timemachineyeah
drives me up a wall living in a very very red district, like “no democrat is ever going to win any local election, let alone a real leftist” district, like “our school board members ran on who was the most anti-mask” red, like “I pass white supremacist signs on the way to buy weed” red
and being in the local leftist community and the guy who runs the anarchist book club and the lady who helps keep the warming shelters open and the people who marched on city hall when a local business was getting death threats for having a drag show are all members of a discord and we get on this discord and have frank discussions about how best to vote
the people who do the protests and the mutual aid and all the real work
going “okay, they’re both fascists, but this one lacks ambition and seems happy to just glide in the position” or “they both suck, but this one can be reasoned with if you frame it patriotically enough” like we don’t even have a democrat to vote for. we know what a vote is. we know what we hope accomplish with it. we know what it can do, and we know what it can’t.
and going from those discussions to here where people think that your vote is some kind of fucking??? enabling maneuver??? as if someone isn’t going to end up in that seat regardless of what you do???
we didn’t build this system, we just live in it. we’re just trying to survive. a vote isn’t a statement of your values, it’s not an endorsement, it’s not a marriage contract, it’s a strategic play you make to keep alive.
the biggest mistake I see leftists making is overestimating their own popularity. “well but everyone would be leftist if they just-” no, stop, 1) you can’t possibly know that 2) everyone will not just
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But this solution doesnt kill any billionaires, install linux, implement communism or defund the police! It accomplishes nothing!
It doesn’t even make peace in the Middle East
I heard that when you install Linux for the first time, a billionaire dies. The only way to stop this is for a right-winger to clap three times and say “I believe in the free market”
Windows user?
No, I use Linux. It’s just not my whole personality
Being mad about Linux enthusiasm might be though
Goddam you sound so insufferable. You love your ineffective, status-quo, compromise-with-naked-fascists, liberal Democrats, and you want me to love them too. They don’t fucking represent me or my values. If I vote for them, my concerns are ignored until the next campaign when I’m told my concerns are unrealistic fantasies and that while there is certainly no hope of improving things, they can get worse more slowly than with the Republicans.
Democrats are a failure as a party in opposition to conservatism (or even fascism!). Why is it so much to expect for party leaders to show some fucking leadership? Do politics. Have a vision and do more than pretend to fight for it. Make room in the party for the left if you want our votes.
You do realize that the previous commenter was joking right?
At the end of the day, people have no option but to vote for the lesser of two evils, hense why people need to “Do politics” and create better parties or infiltrate existing ones and improve them from the inside. For those who can’t do that, voting to minimize harm is the best many can do. By not voting, you choose to let the status quo remain the same or worse, regress.
No no no… dont correct them.
Nothing makes me happier than someone missing the point so hard they prove it.
Yeah I get that they were “joking”. What has voting for Democrats gotten us besides " the status quo… or worse"? This is the point. You guys are the ones who have it backwards. Politicians have to “sell” themselves to the electorate. Democrats don’t even try to do that, which is precisely why someone like Trump can come along and win elections.
I use Arch BTW
Why? I don’t live in an undemocratic country with only 2 parties.
Why should I need to read it?
why are you commenting if you self admittedly don’t care to read the post or understand its context. what ur doing is tantamount to trolling and super annoying.
its like you guys dont actually want to know…
Only those unfortunate enough to be living the “American dream” need to.
Did I mention I want to move to Europe
Good to know, run along now.
You only hear this argument pop up when they’re admitting their candidate is shit but it’s the only choice you have besides the other guy.
THIS ISNT A REAL CHOICE AND WE NEED TO STOP PRETENDING IT IS. This is literally how the system maintains it’s 2 party nature.
Yes, you should vote. And vote for who you actually believe in and who you think will actually make a difference, not just the “safe bet”. It’s a prisoners dilemma and we’re all too afraid to make the right move.
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Oh I read it. It’s a load of crap. “Leftists” are part of the broken system too. US “liberals” are still conservatives in most other nations.
Voting “just to survive” is voting to keep the system intact. But keep arguing how you’re not part of the problem while voting for the current ruling class that keeps it entrenched.
You can say whatever you want. Doesnt make it true. And requoting it thinking that’s sufficient to change someone’s mind shows how out of touch you are with discourse as well. Just keep shouting the same thing over and over and eventually it’ll be true. Sound familiar?
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Here in Huntsville, AL, a Democrat recently won a representative position by a wide margin.
It’s possible to turn a red city blue or keep a blue city in a red state. It just takes all people to show up to vote.
And here’s the rub: Democrats far out number Republicans, so the more people that vote, the higher the percentage that Democrats can win by.
Glad the city known for its phycists finally got a blue vote in!
It doesn’t just take that in situations where deep red is the only real color. Perhaps in smaller elections, I don’t know. What I do perceive is how divided we are as a Nation and as communities. I’m hoping we come together in agreement despite various valid arguments being made.
