#uncommitted movement

[hussyknee]

Link to video

Link to linktree in Polly's bio

There's SO much great stuff in her linktree, especially for USAmericans.

Link to GFMs hosted on Polly's bio: Rawan, Abedalrahman, Abood and Fatima,

Link to Uncommitted Movement: TikTok, Web

Link to Operation Olive Branch: TikTok, Linktree

Link to GFMs vetted by OOB

Edit 1: alt text enabled in images.

Edit 2: Video transcript provided by @alltheverses

[Transcript and description: Tiktok by @thepocketreport shows a person with a denim jackets, nose ring, and chin-length hair talking.) If you're feeling hopeless of helpless about the genocide happening in Gaza or conflicted about the election and the Harris campaign, I have two, actually three tangible things you can do right now.

First is to follow, interact with and familiarize yourself with the Uncommitted Movement. They're tagged below and explain everything so much better on their page. But they're a very effective movement leveraging anti war electoral power and Democrats' own governing systems to try and influence the Biden administration's Gaza policies and hopefully the Harris campaign's as well.

Which brings me to the second thing, which is going to their profile and watching their video about the Not Another Bomb movement. Going to their bio and getting involved. This is the Uncommitted Movement page. (Displays @uncommitedmvmnt profile with several videos. Speaker's head circles around the video for "The Not Another Bomb Campaign".) And this is the Not Another Bomb Campaign video. (Returns to regular view of the speaker.) The Not Another Bomb Campaign is similarly utilizing the electoral power of the anti war movement in order to push through an arms embargo. Theory being that we are not gonna to get a ceasefire until the US stops sending bombs to Isreal. Pretty straightforward.

And third, if you are able to, is to keep donating to Palestinian families trying to leave or get resources. I don't know what's happening with the algorithm but we're seeing a lot less of them, but that doesn’t mean they don't exist. There are two families in my bio who are still trying to get out and get medical help. And if you go to Operation Olive Branch there are hundreds.

We've all heard the thing about looking for the helpers when things are hopeless and you don't know what to do, and in this situation, those helpers are organizers. /end transcript.]

[directactionforhope]

"The leaders of the "uncommitted" movement, which grew out of Democratic opposition to President Biden's policy toward Israel and Gaza, will not endorse Vice President Harris for president, but urged supporters to "vote against" former President Donald Trump and "avoid" third-party candidates...

"At this time, our movement 1) cannot endorse Vice President Harris; 2) opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing; and 3) is not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system," the statement continued.

The uncommitted movement grew out of the “Listen to Michigan” campaign ahead of that state’s February presidential primary. Its goal was to send a message to Biden that he needed to do more to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of voters eventually cast uncommitted ballots throughout the Democratic primary in several states...

In a press conference after the announcement, leaders stressed that they are urging voters to "block" a second Trump term. But telling voters who have lost loved ones in Gaza to support Harris, Alawieh said, would be "inappropriate."

Alawieh called the non-endorsement "something we have to do."

"We know how dangerous Donald Trump is," he said. "There was no way, ever, that our movement ... would recommend a vote that would specifically help Donald Trump.""

-via NPR, September 19, 2024

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

'Palestinian Speakers Not Allowed' by Carlos Latuff

Voters have continually been told that Democrats want an end to the bloodshed and feel bad about dead Palestinians, but on Wednesday the Uncommitted National Movement was told they wouldn’t be granted a speaking slot at the convention. DNC has shut out Palestinians.

[uboat53]

Dude, the more I read about the movement to "punish Democrats" over their support for Israel in Gaza, the more it just reads like an exercise in mass delusion. SHORT RANT (TM)?

First of all, the amount of people who claim that Harris wasn't willing to call for a cease-fire... when she actually did. Numerous times. You can look it up, that's a thing she actually did.

Secondly, the people who are upset that Harris and Biden didn't push for an arms embargo against Israel or declare Israel to be in violation of US or international law... they realize that Congress has a veto-proof majority in favor of Israel, right? Don't get me wrong, I also think that Israel violated US and international law, but if Biden/Harris had tried to cut off the supply of weapons the most likely outcome would have been for Congress to override his decision and his veto, supply the weapons anyways, and destroy any leverage that the president may have had over the leaders of Israel.

