You choose, even when you don't vote
You choose, even when you don't vote
https://midwest.social/post/18536008
Edit of yesterday's meme with accounted for non-voters
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Cool, I have a week and a half before the election. What direct action can I take to keep myself out of the camps, since voting is no longer pure enough for my high-minded ideology?
You think the camps are opening straight after the election? Come on, this takes time.
As for action, anything which is available to you. Even providing sysadmin support for orgs would be something one can do.
Do you remember how the guillotines were erected?
Do you think they were just magicked into existence?
Not quite sure what point you're trying to make against my analogy here.
You would think this would be a point in favor of not letting the state fall into fascism, even considering that Weimar Germany was far from trans-friendly and banned trans-related materials from the Institute for Sexual Science from being distributed.
The point I am making is that there's always progress and reaction growing together in capitalism due to the increasing inequality. The fact that progress is happening doesn't mean the society isn't growing more and more fascist.
What was the plausible path away from this with a rabidly pro-Israel US public, again?
What does that have to do with the point I was making?
Again, this would seem like a really good reason to not allow fascism to take over the state.
You realize those gay rights came from below against the wishes of then, state? Much like the gay and civil rights came from below in the USA against the wishes of the state and capital? Funny how only direct action keeps getting the goods, innit?
Nixon resigned only after his own party told him the political fallout would be too great for them to bother backing him.
Are we really going on the position that Nixon wasn’t fascist as fuck? I’d like to be clear on the matter, since you haven’t specified any actual issues.
It doesn't matter if Nixon would love to be a dictator. It matters if society was ready to accept fascism, which USA wasn't back then, but is now.
Yes, which buys me more time to act against him.
It also legitimizes your stabbing, since you voted for it. So why would anyone help you stop it. And anyway, you don't have any plan to stop it.
It takes next to nothing to ensure the killer uses the knife instead of the gun. Yet you insist that the only moral option is to let the killer choose his own weapon, and then nobly martyr yourself on the .50 cal and call it resistance.
One has to ask themselves, why would the killer actually give you a choice in the matter. What is the benefit to the killer to killing you slowly. This is the question you don't want to face.
What criteria are you putting here for voting not working?
Is your society doing genocide when it wasn't before? Is your society on the threshold of masks-off fascism when it wasn't before? Is inequality increasing or decreasing? Are working class people's lives improving or not? You know the answers to all these, but you choose to limit yourself in thinking that things were somehow improving because some things were getting better.
You think the camps are opening straight after the election? Come on, this takes time.
Okay. What direct action can I take to keep me out of the camps between now and Trump coming into power?
As for action, anything which is available to you. Even providing sysadmin support for orgs would be something one can do.
That would strengthen the orgs, which is a good thing to do.
It would not keep me out of the camps unless you have some delusion that American society is going to make a 180 based on my actions in the next few months.
Affecting change takes years. Generations. Which is why it's important to fight for change now, and why it's important to buy ourselves that time to fight for it.
Not quite sure what point you’re trying to make against my analogy here.
The executions of the French Revolution were enabled by the capture of the state apparatus. Control of the state is absolutely a useful tool, and rejecting democracy as a means of acquiring control, or denying enemies control, is nothing short of foolishness. And certainly the French Revolution didn't occur all in a moment. Revolution is only as powerful as the opinions backing it - right now, what do you see in the American people as regarding opinions towards your ideology? You really think you've got a shot right now?
Make the vote. It's a day of your fucking life, at most. It buys you extra years to build what you need to build; to educate who you need to educate.
Don't let fascism win because of apathy towards who controls the state. Who controls the state is important, even if you don't like that it is.
The point I am making is that there’s always progress and reaction growing together in capitalism due to the increasing inequality. The fact that progress is happening doesn’t mean the society isn’t growing more and more fascist.
So by that logic, society has been getting more fascist effectively every day since the 17th century, correct?
Is your society doing genocide when it wasn’t before?
My society isn't doing genocide when it wasn't before. It remains backing a genocidal ethnostate. It was backing a genocidal ethnostate before. It was backing a genocidal ethnostate since before I was born. Funny enough, my society was doing genocide itself, and not that long ago - but that's no longer occurring. Are we less fascist?
Is your society on the threshold of masks-off fascism when it wasn’t before?
... how can that be a criteria for fascism? That's recursive.
Is inequality increasing or decreasing?
