It’s genocide dickhead. Can’t believe I still have to vote for this mother fucker.
I appreciate you still voting though, mate. The alternative is far worse and that’s terrifying that our alternative to supporting a literal genocide is even worse.
It’s also not just voting against Trump.
Biden on climate is an A student. The inflation reduction act, according to basically every climate wonk, gives us a real chance at achieving necessary goals both under its regime and thanks to further future legislation it certainly unlocks. Things are looking less bad right now than they have for a long time in spite of all the worsening indicators. And it’s written with intense virtuous cycles built-in that will make it VERY sticky policy once it builds up a couple of years worth of inertia. The fact that he got it past an overtly hostile senate that had at least 51 anti-science, anti-climate, fossil fuel shills turning up to vote is nothing short of a policy miracle.
Trump, on the other hand, has vowed to reverse everything that could still be reversed about the IRA (a frustratingly large amount, unfortunately, could still be undone by executive fiat thanks to its still-developing political base). He’s vowed to double down on every kind of fossil fuel subsidy. He’s vowed to restore coal power even though it’s horrible for everyone involved and the most expensive kind of energy production. He’s vowed to fight windmills just because he doesn’t like their aesthetics – literal quixotic shit.
I won’t defend Biden on Israel for even one millisecond. His position is heinous. It’s evil. And if he loses in November, it will almost certainly be the reason why and he’ll deserve it. But it will probably also spell actual global war and apocalypse fueled by climate within all of our lifetimes. It may sound dramatic, but a Trump win will bring us from feast to famine and may spell the actual end of our civilization.
Lol, Biden is not an A student for climate.
Regardless of who’s in charge, we are still on track for environmental disaster unless we completely get rid of infinite growth capitalism. Joe Biden sure as heck isn’t going to do that.
I’m sick and tired of moderates thinking that our planet being uninhabitable is some sort of worthy compromise for the ownership class.
Removed by mod
Better than a golf shoe soaked in fake tan spray.
Exactly this vote is only against trump. Biden is a turd.
You lowbrow sonofbitches, shut the hell up
Why not vote for him, then protest for his removal after Trump is imprisoned?
We should all gather together at congress. Like early Jan. The 6th maybe? /s
after Trump is imprisoned?
Like that’s gonna happen.
God they all just fucking suck so much. Do you want the turd sandwich or the talking douche?
Yeah, this is going to be the worst vote I’ve ever had to cast. It really fucking sucks.
Trump is worse in this issue, and hundreds of others… But fuck them both.
Surprise, what would you expect from 50 year politician veteran?
Some fucking political tact
It is a war and an urban warfare with civilian to combatant death ratio less than 2:1, while according to civiliansinconflict.org, typical ratio is more like 10:1.
You might want to argue it is an unjustified war, but genocide it is not.
It’s genocide dickhead.
Wow, your intelligence is blinding. You should be careful with that.
Some scholars, like Verdeja, say that debates on whether the current conflict can be called a genocide are a “bad use of focus.” Part of that is because proving whether something is a genocide takes time, and does not actually stop people from being killed. Hinton agrees, noting that because genocide is seen as the crime of all crimes, people focus too rigidly on defining a particular moment as such. May be, legal jargon could be restrained until a thorough investigation is conducted. But thorough investigations are rarely conducted when it comes to Israeli crimes in Gaza or anywhere else in Palestine. Segal clearly points to how the U.S. government refused to call crimes committed against the Hutus in Rwanda a genocide. Without sticking to the truth, we’ll never have a truthful reckoning of how we arrived at the seventh of October, and how we go forward,” Segal says. “We need to name it for what it is.” source
You might want to make up definitions for genocide but in 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
Then technically, ALL wars are genocide.
EDIT: so many downvotes, so little arguments against it. Predictable as it gets.
The key feature is the first part about “intent to destroy.” Russia isn’t trying to destroy the concept of Ukraine, either as an ethnicity or a country (they just want it to be a puppet-state obedient to their dictates). The US wasn’t trying to destroy the concept of Vietnam or Vietnamese people.