I’m just also expecting us to continue slap fighting as the Right gains a stronger hold due to our own inability to take cohesive action. This tends to be an unpopular opinion. Yet I’ve noticed the same trend for the last twelve years. So I try and talk about it whenever I can.
If it couldn’t be done redmap wouldn’t’ve worked
did you guys get anything concrete out of this effort? is actual policy changing in a meaningful way? is this just about the blue guy winning?
It literally just happened, so that remains to be seen.
What I do know is that the Republican representatives have been taking away freedoms and enacting bad policy for decades. So the change is welcome.
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Yeah, like literally every election campaign by every politician ever. Do you know how elections work? Or are you 12?
im old enough to not be that naive
ive seen this happen over and over again with exactly the same results
This is good. I like this actual explanation way more than the shitty bus metaphor.
yay! that’s the cool thing about rhetoric is different styles represent the same ideas effectively to different audiences
people need to remember that part of the reason the country keeps moving to the right is because there are large swaths of the population that like it that way. it’s not just the elite feeding the right propaganda to the people - it’s the people looking for more and more conservative candidates as they watch their ‘christian nation’ become secular and their white cis male dominated culture become more open.
we need to stop believing that most people are by nature good. there are plenty of little fascist dictators in every small town community that want to see people suffer.
the truth is that we need a great culling of the rotten apples in every aspect of society.
it’s the people looking for more and more conservative candidates as they watch their ‘christian nation’ become secular and their white cis male dominated culture become more open.
Spot on.
plenty of little fascist dictators
While I’m not a Marxist, he had a brilliant term for these people: “Petty Bourgeoisie” They think they’re in line with the upper-crust, but are just Proles that are kidding themselves.
Huh, when I initially read “petty bourgeois” I thought you’d got the term wrong, but when I looked it up to check its a common anglicisation of “petite bourgeois”.
I find the latter more intuitive, as it’s “little bourgeois”, but both are right.
“little bourgeois”
Lil Bougie about to drop his new album “HOA Fees”
You’re actually looking for the term “false consciousness”. Economic classes, however, are defined (as per Marx) by your objective relations to the means of production, not your mindset or sympathies. If you make a living from rents/capital rather than from selling your labor/time, you are bourgeois. If not, you’re not.
Ah, that makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification - I’ll adjust my future rants accordingly. :)
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Petite Bourgoisie are Capitalists that aren’t large enough to survive soley on the labor of others, so they certainly aren’t proletarians, but not bourgousie outright. Think mom and pop shop owners with a handful of other employees, not actual proles.
Exactly this. No, people aren’t voting for racists because they’re upset with taxes or unemployment. They’re voting for racists because they’re racist.
it’s both, but understand that both mindsets are synonymous with narcissistic behavior. both lead to suffering.
And people aren’t voting for Democrats who refuse to address unaffordable housing, healthcare and education head on. Someone who realizes the traditional means aren’t options and goes for riskier strategies because they know the population can’t abide with loss after loss after loss.
The rail strike was a perfect opportunity for Democrats to show who they’re fighting for and that’s exactly what they did. Turns out, they’re fighting for corporations.
we need a great culling
Are you calling for slaughter?
Rwandan style genocide
It’s mostly upper middle class people who believe they are entitled to be better off than others and don’t want progress.
that’s also true. i think there are a lot of selfish people that understand that if america came to live within its means and stopped profiting off of a lot of other people’s misfortune, that our collective quality of living would go down a little bit, and they’d rather see other people suffer than sacrifice any bit of convenience or luxury.
that kind of thinking is incongruent with altruism and those people need to be culled or reeducated.
This reminds me a bit of Singapore, where everyone with any money has a maid to clean around the house. It’s because the minimum wage for maids is really low. It’s about $400 to $600 per month for a live in maid, based on their country of origin. You pay less for maids from certain places (yes it’s pretty racist).
If they increased the minimum wage, the average Singaporean would not be able to afford a 24 hr maid. The funny thing is, people in developed countries mostly do not have maids and are not really worse off. The idea that Singapore would have a “lower standard of living” without maids is kind of silly to everyone else.
Unfortunately, your “reeducation” idea is really undemocratic and not altruistic. People in developed countries have a right to believe stupid things because conservative governments (monarchies) used to outlaw it. We already tried that and it didn’t work.
it does more good to get rid of the bad elements of society because they pave the way for a better society. we’ll never have the society that benefits all until we get rid of the barriers to it. everyone cannot be saved, and every minute we don’t take direct action to fix our society dooms millions more that have yet to be born, if not billions (not even counting the animal life affected by it). it’s a simple trolley problem. I temper my altruism with basic logic. you take the direct path to alleviating the suffering for the most creatures, not all creatures.
Once you create a tool, it will be used. And not necessarily for good.
“Reeducation” is bad in general, except for helping criminals or the mentally ill. Advocating it is an extremely authoritarian view that goes against all modern concepts of personal liberties (real ones, not “the freedom to cough everywhere”).
