Why did the immigrants in ICE camps and the dead children in Gaza not try voting? Are they stupid? /s
White Americans do have class consciousness.
It is just that their class is that of white settler colonial petite bourgeoisie. The immigrated to the US to steal land from indigenous people and resist the proletarianization of the Europeans.
The reason that there won’t ever be a leftist revolution in the US is that white Americans are not part of the proletariat class and will break their solidarity with the proletariat as soon as their empire dangles status or welfare to pacify them like medicare. White Americans are more than happy to maintain the empire, they are not upset about empire, they are upset at their reducing spoils.
White Americans do have class consciousness.
They absolutely do not. And the problem is in the construction. “White” isn’t a material condition, it’s a club that certain ethnic cohorts are invited into or expelled from at the demand of the Bourgeois Class. Look at the Hispanic cohort and how they were ushered in during the Reagan/Clinton/Bush Era, then violently jettisoned under Obama/Trump/Biden/Trump.
But those shakeups are exactly what allow revolution to happen. When you have a sudden massive displacement of middle-class people and a shift in economic conditions, the social conditions for a mass movement can roll through a country like a landslide.
The reason that there won’t ever be a leftist revolution in the US is that white Americans are not part of the proletariat class
I mean, Marxists have been misplacing the site of the Next Big Revolution pretty much since the first newsletter. I don’t think it’s safe to just write off any country or region or conglomeration of people, because the material forces that produce a revolutionary consciousness are fickle and temporal. Nobody was looking at Cuba in the 1950s and saying “This place will be a Soviet satellite in another ten years, no problem”. Nobody was looking at South Africa under Apartheid and predicting a full dismantling of the colonial state inside the end of the 20th century. Nobody was thinking “the next mayor of New York will definitely be a Muslim from Astoria nominated by the DSA” a year ago.
You can’t be prescient. All you can do is be ready.
It’s certainly a perspective on things.
I like it as propaganda and spin, but it’s defeatist in scope. The idea that only Europeans in Europe can have class consciousness, and they lose it the moment they’re on a new continent hasn’t born out in theory or practice.
I think this is me showing my ass in lacking understanding of Marxism, but I’ve always had an issue with how “Settlers” argue the the majority of white colonialists weren’t proletarians. It argues that they were mainly middle to lower-middle class, which, as far as I know, isn’t actually a thing. “The middle class” is (like whiteness) a political construct that does not exist. “The middle class” is still a group of proletarians. There’s petite bourgeoise and labour aristocrats and class traitors, but (excepting the petite bourgeois) that’s still proletarians.
For example:
This is typical of the English invasion forces. A study of roughly 10,000 settlers who left Bristol from 1654-85 shows that less than 15% were proletarian. Most were youth from the lower-middle classes; Gentlemen & Professionals 1%; Yeomen & Husbandmen 48%; Artisans & Tradesmen 29%.
Later on it’s also written
The Euro-Amerikan class structure at the time of the 1775 War of Independence was revealing:
80% bourgeois & petit-bourgeois:
10% — Capitalists: Great Planters, large merchants, etc.
20% — Large farmers, professionals, tradesmen & other upper-middle elements.
40% — Small land-owning farmers
10% — Artisans: blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters, shipwrights, etc.
15% — Temporary workers, usually soon moving upwards into the ranks of the small farmers
5% — LaborersAs far as I understand artisan was a class in itself, but not how it is used here. Apart from that being well-off does not mean one is not a proletarian - The way I understand it anyway. Proletarian/Bourgeois is just a question of relation to ownership of means of production, right?
It also writes:
Although there were Euro-Amerikan craftsmen and workers they never coalesced into a proletariat because they were too privileged and transitory in condition. It is important to grasp firmly that the mere presence of settler craftsmen and workers doesn’t automatically mean that they were a conscious class. With their extra-proletarian living standard and their future in the propertied middle classes, most settler workmen had no reason to develop a proletarian consciousness. Further, the rapid turnover of settlers in these strata left no material basis for the formation of a class.
Where it seems, to me, to conflate “proletarian” as a class with “proletariat” as a political entity. Being a “proletarian” isn’t about wether or not one has political consciousness, but wether one owns capital. Likewise it argues that smallholders weren’t “proletarian” because they owned some amount of land - This might be me really showing my ass - but by that line of reasoning feudal serfs were bourgeois too, since they would often own some small plot of land. Private and public property and all that.
I’d love to be educated on this point, because it has confused me.
Now, as far as I understand the point of the person you’re responding to and what “Settlers” sets out to argue, the two points are not in conflict.
Settlers describes, the way I understood it, how America was shaped, how it was built on the backs of exploited black labor and how modern America has created a different mythology, one where most white people did not benefit from this exploitation, but only a select few, whereas the reality was one where all colonialists, no matter their class, benefitted from this exploitation of slave labor due to (what I very reductively boil down to a single term, so I don’t have to write a bunch) White Privilege. It is a detailing of how “white proletarian” is a privileged class, which it certainly is. That does not mean it is in the interest of the white proletariat to maintain that privilege.[1] One person might be better off than another, but they can still both be doing absolutely terribly, due to the overarching structure in which they exist.So first: Settlers does not argue against whiteness being a social construct:
Then, too, many English farmers and artisans couldn’t face the prospect of being forced down into the position of wage-labor. Traditionally, hired laborers were considered so low in English society that they ranked far below mere failures, and were considered degraded outcasts. Many English (including the “Levellers”, the anti-capitalist revolutionary outbreak of the 17th Century) thought wage laborers should lose their civil rights and English citizenship. Public opinion was so strong on this that the early English textile factories were filled with Irish and Welsh immigrants, children from the poorhouses and single women. So jumping the ocean in search of land was not some mundane career decision of comparing dollars and cents to these Englishmen — it was a desperate venture for continued status and self-respect.
So here you have a bunch of people afraid they’ll lose their privileged status, so they go to America where they feel they can reconstruct and maintain it.