Finally, the people who genuinely think that Trump's policy would be more positive for Gazans than Biden/Harris's... I mean, I have no idea how you reach this level of delusion. This is a man who openly declared that his policy was to "let Israel finish the job". This is a man who is appointing (as he promised during the campaign!) Evangelical Christians who believe in Israel's right to control the entirety of the Levant and expel or otherwise eliminate the "other" population to key positions. This is a man whose calls to "end the war", which were apparently taken as commitments to peace by some in this movement, were clearly calls to finish the genocide.

Yes, the father-in-law of one of his children is a Lebanese Christian and has been appointed to a minor advisory position and some of his surrogates definitely went to the Islamic communities of Midwest/rust-belt states and made promises to those communities that were at odds with what the candidate actually said, but it beggars belief to think that any reasonable person would believe such a thing. When someone tells you a candidate thinks one thing and the candidate themselves says they think another thing, one of those people is definitely lying and I think it's reasonable to say that the candidate probably has a better handle on what they actually think and, ultimately, will more likely be held to what they actually said.

And look, I get it, the pro-Palestinian movement was/is desperate, tens of thousands have died already and millions more are still in mortal danger, but retreating into fantasies and delusions is only going to make a bad situation even worse. Biden/Harris may not have been making a particularly public push for peace, but Trump is going to stop even the behind-the-scenes pressure that was happening. Biden/Harris may not have called for a ban on weapons transfers to Israel, but Trump will push for more weapons. Harris DID publicly and repeatedly call for a cease-fire, Trump will not.

Ultimately, though, the reason why Harris didn't do what they demanded is that (a) her opponent was (much) more extreme but also (b) the American public is overwhelmingly pro-Israel. Yes, Americans have approved of Israel's conduct in this conflict less than in previous conflicts, but the amount of Americans saying Israel is taking the right approach or even hasn't gone far enough is still roughly equal to the number saying it's gone too far. Yes, Americans overwhelmingly don't have faith in Netanyahu and are concerned about the war expanding, but only about a quarter of Americans want the US to take a major role in diplomacy and two-thirds see a last peace as unlikely. No matter how much pressure small groups brought to bear, they were never going to force Harris to take positions that were so far outside the mainstream of American politics.

Unfortunately, the pro-Palestinian movement was trying to fight against decades and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of pro-Israeli influence on public opinion in the space of only a few months; frankly the level of success they've had is amazing. Equally unfortunately, though, the inability to change American politics in such a short time has made them retreat to magical thinking which will ultimately hurt the people they are trying to help.

This is an object lesson in effective activism here, people. Pressure is most effective when it's directed at someone you support and sustained over a long time. Note that "someone you support" part in there, you'll be much more effective at influencing someone's policy AFTER you vote for them than before. In fact, the most effective way of pursuing activism is to get sympathetic politicians into office and then push them to go further in your direction by offering even greater support if they do.

Voting against your own interests is a quick path to irrelevance. Democratic strategists are not sitting around today wishing they'd gone further in opposing Israeli actions, they're writing off Arab-Americans as a voting group that they need to focus appeals on and strategizing to appeal to other groups instead, and Republican strategists have figured out they can get Arab-American votes (or at least get them to sit out the election) without having to give them anything at all. Meanwhile, Gazans will pay the price as Netanyahu continues a campaign that can only be referred to as genocide while also instigating conflict after conflict in the greater region, all with the full support and even encouragement of the US administration.

Normally this is the point where I'd say of Trump voters that they deserve to get what he's going to bring them, but ultimately it won't be them that are directly hurt by Trump's actions, it will be the people of Gaza and the broader Middle East. Given that I can't wish that upon an innocent population but that I have very little if any ability to stop what is coming, I hope that, at least, those who voted for Trump out of frustration with Harris/Democrats are able to pause, take a deep breath, and study how American politics actually works.

Arab-Americans are a fast-growing group in the United States, and particularly so in key swing states. They deserve to have their ideas and policy preferences reflected in American politics and heard in the national debate. Hopefully, though, they can figure out how to wield their influence effectively before those who want to silence their views are able to sideline them completely.

Anyways, if you're interested in the piece that got me thinking about this, here you go. Those three delusions at the beginning aren't exaggerations by the way, they're actual statements quoted in the piece from leaders of the larger movement.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Corey Walker

Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said in a new interview that Democrats’ general support for Israel’s defensive military operations against Hamas in Gaza contributed to their poor performance in last month’s elections.

