That isn’t really what people are saying. It’s more that voting cannot bring about socialism, while revolution can, and that therefore treating voting as the primary political outlet for people hampers the organizing efforts needed for revolution.
Revolution: Takr away window dressing like culture, and the crushing majority of earth’s population share our class interest. Most humans want to live in a society focused on taking care of humans, and many revolutions have succeeded or even flourished despite full-spectrum seige from the capitalist bloc.
Reform: reform has been tried for a hundred fifty years and all there is to show for it is two and a half world wars, many capitalist genocides, and an entrenched neo-aristocracy of openly fascist, pedophile death cultists who have kicked off a mass extinction and are driving us towards nuclear apocalypse.
Every communist revolution that survived the 20th century is now either absolutely thriving or at least weathering extreme US seige, and the ones that weathered their seiges already have begun to thrive (see the DPRK). China is currenty the best hope for the survival of any large scale human civilization.
Meanwhile, every capitalist society where people chose reform has backslid or been backsliding into fascism. And at this point, we are out of time to keep trying gentle .methods. Capitalism is the cancer killing the only extraordinary gem of a planet where plants grow and creatures roam, and it’s in part thanks to the history of denial of how bad it is, the continual, suicidal insistence on taking half measures in the face of overwhelming warning that has allowed it to metastasize to such a horrifying degree that our only options now are the risky, painful surgery of revolution or certain death.
Nobody assumes revolution will be smooth and painless, what’s important is that it’s necessary for a better world. We have to work as hard as we can to make sure it works out as smoothly as possible.
I have never said that you aren’t allowed to vote, more that voting is far less important than organizing. You are disparaging organizing in favor of voting on the grounds of voting being better, my question is which issue is voting better for?
People laughed, saying a vote for Kamala was pointless, and a vote for genocide, but everyone has suffered under this atrocity of an administration. I don’t know that Kamala would have called Marxists terrorists.
No? It’s the same pick. They both ran on genocide, mass deportations, expanding the police state, not giving a fuck about queer people and all the other stuff.
I replied to you but I had a conversation about AI in my head but will leave it up, sorry.
I still don’t know how someone looked at the trump administration and thought yes please 4 more years. I also understand that looking at biden and thinking 4 more years, no thanks.
The same commentators who through introspection can say that socialist movements across the world need to work with the USA isnt a betrayal of the revolution seemingly cannot apply the same caveated analysis to the shinier of two turds in a two party system sounds like more American exceptionalism. If youre not voting for your “communist party of”, is this just virtue signalling?
The people who say no thanks to both do not consider those two options as unique in any way. Trump and Biden are inevitable and next election will have an even worse choice. The bourgeois state is declining and in its decline it turns towards fascism. Both parties are extensions of the bourgeois state.
By voting all one doesfurther entrench the system. For a long time the arguments for voting for democrats were:
You have to just this onceit’s the most important election of all time
Harm reduction/“lesser evil”
This gives us more time to organise for next election.
The US left can organise better under democrats
As time has passed these arguments have shown themselves to be based on some faulty assumptions. Or conditions have changed to such an extent that the argument no longer stands.
“Just this once”
It has been “the most important election” since, at least, Reagan - With the sole exception of Clinton v. Dole. And in retrospect the hysteria seems much less worrisome. Obama ran against McCain and Romney, respectively. Romney was made out to be a religious fanatic with “binders full of women” who hated poor people “47%”. McCain was a senile warmonger with an insane VP. Both of these were quickly rehabilitated by the establishment, in death McCain was grieved by his political opponents. Dubya has been rehabilitated into the image of a quirky old man. Most democrats claim to look up to Reagan and will quote him. They almost all pursue “reaganomics”, which Reagans VP had referred to as “Voodoo economics” before adopting it himself. Good ol’ trickle down. So it is hard to believe it will be “just this once” and it is hard to believe that there is anything especially egregious about this specific republican, when this is what is always said.
On the other hand we can accept that every single election has been the most important election ever and we need to vote democrat or lose democracy forever. If this is really the case, then one has to wonder if a system where we don’t actually have a vote - It’s democrat or death - is worth perpetuating. One also has to wonder why the democrats, when they are in power, do not dismantle the republican party - If the republicans truly are fascists opposed to democracy. One has to wonder why democrats constantly seek to work with the republicans and speak about “bipartisanship”. The conclusions available all lead to the same place: The democrats are either complicit or completely inefficient. Thus a vote for a democrat is either inconsequential or actively harmful.
Vote for harm reduction/lesser evil
This argument functions in the short term. However every election there’s less and less “lesser” evil. Wether they win or lose democrats make the same conclusion: They must go further to the right. The democrats are also just throwing marginalised groups under the bus (This is ignoring that democrats have been doing all the “evil” stuff on a state-level for much longer than their presidential platform reflects). Every administration since, at least, Clinton has deported more immigrants than the previous administration. Biden surpassed Trump 1[1] They both suck on climate[2], they both commit genocide, they are both expanding a police state, they’re both imperialists, they’re both giving more money to the military.
So while one side might give slightly less, the long term result of this “lesser evil” is one where more harm is produced, than the long term result of one where the system is replaced[3].
What do you think will happen when not evengenocide is too far?
Buying time to create an alternative
By voting for democrats, it is harder for an alternative to seem viable, since the democrats appear to have broad support.
This is an argument built on thinking long term. However when someone suggests an alternative to voting for democrats, they are challenged on the immediate viability of such an action. “There is no alternative right now” or “Will not voting democrats make things better right now?” or “What will voting third party do to oppose [villain of the election] right now?”
If we accept that the argument for voting for democrats is, in part, built on longer term planning, then we must likewise accept the longer timescope for arguments against voting democrat.