It also get in on the class being white landowners. Seemingly also not just any type of landowner, but those that hold larger estates than what they themselves can work. This class wishes for a society without proletarians:
The Jeffersonian vision of Amerika as a pastoral European democracy was rooted in the national life of small, independent white landowners. Such a society had no place for a proletariat within its ranks — yet, in the age of capitalism, could not do without the labor of such a class. Amerika imported a proletariat from Afrika, a proletariat permanently chained in an internal colony, laboring for the benefit of all settlers. Afrikan workers might be individually owned, like tools and draft animals, by some settlers and not others, but in their colonial subjugation they were as a whole owned by the entire Euro-Amerikan nation.
So back then the white landowners decide to import slaves - They do this with popular support from white proletarians, even though it is not in their interest in the long run (In the short run it is, since white settler-society cannot exist without the exploitation of African slaves), and, at the time, the exploitation also benefitted the white proletariat, for the time being. But, as things developed, it developed not completely in the farvour of all white people:
It was not that slavery was unprofitable itself. It was, worker for worker, much more profitable than white wage-labor. Afrikan slaves in industry cost the capitalists less than one-third the wages of white workingmen. Even when slaves were rented from another capitalist, the savings in the factory or mine were still considerable
I dunno, I’m going to end up quoting the whole book just to make a minor point, which seems silly. It does seem pretty clear, while it is not at all the books main point, that over time - and in certain conditions even back then (Chapter 2) - “Whiteness” expands and shrinks as needed, and the exploitation of black slaves (and genocide of native americans) benefits or hurts members of the “settler” group.
The books main argument isn’t being argued against: “White”, no matter class, is a privileged entity and the “white proletariat” (which includes landowners shopowners, artisans, and many others) generally benefitted (and benefits) from the exploitation, but the exploitation is still not in the interest of the white proletariat - When feasible, planters would rather make use of slaves due to saved labour costs, and the end goal for the white bourgeoise was to get rid of (white) proletariat alltogether. Their class interests do not align.
But the book makes the lack of political consciousness amongst white proletarians into an argument that they are not proletarians at all, which, in my very limited understanding, seems to be a conclusion that does not really hold water.
For a parallel, look at the “partriarchy”. Men are made into a privileged class, but the patriarchy still oppresses men. The situation is different, but there’s some neat parallels. ↩︎
I do think you’re a bit confused here. The artisans, yeoman, etc. are petite bourgeoisie. The chief idea here is that sole proprietors are petty bourgeois, not proletarian. Settler-colonialism allowed Europe to expel part of its population with the promise of petty bourgeois class security. The petite bourgeoisie is a broad subcategory of the bourgeoisie, but one that is traditionally pushed towards proletarianization, hence the description “middle classes” used by Marx:
The lower strata of the middle class—the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants—all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.
The “middle class” in liberal ideology is the more well-paid proletariat, the petite bourgeoisie, etc. It’s a lie based on income, rather than social relations. In reality, the proletarian and bourgeois divide is a bimodal category. Within the bourgeoisie and proletariat are numerous subclasses, which are not independent classes, but all of which have their own contradictions within the broader class. The petite bourgeoisie are a broad category of bourgeois subclasses that exist in terms of wealth closer to the proletariat than the haut bourgeoisie, hence the Marxist understanding of the reductive term “middle class.” It does not actually mean these subclasses stand outside of the bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Second, the bit on the coalescing of a class. This is a retread of the concept of “labor aristocracy,” what Engels calls the “bourgeois proletariat.” Settlers that are proletarian do not form a coherent proletarian class due to their privledge from the settler-colonial system. This is what Sakai’s point is, settler-colonialism itself prevents the development of proletarian consciousness by making the entire settler proletariat labor aristocracy.
In reality, to understand Statesian settler-colonialism is to recognize the modern settler-proletariat as an oppressing nation, and the indigenous proletariat as oppressed nations. The national question is at the heart of decolonial Marxism, and I will direct you to our favorite Georgian philosopher and political activist in Marxism and the National Question to begin the basics of this critical theory.
Essentially, as imperialism decays, the settler proletariat is increasingly aligned with the oppressed proletariat, but the oppressed proletariat is the engine of the revolution in the settler-colonial context. This is an intra-class contradiction, not an inter-class contradiction, because over time the petite bourgeois nature of settlers has broken down as land and property have been stripped from them. This does not mean the settlers have trancended their settler status. This does not mean settler-colonialism is “complete,” like J Skyes of FRSO argues. Settlers still benefit from settlers colonialism in the short-term, so political education needs to center decolonization primary, as this also directly opposes the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie most closely.
It means that settler-colonialism is the principal contradiction within the US, and so any movement must be decolonial in nature as primary. It means that we must recognize the contradictions within the proletariat, without squashing it down to a unified “proletariat” devoid of any connection to the national struggle, feminist struggle, queer struggle, etc. To do so would be class reductionism.
Also worth reading is Losurdo’s Class Struggle.
Thank you for an educative response!
No problem!
It is you lacking your understanding in both Marxism and history.
Comrade, I think it would be beneficial and constructive to direct BanMeFromPosting to works like our favorite Georgian philosopher and political activist’s Marxism and the National Question, rather than insult and give vague advice to just “read more.” It isn’t enough to direct people in the vague idea of theory, we have to see ourselves as planting seeds and nurturing sprouts, seeing what needs to be done for a comrade’s growth and pointing them in an accurate direction.
Our Georgian Philosopher also sent dumbfucks to the reeducation camps.
Comrade, educational praxis is a core aspect of organizing. If you cannot lead people that are willing to learn to better theory, or correct their misconceptions directly, you cannot create disciplined cadre. I understand that this isn’t an actual party, and thus conditions are wildly different, but any onlooker that may have seen their post with no rebuttal or redirection may continue to have misconceptions about settler-colonialism. Here’s Mao on how to properly handle misconceptions:
To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.
To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
Simply attacking a mistaken comrade doesn’t actually fight liberalism, it entrenches it. Stalin also recognized this. For those unwilling and inflexible, re-education was employed.
