I’m torn. Both Galadriel and Sauron say the other is a threat to Middle-earth. One has to be wrong, so whom am I to trust? Should I trust the Dark Lord who attempted to topple the White City of Gondor, dominate all life, and attempt to stay in power for eternity? Or do I trust the Elf Queen representing the coalition of Men and Elves who defeated Sauron when he tried to enslave the Free Peoples… but could maybe do more meet-and-greets?
Look, everyone is saying Saruman is just as bad as Sauron, but here's the thing:
Yes he is moving towards Sauron strategically on specific issues, but these issues are important to his base and he has to throw them a bone.
Yes he is illegally killing Rohan civilians, but nobody claimed the defense of the regions west of his Stone Circle system would be painless.
Yes his armies look and foreign policy look eerily similar to Sauron's, but he promises he's trying to stop him actually.
You purists in the Shire keep saying it's not necessary to destroy the whole forest of Fangorn but he got the endorsement of Lurtz, so he clearly knows more about politics than you do.
Anyone serious understands that resisting Sauron means voting for Saruman.
Genocide propaganda. Why do you support, or at least not have a problem with, the extermination of the Palestinian people?
Hypothetically and only for the sake of argument, let's say Harris "supports genocide". We know Trump supports …let's call it "Genocide+". What does that leave? I believe most people think Harris will make getting a permanent ceasefire and supporting a two state solution central tenets of her administration. And Trump will do something insane that will threaten many more innocent lives across the entire region.
You can cast a vote for the imperfect candidate (which is every candidate ever), you can cast a vote for the candidate most likely to start World War III. Or you can cast a vote for
Grima Wormtongue, oops I mean Jill Stein, who is on the take from both the Russians and the GOP, and end up helping WWIII guy. Those are your options. It's not necessarily a fun choice, but it shouldn't be a hard one.We know Trump supports …let's call it "Genocide+"
We do know that? Biden and Harris are currently ok with the IOF sealing off an area with 400k+ people in it, hoping to starve them to death. No, if you’re going to claim Trump will do something more, be specific. Because outside of dropping a nuke on Gaza there isn’t much more that can be done, we’re at what essentially is maximum genocide that is reasonably possible.
I believe most people think Harris will make getting a permanent ceasefire and supporting a two state solution central tenets of her administration.
Oh wait, you’re serious. Oh you sweet summer child. I can even be mad at you. But not only do most people not believe this, most people know this is patently false because it IS false. Btw the reason people like Blinken and Harris bring up a 2 state solution is because Israel has made it functionally impossible.
I should know better, but sure, I'll bite. You want specifics of what Trump thinks?
https://www.reuters.com/world/netanyahu-denies-report-he-spoke-trump-about-gaza-talks-2024-08-15/
In an event later on Thursday about tackling antisemitism, Trump criticized Biden and Harris' months-long calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
"From the start, Harris has worked to tie Israel's hand behind its back, demanding an immediate ceasefire, always demanding ceasefire," Trump said, adding it "would only give Hamas time to regroup and launch a new October 7 style attack."
Trump added: "I will give Israel the support that it needs to win but I do want them to win fast."
In the same event, Trump also labelled pro-Palestinian supporters calling for an end to U.S. support for Israel's war as "pro-Hamas thugs" and "jihad sympathizers." He threatened to arrest and deport them from the U.S. if he became president.
Netanyahu's office and Trump both separately denied on Thursday an Axios report that said they had spoken the previous day about Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks.
This was back in August, and the dude has Bibi on speed dial. If he cared one iota, he could have been leaning on Netanyahu and making public calls for an end to Israel's crimes since this started. But he hasn't and he'll do far worse if elected. Hell, he'll send US ground troops throughout the region killing civilians right and left if the price is right. And sell Ukraine down the river too. Never trust a narcissist to have anyone else's interest at heart.
You might want to sit down for this but… Donald Trump is a big talker, and will usually bloviate well beyond what he’s actually capable of doing. Yeah of course, he uses more genocidal language but so what, how does that translate into action?
Biden has given Bibi everything he’s asked for. The administration has provided diplomatic cover for every single genocidal action that taken place. Weapons are sent to Israel without delay, to the point that supplies are getting stretched there’s talk about how Ukraine and Israel can’t both be supported (guess who’s losing out there btw). Every time Biden draws a red line, Bibi crosses it with zero consequences.
But as you correctly point out, there is really only one way a president could be MORE genocidal than Biden, and that’s by committing ground troops. I should point out that Biden has already done this with the recent THAAD deployment, but that’s not a massive commitment of personnel. But no, neither Harris nor Trump will be committing troops because not only would that end up being a disaster, but because doing so defeats the purpose of Israel. Israel exists in order to do America’s wetwork in the region. For reasons of both domestic and foreign policy, America can’t be seen as directly causing so much blood to spill in the region, so it gets outsourced to Israel. The CIA and State Dept know all this too well and neither Trump nor Harris are gonna cross them.
