this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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You should be against genocide and not vote for genociders.
And since enough dumbasses are actually putting forward enough effort to show there is a frighteningly high backing for a candidate that will prevent any presidential voting in the future, I'm gonna have to break my record and vote for one of the major 2 parties for this election.
One of these 2 WILL WIN THE US ELECTION. There is no pretending that, this close to polling date, that there is any other outcome.
We need to start locally and push harder for reforms from there up. Only one of the 2 party systems will allow this in our future at the moment. This is just the sad and horrible truth we face at the moment.
If we really think the system has failed us and will not let us break free of the 2 party bullshit, well, then we need to be better educated and better organized. We have internet and advanced messaging technology. Our past is riddled with those who made amazing changes and voiced mass public opinion with way less.
Knowledge is power. Protect and enhance the education to really power change.
The Dems sued to remove the PSL from the ballot in my state
So, vote them out. Push for your local areas reform and campaign for a 3rd party replacement that do what the people want.
A maggat republican will go the step further and make a law against it to be brought up for future elections if they think it will ensure their grip.
I really don't care what party affiliation a representative wants to have. The problem is that too many are easy to figure out they only care about money when they choose to go under our current pairing. We should always look at a candidates stance on issues, the follow through they've had in their past positions, and that they are representing the people's wishes.
Ah yes, vote them out by voting for what candidates? People that use the same rhetoric you're using also deploy it in "electability pragmatism" during primaries to cull any further left candidates because it "will alienate moderates" in generals. Then you do this stupid shit of eating a turd sandwich and saying next time you're definitely going to get what you ordered without doing anything different. And that's all assuming any alternatives aren't immediately torpedoed by incredible spending differences due to corporate and party backing
I have straight up written in viable candidates in previous, and current local, elections. I have helped friends and family start campaigns for local seats that had ran unopposed.
This one is different at the presidential level. If you can't see that you have too much privilege to think you can take what will come out of it. Women, minorities, handicap, Trans and gay folk will lose what human rights we are hanging onto while we wait for straight white men to fight it out and give it back again.
Not everyone is physically capable of going into a civil war and fighting for their rights in the streets.
I see a lot of shit talk all over this site but no actionable change showing up in the real world. All this resistance talk is starting to get real old and really sounding more and more like utter bullshit the more it's all over every political post that's made, but no viable plan laid out on what's being done and what steps to take.
You're not going to change my mind, and it feels like I'm playing into your votescolding fetish which I did not consent to. Good night and good luck washing the stains of genocide from your soul
If you want people to work from the bottom up to achieve the necessary changes to prevent this country from being genocidal you will rapidly discover that neither the Democratic nor Republican parties can be that vehicle. They are our enemies and work against us, only dithering with cynical PR and pandering to avoid losing without actually needing to deliver on any demands. Unprincipled attempts to enter and change the Democrats on their terms leads to alienation or cooption, e.g. "the squad" supporting Israel or getting destroyes by capital.
Rather than support a genocoder, please do the actual change work. At least then you can see it fail and then do actually useful things against the genocidal empire.
Uh, duh? So start replacing them at the base levels and change our foundation? I didn't say to keep voting for them locally?
Do what work? What's the plan?? Are you running for local government where you are?
ALL CAREER POLITICIANS ARE "GENOCIDERS" from what I have seen so far in my life on this planet. This is why normally I will not vote for a major 2 party candidate. I want to be able to vote again in the future, so I'm willing to do my best to try and make that happen.
What are you actually saying and doing? No where have i found a coherent cohesive plan for us citizens to unite and change this major issue. What's our truly viable recourse here?
Please explain like I am 5.
Right that's not going to work. But if you are wed to a failing electoralist strategy that will fail it is better to commit to it so that you can observe that failure sooner.
The work of building socialist organizations.
To build the size and quality of socialist organizations until they reach a large enough size to make demands that require real responses. Escalation. And to then depose the capitalist system via the means available to us. And before that, to survive the violence coming for us as conditions degrade and we are not yet big enough.
Why would I?
That's right.
What's the point of your vote if you use it to support genocide? When politicians aren't really answerable to their voters in the first place? When you have always voted third party, i.e. made your vote into a statement? Instead, just actually be against genocide. Tell others to not support genocide. Do actually helpful political work.
Building socialist and anti-imperialist organizations that are in solidarity with Palestinians. Educating the public. Running BDS campaigns. Materially contributing directly to Gazans.
The vast majority of people are not organized and are not politically educated. They can't demand anything because they don't know what to demand nor do they have discipline to shed the propaganda handed to them by the two major parties. This "left" won't even withold their votes! Why would anyone ever take them seriously? You must build leverage and make credible threats to have political power.
This starts with the basics of organizing and of political education.
The most viable course to stop genocide in Palestine will come from overseas by people actually fighting Israel or undermining its sponsor's (America's) ability to isolate and weaken resistance actors. Multipolarity and a decline of the US itself that this would necessarily entail due to the economic system it has maintained. We can help this by helping those doing resistance work and by educating each other. We can minimize the harms of a declining empire by building against militarism locally. Don't support weapons manufacturers, picket them and make life more expensive for them. Kick their unions out of labor orgs. Fight against the racism and xenophobia that liberals will be embracing evet more in order to justify their warhawk policies.
With organization, you will see escalations and overreactions that build organizations. The Biden admin wanted to ban TikTok because they did not hide the genocidal violence. We should be able to build from these kinds of reactions, all it will take is repeated attempts until it snowballs. Build, act, receive reaction, build from the reaction, act, etc etc.