Aw sweet thank you so much for this very useful reply!
You’re welcome. Now go read.
Well, considering that response, I think I take the thank you back. Given what I know and what I’ve read and your hostile disagreement, I can only conclude you’re the one who’s wrong on all accounts. You dissapoint me in your lack of knowledge. I will now block you. My final words? Read “das kapital”
America is the only society I know of that boasts of open elections but has no collective curiosity about who counts the votes or how it’s done.
I’m not saying fair elections would help; but I still get triggered easily by the subject.
I would like to think future historians will be as unkind to the vote pushers, as they will be to the fascists
Bush literally stole an election in broad daylight and the democrats let them have it.
We know every election up to and including JFK was rigged. I fail to see why it would be any different now.
They should have Iranian election auditors
Not just USA, but all countries with “democracy”. Every candidates to vote came from same oligarch groups.
Democracy within socialism is good and works for the people, but democracy within capitalism is a sham.
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Voting for genocide is not okay how hard is it to comprehend to you people?
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What the fuck are you trying to say? Genocide is being treated as a bipartisan issue in the name of voting democrats. Who gets the cookie? is it crackers for the cracKKKers? You’re vile that you completely wrote off the Palestinians if it means you get that cookie. Disgusting.
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both sides don’t give a shit about some mostly homeless people on the other side of the world.
LMFAO what a mask off. Talk about dehumanizing the pain and misery your country inflicts on the rest of the world as “some mostly homeless people”
Have you considered following your leader?
Edit: I just looked at your modlog and wow. This does explain why the Hitler particles detector was beeping hot when pointed at your posts.
(“Not giving a shit about them” when referring to Palestinians and the genocide they are going through)
Least selfish shitlib
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> Human rights
- Every regime has deported more people than the previous regime
- All Kamala could say about trans people was that “they should follow the law”
- Every regime has increased police funding and expanded the carceral state.
- Roe v Wade was overturned under Joe Biden, who did fuck all to stop it
- Roe v Wade could have been enshrined, or whatever the fuck the word is, under Obama
- Obama was the one who expanded ICEs budget and purview
- Joe Biden was a fervent supporter of Israel
- Joe Biden sicced cops on peaceful protesters
- Joe Biden had people disappeared in black vans during the riots in 2020
What human rights?
Your argument seems to be “well they’re not throwing me in the camps” but seems like they’re well on their way to doing exactly that and you’re just strengthening them.
one side is a shit sandwich with human rights
Your daily reminder that western shitlibs don’t consider Palestinians human
That’s a lot of words for “first they came for the Palestinians, and I threw their asses under the bus because they’re not me.”
Are you even serious?
are you serious? 99% Hitler vs 100% Hitler? Except you only care about domestic issues and don’t give one fuck about people outside your country. You don’t even consider them human when you talk like this.
Fucking disgusting. How about overthrowing your fucking genocidal governments?
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Both sides are genocide everywhere, you just dont notice or care when its your team doing it.
You should at least try to pretend that you consider Palestinians human
Why is this hard?
Why is this hard for you?
but one side is genocide both at home and abroad
You people are fucking pathetic btw. Palestine is going through daily bombings, dehumanization, torture and mass killings. All as part of your country’s push for genocide along with “Israel”. And they are still struggling and fighting and resisting.
And you experience ONE BILLIONTH of the pain and you decide turning genocide into a bipartisan issue is the way to go!
Selfish and monstrous.
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This shit would also be under the colour blue. Kamala Harris was mocking Trump for not deporting enough lmfao
The United States has a uniparty; all voting does is change the decal on the genocide machine. Vote if you want, I don’t really care, but don’t act like it does anything of substance.
Don’t only vote. But fucking vote.
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Most states have cheating in the primaries, both parties: unless you are lucky to live in a state that uses a voting system which prevents that.
What is the purpose of participating in a primary unless the votes are transparently counted and recounted by humans who are witnessed by representatives of the candidates?
If it is to raise awareness of the cheating, then some participation maybe good? Like, if the candidate or party/org is allowed to point at the the problematic voting system and propose changes etc as part of campaign promotion.
I would be totally behind raising awareness of proper vote counting with paper ballots; except that is what I did for years in my state, at first inside the Democratic Party ; then later when that had no traction, outside of it.
There is zero demand or push for better vote counting that I saw in the progressive wings of the Democratic Party. And equally few cares given by people in the republican side.
I spoke to activists in minority communities and there is zero momentum there, and no appetite to take that on.
In fact, it was such a sad experience for me, that it’s what inspired me to become a communist.
I’ve experienced trying to raise awareness and it only raised my awareness, not others.
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shut the fuck up and hold your nose and vote for the candidate that’s not pedohitler
They’re all pedohitlers. You people only care about Trump because he is mean to the domestic population and their vassal states.
Literally they are all on team genocide.
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Imperialism is bipartisan.
This did not start with fucking Trump holy fuck are you people insane. Venezuela has been under siege long before Trump stepped foot into office in his first term.
those Iranian schoolgirls
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/8/kamala-harris-says-iran-is-greatest-adversary-of-us
Amerikkkans were always doing this. History did not start with Trump. You are disgusting.
USAID cuts
A tool of imperialism got cut, oh no! No more forced austerity and regime changes hopefully!
Joe Biden was pretty big on suppressing MeToo. And I dont know if you recall but the democrats are also on the Epstein list.
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My response would be “what should we do”. You’ll figure out if they’re a contrarian to laugh at or a man of action
I feel like “make any demands of the democratic party” is a pretty fine answer, which is already implicit in the statement “don’t vote for genociders”
I do agree with that response. My response would be tjat you should vote at least for the local candidates that most likely don’t have a party affilation and probably don’t contribute to a genocide.
It’s just unproductive to be blanks anti voting. Like you can not vote on specific races, party, and candidates for various reasons
Voting can definitely bring change. Look at Zohran Mamdani in NYC. The reason he’s mayor, instead of someone else, is because enough people voted for him.
