Better than not voting and doing nothing.
The best would be voting and being an activist.
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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The US is not a democracy, it's a capitalist dictatorship.
Some Background: History conditions much of our thinking about our political systems and most Western democracies resemble Rome’s in 60 BC when, as Robin Daverman humorously says, three aristocrats–politician Julius Caesar, military hero Pompey and billionaire Crassus–formed a backroom alliance that dominated the elected senate. The oligarchs ensured that proletarii votes changed nothing and that the masses remained invisible unless they rioted or died in one of the elites’ endless civil wars. Two thousand years later, in Britain’s general election of 1784, the son of the First Earl of Chatham and Hester Grenville, sister of the previous Prime Minister George Grenville, and the son of the First Baron Holland and Lady Caroline Lennox, daughter of Second Duke of Richmond, offered voters offered a choice of dukes. Today, in many European countries (even egalitarian Sweden) ‘democracy’ is a mere veneer over powerful feudal aristocracies that still control their economies. American voters recently watched a former president’s wife competing with a former president’s brother being defeated by a billionaire who installed his daughter and son-in-law in important government positions and ensured that, as John Dewey said, “U.S. politics will remain the shadow cast on society by big business as long as power resides in business for private profit through private control of banking, land and industry, reinforced by command of the press and other means of propaganda”. Most Western politicians are related by marriage or wealth and have, like all hereditary classes, lost sympathy with the broad mass of their fellow citizens to the extent that, as American political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found, ‘the preferences of the average American appear to have a near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy’
Okay, and? How does voting harm us? Not voting does a lot more harm.
If your democracy is staged like reality TV, then it does nothing.
Does voting in a capitalist dictatorship work? It got the US to where it is now. Doing the same strategy over and over again, when proven that historically things keep getting worse, should tell you that not only is it a pointless strategy, it's actively harmful because it draws energy into an electoral contest that does nothing to improve people's lives.
Bourgeois democracy is an elaborate theatre piece used to keep people distracted, and give them the illusion of choice.
I'm not going to say the same thing twice, take a look at https://gregtech.eu/comment/3527169
That doesn't address anything. Saying vote over and over doesn't make it a viable strategy, especially in bourgeois "democracy"'s staged elections, where the vote choices are stacked between various capitalist puppets.
Essentially you're asking us to play a rigged game, and insisting both that it's not rigged, and that it's super important to play it. Also that anyone who refuses to play it deserves ridicule. This is the level of zealotry people have in their fake political system.
I never said it wasn't rigged. Not voting is not going to help you achieve the goal of stopping this madness. It will only make it harder. Democrats are, of course, the party of the rich, but so are Republicans. Republicans, however, are way more against the redistribution of wealth.
Not voting is not going to help you achieve the goal of stopping this madness. It will only make it harder.
You can only make statements like this, by ignoring history. People in the US have voted for 150+ years. This is the result.
Again, if voting is working so well, why do things keep getting worse? Are they just not voting hard enough? No, it's the system that's broken, it's theatre, a catch-22, a rigged game. Those of us who've studied US history and it's class history learned this a long time ago. The liberals coming and telling us to vote to fix things, aren't bringing any new arguments, and appear to us like fanatical zealots, who think that if they repeat mantras over and over, it cancels history.
Hey Dessalines, have you considered that you can vote and do other things, like activism?
I'm not joining your cult. You've given me no good reasons to join it.
Ah, dodging the question, common tankie behaviour.
They directly answered your question in its entirety.
You are absolutely right! And there is so much more we should stop doing:
- We protested for more than 150+ years and see where we are now!
- The world did strikes and for over a century and what did it bring us? A dictatorship!
- We opened up communities and grassroot movements, and the only thing they done for us: Donald Trump! We need to stop all of this RIGHT NOW.
- Protests do work, in fact that's how the US got all its amendments, and stopped the imperialist war on Vietnam. The important point, is that this takes place outside of electoralism / officially sanctioned actions within bourgeois democracy. Protests and activism also meet fierce resistance from US police, the domestic enforcers of capitalist rule, primarily because it's outside of their rigged "vote for capitalist puppet" game.
Nowadays liberals are doing their best to cripple the anti-war movement again by discouraging protests, and increasingly corral people into voting. They stood against the Iraq-war protests, just as they stand against pro-palestine protestors now.
Hey I agree with you on pretty much everything else, but the Vietnam and Iraq war protests are bad examples of efficacy. They were necessary, and should have been bigger, but both those wars went on for like 20 years.
With Vietnam I think the US protest movement played a significant role in the defeat(the docu Sir no Sir! has a good overview of it), less so with recent US wars. But that's also due to the size and growth of the US police state, it's imprisoning of activists, and it's better ability to minimize the efficacy of protests.
