ah good, lemmy hasn’t changed a bit since i left it 2 months ago
welp see you losers next year
Thankfully you left me this message so I can block you and never hear from you ever again.
Dem’s aren’t even putting in the minimum effort into pretending to be an opposition party.
They’re gladly letting it all burn because they lazily expect it to mean easy wins in 2026. Then they’ll manage to barely take the House and maaaaybe Senate, and literally do nothing with it.
cuz that worked so well this year. got booty clapped by a felon. utterly waffle stomped right back to the segregation days by this diaper clad casino salesman.
they’re fucking done. they ain’t participating in 2026 as anything but a joke write-in
Sooo when does a new sane party appear ?
Fuck em. Saves me the grief of having to convince others they are a sunk cost and investing into them is like robbing ourselves because we never get anything of value back. Or if we do it’s canceled out by all the other shit we conceded to corporate america.
Think of Martin, that dude didn’t get shit from the dems until he was orginized and marching. The dems weren’t on a path to provide rights. He did all the heavy lifting and they slithered into his camp and got him killed.
Better than not voting and doing nothing.
The best would be voting and being an activist.
The US is not a democracy, it’s a capitalist dictatorship.
Some Background: History conditions much of our thinking about our political systems and most Western democracies resemble Rome’s in 60 BC when, as Robin Daverman humorously says, three aristocrats–politician Julius Caesar, military hero Pompey and billionaire Crassus–formed a backroom alliance that dominated the elected senate. The oligarchs ensured that proletarii votes changed nothing and that the masses remained invisible unless they rioted or died in one of the elites’ endless civil wars. Two thousand years later, in Britain’s general election of 1784, the son of the First Earl of Chatham and Hester Grenville, sister of the previous Prime Minister George Grenville, and the son of the First Baron Holland and Lady Caroline Lennox, daughter of Second Duke of Richmond, offered voters offered a choice of dukes. Today, in many European countries (even egalitarian Sweden) ‘democracy’ is a mere veneer over powerful feudal aristocracies that still control their economies. American voters recently watched a former president’s wife competing with a former president’s brother being defeated by a billionaire who installed his daughter and son-in-law in important government positions and ensured that, as John Dewey said, “U.S. politics will remain the shadow cast on society by big business as long as power resides in business for private profit through private control of banking, land and industry, reinforced by command of the press and other means of propaganda”. Most Western politicians are related by marriage or wealth and have, like all hereditary classes, lost sympathy with the broad mass of their fellow citizens to the extent that, as American political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found, ‘the preferences of the average American appear to have a near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy’
Okay, and? How does voting harm us? Not voting does a lot more harm.
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.
I’m not going to say the same thing twice, take a look at https://gregtech.eu/comment/3527169
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.
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.
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.
Both voting and not voting have the same effect. Nothing. It is not a democracy and pretending you are in one does fuck all.
- 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.
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.
The sad thing is, trump won even the popular vote. And, even with gerrymandering, voting still makes a change, if even a small one.
Also, are you saying trump and kamala are the same lmfao
It’s clear that you are completely unaware of the history of the US democratic party as controlled opposition, and how thoroughly evil they are.
Here’s what the Biden administration did to Palestine:
Some more on your party:
Throw bricks at fascists, punch nazis, but also vote, ffs
Even if one accepts the argument that voting is not productive, that doesn’t inherently justify not participating. There’s plenty of things people do daily that are not productive or useful uses of their time.
Please demonstrate the harm caused by voting in the presidential elections.
Even if it’s not productive, it takes at absolute worst case living in a hellscape without properly staffed polling places, one day out of your time every four years. I was able to do it and get back to my shit in 30 minutes this time, from the time I left home to the time I got back.
So even if it’s useless, for me it was the same as sitting on my ass and watching a TV show. Explain why that is such a horrendous waste of my time that I should have instead not done it at all.
The harm is simple, people get the illusion they’re making a difference and that it’s enough, it also legitimizes voting as the way to change things despite ample evidence it doesn’t.
This leads to Dems hating protestors, or telling protestors to protest quietly and no in the road. This leads to liberals hating the working class when they go in strike, because why didn’t they just vote for better conditions. It leads to liberals hating anything useful, because they already did the only ‘useful’ thing and voted.
This leads to lesser evilism and accepting institutions as the foundation of society, instead of any ideology that will positively change things.