Democrats also crack down on left-wing organisers. Democrats also crack down on democratic movements. There are many examples, but most preciently might be Joe Bidens crackdown on anti-israel protesters or his violent crackdown on the remains of “the summer of ´20” once he came into power. He continued Trumps methods of having people disappeared in unmarked vans. It was under democratic governorship and presidency that ferguson riot leaders where assassinated and disappeared. Democrats destroy organisations that are even beneficial to themselves
I don’t know if conditions are “better” for organising. That’s hard to say in my eyes. We have seen far more popular unrest under Trump. People are far more displeased with the regular actions of the US empire under Trump. People have become far more radicalised under Trump. The popular movements are not funnelled into or through the DNC, but instead develop organically. There are other challenges under Trump than under democrats, but “better” or “worse”? Hard to say. Internationally I would consider Trump better, because he is more incompetent.
The same commentators who through introspection can say that socialist movements across the world need to work with the USA isnt a betrayal of the revolution seemingly cannot apply the same caveated analysis to the shinier of two turds in a two party system sounds like more American exceptionalism.
This feels like a bit of a different discussion. The actions, motivations and needs of revolutionary movements engaged in military struggle around the world are different from that of the average US voter (as well as the average US leftist).
You are also conflating “voting for a democrat or a republican” with “agreeing to receive support from the US.” It’s kind of vague, so I don’t really know what you’re talking about here and tbh it is not my area of expertise. I’m going to send a link to this comment to someone else, who might be better at answering, but I’d really appreciate more specificity. Can you say what socialists movement across the world are you thinking of and what socialist commentators are you talking about?
From what I can think of: I know many people have critiqued the various Kurdish militias for cooperating with the US, the PRCs cooperation with the US during the sino-soviet split is seen by most as a massive black mark on that countrys history.
In general though I’d say that people are more forgiving of foreign movements accepting US aid because the aid helps them further towards their goals, whereas someone voting for the democrats would, at best, do nothing. The way I view it, it would make things worse for the domestic leftist to vote democrat. I can’t speak on local politics.
If you’re not voting for your “communist party of”, is this just virtue signalling?
Some will protest that Biden did not “deport” more immigrants, he technically “removed” them instead. Technicalities like these are moot in my eyes, they function only to illustrate how democrats run the same child-crusher, they’re just more “polite” about it. The child is crushed wether it is crushed or “pulverized”. ↩︎
Some will protest that Biden passed the Green New Deal or that he signed the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a pointless treaty and he did nothing to approach its’ goals. The “Green New Deal”, while allocating some resources to renewable energy, was in practicality nothing. The actual development of the US under Biden was one where greenhouse gas emissions increased and one where he gave out so many fracking contracts that the emissions from the oil in those alone will be enough to push us up to 3.5C warming. It does not matter that you are kissing my booboo, if you’re still stabbing me. The climate is not something that can be half-measured, it is an apocalypse and it is either-or. It needs IMMEDIATE and DRASTIC action, something neither party is willing to take. Therefore the faster neither party is in power, the better. ↩︎
Here is an admitted assumption. I assume the system is easier to replace if it is less entrenched. This seems obvious to me, but others have wanted to discuss this a bunch. It’s a discussion in itself. ↩︎
There’s no point having a discussion with people like me that are intractable when it comes to the technology and are acutely aware of the USA capitalist ruling class the atrocities they commit and enable with people that are unable an unwilling to understand what a model is, and are approaching computer science like a luddite.
The USA capitalists are having you lick their boots when you think that “AI” = ChatGPT. You’re not ‘chatting’ with anything. You, me, and many others, are constantly falling for their marketing shit all the time.
If you can differentiate between a stack of PS3s that made a ‘super computer’ to try to predict what the weather will be tomorrow and the USA building a datacenter, poisoning your water, denying you electricity, stealing your capital, surveiling you, and influencing your decisions, then we can definitely sit together and use our brains to dismantle the infrastructure of oppression. Your enemy is not ‘conversation simulators’, its capitalism.
It’s not wrong to say regulatory capture is a problem, it just doesn’t go far enough. The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
Right, and if voting was useless, why do politicians want to take it away from demographics they hate? Why would people have to fight so hard for it?
If it really didn’t matter and it really was as you say it is, then they wouldn’t need to distract people.
If you really held onto this stance, then you can’t be mad at people who voted for Trump because it’s all smoke and mirrors anyway and he was picked with what, some shadow government?
Is organizing a revolution so easily distracted that spending like, a little part of a day casting a ballot something that’ll completely undermine everything? Is it that fragile?
Right, so voting is a pointless distraction that… The oligarchs still need to use for some reason.
We know the reasons, and we know the oligarchs will dispense with the pretense of elections when they hinder more than they help. Fascism isn’t a grassroots movement; it’s an astroturfed one funded by oligarchs. They fully unleash it when they become frustrated with bourgeois democracy.
It’s not really going to do anything, but it’s better than legitimising the system and entrenching genociders. Politicians use the amount of votes they receive as an argument for the legitimacy of their policies. The overarching oligarchy will exist wether you vote or not, the individuals in the structure have a much easier time of doing heinous shit if they are perceived as legitimate.
So voting for the people in power will, in a small way, make things worse.
People are arguing voting does not work because if anyone actually leftist becomes popular, then they either get buried or subsumed by the structure - Bernie Sanders is an excellent example of both. In 2016 he got cheated out of the nomination, likewise in 2020. By 2020 he had already become a sheepdog for the left, channelling popular sentiment towards the establishment.
Another example is AOC who worked as a DC staffer for a long while, then took a 6 month gig as a bartender, and then received considerable promotion by the DNC by way of constantly being discussed negatively by the party elite, which then makes her appear as a political outsider - All the while she still supports the fundamental structure of the US as well as the DNC. She was a diehard supporter of Joe Biden as well as voting for Israel whenever it was needed, and running defence for things like the “Iron Dome”.
However, others would argue that voting can function as a tool to build momentum for leftist political organisations.