But if you’re not satisfied with voting alone then you can get more involved with politics. Join a party, or start a party. Join a trade union, or start one, if you want. Things like that.
Zohran is Zionist NYPD’s slave now.
Voting can definitely bring change. Look at Zohran Mamdani in NYC.
Zohran is a nice change of pace, but we’re way to early in his administration to know whether he’ll bring concrete social change to the city. New York has had decent mayors before. And they’ve left their footprints. But they’ve also had plenty of corrupt shitheads and racist asshats who climb into Gracie Mansion right on the heels of their betters.
But if you’re not satisfied with voting alone then you can get more involved with politics.
The fundamental problem with electoralism - and this is a critique that easily goes back to the first Obama campaign - is that election day often disperses the force that the campaign had originally assembled. What’s notable about Zohran (and a lot of the DSA affiliates) is that they come into office and maintain or expand the organizations that put them there.
Compare that to say, the Beto Campaign in Texas or the Fetterman Campaign in Pennsylvania or Polis in Colorado. Win or Lose, they disintegrate within a few weeks of the votes being counted. Often, they produce legacy candidates that act in direct opposition to the people who put them there. And that sows distrust in the movements that produced them.
So I might argue that you get involved in an organization you like first. And then you make decisions within that organization collectively. And sometimes that means supporting a candidate. Sometimes that means recognizing there’s nobody worth voting for in a given race and agreeing - collectively - that you’re not going to support anyone. But the root of the organization is in the organization, not in the voting.
Just going out and slapping buttons and saying “Okay what’s next?” is a sucker’s gambit.
Sometimes that means recognizing there’s nobody worth voting for in a given race and agreeing - collectively - that you’re not going to support anyone.
I guess I personally don’t really agree with that approach. People are free to take that approach of course. But it reminds me of people refusing to vote for Kamala Harris because her Israel policy wasn’t quite perfect, when all this did was help Trump, who quite clearly was always going to take a much more pro-Israel position.
Just going out and slapping buttons and saying “Okay what’s next?” is a sucker’s gambit.
One vote doesn’t make a big difference I guess. But like you said, you can join organisations, and those organisations can have much bigger political impacts. Maybe voting is necessary but not sufficient if you want to bring about political change.
But it reminds me of people refusing to vote for Kamala Harris because her Israel policy wasn’t quite perfect
She was actively facilitating a genocide. What’s more, nobody got to vote for Kamala Harris in the primary. Biden ran virtually uncontested, then fumbled a debate performance and got shuffled off stage left. Harris was so unpopular in the 2020 primary that she polled 5th place in her home state. People refused to vote for Kamala Harris because she wasn’t doing a good job of running for office. The Pro-Israel shit was merely the tip of the iceberg.
And, as a corollary to the Harris mess, consider the current Gavin Newsom campaign.
If this guy runs for President, what sane liberal supports him? He’s working hand-in-glove with Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis to fuck over doctors in his own state. If the DNC is going to air-drop him into the Democratic Nomination in 2028, we’re going to get four more years of Trump pretty much guaranteed.
You aren’t going to beat Fascism by lining up for Fascism-Lite.
I don’t know what Harris’s voting record was on aid to Israel. But from what I saw of her and Trump, I definitely thought that Harris was more reasonable. Even if her position on Israel had flaws, surely she would have been more willing than Trump to sympathise with Palestinians. She might have changed her position on Palestine over time. Politicians often change their positions.
Maybe it’s a bit like here in the UK: our Labour government recognised the state of Palestine, and recently has announced sanctions for Israeli settlers in the West Bank. It might not be perfect, but if the UK had a Reform government (the UK’s equivalent of MAGA) then they would probably be actively supporting far-right Israeli leaders, and their intentions of dominating all of Palestine.
Even if her position on Israel had flaws
Look officer, I did stab my wife 57 times in the face and boil our child, but pobodys nerfect, right? Now I hear the guy next door stabbed his wife with a knife more gleefully than I did, so why do you even care? I’M SPEAKING!!!
LMBO! The fake leftist that went full zionist capitalist 2 seconds after he was sworn in is not the flex you think it is
I would rather have someone in charge who doesn’t do anything that someone who is actively breaking everything. How did all that protesting the Democratic candidates work out for Palestine? Both sides blah blah blah really played out well for everything from gas prices to free speech, didn’t it?
I want someone to break your fucking empire of oppression
How did all that protesting the Democratic candidates work out for Palestine?
How well did Harris’ promise to continue Biden’s support of Israel despite their live-streaming genocide work out for her?
No, but you see, that’s the fault of the people who stuck to their principles and didn’t support a genocide even tacitly. They secretly sabotaged her campaign by denying her the votes she was owed.
If we hadn’t all been so selfish, the bombs today would be dropped (more competently) by a woman and CNN would barely mention it in passing or make it spectacle and entertainment with suitable gravitas from multi-millionaire celebrity “journalists”.
What did the Democrats do for Palestine?
How did all that protesting the Democratic candidates work out for Palestine?
how about you stop being smug about genocide? Joe Biden ramped up the genocide in Palestine significantly and Kamala was going to do the same. Kamala also said Iran is the greatest threat, because Democrats, just like Republicans are on the same side when it comes to foreign policy; which is to kill and plunder the global south.
Fuck off with your dumb weaponization of the Palestinian struggle. Fuck you and your whole family, what a piece of trash
As opposed to the Lemmy solution, “Don’t vote! That’ll do something!”
Who is telling you not to vote? What we’re telling you is: https://lemmy.ml/comment/22575324
It’s not wrong to say regulatory capture is a problem, it just doesn’t go far enough. The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
Right, and if voting was useless, why do politicians want to take it away from demographics they hate? Why would people have to fight so hard for it?
If it really didn’t matter and it really was as you say it is, then they wouldn’t need to distract people.
If you really held onto this stance, then you can’t be mad at people who voted for Trump because it’s all smoke and mirrors anyway and he was picked with what, some shadow government?