It indicates to me that you believe that you are 100% correct and will always be in power, so it will not be used against you. That’s not an altruistic view. That’s what a king believes.
Once you create a tool, it will be used. And not necessarily for good.
Truth. The mission is to get the right tools to insure that that they can never be used to create suffering ever again.
“Reeducation” is bad in general, except for helping criminals or the mentally ill. Advocating it is an extremely authoritarian view that goes against all modern concepts of personal liberties (real ones, not “the freedom to cough everywhere”).
Personal liberty is not as important to me as the welfare of all sentient beings.
It indicates to me that you believe that you are 100% correct and will always be in power, so it will not be used against you. That’s not an altruistic view. That’s what a king believes.
It’s not that I think I’m 100% correct, but rather that there is a 99.9999% correct way to be stewards of this earth, and I believe that answer is attainable through science and reasoning. So much of global policy is decided by greed rather than altruism. It’s possible to set up a system that works towards humanitarian goals, but there are humans that don’t want to give up power and control, and they’re not all billionaires or governments. most of them are just ordinary people brainwashed by religion and tribalism. We will never be able to achieve anything like a utopia as long as those people are in the way. Reeducation is just a kinder alternative to the most logical course of action, and if you really think about the consequences of inaction, it’s imperative that we act soon.
All I want is for people to see that.
Funny, you sound like the exact people I assume you want to cull with that statement. Dont get me wrong, I’m not both sidesing here the Republican party is fucking scary and fucking crazy at this point, but if you wonder how they got there, its because they were fearful that the other side was insane and evil (At least the poor supporters, not the wealthy who grifted that fear to gain more power)
okay, so you admit that they’re dangerous but yet you want to wait until they’re at your doorstep before you do anything? you people are going to deserve what you get. stop being cowards.
1: Not American
2: Violence has a tendency to create more violence down the line
Figuring out how to deal with an extremely significant percentage of the entire country being dangerously brainwashed without violence is a fucking hard ass task, but the easy solution is likely to be a very temporary one at best. The way you feel about them is the exact same way they feel about you
This is one of those things where I’m in agreement but I’m also fucking tired of hearing the “lesser of two evils” bullshit (in general). The country is going to continue to drag right because that’s what benefits the ruling class. That’s the reality. Both parties and both candidates are playing their roles in this continued push. Thinking we actually have a say in the end is the first mistake, like voting in federal elections in the US is some massive action. It’s the whole ratchet effect in politics. You can either vote for the far right candidate, or you can vote for the center right one. That’s it. Those are the choices. We can sit here and make these absolutely garbage people the focus of our entire discussion and move the needle nowhere, despite knowing exactly how this is going to play out, or we can make it moot and focus on organizing while not wasting time talking about filling a circle in on a piece of paper while patting ourselves on the back. In the scheme of things the working class can do, that is the bare minimum.
I don’t give a shit about any of these candidates. All I know is that one is committing genocide and the other is a boomer criminal that employs a bunch of family members and other sycophants, who would also commit the same genocide if given the chance. Because thats what the ruling class beast demands and nothing stops it. People make voting into a bigger thing than they do organizing and educating. Bide your time. Vote if you want or don’t. Scolding people is a waste of time and it’s divisive. It continues the divide that the ruling class wants because they know it’s one of the key factors that prevent the working class from uniting as one. We have the numbers. The fucking Ants movie tried to tell us.
The reality is that if we want real, actual change, it’s going to require us to get out of that comfort zone where we fill in a little circle with a pen and then act like we moved mountains. That right there is privileged lib shit. Your vote isn’t going to mean fuck all when we’ve witnessed the candidates change for years, while war and genocide continued under all of them; while the police state thrived under all of them; while trans and women’s reproductive rights were taken away or hindered under all of them.
These are the times when I wish Fred Hampton was still alive.
What kills me about posts like this is that they paint leftist activism in a way that’s indistinguishable from christian evangelicalism.
- Serves the poor by working at homeless shelters
- protests un-threateningly against opposition
- participates in book clubs and peer groups
- otherwise fully participates in a system that’s hostile toward their existence
Libs like this forget that the civil rights leaders they model themselves after were intentionally inflammatory -sometimes violently so- so that the people who were refusing to negotiate with them would be forced to do so at risk of material harm to their interests. All these people downvoting you would rather protests be silent and non-invasive than be loud or -god forbid- threaten the power structure they comfortably benefit from.
MLK and Fred Hampton are looked at so favorably in hindsight because they forced the liberal structures at the time to concede some minimum amount of liberty to those who were actively under threat. They weren’t targeting conservative fascists with their protests (they knew better than to think they would ever change their minds), they were targeting those centrists who thought themselves allys but stopped short of action because they themselves were not materially threatened by the systemic injustices being faced by the black community at the time, and they didn’t want to risk harm to their own position in order to solve it. Protests were a way to hold hostage their interest in exchange for addressing the interests of black americans.