Other people could draw different conclusions I guess, but to me it’s undeniable that Israel’s goal is to steadily destroy the whole concept of Palestine, with maybe some isolated individuals of Palestinian ethnicity still surviving in some location inside or outside Israel, but with Palestine itself completely erased.
They are forcefully removing children and telling them they are Russian. Which is exactly part of the quoted definition from the comment you are replying to.
Yeah, fair enough; maybe I picked a wrong example for one of my examples. I think most of the time, it’s not that way though. Not that I’m saying that makes war good or anything.
Actually, Putin does want to destroy the concept of Ukraine and he said it is not a real country.
Putin absolutely wants to destroy Ukraine. The definition above defines all wars that have ever happened.
Woah I think I just saw some neurons firing
Yes the intent matters. Israel intent is to destroy Hamas. That’s not genocide.
It is when they consider every Palestinian to be hamas (and anyone who they don’t like on a particular day)
And her we come back to civilian vs militants kill ratio, which is much lower than average numbers for urban warfare. You statement is just not supported by statistics.
Yes because they consider anyone they kill hamas
The precursors to genocide are actively unfolding before our eyes. On 10 October, the head of the Israeli army’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed a message directly to Gaza residents: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell”. The same day, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari acknowledged the wanton and intentionally destructive nature of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza: “The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, concretely says it is a “textbook case of genocide.”
Intent does not matter when the direct results of premeditated actions slaughter children and innocent civilians. These aren’t mistakes, they are literally being explained by Israel as the war rages on as collateral damage.
If this is acceptable on the world stage, then the only people “winning” in the near future will be government officials and very high ranking military personnel. What’s the point of peace when it comes at such a cost?
The amount of aid alone that Israel continues to block, and even destroy, is absolutely sickening.
genocide it is not.
It wasn’t really in question when this was published back in October. It was genocide then and it continues to be genocide.
“The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.””
These are act of genocide. True, but the intent matters too (and I am sure it is described in the document you are linking to). And destruction of Hamas is not the intent compatible with genocide. If Israel wants to destroy citizens of Gaza as a group, then it is doing really shitty job, since somehow the civilian to military ratio is well below expectations for urban warfare.
- Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Which are also what Hamas perpetrated on 10/7.
But what about….
Yes we know that Hamas is awful, evil, etc. That doesn’t give a moral pass to do just whatever to people who aren’t Hamas.
You’re right. Both sides are awful, and neither side gets a pass. Both sides have been accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes by the ICC.
That said, neither side has been accused of genocide by the ICC. The difference between “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” is very important to some (for good reason), but not very important to others (also for good reason).
We’re not selling weapons to Hamas.
That doesn’t affect whether or not Hamas committed genocide.
And how does that absolve Israel?
Hamas is not generally considered to have committed genocide, which suggests that the definition of genocide does not depend only on those three factors.
I’m confused, why are you acting like anyone here is defending Hamas? One foul deed does not make up for another. Israel is figuratively and literally shooting through civilians in order to kill Hamas. How is that acceptable?
Imagine if the police handled hostage situations like this. Some crazy guy pulls one of your loved ones away from you, puts a gun to their head, and threatens to fire… So the police just shoot them both.
Would you accept that? Would you thank the officer that shot them both?
I don’t think anyone is defending Hamas. The question is, did Hamas commit genocide?
As evil as they are, I do not think they committed genocide. I think most would agree.
But they meet the same of OP’s criteria as Israel. Hence, those criteria are not enough to establish that Israel committed genocide. (That does not mean Israel did nothing wrong!)
What Hamas did, was terror act, not genocide. What Israel does is war with Hamas in Urban territory where civilian to militant ratio 2:1 is considered to be much better than average urban warfare.
deleted by creator
Like if you squint at the numbers hard enough you cannot see starving children or murdered aid workers? Maybe that’s why I keep hearing about how they’re killing journalists.