Is organizing a revolution so easily distracted that spending like, a little part of a day casting a ballot something that’ll completely undermine everything? Is it that fragile?
Is organizing a revolution so easily distracted that spending like, a little part of a day casting a ballot something that’ll completely undermine everything?
Not at all. Again, who is saying not to vote?
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then they wouldn’t need to distract people.
The distraction is the voting system itself. Seems to work better on you than on most other people.
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Right, so voting is a pointless distraction that… The oligarchs still need to use for some reason.
We know the reasons, and we know the oligarchs will dispense with the pretense of elections when they hinder more than they help. Fascism isn’t a grassroots movement; it’s an astroturfed one funded by oligarchs. They fully unleash it when they become frustrated with bourgeois democracy.
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How will voting help?
It’s not really going to do anything, but it’s better than legitimising the system and entrenching genociders. Politicians use the amount of votes they receive as an argument for the legitimacy of their policies. The overarching oligarchy will exist wether you vote or not, the individuals in the structure have a much easier time of doing heinous shit if they are perceived as legitimate.
So voting for the people in power will, in a small way, make things worse.People are arguing voting does not work because if anyone actually leftist becomes popular, then they either get buried or subsumed by the structure - Bernie Sanders is an excellent example of both. In 2016 he got cheated out of the nomination, likewise in 2020. By 2020 he had already become a sheepdog for the left, channelling popular sentiment towards the establishment.
Another example is AOC who worked as a DC staffer for a long while, then took a 6 month gig as a bartender, and then received considerable promotion by the DNC by way of constantly being discussed negatively by the party elite, which then makes her appear as a political outsider - All the while she still supports the fundamental structure of the US as well as the DNC. She was a diehard supporter of Joe Biden as well as voting for Israel whenever it was needed, and running defence for things like the “Iron Dome”.
However, others would argue that voting can function as a tool to build momentum for leftist political organisations.Here’s some Lenin for you. The text is very specific to the situation his party found itself in in that specific historical moment, but it can still be used to exemplify some stuff:
The principal question for Social-Democrats who value the elections primarily as a means for the political enlightenment of the people, is, of course, the ideological and political content of all the propaganda and agitation to be carried on in Connection with them. That is what is meant by an election platform. To every party at all worthy of the name a platform is something that has existed long before the elections; it is not something specially devised “for the elections”, but an inevitable result of the whole work of the party, of the way the work is organised, and of its whole trend in the given historical period. And the R.S.D.L.P., too, already has a platform; its platform already exists and has been naturally and inevitably determined by the Party’s principles and by the tactics which the Party has already adopted, has already applied, and is still applying, during the entire period in the political life of the nation which in a certain respect is always “summed up” by elections. The platform of the R.S.D.L.P. is the sum total of the work which revolutionary Marxism and the sections of the advanced workers who remained faithful to it have accomplished in the 1908–11 period, the period of the orgy of counter revolution, the period of the June Third, Stolypin regime.
The three main items that make up this total are: (1) the programme of the Party; (2) its tactics; (3) its appraisal of the dominant-ideological and political trends of the given period, or the most widespread of them, or those which are most harmful for democracy and socialism. Without a programme a party cannot be an integral political organism capable of pursuing its line whatever turn events may take. Without a tactical line based on an appraisal of the current political situation and providing explicit answers to the “vexed problems” of our times, we might have a circle of theoreticians, but not a functioning political entity. Without an appraisal of the “active”, current or “fashionable” ideological and political trends, the programme and tactics may degenerate into dead “clauses” which can by no stretch of the imagination be put into effect or applied to the thousands of detailed, particular, and highly specific questions of practical activity with the necessary understanding of essentials, with an understanding of “what is what”.
(…)
Consider the question from, so to speak, the general historical standpoint. It is obvious (to all, except Larin and a handful of liquidators) that the bourgeois revolution in Russia has not been consummated. Russia is heading for a revolutionary crisis. We must prove that revolution is necessary and preach that it is legitimate and “beneficial”. This being the case, we must conduct our propaganda for political liberty so as to pose the question in all its aspects, formulate the goal for a movement that is bent on victory and not one that stops half-wayBasically: Elections can function as a platform for a well-organized, principled leftist party to agitate to the masses and legitimise itself in the popular culture. So in the current day if you vote, you should vote for a leftist third party to help them build momentum.
Here’s another snippet I think would be a good starting point for you, if you actually wish to understand the leftist position on elections, and not just argue against ridiculous strawmen. Really the whole book this second snippet is from is a good start. It’s not too heavy either.
But very tl;dr:
- Elections are controlled by capitalists and cannot be used to leave capitalism.
- If you have a principled leftist party, then elections can be used to build popular support and momentum, but change will still be wrought from outside the electoral system
- The democratic party is not a principled leftist party
- Capitalist parties cannot be changed from the inside
- If you vote, vote third party to help build alternatives
For reading:
- Lenin “The Election Campaign and the Election Platform” and a snippet from "Leftwing Communism - An infantile Disorder](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm) and here’s The book
- Luxembourg “Reform or Revolution”
That isn’t really what people are saying. It’s more that voting cannot bring about socialism, while revolution can, and that therefore treating voting as the primary political outlet for people hampers the organizing efforts needed for revolution.
I don’t know why anyone assumes that revolution will get them what they want. There are so many more ways for things to go wrong than right.
Okay, let’s look at the results to far:
Revolution: Takr away window dressing like culture, and the crushing majority of earth’s population share our class interest. Most humans want to live in a society focused on taking care of humans, and many revolutions have succeeded or even flourished despite full-spectrum seige from the capitalist bloc.
Reform: reform has been tried for a hundred fifty years and all there is to show for it is two and a half world wars, many capitalist genocides, and an entrenched neo-aristocracy of openly fascist, pedophile death cultists who have kicked off a mass extinction and are driving us towards nuclear apocalypse.
Every communist revolution that survived the 20th century is now either absolutely thriving or at least weathering extreme US seige, and the ones that weathered their seiges already have begun to thrive (see the DPRK). China is currenty the best hope for the survival of any large scale human civilization.