To quote MLK from his letter from birmingham:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
MLK might as well have been comparing Biden and Trump with regards to their shared zionism. Biden deserves no less pressure to negotiate just because he is a “more gentle” person.
And the other classic MLK quote about “the white moderate”:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice […]
Right. And this quote and his frustration is in direct response to criticisms from white moderates that his (peaceful) methods are too loud and inconvenient and his timing too inopportune, rather than responding to the movement’s plea for basic human liberty.
Thank you for writing all of this out. It needs to be said more. We’re not going to break the system constantly acquiescing to a rigged system.
I’m happy to do it. I know I have some unpopular opinions, but part of breaking the cycle is getting uncomfortable.
We need to collectively realize that the ruling class will never let things deviate too far out of their control. I’m definitely not saying one shouldn’t vote (you should; it’s easy and the least you can do), but we need to stop hinging so much on it. We’ve been doing the “lesser of two evils” thing for what feels like an eternity. It’s tired and we need to move beyond it because it’s a divisive key set piece in the arsenal of the ruling class. The division is the intent. If we keep arguing over which old white guy in a suit is worse, we’re spinning our wheels in the mud.
We’re talking about a government that has been swaying people’s minds and overthrowing governments in other countries for decades. They absolutely do use the same exact tactics on the working class in the US and it would be naive to think they don’t. Everyone is affected by propaganda. That’s a big reason the TikTok ban immediately received 81% approval, when other things like basic human rights get little to no traction. And it’s not some thing that happens in the span of 5 years; it’s a long, arduous process that requires a ton of moving pieces and has multiple benefits for the ruling class.
Vote or don’t vote. All that matters is remembering that the working class collective is stronger as one unit. That kind of unification and the numbers behind it are what truly strike fear into a fascist government.
Can you please start a newsletter or something? I want to subscribe. You’re saying the same frustrating things I’ve been saying for ages. We need more of this voice presented. It’s critical that we start breaking away all of the apathy.
I actually write once in a while, but these days it’s been random articles for sites or friends. I’m flattered and I’m glad it resonates with others. The key is a unified working class. I sink into apathy like I’m sure a lot do, but I always try to stay connected to what’s happening and provide a voice where I can (even if it’s anonymous).
i agree. thank you for this analysis.
Yet you keep posting memes exclusively focusing on voting and framing those who make the exact points orca here has made as “the real problem”.
Always happy to contribute. I hope I don’t sound combative either. It’s never from that kind of place, and more from a frustration and anger point of view that stems from US politics and western aggression. I know some of my opinions aren’t the most popular. It’s a weird battle against apathy when trying to keep your head up in a system that strives to turn us all into subservient worker drones.
Feels like there’s some sort of a spiritual element at play too. One option might be better irl, but it isn’t worth it if you think choosing either will get your soul damned (in a religious, social or self respect sense)
That’s part of my problem. I’m a moral absolutist about a lot of things, which is a luxury. I don’t currently have that luxury, but that knowledge doesn’t change my morals.
The other part is the game theory aspect, in that the further right a candidate you accept, the further right the next democrat will be. The OP in this is trying to survive, not to change the system.
in that the further right a candidate you accept, the further right the next democrat will be
This too. Seen people that think there’s literally no difference between conservatives and liberals so it’ll be the same either way. I can’t fathom how you can be so devoid of nuance so it feels like what they really want deep down is to accelerate.
Also I like that oop is specifically talking about nuance between two repubs. People seem to equate ‘better’ with ‘good’ so they’ll come up with reasoning like ‘liberals are not better they will just let conservatives do whatever they want’. That’s still better than more conservatives that help conservatives do what they want. And between conservatives there can still be a distinction.
it feels like what they really want deep down is to accelerate.
Predictable byproduct of the borderline adventist “rapture” that is “the revolution”.
it feels like what they really want deep down is to accelerate.
It doesn’t just feel that way, it is that way for a lot of people because they believe that they’ll be the vanguard of a glorious rising utopia, when they’re statistically more likely to be a meat crayon marking up the hood of some chud’s Jeep when they’re out protesting
Well said.
The OP in this is trying to survive, not to change the system.
says who? genuinely, what leads you to believe that? what part of reducing harm in the immediate future also precludes one from working for systemic change?
i commented this elsewhere but it bears repeating: why are we alergic to doing both?
I believe they meant to phrase it as:
The OP in this is saying to vote strategically is to survive, which you have to do to change the system.
At least that’s what I got from the context.
I’ll let them weigh in if they choose.
But I do like this framing. Can’t have a revolution if you got fucken killed by neo-Nazis.
We didn’t build this system, we just live in it. We’re just trying to survive.
