Wow, so now simple truth spans so many negative reactions in anarchist-related circles. Just wow.
Most are not anarchists but "drive by" votes of people going over anything in English available on lemmy. Thats both positive - gives some idea of how far you can easilly reach beyond bubble not even posting outside of a small Polish instance, and negative, as it might turn people away from communities of interest as they might be raided for a random reason, like language of the post.
"If voting changed anything, it would be made illegal."
Yeah, should've thought before posting... Argentina is a good counterexample. Let's see where Poland goes over time, so far it's not terrible.
Note: American Republicans are, infact, attempting to make voting de-facto illegal.
Over 40 accounts got banned from our instance for the apparent raid on this community. Empty ones got permban, the rest 30 day site ban. Modlog is available here.
Ponad 40 kont dostało bana na naszej instancji za ten rajd. Puste dostały stałego bana, pozostałe 30dniowy. Log moderatorski dostępny jest tu.
I wonder who setup the brigade though? Because it seems coordinated across all the anarchist instances.
Osobiście sądzę, że namawianie do niegłosowania jest bezmyślną strategią, ale w żaden sposób nie uzasadnia to takiego najazdu na społeczność.
This looks like astroturfing (even if it's not it still looks the same). Call out bullshit like this in our communities and learn to notice it yourself.
Added context: astroturfing by design targets outlier talking points in a community so there are always some genuine posters mixed up with the corporate puppets. That doesn't mean you shouldn't call them out. If you find yourself among astroturf accounts, it's your own responsibility to denounce them and avoid accidentally cooperating!
Do you mean the negative reaction to the post as astroturfing or the content of the essay? If the former then indeed I can agree, I don't understand the negative reaction to this post given what is actual content of the essay - that it's easy to fall into a trap of spending too much time on electoral politics instead of organizing in the real world and that in first past the post voting systems only elections where possible results of elections are not certain (it's hard to predict the winner) actually matter, which is a thesis with some merit I would say.
Alright, so.. I did originally mean your post, but I had not properly watched the video (skimmed cause didn't have 30 mins). So now that I've seen more, I'd like to correct myself.
First of all, I agree with your take on political organizing outside of mainstream elections. I think this is the best (perhaps only) tool of truly improving our democracies and lives. I actually think some level of organization and self-education is my democratic duty.
And yes, I also think the regular buzz around elections is a thinly veiled disguise for a distraction from relevant politics. However, only because my vote won't fix much, doesn't mean it can't make things worse.
Voting may not work to improve a democracy, but it sure works to damage it. Depending on how deteriorated your voting system is (bad representation, easily gerrymandered,..) an election may only be a choice between bad and worse. So I vote for the least bad option and use the opportunity as a painful reminder of how messed up my democracy already is. And then I do actual politics outside of the booth to try and fix it.
The reason I alleged astroturfing is because there are antidemocratic interest groups, very intent on getting leftists to not vote. Your title (I know, it's just the video title) doesn't make a clear distinction between "voting isn't enough" and "voting is useless/don't do it".
I think we might agree on a great many things and just had a bad start (next time I'll watch the vid first, but in my defense your title is misleading too). I'd rather work together with a fellow leftists towards improvement, then be needlessly divided.
Plebiscyt głosowania jest szkodliwy, bo daje poczucie, że ma się na coś wpływ i sugeruje, że drogą do osiągnięcia celów jest czekanie na plebiscyt i oddanie nieograniczonej władzy obcej osobie.
Nie widzisz żadnej różnicy pomiędzy kontynuacją rządów PiS a obecną sytuacją? Czy udział w plebiscycie wyklucza możliwość innych form działania?
Widzę, ale uważam, że to ochłapy i szczególiki. Widziałem też różnicę, gdy PO przestało rządzić w 2015r. - PiS m.in. uspokoił Januszy biznesu "cywilizując" umowy o gówno, dał 500 + (niestety bogatym też), sypnął trochę pieniędzy rencistom i emerytom (czternastka tylko dla biedniejszych), etc. - ochłapy.
Władza i kapitał nie jest i nie zostanie naruszona przez taki czy inny rząd, a demokrację przedstawicielską uważam za szkodliwą - nawet wówczas, gdy do koryta dorwie się pasożyt - socjalista, który będzie rządził "po socjalistycznemu". Wciąż będzie moim wrogiem.
Nie wyklucza, ale zniechęca, bo każe wierzyć, że władza nie jest wrogiem narodu, a miejsce obywatela nie jest w codziennym działaniu, tylko przy urnie raz na kilka lat.
Właśnie w pełni dotarła do mnie ironia sytuacji, w której anarchistyczna propaganda przeciwko głosowaniu została miażdżąco "wdółgłosowana" i może to budzić niezadowolonie wśród osób przeciwnych uczestnictwu w głosowaniach.
Samo to, że ta propaganda tu jest pomimo bardzo negatywnego odzewu śwaiadczy o tym, że głosowanie nic nie zmienia ;)
Dumbass. That's what the other side wants you to think.
You should prioritize organizing in the real world, Anark mostly argues that it's easy to fall into the trap of caring too much about electoral politics, which is a mistake given how much is that game rigged in favor of the privileged. Unfortunate that people downvote instead of first listening to the essay's content, shows that unfortunately dogmatism is quite prevalent among anarchists, which I would say is one of the reasons of why the ideology was not more successful historically. If we cannot have a healthy conflict among ourselves, how can we organize to fight actual authoritarians who will want to oppress us as much as we let them?
Apparently it might have been a coordinated brigade so don't think too much of the downvotes.
I don't think all the people voting this down are anarchists so I don't know if you can make a conclusion about how prevalent it is. For example just read the comments of the video you linked.
Edit: highlighted all so that people don't come at me for saying that people voting this down aren't anarchist.
