Its funny that the propaganda you refer to is always ‘well they werent going to do anything for you anyways’ and have it be true. last time i heard a mainstream democrat run on a decent platform was obama. since then its been nothing but ‘well we cant do that! its not capitalist!’
My dad is worse than your dad! I Never said it was a tough choice. just that my choice is not to vote for either shit pile. you’re free to continue voting for whatever idiot you want to. I’ll occassional toss my vote in when it offers material change on the ground. if it doesnt, then i wont.
Here is a list of things that will get that check box:
candidate needs to full throatedly support single payer.
candidate needs to shut their whore mouths about ‘supporting {minority group} is costing us the elections!’
full throated prolabour positions: minimum paid / sick leave / paternity leave / living wage automatic inflation adjustments / forcing companies to bring labor position back or UBI.
full throated support for monopoly busting.
I’ll take any one of those bullet points and I’ll be arsed to roll out of bed for your candidate. There are other things as well but I dont think an exhaustive list is necessary.
I’m curious why you frame your vote as a reward to a candidate for checking your boxes, and not a tool to exert some control over your material conditions. It just seems like such a strange way to treat your vote.
With holding your vote is a far more effective way to exert control. its that simple. corpo dems and repubs know very well what policies workers want and how to implement them they choose not to.
How though? How does withholding your vote accomplish that? You keep saying that it does, but you haven’t described the mechanism by which that happens.
American politics is an emotive subject if you’re American, which I assume you are.
Apply your argument to the brexit referendum, where many of the same arguments you’re making were made by pro-brexit campaigners, and where mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle have also failed many British people, especially the working classes.
While the latter was and still is absolutely true, it was also used by Cambridge Analytica, to decrease voter turn-out in targetted demographic groups.
Would you have voted in that referendum?
The end result was arguably emboldened racists, a divided Europe, lack lustre economic and job growth, poor treatment of migrants, a country closer to far-right rule than it has been in a long time, and a select elite getting richer. But then life would have gotten worse for many people even if the UK had voted to stay in the EU, and the leave result did give the establishment a much necessary bloody nose, so you could argue there wasn’t much point voting either way.
This is a genuine question. I don’t have easy answers.
yes, and I would have voted against brexit. just like i actively engage in activities that prevent isreali from murdering palestinians.
Classifying shit as propaganda isnt useful. its basically just the dissemination of information at its core good or bad.
The reason activities like cambridge analytica work is because the information is often true and verifiable. We have a long history of moderate dems never delivering on workers interest by always having just enough votes not to.
The only way to get it to not work is for the democrats to start fucking delivering to the working class. but that wont happen until your remove the corporate mouth pieces.
Kamala never would have lost if she came out hard for workers and gaza. instead she gave us… drumroll legalized weed. something 80% of the population already has.
I dont vote for genocide however you wish to classify the scope as more or less.
Here’s the thing though, you could argue that voting in favour of brexit, would have emboldened the centrists and the establishment in the UK, to keep making the lives of the working class worse. Brexit gave them a much necessary bloody nose.
In French they say “Choisir entre la peste et le choléra”. Choosing between plague or cholera. Let’s take the French example:
The French will likely soon get to choose between Le Pen and Macron’s successor. The latter is a likely corrupt centrist dickhead from a party which has lead the country to the brink and emboldened fascists. The former is Le Pen, a Russian aligned fascist.
The propaganda will tell people Macron’s successor is a neo-liberal thief and part of why France is in deep trouble. Which is absolutely true. But the alternative is a literal fascist. You can vote for Macron’s successor, but then the establishment thinks it’s business as usual. You can not bother voting at all, but then it’s likely Le Pen wins…
Electoral systems which favour multi-party governments are often better. But then look at Germany, where ever more parties are forced into a coalition against the far right AfD, because people vote for AfD(or don’t vote against them) in increasing numbers. The propaganda tells them that mainstream parties are incompetent, corrupt, and have ended up costing thousands their jobs. Which is absolutely true.
If Germans don’t vote or vote for smaller parties, they potentially let the fascists in.
If they do vote for a bigger party, who are often quite pro-Israel for historical reasons, it’s likely these parties will think they can get away with business as usual, which emboldens the fascists and further disenfranchises voters for next time around…
Personally, I would always vote for the lesser evil, but I get where you’re coming from.
Here’s the thing though, you could argue that voting in favour of brexit, would have emboldened the centrists and the establishment in the UK, to keep making the lives of the working class worse. Brexit gave them a much necessary bloody nose.
