I mean, if I get the gist of the requirements correctly, you just have live in PA and sign a petition that says you ‘support the first and second amendments’.

But in my mind, you can support those amendments and still support the government’s ability to regulate speech and guns - they’ve done so for hundreds of years - so it’s a bs petition and, yeah, you can probably just sign up.

That said, you may also have to go in-person to accept the check (feel free to fact check me on that), and I don’t really wanna get secondhand Trump stink on me.

Sure.

When I say “practical role”, I’m referring to how Stein affects the results of this election.

There is a nearly 0% chance that Jill Stein is going to win the election, and a nearly 100% chance the winner will be either the Dem or GOP nominee. Given that she’s left of Kamala, who’s left of Trump, there are far more Stein voters who would’ve otherwise voted for Kamala than Stein voters who otherwise would’ve voted for Trump. So long as one or both of these voter groups are significantly large (which can mean as few as ~81,000 votes in the right states, since that’s the margin of victory Biden had in 2020), Stein would serve as a significant spoiler for Harris.

Consider the effect that Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign had on the 2000 election.

No, she agreed to send bombs for children.

If you earnestly believe that Kamala Harris doesn’t give a damn about children in Gaza, then I can see how you’d make such a charged statement. I disagree, but pulling away from Israel is clearly very complicated and making strong claims to severing Israeli ties could cost her the election.

I don’t think either of us has anything more to say about the subject that would be constructive, so I’d like to leave this at that.

You’re missing 9/11, which fundamentally changed America.

That’s a fair point, 9/11 did fundamentally change America. But then, that feels like it makes your point about FDR even less relevant - do you really think America is back to how it was pre-9/11? Do you think kicking a couple extra points to Stein leads to comparable leftward pressure to the Great Depression, in a post-9/11 America? I say, reward the leftward gains the DNC has already made so they’re incentivized to keep pushing.

It’s simple, NATO is the most Imperialist offensive coalition on the planet. These countries hyper-exploit the Global South and defend themselves via NATO. Here is an article on it.

I appreciate you sourcing your argument, but this article touches on a ton of historical conflicts with very little context given to each of them. The premise is that NATO is a chief and unjustified aggressor in all of those conflicts, but I’d need to do further reading on them. This article is not a good starting point as it’s biased and doesn’t provide citations of externally collected data, e.g. on its claim that NATO is responsible for >10m deaths in 25 years (Is that just from every joint NATO operation, or from all of the fighting done by constituent countries? Who were the chief aggressors in the individual conflicts? What was the justification? There’s a lot of info to be broken down).

No, NATO is not “just a defensive alliance,” go on, have a read. It’s a millitary alliance of Imperialist countries.

NATO is still a defensive alliance. When NATO takes action outside its jurisdiction, such as in these operations, member countries choose to do so b/c they see that being in their best individual interests. If NATO were disbanded, formerly member countries could still choose to execute joint military operations. All they no longer NEED to do is retaliate against attacks on a former NATO country’s soil. I don’t see how removing that obligation is “the single greatest act for the majority of Mankind that any US President could do”.

Yes, Russia could have just not invaded, though given the shelling of ethnic-Russians within Ukraine by Kiev it’s impossible to say NATO wasn’t deliberately provoking it as well.

If you’re talking specifically about the alleged genocide in Donbas, then that’s an unsubstantiated claim by Russia. If you’re only suggesting that Russia had interest in involving itself in the war in Donbas, started by Russia-back separatists in the first place, that still doesn’t even excuse every other region of Ukraine hit by Russia at the start of the war.

Given the shelling of Donetsk and Luhansk, areas with majority ethnic Russians within Ukraine, Russia decided to take advantage of that and cripple Ukraine’s military. It isn’t “justified,” but that’s what happened, and the invasion never would have happend if NATO wasn’t deliberately encircling Russia. Russia even tried to join NATO, but was denied.

It’s not that it’s not “justified”, it’s simply not justified. No quotes. Putin has not made a single substantiated claim that would justify its assault on Ukraine.

Even if it were justified…why make intervention conditional on NATO operations? If something truly horrifying and unjustifiable were happening in Ukraine, but NATO agreed to stop expanding, then Russia would agree to ignore atrocities in Ukraine…why exactly?

She has promised to always support Israel and aid it in its defense. It’s cut and dry, she will posture for a ceasefire while supporting genocide.

Paying lip-service to the support of Israel’s defense is not equivalent to personally supporting genocide. You could argue that it’s practically the same thing if she ultimately continues to arm Israel and Israel continues to attack Gaza, but I don’t think the blame should be placed on her, it should be placed principally on Israel, next on a Congress that apportions funds for Israel.

During FDR’s campaign, coming off of the Great Depression, the Ruling Class feared a US October Revolution like what happened in the USSR, so the US became a Social Democracy for a time. Leftward movement comes from fear from the Ruling Class.

My original claim was that if progressives split the vote, and the GOP wins as a result, that’ll shift the party right.

This isn’t a counter-example to that, IMO it’s an example that the worse the economy is for the working class, the harder the working class swings politics left, which I would agree with. That said, the Great Depression was also a much worse economic period.

I think an example in favor of what I’m talking about is the 2000 election. Bush won Florida by less than 1000 votes, but 100k votes were cast for the socialist candidate, most of which would’ve otherwise gone to Gore. The result was Bush not only winning in 2000, but again in 04. And in 08 we get someone who appealed moderates as much as he did to progressives.

