ID: photo of Martin Luther King Jr. waving at the crowd during the March on Washington, on it is his quote: “He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
I feel like it should be a normal thing to openly stand against fascism. If anyone has a problem with me because of that then they’ve proven themselves to be people I would never want to interact with in the first place
In a similar vein, anyone eligible to vote and chooses not to implicitly supports whoever wins.
Not necessarily, not in the US’s system for President, at least. If you don’t live in a swing state, your vote is literally a waste of time. Doesn’t matter who you support or don’t.
lol no, I’m not going to get mad at my neighbors, I’m going to get mad at people who are actively trying to hurt them, not the ones accidentally doing it
The problem isn’t that fascists were voted into the White House. The problem is that there are fascists in the White House. Anything that doesn’t address that problem is equally implicit in supporting fascism. Arguing with your neighbors doesn’t get fascists out of the White House. If history is anything to go by it has obviously done the opposite
I think they are linked. Democracy can only work and thrive with an educated and/or informed population who is willing and able to have public and civil discourse. The fact that the political climate is the way it is now, so divided and only engaging to act on petty revenges, allows for fascism to take root. We saw this in Germany prior to the second World War. When NSDAP began beating people up in the street who opposed their ideology, with little repercussions for such behavior, led to the beer hall putsch, and eventually the rise of Herr Hitler. I can see parallels with the modern day political climate of America. The issue is that we voted them into the white house; I think that might even be more jarring than them being in there itself. Democratically voting a fascist in power is a tell tale sign that our democracy is not working.
And anyone who votes for genocide without even bothering to vote uncomitted in the primary is a genocider themselves.
Do you join the KKK and vote for the “harm reduction” candidate for grand wizard?
No, you bootlickers can repeat the same bullshit party lines and shove your heads up your ass as far as you please to maintain your personal comfort and shield yourself from reality (and from those actually responsible for and who benefit from fascism, which you miraculously never confront or even hold accountable, and are freely willing to
compromise withgive in to), but that doesn’t change it - participating in an oppressive system, and voting for one of either oppressive parties designated to you by those benefiting from that system to placate you with an illusion of choice is literally the opposite of protesting said system (E: never even mind that the idea that you can vote fascism away is beyond ignorant and laughable in its own right, it’s demonstrably wrong)TL;DR: your vote didn’t protest shit, it was manufactured consent for the status quo, get off your fucking high horse
The problem with having these arguments online is that you don’t actually know what nonentity did besides vote. What did you do? I’ve gone to rallies, I’ve written my representatives, I helped out at my college’s Gaza camp, I wrote and called my college’s chancellor about the Gaza camp, I’ve distributed literature about Palestine. And I fucking voted, uncommitted and then Harris, because as public enemy #1b (trans) I don’t have the privilege to let whoever wins win. Because people couldn’t be bothered to do the bare minimum and take an hour or two to go vote for the lesser evil, the government is erasing me from existence.
I’m genuinely curious what vote of mine didn’t protest shit, given that I’m not, nor ever have been, a Seppo.
Listen to holiday in Cambodia, maybe it will help you leftist tankies
better a leftist tankie than fascist trash or a centrist with no beliefs.
I get why you want that but are you sure any of your plans make economical sense.
I’m just a libertarian, more power government has left or right its gonna oppress us better to just reduce it to bare minimum.
The other two are just fascism with extra steps.
Complacency is complicity
Exactly.
You know, a lot of comments are bringing up voting like there was any chance of votes preventing this. A lifetime of gerrymandering, court stacking, propaganda, and general fuckery led to this, and the only question was when the religious right wing and oligarchs made their move
Voting? That’s not shit.
What matters is real change brought by real people.
The people that didn’t vote? That wasn’t all protest non participation. Voter turnout has always been low because the average person just does not care.
Which means they won’t care if the people that do care tear down the currently successful right wing revolution with a counter revolution. All you have to do is keep just enough comfort during transition, and nobody will lift a finger from that group. They will not give a flying fuck at all.