Here’s some Lenin for you. The text is very specific to the situation his party found itself in in that specific historical moment, but it can still be used to exemplify some stuff:
The principal question for Social-Democrats who value the elections primarily as a means for the political enlightenment of the people, is, of course, the ideological and political content of all the propaganda and agitation to be carried on in Connection with them. That is what is meant by an election platform. To every party at all worthy of the name a platform is something that has existed long before the elections; it is not something specially devised “for the elections”, but an inevitable result of the whole work of the party, of the way the work is organised, and of its whole trend in the given historical period. And the R.S.D.L.P., too, already has a platform; its platform already exists and has been naturally and inevitably determined by the Party’s principles and by the tactics which the Party has already adopted, has already applied, and is still applying, during the entire period in the political life of the nation which in a certain respect is always “summed up” by elections. The platform of the R.S.D.L.P. is the sum total of the work which revolutionary Marxism and the sections of the advanced workers who remained faithful to it have accomplished in the 1908–11 period, the period of the orgy of counter revolution, the period of the June Third, Stolypin regime.
The three main items that make up this total are: (1) the programme of the Party; (2) its tactics; (3) its appraisal of the dominant-ideological and political trends of the given period, or the most widespread of them, or those which are most harmful for democracy and socialism. Without a programme a party cannot be an integral political organism capable of pursuing its line whatever turn events may take. Without a tactical line based on an appraisal of the current political situation and providing explicit answers to the “vexed problems” of our times, we might have a circle of theoreticians, but not a functioning political entity. Without an appraisal of the “active”, current or “fashionable” ideological and political trends, the programme and tactics may degenerate into dead “clauses” which can by no stretch of the imagination be put into effect or applied to the thousands of detailed, particular, and highly specific questions of practical activity with the necessary understanding of essentials, with an understanding of “what is what”.
(…)
Consider the question from, so to speak, the general historical standpoint. It is obvious (to all, except Larin and a handful of liquidators) that the bourgeois revolution in Russia has not been consummated. Russia is heading for a revolutionary crisis. We must prove that revolution is necessary and preach that it is legitimate and “beneficial”. This being the case, we must conduct our propaganda for political liberty so as to pose the question in all its aspects, formulate the goal for a movement that is bent on victory and not one that stops half-way
Basically: Elections can function as a platform for a well-organized, principled leftist party to agitate to the masses and legitimise itself in the popular culture. So in the current day if you vote, you should vote for a leftist third party to help them build momentum.
Here’s another snippet I think would be a good starting point for you, if you actually wish to understand the leftist position on elections, and not just argue against ridiculous strawmen. Really the whole book this second snippet is from is a good start. It’s not too heavy either.
But very tl;dr:
Elections are controlled by capitalists and cannot be used to leave capitalism.
If you have a principled leftist party, then elections can be used to build popular support and momentum, but change will still be wrought from outside the electoral system
The democratic party is not a principled leftist party
Capitalist parties cannot be changed from the inside
If you vote, vote third party to help build alternatives
Is organizing a revolution so easily distracted that spending like, a little part of a day casting a ballot something that’ll completely undermine everything?
They often openly say they think “the masses” are too stupid to be allowed to rule a society. Liberals wear the mask of “democracy” but deep down think of themselves as benevolent plutocrats in waiting, with deep contempt for the average person in the imperial core and genocidal contempt for the average person in a Designated Enemy society.
Except you’re ignoring when I’ve said that we should change voting laws so third parties are viable.
Alright, you’re ignoring they think we should live in a socialist utopia. Neither part is right around the corner or feasible anytime soon. Voting laws will not be changed, and if they did it would not matter. Look at Alaska.
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power? Kept people who can do harm out? Gotten rid of the feudal system where you only have power of you’re genetically born into it?
If voting didn’t matter, why would people fight and die for it? If voting didn’t matter, why do conservatives want you to not vote? If voting didn’t matter, why bother pretending and gave elections?
Why should you give up your agency over your government?
Or are you cool with the people who didn’t vote and kinda let Trump take over?
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power? Kept people who can do harm out?
Trump won even by popular vote this last time. You sure you want to make the claim that it’s voting in particular that gets people who can “do better” in positions of power? How can a person be so dense as to think that voting is what keeps those who do harm out of powerful positions when every president, certainly at least within living memory, has wrought unmitigated harm upon the world?
Gotten rid of the feudal system where you only have power of you’re genetically born into it?
LOL. You honestly think voting is what ended feudalism?! And you think people in power now weren’t born into it?! Behold, the intellectual heights of liberal “thought.”
If voting didn’t matter, why would people fight and die for it?
Right, 'cause no one ever fought and died for something that wasn’t true or didn’t work the way they thought. (facepalm).
Also, if voting did work as you say, why do people still have to fight and die for their basic livelihoods and the well-being of their children, let alone the myriad other reasons people to this day are fighting and dying? There are just so many ways in which these questions reveal a deep and fundamental misunderstanding about how material reality works, I don’t know where to start. Oh and wait, didn’t you just say that voting ended feudalism? I guess all that fighting and dying was the sideshow, just done for emphasis apparently.
If voting didn’t matter, why do conservatives want you to not vote?
Why do you, a liberal, not want conservatives to vote? Or maybe you do, in which case you should be content with Trump who was voted in. But to answer your question about conservatives: it’s rather obviously because they’re the part of the machine that generally has less popular support for the time being. This isn’t rocket science. Funny how despite that fact, conservatives still have as much and usually more power than the liberal “progressives,” I thought this voting thing (that ended feudalism! lol) was supposed to magically solve all of that.
If voting didn’t matter, why bother pretending and gave elections?
Because people like you believe the lie that it gives them some sort of power and control over the systems that rule them. Obviously. In other words, it clearly does work miracles to placate doofuses.
Why should you give up your agency over your government?
You shouldn’t, and that’s the point. Only a fool thinks voting within this system is exercising their agency.
In response to all of your “iF vOtInG dIiNt WoRk tHeN WHY” questions, how about this: If voting did work to give ordinary people power, why would your bourgeois overlords (who literally control more absolute wealth and exercise greater relative power and control than any rulers at any point in human history) let you do it? Answer: they wouldn’t.
Or are you cool with the people who didn’t vote and kinda let Trump take over?
