In shock announcement, Trump says U.S. wants to take over Gaza Strip

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WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said the U.S. would take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and develop it economically

The scope of this statement is a shock, but the motivation that led to it, isn't. That said, I hate everything about this.

I'm not the first to bring this up, but it bears repeating. This is colonialism, plain and simple. That, in turn, is an outcome of unchecked capitalism. Practiced ideologically (i.e. as the guiding light in one's life), it holds up "exploitation at all costs" as a virtue. Second to that is "give your competition no quarter." Combined, that explains the current state of affairs.

We all may be used to thinking of colonialism as some thing that ended on one more more independence days in the last 300 years or so. In reality, the engines of commerce and industry that made that happen kept right on running. Since nation-state-sized real-estate deals like this don't come along very often anymore, these animals are quick to react and pounce before someone else figures out how to exploit the situation.

As an aside: the attitudes and values that enabled things like the US westward expansion, slavery, classism, eradication of indigenous peoples, environmental destruction in the pursuit of minerals, pollution and litter from energy extraction, etc., are still alive and well in the population. Being this kind of evil is insanely profitable under the right conditions, which confers an outsized advantage to reproduction and social influence. Which is to say that it's not the ideology of capitalism that propels these values to stay with us, but rather the other way around. It's as though those colonists with exploitation in their hearts are still very much with us, and that's something to keep an eye on.

Bonus fact: George Washington had a grandson that died in 2019. To put it another way: there was at least one US citizen alive in the 21st century whose grandparents owned slaves. We're really not that far removed from the bad old days - not by a longshot.

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Stop focusing on what was/could have been. Focus on what is/can be. A house divided refers to self before all.

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Hah, that's fair enough. I guess I'm just so frustrated at seeing Republicans repeatedly get their way by acting outside of the law that I want people who actually care about human rights and justice to do the same thing

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The patriotism is what put them in this mess but the voting blocs are what is killing them. The United States had no business being the country that it is. It overextended its reach to an absurd extent. It tried to captiulate to too many people who all wanted to share in the nationlistic nonsense that America pumps out daily. Now the country is fragmented to hell. Too many people feel like that the country doesn't represent them in anyway while also insisting that the United States should be another way. So they rally around two voting blocs that diverge and don't represent really anyone because they're either like the Democrats and spreading themselves too thin while making no one happy or the Republicans who actively ignore what their voters want the second they have power.

The country is schizophrenic.

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you’re still trying to justify why people shouldn’t have voted for Harris

Oh, that's rich, please do tell where I justified people not voting for Kamala. I have said several times in this thread alone that Trump is worse for Americans than Kamala would have been. I'll also add now that it's worse for Europe and Ukraine as well, something I've also said in the past. If you go look through my Lemmy history - go ahead, I dare you to prove I'm lying - I never once told people not to vote for Kamala. You should be ashamed either to lie so boldly, or that a foreigner who speaks English as a second language has a better understanding of it than you.

Not to mention, America isn't isolated. What happens in America affects me too, for better or worse, so I have just as much a right to voice my opinion on American events and politics. If you disagree with that, then I expect you to remain quiet in regard to all other world events. Do you do that?

The news cycle were able to report on everything going on in Gaza

Multiple journalists were killed in Gaza with no consequences. And my news sources still report on Gaza anyway, so I'm not sure what you are referring to. If you're only looking at what is being posted on social media then perhaps you are correct, but I'd argue that is a problem in and of itself.

So many people were willing to donate to Gofundme’s for the people in Gaza to help them cross the border to Jordan/Egypt, or have enough money to at least buy food/shelter/medical treatment and survive until the ceasefire.

This is hands down the best response I've received on this issue, I will acknowledge that, however you talk as if Americans weren't already struggling before, and as if the rest of the world can't still donate and help.

The fact that your idealogical purity stance FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

Are you Israeli? Are you Palestinian? If not, then why are you not following your own advice? I point back to my second paragraph, in regard to this.

So yeah, Kamala and DonElon…totally the same fucking thing, right?