I can't sorry but please don't hesitate to ask questions.
Why are you even agreeing with him here? Last when i check overwhelming most of coutries, parties and politicians "on this planet" do not commit genocide.
I was assuming they meant that all mainstream US politicians were on board with the genocide of Gaza. But maybe I was being too generous.
Then it would be true, but in the context it sounded like preamble to lesserevilism genocide (which that person is also doing completely openly so it's supported assumption).
I agree, but I don’t have that choice right now. The issue of genocide isn’t on the two-party ballot. The issue of public education is. Fewer educated people means fewer people who can even identify genocide when it happens.
“But what good is identifying genocide if you’re not gonna stop it”
HOW THE FUCK CAN I STOP IT?!?!?!?
If you actually want to stop fascism in the long term you'll need to join a socialist org. Liberals have historically acquiesced to fascism because of systemic forces inherent to capitalism.
If you'd like to know more, I'd recommend reading "The economy and class structure of german fascism"
The thing that I think really makes it obvious that your thinking here is completely defective is that you don't even bring up the question "are you in a swing state?" I'm in a deep-blue state, why the fuck, even by your broken logic, should I vote for Kamala? She'll win my whole state anyway, so all I'm doing is helping to legitimize her if I vote for her, not do a single thing to keep Orange Man out.
Not voting for Harris sends a message to the democrats that they are not championing human rights strong enough, and that supposedly ought to send their platform in the direction we want, correct? The more people who don’t vote for democrats, the stronger the message is so we should tell more people not to vote for democrats if I understand you correctly.
It should go without saying that if you tell enough people not to vote democrat, even in a deep-blue state, republican votes will win out. I’m not saying that’s a likely scenario, but why when I know people like you will opt not to vote, should I encourage other people anywhere to not vote and even get close to risking that? And before you say “like you said it’s not a likely scenario so there’s no risk” there is absolutely risk. We risk losing public funding for education and we risk further loss of human rights in our own backyard. I’m not sure why that thinking is “defective” but if there is a specific flaw in the logic please point it out.
First of all, no one except for straw-anarchists are saying not to vote. Everyone who objects to Harris says to vote third party. Of course, some people will respond to what's going on by not voting, but we (leftists) encourage them to vote instead.
There is no viable risk, a plurality of people already either don't vote or vote third party, the people like me are already accounted for since I wasn't about to support neoliberals anyway and have already voted third party.
So the only ones left are people who are just starting to vote third party. Let me say simply there is no way for us to just speak into existence a new voting bloc of around 15% of the population of the entire state to spoil your favored cop's chances of winning. If things were that easy, we could have a communist President within, like, 3 election cycles. No, things move much more slowly than that because you can't just manifest "Well what if everyone laid down their arms voted for Elizabeth Warren?" on a population like you made a magic wish.
The voteblue philosophy is one of fear, of an overriding fear even at things that are impossible in material reality, and using that fear as an excuse to never fight for someone who is better than center-right while always promising that on some future day we will finally have something better. It's a psychological hamster wheel, you'll keep running on it forever and never make progress, so the only solution is to get off.
It's on there at least twice and you have every choice to not put a checkmark there or tell others to do so.
Lesser evil genociders is not a good argument, though this premise is also false. Dems cut education budgets as well. Blue states with blue districts in blue cities still underfunded and are at the forefront of charter school "experiments".
You cannot absolve support for genocide. You get no excuses. You should feel bad for even trying to make them.
The first step is to stop supporting it. The next step is to become educated in how the system works. The next step, which you can do simultaneously, is to join and participate in organizations with these same lines: no support for the genocidal capitalist parties, solidarity with Palestine.
You talked about education. You need some yourself but the primary work is in organizing, which includes teaching others. Instead of trying to justify supporting genociders you should be working against them. Stop pretending you have no agency and there is nothing to do.
I do not feel good about voting for genociders. I feel fucking awful about it. But I know with absolute certainty that a democrat or a republican is going to be elected president, and yes democrats also defund schools but I’d way rather not have to start from square zero four years from now.
You will start from square zero either way. They don't care about you or listen to you. One of the reasons they don't need to is that there is no organized, disciplined opposition. Dems expect vaguely left people to fall in line, they don't even pander most of the time. Look at the DNC where they brought in an Israeli to speak, denied a Palestinian, and brought in the daughter of a Contra to lie about Sandinistas. They didn't even try pandering. They could have picked a comprador Palestinian to say some both sides BS but instead gave you the middle finger and lied about a ceasefire.
Square zero is organizing. You will have to organize just as much in 4 years. Dems will not slow or stop the degradation of conditions, their neoliberal policies are driving that process. And if there is no left, this only fuels an ascendant right. Every election is going to be "the most important one of your life" for the foreseeable future and Dems will be complicit in this. Our only hope is to organize a left opposition as quickly as possible. Part of that requires shedding the false idea that telling people to vote for genociders is helping. It isn't. It just normalizes genocide.
Genuinely, with no wish to sound snarky or get an "own": That awful feeling is your conscience and gut telling you that this is both terribly unnatural and entering dangerous territory, respectively. Regardless of how this election goes, the US and it's vassals are going to get more fascist, and we are all going to be asked, politely at first, to go along with more and more atrocities. The sooner we stop swallowing our humanity and start listening to the blaring alarms in our minds that this is all wrong, the safer everyone will be.