Ooooh, so it’s all about people who realized they were only given shit options to vote for, they’re the real problem here, not the people who… umm… voted for Trump? According to you voting has all this amazing magical power to effect the world. But the people who actually used that supposed power for their choice of Trump aren’t actually what put Trump in the presidency let him “take over.” No, you think the problem is the people who can correctly identify a rigged system. Trump won the election via people doing exactly what you say they should do, by voting, but when it’s not the outcome you wanted, you say the man who literally won the popular vote “took over” and proceed to blame that “takeover” on the people who chose not to use that supposedly great power to endorse genocidaires. My god liberals are such a fucking joke it still gobsmacks me somehow.
Yeah, you’re making a lot of assumptions and accusations about what I believe and that’s just full on strawmaning.
You go back and forth on how voting is useless than talk about how voting got Trump into power, and honestly, you haven’t made a single good argument for not voting. All that does as far as I’m concerned is get conservatives into office, and I’m not going to do that.
Have fun on the high road, the rest of us have to deal with consequences of people like you who don’t care if people like Trump get elected, because you took the “mOrAl HiGh GrOuNd” and wouldn’t do the minimal effort to keep a Nazi out of office.
Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back door being a doormat.
You go back and forth on how voting is useless than talk about how voting got Trump into power, and honestly, you haven’t made a single good argument for not voting. All that does as far as I’m concerned is get conservatives into office, and I’m not going to do that.
People have made plenty of arguments, and if all you’re focusing on domestic issues then you’re arrogant and selfish who is only concerned with having your treats threatened.
Have fun on the high road, the rest of us have to deal with consequences of people like you who don’t care if people like Trump get elected, because you took the “mOrAl HiGh GrOuNd” and wouldn’t do the minimal effort to keep a Nazi out of office.
Yeah man, the Orange Nazi is terrible, we need to have a BLUE Nazi instead! Just ignore how they both treated genocide as a bipartisan issue or where Biden ramped up the genocide significantly and Kamala promised she’d do the same.
You only dislike Trump because he’s mean about it, you’d sleep soundly if you had a president who enacted genocide, overthrew governments and killed millions of people but cared about “decorum” and “optics” as you liberals are obsessed with.
Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back door being a doormat.
Says the doormat that says “WELCOME, BLUE NO MATTER WHO”
Democrats are also throwing trans under the bus what do you mean?
And “nuance”? lmfao you are literally hyperfocusing on getting in a democrat above all else, to the point of “blue no matter who” while ignoring all points being made to you and you’re talking about nuance? LMFAO
Pointing out the many similarities between the two parties’ policy positions is not the same as equating violent right wing militias with peaceful protesters, learn what the things you say mean.
Remember that most people on this website don’t live in your parallel universe where voting ended feudalism. They live in a world where voting didn’t end feudalism, so they won’t understand most of what you say.
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power?
Since when? We’ve come to a point where genocide isn’t even a point of discussion, it’s just something that they all do. How are any of these people “people who can do better”? Trump won the popular vote. Bush won it in ´04 and now he’s being rehabilitated as some quirky old guy. We’ve come to a point where Bush isn’t Bush, but just some fucking grandpa, that’s your idea of “people who can do better”? Administrations that make people yearn for fucking Bush?? Not to mention people yearning for Obama, the guy who bailed out bankers, fucked over ACORN, did fuck all to get progressives into the supreme court, never codified Roe v Wade, bombed more people than Bush, expanded ICE dramatically, put kids in cages (something that never stopped), enshrined the PATRIOT act, and so much more.
We’re at a point where people pretend Bill Clinton wasn’t on the Epstein list. The guy who overturned Glass-Steagal, the guy who wrote NAFTA, the guy who bombed Yugoslavia so his wife would fuck him again, the guy who couped the first election in the Russian Republic (basically giving us Putin), the guy who oversaw the second half of Shock Doctrine in the broken up soviet bloc, the crime bill, deregulation that would give us the financial crisis, and again, so much more. That’s your idea of “people who can do better”? Better than what??? The people we now yearn for??? The people your “people who can do better” rehabilitate? Democrats idolise Reagan FFS, they’re doing reaganomics! This is “doing better”? It’s not even better than republicans.
And again, Trump won. So that’s what your system gives you. Bush won, that’s what your system gets you.
Yeah .ml has always been special with these hot takes.
almost every time I see .world there has been nothing but reactionary, bigoted and chauvinistic takes.
Its hard to see them as serious when they are more concerned with purity testing.
Yeah telling people off for voting for genocide sure is purity testing.
I guess its easy to wait for the right candidate when you are not under siege.
Like every conflict that Amerika has started where they lay siege upon them. Even now, Cuba is under siege and has been since they revolutionized many, many decades ago. And let me tell you, it’s not just Republicans that are doing this. After all, Obama sure loved droning weddings in Yemen, and he loves the open slave market he opened up in Libya after destroying it.
This just shows that you do not care about Palestine, you have already written them off as doomed no matter what. So naturally, all that leaves is your desire for spoils of the plunder.
Don’t be fucking smug about genocide you fucking ass.
That’s your response? Even not voting for genocide does more than one that actively participates and DEFENDS the system that allows for genocide to go on for as long as it has.
Funny how, as soon as an alternative is suggested, it has to solve everything immediately, but voting for genociders does not hold the same requirement.
Im sorry, did the genocide end?
We went from democrats covering their ears at the sound of protesters for Palestine, the democratic nominee yelling “I am speaking” against protesters, the democratic president siccing cops on peaceful protesters, to democrats having to at least pretend like they give a shit, if not outright actually give a shit. Receiving money from AIPAC is now a black mark, supporting Israel is one likewise in most areas. This would not have happened without Kamala losing. Your position seems to be “I’m sorry if the problem isn’t immediately solved by doing one thing, then what does it matter?” which is very fitting for someone who puts all their faith into voting, I suppose.
We are far closer to the genocide ending than we ever were under Biden. There is far more popular and international resistance towards Israel. This would not have happened if the democrats just got to keep on truckin’
One could ask the reverse however. Your side argues for the democrats as “harm reduction”, so lets look at the reduced harm we’ve gotten for voting for the “lesser evil” over the decades:
Roe v Wade overturned
Democrats support genocide
More money for the military
More wars
More money for cops
More surveillance
Still making the environment worse and worse
Still letting infrastructure fall apart, giving a good section of an already insufficient bill to military projects
Queer people thrown under the bus
BLM completely sidelined
The party tries to push out any and every “progressive” it can
No universal healthcare
Every election is between democrats (fascists) and fascists, and we have to vote for the democrats (fascists) otherwise democracy dies!