I dont worry about how other people will interpret my actions. its not a useful benchmark for decision making.
The propaganda will tell people Macron’s successor is a neo-liberal thief and part of why France is in deep trouble…
Is macron’s successor literally enabling a genocide like harris did? These are not either or questions. you need to look at what candidates are doing. I tossed my vote for biden in 2020 even though i didnt like him. He decided to start a genocide. he lost my support. harris continued to support the genocide. she also lost my support. Now you have the dems in absolute turmoil and progressives are sweeping up this primary. It’ll unfortunately take a few more cycles for this to complete.
You worry too much about what the candidate will do vs what they are doing and you’re trying to prevent candidate A from acting by supporting candidate B even though you also dont like candidate B.
As a result you explicitly are condoning candidate B’s actions. By not taking away your vote/support you are directly responsible for their actions. You also enable them to claim ‘that only they, the center, can win’ because you are unwilling to withhold your support. You’re literally a hostage.
On top of that by supporting candidate B regardless of their actions because of your fear of candidate A you make it more difficult to remove candidate B and replace them with a better option.
Sound familiar? its the rachette effect. Stop supporting candidate B and suddenly you have room to replace them. Withholding your vote is one of the most effective tools for electoral change outside of general strikes.
Im not going to join you or condone your support of ‘lesser evil’ because it makes the tail of this situation longer and worse. And I’m going to call it out for what it is: An Ineffective reaction to fear. It in fact is a direct source of the situation we’re in now in the states because its been going on for so long that all the guard rails have fallen and all you have left are… the very people enabling the situation.
Now, I respect your individual choice, its just a bad one if you actually want change. One option you have is to split your ticket: vote against le pen but dont vote in any of macron’s party otherwise.
I’m going to leave you with a quote:
Rosa Luxemburg: ‘Those who dont move, do not notice their chains’
Is macron’s successor literally enabling a genocide like harris did
France/Macron has continuously sold Israel weapons, yes. But they’re also being more critical of Israel, want to ban goods from settlements, etc.
Le Pen is a fascist and friend to Israel, so much so that a Likud minister has said she would be an excellent president, they’ve been in secret talks with Israel, and she has been critical of Macron for not supporting Israel enough, etc. The Israelis are almost certainly pushing propaganda to get people to not bother turning out to vote against Le Pen.
By not taking away your vote/support you are directly responsible for their actions.
You can vote for Macron’s guy, who’ll likely continue selling weapons to Israel, and that arguably makes you complicit in genocide. Correct.
Or you can not vote, and risk a Le Pen victory, and even closer ties to Israel. You’re doing what the Israelis want you to (not) do. You not voting, is an implied ok, you’re not going to do anything to stop them.
Rosa Luxemburg: ‘Those who dont move, do not notice their chains’
Do you think Rosa Luxemburg would have abstained from voting against the Nazis, because the other German political parties were corrupt and inept?
I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong to not vote.
I’m saying it’s not a morally pure choice. Your hands aren’t clean either way.
To quote Sapkowski: “Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.”
Or you can not vote, and risk a Le Pen victory, and even closer ties to Israel. You’re doing what the Israelis want you to (not) do. You not voting, is an implied ok, you’re not going to do anything to stop them.
Everything about this sentence is incorrect. Not voting is not an implied ‘fine with the outcome regardless’. As I’ve literally been pointing out since my first comment in this thread. people like you keep trying to assert it is. but it simply isnt and no amount of blathering on your end will make it so.
Do you think Rosa Luxemburg would have abstained from voting against the Nazis, because the other German political parties were corrupt and inept?
liberals literally like worshipping idols. the quote was to make you think. because clearly you are not. in your world there is only one method to deal with the problem in mine there are many.
I’m saying it’s not a morally pure choice. Your hands aren’t clean either way.
An Individual who is not involved is not responsible for the actions of others. Not voting for a terrible candidate is in no way supporting them, see above about your blathering. the only peoples whose hands are dirty are the individuals who voted for the candidate who won. The only dirt on my hands was tossing biden a vote in 2020 thinking they’d be reasonable re: wouldnt enable/support a fucking genocide (technically that admin lost it soon as they broke the rail strike). turned out they were not. my support was immediately rescinded.
But I don’t think we get to not choose.
You always have a choice. The world is wider than elections. You have plenty of options on the table for resisting trump/le pen, withhold your labor, use your labor to fund others withholding theirs. support general strikes. you dont need to vote in the election in order to resist if the candidates are terrible.