To the quotes from Trump about Kamala working tirelessly on a ceasefire... He's lying. No she isn't. If she somehow has been she has been both utterly ineffective and for some reason totally silent on her efforts. Trump lies all the time. If she was doing that it would be good but Trump is lying.
He's also not specific about what additional support it is he'd give Israel. I don't really believe he could give them more than Biden and Harris are. What, materially, could he do for them that Biden would refuse to? He didn't offer specifics atleast.
Democrats, including Kamala, have insinuated that Pro Gaza protesters are terrorists and called them antisemitic. Under Biden police brutalized and allowed the brutalizing of protestors by right wing mobs. Again this is Trump more or less agreeing with the Democrats. He's not offering specifics about how he'd be worse. He's promising to be but that's just because he wants to talk to his base.
And as to the last point regarding US troops... Well Biden is currently sending a THAAD missle defense system that necessarily requires American troops to operate. So looks like we heading there under the Democrats for sure.
He's also not specific about what additional support it is he'd give Israel. I don't really believe he could give them more than Biden and Harris are. What, materially, could he do for them that Biden would refuse to? He didn't offer specifics atleast.
So you're expecting restraint from the guy behind an attempted coup? The guy who had to be talked out of wanting to nuke North Korea? Listen, I'm not expecting to change anyone's mind - we're obviously coming at this from different perspectives. It's not just "both sides bad", it's that all sides are bad, or at least imperfect, and you need to make a choice.
I prefer the deeply problematic former law enforcement politician who will never be exactly what I want versus the nearly-octogenarian lying, cheating, clearly insane guy who I believe would be the biggest step towards a civil war, World War III, or both.
I want Palestinian lives to be saved, I want Ukrainian lives to be saved, I want American lives to be saved. I want clean air and water for the generations to come. I want everyone, not just Americans, to have a chance at a better life and control over their own lives and bodies. Chances are I may not get any of those things, but my best shot at getting any of them is to vote for the person who seems the most sane. It's the only choice I have.
I want Palestinian lives to be saved
Harris is going to continue Biden's policy of calling Bibi an asshole behind closed doors and sending billions of dollars of bombs while structuring shipments to avoid congressional oversight.
I want Ukrainian lives to be saved
Harris is going to continue sending billions of dollars of support to Ukraine so more Ukrainians can be fed into the meat grinder, because it's good for the military industrial complex, and the less of Ukraine there is left standing, the more can be sold for pennies to privatization interests. Russia has been offering peace for a long time and Ukraine has been made continuously to reject it by Western nations because it's in their interest to burn Russian military assets and sell Western ones.
I want American lives to be saved
Harris does not support universal healthcare and talks about wanting the deadliest army on Earth, a thing that you cannot have without killing people.
I want clean air and water for the generations to come.
Harris supports bailing out crypto investors. If she gave a shit about the environment she wouldn't subsidize the Planet Burning Funny Money. She'd also perhaps distance herself from Biden, who has signed more oil & gas leases than Trump did.
I want everyone, not just Americans, to have a chance at a better life and control over their own lives and bodies.
The American Hegemony is one in which millions must starve to death every year and billions live in substandard conditions to support the excess of a few million privileged consuming monsters. If Harris cared to improve lives she wouldn't support the continued wars in Israel and Ukraine, she'd support M4A, she'd break with the neoliberal doctrine she's run with her whole life, she'd name and reject the neocolonialism that keeps America floating on top of the broken bodies of the global south. She will never do these things, but she will put a Republican in her cabinet.
Harris is further right than Biden. Trump is an uncontrolled rabid ape, correct, but Harris will be no less vile or murderous a leader, just less openly rude. Her border plan is more extreme than Trump's was.
History has showed us that voting for the lesser evil doesn't work. There is no righting of the ship, just more and more steps towards greater evil. The Democrats serve capital, just as the Republicans do. They didn't grant abortion, a Supreme Court decision did. They didn't legalize gay marriage, a Supreme Court decision did. They never enshrined them in law, but stole credit for the work of radical activists when polling told them it would boost their voter count.
Are the Dems less repugnant than the GOP? Yes and no. They don't want to ban abortion federally, great, but they're not going to legalize it either, and they're not going to stop the GOP from banning it state by state. That's how they are on every issue.
You speak of voting between 100% Hitler and 99% Hitler as the only choice you have. I reject that framing. Local political action is vastly more effective than voting for President unless you're one of the lucky 100,000 that live in the right swing districts. Join the DSA or the PSL. Go to school board meetings and tell the book burners driving cross-county to try and ban transgender students to fuck off. Read revolutionary theory and discuss it with others.
