I voted for the “harm reduction” vote in the 2016 Presidential election. Mar Roxas wasn’t great, but he was better than Duterte. Surprise, surprise, Duterte won. Hundreds of thousands died.

For the 2022 Presidential election, I voted for a principled vote for Leody de Guzman. Surprise, surprise, the Marcos dynasty returns to power.

Then people are treating Biden/Trump round 2 as top priority. Newsflash, if democracy was at stake in the election, then you don’t have democracy. I’ve been watching the Biden administration from afar. Biden, Trump, they’re the same. Same killer police. Same concentration camps at the border. Same prison industrial complex. Same trans genocide. Same abortion bans. No meaningful climate action. And now, a genocide in Gaza. Biden doesn’t care. Voting isn’t harm reduction.

"In other news" Biden is probably about to be condemned along with Israel for genocide in the ICJ: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/2/south_africa_israel_genocide_icj

BEFORE YOU DOWNVOTE LIKE SHEEPLE, READ THE ARTICLE FIRST AND THEN COMMENT WHY YOU DISAGREE, THEN, AND ONLY THEN, OUGHT YOU DOWNVOTE

We don’t dismiss the reality that, on the scale of U.S. settler colonial violence, even the slightest degree of harm can mean life or death for those most vulnerable. What we assert here is that the entire notion of “voting as harm reduction” obscures and perpetuates settler-colonial violence, there is nothing “less harmful” about it, and there are more effective ways to intervene in its violences.

If there’s a line to get on a crowded bus, do you wait your turn and refrain from elbowing your way past others even in the absence of police?

If you answered “yes”, then you are used to acting like an anarchist!

Are you a member of a club or sports team or any other voluntary organization where decisions are not imposed by one leader but made on the basis of general consent?

If you answered “yes”, then you belong to an organization which works on anarchist principles!

Do you believe that most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine who don’t really care about the public interest? Do you think we live in an economic system which is stupid and unfair?

If you answered “yes”, then you subscribe to the anarchist critique of today’s society — at least, in its broadest outlines.

Do you really believe those things you tell your children (or that your parents told you)?

“It doesn’t matter who started it.” “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” “Clean up your own mess.” “Do unto others...” “Don’t be mean to people just because they’re different.” Perhaps we should decide whether we’re lying to our children when we tell them about right and wrong, or whether we’re willing to take our own injunctions seriously. Because if you take these moral principles to their logical conclusions, you arrive at anarchism.

Do you believe that human beings are fundamentally corrupt and evil, or that certain sorts of people (women, people of color, ordinary folk who are not rich or highly educated) are inferior specimens, destined to be ruled by their betters?

If you answered “yes”, then, well, it looks like you aren’t an anarchist after all. But if you answered “no”, then chances are you already subscribe to 90% of anarchist principles, and, likely as not, are living your life largely in accord with them.

It's an election year, so the usual suspects are going to be screaming that any good person will vote party line Democrat and if you don't you're letting the fascists win and you're a a bad person and a bad liberal/leftist/anarchist/communist/whatever.

Of course, every candidate from every major political party is a fascist of some flavor, but "you have to vote for the slightly better fascist or the slightly worse fascist will win" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Just a reminder that voting is not the default, it's not a civic duty, it's not a requirement of being a good member of your community.

Voting, for United States citizens, is the personal choice to participate in one specific form of capitalist neoliberal politics - a form that claims the mantle of democracy while being one of the most profoundly undemocratic forms of government in history.

Don't shame people for not voting.

Don't shame people for voting third party.

Don't shame people for write-in votes or protest votes.

Frankly, don't talk about voting with random people at all. The choice to vote, or not, is a personal moral choice. You have no right to assume that someone considers voting to be a moral act - and there are strong arguments that voting in the United States is a profoundly immoral act - and assuming someone is a voter and asking them to pick a candidate to vote for is no different than assuming someone supports sex work and asking them to pick a sex worker to employ.

If you know someone is a registered voter, go ahead and talk to them about voting. But keep in mind voting third party, or abstaining from voting in a specific election, are also legitimate moral and political choices, and shaming someone for not voting party line Democrat is offensive, counterproductive, and rude.