Meanwhile, every capitalist society where people chose reform has backslid or been backsliding into fascism. And at this point, we are out of time to keep trying gentle .methods. Capitalism is the cancer killing the only extraordinary gem of a planet where plants grow and creatures roam, and it’s in part thanks to the history of denial of how bad it is, the continual, suicidal insistence on taking half measures in the face of overwhelming warning that has allowed it to metastasize to such a horrifying degree that our only options now are the risky, painful surgery of revolution or certain death.
Nobody assumes revolution will be smooth and painless, what’s important is that it’s necessary for a better world. We have to work as hard as we can to make sure it works out as smoothly as possible.
What are some examples of it going right?
USSR, PRC, DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, GDR, Yugoslavia, etc.
The USSR, Cuba, DPRK, China, Vietnam as some examples.
We’ve had this argument before and you haven’t convinced me this is true, especially with more immediate political concerns.
I’ve also talked with people who literally are against voting so your statement does not speak for everyone.
What “more immediate political concerns” are not fought better on the ground?
Why only fight on one front when you could fight on all fronts? You can vote and do other things, you know.
By voting for genociders you’re not fighting, you’re not even rolling over, you’re helping them.
I have never said that you aren’t allowed to vote, more that voting is far less important than organizing. You are disparaging organizing in favor of voting on the grounds of voting being better, my question is which issue is voting better for?
You are disparaging organizing in favor of voting on the grounds of voting being better
I have never, once, at all, ever held that position, nor have I said such a thing. I have always been a proponent of organizing and voting.
Don’t you dare put those words in my mouth.
We’ve had this argument before and you haven’t convinced me this is true, especially with more immediate political concerns.
Can you please explain what these “more immediate political concerns” are that voting is more important for than organizing?
People laughed, saying a vote for Kamala was pointless, and a vote for genocide, but everyone has suffered under this atrocity of an administration. I don’t know that Kamala would have called Marxists terrorists.
everyone has suffered under this atrocity of an administration.
Just like everyone suffered under the previous one.
I don’t know that Kamala would have called Marxists terrorists.
Her administration used “left wing ideals” as a signifier to find domestic terroists.
The DNC are complicit in the present state repression against left-wing groups, and the genocide in Palestine has continued.
You’re absolutely not wrong.
when they vote against genocide you complains. What you want is a dictatorship where everybody should vote democrats
They often openly say they think “the masses” are too stupid to be allowed to rule a society. Liberals wear the mask of “democracy” but deep down think of themselves as benevolent plutocrats in waiting, with deep contempt for the average person in the imperial core and genocidal contempt for the average person in a Designated Enemy society.
*you complain
and why tf would I want a Democrat dictatorship? I’m literally encouraging people to vote, which is about what they want.
If there was a Democratic dictatorship you wouldn’t vote against it.
You encourage people to only vote for democrats , if they vote for a third party you claim they vote for trump meaning you support a one party
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Except you’re ignoring when I’ve said that we should change voting laws so third parties are viable.
Alright, you’re ignoring they think we should live in a socialist utopia. Neither part is right around the corner or feasible anytime soon. Voting laws will not be changed, and if they did it would not matter. Look at Alaska.
lol what has voting achieved??
Local election voting is much more important. You can bring change to your local community with effort. Federal not so much.
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power? Kept people who can do harm out? Gotten rid of the feudal system where you only have power of you’re genetically born into it?
If voting didn’t matter, why would people fight and die for it? If voting didn’t matter, why do conservatives want you to not vote? If voting didn’t matter, why bother pretending and gave elections?
Why should you give up your agency over your government?
Or are you cool with the people who didn’t vote and kinda let Trump take over?
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power?
Since when? We’ve come to a point where genocide isn’t even a point of discussion, it’s just something that they all do. How are any of these people “people who can do better”? Trump won the popular vote. Bush won it in ´04 and now he’s being rehabilitated as some quirky old guy. We’ve come to a point where Bush isn’t Bush, but just some fucking grandpa, that’s your idea of “people who can do better”? Administrations that make people yearn for fucking Bush?? Not to mention people yearning for Obama, the guy who bailed out bankers, fucked over ACORN, did fuck all to get progressives into the supreme court, never codified Roe v Wade, bombed more people than Bush, expanded ICE dramatically, put kids in cages (something that never stopped), enshrined the PATRIOT act, and so much more.
We’re at a point where people pretend Bill Clinton wasn’t on the Epstein list. The guy who overturned Glass-Steagal, the guy who wrote NAFTA, the guy who bombed Yugoslavia so his wife would fuck him again, the guy who couped the first election in the Russian Republic (basically giving us Putin), the guy who oversaw the second half of Shock Doctrine in the broken up soviet bloc, the crime bill, deregulation that would give us the financial crisis, and again, so much more. That’s your idea of “people who can do better”? Better than what??? The people we now yearn for??? The people your “people who can do better” rehabilitate? Democrats idolise Reagan FFS, they’re doing reaganomics! This is “doing better”? It’s not even better than republicans.And again, Trump won. So that’s what your system gives you. Bush won, that’s what your system gets you.
Gotten people who can do better into positions of power? Kept people who can do harm out?
Trump won even by popular vote this last time. You sure you want to make the claim that it’s voting in particular that gets people who can “do better” in positions of power? How can a person be so dense as to think that voting is what keeps those who do harm out of powerful positions when every president, certainly at least within living memory, has wrought unmitigated harm upon the world?
Gotten rid of the feudal system where you only have power of you’re genetically born into it?
LOL. You honestly think voting is what ended feudalism?! And you think people in power now weren’t born into it?! Behold, the intellectual heights of liberal “thought.”
If voting didn’t matter, why would people fight and die for it?
Right, 'cause no one ever fought and died for something that wasn’t true or didn’t work the way they thought. (facepalm).
