Today, the war on terror is widely accepted as a military and geopolitical failure. But it is still not fully understood as a massive intellectual and moral fiasco: an attempt by the Western media as well as the political class to forge reality itself, which failed catastrophically, but not without embedding cruelty and mendacity deep and enduringly in public life. And partly because this disaster was unacknowledged—editors and writers pushing false narratives, and cheerleading large-scale violence, remained entrenched, and even received promotions—it is being reenacted today in the Western media’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza: another war that has ignited a bonfire of international legal and moral norms and deadened and perverted consciences.
Much as I plan to hold my nose and vote for Harris, I can’t help but feel simultaneously bemused and saddened how every time you talk about her actually trying to earn your vote, you receive comment after comment tearing you down as though her terrible policy is fine and that only YOU can stop Trump. As though Harris herself were powerless to change her own platform to appeal more.
Party loyalty is so strong these days entirely too many people forget that candidates have agency. They’d rather shame people or call them bots than consider if it might be more effective for the candidate to actually listen to their own constituency.
It took Harris two months to do the very basic thing of putting a platform on her website, and in that two months, you heard absolutely nothing about policy. What you heard were two memes repeated ad infinatum: Joy and Weird. Then since the debate, they’ve added a two new memes: The Dogs and Crowd Size. The reality is that she can’t talk about Biden’s record because most of the country has to work harder for less money than they did in 2020.
Meanwhile I don’t currently have a car because I’ve lent mine to my 80 year-old parents so they can drive for DoorDash every day, because if they can’t, this government will let them become homeless. This is happening in a time when the Democrats had the presidency and Congress for two years, and from what I can tell, all they really cared to do was make the wealthy even richer and find ways to involve our country in more war.
How am I supposed to be joyful? If you’re a wage earner, you’re already living under fascism, because if you don’t work that 60-80 hours a week, this country will let the monied destroy you.
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Much as I plan to hold my nose and vote for Harris, I can’t help but feel simultaneously bemused and saddened how every time you talk about her actually trying to earn your vote, you receive comment after comment tearing you down as though her terrible policy is fine and that only YOU can stop Trump. As though Harris herself were powerless to change her own platform to appeal more.
Party loyalty is so strong these days entirely too many people forget that candidates have agency. They’d rather shame people or call them bots than consider if it might be more effective for the candidate to actually listen to their own constituency.
It’s been a weird summer.
It took Harris two months to do the very basic thing of putting a platform on her website, and in that two months, you heard absolutely nothing about policy. What you heard were two memes repeated ad infinatum: Joy and Weird. Then since the debate, they’ve added a two new memes: The Dogs and Crowd Size. The reality is that she can’t talk about Biden’s record because most of the country has to work harder for less money than they did in 2020.
Meanwhile I don’t currently have a car because I’ve lent mine to my 80 year-old parents so they can drive for DoorDash every day, because if they can’t, this government will let them become homeless. This is happening in a time when the Democrats had the presidency and Congress for two years, and from what I can tell, all they really cared to do was make the wealthy even richer and find ways to involve our country in more war.
How am I supposed to be joyful? If you’re a wage earner, you’re already living under fascism, because if you don’t work that 60-80 hours a week, this country will let the monied destroy you.