• nummy@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Some Americans will justify not voting by using Palestine as an example. Well, yeah, your dems suck too but it’s not a reason to not take action. Voting is easy enough, and at least it really works. Fantasizing about the Revolution won’t do shit.

    • pirc_lover@feddit.uk
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      8 days ago

      Also voting is a way to shift the Overton window. If the left wing party has a thumping majority, those in the party with more radical views (like being against genocide /s) actually have room to manoeuvre and pressure their leader, or even to split off and form their own party.

      • nummy@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Exactly. People can’t just fix everything in one go. And having a “left” majority will at least give a chance to shift the narrative.

      • thoro@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        The Overton window has been shifting to the right for 60 years because the “opposition” party keeps looking to court right wing votes and offers no challenge to capitalism. The Democrat party wasn’t even in full support of gay marriage until like 2012.

        The “vote for the lesser evil, do nothing else, and never demand the party move left” option has seen the Overton window shift right consistently, yet here we are, hearing the same things again from the same people and you’re saying actually the opposite of this strategy will happen now for some reason.

        People voted for “hope and change” in 2008 and got Barrack Obama and a Heritage Foundation health care reform. Then the reaction brought Trump.

        Vote in more milquetoast liberals, and don’t be shocked when worse fascists start gaining ground because your candidates fail to even address the fundamental problem (capitalism), much less tackle it.

        • nummy@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          It still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote. All the other things you’re talking about are political actions that need citizens’ involvement. It’s a start, not a solution. After you vote, you don’t stop your political life.

        • pirc_lover@feddit.uk
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          7 days ago

          The rubber stamp Congress for the left in the US gave you the great society reforms, and Medicaid is still in place as a safety net for a huge number of Americans, and has been for 60 years. Even if the system is imperfect, it’s had a massive positive influence on the lives of Americans who’ve suffered under the current medical system. The point is that there hasn’t been consistent support for democrats over a number of elections since — Obama, Clinton and Biden is all there’s been over the past 60 years, so it’s clear that the American electorate that votes, both inside and outside the Democrat party, prefers republicans or republican-lites. So you end up with republican-lite or fascists because of apathy.

          For a UK example, until recently the triple lock on pensions has sat untouched for far too long because it was considered electoral suicide to try and prise money from pensioners grasp because they vote consistently, despite broad consensus that it was a good idea.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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          7 days ago

          many of them became rich, or wealthy if they voted with the gop on many things, they arnt going to let that go. thats why people have a hunch that closed door deals they often meet with mitch who was majority leader most of the time.

    • mefisdo_dot_info@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      I remember back in the 2010s the argument for not cracking down on the far right in the USA was that that would trigger a civil war. We saw on J6 how many would show up to fight on their side. They were all there. Now, unfortunately they control the military, so it’s much harder.

      Coward liberals always paving the road for the fascists that come after them.

      • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Makes you wonder what percentage of them are foreign adversaries trying to weaken the US (and its allies) - or simply help fascism - by helping the GOP.

        Sure, they all say they simply want the US to stop being fascist, but telling people not to vote for Democrats in the General definitely isn’t helping that.

          • nummy@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Won’t help, they don’t really have an incentive to host their shit on Yandex anymore. Even if there was anything in the first place, I’ve yet to find a good proof of bot activity being disrupted during those bombings. Don’t get me wrong, it would be a very good story, but SWEs in Russia can be pretty competent.

            • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              Maybe destroying a datacenter used by VK would help disrupt the spread of propaganda inside Russia.

              • nummy@lemmy.world
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                7 days ago

                VK has its own infra in Mail.Ru datacenters. And because they’ve been serving the government in a larger extent (VK is basically your direct line to FSB), it’s pretty strange that Yandex was targeted instead.

        • nummy@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          This is really why I keep commenting. I’m usually lurking on any platform but it’s so easy to manipulate the narrative with bots, I feel like I have to voice those OBVIOUS things out.

          • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Some communities/instances work furiously to ensure those voices are boosted and ours are suppressed.

            Pop an echo chamber bubble, watch the ban come.

    • ElChinchilla@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Bus stop metaphor. Even if we cant take a train directly where we need to get to, at least we can take a bus in the correct direction.

      Best mental description ever. Even self described republicans can surely grasp this idea to be rid of what we have now. I’m heading over to the Library this afternoon to vote early :) ive never voted a straight ticket before. Sort of excited.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Bus stop metaphor. Even if we cant take a train directly where we need to get to, at least we can take a bus in the correct direction.