The fascists win the popular vote
Voter participation keeps falling
We destroy ACORN
We bail out bankers in financial crises
We fuck up and ignore COVID
So how’s that “lesser evil” going for you? How’s that “kicking the can down the road” going for you?
fucking hell, how disgusting of you. Why not just say that you don’t care about Palestinians, that you just want to go back to brunch?
More over our previous opportunity to at least put a speed bump passed and it seems .ml wants to squander another.
LMAO! A “speed bump”? Wow, that’s the only thing you’d hope for concerning a genocide? To inconveniently slow it down just a little bit?
And if you think Trump is making the genocide worse and that it would be better under a democrat then you are dead fucking wrong. Joe Biden increased funding towards “Israel” significantly during his term, he vehemently defends “Israel” and refused to stop funding the genocide.
Doing nothing is better than further empowering those doing harm.
You’re acting as if all one can do is vote. This seems more telling about you than anybody else.
You’re acting as if the alternative to voting for genocide is to join houthis. Be serious.
It seems like you just want to argue, since the way you’re presenting yourself isn’t convincing for anyone reading, nor to the people you are engaging with, and you don’t actually engage with the arguments of those you disagree with, rather just saying nonsensical shit. Why even write at that point?
Yeah let me leave the door open for crusaders who extra want Gaza destroyed in office
You’re right, much better to leave the door open for neoliberals who want Gaza destroyed. I’m sure the people getting bombed will be able to feel the difference when the Secretary of War doesn’t have an Iron Cross tattoo
“Fighting” and it’s voting for fascist genocidal geriatrics.
You aren’t fighting, you’re rolling over and yelling at people who say “hey how about we try something other than rolling over? Seems like it has only made things worse so far”
“Purity testing” is when you don’t think people should vote for genocide or more deportations or people who do fuck all to protect marginalised groups, while increasing the police state and furthering the climate apocalypse and warmongering. At this point, what’s left for you?
As opposed to the Lemmy solution, “Don’t vote! That’ll do something!”
That isn’t really what people are saying. It’s more that voting cannot bring about socialism, while revolution can, and that therefore treating voting as the primary political outlet for people hampers the organizing efforts needed for revolution.
I don’t know why anyone assumes that revolution will get them what they want. There are so many more ways for things to go wrong than right.
Okay, let’s look at the results to far:
Revolution: Takr away window dressing like culture, and the crushing majority of earth’s population share our class interest. Most humans want to live in a society focused on taking care of humans, and many revolutions have succeeded or even flourished despite full-spectrum seige from the capitalist bloc.
Reform: reform has been tried for a hundred fifty years and all there is to show for it is two and a half world wars, many capitalist genocides, and an entrenched neo-aristocracy of openly fascist, pedophile death cultists who have kicked off a mass extinction and are driving us towards nuclear apocalypse.
Every communist revolution that survived the 20th century is now either absolutely thriving or at least weathering extreme US seige, and the ones that weathered their seiges already have begun to thrive (see the DPRK). China is currenty the best hope for the survival of any large scale human civilization.
Meanwhile, every capitalist society where people chose reform has backslid or been backsliding into fascism. And at this point, we are out of time to keep trying gentle .methods. Capitalism is the cancer killing the only extraordinary gem of a planet where plants grow and creatures roam, and it’s in part thanks to the history of denial of how bad it is, the continual, suicidal insistence on taking half measures in the face of overwhelming warning that has allowed it to metastasize to such a horrifying degree that our only options now are the risky, painful surgery of revolution or certain death.
Nobody assumes revolution will be smooth and painless, what’s important is that it’s necessary for a better world. We have to work as hard as we can to make sure it works out as smoothly as possible.
What are some examples of it going right?
USSR, PRC, DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, GDR, Yugoslavia, etc.
The USSR, Cuba, DPRK, China, Vietnam as some examples.
We’ve had this argument before and you haven’t convinced me this is true, especially with more immediate political concerns.
I’ve also talked with people who literally are against voting so your statement does not speak for everyone.
What “more immediate political concerns” are not fought better on the ground?
Why only fight on one front when you could fight on all fronts? You can vote and do other things, you know.
By voting for genociders you’re not fighting, you’re not even rolling over, you’re helping them.
I have never said that you aren’t allowed to vote, more that voting is far less important than organizing. You are disparaging organizing in favor of voting on the grounds of voting being better, my question is which issue is voting better for?
I have never, once, at all, ever held that position, nor have I said such a thing. I have always been a proponent of organizing and voting.
Don’t you dare put those words in my mouth.
Can you please explain what these “more immediate political concerns” are that voting is more important for than organizing?
I think I’d rather have an apology first if I’m going to do you any favors. You just spat out a lie about me and you’re going to brush it off?
People laughed, saying a vote for Kamala was pointless, and a vote for genocide, but everyone has suffered under this atrocity of an administration. I don’t know that Kamala would have called Marxists terrorists.
Just like everyone suffered under the previous one.
Her administration used “left wing ideals” as a signifier to find domestic terroists.
I stand corrected, Trump’s administration is definitely a better pick than a potential Kamala administration.
No? It’s the same pick. They both ran on genocide, mass deportations, expanding the police state, not giving a fuck about queer people and all the other stuff.
I replied to you but I had a conversation about AI in my head but will leave it up, sorry.
I still don’t know how someone looked at the trump administration and thought yes please 4 more years. I also understand that looking at biden and thinking 4 more years, no thanks.
The same commentators who through introspection can say that socialist movements across the world need to work with the USA isnt a betrayal of the revolution seemingly cannot apply the same caveated analysis to the shinier of two turds in a two party system sounds like more American exceptionalism. If youre not voting for your “communist party of”, is this just virtue signalling?
