- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Perhaps I’m not up to speed, but she was one of the first reps to call Israel’s actions a genocide. What gives?
It’s more bad-faith horseshit to get leftists to destroy one another, which a lot of leftists love to lap up because their critical thinking isn’t real strong and they love nothing more than being “holier than” some kind of previously respected icon.
MTG’s amendment left intact the funding for offensive weapons, but cut the funding for defensive weapons for Israel. So there is literally no way AOC could win. Leaving aside the fact that it was a kooky MTG amendment that was never going to pass in the first place… If she voted for the amendment, then everyone who is currently screaming that she’s a fake leftist who supports genocide could say “See? SHE VOTED FOR KEEPING ISRAEL’S FUNDING INTACT, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!” Since she voted against it, they are currently screaming “See? SHE VOTED AGAINST DEFUNDING ISRAEL, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!”
It’s just more can’t-win, let’s-eat-the-leftest-person-because-we’re-super-leftist-I-promise horseshit.
Here’s AOC voting against funding for Israel, in an actual bill that was actually a non-Hobson’s-choice opportunity to vote against aid for Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/biden-meets-with-aoc-in-wake-of-her-vote-against-military-aid-for-israel/
And her voting against the actual funding bill providing aid to Israel: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025212
I’ve also seen people say Bernie is a Zionist, because he says “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide.” Both Bernie and AOC’s vocal opposition to genocide doesn’t matter to these people. Actually, it’s that genuine leftism that they represent that makes them dangerous, and worthwhile to engineer cooked-up horseshit to use to get other people to turn on them, so the Marco Rubios of the world can take over un-contested.
"I’ve also seen people say Bernie is a Zionist, because he says “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide.”
Liberals when they’re both on the same page but use slightly different rhetoric 😡😡😡
"We’re the People’s Front of Judea! "
Spot on. It would have played out the same way no matter what she did.
Yeah. There’s always something to capitalize on.
There are some fucking emergencies going on, among them the literal starvation of everyone in Gaza. Go up to the US Capitol building or your local Brooks Brothers, or fucking wherever, and spray-paint “PEOPLE IN GAZA ARE DYING TONIGHT”? Fuckin’ spot on, man, please do. Go and shit on the lefty-est person you can find because you found a tiny chink in her behavior that you can exploit and start bullying her over for the next year and a half? Honestly, man, it really irritates me.
I think the reason they like to do it is because she’s vulnerable. If they were protesting the people actually killing Palestinians, or the people taking over our country and cancelling democracy, they might punch back real hard. That’s scary, so let’s go throw some paint on someone who is in a precarious enough position that she’ll have to just take it.
Honestly, fuck 'em. Like I say it irritates me.
She’s the chosen lightning rod and MTG is the chosen lightning. Everyone ignores her voting record and stares into the flash.
Because it’s that easy. Textbook. But it shows that progressives are a threat. And we’ll see more of this. Especially at midterms.
Yeah. I guess that’s a good way to look at it, is they’re spending so much energy on it because the progressive momentum is steadily building. I just wish their energy would quit translating into success.
Meanwhile Republicans figured out decades ago that alienating your own party (even the “radicals”) doesn’t get you elected, and simply protesting the chosen candidate by just not voting doesn’t actually help you achieve your goals. It’s a hard pill for establishment Democrats and leftists to swallow, but it’s truth.
Republicans weren’t doing Nazi salutes on stage at presidential inaugurations until recently, but they have been pandering to the far right for a very long time. They’ve gradually moved further and further right, while the left has been ignoring their own base in order to welcome aboard the fiscal conservatives (and their donations) slowly jumping ship.
Paul Weyrich created the new right movement. He voted Republican for his entire life, but he also seemed to really hate the establishment Republican party. He was quite vocal about it, and as every election year approached, he would start shit talking Republicans for not focusing enough on conservative social issues.
Before Weyrich and the creation of a moral majority, “fiscal conservatives/Rockefeller Republicans,” who didn’t really care about social issues were the backbone of the Republican party. Abortion was mainly just an issue conservative Catholics and nobody else cared about. Once Weyrich created his movement though, he used public pressure to change the party little by little. It took his whole life, and he didn’t actually live to see the absolute batshit fruits of his labor, but without Paul Weyrich, there would be no Donald Trump and no Project 2025.
