- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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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.
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This article doesn’t say anything that I haven’t already heard people say before. I understand all the points that it is trying to make, and I disagree with all of them.
Also, calling people “sheeple” is not a good way to get them to listen to what you have to say.
It wasn’t written for outsiders to understand a perspective, it was written as propaganda for the people already inside.
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This is an anarchist space. If you would like to participate, consider phrasing your opinions in a way that respects that fact.
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I removed it. I will also remove this comment.
Please take your “I have a right to be an asshole on a server where I contribute nothing” politics elsewhere. You’re welcome back when you’ve absorbed the concept of federated social media, but take at least a month to think about it.
I domt really care if people vote or not, but its really funny how there is always so much discussion around the most liberal way to participate in politics.
Also to those that advocate for voting as one of the ways to influence the world, do you think people should also run for office or actively pursue people to vote for the harm reduction choice? Where do you draw your line and why?
And those that strongly oppose voting, do you think anarchists should burn ballot boxes or atleast more actively disrupt the electoral politics?
I don’t like voting but I do it. I also have no illusions that it is “harm reduction” (it’s not in any meaningfull way). I heavily dislike electoral politics and the brazen mediocrity of the liberal opposition, but I wouldn’t burn ballot boxes or disrupt elections. What would be the point? It literally doesn’t matter since individual votes don’t matter.
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When proclamations are made that “voting is harm reduction,” it’s never clear how less harm is actually calculated. Do we compare how many millions of undocumented Indigenous Peoples have been deported? Do we add up what political party conducted more drone strikes? Or who had the highest military budget? Do we factor in pipelines, mines, dams, sacred sites desecration? Do we balance incarceration rates? Do we compare sexual violence statistics? Is it in the massive budgets of politicians who spend hundreds of millions of dollars competing for votes?
Yes, you do that and you get some fucking political culture about the fact the president is not an emperor king and that the control of the congress matters more. You also learn that some policy take years to show some effect and that politicians are specialist about deflecting blame on predecessors while claiming their success.
The immigration/deportation/incarceration policy of the US is a fucking disgrace and it wont be solved overnight, but thinking that the party who calls for the end of the for-profit prison is as bad as the one who pardoned the creation of a racial concentration camp is just dumb. Counting drone strikes but dismissing the fact that without the disastrous GWB presidency there would have been neither the Iraq war nor the Afghanistan war, not the “war on terrorism” idiocy and possibly not even 9/11, that’s also voluntarily blinding yourself.
HARM REDUCTION DOES NOT MEAN YOU VOTE TO SUPPORT, IT LITERALLY MEANS YOU VOTE TO OPPOSE!
If you abstain from voting you indicate that you accept the status quo. If you don’t like the 2 party system, vote for a 3rd party, write in your own name, or leave the ballot blank–if enough people take those actions it indicates to those in power that there is displeasure in what is going on.
If you just stay home it indicates that you don’t care and are not a threat to their reelection campaigns.
Yes, voting is not the most effective form of participation, but you are not limited to only a single form of action. You can both vote and protest, or vote and participate in mutual aid networks.
There are a lot of people in my mutual aid group that don’t vote because they feel it doesn’t matter or isn’t worth it. But in our extended web there’s about 200 people. That’s enough to sway some local seats. If you can cook and serve food or distro supplies for several hours each week, you can commit a couple of minutes to fill out a ballot (especially when there’s a ballot drop box literally across the street from our distro point).
Also there is no faster way to get me to downvote something than to beg that I not downvote. I’ll treat your post on it’s merits, and begging for a specific kind of engagement is a no no.
If you just stay home it indicates that you don’t care and are not a threat to their reelection campaigns.
Sorry but its not that simple. Not voting is also often connected to disillusion with the current system or a lack of satisfactory choices. So it absolutely can indicate more than one thing.