Every conflict is a genocide if you squint your eyes hard enough
It may be frustrating that these talking points don’t work on Lemmy. Better luck next genocide.
Not sure where you’re getting those figures since the people keeping track of deaths were killed months ago.
Fucking ghoul
There are Hamas estimates of total death (~35,000). UN estimates are just Hamas estimates. There are Israel estimates ~30,000. Hamas estimates are for all deaths (including from natural causes and including due to Hamas rockets falling in Palestine). So the numbers are quite similar. I have seen different estimates how many Hamas militants were killed. The smallest is ~13K. If we take the largest number for total population killed (35K) then it is 22K civilians and 13K militants, with the ratio less than 2:1.
Two questions regarding your assertions
-
What are your sources(assuming they exist) for the estimates on militants killed?
-
How are your sources (again assuming they exist) defining militants vs civilians?
-
Displacement based on ethnicity and combat also counts
It is called ethnic cleansing in this case, not genocide.
You uhh … You switched those ratios around there bud.
In what sense? I am stating that less than two civilians are killed for every militant.
Biden’s worst enemy is not Trump, it is Biden himself.
Biden’s worst enemy is the uneducated, religious mass that is this country.
deleted by creator
Dinosaur candidate number 1 is a shit bag old fart that pretends to care about humanity
Dinosaur candidate number 2 is a nazi shit bag that shows how much he doesn’t care about humanity and rubs it in our faces
Choose wisely… or don’t, whatever 🤷
deleted by creator
Which one has corn?
deleted by creator
The scary thing is you have six months to change your mind.
I’m gonna vote for this absolute braindead motherfucker and it fucking sucks.
“They’re really gonna make me vote for Joe Biden…”
-Bo Burnham
Hahaha the visceral reaction I have in my stomach every time I think about that is just… So fun.
Same. This timeline is the worst
You know Joe has a point when the only thing he and his administration is able to come up with in response to the allegations is “it’s not genocide”.
According to the United Nations, genocide is an internationally recognized crime that involves an act with the intent to destroy a national, racial, ethnic, or religious group, in whole or in part. These acts include:
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious mental or physical harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life on the group that would cause physical destruction
- Imposing measures to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
This doesn’t even include the genocidal rhetoric coming from Knesset members.
It’s pretty clear the administration is on its back foot because no one believes Israel or the U.S. Hell, the majority of his base doesn’t agree with him.
This is pretty telling:
One thing these figures show is that Republican voters are far more strongly pro-Israel and defensive of its actions in Gaza than Democrats.
Who could have possibly seen that coming 🤔
That’s how it is. You wouldn’t think so the way some members of the left attack other members of the left on Lemmy, but it’s always been mostly Republican support.
Republicans refused to sign the aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They then tried to create a standalone bill for Israel, but Biden said he’d veto it. They only came around to signing it after the Iran retaliation.
When Biden paused shipment of arms in order to conduct a State Department investigation of Israel’s acts, House Republicans drafted legislation in an attempt to force the President’s hand to release the shipment.
Republicans have been the primary antagonists in the Israel-Iran proxy war since it started under Reagan. It’s about money and power, nothing else.
It’s also worth noting that 79% of Jewish-Americans are Democrats.
Did not expect to see numbers that low. Fucken hell.
People who follow polling have been saying this since December.
Liberals on Lemmy like to live in a self-deluded bubble where their blind support for Biden means he stands a chance in November. The fact is he basically can’t win with his stance on Gaza. He’s not exactly doing great in other regards, but he literally can’t win if he doesn’t about face.
If he can’t win with the policy position, and he won’t change the policy position, your only option as a voter is to take your vote elsewhere. Democrats lose the election if they stick with Biden.
Its not too late. We haven’t had a convention. Everything can still change. Larger mountains have been moved. If enough likely-Democratic voters show they won’t vote for Biden with this position, we can move him, but you have to voice your position now while there is still time for him to pivot.
