Like many others I am at a loss to explain much less affect certain current events. I feel confused, like I did last week, but now a week later, a week darker. I think many others feel similarly. Perhaps to acknowledge some confusion can help overcome some confusion.
Let’s start with the Mideast, then address the U.S. election. Potential cataclysmic war on top of actual cataclysmic massacre. Some will say, there is nothing confusing in that. After all, Israel has attacked Gaza’s hospitals, schools, and homes. They’ve ordered people to go to indicated places for safety and then bombed those places. They’ve laid waste to the region. And now they have extended their violence to the West Bank, Lebanon, and beyond. They play one vicious tune but seek a bigger venue.
Why? Perhaps you will say, it is to get rid of what they call a problem. They want Palestinians gone or dead. They are doing it. It’s ethically disgusting, but why is it confusing?
Well, what’s the Israeli motive to widen to Lebanon, Iran, and who knows where else? Why provoke Iran to attack? What does Israel gain from that? And what about U.S. motives? You might reply, for the United States Israel is a client. Israel is an agent. Israel is an abettor of US agendas and the strongest military force in the area.
Well, yes, I understand that U.S. imperialism has had much to gain from its relationship with Israel. But even to the point of a wider war? Even when Biden could pull the plug with one phone call?
More, to my eyes it is plausible that part of Israel’s motivation is to get the United States to behave in ways that hurt Harris and help Trump. Okay, that isn’t itself confusing. Birds of a right-wing feather like to flock together. But why does Biden abide it? Why does Biden continue with policies that risk the election? What are the Democrats’ full “reasons of state”?
And then there’s public support and public passivity about genocide in both Israel and the U.S. Despite media obfuscation it seems like the carnage is unavoidably obvious. The Israeli population can’t possibly not know what’s going on, yet they issue calls to kill even more. How do we understand the mentality that led to that.
On the other hand, at least the Israelis have some kind of pitiful excuse that they’re morbidly afraid that if they aren’t super violent they will disappear. When we get to the American public support for Israel starving people while bombing the hell out of them, I again wonder why. And when people tell me, it’s because Jews feel an identity with Israel or because Jews feel under assault on all sides so they feel they have to strike hardest, well, I’m Jewish and I don’t feel an identity with Israel. I don’t feel like we are on all sides under assault. But more, it is not just Jews who enact, support, or are silent about the on-going genocidal actions the U.S. is funding, arming, guiding, alibiing, and even cheer-leading.
In the United States is there anti-Semitism? Yes, of course. But to consistently self-consciously hate anti-semitism doesn’t one have to acknowledge that Israel is the world’s most effective organizer of people into anti-Semitic attitudes? And does the population of Israel feel afraid? I don’t know. I guess they do. I guess it doesn’t matter to their feeling afraid that for a year now they’re the ones who have been unleashing holy hell on others and not vice versa. Their streets are clear. Their homes are standing. Gaza’s streets are gone. Gaza’s homes are rubble. Israel’s big club is the U.S. and yet for all their supposed fear, they seem more than ready to risk that connection. That’s also confusing.
Next, there is the US election and the actions of Trump, Harris, and the people relating to each. Election coverage is everywhere. So what could I possibly be confused about?
Steve Shalom and I did a question and answer article. It is about 6,000 words. It went on ZNet and New Politics nearly a week ago and in it Shalom and I put forward a variety of questions and answers about the election. Lots of people we care about, people we respect, people we know are intelligent and capable, don’t agree with its logic . Why?
Its lesser evil argument fails if the gap between a lesser evil and a greater evil is not very large or if voting for a lesser evil has an adverse effect that’s so bad that it outweighs the danger of a greater evil winning, or if there is something even better to do to ward off the worst evil or to attain some greater good than to vote lessor evil. But I don’t understand how people can hold such beliefs for an election between a rambling thug beholden not only to power and wealth but also to a seriously fascist movement, and a typical Democrat who supports current institutions but will respond to pressures to bend toward some modest meaningful changes.
I understand not wanting to vote for much less to urge others to vote for Harris even just in swing states where every vote really does count. Indeed, while people have told me that it’s mainly young people who hate Trump but reject voting for Harris, I think that is misleading. Not only young people but many middle-aged people and many old people like me have a very hard time voting for Harris because Mideast genocide and also the whole system we live in is so utterly despicable. But elections aren’t contests where if your options are less than all that you want you should go home. Elections have consequences for society that depend on who wins. While I understand why people of good will might despise Harris, I am confused how anyone who hates Trump can’t see that despite how bad Harris is, her differences from Trump matter.
