Warning: Cynicism

I am a part of a left org that has been putting efforts into showing support for Palestine. A lot of demos, speaking at city council meetings, pressuring agencies to support a ceasefire, etc.

I'm considering bringing it up to comrades that maybe this has run its course. The IDF has been moving South and is now in Rafah. The only thing the US has done is issue "concerns" that have been ignored; the US has not stopped funding the war. How much destruction is there left that we as American activists are even trying to prevent?

Tell me I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. I just see comrades putting their efforts into this for emotional and not practical reasons at this point.

  • macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Protesting is unlikely to affect US foreign policy. Some things that I think are worthwhile:

    • Organizing workers to directly impede the Palestinian genocide. For instance, I canvassed workers at a protest outside of a Google office, which has a big cloud computing contract with Israel. (They aren't really a high-priority target, but I'm a tech worker so I can talk to them.) If Googlers were organized, they could threaten to strike in order to force management to cancel the contract. The fundamental power of the working class comes from our direct control over production. Maybe there are liberals working at Raytheon who want to work in the "defense industry" and could be convinced that genocide is not "defense". Maybe there are dock worker's unions that could be politicized to refuse Israeli goods.
    • Just straight up direct action against weapons shipments, etc.

    But yeah, the clock is ticking and there may not be much Palestine left once American workers are able to really do anything. Things are bleak. It's no help to Palestine, but I will say that the mass awareness of Dems taking your vote and doing a genocide might be good for American domestic policy. There's that whole #AbandonBiden thing, which was previous the domain of third-party cranks like us.