Now since you’re repeating talking points I’ve already addressed repeatedly with you and others, being utterly uninteresting, and breaking rule 7. disengage.
I notice you didn’t answer my question about if Rosa Luxemburg would have voted against the Nazis had she been alive to do so. I find that telling.
In any case, I didn’t shame you for not voting, I simply pointed out that not voting(not choosing) is also a choice and not necessarily a morally pure choice, especially when faced with fascists. Even if there are good reasons not to vote, it does not absolve you of the risks you take in not doing so. And the same goes for those who do vote, and perpetuate the current malaise and risk lending it legitimacy.
I tried to illustrate this with non-American examples, so you’d be less emotional about it, but given you’ve resorted to name calling and insults clearly I’ve failed.
I notice you didn’t answer my question about if Rosa Luxemburg would have voted against the Nazis had she been alive to do so. I find that telling.
You find it telling because you’re repeating the same mistake you have this entire conversation with me. Thinking you’re capable of convincing me to vote for your shit candidates out of fear, and that you have nothing to learn here about how your voting pattern has lead to the very situation you’re now desperately trying to correct by… doing the exact same thing that got everyone into this mess.
I didnt respond regarding rosa luxemburg because the answer is immaterial and the answer on what I’d do is very evident in my responses to people so what ‘rosa luxemburg would do’ has zero relevance to the conversation since QED: she isnt me. You’re trying to use hero worship and an appeal to an authority to make your case, which is not how I view rosa luxemburg and if you understood anything about anarchists you wouldnt make this mistake.
I didn’t shame you for not voting, I simply pointed out that not voting(not choosing) is also a choice and not necessarily a morally pure choice, especially when faced with fascists.
You’ve absolutely been attempting to shame people. That’s your whole drive with the ‘morally pure’ concept to begin with. a concept I’ve never subscribed to in the first place. you’re simply trying to assert positions onto me that I dont hold. I’ll repeat the point clearly again for you: ‘An individual is not responsible for the actions of candidate A through not voting for candidate B’. I dont get sullied because trump is an utter cunt. I am sullied for the vote I gave biden who was also an utter cunt.
I never said I was morally absolved purely by not voting, I said I’m not morally responsible of the actions of the person whom I didnt vote for, and if I was declaring abstaining from voting altogether, which i never have, then maybe you’d have a case. but since its not, and I do vote when the candidate is actually useful it doesnt apply. If you want people to blame for fascism look to the people voting for the fascists (cough you, lesser evil every day individual, via voting for the fascist wing of the democratic party and whom have been enabling the republican party since 1996 and longer cough)
When someone beats their partner 3 towns over are you responsible through the fact you were watching tv that night despite you knowing that the person was violent? No, of course not.
Its funny that the propaganda you refer to is always ‘well they werent going to do anything for you anyways’ and have it be true. last time i heard a mainstream democrat run on a decent platform was obama. since then its been nothing but ‘well we cant do that! its not capitalist!’
Yes that is just as bad as Trump and Co actively dismantling institutions and lining their pockets at our expense. What a tough choice.
My dad is worse than your dad! I Never said it was a tough choice. just that my choice is not to vote for either shit pile. you’re free to continue voting for whatever idiot you want to. I’ll occassional toss my vote in when it offers material change on the ground. if it doesnt, then i wont.
Here is a list of things that will get that check box:
I’ll take any one of those bullet points and I’ll be arsed to roll out of bed for your candidate. There are other things as well but I dont think an exhaustive list is necessary.
I’m curious why you frame your vote as a reward to a candidate for checking your boxes, and not a tool to exert some control over your material conditions. It just seems like such a strange way to treat your vote.
With holding your vote is a far more effective way to exert control. its that simple. corpo dems and repubs know very well what policies workers want and how to implement them they choose not to.
How though? How does withholding your vote accomplish that? You keep saying that it does, but you haven’t described the mechanism by which that happens.
That is certainly a lovely list to vote for.
American politics is an emotive subject if you’re American, which I assume you are.
Apply your argument to the brexit referendum, where many of the same arguments you’re making were made by pro-brexit campaigners, and where mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle have also failed many British people, especially the working classes.
While the latter was and still is absolutely true, it was also used by Cambridge Analytica, to decrease voter turn-out in targetted demographic groups.
Would you have voted in that referendum?