But ya I agree with the US rightward turn since the 1980s, it's union and anti-war movements have been on life support. The historian J Sakai thinks that US unionism fully died by then (especially if you look at stats like strikes per year, which dropped to single digits).
Both voting and not voting have the same effect. Nothing. It is not a democracy and pretending you are in one does fuck all.
- votes Kamala
- at least 51% of others do the same
- Kamala wins
Explain again how voting and not voting does the same? I know the first past the post system is horrible, but saying that voting does nothing is disingenuous.
This is false, multiple presidents won more than 51% of the vote and lost. Your elections are decided by election riggers during redistricting. It is called gerrymandering. You live in a corrupt society that uses voting and a circus every few years to mollify you. Even if Kamala won, which was basically impossible based on how the districts were drawn, you'd still live in a capitalist dictatorship that would be every bit as bad as it is now. You would still be causing wars around the world, you would still have homeless people everywhere, and most people would still be living pay check to paycheck while she did absolutely nothing. Kamala Harris is a manager of capitalism, not leader in any sense. You have absolutely no vote or say in the people who run your country, the board members of Goldman Sachs, Chase, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and the rest.
The sad thing is, trump won even the popular vote. And, even with gerrymandering, voting still makes a change, if even a small one.
Also, are you saying trump and kamala are the same lmfao
It's clear that you are completely unaware of the history of the US democratic party as controlled opposition, and how thoroughly evil they are.
Here's what the Biden administration did to Palestine:
Some more on your party:
Even if one accepts the argument that voting is not productive, that doesn't inherently justify not participating. There's plenty of things people do daily that are not productive or useful uses of their time.
Please demonstrate the harm caused by voting in the presidential elections.
Even if it's not productive, it takes at absolute worst case living in a hellscape without properly staffed polling places, one day out of your time every four years. I was able to do it and get back to my shit in 30 minutes this time, from the time I left home to the time I got back.
So even if it's useless, for me it was the same as sitting on my ass and watching a TV show. Explain why that is such a horrendous waste of my time that I should have instead not done it at all.
The harm is simple, people get the illusion they're making a difference and that it's enough, it also legitimizes voting as the way to change things despite ample evidence it doesn't.
This leads to Dems hating protestors, or telling protestors to protest quietly and no in the road. This leads to liberals hating the working class when they go in strike, because why didn't they just vote for better conditions. It leads to liberals hating anything useful, because they already did the only 'useful' thing and voted.
This leads to lesser evilism and accepting institutions as the foundation of society, instead of any ideology that will positively change things.
ah good, lemmy hasn't changed a bit since i left it 2 months ago
welp see you losers next year
Thankfully you left me this message so I can block you and never hear from you ever again.
It’s all of you.
Not me. I want the zealots all beheaded. Yea, what they're doing is illegal and I also* voted. But now it's chop chop time. I should start a website to get 15% of the population to agree with me on a specific day. Kind of like The General Strike. But with more axe.
OK. But what are you actually doing right now? What are any of us doing right now?
Learning about firearms to teach targeted groups. Teaching people about online alternatives for secure communication. Maintaining an antiICE communication network. Building an independent news source RSS so friends and family can get off Meta.
You?
Dem's aren't even putting in the minimum effort into pretending to be an opposition party.
They're gladly letting it all burn because they lazily expect it to mean easy wins in 2026. Then they'll manage to barely take the House and maaaaybe Senate, and literally do nothing with it.
cuz that worked so well this year. got booty clapped by a felon. utterly waffle stomped right back to the segregation days by this diaper clad casino salesman.
they're fucking done. they ain't participating in 2026 as anything but a joke write-in
Suggestions?
Read and learn from successful revolutions, and the Marxist tradition in general, which correctly identifies both the root problem, and has a wealth of historical experiences for how to defeat it, the correct and incorrect roads taken, and what worked/didn't. Join working-class parties, and organize for our own interests, so that sociopaths who would be happy sacrificing all of us for the sake of profits, don't control society.
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml keeps an excellent study guide here, and I have one here.
Thank you, Dessalines. I of course remember your welcome when I first showed up in some instance in Lemmy. I admire the work and the structure of this alternative to social media and I quickly became aware that much of its success is due to your efforts. I have presumed they are all volunteer?
I am grateful for the two reading lists.
I have started one of the audio books already — one I’ve been telling myself I’d read forever.
But I’ll ask — considering how brutal and distorted much of what has been associated with this work became, how do people remain idealistic and hopeful about it?