Other things about this election also confuse me. For example, after the vice presidential debate, all sorts of pundits pronounced who won. I thought Walz started off quite abysmal and while he got better, he never got near to the ease and effectivity he has shown when giving speeches. Vance, on the other hand, started off and continued strong. Vance overachieved whereas Walz underachieved. I thought if we ignored the lying—and the pundits who evaluated the debate did ignore lying—and we considered Vance and Walz just as debaters judging only their appearance, then Vance clearly won. Nonetheless every liberal commentator thought Walz won in a walk. It turns out all kinds of people see what they want to see and not what’s in front of them. Truth on sabbatical is familiar. We expect it. But it isn’t trivial to explain.
Also, everybody seems to agree that in part Harris seeks independent and undecided voters. Okay, I get that. And she seeks even to encroach on Republican voters, including having campaign workers go door to door in deep Red regions. I get that too. I even think it makes exemplary good sense not just for the election, but for the election’s aftermath. But to do those things, Harris moderates her stances. That confuses me.
Harris, with a month to go, tones down even limited progressive elements of her program. Everyone I encounter seems to think that’s perfectly rational, but I don’t get it. Is Harris worried that if she moves toward more progressive stances, the media will spin her in a way that will cost her votes? Does Harris think the rest of the Democratic Party will subvert her, even at this late time, even to Trump and Republican advantage? Does Harris think her voters will hear such a leftward pivot and turn to Trump? Or is it just prosecutorial or party habit?
Most polls show more support for progressive issues than for Harris the candidate. So why wouldn’t moving left on a lot of issues, if done clearly and effectively, help Harris? Didn’t a young Sanders appeal better in the swing states? Does old Sanders appeal better even now? For Harris to pivot rightward with a month to go confuses me.
And then there’s the idea held by lots of serious leftists that voting for Stein or West has enough positive benefits to outweigh the negative consequences of taking votes from Harris and potentially causing a Trump win. How can that idea persist?
It is not just confusing but staggering to me that smart, caring people would think that generating some swing state third party votes at risk of Tump re-entering the White House is wise. Trump has learned from accomplishing less than he wanted when in office that he needs to bring on board only acolytes and indeed replace everyone who isn’t in his pocket with dictator-friendly supine admirers and he plans to do so. What has Stein learned from accomplishing…whatever she thinks she has accomplished by her prior campaigns?
What makes the Stein and West choice surpass confusion to become staggering for me is my thinking they could get more votes campaigning more in New York, California, and other safe states than they get by campaigning at all in swing states. More, they could do it not only without fear of aiding Trump but also without risk that they would hurt future third candidate prospects by alienating lots of people who will despise that a progressive, radical, or even revolutionary person would opt to aid Trump. I don’t understand why that reasoning doesn’t cause Stein and West to want to campaign more in safe states, where they would not risk helping Trump win and where they would also have every likelihood of picking up more votes per hour expended than they can in swing states. Do they not understand that simple observation? Why seek votes in swing states instead of telling their swing state supporters that they should hold their nose, vote Harris, and then return to their work on Green Party or other worthy agendas. Do they do so just to be provocative and to thereby get personal media attention? To my eyes, their choice subverts principle and reason. And that confuses me.
If people want to explain to me what I’m missing about the Mideast and about the election that will curtail my confusion, please do so. I would like to be edified. But in any event, why am I writing a somewhat vague, somewhat disturbing, somewhat confused essay like this? It is partly to mirror what I think is probably going on in many people’s minds. Do you feel one or another of these confusions? If so, you are not alone. Many like us are profoundly upset about the war in the Mideast, the mayhem and the human travail and suffering, and also the trajectory and the confusion of it, the difficulty of explaining it. Many are also upset about the election and the seeming fact that it’s still close. How is that possible? Many are upset at the tendency that people on both sides have to say, well, it’s possible because the other half of the population is totally screwed up, which assertion is of course more screwed up than either half of the population, because that reaction is disastrous if one wants to make the world any better.
Finally, I am sorry for the downers in this piece, but there is nothing inevitable about any of it. And it isn’t just confusion that characterizes these issues. It is also credulity, cowardice, hypocrisy, and denial. But beyond the personal, it is mainly the systems we are chained to. And they are mutable. And our chains can be broken.
Consider the biggest confusion of all. That we watch the world warn us of impending gargantuan calamity by showing us immediate large calamities, and then we resume our calm, quiet, desperation, or we lash out at whoever is handy and can’t hit back, even as we studiously avoid taking real action.
We confuse me. Do we confuse you, too? Confusions aside. Our solution is not tranquilizers or anti-depressants. It is not Netflix. It is not saying “have a nice day.” It is not even saying “hooray for our side.” It requires more. And we know it. Don’t we?
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