I do not expect restraint from him but I also see no restraint from the current administration.
I hope you will realize you do in fact have more choices than voting for genocidal candidate A or B.
I'm not the voting police I don't care how you rationalize voting or not but regardless be clear eyed and realize what you are doing. If a genocide is an acceptable amount of baggage for a candidate to have that can be a choice you make but make no mistake about what you are accepting.
So in this situation, are you suggesting Stein, de la Cruz, West, or Fruit? Because other than as a "protest" vote that hands it to Trump, what does that do exactly? Let's say air traffic controllers are busy with all the flying pigs, and somehow Stein wins. She's woefully under-qualified and she's literally the leading third-party candidate. What exactly do you think she or any one of them would be able to do? They're not serious candidates, and are more likely to setback efforts at building third parties than advancing them.
Protest votes can be useful in primaries but are pointless in general elections. No serious candidates have been building a party with a chance at knocking off the Dems and GOP for the past 4+ years, and instead they only come out every presidential cycle to fundraise and maybe grab a few headlines. The last mildly "successful" third party candidate for President was Perot, and (thank god) he did nothing to shift the national conversation. No one remembers the protest votes, they only remember who won.
I've been voting since 1988 and active in community and political organizing the whole time, and pretty much every candidate I've backed in the presidential primaries has lost. Every election has been a somewhat dissatisfying choice that has lead to a few policy wins and many more disappointing loses. But absent a magical unicorn national third party that builds a grassroots movement that can actually affect change, I'm left with choosing what I believe is the only option with a hope of something better and against the option that would definitely bring me and my loved ones harm, as he would bring harm to literally millions of others. You can say I'm selling out my principles, but I say any other choice is selling out my fellow humans around the world and in the US.
We know Trump supports …let's call it "Genocide+"
Holy shit it's you, the liberal every leftist has been joking about for a year. I'm sorry we spoke you into being with our irresponsible comedy.
You really should be more careful. I could be in the room with you right now!
Oh no! A cutting remark about my username!!! However will I survive?!
Over 200,000 Palestinians haven't survived the past year and you don't care. Never trust a narcissist to have anyone else's interest at heart.
However will I survive?!
If the Creator was good, you'd have been beaten to death with a ball-peen hammer by now; but since we live in a godless modern analogue of Babylon and this hellhole hasn't been smote yet, I'm not exactly hedging my bets.
Hypothetically and only for the sake of argument, let's say Harris "supports genocide"
There's no fucking "hypothetical", collaborator. "Harris stands by Israel's right to defend itself". Even NBC, one of your state-controlled rags, is saying it. God, I despise gaslighting, gladhanding collaborator garbage like you.
"Vice President Kamala Harris offered a full-throated defense of Israel in her convention speech Thursday night, echoing the language of President Joe Biden that has drawn criticism from pro-Palestinian protesters."
You can't simultaneously offer 'full-throated defense' of a genocidal, illegitimate settler colony and then expect your 'calls for ceasefire' to be understood as anything other than plausible deniability and cover-running for genociders.
Wow, I never realized you could see outraged, frothing at the mouth spittle flying around via text before. Thanks for the educational moment.
The better parts of you clearly soaked into the mattress on the night of your conception. You physically disgust me, in every way, you smug fuck. What galls me is I went to the effort of finding evidence from a rag you invertebrates would read, and all you've got is soulless redditorisms.
I eagerly await the fall of your society.
Do you need a hug? It sounds like you need a hug.
And jokes on you, I was conceived in the backseat of a car. Don't you feel foolish now?
Die screaming, thanks. I don't even have anything pithy for this, I just pray for the absolute worst for you, and everybody like you.
you can cast a vote for the candidate most likely to start World War III
Yes, Kamala the warmonger who explicitly supports arming Israel and wants to escalate against Iran and Russia. She also loves Cheney the murdering war criminal, which tells you how she really feels. Trump has at least stumbled upon the correct policy regarding Russia.
Jill Stein, who is on the take from both the Russians and the GOP
I guess liberals are still on the Russiagate bullshit
Ooh, tell me more! I used to love a good fairy tale. And this one sounds like a doozy! But just like you started, make sure it doesn't have anything that matches reality - that'd be great. Thanks!
What doesn't match reality? Kamala bloviated against Iran, calling them America's greatest adversary. She's affirmed her support for the genocidal apartheid state of Israel many times. She thanked Dick Cheney for his service to the country, which includes two illegal wars that killed millions, in case you don't remember.
Trump at least supports discussion with Russia, which is the right move. Absurd that a clown like him is the only one to suggest it.