In regard to Palestine and Israel? Pretty much. Everything else? Obviously not, which is what I've repeated about 200 times fold.

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I refuse to engage with someone who uses the actual plight of the Palestinians as a gotcha against Americans

You can't be fucking serious right now.

This entire thread exists because of asshats like you trying to gotcha other Americans who didn't vote for Kamala. And it's not the first one like that, just the first that caused me to blow my top.

while not even participating in the political systems here.

Focus on your own country, because unless you’re from South Africa, you probably have a non-zero number of politicians who support Israel as well. This is not a fucking spectator sport.

As I said before, what happens in America affects me to, so I'm gonna keep doing it and you can fuck off. If you actually disagree and believe in what you are saying, then I expect never to hear comment on Israel, Ukraine, or Russia ever again, since you do not participate in those political systems.

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Public pressure has been around for decades, and the democrats were still supplying them with weapons.

Not really it hasn't been in the spotlight until Oct7th. That's when real change can happen.

Two people stomp on you. One says “I want the violence to stop”, the other calls you a slur. They are both still stomping on you. There is no real difference to the person being stomped.

Two people stomping at you, one pulls out a knife and says 'lets get this vermin and his family too'. There is a clear difference.

Go look at maps of Palestine over the decades, please. Palestine was already being erased. This is like if we clean up the entire room together but then I let you put the broom away, and now you claim you were the one to clean the entire room. Just because Reps are the ones finishing the job does not mean the Dems were better - we know they were not because we just saw them actively supporting the genocide.

'actively supporting the genocide' isn't the worst thing you can do. What Trump is doing is objectively worse.

Put it this way.

Kamala came out and said: 'Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters'
If she had instead said 'Let's clean this filth out I'm gonna put a hotel here. All sanctions and blocks are cancelled. Please hurry up I have money to make. We'll provide some troops to help if needd'

Which is worse?

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It would make (some level of) sense in posts about Elon taking over the government and immigrants being sent to Guantanamo Bay, but here?

Go make these comments in a post about Trump censoring scientists or something.

That's just in my original comment on this thread. I think people didn't understand I don't like Trump and think he's worse it's because they didn't want to, and they did not try.

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Do you think maybe if you have to blame everyone else for not understanding you, you're blaming the wrong party?

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The distraction is currently no doubt from the takeing over of certain essential government agencies, hollowing them out, getting rid of anyone critical of the new regime.

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I will say that the Democratic Party is not doing enough. They're fucking confirming positions and going with the flow. The leadership is failing and needs to wake up but there is a lot they can do within the legal system. The Nazis, when they took over, did everything legally at first. People need to push back but there's just... no pushback. AOC is screaming and actually getting stuff done to an extent but so few other people are. The leader of the Dems in the house tweeted basically "Jesus take the wheel" which isn't a GREAT stance.

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The election is over though, Harris lost because she ran a shit campaign on proven losing policy. People need to get over that and focus on actually dealing with the shit sandwich we've collectively been handed instead of continuing to point fingers and argue about whose fault it was.

I mean this with all sincerity: fuck off.
Arguing that letting this and everything else happen is better than what Harris brought to the table doesn't just get forgotten because the people who said this would be better are upset they were wrong and don't want to be blamed.

The "winning policy" is evidently "ethnic cleansing". That's what came of all this, do you get that? Milquetoast ceasefire and continuing the slow push towards a two state solution lost to ethnic cleansing.

Whether it's Trump or Harris that wasn't going to change. The biggest difference is just one of political posturing.

Trump has already increased the weapons being sent, rolling back a Biden administration block on certain weapons. You can't just say "no, they won't use US troops" when we're on an article about trump wanting to use US troops for ethnic cleansing. Why do you think Israel gets a say in what troops go in? It's not like they can stop US if we want to send ours in. Why do you think American troops wouldn't do these things?

We're not at the hypothetical stage here. There have already been concrete changes in policy that are beyond "posturing".