Clayton made the remarks while appearing on the media outlet Zeteo this week to explain why she believes her party lost big across the US, most notably in the presidential election. Speaking with Mehdi Hasan, a journalist and outspoken critic of Israel, Clayton argued that the Democratic Party “abandoned” wide swaths of its voter base, adding that the party’s support for Israel likely alienated many younger voters.

When asked by Hasan whether the Israel-Hamas war resonated with the electorate in North Carolina, Clayton argued that the ongoing military conflict in Gaza “absolutely” eroded the Democrats’ standing with young voters.

As The Algemeiner reported, a survey of swing voters by Blueprint, a Democrat-leaning research firm, found the issue of Israel and the Palestinians barely registered as motivation for choosing Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris in the presidential race. Voters were more worried about inflation, immigration, and certain cultural issues. Among those voters for whom it was a factor, the survey found more people concerned that Harris was too “pro-Palestine” than those upset she was too “pro-Israel.”

Nonetheless, Hasan, citing anti-Israel protests at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, suggested that Democrats’ support for Israel disillusioned and enraged many young voters. 

Clayton defended the “Uncommitted Movement” — an effort launched by anti-Israel activists to persuade the Democratic Party to officially endorse an arms embargo against the Jewish state and not support outgoing US President Joe Biden — as “using political power in the right way.”

She added that Democrats should be “embracing” anti-Israel efforts like the Uncommitted Movement, saying “that is something that we want so see more of in our party.”

The North Carolina Democratic Party has been plagued with accusations of antisemitism in the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. Members of the state party refused to support a resolution condemning the terrorist attacks in Israel, sparking outrage among Jews within the state.

[dicapiito]

You can’t stab a community in the back and then think that Black People should just “ turn the other cheek” when we made it clear it was either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.

Frankly, I’ll just sit back at people finding out quickly how stupid it was to not vote for Kamala Harris. Black People tried to save this fucking country and we got stabbed in our backs. Only Jewish and the lgbt communities were with Black People.

White and nonblack PoC; please save the embarrassing ass TikTok videos asking Black People to “ come together”. Although quite entertaining; they won’t change the fact that Black People are tired of being stabbed in the back.

[cayomuchacha]

sorry but the whole “push harris left when shes elected” thing is not. Working. especially because um. A democrat is the president. So what exactly do you want from us dissenting vote-witholders except complete obeisance to status quo continuation…. Like am i not allowed to ask for the overton window on polices to shift leftwards until AFTER you lock in my vote in november???? please don’t take me for a fool, i LITERALLY just did this with biden 4 years ago. And he remains ironclad supporting a genocidal terror regime, AND has UN ambassador vote NO on UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, AND has continually relisted Cuba on the terrorist list…while opening commerce with cuban entrepeneurs. Cognitive dissonance is a consistent messaging from democrats and that’s no good. Either stand up for the rights of all peoples, or stand up for your gross imperial legacy. Red white and blue with the blood of innumerable innocent lives. DO SOMETHING OR YOU WONT GET MY VOTE. ITS SIMPLE. IM NOT VOTING FOR HARRIS UNTIL DEMOCRATS FORCE THEIR LEADERS TO SUPPORT SUBSTANTIAL POLICY SHIFTS TO THE LEFT. i’ll vote blue down the line tho before you berate me. But i will not vote for a president who doesn’t signal and VERBALIZE intent for real policy changes. It’s simple. I’m begging you to do something to get democrats to earn our votes.

[wisepuma23]

video source and C-SPAN article confirming it!

LFG!!!!! truly what a fucking baller move fr fr

[james-the-axew]

I only wish the worst upon all those who didn’t vote, voted independent, and voted trump. When natural disasters hit don’t expect sympathy from me. When shooting happen in your state don’t expect any sympathy. When Covid or some other virus runs rampant don’t expect anything. You get what you deserve.

[fursasaida]

Ah. It appears Uncommitted at some point became fully controlled opposition and effectively smoke and mirrors. It seems clear many involved were not on board with this and it was a leadership/rank and file split (plus ça change).