Frankly, even if they did care, they’re also the segment least able to do a damn thing about any of it. They lack the will, the training, and the functional personal motivation to do anything but hunker down and wait, even if their comfort level does drop to the bottom.
I can’t say that’s good or bad, but it is what it is.
It’s up to the people that care to make changes. Right now, the right seems to care a fuck ton more than anyone else, so they’re pulling it off.
What do you mean votes couldn’t prevent this? You really think if Kamala had won by the electoral college that Trump would have won anyways??
I’m saying that this is the end goal the right wing, particularly the general Republican party and the Christian right in particular have been working towards since Nixon. The southern strategy, combined with the oligarchs dominating the party.
Democrats have never had a good plan to oppose that, and still don’t.
Even if Kamala had won, which was never likely, it would have been someone, at some point in the next fifty years because the first Trump term stacked the supreme court, and the party pushed hard to put decisive cases up.
There’s no way the halfassed efforts that democrats have been using my entire lifetime would have prevented an eventual lock on Congress and the presidency.
Mind you, I’m fairly convinced that had kamala won, there was a plan in the works for an outright attack. Not a genuine right wing revolution scale attack, but a disruptive series of attacks on the power grid and infrastructure to sow chaos and strengthen the militarization of the police even more, get people used to marshal law, etc. But that’s impossible to prove, and unsourceable.
In a roundabout way, any democrat winning would have had exactly as much effect on their long term plans. They’ve been working at this, laying multiple options down so that as soon as opportunity rose, they could strike in one way or another.
Voting can’t fix that. Voting democrat can’t fix that for sure. There is no viable alternative party to oppose it, and there’s no time to build one, despite the feeble bullshit being tried to rebuild the democrat establishment. You can’t take a party that gives lip service to the populace, but works to maintain the status quo of corporate interests on average, and turn it into a serious engine of change.
We’re past the point of waiting four years and hoping. We were past that when Biden eked out a win. But nobody took that respite to even try and shift things.
“Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented”
- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize 1986
Quoted from his acceptance speech -
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/acceptance-speech/Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Liberated from Buchenwald in 1945 by advancing Allied troops, he was taken to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne and worked as a journalist.
They took a side, its just not a side you’ll admit exists.
When everyone loses faith in the current and future DNC to the point that accelerationism toward complete disolution of the US government seems like the only viable choice, this is what it looks like.
The DNC being in favor of genocide steered muslim voters to want to burn this whole place down. Can you blame them? And its similar for the working poor who are one toothache or splean surgery from living under a bridge. I dont blame them either. But you seem to.
The very visible nationwide rage at the United Health care CEO and the dems being out to lunch on working class struggles-- coupled with the losses across every single demographic shows that this is a universal truth that exists whether you like it to or not. And this isnt about healthcare, its about the entire system of government.
I take the side of the minority!
^Lemmy ^says ^Republicans ^are ^the ^minority
I always go beans and potato salad.
Does this include not voting because one is a single issue voter?
Edit: lmao, yall will really say whatever to justify your decision to make things worse.
Depends on the severity of the single issue @plastic_ramses. Was slavery a ‘single issue’? is genocide? Are they just ‘single issues’ like school vouchers and saving the spotted owl?
No they are not. I dont understand why you cant see that. Its not complicated.
Your whole argument is designed to excuse yourself from any critical thought and allow your leaders to shackle you to any outcome they please. And maybe thats all you’re good for, frankly.
Absolutely. Non-voters and “protest” voters chose not to oppose a known fascist. Their refusal to strategically use their voice has led to increased suffering of minorities, LGBTQ+, and likely an end to any semblance of US democracy.
Yeah, well, they’ve done it, 95 million Americans didn’t vote. Now what?
Are we gonna point the finger at them, lay the blame at their feet, and feel superior because WE VOTED, while the oligarchs and fascists loot our treasury and put our minority and LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters you seem to care so much about in camps? Or are we gonna go and fight the good fight like the people out in LA yesterday?