My point was not. My point was that pulling out of NATO is the single greatest act for the majority of Mankind that any US President could do. You’re shifting it back to Russia.

I’m not shifting the entire conversation back to Russia, just this portion of it, because that’s where this portion started, and your point about dissolving NATO being an anti-imperalist move contradicts my take that removing the check against Russia is a pro-imperialist move. Also I don’t see how disbanding NATO would be “the single great act for the majority of Mankind that any US President could do“, feel free to elaborate.

In other words, NATO expansionism and encirclement of Russia despite Russia warning against it caused it. NATO was formed by Anticommunists against the USSR, and retained its anti-Russia purpose even after the dissolution of the USSR. Had NATO not expanded against Russia’s wishes, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine.

Russia could have simply…not invaded Ukraine? NATO is just a defensive alliance, it getting bigger doesn’t put Russia in danger unless Russia has imperialistic tendencies.

You could argue that Russia feared that NATO getting bigger meant that the individual countries get bigger, meaning they may choose to attack Russia themselves with larger power. But Russia could use that as an excuse to shore up its own alliances and continue building its own military (both actions taken in case of Russian invasion), not to invade a non-NATO country for no other reason?

Copied from my other reply:

I’m sorry, but “saying that she’d continue to arm Israel”, which would literally be her job if Congress apportions funds for her to arm Israel, is not equivalent to “promising to give Israel bombs”. The keyword “promise”, to me, suggests she would do anything her power to aid Israel, even if she doesn’t have to. I’ll accept any constructive criticism of this take, but not a strawmanning that strips away the context that it’s literally the law to do what Congress says in this case.

> Lmao

I’m sorry, but “saying that she’d continue to arm Israel”, which would literally be her job if Congress apportions funds for her to arm Israel, is not equivalent to “promising to give Israel bombs”. The keyword “promise”, to me, suggests she would do anything her power to aid Israel, even if she doesn’t have to. I’ll accept any constructive criticism of this take, but not a strawmanning that strips away the context that it’s literally the law to do what Congress says in this case.

> Historically this isn’t the case. The DNC only throws the left a bone if they need to.

Do you have any sources for this?

> We aren’t talking about Russia and Ukraine, though NATO did provoke that. NATO itself is an offensive alliance that has plundered the Global South, period, without needing to reference Russia nor Ukraine. Ask anyone in the Global South what their opinion of NATO is.

This segment of the discussion IS about Russia and Ukraine, because it’s what I raised at the end of my first post.

In any case, do you have any sources for this? Because from my perspective, I don’t see how NATO provoked that conflict. It was Russia, not a NATO-membered country nor Ukraine, that crossed the Ukrainian border and opened fire on Ukrainian territory that started the war.

Being the VP by itself doesn’t give her any authority to make decisions concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict.

You can criticize her on the basis that she’ll likely continue the same kinds of actions Biden has already taken in the conflict, which has involved support for Israel, but also some sanctions against Israel, ceasfires, and calls for a two-state solution. I’m under the impression that if Biden was truly unconditionally pro-Israel, that the conflict would be over by now in the most violent way.

She has promised to always keep sending Israel bombs. She can promise to sanction Israel if she wants to regain votes she is shedding by promising to continue genocide.

She has not promised to “keep sending Israel bombs”. She has said that she would continue to arm Israel, but a) she would have to support Israel so far as Congress continues to apportion aid to Israel, and b) she has also repeatedly stated that she wants a 2-state solution and to enact a ceasefire.

Jill Stein’s platform is a lot better than the Democrats, votes for her pull the DNC to the left.

I disagree with this. You’d think that voting for Jill Stein would pressure the DNC to go further left, but if Trump wins then it sends the message that the progressive left can’t be trusted to vote for them, so they’ll go back to appealing to moderates. So the gains created by giving Sanders/AOC-types more leverage in the party and nominating Tim Walz for VP (the most progressive pick out of everyone considered) would be lost.

If Trump wins, he will indeed continue the genocide started under the Democrats, but so would Kamala.

I believe the assault on Palestine would be accelerated under Trump. You can call it lip service if you want, but at least Kamala has repeatedly called for a 2-state solution, meaning she’d continue to do the bare minimum req’d by Congress as far as supporting Israel would be concerned. Trump has never supported a 2-state solution, verbally or otherwise - the guy even moved the Israel embassy into Jerusalem, against the suggestion of virtually all his foreign aid experts. He has more interest in stoking this conflict than not.

For what it’s worth, disbanding NATO is the single greatest thing any American President could do for the Global South, taking a firm stand against Imperialism.

I disagree very, very strongly. I don’t see how this “takes a firm stance against imperialism” because Russia is 100% the aggressor of that conflict. They had no legitimate reason to cross into Ukraine’s border and open fire, other than to further imperialistic ambition. The whole point of NATO is to discourage that ambition.

Kamala isn’t president yet. You can call on her to sanction Israel as president, without also pushing another candidate.

Jill Stein’s only practical role in this election is as a presidential spoiler benefitting Trump, and if Trump wins then Palestine is really truly f’d anyway.

It also doesn’t help that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for the disbandment of NATO and the disruption of Ukraine aid. Those are extreme positions that have nothing to do with Israel-Palestine, and many of those interested in voting for her are likely not even aware of those stances.

If there’re no other alternatives, then I propose that going forward the new term for this should be “Crowd Striking”

What about a price hike? If Netflix or Spotify increased their prices, would that be news?

Take my upvote and get the fuck outta here