The time to take a stand against genocide was yesterday, but today is still not too late for us to make a difference!
A year ago February, before immolating himself in protest in front of the Israeli Consulate, Aaron Bushnell made this public announcement:
"I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."
There is not a false word in his statement. Our political representatives, with a tiny handful of honorable exceptions, have sold their souls to the Israeli lobby, and are busy shoveling American tax dollars in the form of 2,000-pound bombs out the bomb bays of American-made fighter-bombers to rain death and destruction on the hapless residents of the Gaza Strip.
We probably couldn't find the money it would take to outbid the Zionists who effectively own Congress, but why should we anyway? Isn't our government supposed to represent we the people? Do you remember voting to support genocide, because I sure don't.
So the only other avenue available to us is to form a sizable voting bloc to rival the one controlled by AIPAC and put our elected representatives — and those intending to run for federal office — on notice that the next election cycle is going to be very different. All congressional seats and a third of Senate seats will be up for grabs in the mid-term elections in 2026, and we can be very sure that if there is not widespread public support for politicians who openly denounce the genocide, whoever wins those elections will just get swept up in the bribery we call special interest campaign contributions.
We the people remain the last check and balance against the tyranny of this pro-genocide cabal. If we join together as a solid, publicly committed bloc of voters, we can sway the midterm elections in the direction of peace and justice for the long-suffering people of Palestine.
We are not all capable of Aaron Bushnell's level of self-sacrifice, but who amongst us cannot take 15 minutes to help form a solid voting bloc to put our political leaders on notice that policies in support of genocide are un-American and are not going to be tolerated by a large number of committed voters?
While Israel is the perpetrator of this genocide, it could not do so for long without American support, and that makes all of us morally complicit unless we act. This website offers an opportunity to do just that — to act in a way that collectively can shift the trajectory of American foreign policy in a humanitarian direction.
Once momentum is gained, this website will flower out with color maps showing the distribution of pledged voters by state, and hopefully soon after by congressional district — while keeping personal information shared by each voter private. (The publicly viewable list of pledgers will show only the first name, first letter of last name, city, and state of each pledged voter.)
As interest grows, we will try to keep you informed of relevant congressional votes and presidential directives so that when the time comes, you will be a fully informed voter on this question — and perhaps even organize locally to field sympathetic candidates for congressional office.
Please do what you can to convince those in your social circle to join forces with the rest of us who are sick and tired of being sick and tired of genocide and our nation's complicity with it. Just say no to genocide. If we succeed, history will not forget us; if we don't make the effort, history will not forgive us...
We are not all capable of the level of sacrifice Aaron Bushnell so nobly undertook, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can for the cause of ending our country's patent complicity in the genocide in Palestine.
Please ask everyone you know to visit Stand and Be Counted and sign our voter pledge against genocide! Together, we can make a difference for the victims of genocide in Gaza and elsewhere.
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