this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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Ok so to use your turning around the bus analogy.
If the bus is headed off the cliff and the thing I need to do is overhaul the system that dispatches buses off cliffs. That’s a hard thing to do, it won’t happen overnight, it would require a lot of working class individuals to stand up and demand a better system in the face of incredible state violence, and I am ALL FOR THAT.
I would love to see the proletariat rise up and destroy the parasitic oligarch class that rules over us, I really really really would. If you’ve got a plan to organize the fucking idiots I’ve been gifted as countrymen into giving a single solitary fuck about how hard the wealthiest 4 people in the country are ramming them in the ass, fucking great I would love to hear it.
In the meanwhile, this broken down shitbucket of a democracy does give me the opportunity to make the bus go 1 mph instead of 2 mph giving us all more time to fix this fucking thing, why wouldn’t I do that?
Is the plan just accelerationism? I should do nothing, let the bus fly over the cliff and then hope that I survive and can also do a better job putting it back together after the crash?
I have marched against war, I have organized protests, I have tried my damnedest to organize the workers I work with while they worry that they don’t want to rock the boat. If this is a fight why should I leave a weapon sitting on the table? If the oligarchs are going to let me choose the puppets, why would I choose the ones that want me dead over the one that don’t?
My position isn’t vote blue no matter who, it’s that the republicans are objectively worse, they wrote a giant plan out and unlike many of my countrymen I took the time to read it. I don’t want that shit to happen, that’s what I’m voting against.
And if a bunch of cranks want to say I’m complicit in genocide, great. Neither the people doing the killing or the people being killed are going to give one wet shit about how many Americans were complicit by voting for the republicans or complicit by voting for the democrats. There is no turnout low enough that stops the genocide.
You want to stop the genocide, you tell me fucking how. You tell me how not voting helps. You explain to me how making it cheaper and easier for the people doing the genocide to continue the farce of democracy helps anyone one fucking bit and I’ll listen.
All I hear here is “voting makes you complicit and won’t fix things, you have to do …. To fix it”. What goes in there? A revolution? The armed uprising of the people against our oppressors? Great, are they fucking massed on a hill somewhere waiting to see the turnout numbers for the election? Is that what’s holding back the glorious overthrow of capital, that too many Americans vote?
Voting for a third party candidate, and better yet, working with a ML party like PSL helps spread class consciousness, even by a little. Worrying about elections when one of two oppressor parties are going to win anyway is a waste of energy and could have been better spent building a movement for the long-term. If we don't build the ship by the time the material conditions in the future give opportunities for revolution, we will not succeed as the proletariat. Yes, it's extremely difficult to organize people in the most propagandized country of the world. That's why we need all of the help we can get. I believe delaying the collapse is the worse choice anyway as I don't believe people are going to be radicalized until their material conditions worsen greatly and quickly. People are too comfortable with the current fascist rule, and Project 2025 is already mostly implemented here despite the fear-mongering.
I don’t understand why everyone here thinks this is binary. You either vote in the election or do these organizing efforts.
I’m doing both.
I’ve worked to unionize my workplaces, successfully and unsuccessfully. I’ve read the theory. I am part of a local mutual aid group that I helped found where we are doing our best to build the awareness and understanding amongst others.
I’m also going to vote for the only viable candidate that is least likely to use state sanctioned violence to kill the people I’m organizing with.
What waste of energy? The 1 fucking minute it takes to fill out my ballot that they mail me? That’s the thing you are upset about?
Not voting puts one in the "enemies of the empire of evil" team. I'd say that's pretty desireable.