The people who say no thanks to both do not consider those two options as unique in any way. Trump and Biden are inevitable and next election will have an even worse choice. The bourgeois state is declining and in its decline it turns towards fascism. Both parties are extensions of the bourgeois state.
By voting all one doesfurther entrench the system. For a long time the arguments for voting for democrats were:
As time has passed these arguments have shown themselves to be based on some faulty assumptions. Or conditions have changed to such an extent that the argument no longer stands.
This argument functions in the short term. However every election there’s less and less “lesser” evil. Wether they win or lose democrats make the same conclusion: They must go further to the right. The democrats are also just throwing marginalised groups under the bus (This is ignoring that democrats have been doing all the “evil” stuff on a state-level for much longer than their presidential platform reflects). Every administration since, at least, Clinton has deported more immigrants than the previous administration. Biden surpassed Trump 1 [1] They both suck on climate[2], they both commit genocide, they are both expanding a police state, they’re both imperialists, they’re both giving more money to the military.
So while one side might give slightly less, the long term result of this “lesser evil” is one where more harm is produced, than the long term result of one where the system is replaced[3].
What do you think will happen when not even genocide is too far?
If we accept that the argument for voting for democrats is, in part, built on longer term planning, then we must likewise accept the longer timescope for arguments against voting democrat.
I don’t know if conditions are “better” for organising. That’s hard to say in my eyes. We have seen far more popular unrest under Trump. People are far more displeased with the regular actions of the US empire under Trump. People have become far more radicalised under Trump. The popular movements are not funnelled into or through the DNC, but instead develop organically. There are other challenges under Trump than under democrats, but “better” or “worse”? Hard to say. Internationally I would consider Trump better, because he is more incompetent.
This feels like a bit of a different discussion. The actions, motivations and needs of revolutionary movements engaged in military struggle around the world are different from that of the average US voter (as well as the average US leftist).
You are also conflating “voting for a democrat or a republican” with “agreeing to receive support from the US.” It’s kind of vague, so I don’t really know what you’re talking about here and tbh it is not my area of expertise. I’m going to send a link to this comment to someone else, who might be better at answering, but I’d really appreciate more specificity. Can you say what socialists movement across the world are you thinking of and what socialist commentators are you talking about?
From what I can think of: I know many people have critiqued the various Kurdish militias for cooperating with the US, the PRCs cooperation with the US during the sino-soviet split is seen by most as a massive black mark on that countrys history.
In general though I’d say that people are more forgiving of foreign movements accepting US aid because the aid helps them further towards their goals, whereas someone voting for the democrats would, at best, do nothing. The way I view it, it would make things worse for the domestic leftist to vote democrat. I can’t speak on local politics.
I am voting third party. Here is a comment I wrote about leftist not voting or voting third party that whole thread has many illustrativt responses.
Here is another comment from the post, detailing my position
Here is my comment from another post
I would also recommend reading cowbees response in that comment thread.
Some will protest that Biden did not “deport” more immigrants, he technically “removed” them instead. Technicalities like these are moot in my eyes, they function only to illustrate how democrats run the same child-crusher, they’re just more “polite” about it. The child is crushed wether it is crushed or “pulverized”. ↩︎
Some will protest that Biden passed the Green New Deal or that he signed the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a pointless treaty and he did nothing to approach its’ goals. The “Green New Deal”, while allocating some resources to renewable energy, was in practicality nothing. The actual development of the US under Biden was one where greenhouse gas emissions increased and one where he gave out so many fracking contracts that the emissions from the oil in those alone will be enough to push us up to 3.5C warming. It does not matter that you are kissing my booboo, if you’re still stabbing me. The climate is not something that can be half-measured, it is an apocalypse and it is either-or. It needs IMMEDIATE and DRASTIC action, something neither party is willing to take. Therefore the faster neither party is in power, the better. ↩︎
Here is an admitted assumption. I assume the system is easier to replace if it is less entrenched. This seems obvious to me, but others have wanted to discuss this a bunch. It’s a discussion in itself. ↩︎
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There’s no point having a discussion with people like me that are intractable when it comes to the technology and are acutely aware of the USA capitalist ruling class the atrocities they commit and enable with people that are unable an unwilling to understand what a model is, and are approaching computer science like a luddite.
The USA capitalists are having you lick their boots when you think that “AI” = ChatGPT. You’re not ‘chatting’ with anything. You, me, and many others, are constantly falling for their marketing shit all the time.
If you can differentiate between a stack of PS3s that made a ‘super computer’ to try to predict what the weather will be tomorrow and the USA building a datacenter, poisoning your water, denying you electricity, stealing your capital, surveiling you, and influencing your decisions, then we can definitely sit together and use our brains to dismantle the infrastructure of oppression. Your enemy is not ‘conversation simulators’, its capitalism.
I think you replied to the wrong person? Otherwise this is the strangest non sequitor I’ve experienced yet
You’re right. I did the stupid.
The DNC are complicit in the present state repression against left-wing groups, and the genocide in Palestine has continued.
You’re absolutely not wrong.
Who is telling you not to vote? What we’re telling you is: https://lemmy.ml/comment/22575324
Right, and if voting was useless, why do politicians want to take it away from demographics they hate? Why would people have to fight so hard for it?
If it really didn’t matter and it really was as you say it is, then they wouldn’t need to distract people.
If you really held onto this stance, then you can’t be mad at people who voted for Trump because it’s all smoke and mirrors anyway and he was picked with what, some shadow government?
Is organizing a revolution so easily distracted that spending like, a little part of a day casting a ballot something that’ll completely undermine everything? Is it that fragile?
The distraction is the voting system itself. Seems to work better on you than on most other people.
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We know the reasons, and we know the oligarchs will dispense with the pretense of elections when they hinder more than they help. Fascism isn’t a grassroots movement; it’s an astroturfed one funded by oligarchs. They fully unleash it when they become frustrated with bourgeois democracy.
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How will voting help?
It’s not really going to do anything, but it’s better than legitimising the system and entrenching genociders. Politicians use the amount of votes they receive as an argument for the legitimacy of their policies. The overarching oligarchy will exist wether you vote or not, the individuals in the structure have a much easier time of doing heinous shit if they are perceived as legitimate.
