That philosophy could also apply to choosing not to vote. You don't like the system? Look away.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
36 points (66.1% liked)
Not voting (in your election)
62 readers
1 users here now
Place to hang out, memes, share experiences or just vent.
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.
Coming here to argue about voting will result in a ban.
Be kind to each other & follow the server rules.
Be specifically aware that not everyone here is from the so called USA.
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
top 14 comments
sorted by:
hot
top
controversial
new
old
Voting wont change the system.
So what are you doing instead?
Working on a popular mass movement with unions, mutual aid groups, etc.
Historically, that's how progress was achieved. Not by begging the powerful for breadcrumbs.
Why not just do both (voting and other movements)?
You can still vote. I don't really care. I just said that voting will never change the system.
It's not a question of doing both, it's a question of campaigning (not just voting) and social movements. People keep thinking “why can't people vote and do social movements?” when it reality it's actually a question of campaigning and social movements.
Some people really don't participate in campaigns, focus on movements, and still vote, that's the ideal, but what we are actually seeing is not that. What we are seeing are movements being stripped mined for votes through campaigning. To endorse is to campaign, to campaign is to defend. Under normal conditions there's little wrong with that. But these are not normal conditions. Defense of the candidate means defense of the program and that program means genocide for Palestinians and trans people, concentration camps for migrants, militarization of police, mass death, mass ecocide, and mass plunder. Harris stands for all of these.
Don't like the system? Organize to take it down. That's what I'm actually doing with real praxis. All you have is your alienated and atomized agency of the vote. That's all you have. I have organization. I have theory. I have praxis.
Imagine thinking that making abstentionism posts is Praxis.
Anarchism necessitates democratic processes. Arguing that democracy is incompatible with anarchism requires you to choose to use an overly complex definition, and the resulting rhetoric you need to engage in is hamstrung by the extra reframing steps you have to go through for people to understand your position.
You can engage in direct action and also vote at the same time. Advocating for extensionism is itself a way of engaging in electoralism, and so if engaging in electoralism is bad on principle, then advocating for abstentionism is bad as well.
Good job being useless.
You're conflating democracy with electoralism.
Anarchism requires democracy. But liberal representative democracy isn't the only democratic system. So it can be denounced by anarchists, while they are still in favour of democracy.
Imagine thinking that making abstentionism posts is Praxis.
Propaganda is praxis.
Wow, look at all these hairs you're splitting to justify garbage political tactics.
Are you seriously insinuating that the idea of a liberal representative national democracy (with a police force, judges and parliament) is in line with actual anarchist thought? Because it sure seems like you are by claiming I'm "splitting hairs".