Likewise, going into the convention, if Biden was smart and cared about the future of our democracy, he could assign his delegates to another candidate. This would allow Biden to bear the burden of the Israeli genocide as being enabled through his foreign policy, allowing the rest of the Democrats to pivot to a policy position that actually sets them up to win in November.
Here is an article from January that explains it:
It wouldn’t be that different if he suddenly croaked (which is a real possibility for an octogenarian.). Effectively the delegates would go to the convention unpledged, and the decision gets made at the convention.
Smartest move politically would be for Biden to step down now and designate a successor. Its what he should have done instead of running again, but by continuing to run a non-viable candidate, Democrats are giving blue ocean for Trump to win.
Its not gonna happen. Its going to be Hillary Pt 2, and within a month we’ll be hiding minorities in our basements from the democracy officers. They’re gonna run Biden.
Idk. They’ve been trotting out Kamala plenty. I’ll take her over Biden any-day. Whenever I need a quick pick me up, I just head over to the Social Security Administration website, who provides actuarial tables that include the probability of death within the next year at various ages. According to the 2019 actuarial life table from the SSA, the probability of dying within the next year for someone who is exactly 80 years old is approximately:
For males: 7.32% For females: 5.29%We’re about halfway through the year. So maybe a 3.5% chance he just croaks and Kamala becomes the defacto nominee?
Would she garner enough votes to beat Trump? I highly doubt that. I don’t really care for Biden either. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing for student loans if you’re also supporting a genocide. But no one is going to be our white Knight. I’m calling it now, the only good ending here in reality is voting in Biden and then changing to ranked choice voting. If Trump is supposedly beating Biden by a landslide, then everyone else is already in the dirt. Because Democrats are actually countless types of Leftists and centrists and the right has 2 types; villains and fucking idiots.
Would she garner enough votes to beat Trump?
Maybe. I’m not sure she’s been distant enough from Biden to be able to ditch the baggage he’s accumulated with his stance on Israel, but I do think she would be performing better.
I think whoever gets the nomination and isn’t dead yet in November gets the “any blue will do crowd”. These make up the core of liberals, centrists, and brand name right-wing democrats. That’s probably around 85-90% of the votes the Democratic nominee will need to win.
The cohort they are missing right now are the leftist/ activist/ anti-war section of the party, which is small, but significant. These are your “uncommitted” votes (20% in MI, just saw 10% in MD). The issue with losing this cohort is that they are the ‘multiplier’ cohort. They volunteer on campaigns, donate, organize, etc.
The biggest issue Democrats are facing right now is engagement.
Check out the results from Maryland (taking it because its the most recent primary).
Maryland is a good test bed because in both elections, both Trump and Biden were the defacto nominee (as before).
In 2020, 1,050,773 voters came out to vote in the Democratic primary (this was after Biden was the defacto nominee, June 1).
In 2024, this is what we’re looking at:
Joe Biden 524,968 87.3
Uncommitted 58,016 9.6
Marianne Williamson 11,245 1.9
Dean Phillips 7,302 1.2So a total of about 601531 votes so far with 90% of votes counted. So round it out to probably about 650k Democrats voting in MD’s primary.
In 2020, Trump got 295,787 votes with 340k total votes being cast. In 2024 Donald Trump as gotten 208,754 votes with a total of about 280k expected to be cast.
Trump got 84.5 of 2020’s primary votes, and looks like he’ll get about 70% of 2024’s primary votes. For Republicans, they’ve seen about a 18% drop in voter engagement in this primary from 2024.
In 2020, Biden got 880k or about 88% of the total votes cast for Democrats. In 2024 it looks like he’ll be getting 87% of the votes again. “Uncommitted” has taken the place of Bernie Sanders this election cycle, with about 9% of the vote. However, Democrats are seeing a 40% drop in voter engagement this election cycle, dropping from about a million people voting in a forgone conclusion in 2020, to about 600k people voting in a forgone conclusion in 2024.