If you take a gander at my last few posts, you’ll discover I’ve just been sharing a 3 second image of a swastika being blown upanywhere I can manage it. We all know where Trump is headed… same exact thing that happened to Hitler. I say we get to the end of this the sooner the better. I don’t know how to stay positive.
The idea that any of these theories have become “brutal and distorted” is incredibly dishonest. Please tell us about this trend of this occurring and not the trend of Marxism correctly analyzing material conditions in a scientific manner. Please tell us about how millions weren’t lifted out of poverty by China, Vietnam, Cuba, the USSR, Laos, DPR Korea, and many other states influenced by MLism. Your comment stinks of ignorance. Mao’s Combat Liberalism explains how your thinking is reactionary and ridiculous. When you have not investigated history, you have no right to comment on history.
I'm not Dessalines, but as the curator of the other list, I can do my best to answer.
When you say that Marxism has become "brutal and distorted," I think you're operating from a mindset and understanding rooted in Western culture and education. I would say, based on my research and reading into AES (Actually Existing Socialism), these countries such as Cuba, the PRC, and the former USSR all apply Marxist understanding and methods to amazing effect.
The Red Scare never ended, and being aware that it existed isn't enough to actually understand what AES is like. The history of AES, and the conditions within those countries, is not reported faithfully or honestly in the West, so it is very difficult. That doesn't mean they are perfect, but it means they are real, and come with real victories for the Working Class.
That's why the opening sections of my reading list include Blackshirts and Reds as well as Dr. Michael Parenti's 1986 lecture, these 2 really give an eye-opening look into the mythology and demonization of AES in the west, and how that process is intentional and persists to this day.
To circle back to your question, Marxists are hopeful because Marxism works, we know this and see it happening. We learn from the mistakes our predecessors made and we promise to carry their work forward.
As a final side-note, regarding the Nazis: it was the Red Army that did 80% of the fighting against the Nazis. We have Marxists to thank for the defeat of the Nazis, and we can do it again.
I’m surely not here to argue.
What do marxists think of North Korea?
And you are correct that my “education” has been little more than capitalist brainwashing, but what’s true about the millions that Stalin is supposed to have massacred?
Generally, the DPRK is seen similarly to Cuba, they would be doing far better if the US Empire wasn't sanctioning them directly to cause harm. As for Stalin, it depends on what you're talking about, the Great Purge had no more than 700,000 condemned to death, and that doesn't mean every one of them was actually executed. Stalin certainly wasn't a saint, but at the same time he wasn't worse than Hitler and killed 10-20 million like the Black Book of Communism would have you think.
Ultimately though, Marxism isn't "become DPRK" or "be Stalin." I think you have to study Marxism more to understand why those questions largely don't matter for building Socialism. I suggest you read Blackshirts and Reds.
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Just try to tell them the parties are the same. I've been pilloried three times, they cut my balls off, and I'm set to be hung tomorrow at dusk.
See?! See?!
Yeah, there is a reason my instance doesn't have downvotes or federates with the lemmy.world idiots
Glad I finally got off world and can see your comments again. Missed you. Not trying to be weird, I just like your style.
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The current moment is like the recent wildfires. All this trash built up over the years and it sort of has to have its time to burn out. Everything just has to find a way to survive it until it runs out of fuel. When the pendulum swings back the other direction, just be ready to rebuild from the natural disaster.
Sorry. But this is total crap. A dictatorship won't burn out by itself. People need to fight for freedom and democracy over and over again. It is not for granted!
The current moment is like the recent wildfires. All this trash built up over the years and it sort of has to have its time to burn out. Everything just has to find a way to survive it until it runs out of fuel. When the pendulum swings back the other direction, just be ready to rebuild from the natural disaster.
-Author unknown, February 1933
They can't do that. The simple rule of LAW IN THIS COUNTRY should be enough to stop them. All we have to do is remove them from power. Where is the Democrats gathering part of our military and law enforcement to oust these people from our government? This is all it takes. Our country has very clear, simple laws that prohibit exactly what is going on right the fuck now from happening, and it's still happening. Why? Because they're afraid they'll be seen as the same as the people from 6 January? That it will give these asshats some sort of ammunition against actual justice? Fuck them. Fuck them, throw them out, lock them up, and re-educate the people that this shit isn't going to be tolerated. We can remove them forcefully because they did something wrong, they couldn't remove anyone because we didn't.
It's that goddamn simple. How is it not that goddamn simple? Fucking do something. Fucking throw these fuckers out. Now. Not next election cycle, not whenever a bunch of people want to finally get off their ass and violently rebel, fucking right now.
In your country your political parties operate as one and the politics are managed by the oligarchy. Everything is occurring exactly as your business dictatorship wants.
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