Obviously both need to happen, because you can’t change the system if you’re dead. I don’t live in a situation like the OP though, so we’re going to have different voting priorities.
gotcha! i fully agree and thanks for the clarification. i admit i misunderstood your position due to similarities between your language and the opposing view’s but that’s on me not you :)
do you guys seriously think we don’t vote? dude im forced to in my country, this is completely irrelevant.
you are not even listening, if you wanna do something go organize and stop wasting time and brainpower on that shitty theater for fucks sake.
your country is already fascist and already not a democracy. scribbling on ballots aint changing this.
“oh lets me choose the fascist that can be reasoned with!”, “choose the genocidal racist with a blue hat instead of the red one!” you guys can’t be that dumb, I refuse to believe it.
We know it’s bad. The point is that we unfortunately have to choose the lesser of the two evils, like it or not.
No, we don’t.
The first step is admitting that the State won’t let us vote its power away.
im glad to hear someone here actually read what i bothered to type down. they wont let you vote their power away, thats a nice way to sum it up.
AKA:
I haven’t started suffering yet and I don’t want to so it’s best if we let it stay this way while I get to enjoy what I can of my existence before it becomes the next’s problem.
Many are suffering, and it’s not in a good state right now. But it also means being strategic about it. The issue with the right and far right is that many people who hold those beliefs have a common goal and are unified in it (even if it’s because their candidates are somewhat less popular as therefore there is only one).
There was a candidate in 2016 that was very liberal and had good intentions, but many saw him as too liberal. Enough voted for him that it split the democratic votes between two candidates and Trump won, so yes unfortunately we do have to think about opposing the other side instead of just voting for who we like best as individuals. Did I mention the two party system sucks?
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as if someone isn’t going to end up in that seat regardless of what you do???
Lol. Lmao even.
You sent my brain in circles here for a minute. Dude definitely means, “skip the vote and some jackass is gonna end up getting elected anyway and you will have had no say over who it was. When that person has folks seigin’ and heilin’ at the library you’ll wish it had been the other guy.”
People can’t possibly be that stupid that they don’t realize this, right? …Right?
Well, the word regardless does have a couple definitions and maybe some people haven’t used it that way.
My wife hadn’t heard “the writing on the wall” until last night, and it’s more than 2000 years old.
So…maybe?
That’s for sure what he meant, but that sentence was just too primed to not cherry pick it and giggle a bit.
Ok I’ll give you that one. :p
Frederick Douglas wasn’t allowed to vote.
He worked hard for candidates who couldn’t promise to abolish slavery, because Douglas knew that a tiny step forward was vastly better than doing nothing.
A lesser known hero was Dashiell Hammett. You might have heard of his books, ‘The Thin Man’ or ‘The Maltese Falcon.’ There have been dozens of movies based on his book, ‘Red Harvest.’ In 1941 he was richer and more famous than Stephen King is today.
Hammett supported Left causes with his money and his actions. When WW2 broke out he was a triple 4-F. Too old; a veteran of WW1; and he’d been gassed and had a medical discharge. Hammett knew all about America’s Jim Crow laws, and the imprisonment of the Japanese Americans, and everything else. He volunteered, and fought hard, to get into the Army, because he hated Nazis that much.
Mention those guys when someone tells you that they can’t vote for the Dems in 2024.
What?? Frederick Douglas had a famously contentious relationship with Lincoln. He wrote scathing indictments about him in his paper “Douglass’ Monthly” and traveled the country agitating for Lincoln to abolish slavery. He even endorsed the dump-lincoln movement during the re-election campaign over his reconstruction plan. It was exactly his raving against Lincoln during his re-election that brought them together, because Lincoln needed Douglas’s support to win. It’s fucking wild to see someone name drop Douglas in defense of an incumbent candidate facing scrutiny.
He didn’t ‘work hard for candidates who couldn’t promise to abolish slavery’, he worked hard to agitate them into action. This kind of revisionist history is fucking infuriating, especially when it’s used to undercut voices trying to push for progress.
So, me telling people to vote for less than perfect candidates instead of staying home is a block to progress?
Or are you saying you think my single line about Douglas emcompases his entire career?
People loudly critiquing Biden and threatening to withhold support is an effort to push for progress, and condemning those people and their method instead of joining their protest to bring the progress being pushed for absolutely undercuts that message. It is exactly what MLK and Malcom X and Frederick Douglass wrote about repeatedly.
No progress has ever been made in the US by silently resigning to the lesser of evils, it has only ever been brought by loud, disruptive agitation by dedicated civil activists (including Douglass).
Or are you saying you think my single line about Douglas emcompases[sic] his entire career?
I’m saying your use of his name is nearly a 1-1 reversal of his actual historical significance. Frederick Douglass himself fought against a ‘less than perfect candidate’ until that candidate capitulated. I think it is safe to suggest that the abolition of slavery would not have happened without Douglass’ loud opposition to Lincoln.