And that right there is the rub. If you push out the activist left of the party, who is out there signing up people to vote? Who is phone banking? Who is rallying their community to participate?
Democrats could probably suffer a protest vote from the left. But they can’t suffer without what the left brings to the table, which is other people to vote.
It keeps coming back to the same thing.
Biden isn’t running against Trump. He’s running against himself. If Biden can’t get out of his own way in regards to policy, he can’t do this thing.
In regard to Kamala; I think if Biden can carry the sin of the foreign policy disaster that supporting Israel has been, I think she gets over the top. It really comes down to if she can distance herself sufficiently in regards to this specific issue and I’m not sure she can.
I agree with the analysis of Biden being an unwinnable candidate, but I really think the stain that he’s put on the Democratic party is too deep now to convince the critical portion you identify as needing to come back in time. You’d have to see a near-unified front of popular DNC figures (read: Obama), respected social democrats (Bernie, Warren), party leaders, mainstream media sources (primarily MSNBC and CNN) and most of congress providing rebukes of positions and stances they’ve been vehemently screaming about for 7 months at this rate while directly throwing Biden under the bus in an attempt to pin all of this on Biden. Also many of these people have provided direct condemnations of the people they need to build their ground game. They’re trying to build their ground game through hiring- I don’t think this will work.
I see neither the party will (at the DNC level- they seem happily delusional that this will either all blow over or people will fall in line; they don’t understand this is a turnout battle), it’s main messaging apparatus (MSNBC, CNN), nor its elected representatives really even being willing to go along with the replacement plan. The only hope I think democrats have is Biden dying (which you’ve also identified). I additionally think he’s about poisoned electoral politics as the primary societal vehicle of change to a large contingent of millennials and an even larger portion of Gen Z.
The thing that doesn’t make sense is protesting Biden’s support for Israel by voting for Trump, given that he and the Republicans would be even more enthusiastic for Israel’s actions. But even people not voting leaves the Democrats with a problem, since Republicans will vote no matter what.
The thing that doesn’t make sense is protesting Biden’s support for Israel by voting for Trump
You are just conflating two things with that.
But even people not voting leaves the Democrats with a problem
They sure do. But its not the voters job to fix that. And brow-beating people into ‘any blue will do’, when that very approach to strategic voting is demonstrated to not be working (see Joe Bidens poll numbers; any of the detailed polling on formerly/ likely Biden voters) is antithetical towards your goals, if defeating Trump is your goal. So you have to make a decision if stopping Trump or electing Biden is your goal. Its been evident since December it seems you’ll have to choose between the two.
Joe Biden isn’t a viable candidate at this point. He hasn’t been since December; its just that liberals are only coming around to realizing it now. The reason he hasn’t moved on Gaza is that he didn’t think he needed to. Any blue will do was, as you parroted, is the mantra democrats and liberals have been trained to speak. The problem is that’s not going to do this election cycle, and by continuing with that rhetorical strategy, its actually making the situation worse. Every day that goes by, the situation gets worse and worse for Biden.
Like, you are in a race to get to town. You have the choice between a non-working car (Biden) and a bicycle. The bike is slower, and you may be less likely to win on it (but you might have a chance if you can beat some lights and take some short cuts). The car isn’t running any more. It was running, but its driver drove it into the ditch by refusing to make a turn while there was still time.
Its not themselves democrats have to convince in this election, its everyone else that keeps getting ignored by the democratic party. But once again, they’re convinced that people are just ‘obligated’ to voting for them, but that has been demonstrated to be a failed electoral strategy (Clinton, 2016). Americans have shown that as voters they will not just toe the line. And brow-beating/ shaming has the opposite effect. The democrats in particular take an incessantly pejorative approach to their rhetoric. In the US, today, you have to go get voters. They aren’t going to just ‘come’ to you. Which means you need to change your position if you want to do get elected. If Biden can’t or won’t do that, he’s a broken down car. You’re better off hopping on your bike and getting peddling.
