cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/15032962

Alt text: a screenshot of a microblog post with the text “you walking down an alleyway with a gram of weed in your pocket, who would you rather catch you?” Below are two pictures side by side. One of Kamala Harris and the other of Batman.

  • nickwitha_k (he/him)English
    15•1 month ago

    Anarchism has a long history of [advocating for abstentionism]

    Yup. And a long history of being ineffectual in making changes on a societal level because of it. Statistically, it’s equivalent to supporting the worst outcomes and building roadblocks to achieving the sustainable systems necessary to support humanity while dismantling unjust hierarchies. Anti-electoralism is so fallacious with the data for context that it nearly seems like a right-wing ploy to suppress leftist voices.

    In fact, this meme is really on-point for this perennial problem and regular Denying the Correlative (“vote third party”). The realistic version would be “which person would you rather meet in an alley when you have drugs on you: a former prosecutor, a nazi, or an imaginary character bourgeois character with Superman Syndrome that isn’t a real choice but counts in favor of the Nazi.”

    Too many fellow anarchists are happy in their ivory towers, pretending that inaction isn’t a choice, and choosing ideological purity over using every tool in the box to keep the patient from dying while treating the sickness. There’s more than enough of us to overwhelm the Right.

    • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
      6•1 month ago

      I don’t tell people to vote or not, people can make that decision themselves, I’m not their master(I keep that in the bedroom). I was a politico/activist, I did a hell of a lot more then vote every couple of years. I became an anarchist because of all of the subtile out in the open corruption that I saw. If voting could produce substantial reform it would have been made illegal. There is never an appropriate time for holding anyone accountable, during the primaries everyone says we can’t support a reform candidate because they’ll loss in the general, we have to support the nominee because other side bad, & we can’t have change next election because other side bad. If you never hold anyone accountable for their actions why would they ever change? I’m not saying tactical voting is useless but blind support for a political establishment is dangerous. People are so afraid of other side that they bend over backwards to not view their politicians critically & the two parties in general are a lot closer on policy then people like to think. The fact I get so much angry push back for even minor critisism is evidence that people have let themselves be cooped. The more corrupt & brutal police departments are in Democratic strongholds. We just had the largest most sustained anti police protest in history & all of the reforms have been largely cooped or underminded & rolled back & now we have a former prosecutor who defended corrupt police & other corrupt prosecutors who has been ordained the new candidate with no real candidate electoral process. An across the board Democratic landslide would have it’s own pitfalls. The Democrats efforts on gun control will disproportionately effect marginalized people because gun control always has. The Stop & Frisck program is a good example of the harm gun control policies have. Only two percent of the stops found guns, POC & trans women where grossly over represented & NY cops were allowed to arrest women in possession of condoms for prostetution. Harris as a prosecutor prosecuted non violent gun possession cases harshly, a subset of those cases would have been marginalized people who had a gun only for self defense. I honesty think mutual aid activism is far more productive then spending time trying to get people to vote.

      • @agamemnonymousEnglish
        2•1 month ago

        If voting could produce substantial reform it would have been made illegal.

        The right consistently acts to disenfranchise voters who might vote against them.

        There is never an appropriate time for holding anyone accountable, during the primaries everyone says we can’t support a reform candidate because they’ll loss in the general

        Who says that? Primaries are the perfect time to support a reform candidate, I’ve never heard anyone oppose that.

        The fact I get so much angry push back for even minor critisism is evidence that people have let themselves be cooped.

        It’s much better evidence that people are, rightfully, concerned that the both-sides rhetoric minimizes the very real differences and increases the appeal of abstentionism in a close race with serious consequences.

        The more corrupt & brutal police departments are in Democratic strongholds.

        Cities. Police departments are much more corrupt in Republican strongholds, it’s just that the scale is smaller because the departments are smaller. Additionally, the corruption is less apparent because it’s so pervasive that it never sees the light of day. Cities show more corrupt departments because the departments are bigger, and they’re more likely to be exposed.

        I honesty think mutual aid activism is far more productive then spending time trying to get people to vote.

        Sure, maybe. But they’re not mutually exclusive. And discouraging people from voting is entirely counter-productive.

      • nickwitha_k (he/him)English
        1•1 month ago

        You have some really valid points and things that I would like to address but need to try to focus my ADHD brain elsewhere at this moment. I will try to reply to you this evening.