• donuts@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    Feelings aside, Biden is objectively one of the most, if not the most, progressive President we’ve had in modern history.

    [Bernie] Sanders said that some of the early goals that the Biden administration and a Democratic Congress were able to accomplish in the first two years of Biden’s presidency were progressive victories, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

    “I think the American Rescue Plan that we passed early in his agenda, in the midst of the terrible pandemic, the economic collapse, was, in fact, one of the most significant pieces of legislation for the working class in this country, in the modern history of America,” Sanders said.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3865355-sanders-biden-a-more-progressive-president-than-he-was-as-senator/

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          No, I know who you’re responding to, but pointing out that Biden is marginally more left-leaning than the guy who repealed Glass-Steagall and the guy who created the assassination-robot squad doesn’t really undermine his point. FDR’s party gutted the New Deal, Biden being slightly more pro-union doesn’t really mean much to the overall trend.

          • donuts@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            For all of his progressive economic accomplishments, FDR also interned in the Japanese and allowed for the creation of one of the world’s worst toxic waste sites.

            The point being that I don’t expect inhuman levels of perfection for my political leaders, and I don’t think you should either. There was much more to FDR’s administration than the New Deal, and when it comes the historical comparison Biden may have fallen short on matching the New Deal (although objectively he passed the biggest infrastructure and progressive economics bill since the New Deal), he has an undeniably better track record than FDR in terms of human rights, civil rights and environmental protection. There’s really no comparison.

            (FWIW, it’s also worth noting that FDR had a significantly stronger Democratic backing in congress, with IIRC, a large supermajority in the Senate for multiple years. Historical political context is also important.)

            Like it or not, It’s just a point of fact that Biden is the most progressive president we’ve had in at least 50 years, if not a century, when looking at the entirety of his record so far.

            • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              he has an undeniably better track record than FDR in terms of human rights, civil rights and environmental protection. There’s really no comparison.

              Biden is currently supporting the Palestinian genocide as we speak.

              • donuts@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                The world’s first two-way genocide 🙄

                The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews

                Hamas Founding Charter, Article VII, 1988
                https://sunnah.com/muslim:2922

                • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  A) Glad you were eventually able to edit your post to more than a single emoji. B) You know that Palestinians aren’t Hamas, right? C) You understand that it’s not a, “two-way genocide,” if only side can actually commit genocide, right? Hamas may want to kill evey Jew, but they’ve only managed to kill 1,200 people in their initial attack and 210 soldiers since then. Meanwhile, Israel has killed a minimum of 25,000 people, and by there own estimates only 9,000 of them were militants. (Also, 9,000 is a number the IDF gave without any evidence, so it’s probably a gross overestimate.)

                  There’s a reason that, of the two groups, only the Israeli government is being accused of genocide in the ICJ, and it’s not because the international community likes Hamas. Genocide isn’t just a declaration in a charter, it is a specific series of actions against an ethnic group, and it sure seems like Israel is committing those actions.

                  • donuts@kbin.social
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                    10 months ago

                    A) Glad you were eventually able to edit your post to more than a single emoji

                    It’s only fair, I was just short on time.

                    B) You know that Palestinians aren’t Hamas, right?

                    Not all Palestinians are Hamas or even sympathetic to Hamas. Not all Israelis are IDF or supporters of Netenyahu.

                    Every single innocent person on either side of this war is a victim.

                    C) You understand that it’s not a, “two-way genocide,” if only side can actually commit genocide, right?

                    This is a stunningly bizarre point.

                    We’ve already established that the founding mission of Hamas was a jihad in the name eliminating Israeli Jews. To take it a step further, nations like Iran, who back Hamas, have openly called for “wiping Israel of the map” on multiple occasions. So not only is the intent real and well documented, but the actions of Hamas, including the war crimes of taking civilian hostages, are consistent with those original goals. Hamas leaders are still openly talking about a one state solution today, as are most of their supporters, even in the west.

                    But to your point, that intent doesn’t matter and only capability matters.

                    I find that quite ironic considering the thousands of missiles fired from Gaza into Israel by Hamas as part of their coordinated terror attack. The IDF estimates (grain of salt, best number I can find right now) there were 2000 Hamas missile attacks on October 7th alone. There have been continuous attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah since then.

                    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-rockets.html

                    The only thing stopping those missiles from hitting Israeli civilians was the American Iron Dome missile defense system. Had it not been for American support of Israel, it’s very possible that the combined forces of Hamas and Hezbollah, with the backing of Iran and Russia, could have very well been capable of waging an all out genocidal attack on Israel, as they have repeatedly stated is their shared intention.

                    In that regard, are Israel guilty of simply being able to defend themselves better than Hamas could defend Gaza? Would it have been better if Israel hadn’t had Iron Dome and been hit with some thousand missiles from multiple different Islamic militant groups on multiple fronts?

                    Of course not, which is also why the “accusation” of genocide against Israel has been rejected by every key member of the UN as baseless and without merit or evidence.

                    We don’t get to simply refine words until they mean what we want them to mean. Hamas and Netenyahu both wanted war, played off each other for political power, and have both openly called for a unacceptable single-state solution “from river to sea”. Which, as a worst and most cynical interpretation, can be seen as a call for genocide from both parties. Neither should have ever been given political power, and neither should be allowed to hold power in the future. But it does take two to tango, and Hamas’ intent and actions do matter here as well, especially when they are not helpless and have used plenty of potentially lethal force towards Israel. (And again, there is the war crime of taking civilian hostages.)

                    This is on them, not the United States, who have (thanks to Iron Dome) protected the lives of countless innocent Israelis and who have called for the IDF to show restraint and to work towards a two-state solution with an autonomous Palestine that Hamas are unfit to rule over.

                    Doesn’t matter if it’s Biden, Bernie or FDR’s ghost in the Oval Office, America will continue to support its most important ally in the middle east, especially as they take heavy fire from all directions by groups whose state intent has always been their annihilation.