This exactly. Dems are trying to lose
You can be the defense attorney, Joe
“They were valid military targets. Hamas is in the hospitals. Hamas is in the tunnels. Hamas is in Tel Aviv.”
“Just a little genocide is worth it to save democracy. Look, I made a funny trolley problem meme to prove it.”
“There is no genocide.”
Where have I heard that first line before? Oh right, back in the early 2000s when Al-Qaeda was everywhere, anywhere because they’re terrorists. Just a different brand!
I’m very confused, Hamas were in and under the hospital weren’t they?
Edit: why are people downvoting this? Please someone explain
Because that’s still not a reason to start bombing hospitals en masse. Those hospitals were still largely serving the civillian population. Even if some soldiers were in there or part of the hospital was used for military operations, then go in there with some ground troops or something.
Bombing hospitals, schools, and refugee camps is never OK.
Why would you build your military headquarters under a civilian hospital? That clearly shows total disregard for innocent civilians right?
I’m finding it hard to understand. People seem to be upset because Israel don’t care about innocent Palestinians. Yet Hamas the people who Israel are targeting very clearly don’t care about innocent Palestinians either?
Every modern city has a tunnel system. There is no evidence other than IDF assertions that HAMAS was operating command centers from the hospitals.
It seems incredibly stupid in the face of international pressure for Israel to actively target a hospital unless it truly believed Hamas was hiding there. What possible benefit would it do Israel to simply target a civilian hospital?
Yes it was incredibly stupid. But nobody important really looked into these claims in previous conflicts. So Israel thought they were going to get the same treatment this time. All it was ever going to take was actual investigative journalism to blow this rotten can of worms open. And satellite imagery showing entire neighborhoods being leveled makes for a great motivator to investigate.
Edit to add - the benefit, to further the genocide. Hospitals both treat injuries and count the dead. Two things a genocidal power does not want happening.
Just stop. Unless looking like an asshat is your goal. In that case just fucking stop.
We don’t owe you anything
Looking at the publicly available evidence Israel destroyed entire hospitals for 12 armed guys in most cases. Basically the hospital security guards. TV News was extremely irresponsible with this reporting and they mostly just repeated whatever the IDF said. But investigative journalists have been debunking IDF claims for months now.
No. But even if they were, it’s still unconscionable to kill hospital staff and patients. You can argue that some people should distance themselves from Hamas or bear the risk. I think that’s mostly victim blaming, but at least you could argue that, and perhaps some surprising discussion could occur… Except here we’re talking about people who are sick or injured. They really couldn’t go anywhere.
It’s ok when you say no genocide afterwards. It’s the new no homo.
If it’s not genocide Netanjahu doesn’t have to fear the ICC. And the fastest way to get out of this, would be to go to trial and make his case.
Makes you wonder why he’s so angry about it.
Joe cant admit theres a genocide, lest he stand in court besides Bibi as Bibi’s weapons supplier and genocide enabler.
What category does baby bombing fall under?
The headlines says it all about how serious we have to take his words. The ICC didn’t even state “genocide” in the warrant request…
That doens’t mean it isn’t one. But the ICC was intelligent enough to only state war crimes we can witness without a doubt. Genocide would have the “intent” part that might complicate things at this stage.
Here is what the prosecutor stated as reasons for the arrest warrant request for Netanyahu:
-
Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
-
Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)©(i);
-
Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)©(i);
-
Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
-
Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
-
Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
-
Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).
But I think if the process will be allowed to continue despite US pressure “genocide” will be added to the list eventually.
-
His puppet country can’t even defeat its own concentration camp
Maybe he’s worried about being next to Bibi in the dock. Because he doesn’t have much less blood on his hands in that instance.
The US would invade the Netherlands before we ever allowed a US official to stand trial at the ICJ. That isn’t hyperbole, it’s stated government policy.
Well. Admitting it’s true, there’s still all the war crime charges which are much more clear cut.