Thank you for also making this point. There’s a lot of with to do. In-person protests, education and outreach, mutual aid and are some of the necessary avenues. Not everyone is able to march but there are many other ways to contribute to the fight.
Are we gonna point the finger at them, lay the blame at their feet,
Absolutely.
If those 95 million would’ve voted together for Mike the local crackhead, Mike would’ve won the popular vote with about 20 million votes to spare… I don’t know, seems stupid to me to just go on the Internet to complain and then not use one of the only tools you have in a democracy?
I understand that going out voting is “accepting the system” but that is the only legal way to bring about change. If you don’t want to support the system that’s fine, work to dismantle it, take the fight to them. But just staying at home, doing nothing and then saying “I told you so” is just dumb.
Not only this but, if those non-voters organized and taken action in the last half-century, they would have been able to move the Overton to the Left, instead of the unending Right-ward crawl that we’ve been seeing. That could have prevented the likes of Clinton and Thatcher and erosion of workers’ rights.
I understand your point, but as you said:
But just staying at home, doing nothing and then saying “I told you so” is just dumb.
There are people WHO VOTED who are doing this, because it’s “not their responsibility” anymore.
There are people WHO VOTED who are doing this, because it’s “not their responsibility” anymore.
There are a lot of people like this, they did the bare minimum and feel like that’s enough, I mean at least it’s something? Still far from enough, I agree with that.
In these times I often think about the Berthold Brecht poem “Wer Zuhause bleibt”-“Whoever stays at home”.
Wer zu Hause bleibt, wenn der Kampf beginnt Und lässt andere kämpfen für seine Sache Der muss sich vorsehen: denn Wer den Kampf nicht geteilt hat Der wird teilen die Niederlage. Nicht einmal den Kampf vermeidet Wer den Kampf vermeiden will: denn Es wird kämpfen für die Sache des Feinds Wer für seine eigene Sache nicht gekämpft hat.
Translation :
Whoever stays at home when the fight begins and lets others fight for his cause must beware: For whoever has not shared the fight will share the defeat. Not even avoiding the fight helps anymore, because he who has not fought (for his own cause) has fought for the cause of the enemy.
Italics added by me
This right here.
Yeah, well, they’ve done it, 95 million Americans didn’t vote. Now what?
Y’all really are unble to take any kind of accountability whatsoever. “It’s done so it’s not relevant anymore” is a textbook example of what abusers say.
Are we gonna point the finger at them, lay the blame at their feet
Yes, absolutely. Non-voters are neglectful assholes whose inaction has had devastating impacts for multiple different countries. You are all just typical abusers trying to escape accountability.
Love that you assume I’m a non-voter, when nowhere in my comment implies that. You didn’t even read it, or my replies to the OP (who actually made good points btw, unlike you). But sure, whatever helps you feel better right now.
You are all just typical abusers trying to escape accountability.
This is such an insulting statement to people who actually go through abusive systems that I can’t even fathom why you would write this. No one who is in activism and mutual aid spaces would say this with a straight face.
Voting (and in any other way participating) in an oppressive system (E: and for an oppressive party, either way) is literally the opposite of protesting it.
Welcome to the point lmao
MLK: Moderates might be literally worse than the KKK
Libs: Yeah but have you considered that you’re racist if you don’t vote for someone actively trying to make your life worse
Without fucking fail.
And all with an overinflated and unearned sense of self righteousness to replace the deep sense of irony, and shame, they should be feeling.
with an overinflated and unearned sense of self righteousness
This describes every single one of the non-voters and protest voters I’ve interacted with perfectly.
Cry harder lib. “I know you are but what am I” 💀 my kindergarten age brother wants his insult back.
Refusing to use one’s voice strategically to prevent increased suffering is an example of cooperating with evil.
supporting genocide now for some vague possibility of fighting against genocdie 4 years from now is an example of cooperating with evil.
