I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys

  • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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    11 months ago

    if voting changed shit it would have been made illegal. don’t legitimize slavery by acts of expressing gratitude for being able to pick your masters.

      • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        stagnant wages, no real influence on the politics because the Overton’s window is so narrow and all major parties filled with out of touch millionaires and also just because the political system does not really benefit a common person in a meaningful way, the cost of living and debt crisis, needing to join the military for basic public services, creeping corporate censorship and oligopolization creating a generation of dependent, depressed people with growing self-censorship instinct?

        • Moss@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPM
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          11 months ago

          Ok but none of this is slavery. I wouldn’t even call it indentured servitude. There’s a million miles between things sucking and being literally enslaved

      • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        in this day and age, there is no progressive wing of the bourgeoisie. Revolutionary communists fight for a workers’ government and do not give any support to any capitalist party or politician. (…) However, mass dissatisfaction with the Democrats does not mean a majority of Americans are right-wing reactionaries. On the contrary, most people merely want stability, good jobs and wages, and a safe and healthy place to raise a family. But this simply isn’t possible for everyone under capitalism. The exploitation of wage-labor by capital and the relentless drive for profits precludes this. As an arch-capitalist himself, Trump can’t square the circle either, and he is merely filling the political vacuum in a temporary and distorted way. If reelected, those workers attracted by his poisonous bravado will eventually realize that no American president can magically wave their problems away.

        https://socialistrevolution.org/election-2024-why-genocide-joe-and-trumps-system-has-to-go/

        Evil is evil and lesser evilism is a disgusting idea.

        And when it comes to Trump, just as Hegel put it, historical necessity is often expressed through accident. Donald Trump is a giant, catastrophic accident for the capitalist class.

    • mulcahey@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Not sure how to tell you this, but the Right has spent years and millions of dollars trying to make voting illegal for its opponents.

      So… I guess it does change shit, by your definition.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/us/politics/trump-voter-rolls.html

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/officials-investigating-why-126000-voters-were-purged-from-ny-rolls

      https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/in-seven-states-removing-voters-from-the-rolls-just-got-easier/

      • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        The people of USA succesfully beat two tyrannical systems in 18th and 19th century so why wouldn’t they now if the current state of things deteriorates in that direction. And so did the Russians who have lived under the tsarist tyranny. Or the people oppressed by the colonial regimes who have not attained their independence as a gesture of good will. Or Cubans overthrowing Batista. Or Chileans ousting Pinochet. Or South Africans overthrowing the apartheid.

        All of that required militancy. Polite pleas are not a language tyrants understand. But, by extension, blind faith in electoralism has failed when the KPD failed to respond with proper militancy to the Reichstag fire decree in 1933. The militancy must be proactive. One should not be deluded that a “progressive” government will welcome with open arms any advanced, massive expression of social anger any more than a reactionary one would. See France where it is basic street knowledge to wear at least a solid fucking helmet with plexiglass visor to any protest if you don’t want to say, lose an eye under the oh-so-benevolvent rule of the liberal Macron.

        Aaron Bushnell had a gun pointed at him as he died.

        • mulcahey@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Yes, that’s all true. But that’s a good argument for “You shouldn’t only vote,” not “You shouldn’t vote.” See the difference?

          If the only action we take is voting, then the tyrants who aren’t constrained by law will win. If the only action we take is direct action, then the tyrants win as soon as they outgun us. If we use voting to advance things in civil society inside the lines and direct action to keep the tyrants playing inside the lines, we win.

      • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        but election rigging in post-Soviet Russia was actually started by the CIA to not let the communists get back to power in 1996 elections. Which is actually yet another proof that what is needed in any country really is a revolution and actual thorough democratization of every aspect of social and economic life possible, instead of neo-aristocratic electoralism. And that to that goal, a party able to lead a way towards it is needed (instead of trying to work within those that actually just prop up the system and will actively fight back when that is challenged (look up SJ Voralberg case in Austria as the most recent example, or even more glaringly, CPRF purging anti-war faction or the Blairite hostile takeover in Labour a couple years ago)), which was sadly lacking in Russia in the 90s as well as today.

        • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          what is needed in any country really is a revolution and actual thorough democratization of every aspect of social and economic life possible

          Good luck accomplishing any of that while under a dictatorship :)

          • force@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            the iranians revolted… into another dictatorship…

            and the french revolution ended swell! wait

            what about the cuban revolution? oh god damn it

            lol i’m just kidding, i can think of a few. the italian civil war and the libyan civil war, and technically the russian revolution and german revolution but i guess it helps when the government you’re fighting against is getting brutally beaten in a war against other countries. but i can’t say all of those ended in an extremely democratic system

      • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        Also I hope the Russian government is overthrown by it’s people and that the right to the self determination of the myriad of ethnic groups of Russia is actually honored instead of them being used as a cannon fodder to oppress another nation.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          11 months ago

          I live in Russia. First, that won’t happen soon, it’s a bad situation with apathy, fragmentation and decay. Second, that myriad of ethnic groups is by geographic distribution mostly unable to secede as states with clearly defined borders. Third, where they can (say, North Caucasus), they depend on central financing to not be terribly poor (and they are still very poor).

          • anti-idpol action@programming.dev
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            11 months ago

            isn’t Tuva an exception in this case due to it’s isolation? Also a question of leadership, how relevant was Boris Kagarlitsky, actually?

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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              11 months ago

              Not of the third point.

              Also a question of leadership, how relevant was Boris Kagarlitsky, actually?

              So relevant that I’ve heard about him a few times, but never paid attention.