Nah, this is not harm, this is “basically, way too many people are fucking idiots”. Idiots enough to think that just with "I voted"tm they have done something to really move things toward a better life for everyone
Well… true that only voting does not much help when those who make the rules are not someone you can influence. Also true that abandoning voting is just plain dumb.
Saddest part: I have no answer to the question of how to make a society that works well for everyone with people who do not understand that to ensure wellbeing of anyone the wellbeing of all and everyone must be ensured
Worse would be discouraging voting and activism. Instead try to tell people that nothing they do matters and just bend over and take it up the ass
You are free to participate in any kind of meaningless gestures and genuflection to make yourself feel better, but the US is a controlled authoritarian oligarchy with democratic window dressing and not a democracy in any meaningful way.
Look, if you aren’t going to do anything else, you might as well vote. It’s the best you can do. And even if you are active, you should still vote.
Right, I said you are free to do any meaningless gestures you want
You’re right, if you alone can’t fix everything, there’s really no point to trying.
My guy, life is filled with meaningless gestures we all have to regularly do.
I frequently know the only viable solution for companywide issues at my workplace. Do I just run off on my own and shove it through because I know I’m right? No.
Even when the change is so buried in the back end that they’d never know, I participate in the meaningless gesture of informing the business folks, taking questions that they don’t have the knowledge base to understand my answers, etc. It’s a regular process established in my workplace, and despite it not changing anything, it must be followed.
For the price of a few hours every four years, I get to bite back at people who argue that you don’t have any say if you didn’t vote. And if by some miracle voting ends up effecting some change (companies drawing conclusions from the popular vote maybe?), I’m already doing the bare minimum.
Wow, a lot of words to say nothing. You don’t have to do anything meaningless, it is by definition meaningless.
Laws mean nothing if the Dictator in chief can break them without consequence.
Yeah, there’s not exactly a lot of options for those of us with front row seats to the US being dismantled.
This idealism around a violent revolution to resolve our problems is asinine. Protests are nice, but even they won’t solve the key issue: we have a king that ignores laws right now, and we’re being ruled by a kletocratic corporatocracy.
It’s all of you.
Not me. I want the zealots all beheaded. Yea, what they’re doing is illegal and I also* voted. But now it’s chop chop time. I should start a website to get 15% of the population to agree with me on a specific day. Kind of like The General Strike. But with more axe.
OK. But what are you actually doing right now? What are any of us doing right now?
I’m talking to like minded people overseas about preparing resources to help at-risk people evacuate the United States. I’m also accumulating an emergency fund and arming myself. I will continue to masquerade as a cis white dude so I can move mostly unimpeded. I plan to help people get to New England as a staging point–it will remain RELATIVELY less dangerous than most other parts of the country here–where they might have a chance of SURVIVING LONG ENOUGH to cobble their shit together enough that they can legally get overseas from here without violating a visa and getting deported back to this shithole.
I will also continue attempting to practice the art of not tipping off the enemy by giving them any warning that I might be a threat to them. I must swaddle myself in the flayed skin of civility. I must smile politely and patiently to their faces. I must lull them into feeling safe around me. I must wait until their back is turned. And then I can personally drag them to hell by the neck. Hopefully when nobody else will witness it.
There needs to be fewer fascists in America. One way or another. I’d rather see them convinced rationally to peacefully change their minds and stop being fascists. If they remove that option, well, they get lie in the beds they’ve shat.
I like you
You might also like transworldexpress.org :3
What they’ve got so far is brand new and the growing pains are real
but if you remember Mister Rogers: “Look for the Helpers”
Well there are some of them right now.
And you might get to be one too.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I live with someone who won’t stop crowing about the illegality of it all. Like, dude, I fucking get it, but also these fucks were evil from the very FUCKING start and the rule of law is meaningless without anyone to actually enforce it.
Learning about firearms to teach targeted groups. Teaching people about online alternatives for secure communication. Maintaining an antiICE communication network. Building an independent news source RSS so friends and family can get off Meta.
You?
I did that for years and then I emigrated because it didn’t work.
Pretty soon authoritarianism will be worldwide, though. That’s the goal.
I like where you’re going but the general strike stuff is suppose to be the step in between, ya know. It’s like a bit of a comprise before chop chop time. Just like hey guys we mad and have orginized and are willing to sacrifice.