There is nothing “strategic” about unconditionally voting for the Democratic party.
There is, to those whose strategy is to give themselves a pat on the back for doing the barest of bare minimum and successfully maintaining the status quo, rather than doing anything actually useful to oppose fascism (or the capitalism that will always decay in to it), or in the words of MLK himself those “more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice” - it gives them a dopamine hit and an ego boost so potent they seem able to ride on the smell of their own farts for 4 years at a time while doing fuck all else to change society for the better (for anyone but themselves, that is) because they’ve already “done their part”, and is seemingly all they need to convince themsleves they’re the brave hero-saviours of humanity, rather than the enablers of fascism they actually are.
It’s precisely why the second cult exists - to provide an illusion of choice (E: and of impact), and make “the left” (I can’t even type that without cracking up, but part of the cult is being convinced they are “the left”) feel like they’re fighting the establishment, when in reality, they’re holding it up just as much as the other cult is, some might argue, even more, because they’ll turn on those actually opposing fascism long before they’ll dare be rude to fascists.
There absolutely is, whether privileged non-voters and anti-electoralists perceive it or not. Enabling fascists to take over literally is making life worse for everyone. Voting for non-fascists and putting in work outside of the general election to try to push the party left is how strategic voting works, or would work if those claiming to care about ending genocide and improving the human condition were actually serious about doing anything but circle-jerking about how morally superior they are for enabling expansion of the genocide in Palestine and the one against LGBTQ+ people in the US that’s now kicking off.
You don’t even want them!!! You’re using an idealized version of them, that does not exist to convince me that anything else is “enabling fascism”. They’re capitalists!! They don’t give a fuck about you if you do not serve their bottom line. Your unconditional vote only serves to legitimize them and prevent any other parties from gaining legitimacy, you cannot singlehandedly win them the election if they are not doing the work to earn the people’s vote!!!
You have the privilege of not recognizing that. You belong to a class that still serves their capital interests of nominally appearing progressive but acting fucking incompetent and feckless when they are in a position to do anything to materially improve the lives of the vast majority of americans, somehow convincing the public that our “democracy” is anything other than a sham. You have the privilege of the identity politics, that they drive between us like a wedge and only pretend to care about, that they actively damage by divorcing them from their real material basis, that distract from very real issues which the establishment parties don’t even bother pretending to give you a choice on anymore, being your single fucking issue.
The Democrats will not be pushed left, they fucking despise the left and take every opportunity they get to destroy and delegitimize leftist movements. Look at any of their actions this election!! Actually listen to them when they talk!! When the Republicans attack them for being too left, for defending trans people, for defending immigrants, look at how they crumble and fall back instead of defending their positions. Look at how they let the Republicans look like anti-war candidates. It would be so easy to disprove any republican talking point, if the Democrats actually believed in anything other than putting on a show for their donors. They let the Republicans define what the acceptable positions are, and you let them get away with it because of imaginary “moderate” voters that this election should have proved do not exist without a single person defending left wing positions nationally and driving the less engaged voters away from the right.
Who is defending the homeless, the imprisoned, the food insecure, the migrants, the minimum wage workers, the invisible victims of natural disasters, the people at the fucking mercy of the healthcare industry??? Our planet!!! Not to mention the people our tax dollars are murdering on the other side of the planet!! I could go on!!! You let your party turn their backs on them for fucking identity politics, because you are privileged enough to avoid coming to terms with the fact we’ve already lost any sense of electoral democracy on the issues that actually stand to improve the human condition!!! You only care about what personally affects and is visible to you.
The Democrats are not a tool for the left, they are not a weapon against the right, they are the left wing of the very capitalist establishment that got us here in the first place and they are nothing but an obstacle to clear on the way to forming a legitimate populist left wing movement in this country.
You don’t even want them!!!
You’re damn right. But neolib shitheads are still better than literal fascists and cause less harm in a given period of time.