So voting for the people in power will, in a small way, make things worse.
People are arguing voting does not work because if anyone actually leftist becomes popular, then they either get buried or subsumed by the structure - Bernie Sanders is an excellent example of both. In 2016 he got cheated out of the nomination, likewise in 2020. By 2020 he had already become a sheepdog for the left, channelling popular sentiment towards the establishment.
Another example is AOC who worked as a DC staffer for a long while, then took a 6 month gig as a bartender, and then received considerable promotion by the DNC by way of constantly being discussed negatively by the party elite, which then makes her appear as a political outsider - All the while she still supports the fundamental structure of the US as well as the DNC. She was a diehard supporter of Joe Biden as well as voting for Israel whenever it was needed, and running defence for things like the “Iron Dome”.
However, others would argue that voting can function as a tool to build momentum for leftist political organisations.
Here’s some Lenin for you. The text is very specific to the situation his party found itself in in that specific historical moment, but it can still be used to exemplify some stuff:
Basically: Elections can function as a platform for a well-organized, principled leftist party to agitate to the masses and legitimise itself in the popular culture. So in the current day if you vote, you should vote for a leftist third party to help them build momentum.
Here’s another snippet I think would be a good starting point for you, if you actually wish to understand the leftist position on elections, and not just argue against ridiculous strawmen. Really the whole book this second snippet is from is a good start. It’s not too heavy either.
But very tl;dr:
For reading:
Not at all. Again, who is saying not to vote?
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when they vote against genocide you complains. What you want is a dictatorship where everybody should vote democrats
They often openly say they think “the masses” are too stupid to be allowed to rule a society. Liberals wear the mask of “democracy” but deep down think of themselves as benevolent plutocrats in waiting, with deep contempt for the average person in the imperial core and genocidal contempt for the average person in a Designated Enemy society.
*you complain
and why tf would I want a Democrat dictatorship? I’m literally encouraging people to vote, which is about what they want.
If there was a Democratic dictatorship you wouldn’t vote against it.
You encourage people to only vote for democrats , if they vote for a third party you claim they vote for trump meaning you support a one party
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Alright, you’re ignoring they think we should live in a socialist utopia. Neither part is right around the corner or feasible anytime soon. Voting laws will not be changed, and if they did it would not matter. Look at Alaska.
lol what has voting achieved??
Local election voting is much more important. You can bring change to your local community with effort. Federal not so much.
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power? Kept people who can do harm out? Gotten rid of the feudal system where you only have power of you’re genetically born into it?
If voting didn’t matter, why would people fight and die for it? If voting didn’t matter, why do conservatives want you to not vote? If voting didn’t matter, why bother pretending and gave elections?
Why should you give up your agency over your government?
Or are you cool with the people who didn’t vote and kinda let Trump take over?
Trump won even by popular vote this last time. You sure you want to make the claim that it’s voting in particular that gets people who can “do better” in positions of power? How can a person be so dense as to think that voting is what keeps those who do harm out of powerful positions when every president, certainly at least within living memory, has wrought unmitigated harm upon the world?
LOL. You honestly think voting is what ended feudalism?! And you think people in power now weren’t born into it?! Behold, the intellectual heights of liberal “thought.”
Right, 'cause no one ever fought and died for something that wasn’t true or didn’t work the way they thought. (facepalm).
Also, if voting did work as you say, why do people still have to fight and die for their basic livelihoods and the well-being of their children, let alone the myriad other reasons people to this day are fighting and dying? There are just so many ways in which these questions reveal a deep and fundamental misunderstanding about how material reality works, I don’t know where to start. Oh and wait, didn’t you just say that voting ended feudalism? I guess all that fighting and dying was the sideshow, just done for emphasis apparently.
Why do you, a liberal, not want conservatives to vote? Or maybe you do, in which case you should be content with Trump who was voted in. But to answer your question about conservatives: it’s rather obviously because they’re the part of the machine that generally has less popular support for the time being. This isn’t rocket science. Funny how despite that fact, conservatives still have as much and usually more power than the liberal “progressives,” I thought this voting thing (that ended feudalism! lol) was supposed to magically solve all of that.
Because people like you believe the lie that it gives them some sort of power and control over the systems that rule them. Obviously. In other words, it clearly does work miracles to placate doofuses.
You shouldn’t, and that’s the point. Only a fool thinks voting within this system is exercising their agency.
In response to all of your “iF vOtInG dIiNt WoRk tHeN WHY” questions, how about this: If voting did work to give ordinary people power, why would your bourgeois overlords (who literally control more absolute wealth and exercise greater relative power and control than any rulers at any point in human history) let you do it? Answer: they wouldn’t.
Ooooh, so it’s all about people who realized they were only given shit options to vote for, they’re the real problem here, not the people who… umm… voted for Trump? According to you voting has all this amazing magical power to effect the world. But the people who actually used that supposed power for their choice of Trump aren’t actually what
put Trump in the presidencylet him “take over.” No, you think the problem is the people who can correctly identify a rigged system. Trump won the election via people doing exactly what you say they should do, by voting, but when it’s not the outcome you wanted, you say the man who literally won the popular vote “took over” and proceed to blame that “takeover” on the people who chose not to use that supposedly great power to endorse genocidaires. My god liberals are such a fucking joke it still gobsmacks me somehow.Yeah, you’re making a lot of assumptions and accusations about what I believe and that’s just full on strawmaning.
You go back and forth on how voting is useless than talk about how voting got Trump into power, and honestly, you haven’t made a single good argument for not voting. All that does as far as I’m concerned is get conservatives into office, and I’m not going to do that.
Have fun on the high road, the rest of us have to deal with consequences of people like you who don’t care if people like Trump get elected, because you took the “mOrAl HiGh GrOuNd” and wouldn’t do the minimal effort to keep a Nazi out of office.
Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back door being a doormat.
People have made plenty of arguments, and if all you’re focusing on domestic issues then you’re arrogant and selfish who is only concerned with having your treats threatened.