Not me, I’m on a whole other continent, watching the blaze, hoping it doesn’t spread too far.
I’m starting to see people rile up, fortunately, but it’s not enough. I’m going down to my states senate office with a megaphone and gonna stir some shit up. You should too. People are like lemmings, they won’t act until you do.
I honestly don’t think these one off protests will force any change personally. They are a start to network and I think we should shift protests to be places to centralize people to a method of communication.
But the only thing that would force the hand of change is a general strike for weeks/months like Georgia is doing.
One decentralized protest organizer is starting a method of collecting sign ups to organize such a protest. Im not sure who the original organizer is but id rather give trust that something will come of it.
Personally, I think I will see if I can be more involved in my local state politics and volunteering. Might see if I can run for local office or if that is feasible.
A few days of not buying anything might spark some action. I for one will not be buying anything on Feb. 28. Perhaps these buy nothing days can be repeated and extended?
Protests, strikes, or boycotts with a planned end date are next to useless. You can do that if it makes you feel good. But don’t do it in place of real organizing. The best thing you can do now is organizing locally. Join your local PSL and support what they are doing.
Yeah that’s a great point. Soon as I saw the companies at the Inauguration I deleted social media platforms owned by them and switched to DuckDuckGo/Firefox. Ive been on Linux Mint for some time.
Protesting with our wallets and going against the whole consumerism culture of these oligarchs is definitely the way to go. :)
Suggestions?
Read and learn from successful revolutions, and the Marxist tradition in general, which correctly identifies both the root problem, and has a wealth of historical experiences for how to defeat it, the correct and incorrect roads taken, and what worked/didn’t. Join working-class parties, and organize for our own interests, so that sociopaths who would be happy sacrificing all of us for the sake of profits, don’t control society.
@[email protected] keeps an excellent study guide here, and I have one here.
🫡 thanks comrade!
Thank you, Dessalines. I of course remember your welcome when I first showed up in some instance in Lemmy. I admire the work and the structure of this alternative to social media and I quickly became aware that much of its success is due to your efforts. I have presumed they are all volunteer?
I am grateful for the two reading lists.
I have started one of the audio books already — one I’ve been telling myself I’d read forever.
But I’ll ask — considering how brutal and distorted much of what has been associated with this work became, how do people remain idealistic and hopeful about it?
If you take a gander at my last few posts, you’ll discover I’ve just been sharing a 3 second image of a swastika being blown upanywhere I can manage it. We all know where Trump is headed… same exact thing that happened to Hitler. I say we get to the end of this the sooner the better. I don’t know how to stay positive.
I’m not Dessalines, but as the curator of the other list, I can do my best to answer.
When you say that Marxism has become “brutal and distorted,” I think you’re operating from a mindset and understanding rooted in Western culture and education. I would say, based on my research and reading into AES (Actually Existing Socialism), these countries such as Cuba, the PRC, and the former USSR all apply Marxist understanding and methods to amazing effect.
The Red Scare never ended, and being aware that it existed isn’t enough to actually understand what AES is like. The history of AES, and the conditions within those countries, is not reported faithfully or honestly in the West, so it is very difficult. That doesn’t mean they are perfect, but it means they are real, and come with real victories for the Working Class.
That’s why the opening sections of my reading list include Blackshirts and Reds as well as Dr. Michael Parenti’s 1986 lecture, these 2 really give an eye-opening look into the mythology and demonization of AES in the west, and how that process is intentional and persists to this day.
To circle back to your question, Marxists are hopeful because Marxism works, we know this and see it happening. We learn from the mistakes our predecessors made and we promise to carry their work forward.
As a final side-note, regarding the Nazis: it was the Red Army that did 80% of the fighting against the Nazis. We have Marxists to thank for the defeat of the Nazis, and we can do it again.
I’m surely not here to argue.
What do marxists think of North Korea?
And you are correct that my “education” has been little more than capitalist brainwashing, but what’s true about the millions that Stalin is supposed to have massacred?
Generally, the DPRK is seen similarly to Cuba, they would be doing far better if the US Empire wasn’t sanctioning them directly to cause harm. As for Stalin, it depends on what you’re talking about, the Great Purge had no more than 700,000 condemned to death, and that doesn’t mean every one of them was actually executed. Stalin certainly wasn’t a saint, but at the same time he wasn’t worse than Hitler and killed 10-20 million like the Black Book of Communism would have you think.