        This assumes there is a bus going in the correct direction instead of two buses both going in the wrong direction at different speeds.

    • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Some Americans will justify not voting by using Palestine as an example.

      Don’t forget foreigners posing as Americans to help encourage voter apathy among Americans (so the GOP can win).

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      In the absolute worst case, the Dems are equally as bad as the GOP on Palestine (though I haven’t seen many Democrats support building Trump resorts over the rubble).

      In that worst case, then Palestine isn’t on the ballot, and you shouldn’t base your vote on it, but on everything else happening. The lesser of 2 evils isn’t an exciting vote, but it is, in fact, a lesser evil and preferable to the GOP.

      • lemonwood@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        No, in the absolute best case, Dems will be even worse than Republicans so far. But still less bad then what Republicans would become if they got another term. So yes, vote for them, if it makes sense in your state. Just keep your expectations in check.

        Here’s the proof: (1) US capitalism at it’s current stage of decline absolutely needs fascism to survive. Profit rates are just too low, any semblance of democracy would be used by the people to prevent pushing real wages even lower, but that’s needed for the engine of the dying economy to sputter on. The empire is dying, no way around it. Like every single time fascism has occurred in history, it will rise this time too, to save capitalism in crisis.

        (2) The Democrats are a capitalist party.

        (3) Ergo, the Democrats will urgently push to hasten the march towards fascism.

        This is not even a prediction, just an observation, a simple statement of fact. You can’t reform your way out of the cold, mathematical laws of economics.

        Revolution is not a “fantasy”, it’s literally the only viable alternative to unimaginable suffering. Voting for Democrats can only serve to buy time to organize for real change. In the coming necessary struggle, Dems are the on the same side as Republicans and on the opposite side of humanity and life on earth.

        • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Ergo, the Democrats will urgently push to hasten the march towards fascism…

          The Republicans are actually fucking fascist!!! You have to be joking here, right?

        • nummy@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Dude, are you for real? Touch some grass, not everything in life is capitalism.

          • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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            7 days ago

            Everything is touched by capitalism. I don’t understand how in the fuck that might make any US-American who knows what they’re doing not vote for Dems though.

            Capitalists might help fascists but fascists are fascists.

            • nummy@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              Well, yeah, I agree that almost everything around us is either touched by or a product of capitalism. What I mean is that you can’t just say “everything is shit because it’s capitalism”.

          • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Capitalism currently controls nearly every aspect of society. We are all living in a fascist world, don’t get butthurt when it is pointed out.

            • deft@lemmy.wtf
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              6 days ago

              I don’t think people are butthurt it gets pointed out. The stupidity of how and the bias of what is the problem.

              People out here trying to act like the US is the only one who has done this. Many of these people try to act like other countries don’t court soft power, that this campaign to dissuade voting every election isn’t intentional and that the solution is to just let millions of people suffer so armchair activists can pretend they told you so.

              So it’s fucking stupid to cry capitalism at every turn when the issues are actually larger than capitalism and many of them actually aren’t from capitalism. Power structures in general, representation, honest and truthful information, greed for control and money. Those issues are way fucking bigger than capitalism, they’re basically timeless human struggles.

              Calling it all capitalism and throwing yourself in a fit over it is childish. The fuck is this 2010? People actually do want to push society forward not just make a new boogieman and act like if that’s gone we’ll have a utopia.

              • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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                6 days ago

                That makes sense. I am well aware it is not just the US and a worldwide symptom of the worship of money over human beings.

                I agree that we need too move forward, but we can’t if people don’t know what is causing the problems. People have been propagandized to so much they don’t know where the truth begins or ends anymore.

                • deft@lemmy.wtf
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                  5 days ago

                  Definitely. It’s that class war shit, information control is the bread and butter for those bastards. If we undid capitalism new people would just find more ways to game the system against the majority.

                  But also fuck capitalism

                  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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                    5 days ago

                    Yeah the old socialism vs. capitalism debate needs to die. Not that socialism isn’t worthwhile, its just we are not going to get there anytime soon. We need a new paradigm that capitalists can accept so we can move beyond our current leverage economy.

    • T156@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Even at worst, where your candidate doesn’t win, it wouldn’t hurt anything.

      At least you’d be doing something, compared to doing nothing.