And if you don't know someone is a voter, don't recommend they vote for or against someone or discuss electoral politics in general. Many of us find electoral politics profoundly immoral and the assumption that we would participate in such equally offensive.

Be respectful. Don't vote shame. Thank you.

From the sidebar:

Welcome to all not wanting to vote, not able to vote or just annoyed by the US presidential election taking over Lemmy and other social media.

If you are interested, join and lets build a community through our contributions. Memes and rants are welcome, vote shilling is not.

More at Free Epona Rose, also covered by It's Going Down.

Anarchist historian Spencer Beswick looks back on the intersection of queerness and anarchism within the past 40 years.

Archived Version

While it would be easy to dismiss this as CrimethInc [hereforth the Outlet] cautiously mitigating any potential liability if self-immolation generalizes, the rejection of the framework of martyrdom demands attention. The question is not whether Aaron qualifies as a shahid within the Palestinian context, although demonstrators in Yemen have proclaimed Aaron a “martyr of humanity” and an argument can be made for him having become an anarchist martyr in the lineage of Louis Lingg, Avalon, and Mikhail Vasilievich Zhlobitsky. The bigger issue: the Outlet’s assertion that an individual’s death, particularly in the context of the US, is the “worst of all possible certainties” reveals a deep disconnect with the context of this entire decolonial struggle. In the days following October 7th, anti-colonial anarchist thinkers such as Zoé Samudzi argued that the figure of the martyr marked a fundamental contradiction for the secular left’s ability to fully comprehend and act in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. The martyrs constitute a force in the present for all who live and continue to struggle. Aaron framed his self-immolation as “not that extreme” compared to the ascension to martyrdom of tens of thousands in Gaza. By implying that Aaron’s choice was too extreme, the Outlet dishonors the reality of the struggle within Palestine and undercuts the potential of Aaron’s sacrifice.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/2106935

archived version

For most of America's history, one of the most righteous anti-white supremacist tactics available was looting.

This is from 2014. The same author (Vicky Osterweil) published a book under the same title in 2020, which is kinda a follow up / more in depth look at the topic. You can get in the anarchist library (archived version) or buy it from your local bookstore

The moral of the story is to organize and build movements of resistance even when everything seems lost. My view of anarchism isn’t utopian. In my eyes, every victory, every success, must be immediately perceived as a failure, as a power structure to struggle against and take down. They say perfect is the enemy of good, but that’s only because they lack any imagination and good is never good enough. Imperfection is a constant, but we just keep on fighting, turning victory into defeat into struggle at every turn.

We refuse the instrumentalization of our queerness, our bodies, and the violence we face as queer people to demonize and dehumanize our communities, especially in service of imperial and genocidal acts. We refuse that Palestinian sexuality and Palestinian attitudes towards diverse sexualities become parameters for assigning humanity to any colonized society. We deserve life because we are human, with the multitude of our imperfections, and not because of our proximity to colonial modes of liberal humanity. We refuse colonial and imperialist tactics that seek to alienate us from our society and alienate our society from us, on the basis of our queerness. We are fighting interconnected systems of oppression, including patriarchy and capitalism, and our dreams of autonomy, community, and liberation are inherently tied to our desire for self-determination. No queer liberation can be achieved with settler-colonization, and no queer solidarity can be fostered if it stands blind to the racialized, capitalist, fascist, and imperial structures that dominate us.

We call on queer and feminist activists and groups around the world to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance to displacement, land theft, and ethnic cleansing and their struggle for the liberation of their lands and futures from Zionist settler-colonialism. This call cannot be answered only by sharing statements and signing letters but by an active engagement with decolonial and liberatory struggles in Palestine and around the globe.

Najwan Darwish: Who Remembers the Armenians?

I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I'm drinking it with them

You, murderer ―
Who remembers you?

Sophia Armen: Who Remembers the Palestinians? (after Najwan Darwish)

We do
and I ride the bus to the Nakba protest with them
each day
and my soorj, this morning
We are drinking it with them

You, genocider—
Who remembers you?