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And so far, Biden seems to be a candidate that is able to moved further left by agitation. Keep pushing him, but we still gotta vote. He’s the convincable candidate. I doubt Douglass was saying shit like “this Lincoln guy isn’t perfect…let’s just elect Breckinridge and get it over with”
I doubt Douglass was saying shit like “this Lincoln guy isn’t perfect…let’s just elect Breckinridge and get it over with”
That’s a straw man. Nobody is saying that about Trump.
https://lemmy.world/comment/8894540
Its one of the top comments
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You’re the same kind of person who would lecture someone for writing a “dump-Biden” comment on these forums.
You say that like it’s bad thing.
I was lucky enough to have met actual old school Communists; people who really did go to Spain and fought against fascism all their lives.
One story they always talked about was the 1968 election. A lot of people on the Left were saying that there was no diference between Humphrey and Nixon. The people who’d actually seen the fight up close and personal knew how bad Nixon was, and strongly encouraged people to vote for Humphrey.
I’ll take my cue from people like Hammett who could tell not-so-great from utterly terrible.
lol he’s saying you would be lecturing the guy you name-dropped for the things he’s known for saying if he was in here.
I’ll take my cues from Fredrick Douglas and MLK.
You can disagree with the methods Frederick Douglass deployed in achieving meaningful change, or even believe they would have only worked in his time period, but to practice actual historical revisionism is wild.
Douglass was loud and proud, and fought against progressives at the time who did not make the correct choices. He wasn’t a lesser of two evils voter, he was an abolitionist.
Again, you can make the argument that we have different conditions now, but do not misrepresent historical radicals to suit your narrative.
I love how every discussion completely avoids the topic of people running against these far right fascists themselves. There’s always a ludicrous number of scapegoat reasons why not from people of all backgrounds.
It’s forgotten about all the time. Also, I’m in a state where you’re not supposed to know what political affiliation your local representatives have. It’s only for state government and higher that run partisan divides on the ballot.
It ensures that you’re voting for someone who you’d potentially like and their actual issue stances rather than their political affiliation.
You’d be surprised how many common issues people bridge on despite them being on crazy ends of the Democrat/Republican spectrum.
Personally I think it’s an easy plot to get more Republicans voted in at the local level, but in reality everyone can run. It’s all practically a part time job or even a retirement job for most. And you often only need hundreds of votes. Meanwhile think how many times you’ve gotten up/down voted into oblivion here or on reddit. You’d be surprised how easy it is to run a local campaign with a free website and making sure to show up for candidate debates/round tables.
I just want to counter with, I actually reached out to a progressive election group that’s supposed to help left leaning people get elected into local office positions after being confused by some of the requirements of getting on the ballot and was straight up told I was not wealthy enough to even consider running.
That unless I had a wealthy parent or a church group that I could collect more funds from, I shouldn’t even bother but just donate to them to get someone better and wealthier elected in my place.When your barrier to entry isn’t even just knowledge of the system, and having networking to assist you but literally the amount of money in your bank account, the concept of running against the people who will not only crush you and your campaign but likely hurt your non political career and livelihood of earned capital, then doing so becomes less of an option.
I then supported a person I agreed with for a Legal position who was literally a public defender and he lost to a guy who played football in college with no history in law or civil service.
It might be easy to run a campaign and I might have a slightly more skewed representation as I am closer to a larger city but when even the left side is looking at how mucho ey they can make on running campaigns and not how likely they are to help shift policy then we are royally fucked on the concept of representation by the people.
I’m done being lectured.
If moderates and liberals won’t allow anyone to fight fascism head on then it’s not just a possibility it’s a guarantee. Fascism runs on misery and this country has plenty of it. Addressing unaffordable housing, healthcare and education would take the fight out of people. When people are busy living and enjoying their lives they don’t have the time or energy to worry about what somebody else is doing.
And to establishment Democrats credit, they pay lip service to addressing these things but that’s about it. They claim they can’t do anything without the presidency, a majority, a super majority, a super majority without any defectors. There’s always an excuse on why nothing is getting done. But losing isn’t an option. So if the establishment Democrats want us to believe we can’t accomplish anything through traditional means for decades then guess what, it’s time to try something less traditional.
Enter the rail strike, a real opportunity for Democrats to show who’s side they’re really on. Here’s a clear cut fight between workers and corporations. Time to bring these disagreements to a head and draw a line. What do they do? Under Joe Biden’s direction 44 Democrat senators vote with 36 Republican senators to block the rail strike.
Liberals and moderates praise Biden for this. They praise Biden for siding against American workers. We are not on the same side.
If liberals and moderates truly believe Trump and MAGA are a threat, if they truly believe Democracy is worth protecting then it’s time to compromise with leftists and progressives. If they won’t do it now they never will. Which means the choice isn’t between fascism and democracy. It’s between fascism now or later.
I choose now. Let’s get this over with.
