Nate Bear Do Not Panic
Today’s daily slop is the midterm US elections.
I was reluctant to react, because, well, I didn’t want to bore myself, or you.
Yet here we are.
From what I understand, the Gaza genocide party won. The party which, week after week, supplied the bombs, bullets, missiles and political cover for an actual genocide, won.
The party that shredded tens of thousands of children for Israel, for itself, for empire, for geostrategic and domestic political considerations. They won. The party which inflicted 99% of the genocide’s death toll, won. The party which watched live-feeds from the situation room as Gaza was reduced to a wasteland, won. The party which helped the Zionist regime induce a famine. They won.
And some of the candidates who won did so by campaigning with and fawning over Kamala Harris, the person that co-signed the cheques for this holocaust.
I’m talking about Abdul El-Sayeed, a man who, as well as campaigning with one of the key architects of genocide, was also at pains to reassure everyone he was a big-time capitalist. Which for anyone paying a modicum of attention doesn’t come as a surprise, seeing as the guy is a landlord and rents out properties in Dubai, India and Michigan. He did disavow AIPAC and calls the genocide a genocide, but he also condemns armed resistance to Israel and is a standard “two-state solution” guy, so expectations must be duly set. We’ve seen this show before, the show where nominal progressives reveal their essential imperialism when handed power.
A handful of what some might call genuinely progressive candidates, backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, also won. Five, to be precise, out of 470 seats across the House and Senate. Of these five, my research tells me two (Darializa Avila Chevalier and Chriss Rabb), when put under pressure, condemned Hamas and armed resistance to Israel. Are there other issues besides genocide? Yes. Does your stance on genocide and especially resistance to genocide inform your broader politics and morality? Also yes. Does the things you will disavow and condemn when put under pressure by the establishment signal your weakness and pliability? Yes again.
So we might be left with three who have truly progressive politics and don’t condemn people fighting colonial oppressors. Claire Valdez, Melat Kiros and Donavan McKinneyut. Fair play. The best of these is Melat Kiros, who rather than just calling for an end to military aid to Israel, calls for the abolition of Israel. Much fairer play. So we have one clear winner.
One.
And even she was elected as a member of the committed a genocide party.
Yet lots of progressives seem happy with the outcome. Even some pro-Palestine people are joy-posting. I’m not saying it’s nothing. It would have been unthinkable for a single American with these politics to be elected before October 2023. But we are talking about a single American on an issue which shouldn’t be complicated. Apartheid states which commit genocide should be dismantled, and the right of the oppressed to resist such states using violence is enshrined in international law.
One.
So against these five (to be kind), three (to be moderate) or one (to be honest) dozens of Democrats backed by the Zionist lobby won, including a host of other Democrats elected alongside El-Sayed in the Senate. Many of them took Zionist lobby money including Juliana Stratton, Chris Pappas and Sherrod Brown. Pappas in New Hampshire, a “strong supporter of Israel,” took nearly $845,000 from AIPAC. Some others didn’t take AIPAC money, like the much-vaunted James Talarico in Texas. Instead he takes Miriam Adelson’s money, supports Israel and “its right to defend itself” while at the same time demanding Hamas is disarmed. In other words he believes Israel has the right to commit genocide against a defenceless population, given that anyone with half a brain knows that “right to defend” is simply code for mass atrocities.
In the House, a whole slate of Zionist-lobby backed candidates won. A relatively new Zionist lobby group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, which only backs Democrats, announced in a press release which of its candidates won. (It’s absurd by the way how they openly boast about their successful bribery.) One Democrat who won a House seat, Adrian Boafo in Maryland, took $5.7 million from AIPAC to win his primary (after which his election was a foregone conclusion).
FIVE POINT SEVEN MILLION ZIO DOLLARS!
Then you’ve got the incumbent Zionist Democrats like new House speaker Hakeem Jeffries. In 2014 at a New York rally for Israel, Jeffries declared with his full chest and a maniacal zealotry, “Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever!”
To think investigations are on the way and that Trump might get impeached is nice, I suppose. But haven’t we also watched that show before? We literally have. What will be different this time? Nothing material, would be my bet. Because the Democrats don’t want to expose the system they also rely on. Dig too deep, and everyone is implicated. Dig too deep, and you might reach the Zionist money, and neither side wants to meaningfully upset that apple cart.
And what does it signal when Kamala Harris gets wheeled out by El-Sayeed and cheered? What does it tell us when El-Sayeed gets elected after campaigning with her? It tells us that genocide wasn’t a deal breaker. What does it tell a party that just two years after it helped aid and abet the ultimate crime under international law, that people came out in droves to vote for them again? It tells them nothing in American politics is politically unrecoverable. It tells them rehabilitation is simply a matter of time. It tells them that there are no red lines, that they can do the worst and still win.
I can hear the objection now: but Nate, what choice did we have?
The answer is you didn’t. Americans never have a choice.
But still they choose.
And around and around we go.