There would also be way fewer rich conservatives who have pressured the democratic party to embrace a move towards moderate centrism.
1983:Righting Reagan’s Revolution
The 1980 presidential election rewarded incompetence, and that incompetence moved right into the White House. If you have to find out who makes the decisions over there, you will go insane. I challenge you to go to the White House and find out. You’ll be in St. Elizabeths in short order, and I’ll come visit you."
He thinks Reagan has ignored issues most important to Weyrich: school prayer, an end to abortion, pornography, government “hand-outs”–issues that appeal to what he calls “cultural” conservatives, grass-rooters most concerned about family, God and country. That concern includes free enterprise, a balanced budget and a pre-eminent weapons system for America
1998: Religious Right, Frustrated, Trying New Tactic on G.O.P.
Early in March, Paul Weyrich, the godfather of social conservatives, summoned about 25 prominent leaders from the religious and political right for a secret meeting in his office here overlooking the rail yards behind Union Station.
They fumed that they had been used and abused, like some cheap date. In one election after another, they said, conservative foot soldiers had dutifully worked the phone banks, walked the precincts and turned out masses of voters for Republican candidates who had promised action on issues like abortion, pornography and homosexuality. And the Republicans, they complained, had consistently failed to deliver.
2000: Hard Right Burning for Bush?
Perhaps it was because he was recovering from painful back surgery, but a few weeks before the Republican convention, Paul Weyrich, a founder of the religious right, was awful grumpy about George
He did this kind of shit nonstop until he eventually shaped the right into what it is today. If you didn’t know who he was, and you just heard the way he described his frustration towards the Republican party when he first got involved in politics back in the 70s, you might just as easily think you were listening to a leftist complain about Democrat centrists in 2025.
Weyrich hailed as conservative pioneer
“In the early ‘70s, when most conservatives were reduced to wringing their hands and resigning themselves to life in the political wilderness, Paul just seemed to know what was needed to break the liberal stranglehold,” recalled Feulner.
Paul Weyrich: Father of a New Right
Weyrich waved aloft a monograph from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-of-center think tank. The study carefully examined both sides of a controversial issue—the federal funding of a supersonic transport plane (the SST). The Senate had just voted 51-46 to halt government support of the SST, which some conservative hawks favored to maintain U.S. technological superiority over the Soviets. The AEI report arrived in Allott’s office after the Senate debate.
A puzzled Weyrich contacted William Baroody, Sr., AEI president and a member of his church. “Great study,” he said. “But why didn’t we get it sooner so we could use it in the debate?” Baroody explained: “We didn’t want to try to affect the outcome of the vote.” Unspoken was the admission that AEI didn’t want to be too “political” and jeopardize its tax-exempt status. For one of the few times in his life, Weyrich was speechless.
So there is literally no way AOC could win
You know some people voted against it, right?
AOC’s vocal opposition to genocide
Actions speak louder than words. She’s supposed to be the vanguard of the “new democrats” that are supposedly going to save the party.
Why did a little handful of different accounts all suddenly interject to this same comments section to leave short one-off comments about how AOC is definitely the worst for doing this, all within a few minutes of each other, on this mostly-dead comments section roughly one hour ago? That’s weird.
Bernie is a Zionist because he supports the continued existence of Israel and a two state solution. That’s unacceptable to many pro Palestinian activists who want the destruction of Israel.
“Everyone who doesn’t want the destruction of Israel = Zionist”
Well, by that definition, sure, he’s a Zionist. On the other hand, if you say that a Zionist is a ham sandwich, he’s not a Zionist. The point is: Words are fun, we can redefine them to make all kinds of great arguments.
Supporting the continued existence of Israel is the essence of Zionism.
Look at the goalposts go lol
“He’s not a REAL supporter of Palestine”
“Why does it not count, all these things he did to materially support Palestine, from inside the US government where it can actually make a real material difference in a way that almost no one else on earth is able to do when they care about Palestine?”
“Because he doesn’t want to see Israel destroyed. That means it doesn’t count.”
Fuck outta here
AOC supports what’s going on in Gaza? lol. Wut.
She literally just voted against throwing more money at the Iron Dome.