Since I promoted Uncommitted and urged people to support them, I feel I have to spread this as well:

The Uncommitted National Movement, which promised to leverage constituents' votes to force the Democratic Party to change its position on Israel, received more than $400,000 from a Democratic-aligned PAC that explicitly prevents beneficiaries from endorsing a candidate other than Kamala Harris, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Several activists and volunteers told MEE that the payments appear to explain why the movement refused to endorse a third-party presidential candidate, choosing instead to redeem the Democratic Party among disgruntled voters once it became clear the Biden-Harris administration would not alter course on Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.

The revelations kicked off a firestorm in October amongst Arab-American activists and others formerly part of the Uncommitted movement. They say they felt betrayed by the movement after it began all but endorsing Kamala Harris despite receiving no commitments from the Democratic Party on their demands regarding Gaza and US military support for Israel. 

Volunteers across the swing states chronicled how they had joined a grassroots campaign in early 2024 that they believed would continue using their votes as leverage to pressure Biden - and then Harris once Biden dropped out - over the Democrats' unwillingness to change their policy on Israel.

In the weeks and months that followed, hundreds of thousands of Americans aligned themselves with Uncommitted, in what was seen as an unprecedented push against the Democratic Party.

But former organisers within Uncommitted, who have now launched their own group, "Uncommitted Grassroots", say the findings show they were deceived by a group of Democratic Party-aligned operatives who were intent on merely rescuing the party, not holding it accountable.

The financial details are in the article, as are more details from those who were betrayed. What a disgusting grift. "The Democratic Party: where movements go to die" proves evergreen once more.

See also this thread from all the way back in August when Uncommitted endorsed Harris, which I had not seen until today:

[titleknown]

Blogging this because, I sighted on my dash a reblog of this absolutely head-up-ass post saying "Maybe if the uncommitted Movement weren't so mean and anti-electoral we would listen to them >:( "

But, if you actually fucking read what they want to say and their willingness to make concessions, it's pretty fucking reasonable. doubly so when you remember a lot of them have family members that're being murdered in this fucking genocide.

And like, I think that's the general problem I have with how people've handled the Uncommitted movement. They've they've used the "proper channels" and exerted what levers conventional politics gives them, by all accounts they have engaged with electoral politics right, and for some Very Respectable People it's still not enough.

Like, at that point, you shouldn't blame leftists for driving people to anti-electoralism, you should look in the fucking mirror.

And, as an aside, if you're one of those people who were previously talking about "Russian chaos agents" but now are making mealy-mouthed excuses and justifications for the DNC silencing them because "Oh, they can't acknowlege them because they have AIPAC's hand straight up their ass," I see you you rank fucking hyppocrites.

[hearthfire-heartfire]

support rashida tlaib by reminding democratic leaders that they are supposed to take their cues from the voters

sign this petition to tell democrats that you unequivocally support an arms embargo to israel. commit to another round of contacting your representatives, particularly if you are in key swing states like pennsylvania, georgia, and arizona, and let them know that we can't wait until the election for an arms embargo, we need action now in order to commit to a vote.

[thoughtportal]

Not another bomb

[thatstormygeek]

But one key group was left out. The Uncommitted Movement, the antiwar, pro-Palestinian action that placed second to Joe Biden in this spring’s discarded primaries, had spent weeks trying to move the convention, both in matters of symbol and substance, against the U.S.-armed slaughter in Gaza. In the end, their efforts had boiled down to one extremely achievable ask: to give a Palestinian-American — any Palestinian-American — or a doctor who had witnessed the suffering at the hands of the Israeli military a brief speaking slot, at any time during the four-day-long national pep rally. ... But the word that had come down on Wednesday turned out to be final. No Palestinian would be allowed to speak. ... Nevermind, too, that there was already a tearful presentation on the horrors of October 7, from the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American veteran of the IDF who is still being held hostage in Gaza — a presentation that the Uncommitted delegates made sure to attend in solidarity with the families of Israeli hostages, by the way. ... The refusal to platform a Palestinian speaker echoes nothing so much as the refusal, on orders of then-President and candidate Lyndon Johnson, of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, under the leadership of Fannie Lou Hamer, at the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, sixty years ago this month. It similarly ignores the substantive divide between the protesters outside the convention and the uncommitted delegates inside — the fact that the latter are trying to work within and in coalition with the institutional Democratic Party. While some, like some in the MFDP, will likely continue to work for Harris’ election this fall, the refusal to give the reformers even a token platform on the main stage fuels arguments that the party, and perhaps the entire political system as it stands, is too hopelessly corrupted to work with, and thus must be challenged or overthrown.