The end result was arguably emboldened racists, a divided Europe, lack lustre economic and job growth, poor treatment of migrants, a country closer to far-right rule than it has been in a long time, and a select elite getting richer. But then life would have gotten worse for many people even if the UK had voted to stay in the EU, and the leave result did give the establishment a much necessary bloody nose, so you could argue there wasn’t much point voting either way.
This is a genuine question. I don’t have easy answers.
I apologize I didnt mean you ignore you.
yes, and I would have voted against brexit. just like i actively engage in activities that prevent isreali from murdering palestinians.
Classifying shit as propaganda isnt useful. its basically just the dissemination of information at its core good or bad.
The reason activities like cambridge analytica work is because the information is often true and verifiable. We have a long history of moderate dems never delivering on workers interest by always having just enough votes not to.
The only way to get it to not work is for the democrats to start fucking delivering to the working class. but that wont happen until your remove the corporate mouth pieces.
Kamala never would have lost if she came out hard for workers and gaza. instead she gave us… drumroll legalized weed. something 80% of the population already has.
I dont vote for genocide however you wish to classify the scope as more or less.
Here’s the thing though, you could argue that voting in favour of brexit, would have emboldened the centrists and the establishment in the UK, to keep making the lives of the working class worse. Brexit gave them a much necessary bloody nose.
In French they say “Choisir entre la peste et le choléra”. Choosing between plague or cholera. Let’s take the French example:
The French will likely soon get to choose between Le Pen and Macron’s successor. The latter is a likely corrupt centrist dickhead from a party which has lead the country to the brink and emboldened fascists. The former is Le Pen, a Russian aligned fascist.
The propaganda will tell people Macron’s successor is a neo-liberal thief and part of why France is in deep trouble. Which is absolutely true. But the alternative is a literal fascist. You can vote for Macron’s successor, but then the establishment thinks it’s business as usual. You can not bother voting at all, but then it’s likely Le Pen wins…
Electoral systems which favour multi-party governments are often better. But then look at Germany, where ever more parties are forced into a coalition against the far right AfD, because people vote for AfD(or don’t vote against them) in increasing numbers. The propaganda tells them that mainstream parties are incompetent, corrupt, and have ended up costing thousands their jobs. Which is absolutely true.
If Germans don’t vote or vote for smaller parties, they potentially let the fascists in.
If they do vote for a bigger party, who are often quite pro-Israel for historical reasons, it’s likely these parties will think they can get away with business as usual, which emboldens the fascists and further disenfranchises voters for next time around…
Personally, I would always vote for the lesser evil, but I get where you’re coming from.
TLDR: I’m going to watch a shitty vampire show.
I dont worry about how other people will interpret my actions. its not a useful benchmark for decision making.
Is macron’s successor literally enabling a genocide like harris did? These are not either or questions. you need to look at what candidates are doing. I tossed my vote for biden in 2020 even though i didnt like him. He decided to start a genocide. he lost my support. harris continued to support the genocide. she also lost my support. Now you have the dems in absolute turmoil and progressives are sweeping up this primary. It’ll unfortunately take a few more cycles for this to complete.
You worry too much about what the candidate will do vs what they are doing and you’re trying to prevent candidate A from acting by supporting candidate B even though you also dont like candidate B.
As a result you explicitly are condoning candidate B’s actions. By not taking away your vote/support you are directly responsible for their actions. You also enable them to claim ‘that only they, the center, can win’ because you are unwilling to withhold your support. You’re literally a hostage.
On top of that by supporting candidate B regardless of their actions because of your fear of candidate A you make it more difficult to remove candidate B and replace them with a better option.
Sound familiar? its the rachette effect. Stop supporting candidate B and suddenly you have room to replace them. Withholding your vote is one of the most effective tools for electoral change outside of general strikes.
Im not going to join you or condone your support of ‘lesser evil’ because it makes the tail of this situation longer and worse. And I’m going to call it out for what it is: An Ineffective reaction to fear. It in fact is a direct source of the situation we’re in now in the states because its been going on for so long that all the guard rails have fallen and all you have left are… the very people enabling the situation.
Now, I respect your individual choice, its just a bad one if you actually want change. One option you have is to split your ticket: vote against le pen but dont vote in any of macron’s party otherwise.
I’m going to leave you with a quote:
Rosa Luxemburg: ‘Those who dont move, do not notice their chains’
Now please move. ;)
France/Macron has continuously sold Israel weapons, yes. But they’re also being more critical of Israel, want to ban goods from settlements, etc.
