
My country burns money, resources and human lives to enforce its hegemony on the other side of the planet while I only have health insurance through my crappy job and the infrastructure is crumbling everywhere. How do you think I feel?
Not too hot, I guess. Thanks for taking the time.
No problemo
Many are just trying to make the best out of what we have and it often feels like we have such little impact on these things happening across the country, let along in other parts of the world. The world population approaches 8 billion. Our impact is often meaningful in some way, but incredibly limited overall.
How can someone truly help with something across the world, like Ukraine/Russia and now Israel/Gaza, when conflict is constant and many also have to simply survive, in the face of entities that are capable of spending trillions of dollars.
Not good. All I can do is vote. Until they take that away.
Do you feel represented by one of the political parties you may have in your country? Would they act in a general agreement with your own convictions?
I’m Libertarian and there are candidates that seem way more up my alley than the Big Two, but it never gets much traction.
Also while I think our foreign involvement should be minimal, I don’t think unceremoniously dropping those connections is wise. I think if the State Dept were following my orders, it could take about 50 years to get to the level of foreign interference I think we should be doing.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions. I don’t expect it to in my lifetime, but I am disappointed it isn’t even headed in a non-authoritarian direction.
I do not. Not one iota. That being said, I’m an American who’s been around the world twice and speaks multiple languages. I consider myself reasonably left, but in this country I am extreme left. Our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. The few who tend to be honest are either marginalized or silenced.
My vote counts for nothing. I will still vote in earnest.
Contact counts for way more than voting.
Contact your representative, they don’t know who voted for them, they do know about the people who care enough to call though.
This is why I started to support rank choice voting like they have in many countries in Europe. It’s not perfect but a nice step forward from what we have.
I’m assuming you meant ranked choice, but the mental image of your typo is quite entertaining.
Don’t they have tank choice in places like Russia, North Korea, Iran? Thanks for pointing that out and your welcome for the laugh.
I’ll take a T-38 please
Similar to all other wars, shitty but numb to human greed, at times.
Best when brought up organically, but steering toward it may also happen.
Teaching/learning and talking to as many people about it IRL, while also trying and failing on the interwebs.
I mean, if you’ve purchased chocolate in the last century, you’re supporting slavery by your logic. Same for many other commodities, but most people know about diamonds. You could be protesting your entire life, justifiably, about many things. Most people in the world cannot consume without inadvertently causing harm and suffering somewhere in the world. It’s nice that you’re now thinking about it though.
I believe you are taking my question out of context. I didn’t start thinking about this just now. Ultimately, not every company owns representatives in the state. Yes, I believe we should be careful about what we consume and who’s behind those products, but it needs to be in the power of the states to control the best practices to produce goods; it is not reasonable for an individual, for one citizen, to ask for this. It is different with our governments, we can and should demand for them to represent us with dignity. As individuals, we can demand accountability for their decisions taken in our names. Companies don’t represent us, governments do.
I don’t like it one bit.
The government sees it as a strategic need to have a strong ally in the region. That view will not change, at least not anytime soon. The Pentagon considers it a national security issue, which puts it beyond politics. Unfortunately, I have to live with that.
It’s also worth noting that people serving high positions in the military are in their offices far longer than our elected officials.