I truly believe that Trump and MAGA are a threat, and while I consider myself pretty left, I clearly don’t meet your definition. I’m willing to compromise. So tell me, what is your plan to keep to Trump out of the White House. As long as it’s not starting our own genocide of everyone we disagree with (this one will be ok though because its the leftists doing the killing) and it’s at least plausible, I’m game. What’s your plan?
I’m willing to compromise.
Name one material compromise Biden has made with progressives and leftists over his term. Name one situation where moderates and liberals wanted one thing, progressives and leftists wanted something else and a material decision was made in favor of leftists and progressives. There is not a single example.
Progressives and leftists are getting nothing out of this relationship.
Here’s things Biden could do today:
- Vow to veto any attempts to block a rail strike in his next term.
- Call off Yellen and Powells war against American workers and their rising wages.
- Stop forcing federal workers back to the office.
I used to include “stop sending weapons to Israel” but now he’s got Congress doing that. Fucking piece of shit.
And before you say “it’s too late the election is here we gotta just gotta focus on that first”. Fuck. No. You know why it’s too late? Because liberals and moderates fucked around for too long. Biden fucked around for too long. Get it done now or fuck off.
Progressives and leftists cannot be both 100% responsible for Biden’s loss while having a near zero, not half, not even half of a half, near zero influence on policy. You don’t want to compromise with us? Fine. Elect your procorporate trash candidate on your own.
I’ll premise this list of (far more than one) progressive thing Biden has done with something I’d like you to consider. It seems from your tone that you think progressives can only count something as a win if it hurts or angers the center-left. That’s not the case. Now…the list:
Inflation Reduction Act, that a MINIMUM of $386B in green energy subsidies, tax credits and incentives and directs that money in a way that encourages domestic production.
$1 trillion Infrastructure package
Withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan
Lower prescription drug prices, specifically giving government the ability to negotiate those prices and capping others.
Millions in student debt relief
Thousands of simple drug possession pardons
$1 trillion in covid relief directly to families
Lower inflation than most of the western world
Doubled the child tax credit
Expanded gun background checks
Largest number of progressive judicial appointments in loving memory
CHIPS act
Repealed DOMA and ensured states must recommend same-sex marriages
ECRA takes away one avenue Trump used in his attempted overthrow of the government.
Rolled back racist and xenophobic travel restrictions
Inflation Reduction Act, that a MINIMUM of $386B in green energy subsidies, tax credits and incentives and directs that money in a way that encourages domestic production.
You mean the BBB stripped of everything progressives and leftists were excited about? It was a win for moderates and liberals. For leftists and progressives it was just another slap in the face.
It seems from your tone that you think progressives can only count something as a win if it hurts or angers the center-left.
So when you said “I’m willing to compromise” what you really meant is you’d like the opportunity to do some more finger wagging. Do you realize how pathetic this behavior is? You are offering nothing but speaking to me as if a stern lecture is going to whip me into shape. Are we on the verge of losing our democracy or not? Wake the fuck up and start offering real compromises to leftists and progressives or lose to MAGA. Make a choice.
This is why voting isn’t an option. What’s needed is violence and force, these people can’t be reasoned with or expected to take the rational option.
This kind of take isn’t “necessarily wrong”, i.e. we have never seen fascism beaten by peaceful means and all, but talking about it openly on someone’s platform is a bad move for several reasons. Put up and shut up, is my advice. Get with your local antifa group, or start one with guidance from one you trust. Keep your mouth shut, protect yourself and others for real.
but we need to get more people on board, which means advocating for violence in public places. a tiny fraction of people in a super secret space is a recipe for getting charged as conspirators and co-conspirators. we need people across the entire fucking planet rattling their chains in unison. we need a movement that’s too big to be jailed.
We’re staring down the barrel of over a century of sly upward wealth transfer and increasing state power at the cusp of a fully automated boring dystopia and a general collapse of biodiversity. If the whole world was going to mobilise as an insurgency like you’re describing, it would have happened by now.
It’s not “too late”, but it’s not early. Shit has to start happening.
yeah, i honestly don’t have much faith in people. i’m 50 and i’ve been pretty radical left since i was in my early 20’s. each new generation comes in thinking they’re on the cusp of some great enlightenment that will change the world. they get complacent with that mindset until propaganda slowly erodes their morals and they accept the ever-approaching dystopia.
if you all had the perspective i have, you’d be planting bombs at every trump rally.
there is no dark cabal of illuminati engineering our dystopia. it’s just shitty, greedy, unenlightened masses that love their shitty, greedy, unenlightened overlords, and until we cull those people nothing will ever change. they’re not dying out. they’re making new ones every day. we could have been living in a utopia by now. every problem in our society has a solution. we’re just stuck in a left-right tug of war where no significant change happens except for more government/corporate overreach and degradation of the environment.
Same page on all that. History being what it is, I’ve yet to meet an upbeat historian. It’s unintended consequences all the way down.
and no one seems to think it could ever happen to them until it’s too late. we are not special. we could become a page in history at any given moment.
Talking about it is the first step of getting people involved in it.