Le Pen is a fascist and friend to Israel, so much so that a Likud minister has said she would be an excellent president, they’ve been in secret talks with Israel, and she has been critical of Macron for not supporting Israel enough, etc. The Israelis are almost certainly pushing propaganda to get people to not bother turning out to vote against Le Pen.
You can vote for Macron’s guy, who’ll likely continue selling weapons to Israel, and that arguably makes you complicit in genocide. Correct.
Or you can not vote, and risk a Le Pen victory, and even closer ties to Israel. You’re doing what the Israelis want you to (not) do. You not voting, is an implied ok, you’re not going to do anything to stop them.
Do you think Rosa Luxemburg would have abstained from voting against the Nazis, because the other German political parties were corrupt and inept?
I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong to not vote.
I’m saying it’s not a morally pure choice. Your hands aren’t clean either way.
To quote Sapkowski: “Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.”
But I don’t think we get to not choose.
Everything about this sentence is incorrect. Not voting is not an implied ‘fine with the outcome regardless’. As I’ve literally been pointing out since my first comment in this thread. people like you keep trying to assert it is. but it simply isnt and no amount of blathering on your end will make it so.
liberals literally like worshipping idols. the quote was to make you think. because clearly you are not. in your world there is only one method to deal with the problem in mine there are many.
An Individual who is not involved is not responsible for the actions of others. Not voting for a terrible candidate is in no way supporting them, see above about your blathering. the only peoples whose hands are dirty are the individuals who voted for the candidate who won. The only dirt on my hands was tossing biden a vote in 2020 thinking they’d be reasonable re: wouldnt enable/support a fucking genocide (technically that admin lost it soon as they broke the rail strike). turned out they were not. my support was immediately rescinded.
You always have a choice. The world is wider than elections. You have plenty of options on the table for resisting trump/le pen, withhold your labor, use your labor to fund others withholding theirs. support general strikes. you dont need to vote in the election in order to resist if the candidates are terrible.
Now since you’re repeating talking points I’ve already addressed repeatedly with you and others, being utterly uninteresting, and breaking rule 7. disengage.
I notice you didn’t answer my question about if Rosa Luxemburg would have voted against the Nazis had she been alive to do so. I find that telling.
In any case, I didn’t shame you for not voting, I simply pointed out that not voting(not choosing) is also a choice and not necessarily a morally pure choice, especially when faced with fascists. Even if there are good reasons not to vote, it does not absolve you of the risks you take in not doing so. And the same goes for those who do vote, and perpetuate the current malaise and risk lending it legitimacy.
I tried to illustrate this with non-American examples, so you’d be less emotional about it, but given you’ve resorted to name calling and insults clearly I’ve failed.
Good luck to you.
You find it telling because you’re repeating the same mistake you have this entire conversation with me. Thinking you’re capable of convincing me to vote for your shit candidates out of fear, and that you have nothing to learn here about how your voting pattern has lead to the very situation you’re now desperately trying to correct by… doing the exact same thing that got everyone into this mess.
I didnt respond regarding rosa luxemburg because the answer is immaterial and the answer on what I’d do is very evident in my responses to people so what ‘rosa luxemburg would do’ has zero relevance to the conversation since QED: she isnt me. You’re trying to use hero worship and an appeal to an authority to make your case, which is not how I view rosa luxemburg and if you understood anything about anarchists you wouldnt make this mistake.
You’ve absolutely been attempting to shame people. That’s your whole drive with the ‘morally pure’ concept to begin with. a concept I’ve never subscribed to in the first place. you’re simply trying to assert positions onto me that I dont hold. I’ll repeat the point clearly again for you: ‘An individual is not responsible for the actions of candidate A through not voting for candidate B’. I dont get sullied because trump is an utter cunt. I am sullied for the vote I gave biden who was also an utter cunt.
I never said I was morally absolved purely by not voting, I said I’m not morally responsible of the actions of the person whom I didnt vote for, and if I was declaring abstaining from voting altogether, which i never have, then maybe you’d have a case. but since its not, and I do vote when the candidate is actually useful it doesnt apply. If you want people to blame for fascism look to the people voting for the fascists (cough you, lesser evil every day individual, via voting for the fascist wing of the democratic party and whom have been enabling the republican party since 1996 and longer cough)
When someone beats their partner 3 towns over are you responsible through the fact you were watching tv that night despite you knowing that the person was violent? No, of course not.