• @[email protected]
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    27 days ago

    Can we stop pretending electoralism is important?

    It is important. This last election shows as much.

    • @[email protected]
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      37 days ago

      Yes we spent so much time and energy in electoralism to just for the Democrats to give the election to Trump 👍

      What a wonderful use of our time, energy, and money.

        • @[email protected]
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          37 days ago

          Yes and harping on those apathetic voters to vote for harm reduction has been such a wonderful strategy for the past 20 years.

          If you want those apathetic voters to vote you need to get them involved in local organizations so that they can actually see change in their local community. This gets people engage in politics and they will do things like engaging electoralism and go vote which deals with the apathetic voter issue.

          But you don’t get there by solely focusing on getting people to vote. You get there on getting people engaged with their local organizations in their community.

          • @[email protected]
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            27 days ago

            Again you won’t have the space to do things locally and grow progressive movements if you don’t engage in elections. And non-voting is the biggest slot. Tankies just don’t have realy policy. My city wanted to criminalize sex workers some years back and make it hard to reach them with healthcare. Voters said no. Its also easier to get an abortion when its not criminalized. Tankies ignore the material reality of voting, as such they are not serious about the [class] war.

            • @[email protected]
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              27 days ago

              You keep using the term material conditions. I don’t think it means what you think it means and as a communist I find your use of that term frankly to be offensive.

              If you’re going to use marxian terms at least go to the reading to figure out what they mean.

              Congratulations your city managed to use labor power to vote down some shit that should have never been offered up to vote in the first place and would not have ever been offered up to vote in a communist Society or in a locally run organization. You guys going to do that every time for the rest of Eternity to ensure that the powers that be don’t pass those laws? And you wonder why people are burnt out and apathetic.

              Furthermore your issue on the right to assembly is just as valid under the Democrats as it is under Trump because both parties are guilty of limiting the right to assembly. The United Kingdom labor party’s actions against the group called Palestine action. See the United States response to college campus protests.

              And you’re just grasping at straws trying to literally find anything to invalidate my point when people have been meeting in groups secretly or not for years whether or not it’s illegal.

              • @[email protected]
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                27 days ago

                You keep using the term material conditions. I don’t think it means what you think it means and as a communist I find your use of that term frankly to be offensive.

                Maybe get offended at the erosion of our rights and the increase in attacks on the vulnerable. It is rather privileged of you to just not care enough to be pragmatic on the elections front.

                You guys going to do that every time for the rest of Eternity to ensure that the powers that be don’t pass those laws? And you wonder why people are burnt out and apathetic.

                And we won’t be able to if you keep no showing. [Class] War does not end because you want it to.

                Furthermore your issue on the right to assembly is just as valid under the Democrats as it is under Trump because both parties are guilty of limiting the right to assembly.

                Remember when I said its not blue no matter who? Its about harm reduction where its the only option. Growing the progressive wing where we can. Even if that is 3rd party.

                And you’re just grasping at straws trying to literally find anything to invalidate my point when people have been meeting in groups secretly or not for years whether or not it’s illegal

                Its now illegal to get an abortion and to help someone that needs it. Cesar Chavez held group meetings to organize and police tried to intimidate. Sure would be helpful to have sympathetic minds in city hall to give him room to organize his labor movement.

                Its important and tankies neglecting it shows they are not serious about our material conditions.

                • @[email protected]
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                  17 days ago

                  I mean I’ve shown at this point conclusively that we’ve known about this issue in the United States since at least the 90s. In fact there was talk about this in the 80s.

                  There’s been a soul focus on getting apathetic voters to engage for about the last 20 years which hasn’t worked and you think the best thing is to double down on a strategy that hasn’t worked?

                  But I’m ignoring material conditions?

                  Okay since you’re so interested in talking about material conditions let’s talk material conditions. Who controls the Democrats and the Republicans because it’s not the voters. It’s the people with a shit ton of money that can then use their money as speech to vote.

                  Is entirely inconsequential to get 10 million people to stand on the side of a road for a protest that does not threaten power. This was something that even MLK Jr recognized which is why he was historically unpopular during his time. He did things like shut down the highways, Shut down bus routes, shut down cities. They never used violence they only just stood in the way but it was effective. You’ll notice that the 10 million strong that we just had in the no Kings protest did none of those things and thus nothing changed.

                  How many people begged Biden to change his Palestine policy and told him that he was going to lose the election because of it? 1, 2, 1000?

                  Man electoralism is so good at getting our politicians to listen to us.

                  I wonder who was in control in the 90s, what party when we went through both recession and lost all of our manufacturing jobs. And I wonder how that happened and what economic theory can be used to explain it. I mean it’s not like the Democrats did anything to fix all of the social cutting by the Reagan administration nor did they put back any of the regulations they removed that would have resulted in a much different outcome for us today they had put those restrictions back.

                  We had a record number of Voters turn out in 2024 and it wasn’t enough.

                  The capitalists are not interested in what we want and they’re spending Millions upon millions of dollars to ensure that will never get it and that what we do get will be ineffective compromises that barely count as a solution. It’s why we couldn’t get a minimum wage increase through and it’s why we can’t get something that every other fucking country in the world has.

                  You know what I remember about all of this a large focus on electoralism and how that if we just get the Democrats in we can do the necessary work to push them farther left wing but that doesn’t seem to have work now does it. If anything the Democrats are further right than they’ve ever been and what they offer us are are social platitudes that don’t meaningfully affect anybody’s lives.

                  Every election I have ever lived through has always been about voting in the Lesser evil and pushing the Democrats to the left and it’s not worked

                  Stop pushing insanity. Whenever we manage to achieve through the electoral process will be undone as soon as the capitalists are able to do so and that is also historically true. Pretending that electoralism is going to do anything other than delay the inevitable is a pipe dream of those who only want to live in peace who cannot understand that that was never an option.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    27 days ago

                    But I’m ignoring material conditions?

                    Yes, and in your blind privileged don’t see why even harm reduction helps the most vulnerable.

                    We had a record number of Voters turn out in 2024 and it wasn’t enough.

                    Remember the graphic? Shows there are people we have not reached for our cause. Electorally or otherwise.

                    Is entirely inconsequential to get 10 million people to stand on the side of a road for a protest that does not threaten power. This was something that even MLK Jr recognized which is why he was historically unpopular during his time. He did things like shut down the highways, Shut down bus routes, shut down cities. They never used violence they only just stood in the way but it was effective. You’ll notice that the 10 million strong that we just had in the no Kings protest did none of those things and thus nothing changed.

                    Remember where I said elections are the only front in the class war? Because i didn’t. Protests are important. I am saying that we need to convert those into policy and part of how we do that is voting.

                    The capitalists are not interested in what we want and they’re spending Millions upon millions of dollars to ensure that will never get it and that what we do get will be ineffective compromises that barely count as a solution. It’s why we couldn’t get a minimum wage increase through and it’s why we can’t get something that every other fucking country in the world has.

                    Which is why they are involved in electoral politics. Because it materially helps them and suppresses our ability to build. Hence why we need to be active on that front too.