This isn’t fight club.
The diffrence is commenting violence rhetoric isn’t organising. I want to hear people saying “this is where you can reach me, this is what I’m about, let’s talk about what to do”
I’m not going to dox myself online.
Once people are openly talking about resistance, they can start looking into getting involved in the movement, and finding local groups to connect with.
Step 1 get radical.
Step 2 organise.
Step 3 ???.
Step 4 profit.I did say protect yourself. Why are you acting like I’m telling you to make a mistake? I’m telling you to do what you think you got to do, but do it without getting caught or fucking over a small time platform. Violent rhetoric is a liability. You’re already radical, so organise. Stand on business.
^this dude gets it
are we allergic to doing both or something
the post clearly outlines voting as the last minute harm reduction option after all other avenues have been exhausted. do (violent perhaps) praxis and organizing, yea, but why tf would you throw away your option to vote when things haven’t changed yet and you have the opportunity to do 0.01% good for your neighbor?
You first.
You’ve convinced me, let’s go talk with the Nazis who are out to literally kill people for the simple act of existence.
If we just tolerate intolerance a little bit more surely that will fix the decades of decline!
The sooner you people realise this is a war for survival the sooner something can be done to protect the victims.
What are you doing to fight fascism?
They’re encouraging people not to vote, apparently. Real pro democracy move, that.
if deceptichum said not to vote, that’s their mistake. please let me correct them by saying VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO, as you stockpile ammo and expand your local alliance. we have to use every tool in the box to fix this mess before it turns into the forever dystopia. i still believe in democracy, i’m just not sure it alone can save us.
That’s not what they’re saying at all.
They’re saying voting won’t accomplish any substantial changes because you can’t vote power out of the hands of those who wield it. Change requires more than simply voting.
I think voting can absolutely take power out of the hands of those who wield it, just like courts can rule against those in power…. but these things tend to only happen when the ruling class is terrified of what will happen if they don’t appease the masses through giving concessions within the traditional power structures of society.
In other words we need people to vote to codify the concessions given by the ruling class, but unless the ruling class thinks giving concessions through voting and making courts adhere to some form of reality is a less scary option than continuing to fuck around and find out what happens when you push the masses to a breaking point… than voting is next to useless.
We need people who consider voting pointless and people who consider voting to be necessary damage control, both ideologies are mandatory in an effective progressive movement.
FUCKING EXACTLY
Calm down Dollar store Robespierre
my opponents doing political violence
Cringe and bad.
Me doing political violence
Based ang good.
Absolutely not unhinged god complex thinking, I’m sure you’re not equally as authoritarian as the people you despise.
Nazis killing people, bad.
Stopping Nazis killing people, bad.
We get it you tolerate intolerance.
I tolerate intolerance, I don’t tolerate violence, it’s very simple.
The same tolerance I afford you, openly advocating violence in an open forum, i afford nazis.
You should be happy that this tolerance is in place, since you benefit from it.
The paradox of intolerance you are so daftly hinting at explicitly draws the line at circumventing debate and resorting to violence and intimidation.
That is the intolerance that shall not be tolerated, but since you never actually read the text and are ““educated”” through memes you wouldn’t know that, because of that idiotic fucking comic you knuckledraggers love reposting to bolster your off-brand “can’t be a fascist if I’m antifa” bullshit.
Yes I know you tolerate intolerance, that is entirely the issue.
You will sit back and do nothing to fight against those who wish to end tolerance. You’re the equivalent of a pacifist staring at the gates of Auschwitz, you disgust me.
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Nowhere does the paradox of intolerance call out not using force if necessary to preserve tolerance.
you think debate is still an option??? lol. they love suckers like you.
I tolerate intolerance, I don’t tolerate violence, it’s very simple.
Imagine being privileged enough to not only not be personally impacted by the violence inflicted by the ruling class, but to not see it at all even when those impacted are screaming at the top of their lungs…
you really don’t get it. the sociopaths have conditioned you with goose and gander rhetoric. they use these types of arguments as their sheep’s skin to blend into society.
So you concede that our opponents are being violent, but only take issue with said violence when it’s those they oppress who use it in self defence… Curious… 🤔
Sure, if you really only have two shitty choices, by all means pick the one that’s less shitty. That isn’t what Democrats are proposing, though. They have 4 choices (or more) and are eliminating candidates based on “electability”, not values.
Going back to OP’s Discord group, what happens when a progressive runs for office? Do they support them? Or do they say “Sorry, you have no chance of winning here, so we’re going to support the lesser fascist”?
Democracy isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon you have to participate in for the rest of your life, every vote should be made strategically to take the next step toward whatever your goal is (and sometimes, to try to mitigate the size of a step taken backwards)
Support your candidates of choice in primaries, but if it becomes clear that they won’t win, we must swallow our pride and pick the lesser of two evils, because baby steps forward (or active harm reduction) is better than nothing
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