Was that really a debate? Harris, Trump, You Can’t Hide . . .
U.S. politics seemed to hit an all-time low earlier this week with the much-hyped (why?) Trump-Harris debate on Tuesday, September 10th. But instead of helping their large audience make an informed decision about their choice for president in November, the debate showed off nothing more than the terrible dysfunction of the electoral process in the U.S. It also helped at least one independent candidate’s ticket, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Butch Ware, earn even more support from the Muslim American community, as both candidates on the debate stage showed how committed they are to continuing the genocide in Gaza.
On this extremely important matter, important both because of its impacts domestically and internationally, there truly was no disagreement in the positions of the Red Team (the felon) and the Blue Team (the war criminal.) That position was clearly to continue arming Israel (not a peep about an arms embargo and only lip service to the idea of a ceasefire). At the same time as the debate took place, more 2000 ton bombs were dropping on Gaza and many more Palestinians, men, women and children, were killed. And according to Al Jazeera English: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/12/what-bombs-did-israel-use-against-the-al-mawasi-safe-zone-in-gaza the bombs used to strike Al Mawasi, a so-called “humanitarian zone,” were made in the U.S. and sent to the Israelis.
Can anyone say “Nero fiddled while Rome burned?” And how was it that some people still woke up in the U.S. the morning following the debate “feeling the joy” emanating off Kamala Harris?
For those who have decided that they will not vote for a candidate who supports genocide or has been complicit in engineering it, the debate quickly snuffed out any hope of finding that candidate in either the Democratic or Republican Party. Nor did either candidate give any indication that they would try to rein in the U.S. empire — the one that seems always to choose war over negotiation, the one that seems determined to push the world closer and closer to WWIII.
The now familiar refrain of Kamala Harris rang out again, first in repeating the mantra that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and then repeating the oft-debunked claim that Hamas “beheaded babies and raped many women.” But neither moderator stopped her. Nor did Donald Trump, leaving that inflammatory lie out there, yet again, to whip the audience into a frenzy. Following that well-worn, tired line, Kamala promised, yet again, to ensure that the U.S. military was the “most lethal” in the world. While the audience applauded loudly, some of us watching at home cringed — wondering how it had come to this point, where the 2 mainstream candidates for president, the only two “allowed” to participate in the debate, tried to outdo each other in their belligerence and aggression toward the rest of the world.
Obviously, the situation in Gaza is at the heart of it all. The fact that the two on the stage showed no understanding at all about the genocide that the U.S. and Israel are committing in Gaza and now the West Bank, made any “debate” about it hollow and without meaning. Neither candidate even used the word genocide. Neither candidate acknowledged that because of the impunity granted Israel, those who stood in opposition to the genocide were turned into the enemy, instead of those dropping the bombs. The fact that the Friday before the debate, in the West Bank town of Beita, a U.S. citizen and recent graduate of the University of Washington was shot and killed, most likely by an Israeli sniper, did not even merit a mention, was yet another cause for concern. The only positive that came out of the debate, in this writer’s opinion, was that two days later, the Muslim American Public Affairs Council in North Carolina, endorsed the Stein/Ware ticket. That ticket now also leads Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in the public opinion polls of at least 3 swing states.
Some of us are criticized for wanting to create a better world, for not wanting to reward those who support genocide. It isn’t a single issue, it’s the issue. It shows how easily international law can be broken, how easily domestic needs can be forgotten to spend billions (literally) on erasing someone else’s culture through ethnic cleansing and genocide. But standing firmly against genocide, what some might call “tilting at windmills” because it requires resistance to change the current direction of events, is far preferable to pretending to debate real issues while proceeding to debate a series of lies. It would be considered absurd if so many lives were not at stake.
There has to be a better way.
Meanwhile we in the pro-Palestine efforts will continue to assert the demand at every opportunity including to those who are prioritizing the election of Harris or Trump over the immediate end of the slaughter – first and foremost the genocide must be immediately halted this minute. Our work to stop the genocide immediately is hands down more important than the political elections agenda of either the Democratic or Republican Party – they are both continuing the genocide.
