FAQ
Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank. but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive. “harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
Yeah, I agree that it’s a shit situation and an undesirable choice. But the unfortunate political reality we currently live in is that it’s either Biden or Trump.
Yes, the Biden administration is supplying weapons to Israel that are being used for genocide. Trump has commented that Israel needs to “finish the problem.”
Yes, the Biden administration is turning away asylum seekers on our southern border. Trump has said that migrants are “poisoning the blood” of our nation.
I challenge your last point regarding marijuana convictions: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/
But I will again will contrast that Trump rescinded the Obama-era policy of not pursuing marijuana charges at the federal level in states where it was legal. A clear and significant step backward.
https://www.lastprisonerproject.org/president-biden-issues-additional-cannabis-pardons-but-still-no-one-has-been-released
it's optics
It’s not ”just optics”. Per your source he did pardon 6,500 individuals, which the Last Prisoner Project described as “progress for those eligible for relief.”
Now they do argue that the Biden administration should go further by pardoning 3,000 additional people, which I agree with. But to call this step forward “just optics” is at best disingenuous.
It's not nothing, but it's barely anything. He could also deschedule cannabis.
Tell that to the 6,500 people that got their freedom back.
And I reject your assertion that it’s barely anything: by your source’s count he pardoned 2/3 of the people caught up in these archaic cannabis laws.
Referencing back to OP, would you rather have 2/3 of an ice cream cone or go off a cliff?
No, he likely cannot unilaterally do that: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/can-president-biden-legalize-marijuana-1220802/
Do you at least acknowledge that slow incremental progress, while admittedly not nearly enough, is definitely better than going backwards?
There are different opinions about who has the power to deschedule cannabis, but Biden has not even tried. He is working on rescheduling, but that seems to be an "incremental step" that would also cause problems
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsinclair/2024/03/18/biden-says-hes-taking-care-of-federal-cannabis-laws-but-is-rescheduling-enough/?sh=290affc94e8d
I think that boycotting a vote on Democrats until they adopt leftist politics is a completely valid way to move the party. Republicans have essentially done the same, remember the Tea Party movement? It worked for them. The "incrementalist" approach has left us with a president who won't even say the word Genocide, worse is activity funding genocide.