Also, if voting did work as you say, why do people still have to fight and die for their basic livelihoods and the well-being of their children, let alone the myriad other reasons people to this day are fighting and dying? There are just so many ways in which these questions reveal a deep and fundamental misunderstanding about how material reality works, I don’t know where to start. Oh and wait, didn’t you just say that voting ended feudalism? I guess all that fighting and dying was the sideshow, just done for emphasis apparently.If voting didn’t matter, why do conservatives want you to not vote?
Why do you, a liberal, not want conservatives to vote? Or maybe you do, in which case you should be content with Trump who was voted in. But to answer your question about conservatives: it’s rather obviously because they’re the part of the machine that generally has less popular support for the time being. This isn’t rocket science. Funny how despite that fact, conservatives still have as much and usually more power than the liberal “progressives,” I thought this voting thing (that ended feudalism! lol) was supposed to magically solve all of that.
If voting didn’t matter, why bother pretending and gave elections?
Because people like you believe the lie that it gives them some sort of power and control over the systems that rule them. Obviously. In other words, it clearly does work miracles to placate doofuses.
Why should you give up your agency over your government?
You shouldn’t, and that’s the point. Only a fool thinks voting within this system is exercising their agency.
In response to all of your “iF vOtInG dIiNt WoRk tHeN WHY” questions, how about this: If voting did work to give ordinary people power, why would your bourgeois overlords (who literally control more absolute wealth and exercise greater relative power and control than any rulers at any point in human history) let you do it? Answer: they wouldn’t.
Or are you cool with the people who didn’t vote and kinda let Trump take over?
Ooooh, so it’s all about people who realized they were only given shit options to vote for, they’re the real problem here, not the people who… umm… voted for Trump? According to you voting has all this amazing magical power to effect the world. But the people who actually used that supposed power for their choice of Trump aren’t actually what
put Trump in the presidencylet him “take over.” No, you think the problem is the people who can correctly identify a rigged system. Trump won the election via people doing exactly what you say they should do, by voting, but when it’s not the outcome you wanted, you say the man who literally won the popular vote “took over” and proceed to blame that “takeover” on the people who chose not to use that supposedly great power to endorse genocidaires. My god liberals are such a fucking joke it still gobsmacks me somehow.Yeah, you’re making a lot of assumptions and accusations about what I believe and that’s just full on strawmaning.
You go back and forth on how voting is useless than talk about how voting got Trump into power, and honestly, you haven’t made a single good argument for not voting. All that does as far as I’m concerned is get conservatives into office, and I’m not going to do that.
Have fun on the high road, the rest of us have to deal with consequences of people like you who don’t care if people like Trump get elected, because you took the “mOrAl HiGh GrOuNd” and wouldn’t do the minimal effort to keep a Nazi out of office.
Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back door being a doormat.
assumptions and accusations about what I believe and that’s just full on strawmaning.
They’re drawing reasonable conclusions based on your given statements. That’s how reasoning works, you should try it sometime.
You go back and forth on how voting is useless than talk about how voting got Trump into power, and honestly, you haven’t made a single good argument for not voting. All that does as far as I’m concerned is get conservatives into office, and I’m not going to do that.
People have made plenty of arguments, and if all you’re focusing on domestic issues then you’re arrogant and selfish who is only concerned with having your treats threatened.
Have fun on the high road, the rest of us have to deal with consequences of people like you who don’t care if people like Trump get elected, because you took the “mOrAl HiGh GrOuNd” and wouldn’t do the minimal effort to keep a Nazi out of office.
Yeah man, the Orange Nazi is terrible, we need to have a BLUE Nazi instead! Just ignore how they both treated genocide as a bipartisan issue or where Biden ramped up the genocide significantly and Kamala promised she’d do the same.
You only dislike Trump because he’s mean about it, you’d sleep soundly if you had a president who enacted genocide, overthrew governments and killed millions of people but cared about “decorum” and “optics” as you liberals are obsessed with.
Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back door being a doormat.
Says the doormat that says “WELCOME, BLUE NO MATTER WHO”
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Democrats are also throwing trans under the bus what do you mean?
And “nuance”? lmfao you are literally hyperfocusing on getting in a democrat above all else, to the point of “blue no matter who” while ignoring all points being made to you and you’re talking about nuance? LMFAO
both sides ism,
Pointing out the many similarities between the two parties’ policy positions is not the same as equating violent right wing militias with peaceful protesters, learn what the things you say mean.
Remember that most people on this website don’t live in your parallel universe where voting ended feudalism. They live in a world where voting didn’t end feudalism, so they won’t understand most of what you say.
Every US president is a war criminal genocider. Trump isnt special. Americans dont deserve to vote, they’re stupid
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Yeah .ml has always been special with these hot takes.
almost every time I see .world there has been nothing but reactionary, bigoted and chauvinistic takes.
Its hard to see them as serious when they are more concerned with purity testing.
Yeah telling people off for voting for genocide sure is purity testing.
I guess its easy to wait for the right candidate when you are not under siege.
Like every conflict that Amerika has started where they lay siege upon them. Even now, Cuba is under siege and has been since they revolutionized many, many decades ago. And let me tell you, it’s not just Republicans that are doing this. After all, Obama sure loved droning weddings in Yemen, and he loves the open slave market he opened up in Libya after destroying it.
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This just shows that you do not care about Palestine, you have already written them off as doomed no matter what. So naturally, all that leaves is your desire for spoils of the plunder.
Don’t be fucking smug about genocide you fucking ass.
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That’s your response? Even not voting for genocide does more than one that actively participates and DEFENDS the system that allows for genocide to go on for as long as it has.
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- Doing nothing is better than further empowering those doing harm.
- You’re acting as if all one can do is vote. This seems more telling about you than anybody else.
- You’re acting as if the alternative to voting for genocide is to join houthis. Be serious.
It seems like you just want to argue, since the way you’re presenting yourself isn’t convincing for anyone reading, nor to the people you are engaging with, and you don’t actually engage with the arguments of those you disagree with, rather just saying nonsensical shit. Why even write at that point?