It seems that those instincts are now operating — that the Harris-Walz campaign and the convention planners decided they could afford to alienate Palestinian-Americans and their ever-growing contingent of allies on the antiwar left. That it would be better to disappoint and insult them than to challenge, in the mildest of ways, the pro-Israel contingent or the reactionary center. It was clear from last night’s programming that their play is going to be to appeal to disaffected Republicans and so-called “moderate” independents, by focusing on militarism, police, and Harris’s career as a prosecutor, locking away criminals and “securing” the border. She telegraphed that in the foreign policy section by declaring with almost Reaganite bravado: “As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” I really think they could have done both. I don’t think that having a Palestinian woman, hijab and all, deliver what was at bottom a bog-standard Democratic convention speech, with a shoutout to her father’s Jerusalemite origins where others shouted out their Hispanic or Native American heritage would have necessarily detracted from that pivot. I think they could have shored up part of the Michigan Arab-American vote without scaring away the voters they hoped to gain by trotting out ex-Republican congressmen and the Genesee County sheriff. I want to believe that sacrificing the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Gazans, along with the other Omelas children of the world, in Haiti, Congo, and elsewhere, is not really the intractable trolley problem — a trade between potential victims of American fascism at home and the victims of American militarism abroad — it is made out to be. But maybe I’m naïve.

[asm5129]

I was watching the new Olay and friends (linked below) and it got me thinking

Well first of all it’s very thought provoking, regardless of whether I do or don’t agree with every point

And I definitely see how the pro-Palestine movement—at least, the capital D Discourse version—lacks serious focus beyond being loud. if activism is just shouting down the people who are approaching the same problem differently than you, that’s not a real strategy. “End the genocide” isn’t an actual demand, because it’s not something America can actually *do*. The idea of emotional extortion is interesting, how gatekeeping and exclusion are tools of white supremacy is interesting as well, and how “the masters tools cannot dismantle the masters house” has been kind of twisted. There’s a lot more to it but the big thing that I started thinking about

In terms of strategy

I started thinking of how much the notion that voting is meaningless or the idea that not voting is useful in the long run kind of flies in the face of the fights that have been fought over decades with sweat and tears and far too much blood to gain the right to vote. I know some people have used the line “if voting did anything they wouldn’t let you do it.”

If you know literally *any* American history you should no that the powers that be definitely did not “let” most people vote. Even right now, voter suppression wouldn’t be a priority for MAGA if voting wasn’t a genuine threat to them.

You don’t feel the need to rig the game if you believe you can win.

It’s just interesting how in leftist debate about strategy the right to vote kind of gets flattened as an unimportant part of historic fights for civil rights and overlook how heavily allowing oppressed and disenfranchised people to vote scared those in power.

To be clear—voting ain’t enough. Not at all.

But to act as if the blood that was spilled in that fight was meaningless , that ultimately the establishment doesn’t need to care who votes feels a rather ignorant take.

[cayomuchacha]

really discouraging trying to engage with “moderate” (conservative) liberals.

Because if this is how they speak to me, idk if i could call it persuasion, i am saddened for the justified reactions of people far less nice than me when spoken at like i have been spoken at towards by these callous and seemingly uncaring liberals. it’s the berating chastisement. it’s just so unfriendly, unlikeable, and insufferable. i say, biden had the executive prerogative to mandate multiple stimulus checks. They say, he TRIED! I say he didn’t try hard enough for my liking. They say there’s WORSE.

😩 it’s the circlular conversation of torture liberal democrats led by biden clinton pelosi etc have kept minority dissenting voices on loop with their amorphous moral goalpoasts.

Democrats in government keep my island Cuba on the terrorist list for evil, imperialist reasons. He upholds through verbal inaction the illegal sanctions placed on Cuba by US law. He doesn’t even speak against it. Democrats in government keep Palestine from having state representation at the United Nations for evil, imperialist reasons. Democrats in government supply with IRONCLAD SUPPORT the WEAPONS USED BY A GENOCIDAL ROGUE STATE. I WON’T PUT DEMOCRATS IN OFFICE AGAIN UNTIL DEMOCRATS RESOLVE THE GLARING ISSUES BROUGHT FORTH TO THEM BY DISSENTING VOICES OF VULNERABLE MINORITY CONSTITUENTS OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY WHO THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT.