Watch the full conversation here: https://youtube.com/live/OVl9FGe8fno?feature=shareChris, Marcelina, and Max join Katie to discuss the historic UAW strike. ...
Democrats might suck as far their desire, willingness, and ability to implement actual leftist reforms, but they are not as purposefully cruel. Suffering is real, more suffering is worse than less suffering, and one party is openly sadist.
Republicans are obviously more cruel than Democrats and I'll even throw in that they're generally dumber as well. But I do think you're underselling just how dog shit and cruel Democrats are. We have somewhere between 50-90k people dying each year due to lacking healthcare in this country and Democrats have absolutely no desire to stop it. Nada, zilch, none, 200-360k people will have died in the US under Biden presidency that didn't have to.
Republicans are dumb antivaxers who don't understand science, but Democrats claim to, which makes their COVID response a cruel and disgusting genocide on those with disabilities.
whether I'll be prohibited from public areas because of my identity -- the other doesn't. But I guess you don't care about any of that.
I can't speak for the person you responded to, but I would assume that they care about trans rights and existence.
I do think two things are worth noting:
Your and my votes generally do not matter because a single vote usually is not going to make a difference we could have every Hexbear user vote, even the non-American ones, and it would not move the needle.
The attack on trans people is happening while Democrats are in power and rather than confronting it in any meaningful way they've equivocated about the complexity of childs sports.
If you think voting Democrat will make your revolution less likely or take longer, and you are willing to let harm happen to make it happen faster than you are an accelerationist - a morally tenuous position at best.
Capitalism is going to do what it does regardless of which party we vote for. This is because the contradictions are very apparent and neither party is capable of addressing them. Republicans will continue to scapegoat trans people and probably immigrants and Democrats will continue to be cowards while hogs shoot up schools and gay bars. And that's it. Nothing will be done about it.
Your and my votes generally do not matter because a single vote usually is not going to make a difference... (which seems to me to imply (in this case) don't bother voting, revolution is the only way to make things better)
I see this attitude a lot in the auth-left. Is this a general thing or only counts when talking about voting?
What about driving SUVs? I'm just one person, doesn't matter if I drive an SUV right? It's only one automobile. And promoting the concept that people shouldn't drive SUVs would be silly right?
What about consuming animal products? It wouldn't matter if people become vegan or not right?, the cow is already dead, the carbon emissions already emitted, and one person eating a hamburger won't make any difference, no sense in eating less meat or trying to promote eating less meat, it'd be no more useful than voting/promoting voting. The only solution would be to outlaw being non-vegan, and anyone who wants a burger deserves the wall right?
There is no fucking "auth-left" get outta here with that liberal bs. Also real "you want to decolonize? wow so you want to shoot all white people" energy there
What should I use instead? And what other ways should I differentiate myself, an anarcho-communist, from other leftists who want to use state power to get their way? Is that not authoritarian?
There may be dumb people making dumb memes about it, but I haven't seen anything that makes more sense. If you can point me to something better I'd appreciate it.
the political compass was invented solely to make "right libertarianism" look like a real ideology. It was pushed by billionaire money into schools to rot peoples brains. Its not real and provides no insight, it only furthers political illiteracy in the US. Its not a random statement, its a bullshit concept
Your buying into the central assumption that their is such a thing as authoritarianism. All governments are authoritarian its a meaningless distiction in political economy.
Right libertarianism is a bullshit ideology, because its just liberalism.
The system that works better is just reality. Understanding that political economy is a single entity not separate axis
There was a thread maybe a month back where we all took the test and everyone is "left libertarian," because the entire design of this thing is ridiculous.
The idea of voting is for collective action (maybe). If 51 % vote for something, the we all are supposed to do the thing.
It would be like, "If 51% of people went vegan, then 100% of the population would be required to be vegan. But since vegans are not 51% of the people, no concessions should be made towards their beliefs."
Honestly, the Republicans and conserva-Dems are doing that right now with an transphobic arguments along the line of, "Hey, trans people are such small portion of the population, wouldn't it be easier for them all to just, you know, not be trans?"
I agree with everything but I think this is a weak line to use:
a single vote is not going to make a difference
it's true that leftists are too small in number to sway an election, but with that line you're just gonna get "what if everyone thought that way." You can see how the lib you were talking to latched onto that one line and ignored everything else.
more importantly, the whole purpose of denigrating voting is to get people to organize. As long as people organize, whether or not they also vote in national elections is of little consequence imo, as long as they have realistic expectations. If they think there's some marginal harm reduction, that's fine, as long as they don't pin all their hopes on some crisp, bloodless Democrat who'll let Citibank pick their cabinet like Obama did in 2008.
People need to understand that, even when the majority votes blue, their votes do not actually result in policy. We have to break the false sense of political agency that voting gives people. But the purpose is ultimately not to stop people from voting, but to make them start organizing.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
[...]
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
I really like your point about voting not resulting in policy, I'd completely forgotten about that study and will be using it. But I'd like to clarify something:
a single vote is not going to make a difference
it's true that leftists are too small in number to sway an election
It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative or a leftist any single vote doesn't matter because single votes do not typically determine elections. Like you can be a liberal in a conservative area you'll be out voted or a liberal in a liberal area will likely have their candidate win by a significant margin meaning their vote didn't really matter either.
again, you'll just get "What if everyone thought that way."
but I agree it's worth pointing out that a lot of ballots are basically thrown in the trash, if you don't live in a swing area in this gerrymandered hell country.
Capitalism is going to do what it does regardless of which party we vote for. This is because the contradictions are very apparent and neither party is capable of addressing them. Republicans will continue to scapegoat trans people and probably immigrants and Democrats will continue to be cowards while hogs shoot up schools and gay bars. And that’s it. Nothing will be done about it.
So then why not look for realistic solutions to ending capitalism rather than entertain the idea that a few thousand people (who spent lots of energy in the meantime pissing people off online for fun) are going to persuade enough people to join them in a successful communist revolution?
I'm an anarcho-communist, so I'm not saying the solutions to the world's problems can be solved within the system, but I also think there is value in being realistic and reducing harm with available tools and not making my enemy more powerful out of spite.
I'll reply to both of your comments just to be coherent:
(which seems to me to imply (in this case) don't bother voting, revolution is the only way to make things better)
I did not say this. Voting can make things better it just often doesn't. My mentality on voting is that if it's easy to do then do it but there are counties where I live where people will have to wait for up to 3 hours to vote and often have to get to work. Is it worth it to browbeat these people who would rather do anything else? I would say not.
A single person being a vegan or driving an SUV does not matter in aggregate for the climate because there are systematic problems that pollute significantly more than any single person will in infinite lifetimes.
So then why not look for realistic solutions to ending capitalism rather than entertain the idea that a few thousand people (who spent lots of energy in the meantime pissing people off online for fun) are going to persuade enough people to join them in a successful communist revolution?
My brother/sister/nb in Christ are you really saying that it is more "realistic" to vote out capitalism than it is to have a revolution? There have been numerous revolutions and zero elections that have overthrown capitalism.
If you want to vote to improve things Godspeed and I'll even join you, but the notion that you'll achieve your goals of Socialism through voting is absurd. Direct action gets the goods and is infinitely more important than voting.
I did not say this. Voting can make things better it just often doesn’t.
Amazing! I'd call this progress.
counties where I live where people will have to wait for up to 3 hours to vote
You know why they have to wait 3 hours to vote? Because Republicans gain power and make it more difficult to vote for those in areas they think may not support them. This problem would be easy to solve by increasing non-Republican voters (interestingly Taylor Swift may be helping here lol).
A single person being a vegan or driving an SUV does not matter in aggregate for the climate because there are systematic problems that pollute significantly more than any single person will in infinite lifetimes.
Ok, at least that's a consistent position. I expect to not see you denigrate people for eating meat or driving large vehicles.
My brother/sister/nb in Christ are you really saying that it is more “realistic” to vote out capitalism than it is to have a revolution?
Nope. But I think having people in power that don't have a particular boner for cruelty will make any attempts at moving beyond capitalism easier. As far as methods of moving beyond capitalism, I'm in favor of things like dual-power, mutual-aid, community level resilience and independence from capitalist and state systems -- and having fascists in power makes those things harder and riskier. When we know where our food is coming from when the grocery store is not an option, we can consider being able to fight for more than 2 days.
You know why they have to wait 3 hours to vote? Because Republicans gain power and make it more difficult to vote for those in areas they think may not support them.
Yes, it is Republicans I'm not going to dispute that, but when Democrats are in power in these areas they do not wield power in a way that propagates it. And our state wide democratic party is extremely dysfunctional and unpopular. There are federal regulations that could be implemented by Democrats to reduce voting shenanigans and they did not pass it when they had the House, Senate, and Presidency. So again, if when Democrats get the vote they're unwilling to make changes that will make it easier for them to get elected why should I brow beat some person making $10 an hour to forgo $30 they need when Democrats won't do the best minimum to win? I would rather spend my time at our food pantry/garden.
I think having people in power that don't have a particular boner for cruelty will make any attempts at moving beyond capitalism easier.
No disagreement here I'm not an accelerationist, but I will reiterate that that is not an option in my area, the state run democratic party is extremely corrupt and useless. There's a lot of mutual aid groups in my area that get tacit support of conservatives because they're "apolitical" and are best able to function in this way. If Democrats get their shit together maybe it would be worth putting in effort for them, but as of now they're functionally Republicans who fund education in this state.
Ok, I get that the Democrats are disfunctional, ineffective, and unpopular in your area. What if people like yourself ran for office so that it could become more effective (even if just locally) and then maybe become more popular? This will never happen if all the good people forfeit the game.
but as of now they’re functionally Republicans who fund education in this state.
That alone would be enough to get me off my couch to vote D. Perfection is the enemy of progress.
Hope -- hope that others will do the same and work together to make a better future. The pantry will be there next weekend.
This is some Obama era shit. Hope isn't feeding people.
What if people like yourself ran for office so that it could become more effective (even if just locally) and then maybe become more popular?
I am finishing my PhD and getting the fuck out of this state. Once I have the means I will absolutely run for school board to keep a lib or a hog out of the spot and promote a Marxist indoctrination of our nation's youth.
That alone would be enough to get me off my couch to vote D.
Again, I'm not against voting for the lesser of two evils, but I am not going to spend my time advocating for an anti-choice, anti-trans, anti-gay hog. We have "progressives" who gain traction on a state wide basis and the Democratic party systematically kneecaps them every time because it is an old boys club.
Perfection is the enemy of progress.
I am not asking for perfection I am asking for the Democratic party to be a functional party, which it isn't despite having the governorship in my state.
Is that really how I'm using it? Am I asking anyone to shut up? No, you gave me a simple straw man argument and knocked it down.
No, I'm asking my comrades not be idiots that think we're really close enough to full on communist revolution that it's worth it to let fascists hurt people until we get there. Be realistic, if you really want to help people, pissing people off and letting fascists take power out of spite is not the way.
Voting for a piece of legislation, cool. Which is why all the cool things that people want don't get put up for public votes, we might actually get good stuff.
Voting for a person, who then gets to whatever they want carte blanche style for their entire term, meh.
So then why not look for realistic solutions to ending capitalism rather than entertain the idea that a few thousand people (who spent lots of energy in the meantime pissing people off online for fun) are going to persuade enough people to join them in a successful communist revolution?
No one here is pretending that having fun online is really advancing a revolutionary agenda. That's pure projection. You think you're doing something by voting and by telling us to vote. Its an empty sacrement that absolves you by participating in it. And like all hollow religions, its adherents need others to believe.
You might want to consider looking for realistic solutions rather than entertaining the idea that one person will convience a few thousand people (who spend free time pissing people off by being openly communist while online for fun) of the importance of ing in a fake democracy
No one here is pretending that having fun online is really advancing a revolutionary agenda
I disagree here - I think cultural change is the harbinger of societal change. I for example called myself liberal, capitalist, and the thought of abolishing the police was unthinkable - until I was exposed to Beau of the Fifth Column and people on Reddit a bit like yourself but nicer (i.e. anarchists not Marxist types) that exposed me to new ideas.
I'd imagine if Beau called me an idiot and transphobe I probably would not have been convinced. I'm currently working to build community, this started online.
I know you disagree, that's why you're all worked up about on a communist site. You're projecting that onto us.
people on Reddit a bit like yourself but nicer (i.e. anarchists not Marxist types)
I'll overlook the petty sectarianism here, and just say that we are nice, just not toward people hectoring us about like we don't already know. Some of us do, some of us don't. Some of us see the point in strategic voting if you live in the handful of states (counties really) where you vote matters in a presidential election, and some of don't care even for that arguement.
What we all agree on is that the kind of evangelism your on about is nonsense.
Weird definition of liberal but I'll take it. My panties are not in a bunch because people call me a liberal, especially when it has to be redefined to apply.
I'm not defining or redefining anything. I'm saying VOTE evangelism is some lib nonsense, that's really the extent of what I'm saying.
voting is fine if you think there's a reason to engage in liberal democracy. Sometimes their are reasons to. There's never a reason to VOOOOTE evangelize on a left space
Votes are earned.
Republicans are obviously more cruel than Democrats and I'll even throw in that they're generally dumber as well. But I do think you're underselling just how dog shit and cruel Democrats are. We have somewhere between 50-90k people dying each year due to lacking healthcare in this country and Democrats have absolutely no desire to stop it. Nada, zilch, none, 200-360k people will have died in the US under Biden presidency that didn't have to.
Republicans are dumb antivaxers who don't understand science, but Democrats claim to, which makes their COVID response a cruel and disgusting genocide on those with disabilities.
I can't speak for the person you responded to, but I would assume that they care about trans rights and existence.
I do think two things are worth noting:
Your and my votes generally do not matter because a single vote usually is not going to make a difference we could have every Hexbear user vote, even the non-American ones, and it would not move the needle.
The attack on trans people is happening while Democrats are in power and rather than confronting it in any meaningful way they've equivocated about the complexity of childs sports.
Capitalism is going to do what it does regardless of which party we vote for. This is because the contradictions are very apparent and neither party is capable of addressing them. Republicans will continue to scapegoat trans people and probably immigrants and Democrats will continue to be cowards while hogs shoot up schools and gay bars. And that's it. Nothing will be done about it.
I see this attitude a lot in the auth-left. Is this a general thing or only counts when talking about voting?
What about driving SUVs? I'm just one person, doesn't matter if I drive an SUV right? It's only one automobile. And promoting the concept that people shouldn't drive SUVs would be silly right?
What about consuming animal products? It wouldn't matter if people become vegan or not right?, the cow is already dead, the carbon emissions already emitted, and one person eating a hamburger won't make any difference, no sense in eating less meat or trying to promote eating less meat, it'd be no more useful than voting/promoting voting. The only solution would be to outlaw being non-vegan, and anyone who wants a burger deserves the wall right?
There is no fucking "auth-left" get outta here with that liberal bs. Also real "you want to decolonize? wow so you want to shoot all white people" energy there
Polcomp is a stupid meme that it is below you to believe in even as a liberal
What should I use instead? And what other ways should I differentiate myself, an anarcho-communist, from other leftists who want to use state power to get their way? Is that not authoritarian?
There may be dumb people making dumb memes about it, but I haven't seen anything that makes more sense. If you can point me to something better I'd appreciate it.
You can just say Marxist
Ok
The political compass makes no sense
Chain link fences are useless. See I can spout random statements that sound like facts too.
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Your buying into the central assumption that their is such a thing as authoritarianism. All governments are authoritarian its a meaningless distiction in political economy.
Right libertarianism is a bullshit ideology, because its just liberalism.
The system that works better is just reality. Understanding that political economy is a single entity not separate axis
Just to point out how bullshit it is.
There was a thread maybe a month back where we all took the test and everyone is "left libertarian," because the entire design of this thing is ridiculous.
Removed by mod
There is no baby here, only bathwater
Bad examples.
The idea of voting is for collective action (maybe). If 51 % vote for something, the we all are supposed to do the thing.
It would be like, "If 51% of people went vegan, then 100% of the population would be required to be vegan. But since vegans are not 51% of the people, no concessions should be made towards their beliefs."
Honestly, the Republicans and conserva-Dems are doing that right now with an transphobic arguments along the line of, "Hey, trans people are such small portion of the population, wouldn't it be easier for them all to just, you know, not be trans?"
I agree with everything but I think this is a weak line to use:
it's true that leftists are too small in number to sway an election, but with that line you're just gonna get "what if everyone thought that way." You can see how the lib you were talking to latched onto that one line and ignored everything else.
more importantly, the whole purpose of denigrating voting is to get people to organize. As long as people organize, whether or not they also vote in national elections is of little consequence imo, as long as they have realistic expectations. If they think there's some marginal harm reduction, that's fine, as long as they don't pin all their hopes on some crisp, bloodless Democrat who'll let Citibank pick their cabinet like Obama did in 2008.
People need to understand that, even when the majority votes blue, their votes do not actually result in policy. We have to break the false sense of political agency that voting gives people. But the purpose is ultimately not to stop people from voting, but to make them start organizing.
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens (2014)
I really like your point about voting not resulting in policy, I'd completely forgotten about that study and will be using it. But I'd like to clarify something:
It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative or a leftist any single vote doesn't matter because single votes do not typically determine elections. Like you can be a liberal in a conservative area you'll be out voted or a liberal in a liberal area will likely have their candidate win by a significant margin meaning their vote didn't really matter either.
again, you'll just get "What if everyone thought that way."
but I agree it's worth pointing out that a lot of ballots are basically thrown in the trash, if you don't live in a swing area in this gerrymandered hell country.
So then why not look for realistic solutions to ending capitalism rather than entertain the idea that a few thousand people (who spent lots of energy in the meantime pissing people off online for fun) are going to persuade enough people to join them in a successful communist revolution?
I'm an anarcho-communist, so I'm not saying the solutions to the world's problems can be solved within the system, but I also think there is value in being realistic and reducing harm with available tools and not making my enemy more powerful out of spite.
I'll reply to both of your comments just to be coherent:
I did not say this. Voting can make things better it just often doesn't. My mentality on voting is that if it's easy to do then do it but there are counties where I live where people will have to wait for up to 3 hours to vote and often have to get to work. Is it worth it to browbeat these people who would rather do anything else? I would say not.
A single person being a vegan or driving an SUV does not matter in aggregate for the climate because there are systematic problems that pollute significantly more than any single person will in infinite lifetimes.
My brother/sister/nb in Christ are you really saying that it is more "realistic" to vote out capitalism than it is to have a revolution? There have been numerous revolutions and zero elections that have overthrown capitalism.
If you want to vote to improve things Godspeed and I'll even join you, but the notion that you'll achieve your goals of Socialism through voting is absurd. Direct action gets the goods and is infinitely more important than voting.
Amazing! I'd call this progress.
You know why they have to wait 3 hours to vote? Because Republicans gain power and make it more difficult to vote for those in areas they think may not support them. This problem would be easy to solve by increasing non-Republican voters (interestingly Taylor Swift may be helping here lol).
Ok, at least that's a consistent position. I expect to not see you denigrate people for eating meat or driving large vehicles.
Nope. But I think having people in power that don't have a particular boner for cruelty will make any attempts at moving beyond capitalism easier. As far as methods of moving beyond capitalism, I'm in favor of things like dual-power, mutual-aid, community level resilience and independence from capitalist and state systems -- and having fascists in power makes those things harder and riskier. When we know where our food is coming from when the grocery store is not an option, we can consider being able to fight for more than 2 days.
Yes, it is Republicans I'm not going to dispute that, but when Democrats are in power in these areas they do not wield power in a way that propagates it. And our state wide democratic party is extremely dysfunctional and unpopular. There are federal regulations that could be implemented by Democrats to reduce voting shenanigans and they did not pass it when they had the House, Senate, and Presidency. So again, if when Democrats get the vote they're unwilling to make changes that will make it easier for them to get elected why should I brow beat some person making $10 an hour to forgo $30 they need when Democrats won't do the best minimum to win? I would rather spend my time at our food pantry/garden.
No disagreement here I'm not an accelerationist, but I will reiterate that that is not an option in my area, the state run democratic party is extremely corrupt and useless. There's a lot of mutual aid groups in my area that get tacit support of conservatives because they're "apolitical" and are best able to function in this way. If Democrats get their shit together maybe it would be worth putting in effort for them, but as of now they're functionally Republicans who fund education in this state.
Forgot to add
Hope -- hope that others will do the same and work together to make a better future. The pantry will be there next weekend.
It's false hope, and that false hope brings complacency. why organize when voting is sufficient?
Ok, I get that the Democrats are disfunctional, ineffective, and unpopular in your area. What if people like yourself ran for office so that it could become more effective (even if just locally) and then maybe become more popular? This will never happen if all the good people forfeit the game.
That alone would be enough to get me off my couch to vote D. Perfection is the enemy of progress.
This is some Obama era shit. Hope isn't feeding people.
I am finishing my PhD and getting the fuck out of this state. Once I have the means I will absolutely run for school board to keep a lib or a hog out of the spot and promote a Marxist indoctrination of our nation's youth.
Again, I'm not against voting for the lesser of two evils, but I am not going to spend my time advocating for an anti-choice, anti-trans, anti-gay hog. We have "progressives" who gain traction on a state wide basis and the Democratic party systematically kneecaps them every time because it is an old boys club.
I am not asking for perfection I am asking for the Democratic party to be a functional party, which it isn't despite having the governorship in my state.
And when the D's lose... because the D's lost enough times that the R's now run the state... what do you do then?
This phrase is the enemy of progress.
Its always used to argue for why we need to allow some lib bullshit, and shut up.
Is that really how I'm using it? Am I asking anyone to shut up? No, you gave me a simple straw man argument and knocked it down.
No, I'm asking my comrades not be idiots that think we're really close enough to full on communist revolution that it's worth it to let fascists hurt people until we get there. Be realistic, if you really want to help people, pissing people off and letting fascists take power out of spite is not the way.
Believing that the people on this site have the power to influence US elections is what's not realistic
Voting for a piece of legislation, cool. Which is why all the cool things that people want don't get put up for public votes, we might actually get good stuff.
Voting for a person, who then gets to whatever they want carte blanche style for their entire term, meh.
Direct democracy, I agree would be better than representative, and maybe now even possible/practical with the internet.
No one here is pretending that having fun online is really advancing a revolutionary agenda. That's pure projection. You think you're doing something by voting and by telling us to vote. Its an empty sacrement that absolves you by participating in it. And like all hollow religions, its adherents need others to believe.
You might want to consider looking for realistic solutions rather than entertaining the idea that one person will convience a few thousand people (who spend free time pissing people off by being openly communist while online for fun) of the importance of
ing in a fake democracy
I disagree here - I think cultural change is the harbinger of societal change. I for example called myself liberal, capitalist, and the thought of abolishing the police was unthinkable - until I was exposed to Beau of the Fifth Column and people on Reddit a bit like yourself but nicer (i.e. anarchists not Marxist types) that exposed me to new ideas.
I'd imagine if Beau called me an idiot and transphobe I probably would not have been convinced. I'm currently working to build community, this started online.
I know you disagree, that's why you're all worked up about
on a communist site. You're projecting that onto us.
I'll overlook the petty sectarianism here, and just say that we are nice, just not toward people hectoring us about
like we don't already know. Some of us do, some of us don't. Some of us see the point in strategic voting if you live in the handful of states (counties really) where you vote matters in a presidential election, and some of don't care even for that arguement.
What we all agree on is that the kind of
evangelism your on about is 
nonsense.
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This is actually not the part that makes you a lib. Hectoring people in a left space about VOTE is what we consider lib
Weird definition of liberal but I'll take it. My panties are not in a bunch because people call me a liberal, especially when it has to be redefined to apply.
I'm not defining or redefining anything. I'm saying VOTE evangelism is some lib nonsense, that's really the extent of what I'm saying.
voting is fine if you think there's a reason to engage in liberal democracy. Sometimes their are reasons to. There's never a reason to VOOOOTE evangelize on a left space