#139 - Hey, quick question, why did the Governor of New York just threaten to nuke Canada?
or: the discord of the democrats & a disaffected democracy
Kathy Hochul is a terrible Governor.
She never should have been Governor in the first place but the NY Democratic Party is run by absolute know-nothing losers who couldn't organize their way out of a paper bag.
They are the crabs in the bucket of crabs who pull all the crabs who almost get out of the bucket right back down.
(They let George Santos saunter into congress without ever publishing the opposition research they had during the campaign that would have exposed him as the fraud he was. But that's just one of their major failures. And I mean major. I would put most of the blame on the Dems losing the house on the failures of the NYDNC.)
Which isn't to say I think the Dems would have done anything useful with that power, they seem to be catatonic at the wheel in all aspect.
"Republicans will pass a national abortion ban!!!!" They cry out, as if we're not fucking aware.
Like, yeah, we know. Do the Dems?? Do they have any legislation to protect people's rights to bodily autonomy in circulation or are they just sitting on their hands and hoping that fear-mongering will push me to the polls? They've done nothing to show me they care about correcting their absolute fumble when it came to Dobbs.
They had months between the leak from the Supreme Court and the decision coming down, and they did nothing with that time. No organizing, no public outcry, nothing. They had decades to codify Roe and they used it as a dangling carrot election after election, and now the fucking octogenarian President who didn't even hold debates during the primary is out here saying that he actually personally doesn't believe in abortion at all and certainly not "on demand".
And here's the thing, just like with limits to abortion access based on gestation periods, that just means you're anti-abortion. (I know it may have been pitched differently, but being "uncomfortable with the idea" of late-stage abortion does not make a strong legal argument for creating limits on access due to the variety of circumstance that lead to that choice, having a personal moral stance on "when" is fine, but that doesn't make for well written laws. It's on demand, all the time, or it will be legislated at every possible turn. Same reason why "exceptions for rape and incest" are bullshit. Exceptions have to be argued in a court of law.)
The reasons people get late term abortions are universally heartbreaking AND none of my fucking business. Having abortion "on demand" just means that people's medical fate would not be left in the hands of judges who are not qualified to make medical decisions. We had now witnessed several instances of gross and harrowing injustice since Dobbs, there is absolutely no further proof needed to say that allowing personal health to be debated in a court of law is one of the most precarious situations a person could go through. And AND we then have to get into the nuance of miscarriages, a topic America is woefully under-prepared to confront because not only are we bad with emotion as a society, we seem to be tying morality and health together at an alarming rate, which is just like a revival of Christian-flavored Eugenics.
Anyway, Joe Biden is an awful nominee not only because of his age but because of his actions. He has given Netanyahu how many billions now to continue his genocidal campaign against Palestine? He has not kept his major campaign promises, he's weirdly entitled to being president, he seemingly used a deteriorating memory angle to get out of legal trouble re: classified documents, and he said he wouldn't run again the last time we elected him. He hasn't mentioned universal healthcare once during his campaign, he refused to debate during the primary, and he's condescending as fuck about being criticized for any of his decisions!
He's the fucking president we don't have to protect his feelings!!!!
Anyway, back to Kathy Hochul, first female Governor of New York who only got the job because she was Lieutenant Governor in the disgraced Andrew Cuomo administration. (We gotta be specific on Cuomo's because his dad was actually a decent Governor. Gotta love Andy trying to throw him under the bus when he faced accusations of sexual harrasment! "My mother did it, my father did it!" when "it" refers to harrassing women on staff repeatedly and then running smear campaigns about them when they spoke out. And then, just for some extra fun facts here, let's remember that Time's Up the women in hollywood org that was created to raise money for victims legal fees, gave CUOMO money to fight these "malicious attacks" (that have been, by the way, proven a million times over at this point) so if you ever wondered why that organization is no more, it's because they betrayed their mission statement within like weeks of making it. We hate women SO MUCH it's literally ruining the world!)
So, that being said, I hate Kathy Hochul as a politician. I think she's corrupt, I think she used her identity as a shield against very basic criticism, I think no one in the Cuomo admin should have gotten to continue their careers in government (but that's simply asking for too much! Andy's throwing his hat in the ring for mayor or senator depending on the day & which pollster you ask!), and she famously gave the Buffalo Bills $500 MILLION of taxpayer money (and stolen Casino profits) to build their new stadium. The Bills are owned by a billionaire. (Her husband also works for them.)
So! At an event for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation she said the following:
"If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I'm sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day. That is a natural reaction."
Uh.
No it's not!
Genocide is actually not a natural reaction. Making it so there would "be no Canada the next day" is not...normal.
Anger, despair, grief. Those would be natural reactions. Seeking vengeance might be an impulse, but I would hope the United States would not destroy a neighboring country based on impulse.
So that quote is bonkers enough right? (If you'd like to see/hear her say it, there's video.)
Personally, I find the implication that we would all want Canada wiped off the map if they "attacked Buffalo" profoundly disturbing. Canada is a real place, full of very real people. If their government for some reason "attacked Buffalo" it would not spur me to want the entire population to suffer????
Like politicians lately keep playing this, "If you were up against the wall [this fundamentally evil and murderous way of thinking] is how you'd react too!" and like, it's uh, not! I want that ON RECORD because I think that's what they're trying to do. They're making it seem like we just "don't get it" and would make the same choices they are. And that's just not true and I'm tired of being made to feel this way!
Not only am I a pacifist, I think war solves nothing. It just gets people into the rooms to draft the treaties. Why not just...start with the meeting? Robust State Department >> robust "defense" budget all day everyday!!!
(State Departments run by experienced diplomats. Which is not what we currently have.)
I also just can't imagine how it would go over if Trudeau said that if New York attacked Montreal, the United States would be "wiped off the map".
But it turns out, this is not a new line of thinking. This exact terrible metaphor has actually been used before by a certain someone.
(I'll give you three guesses as to who said it but if you're wrong you have to promise to vote for Dean Phillips in the primary!)
“[The attacks on Lebanon were] great! It had to be done! If attacks were launched from Canada into the United States, everyone here would have said, ‘Attack all the cities of Canada, and we don’t care if all the civilians get killed.’”
- Joe Biden, speaking to Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in 1982
It's bizarre to me that these people want to be leaders. That's what they think of Americans? That we're all genocidically-inclinced just like them?? No wonder they give no credence to their constituents if that's what they think of us. In their minds, we are just like them! A chorus of yes-people they get to imagine & absolve their guilt with.
Which is why it remains more important than ever to make them aware we're not like them. Call, email, fax, march, demonstrate at their offices, tell your friends and neighbors how disgusted you are to be painted with that broad brush.
Top 20 US Foreign Aid recipients since 1946 pic.twitter.com/nZUY4gOjmO
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) October 26, 2023
I don't know what to say about the abject rejection of the outcry of their people's demands by the worlds democracies. I don't look around the world and see unfeeling politicians roaming the sidewalks, I see people trying their best to make it through their days without assistance because most of us can't afford the lifestyles we have been forced to live, grieving with all they have.
We need leaders who lead. Not shock jocks making false comparisons to try and stun their constituents into not reacting.
Buffalo was attacked by a terrorist btw. In 2022.
A teenager who had been radicalized online, drove to a supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood in order to purposefully attack the people shopping there. He tried to livestream the attack on Twitch.
And Kathy Hochul didn't nuke shit. She didn't nuke the gun manufacturer, she didn't nuke the lack of regulations around online hate speech or seek expert panel opinions on what CAN be done to curb the rise of domestic terrorism mostly being carried out by teenage white boys who are getting sucked into alt-right conspiracy holes by the YouTube algorithm. She didn't even nuke the possibility this would happen again.
Claire B
So all this fucking bluster comes off a little disingenuous. She doesn't care about the citizens of Buffalo's safety. If she did, we would have seen it. She cares about giving their billionaire-owned sports franchise taxpayer money, but didn't care to make a statement when the Buffalo Police Department shoved an 80 year old man to the ground during a peaceful protest, cracking his skull open and leaving him to bleed. She certainly didn't make a statement against the DNC launching a massive write-in campaign to usurp the Democratic Socialist candidate who won the primary for Mayor of Buffalo!
She doesn't care about the people or what they want in terms of material conditions of improvement. She wants to show off the ~power she feels being "in control" of one of the most influential states in the country. (Why's that state so influential? Oh oh I know! It's the city that she absolutely despises and purposefully underfunds!)
She is a terrible governor, a disgrace of a human, and I hope her comments haunt her for the rest of her days. I will never forgive or forget that her response when asked what she would like to say to the Palestinian-Americans that live in her state, her only response was that they should "condemn Hamas".
Well, I condemn Kathy. And Chuck. And Kristen. And Joe. And fuck it let's throw Eric in there too since he decided the best use of his time in August of 2023 was to travel to Israel and take some press photos. Certainly nothing of import was happening back in the city he was supposed to be in charge of, I'm sure!!
I condemn their lack of leadership, I condemn their heartless responses, I condemn their crevasse of compassion, I condemn their insistence that these military campaigns have been in the name of "defense", I condemn their condescension, I condemn their smugness, I condemn their inability to see beyond their own bank accounts and "legacies" in order to do the job they were elected to do.
I hate their abdication of duty when it mattered most. I hate that they've taken away any remnants of faith I felt in the shambles of democratic process we had clung to.
I hate that they lied to us. I hate that this is happening. I hate that it feels like no matter what I say or do, they will ignore it. And more people will perish and suffer because of their inability to care.
The situation is not complicated. You cannot murder entire populations of people (who have been pushed to a "safe zone" and are now being bombed again) with impunity and expect me to find it "complicated". It's not.
Stop the genocide.
(& don't nuke Montreal you fucking weirdo Governor.)
The overwhelm is part of the plan to get away with it. They want us to disengage.
Claire BSo it matters more than ever to know how we actually feel. Please please please, if you haven't yet, take a moment to write down your thoughts about what's happening. Not to share them! But just to have. It matters that we know what we think rather than just allowing the parroted lines of politicians to occupy our ideals.
It matters more than ever to engage with discomfort of not having the answers.
We must be able to imagine a better future in order to achieve it.
Sending just so much love and hope for peace to everyone 🤍