The other way round, she voted against blocking military aid for the iron dome
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-861796
https://www.newarab.com/news/aoc-defends-decision-back-fresh-us-military-aid-israel
Didn’t she literally vote against the MTG amendment that stripped all funding from Israel?
See, that’s how the propaganda works. She voted against the MTG amendment that stripped a tiny tiny fraction of the funding from Israel. Which was always going to fail, pretty much unanimously, because MTG. And then, when the whole bill (with whole funding for Israel) came to the floor, she voted against it. And also, separate bills which are just for funding Israel in the past
But it’s been consistently presented to you with wording that makes it sound like she had a chance to strip all funding from Israel, and she decided not to. Search “horseshit” in this comments section, it’s a little complicated, but basically, no she literally didn’t vote against what you described.
So she should have voted symbolically for it like the five Democrats who did?
I don’t care how much money it takes away from Israel they deserves no money while it’s committing a genocide.
I’ll just copy and paste.
For the uninitiated: MTG’s amendment left intact the funding for offensive weapons, but cut the funding for defensive weapons for Israel. So there is literally no way AOC could win. Leaving aside the fact that it was a kooky MTG amendment that was never going to pass in the first place… If she voted for the amendment, then everyone who is currently screaming that she’s a fake leftist who supports genocide could say “See? SHE VOTED FOR KEEPING ISRAEL’S FUNDING INTACT, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!” Since she voted against it, they are currently screaming “See? SHE VOTED AGAINST DEFUNDING ISRAEL, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!”
It’s just more can’t-win, let’s-eat-the-leftest-person-because-we’re-super-leftist-I-promise horseshit.
Edit: Here’s AOC voting against funding for Israel, in bills that were actually non-Hobson’s-choice opportunities to vote against aid for Israel:
And her voting against the actual funding bill providing aid to Israel (both offensive and defensive): https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025212
I was going to link to those from my comment above, but I guess my brain malfunctioned before I got to it. I’ve said the exact same thing on this topic a sufficient number of times that it’s like I’m getting that World War 1 disorder where you can’t pull a trigger anymore because the weight of doing it over and over is insupportible.
I don’t care what’s politically expedient. I don’t care what’s politically acceptable.
I care about my Representatives standing up for what’s morally acceptable.
Continuing to give any sort of funds to a state committing genocide is tangential support of that genocide.
I do not care that AOC has also voted down other Israel funding bills when she has been consistent on funding the Iron Dome.
I do not care about her preconceived notions about how this would leave “Israelis defenseless”. Israel is entirely surrounded by US military bases on all sides and is capable of manufacturing the Iron Dome missiles.
Israel would simply need to use the $9 million already allocated to them ( for their genocide) instead of the $500 million of United States taxpayer money so that they can continue to be the most belligerent Empire in the Middle East.
Edit:
As you pointed out this vote was never going to win and so was symbolic. This would have been an easy win with her constituents with how unpopular Israel currently is instead she is currently doubling down and accusing people of being fake leftists for criticizing her position.
Unfortunately she seems to have lost the plot
I do not care that AOC has also voted down other Israel funding bills when she has been consistent on funding the Iron Dome.
I feel like you’ve been infected at this point, and can’t really grasp what I’m trying to explain here.
She has not been consistent on funding the Iron Dome. She has been consistent, as far as I know, about trying to defund US aid for Israel in any way she can. This whole thing is a weird and stupid blowing-up of one isolated vote of a stupid amendment proposed by the worst person in congress that was never going to pass, and then a pretty dumb way she chose to explain it.
When has she ever voted, previous to this, to give funding for the Iron Dome? Or did you just make up this “consistency” randomly on the spot because it fit in with the ginned-up stuff you’d already seen about this one particular weird blown-up situation?
Look you would have a point if it weren’t for the fact that they were five other Democrats that supported mtg and all of them are pro Palestinian.
Voting for stripping any money away is unequivocally a win when the country is responsible for a genocide.
It’s not infectious. I just really really really want my tax dollars to stop funding a genocide.
As far as her voting consistently on the Iron Dome funding I’ll go look into her voting record and report back because this is something I heard consistently. It’s one of the places where her and Bernie Sanders seem to be weak.
Just so you know I am the one @dastanktal@lemmy.ml was having that elections debate on. Unfortunately they are just very privileged and can afford to just wait until a perfect candidate shows up. I don’t think they are wrong when they see something gross in the DNC and not want to be a part of it, but [class] war is by its nature very dirty. I have to say I am lucky to be white and not hunted down by ICE. I am lucky to not be cold and hungry because the IDF is placing my city under siege. Still I would vote for AOC because slowing down the funding for those things does help the most vulnerable. Ideally we are all on the same page: to just end this. Until we actually build a movement that materially produces policy and cultural change at every level of society we have to do settle for living to fight another day. I am afraid that Tanktal just isn’t serious about the material conditions of those affected by neglecting elections.
She literally voted to keep sending weapons to Israel. I dont think NYers should vote her out but FFS what’s going on when Margaret Taylor Green is the sympathetic rogue in Congress and AOC is the faithful party follower?
Here’s her vote against the appropriations bill in full, including both the offensive and defensive weapons systems funding: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025212
Search the comments for “Hobson’s choice” for a more complete explanation
TBF, they were missiles for the Iron Dome defense system. They technically could be used offensively but I don’t think Israel is setup for that and it would be a very inefficient use of the tech.
Oh yeah, the Iron Dome “defense” system.
The US taxpayer-funded missile system Israel uses to justify whatever offensive mission they want because they’ll never face retaliation. Regardless of your beliefs, the US has zero obligation to fund Bibi’s “defense,” arguably less so than their offense, and maybe a thinner security blanket would help them behave themselves.
They could reduce the money they spent on offensive weapons and operations to buy the iron dome missiles.
This argument only makes sense if Israel could not otherwise afford to defend itself.
MTG isn’t a sympathetic rogue, she’s a isolationist nationalist at her core. That is, any money leaving the country = bad. Just happens to align with palestinian interests on this specific topic.
She basically just does whatever Russia tells her to, and if there are no orders, she wanders around like the village drunk causing trouble. I don’t really know why she got involved in this particular thing, and maybe this sounds like raving paranoia, but I actually think her being set up to introduce an amendment which could be used to criticize leftist politicians for being “pro-genocide” no matter which way they voted on it is a moderately likely possibility. I mean, look at what’s happening, anyone who wants to do that with it is able to do a pretty effective job with it.
My personal opinion she should have voted against funding the genocidal regime of Israel and this is the consequence 🤷
They’re committing a genocide. No amount of wishy-washy Behavior about whether or not is real people deserve a right to defense matters anymore when they’ve systematically slaughtered 200,000 Palestinians and these defensive systems are enabling that Slaughter.
Israel would be much less bold if they didn’t have their missile system to protect them from any retaliatory strikes like the strike on Iran.
“If you’re saying I voted for military funding, you are lying,” she wrote. “Drag me for my positions all you want, but lying about them doesn’t make you part of the ‘left.’ If you believe neo-Nazis are welcome and operating in good faith, you can have them.”
She did though, right?
Like, the most devils advocate I can be for her vote is that she’s arguing that we shouldn’t take away their shield, we should take away their spear.
To which… I still don’t see the logic. Because if you can block with one hand you’re free to stab with the other. If all you have is stabby implements, you got no way to deal with when they stab back.
They’d be forced to be less aggressive, which they seem intent to be.
The best explanation I heard was that any funding at all, even if it’s for a “defensive” weapon, is still funding that makes doing their genocide easier.
Another good take I heard is something along the lines of “they have healthcare and we don’t, they can fund their fucking iron dome themselves”.
They’re not entitled to billions of dollars of our money every year. Especially when they continually treat Palestinians the way they do.
I agree entirely. I’m not against foreign aid as a concept at all, but I feel like it should be extremely conditional and the shit Israel is pulling in Palestine very much justifies pulling any and all aid we’re providing them. Children shouldn’t be dying, full stop.
I’m tired of giving them fucking ANYTHING. They routinely brutalize a people they keep stateless. It would be bad enough not putting diplomatic pressure on them to try to stop let alone give them billions of our tax dollars every year.
She also throws Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Al Green under the bus to make this stupid rant.
I see a potential backdrop for a photo shoot.
According to the UK, splashing something with paint to express a political opinion means that you are a terrorist.
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