Trump Derangement Syndrome lives in every liberal that can just say out loud with no reason besides 'orange man bad' that the unconditional and enthusiastic support for genocide that already exists would be worse under Trump.
And I honestly don't believe you're acting in good faith. I think you're a disgusting fucking piece of shit that's just latching your own personal cause (electing a nazi) to the cause célèbre.
Why is the hero Galadriel bragging about being endorsed by Grima Wormtongue and the Witch King of Amgmar? And what happened to all the Haradrim?
Was Galadriel pledging strong endless support for a genocide? I don't remember that part of the books if I'm honest.
I'd vote for Frodo, since he's ignoring all of the ridiculous political bullshit and actually trying to do a revolutionary act by building a fellowship and working together with his friends to destroy the source of the evil rather than fighting over who is the best one to control the evil.
I swear it's like you people haven't even read the books!
Ahh, yes, Frodo. The one who actually gave into the ring and was only saved by someone literally biting it and the attached finger off.
Also, brave call to say that Frodo exerted an ounce of agency. Frodo was a puppet of the existing power structure and elites who essentially got tricked into going without understanding what was at stake, repeatedly put the ring on despite Gandalf telling him not to, got stabbed and almost died, and then because no one could trust anyone else with it, was the default choice to keep going with a group he had no say in creating.
If you were going to pick someone, you should at least have gone with Samwise.
Talk about someone who hasn't read the books.
Frodo was saved by the community he built along the way. That's why we build community in the first place. Media literacy isn't that hard if you put your mind to it!
He was saved by Gollum biting his fucking finger off, but sure. Keep simping for your rich, nepo-baby, landowning bourgeois. Find it hilarious seeing someone from hexbear backing the landlord in the story.
And yet I don't find it surprising that the ee is backing genocidal maniacs, that seems pretty par for the course
Bourgeois? That sounds like communist talk. Are you some kind of tankie?
No, but would've loved when Frodo got rid of Sam, if Sam has said "See the violence inherent in the system! Help, I'm being repressed!" 😄
In one of Tolkien's letters, he specifically says that if Gollum had been redeemed as much as he could, he would have taken the ring and jumped into Mt. Doom voluntarily.
Didn't Galadriel straight up say that if she were given the power of the Ring she'd turn into a tyrant? Like, if the choices are Sauron (tyrant, given the power) and Galadriel (tyrant, given the power) it seems most correct to pick Frodo (trying to unmake the source of corruptive and destroying power).
Like, if anyone wielding the Ring for any purpose will be subordinate to its will no matter their intentions, and ultimately will subjugate all others, then the dichotomy is not which wielder, but whether the Ring should exist or not.
For the purposes of the satire, they left the ring out of it. Otherwise it's just a Monty Python sketch and would be about "the violence inherent in the system" 😉
And as I commented to someone else who picked Frodo - he too gave in to the ring in the end and was only saved by someone biting off his finger that had the ring on it. He's also an upper middle class nepo-baby who's a landlord. If you're going to pick someone else, you have to go with proletarian Samwise.
For the purpose of the satire, they left out the whole point of the books, which is something you'd know if your knowledge of LotR wasn't based entirely on cultural osmosis.
You don't know what satire is, do you? And man, with everything else thrown my way because of this post, insulting my nerd cred is a low blow even for someone from hexbear. I thought you all at least had standards!
The twist is that halfling votes don't matter because Eriador is a solid Galadriel state. The only votes that matter are votes from small enclave of erratic Men in South Gondor
Was worried that the actual Onion had posted Liberalism, but thankfully it's some knockoff
I know the article is a threadbare simile, but it more than misses the whole point of Galadriel's character in the books/movie. For even someone like Galadriel who meets this beyond-human ideal of beauty, purity and "goodness", the power of the One Ring to dominate life is so corrupting that it would simply turn her into a new Sauron. Which is why after failing to resist temptation, Galadriel leaves Middle Earth and goes into the West. If there's one point that is hammered in repeatedly throughout the Lord of the Rings, it's that such absolute power cannot be used for good, despite anyone's best intentions, and the only recourse is for it to be destroyed.
There's a much better candidate for the comparison: Saruman, the guy whose whole deal was resisting Sauron by adopting all of his means.
Not humoring this childish nonsense about a novel; scum like you won't even press Kamala at every moment to stop her support of genocide because you don't give a damn about the Palestinians; you gonna vote for her in the tens of millions? Then why aren't there tens of millions putting her on the spot about her support for Israel? You people don't give a damn and you're not conning anyone here.
Both sides are bad because the elves had rings and Sauron had a ring. See, both the same!
This post is a good reminder why I need to sort by Local and not All.
Okay but the real question being asked is "which of the two should we give the One Ring too?"
And the answer may surprise you!
