this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Frankly I don’t like the “but we could be spending this better at home” argument because the people making that argument invariably would refuse to actually do so, and instead just give out another tax cut.
That money would never end up going in to a single payer healthcare system, SNAP, education or building out more sustainable infrastructure. We don’t do these things not because we don’t have the money for it, we don’t do these things because they would undermine the influence of large financial and corporate interests.
There is a much better argument to not fund Israel, and it is that they’re attempting to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, have flaunted all of the treaties and agreements they made for near on 20 years, and they’re current leadership was undemocratically put in power.
I don’t know: Does that framing take away from the international law argument? How long has that argument been in play and how has that worked so far? It’s a powerful framing in that it illustrates the power that money being used to fuel hate could instead have for some semblance of good. Even if it’s impractical among today’s US elected officials. Also, arguments like this are how to get negotiation leverage. In general in this political climate, while we might want to be prepared to compromise I challenge the wisdom of leading with a compromise. I say different strategies need to be tried until something sticks.
The framing is a poor one, it is built on a fundamental lie about how money works in the US government. It’s a very weak framing that only ever convinces people who already wanted to defund a foreign effort. More importantly, most of this bill isn’t tied to Israel, it’s tied to other efforts like Ukraine, so really what this is arguing for is to stop supporting Ukraine. Most of the funding for Israel comes through other channels.
So to support this framing is to just undermine support for Ukraine and do little to stop Israel. Support for Ukraine is non-negotiable.
Can you elaborate on what specifically the “lie” is? The logical side of me takes the words “truth”, “fact”, and “lie” very seriously, and I worry that we too often use them to express a point of view including pragmatism. I’m genuinely curious!