• Lena@gregtech.eu
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    4 days ago

    Okay, and? How does voting harm us? Not voting does a lot more harm.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      If your democracy is staged like reality TV, then it does nothing.

      Does voting in a capitalist dictatorship work? It got the US to where it is now. Doing the same strategy over and over again, when proven that historically things keep getting worse, should tell you that not only is it a pointless strategy, it’s actively harmful because it draws energy into an electoral contest that does nothing to improve people’s lives.

      Bourgeois democracy is an elaborate theatre piece used to keep people distracted, and give them the illusion of choice.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          4 days ago

          That doesn’t address anything. Saying vote over and over doesn’t make it a viable strategy, especially in bourgeois “democracy”'s staged elections, where the vote choices are stacked between various capitalist puppets.

          Essentially you’re asking us to play a rigged game, and insisting both that it’s not rigged, and that it’s super important to play it. Also that anyone who refuses to play it deserves ridicule. This is the level of zealotry people have in their fake political system.

          • Lena@gregtech.eu
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            4 days ago

            I never said it wasn’t rigged. Not voting is not going to help you achieve the goal of stopping this madness. It will only make it harder. Democrats are, of course, the party of the rich, but so are Republicans. Republicans, however, are way more against the redistribution of wealth.

            • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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              4 days ago

              Not voting is not going to help you achieve the goal of stopping this madness. It will only make it harder.

              You can only make statements like this, by ignoring history. People in the US have voted for 150+ years. This is the result.

              Again, if voting is working so well, why do things keep getting worse? Are they just not voting hard enough? No, it’s the system that’s broken, it’s theatre, a catch-22, a rigged game. Those of us who’ve studied US history and it’s class history learned this a long time ago. The liberals coming and telling us to vote to fix things, aren’t bringing any new arguments, and appear to us like fanatical zealots, who think that if they repeat mantras over and over, it cancels history.

              • S3verin@slrpnk.net
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                4 days ago

                You are absolutely right! And there is so much more we should stop doing:

                • We protested for more than 150+ years and see where we are now!
                • The world did strikes and for over a century and what did it bring us? A dictatorship!
                • We opened up communities and grassroot movements, and the only thing they done for us: Donald Trump! We need to stop all of this RIGHT NOW.
                • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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                  4 days ago
                  1. Protests do work, in fact that’s how the US got all its amendments, and stopped the imperialist war on Vietnam. The important point, is that this takes place outside of electoralism / officially sanctioned actions within bourgeois democracy. Protests and activism also meet fierce resistance from US police, the domestic enforcers of capitalist rule, primarily because it’s outside of their rigged “vote for capitalist puppet” game.

                  Nowadays liberals are doing their best to cripple the anti-war movement again by discouraging protests, and increasingly corral people into voting. They stood against the Iraq-war protests, just as they stand against pro-palestine protestors now.

                  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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                    4 days ago

                    Hey I agree with you on pretty much everything else, but the Vietnam and Iraq war protests are bad examples of efficacy. They were necessary, and should have been bigger, but both those wars went on for like 20 years.

                  • S3verin@slrpnk.net
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                    4 days ago

                    I think you can use your vote trying to prevent the pest, since fighting collera is easier. If you think there is no difference what so ever between having a right wing government (democrats) versus an authoritarian (republicans) I would argue that both parties dont care about average people, but with the right wing government in place you have It a bit easier fighting your battles in direct action etc. You bring positive change via Direct action and community building, with your vote you can influence the circumstances a little bit and how hard the fight will be. But There will be a fight no matter who is in charge. But do you want to play this on hard or nightmare mode?

                • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  4 days ago

                  Brother you aren’t thinking far enough!

                  • How many years have we allowed women to vote for them to just not stop this from happening?
                  • Why did we bother freeing the slaves when we just all ended up slaves to the corporate system man?
                  • What did we bother keeping that cold war cold for?

                  Seriously, thank you for the laugh. This is one weird ass twist on “ends justify the means” here. “Current situation retroactively invalidates any previous progress or the tools used to reach it” maybe? Quite a mouthful.

              • Lena@gregtech.eu
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                4 days ago

                Hey Dessalines, have you considered that you can vote and do other things, like activism?

      • Lena@gregtech.eu
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        4 days ago
        • votes Kamala
        • at least 51% of others do the same
        • Kamala wins

        Explain again how voting and not voting does the same? I know the first past the post system is horrible, but saying that voting does nothing is disingenuous.

        • 🏴 hamid the villain [he/him] 🏴@vegantheoryclub.orgOP
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          4 days ago

          This is false, multiple presidents won more than 51% of the vote and lost. Your elections are decided by election riggers during redistricting. It is called gerrymandering. You live in a corrupt society that uses voting and a circus every few years to mollify you. Even if Kamala won, which was basically impossible based on how the districts were drawn, you’d still live in a capitalist dictatorship that would be every bit as bad as it is now. You would still be causing wars around the world, you would still have homeless people everywhere, and most people would still be living pay check to paycheck while she did absolutely nothing. Kamala Harris is a manager of capitalism, not leader in any sense. You have absolutely no vote or say in the people who run your country, the board members of Goldman Sachs, Chase, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and the rest.