The real problem ultimately though is that none of this existed in a vacuum. If this was literally a referendum on how the US should respond to Israel that would be one thing, but that was such a tiny slice of a much bigger discussion.

Yes, and that's exactly the point. Even if their policies on Gaza were exactly the same, which they very much were not, it would still be better to have voted for Harris because of so many reasons, none of which mattered to the people who swore to not vote for her over Gaza.

This is being civil about things. We're not saying that the people who refused Harris because of Gaza are transphobic, antivax, anti-education, anti abortion, racist misogynists, even though supporting Harris evidently makes one a genocidal racist in their eyes.

Maybe if people said "you know what? Maybe I made a mistake" there wouldn't be such animosity, but here we are. Better a mask off fascist than an imperfect compromise.

And don't worry, I am doing what I can to deal with the shit sandwich they wanted us to have. That doesn't keep me from having the ability, nor seeing the need for, needling people who thought that this would be better for Gaza than what Harris wanted.

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Did you read any of what you linked?

I've now read the entirety of the first 2 links, and have not seen a single mention of how Trump would be better for Palestine. If I'm wrong then please provide the quotes where they said Trump would be better.

All that is being said is that people feel disfranchised by the Dems and Kamala. Please actually read what's there and stop seeing what you want to see. In fact the second link straight says:

I’m still voting for Harris, on the basis that change from public pressure is far more unlikely under Trump.

And they literally say it's illogical to vote for Trump:

Despite Trump’s horrendous track record, he has gained in their support solely because of how Harris has campaigned. It’s not logical, but it’s hard to be when directly affected by the actions of the current administration and no prospect for change.

On the third I just did CTRL+F for "trump", and there was nothing about him in regard to Palestine. I didn't even bother with the 4th.

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Turns out the only moral genocide is Democrat genocide. The millisecond Republicans do it we can suddenly all agree that it's abhorrent and there are no excuses for our part in it.

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Irl, I do see hear complaints about non-voters. Fewer of them on lemmy, where words were aimed mostly at voter disenfranchisement efforts, but I did see them during the election.

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I hear what you're trying to say, but honestly no. Not when I've been hearing that American literacy has been going down and most college kids nowadays can't even read a whole book; and not when I mention several times that Trump is worse for Americans - and I even made an explicit mention of Trump censoring scientists, which is a case where he banned words such as "LGBTQ+" from scientific papers - and then someone replied lecturing me about how much worse Trump would be for Trans people and Americans. Like, yeah, no shit, I said that.

I think people just saw I disagreed with whatever stance they had and got angry, got even angrier when they saw how much of an ass I was being (in my defence, I wasn't an ass first, and I was sick of reading the same fucking comment under every Palestine thread) and just skimmed most of what I said and proceed to try to argue with me without even trying to understand what I said.

Which frankly makes these conversations exhausting for me, because I'm actually trying to read what people are saying and replying, but most replies I get seem to not put any effort in turn.

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People like you, are why I moved away.

Sure you could just be another Russian troll.

But I knew way too many fucking idiots like you in real life too years ago as to know there's a good chance that you're not a troll.

The only consolidation I have is that dumbasses like you will suffer along with the rest, even if not as much as you deserve compared to those who knew better.

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A lot of the people who are defending the DNC are not the ones decrying it.

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Assuming everyone here is American really makes me think you're blaming the wrong party.

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Not really it hasn’t been in the spotlight until Oct7th. That’s when real change can happen.

Not knowing about it/not caring is not an excuse. 1978 Oscars

Two people stomping at you, one pulls out a knife and says ‘lets get this vermin and his family too’. There is a clear difference.

That change in the analogy does not work because they were already going after all Palestinians, my dude. So who is the family is this analogy?

Put it this way. (...) Which is worse?

Clearly you and I just disagree on a fundamental level. I don't care what noises someone makes with their mouth while committing heinous acts, and I do not see a moral difference between committing a genocide and arming the people that you know are committing a genocide. Would you also make excuses for the people who knowingly worked with Nazis and made weapons for them?

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In shock announcement, Trump says U.S. wants to take over Gaza Strip