Increased slightly in the US - GINI increased from 36ish to 40ish.
Are working class people’s lives improving or not?
Yes, absolutely. That people's lives are not improving enough is a different issue.
You know the answers to all these, but you choose to limit yourself in thinking that things were somehow improving because some things were getting better.
You're operating from the axiom that society is getting more fascist continually, despite the logical absurdity of that considering both US and world history, and the mechanisms you've proposed, and are desperately searching for evidence to back that up, instead of the reverse. Evidence should shape your opinion; your opinions should not shape the evidence you accept.
What does that have to do with the point I was making?
That there was no plausible path away, contrary to your claim?
You keep asserting there is a path away without the groundwork being lain.
You realize those gay rights came from below against the wishes of then, state?
What rights did they get against the wishes of the state, again?
Much like the gay and civil rights came from below in the USA against the wishes of the state and capital?
... you do remember where most gay rights progress happened in this country, right?
Funny how only direct action keeps getting the goods, innit?
Oh, I wasn't aware direct action was what elected numerous liberal state legislatures and appointed liberal justices to the Supreme Court, silly me. I thought they were elected or something. Silly me. I guess we are living in an anarchist commune, contrary to my initial beliefs.
It doesn’t matter if Nixon would love to be a dictator. It matters if society was ready to accept fascism, which USA wasn’t back then, but is now.
So fascism is when the dictator is untouchable. That's the only criteria for fascism. Great. Guess Pinochet wasn't a fascist either.
It also legitimizes your stabbing, since you voted for it. So why would anyone help you stop it.
This is the same stupid spiritual approach to politics that MLs spout. Sorry for being too much of a sinner for the anarchists to let into heaven.
And anyway, you don’t have any plan to stop it.
... because I advocate for voting for the knife... I have no plan to stop it.
Okay. Thanks for being a mind-reader, but apparently not a text-reader where I advocating for the creation and strengthening of alternate bases of power to the state.
One has to ask themselves, why would the killer actually give you a choice in the matter. What is the benefit to the killer to killing you slowly. This is the question you don’t want to face.
Because the metaphor falls apart when you start asking questions of motivation, because the state is not some single satanic entity for your paragnosticism to oppose. The state consists of numerous and opposing forces, many of which can be played against each other, and most of whom do not share goals. It's the same delusion as treating 'capital' as one thinking, malicious class entity instead of a disparate group of interests - something even fucking Stalin recognized the absurdity of.
Are working class people’s lives improving or not?
Yes, absolutely. That people’s lives are not improving enough is a different issue.
Check please!
Sorry but I don't have time for this sort of deluded discussion.
My guy, I grew up listening to my grandfather's tales of working in a factory; my mother likewise worked in a factory, and though miserable, had a very different experience that I grew up listening to her talk about. If you want, we can discuss harder data points - hours worked per year, pay, healthcare, safety standards, worker protections, sexual harassment...
This is such a fucking privileged liberal take. Whatever, keep believing the lives of the working class are improving until the same working class votes the fascists in, out of sheer desperation. That'll work...
So you don't want to talk harder data points, because that might confront you with the fact that politics aren't spiritual manichaean bullshit, and instead require an analysis of the complex interactions of conflicting power bases. Also, the idea that the working class is voting fascists in 'out of sheer desperation' is an insanely city-liberal take, for the record. You may as well have said that after having breakfast at some rural diner and writing an op-ed waxing poetic about the beauty of the simple rural life a month before the election.
I understand the obsessive materialism of modernism is (rightly) out-of-vogue, but retreating to a positively medieval worldview of political ideology is not the solution.
Alright mate, then everyone's lives are improving, but people are too stupid and brainwashed to see it. You're there to scold them the right way. Good luck with that.
Alright mate, the everyone’s lives is improving, but people are too stupid and brainwashed to see it.
Most people's lives are materially improving.
That's not enough.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive. The recognition that we're getting more scraps than we were before is not justification for only receiving scraps - we deserve more than scraps
We are better poised now to see the inequalities and oppression which has long-been-present in society - arguably always been present. We have the tools of communication and education to observe it clearly, and we have the tools to fight it.
People are stupid and brainwashed, but not in feeling dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Typically, the stupidity and brainwashing comes in play when asking them what is causing their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.
You’re there to scold them the right way.
Man, I'm asking that people vote in addition to direct action. It's not a big ask. I promise.