Ultimately though, Marxism isn’t “become DPRK” or “be Stalin.” I think you have to study Marxism more to understand why those questions largely don’t matter for building Socialism. I suggest you read Blackshirts and Reds.
I shall embrace beginner mind and read more. Thanks for the recommendations and the links.
I believe that progressives in the US brought this on by lacking genuine and real vision. They called themselves progressives but Bernie was too socialist for them?? I can’t stand it.
2nd amendment
Let’s see where it’s all heading I guess.
I dunno, do something. Anything really. You have a handful of the richest people on earth trying to turn your country into a tech monarchy that wants to have the ability to put its people in vr prisons or kill then outright if it becomes uneconomic to keep them alive. Your entire people should be in a fight or flight response. Literally attacking the government and trying to kill the billionaires. It’s that bad of a situation for you. This is the worst possible timeline. In 10 years I don’t think the us will be a democracy. I think it will be a dictatorship kept in power by some type of artificial intelligence run surveillance system. The average man will have less and less economic importance to the oligarchy meaning less and less power to stand up to them until eventually you have to value to them at all at which time they start killing you. This is a nightmare timeline you are in.
So… yeah… not exactly helpful today.
You gotta know this stuff.
The current moment is like the recent wildfires. All this trash built up over the years and it sort of has to have its time to burn out. Everything just has to find a way to survive it until it runs out of fuel. When the pendulum swings back the other direction, just be ready to rebuild from the natural disaster.
The current moment is like the recent wildfires. All this trash built up over the years and it sort of has to have its time to burn out. Everything just has to find a way to survive it until it runs out of fuel. When the pendulum swings back the other direction, just be ready to rebuild from the natural disaster.
-Author unknown, February 1933
Sorry. But this is total crap. A dictatorship won’t burn out by itself. People need to fight for freedom and democracy over and over again. It is not for granted!
It’s so dense and stupid to generalise everybody. It’s not like the US has more than 2 parties to vote on and the country is already having an us vs then mentality which cause people of the “other side” to disprove of anything the “other side” does. Does comprise even exist in US dictionaries?
“I don’t have a solution to the problem, I’m just here to reject the moral imperfections in yours.”
Leftists do have solutions, though. Usually Leftists are revolutionary, the idea that they don’t have a solution just because they don’t support voting as a legitimate tactic is flawed.
Refusing to help stop MAGA from taking power is flawed.
And what exactly are leftists doing that is so effective?
🙄
There are no leftists in America because of the Nazi consolidation of power in the red scare and this is what you get.
You’re absolutely right, it is clear that telling you to shut the fuck up has had no positive effect
What a disingenuous question. Do the leftists have the resources, reach, recognition, institutional support and seer amount of fucking money that liberals do?
The average liberal voter, who this meme seems to be targeting, is just as powerless as you are. But yeah let’s make fun of them for voting, even though Kamala lost because of poor turnout.
Why is it a problem for “leftists” to solve?
It’s a problem for everyone to solve
They can’t do that. The simple rule of LAW IN THIS COUNTRY should be enough to stop them. All we have to do is remove them from power. Where is the Democrats gathering part of our military and law enforcement to oust these people from our government? This is all it takes. Our country has very clear, simple laws that prohibit exactly what is going on right the fuck now from happening, and it’s still happening. Why? Because they’re afraid they’ll be seen as the same as the people from 6 January? That it will give these asshats some sort of ammunition against actual justice? Fuck them. Fuck them, throw them out, lock them up, and re-educate the people that this shit isn’t going to be tolerated. We can remove them forcefully because they did something wrong, they couldn’t remove anyone because we didn’t.
It’s that goddamn simple. How is it not that goddamn simple? Fucking do something. Fucking throw these fuckers out. Now. Not next election cycle, not whenever a bunch of people want to finally get off their ass and violently rebel, fucking right now.
In your country your political parties operate as one and the politics are managed by the oligarchy. Everything is occurring exactly as your business dictatorship wants.
Which is why I want to drive the ones who still have a duty to this country’s ideals to act. There ARE those who are like that, you know. And have the rule of law of this country on their side. So let’s go.
Most of the country wants this. For every person who tries to overthrow the government, there are more people who will fight to keep it as it is.
77/335 > 0.5
Most of the country are just uninformed enough to not vote or to vote for Trump because they believe his lies.
Removed by mod
…what?