Literally the only reason that we have been seeing regression for half a century is apathy and my fellow leftist fooling themselves into believing that which is not reflected in statistical data, with religious fervor. Refusing to use every tool available and instead going straight to “let’s try to force a violent revolution” is both self-sabotage and betrayal of the working class and vulnerable groups. No workers’ revolution has any chance without popular support and increasing the harm experienced by the working class and vulnerable groups in hopes of forcing it is using them as involuntary human sacrifices for something that has never been shown to work in recorded human history. Generally, it just leads to increased levels of oppression.
Who is defending the homeless, the imprisoned, the food insecure, the migrants, the minimum wage workers, the invisible victims of natural disasters, the people at the fucking mercy of the healthcare industry???
Not the people who chose inaction, that’s for sure.
Our planet?!?!
Also, not the people who enabled a fascist closely aligned with the UAE and Saudis, that was quoted before the election “Drill, baby, drill!”. And I’ve not heard a peep about monkeywrenching or other effective direct action since the 90s, which tells me that non-voting environmentalists are talking the talk but not walking the walk.
Not to mention the people our tax dollars are murdering on the other side of the planet!!
Who decides (under the US Constitution) where tax dollars get spent? The US Congress. No Leftist change in government fiscal policy is likely to occur without Leftists in government positions. As it is a FPTP system, the only way for Leftists to get into elected office is by taking over an established party by winning down ballot elections (something that the grifting Greens never try for).
I could go on!!!
You very much could. The Democratic party is a party of and for wealthy neolibs.
You let your party
Not my party, I’m ideologically an anarcho-syndicalist and no elected party in the history of this country has come close to representing me. They are, however, the only one not openly fascist/theofascist.
turn their backs on them for fucking identity politics, because you are privileged enough to avoid coming to terms with the fact we’ve already lost any sense of electoral democracy on the issues that actually stand to improve the human condition!!!
Fuck yeah, I’m privileged as fuck. I’m a cis-het white male that was raised in a middle-class family that practiced protestant Christianity and had early exposure to computers before they were a big deal. Sure, I’m fucked in other ways, like really childhood trauma, but the only way that I could have been more privileged in the birth lottery would have been to be born in a higher socioeconomic segment.
The reason, according to the data and statistics, that we have lost any sense of electoral democracy on the issues that actually stand to improve the human condition (I agree that that is, in fact, where we’ve been for at least a decade) is because of voter apathy and non-voting. In a system where the will of the populace is communicated through voting, not voting is accepting whatever the reliable voters (right-wing authoritarians) decide. It is offering no resistance or effort to defend those who are in precarious socioeconomic situations.
You only care about what personally affects and is visible to you.
Quite the contrary (and actually something that I have worked with my therapist on coping with as my neuro-spiciness amplifies my perception of and mental load taken by things that are unjust, and I have historically valued others’ well-being above my own). I care a lot, which has led to mental health issues and challenges in my life. Those that I care about most and owe my allegiance to are the underprivileged and regular working class people (those who suffer most in social infrastructure collapse and war - the deaths of starvation and preventable disease that are usually invisible to these championing violent revolution).
The Democrats are not a tool for the left, they are not a weapon against the right, they are the left wing of the very capitalist establishment that got us here in the first place and they are nothing but an obstacle to clear on the way to forming a legitimate populist left wing movement in this country.
You’re damn right about that to. But, there are more of us than there are of them. All it would have taken was engagement of leftists in the electoral process, taking over the party over time, and forcing it to represent the people. Instead, they have decided to mostly sit out every election in my lifetime, doing nothing to force lasting change in the established order and capitulating the vote again and again to the Right.
Hell, they couldn’t even be bothered to show up down ballot for things like banning forced labor in California. How can one claim to want to build a better world while implicitly supporting human slavery and hoping for people to suffer and die the unnecessary deaths caused to non-combatants in every war? Anti-electoralism/accelerationism as a tool for the Left is bunk, it’s only ever, by available data, helped the Right.