Yeah man, the Orange Nazi is terrible, we need to have a BLUE Nazi instead! Just ignore how they both treated genocide as a bipartisan issue or where Biden ramped up the genocide significantly and Kamala promised she’d do the same.
You only dislike Trump because he’s mean about it, you’d sleep soundly if you had a president who enacted genocide, overthrew governments and killed millions of people but cared about “decorum” and “optics” as you liberals are obsessed with.
Says the doormat that says “WELCOME, BLUE NO MATTER WHO”
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Democrats are also throwing trans under the bus what do you mean?
And “nuance”? lmfao you are literally hyperfocusing on getting in a democrat above all else, to the point of “blue no matter who” while ignoring all points being made to you and you’re talking about nuance? LMFAO
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Pointing out the many similarities between the two parties’ policy positions is not the same as equating violent right wing militias with peaceful protesters, learn what the things you say mean.
Remember that most people on this website don’t live in your parallel universe where voting ended feudalism. They live in a world where voting didn’t end feudalism, so they won’t understand most of what you say.
They’re drawing reasonable conclusions based on your given statements. That’s how reasoning works, you should try it sometime.
Every US president is a war criminal genocider. Trump isnt special. Americans dont deserve to vote, they’re stupid
Since when? We’ve come to a point where genocide isn’t even a point of discussion, it’s just something that they all do. How are any of these people “people who can do better”? Trump won the popular vote. Bush won it in ´04 and now he’s being rehabilitated as some quirky old guy. We’ve come to a point where Bush isn’t Bush, but just some fucking grandpa, that’s your idea of “people who can do better”? Administrations that make people yearn for fucking Bush?? Not to mention people yearning for Obama, the guy who bailed out bankers, fucked over ACORN, did fuck all to get progressives into the supreme court, never codified Roe v Wade, bombed more people than Bush, expanded ICE dramatically, put kids in cages (something that never stopped), enshrined the PATRIOT act, and so much more.
We’re at a point where people pretend Bill Clinton wasn’t on the Epstein list. The guy who overturned Glass-Steagal, the guy who wrote NAFTA, the guy who bombed Yugoslavia so his wife would fuck him again, the guy who couped the first election in the Russian Republic (basically giving us Putin), the guy who oversaw the second half of Shock Doctrine in the broken up soviet bloc, the crime bill, deregulation that would give us the financial crisis, and again, so much more. That’s your idea of “people who can do better”? Better than what??? The people we now yearn for??? The people your “people who can do better” rehabilitate? Democrats idolise Reagan FFS, they’re doing reaganomics! This is “doing better”? It’s not even better than republicans.
And again, Trump won. So that’s what your system gives you. Bush won, that’s what your system gets you.
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almost every time I see .world there has been nothing but reactionary, bigoted and chauvinistic takes.
Yeah telling people off for voting for genocide sure is purity testing.
Like every conflict that Amerika has started where they lay siege upon them. Even now, Cuba is under siege and has been since they revolutionized many, many decades ago. And let me tell you, it’s not just Republicans that are doing this. After all, Obama sure loved droning weddings in Yemen, and he loves the open slave market he opened up in Libya after destroying it.
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This just shows that you do not care about Palestine, you have already written them off as doomed no matter what. So naturally, all that leaves is your desire for spoils of the plunder.
Don’t be fucking smug about genocide you fucking ass.
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That’s your response? Even not voting for genocide does more than one that actively participates and DEFENDS the system that allows for genocide to go on for as long as it has.
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Funny how, as soon as an alternative is suggested, it has to solve everything immediately, but voting for genociders does not hold the same requirement.
We went from democrats covering their ears at the sound of protesters for Palestine, the democratic nominee yelling “I am speaking” against protesters, the democratic president siccing cops on peaceful protesters, to democrats having to at least pretend like they give a shit, if not outright actually give a shit. Receiving money from AIPAC is now a black mark, supporting Israel is one likewise in most areas. This would not have happened without Kamala losing. Your position seems to be “I’m sorry if the problem isn’t immediately solved by doing one thing, then what does it matter?” which is very fitting for someone who puts all their faith into voting, I suppose.
We are far closer to the genocide ending than we ever were under Biden. There is far more popular and international resistance towards Israel. This would not have happened if the democrats just got to keep on truckin’
One could ask the reverse however. Your side argues for the democrats as “harm reduction”, so lets look at the reduced harm we’ve gotten for voting for the “lesser evil” over the decades:
So how’s that “lesser evil” going for you? How’s that “kicking the can down the road” going for you?
fucking hell, how disgusting of you. Why not just say that you don’t care about Palestinians, that you just want to go back to brunch?
LMAO! A “speed bump”? Wow, that’s the only thing you’d hope for concerning a genocide? To inconveniently slow it down just a little bit?
And if you think Trump is making the genocide worse and that it would be better under a democrat then you are dead fucking wrong. Joe Biden increased funding towards “Israel” significantly during his term, he vehemently defends “Israel” and refused to stop funding the genocide.
Joe Biden: “Were there not an Israel, United States would have to invent an Israel” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLNCcLfIkM
Kamala Harris was going to continue the genocide all the same, and when pushed back on this, she’d just say “I AM SPEAKING” like a fucking monster.
It seems like you just want to argue, since the way you’re presenting yourself isn’t convincing for anyone reading, nor to the people you are engaging with, and you don’t actually engage with the arguments of those you disagree with, rather just saying nonsensical shit. Why even write at that point?
You’re right, much better to leave the door open for neoliberals who want Gaza destroyed. I’m sure the people getting bombed will be able to feel the difference when the Secretary of War doesn’t have an Iron Cross tattoo
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To win an election, you have to hibernate for another 4 years.
“Fighting” and it’s voting for fascist genocidal geriatrics.
You aren’t fighting, you’re rolling over and yelling at people who say “hey how about we try something other than rolling over? Seems like it has only made things worse so far”
“Purity testing” is when you don’t think people should vote for genocide or more deportations or people who do fuck all to protect marginalised groups, while increasing the police state and furthering the climate apocalypse and warmongering. At this point, what’s left for you?