Yeah let me leave the door open for crusaders who extra want Gaza destroyed in office
You’re right, much better to leave the door open for neoliberals who want Gaza destroyed. I’m sure the people getting bombed will be able to feel the difference when the Secretary of War doesn’t have an Iron Cross tattoo
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To win an election, you have to hibernate for another 4 years.
“Fighting” and it’s voting for fascist genocidal geriatrics.
You aren’t fighting, you’re rolling over and yelling at people who say “hey how about we try something other than rolling over? Seems like it has only made things worse so far”
“Purity testing” is when you don’t think people should vote for genocide or more deportations or people who do fuck all to protect marginalised groups, while increasing the police state and furthering the climate apocalypse and warmongering. At this point, what’s left for you?
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone suggest, ever, that you only need to vote to solve problems.
I’m jealous of you then
My point was to use all tools at your disposal. Revolutions can be waged on several fronts. I’ve always hated politics as do most people I know. But 50% voter turnout is partially to blame why it sucks so bad. We have a shitty government and we are to blame. Oh well, I tried nothing and it didn’t work…
The 50% voter turnout is because of lack of faith in the ability for voting to change anything. Push these people to organize.
Plus the difficulty usa puts on people who want to vote. See Texas and constant removal of voting locations.
Or how Republicans love to remove locations from college campuses, or the lack of will by either party to extend voting to more than a single day
If everyone thinks like that, then nothing can be done. The power is when many people act together. Giving up because you feel insignificant is what keeps oligarchs in power. They want you to feel small. One vote may seem small, but if everyone votes, then we can make a difference.
We agree that the powers of the working classes are in our numbers. Where we disagree is which direction that should be pointed in. You cannot change the system from within it to something that goes fundamentally against the base. Only revolution can do so, so we must smash and replace the state with a socialist state.
You’d have to be pretty dumb to think not voting is the right move.
Like, even Trump voters are legitimately smarter than that. “Not voted” people are the very bottom of the scale.
The point isn’t that withholding votes will bring about a better world, the point is that voting within capitalism cannot bring about socialism, and that socialism is necessary. It’s not “voting is harm,” nor is it “withholding votes does good,” it’s “voting is ineffective.”
The unstated point of the meme is that we must seek means of change outside of the system put in place to prevent change. Educating, agitating, and organizing is the way forward. We can only get socialism through revolution, otherwise we will be trapped in the same cycle of decay.
Liberals when you disrespect their cute little religious superstition: “You are mentally defective for refusing to vote for Holocaust 2, I’m the opposite of a fascist btw.”
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Leftists have not meaningfully increased revolutionary rhetoric based on the Statesian electoral cycle. You may tune out more whenever elections aren’t around the corner, but revolutionary socialists have consistently pushed people to organize precisely because it doesn’t depend on the electoral cycle to work.
There’s no “suddenly,” because nothing has changed. We’ve been here the whole time saying the same things.
And I seldom see people say to not vote. Mostly they say that voting does little to nothing, and that we can’t vote our way to socialism.
Liberals when you point out the demonic human cost of their sociopath politics: “I will now imply or outright state that you are an agent of a foreign conspiracy to undermine The Nation, or perhaps a literal unthinking machine. I’m the opposite of a fascist btw.”
Blueanon shitlibs assume that the world only exists for the brief time they come out of their torper every election
“Funny how there’s suddenly all these guys wearing orange vests in the woods, gee could it be hunting season?” yeah dude, it’s almost like whatever is up in the zeitgeist gets discussed more often. Next you’ll notice how when you take an action, there is a reaction.
Also, people are pretty vocal about not voting for dems most of the time. You only notice every two years when mainstream media primes your brain to care about politics.
I know it can be incredibly frustrating. Only 50-ish to 60-ish percent turnout out most elections which is sad (https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_elections). You can also vote with your money. Be conscious about what you spend your money on or just spend less. Vote with your data (restrict access to it). Be anonymous. Delete online accounts or use fake information as much as possible. Don’t feed the machine. Vote with your actions. Protest and show support for what you believe in. Vote with your feelings. Don’t go for the rage bait and trolls. Block all that shit. Don’t let it drag you down. Free your mind. Vote with your morals. Help those in need. Be kind. And above all just survive. You can’t make a difference if you are dead.
You can theoretically vote with your money. But you would need billions of dollars to vote. That’s the only way you can vote in a way that counts in capitalism.
Not voting is dumb. Might as well drown if you don’t.
Voting doesn’t get meaningful change, because it’s designed not to be able to. That doesn’t mean our hands our tied, we can roll up our sleeves and get organized. Collective power is the working class’s strongest tool, and it’s magnified when we all work in the same direction. Revolution is possible and necessary.
I would say voting for those working against your interests is even dumber
They banned you from posting :/
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
And it was even over some bs, lol
"what are you going to do? ban me from posting?
- BanMeFromPosting moments before being banned from posting.
I wish I had access to hexbear emoji on lemmy. I need the exploding guy.
I gotta learn this lemmy-fu.
Voting is the first and easiest step, right?
In scenarios where it does not seem to save you from drowning, What is to be done?
Yeah exactly. Voting is 20 minutes out of one day once a year if you’re super active. It doesn’t hinder any other efforts and it doesn’t diminish all the other work you can and should be doing the other 364 days 23 hours and 40 minutes. Maybe you can spend that 40 minutes learning about the candidates to have a more informed vote. It’s just a stinky thing you do to try and put the lesser of two evils in.
It doesn’t hinder any other efforts
Actually, further entrenching a right-wing genocidal party of geriatric oligarchs does hinder other efforts. Further normalising and legitimising the ever-expanding fascist police-state does hinder other efforts.
It’s just a stinky thing you do to try and put the lesser of two evils in.
Or, following your logic, it would be more useful to do something like vote third party.
It also wouldn’t take much time for me to pray once or twice a day, but what’s it supposed to actually accomplish?
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in other words: the only allowed political action to be committed under capitalism is voting. we have to pretend we are challenging the status quo without doing anything at all right?
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Voting for genocidal bigots is dumber