Jesus christ, I wish I had access to the military grade copium you are on right now.
Hey idk, maybe if half the energy that was spent blaming and shaming voters; into using their only legal collective bargaining power to endorse a party that they don’t actually want, that doesn’t even pretend to work in their interest or that of broader humanity, that is currently voting away your rights right alongside republicans, and fucking lost the election anyways; was instead spent on building up an actually functioning independent left wing party, movement, or undercurrent; on building up independent aid networks and leftist coalitions; the situation would be different.
Maybe if instead of running defense for genocide and complicity, we showed the people that alternative forms of engagement that are actually rewarding, do exist, and build up enough power to stand up for ourselves and show the left wing of the capitalist class that actual action is necessary if they want to keep up their charade; or to take their place when the people see the charade for what it is; we would have won some concessions and actually improved people’s lives instead of the best we can collectively hope for being that they don’t get worse.
You are correct. We are not out numbered, we are out organized. Spending your time pushing anti democratic propaganda in promotion of the Democratic party is not going to magically organize the working class or make the Democrats less right wing.
No, but be my guest, go and work with the Democrats and see where that gets you. You’re definitely the first leftist ever in history to have thought of using the supposed left wing party as an actual left wing party and definitely aren’t going to be spit out and blacklisted by the party, which is completely captured by the capitalist class, as soon as it tastes any hint of legitimate anti-establishment or anti-capitalist sentiment. The powers that be just have zero mechanism of maintaining their dominance over the ruling class, and this is really how the Democratic party just organically formed on its own with zero influence by capital. It’s just human nature that the people in power in a democracy where anyone, including leftists, can supposedly wield power, would just stop using that power to materially improve people’s lives even in order to get elected! I’ve never spoken to actual leftists organizers who have successfully accomplished anything or read a fucking book written by one in my life, and I can’t possibly see what could go wrong, because my political engagement begins and ends at the ballot box and complaining about how other people use their democratic rights on online forums. /s
If the democrats want to shoot their own party in the foot by all but abandoning populist rhetoric, fucking let them. Use the opportunity of the biggest threat to leftist organization and revolutionary optimism, finally stumbling over their own incompetence and contradictory interests, to build up and defend a party that will actually stand for your rights.
Found the person who didnt use all available options of protest.
You don’t understand I can do more good by withholding my vote and standing outside with my witty sign (for a few hours).
Yes because so much is earned in this country by sitting around and waiting for politicians to do the right thing.
I need to do more protests . I always seem to hear about them after the event, or they’re always in London or something
Your state capitol building on Wednesday at noon. Every state.
Fuck that. Protesting today ain’t what it was in his day. There ain’t much sanity left anymore and don’t matter how you try to stand let alone move.
They had dogs let loose on them.
They were beaten.
They were sprayed with water cannons capable of taking you off your feet and throwing your body into whatever hard object stops it.
They were arrested.
They were lynched.
It was not easy then and it won’t be easy now.
That’s not what I’m talking about at all. Back in that day, we fought and it fucking counted against the man’s capability. Then in the 70’s, everyone was all pathetic to no acceptance by the man who suffered nothing for the “protests” and about jack fucking shit has happened since to any effect.
So… Don’t protest* evil. Got it. 🙄
(*on a more serious note, you having a narrow and wilfully ignorant view of what protesting actually means doesn’t change the fact that not protesting evil makes you complicit with it)
No. Don’t is right. Fucking kill it. Telling someone who is evil will never stop it. Removing his means of being evil will be your only successful method. Don’t misunderstand my first expression murder doesn’t remove the means and anyone else will simply take their place.
Until it happens so often others are scared to take their place.
Fear is delusion.
Okay buddy. You so brave. ❤️
No, I just have very little useful emotion. When I do, it’s of very little practical or logical sense so I tend to disregard it and do the math instead.
