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volts5000 posted:But what if you have other policy goals? How does withholding your vote/voting third party help with those? Like, I'm not a single issue voter. I care about multiple things. If one candidate is the antithesis to all of my goals, why would I want to withhold my vote over one issue while endangering my other issues (that are currently being addressed satisfactorily)? That's it though isn't it. It's not being addressed satisfactorily for some people. With the perverse feedback loop between capital/the market and I don't even think people should have to provide an answer or solution, when confronted with this failed trajectory. It's good to be able to recognize the failure. Especially if you are still interested in direct action one way or another. So when forced to come up with an alternative to voting (whether or not one goes to vote against the loving republicans once again), I just think of maybe spreading (passing down) a spirit of community and resistance and actual smaller scale humanity. And terrible terrible burden and responsibility. This mostly in service to say holy poo poo vote scolding doesn't work at all. Having some empathy for people (so thoroughly captured) is part of building whatever will crawl out from under this.
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Feb 14, 2024 00:50
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 01:47 |
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I think putting all of our focus on voting diminishes other direct action. Not necessarily by discussing it here, but for example there are plenty of folks whom I could never convince to vote dem, and only maybe hope to get them to not vote republican/trump. But given your county and state,the outcome may be a foregone conclusion anyway. If I choose not to focus on voting as a serious relationship with power I can convince otherwise partisan people of other things. If my friends homesteaders husband will NEVER vote dem because he's afraid of communism, that is already a loss. But maybe I can convince him to boycott Amazon because he's afraid of the "global elite". I guess when my anecdotal experience has far more people whose political views are incoherent and impossible, it's hard to see how stressing the importance of a vote that I don't believe in (in a system I don't believe in) is itself coherent.
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Feb 14, 2024 16:14
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volts5000 posted:I'll never forget this interview that was done during the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucus. This group of ladies were all in for Pete Buttigieg. They were decked out with shirts, flags, pins, etc. The reporter asked the ladies if they thought Pete being gay was going to be a factor in the general election. They were gobsmacked to find out that he was gay and dropped their support. This, of course, led to so many questions. What did they learn about Pete that made them support him? How, in the course of learning about him, did they miss the one major aspect of his life and campaign? It's not like he hid it. If they're so turned off by gay people, what in the gently caress were they doing in the Democratic caucus, where the party platform is pro LGBTQ? For one sorry I didn't answer your earlier post. I'll cover that shortly. I know there's a conversation about morality going on but I'm focused more on the effective aspect. The effectiveness of voting and of viewing that as our main relationship with power. For me, it's not a political action. I'm pushing/preparing for a paradigm shift. I think this system has, will, and has to fail. Things will have to get worse before there's a chance for them to be different enough that things have a chance to change for the better. There's no guarantee of better here either. But I think the vote (certainly in the US) gives people a false sense of control and operates as a pressure release. Things are well in hand, we have democracy, and we can blame this leader or group of voters for what's happening. It staves off people having more direct action. Now is the guy afraid of communists and globalists gonna help build a better world? Having chickens and produce and knowledge of the land will sure be helpful, so long as he's not convinced to try and murder my brother.* *to be clear, I think our politics and democracy funnel people into poo poo like this. Will somebody hate their gay or Trans neighbor without "their team" constantly megaphone it at them? Some will, but we have direct action to answer that too.
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Feb 14, 2024 18:14
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We've never faced a world quite like the one we've so very recently built. Every good argument for why "not voting for the lesser evil doesn't work" is a further condemnation against fundamental beliefs many have about democracy and the status quo (with its current power structures and incentives). It is uniquely mad. We built our world so "won", so successfully, people can't even meaningfully interact with it. The vote in theory gives power, but in reality placates. The market is openly the point and the power, and to threaten it is to threaten the world most people live in (materially and in their mind). What political movement could successfully reform this trajectory, without threatening the ideals we have about democracy? At what point would we say "this has failed" and look at things differently?
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Feb 25, 2024 22:59
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Oh, sorry. Apparently I wasn't clear enough with my explanation. Let me try again: One doesn't need to solely blame Biden to see something like this as a damning indictment of our system. It's not just about this specific issue, this flag. It's unacceptable compromises the whole way down because "this is how this works". The machine demands compromise. The market will be served first. The empire requires genocide. Justice and sustainability are not compatible with this, and to argue better things aren't realistically possible is little defense (however accurate). As we suffer more consequences of late stage capitalism and automation, of overshoot (and the general unraveling of what we've left of the natural world we rely on), things will become more desperate, more inequitable, more exploitative. What electorate would accept, would reward imposed sacrifice (or even minor inconvenience) when things get worse and they still see the rich getting richer? Hell, right up to whomever the second richest motherfucker is. Stability and progress are perverted. They can not be our priorities when this is our trajectory.
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Mar 30, 2024 21:04
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I keep trying to write an effort post of sorts and it results in me burning out, but I've been thinking about a post for days so I'll try to summarize. The "results based/consequentialist" thinking would make sense to me, I've made the same argument until recently. No longer though. Our politics is an impediment to a better world. The two party system does not represent what the views and needs of Americans necessarily are (or could be, anyway), rather it shapes them into an ongoing culture war that simply pivots around what we are allowed to fight about. What the status quo needs us to fight about. It's a successful project, and while there is enormous money and propaganda networks set against us it seems our political culture is such we'd carry on the fight willingly. It's not a real fight to me, electoralim. We already lost. My goals, my ideals, are sustainability and justice. These will not be accomplished or even meaningfully approached within predictable conditions. Incremental progress in the face of climate change is a trap, a lie. Our peace and prosperity is ill-earned and it's more clear than ever that the exploitation and genocide will not stop. It's bipartisan because it will always be what this needs, what we need to live like this. The only power that exists to change this is masses of people with incredible resolve and a sense of self sacrifice. We'd have to be willing to do without the benefits of the systems we've built if we're to challenge and regain control of them. IF the people of the USA are capable of that, it seems things would have to get far worse to spark that paradigm shift. Until then our unjust unsustainable system will chug along towards certain collapse, dooming the natural world and the future. I don't know how to be constructive in the face of this. But I want to fight against it, and that fight starts in my heart and will be on my terms. And I'll thank folks not to start telling me who I do and don't care about when I refuse to vote for people who have been willfully aiding a broad daylight genocide. A damning indictment of our free speech and democracy. I'd rather pull the whole machine down right on my head than cling to my own comfort, waiting for my turn to be fed into the gears of the Machine that ends the world. I've voted my whole life and i used to be proud to do so.
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May 9, 2024 18:33
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 01:47 |
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blastron posted:This is a very serious question: if you didn’t vote, and the worse candidate won by a margin of one, could you live with yourself? The same way one lives with themselves for not becoming a hermit under a rock in the woods, not self immolating in the town square, or not redacted. I'd defend equality shoulder to shoulder with a strong arm and clenched fist.
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May 10, 2024 01:00
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