HeavenlyPossumSo if someone wanted to vote for “a society in which snipers are not deployed against student protests,” which candidate should they vote for?
This toot has made some people really angry at me. But no one has been able to provide an answer other than “no one.” So you’d think they’d be more angry about the lack of a candidate who can or would allow people to exercise their most basic rights rather than at me for pointing it out. But hey this is the internet so 🤷♂️
sortius@HeavenlyPossum I try to explain this to people. If voting for either of the major parties in your country yields the same results, maybe stop fucking voting for them, even if you aren't lucky enough to have preferential/proportional/etc voting.
If you're going to "throw your vote away" on nothing changing, might as well do it with a clear fucking conscience and vote for a decent human
ftl@sortius @HeavenlyPossum it definitely isn't "nothing changing". It's probably not this particular thing, though.
@ftl @HeavenlyPossum I dunno, I'm poor, I see governments come and go, my life and that of those around me doesn't change; grinding poverty all the way down
@sortius @HeavenlyPossum Hmm, I see you're in Australia, and I definitely know far too little about electoral politics there to comment! I can agree that whoever wins the US elections probably won't affect you much! Those elections will mostly matter for those of us in the US...
(I suppose maybe they'll have a little effect on you, based on how much/little they do about climate change, but that's a pretty indirect effect)
@ftl @HeavenlyPossum well, I fully understand US politics, and the international ramifications for what's going on in the US (it's much bigger than climate change).
Jon Stewart spelled it out perfectly for Democrats, but they didn't want to listen, and shot the messenger. It's not up to voters to come up with reasons to vote for Biden.
He has already proven he's next to useless as a president, and Democrats have lain the groundwork for a fascist takeover of the US govt; it's too late to fix
WovenTales@sortius @HeavenlyPossum I really like that formulation, thanks! Of course, it doesn't do anything for people who think the choices are "fascism" and "a bad take or two but generally decent" and that we're just being stubborn by letting those bad takes overwhelm the relative benefit of the latter, so I'm somewhat pessimistic about its ability to turn the tide of a debate, but it's a good one for those of us who are already disinclined toward either major party.
Joe ❌👑@HeavenlyPossum I think Noam Chomsky had the right answer. You vote for the lesser evil, because then you get less evil. But you don't stop fighting against evil.
“There's another word for lesser evilism,” Chomsky replies. “It's called rationality. Lesser evilism is not an illusion, it's a rational position. But you don't stop with lesser evilism. You begin with it, to prevent the worst, and then you go on to deal with the fundamental roots of what's wrong, even with the lesser evils.”
lertsenem@not2b @HeavenlyPossum That's a rational position. But you may also consider that, as Hannah Arendt put it:
The weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.
@lertsenem @HeavenlyPossum Which is why activists need to prevent people from forgetting and need to keep fighting. Chomsky made the same point. Arendt was talking about those who choose the lesser evil but do nothing else.
@not2b @HeavenlyPossum Arendt was talking about what "choosing the lesser evil" does to people and what it can lead to. To quote her more fully:
If you are confronted with two evils, thus the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Those who denounce the moral fallacy of this argument are usually accused of a germ-proof moralism which is alien to political circumstances, of being unwilling to dirty their hands. […] Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.
↪️
Rui Malheiro@HeavenlyPossum in the next election, just make sure the openly fascist party is defeated. If it goes according to history, they will eat each other and break into two or three parties. Then, you *might* have their support to reform electoral law into proportional representation. With some luck and good grassroots movements, you can then tackle on the not openly fascist party and work your way into a democracy.
The democrats hold office now, while snipers are being deployed against students
@HeavenlyPossum I know and it's sad, but not different from when your youth was protesting for the end of white previleges, the end of Vietnam war or the end of sexual discrimination. The best hope you have is to end the two party dictatorship. The endgame is the goal and it's akin to sacrificing the queen to enable the checkmate.
So we should vote for the party that’s overseeing violent repression of protests, because that party will (sometime in the future) be better or be replaced by something better?
@HeavenlyPossum no. You should vote to *make sure* you will have a chance to vote again in four years.
This advice come from experience. I live in a country where we could not (freely) vote for 50 years.
But that’s not what I asked at all. It’s ok if the answer to the question “who should you vote for to end the violent suppression of protests” is “no one.”
@HeavenlyPossum voting in "no one" is voting for the _status quo_ in a proportional democracy. In a "winner takes all" *dictatorship* like you have, a vote for "no one" is a vote for whoever wins.
No, not voting is not voting.
@HeavenlyPossum you may *want* it to be like that, but in your actual political system, it's not how it works. If 60% don't vote and the winning party gets 51% of the votes, it means something like 21% of the population won the vote.
And that's even ignoring the fact that with your bonkers system you don't even need a majority of the *total votes* to win.
No, not voting is not voting. There is no moral universe in which declining to participate in a process makes you responsible for that process.
@HeavenlyPossum by that reasoning, if you chose *not to oppose* racism, segregation, sexual discrimination or fascism you are not *allowing* it to go on?
This begs the question that opposing a system requires participating in that system, which is untrue, and presumes that we’re limited in our opposition to participation, which is also untrue.
@HeavenlyPossum ah, yes, I totally agree with you there. And as you say, we are not *limited*. That means we can, and I argue we should, *also* fight the system from inside, steering it from killing us until we can replace it for something better.
@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic I just mutually closed out a conversation with someone else who was utterly unable to see that continuing to feed one party on the basis of "at least they're not the other" gives them absolutely no reason to do anything different. It's amazing how strong the system's brainwashing can be when it makes otherwise reasonable radicals support genocidal dictators. The answer's to tear them both down to their foundations, people!
@HeavenlyPossum allow me to recomend this essay from Abigail Thorn, she's much more eloquent and entertaining than I could ever hope to be.
Woozle HypertwinIt's a choice between {the party that might not prevent positive change on this issue, as well as countless others} vs. {the party that will happily shoot you and anyone else who disagrees with them}.
Sorry, which one is which?
Dems: the party which at least tries to not be horrible all the time, even though they are still horrible a lot and are way too beholden to capitalist interests
GOP: open fascists who enjoy watching/making other people suffer
Any questions? I can give examples. Think of LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, the right of non-rich people to speak and have opinions...
Oh, but the protests are being violently suppressed right now
By agents of a state run by a democratic president
Which state?
The United States (and many of its subsidiary political units, such as New York, which also have democrats in senior elected office)
I think it's very early to say that Democrats authorized or even support this. Here's what I could find quickly:
There is no clear evidence in the given search results indicating who specifically ordered the police suppression of student protests in California, New York, and Boston. The results discuss several incidents of police using force to break up protests at universities in those states, but do not name the authorities who directed the police response. The search results mention:
- In Georgia, police tased pro-Palestinian protesters and targeted them with rubber bullets at Emory University in Atlanta[1][4].
- In Boston, a violent clash between police and Emerson College students resulted in blood being visible on campus, with police pulling protesters away and dragging them on the ground[1][2].
- At the University of Texas in Austin, dozens of state troopers, some armed with automatic weapons, used batons to disperse protesters[2].
- Police in riot gear violently broke up peaceful protests at the University of Southern California, employing rubber bullets[2].
- At New York University and Yale, police were called in to break up pro-Palestinian demonstrations[5].
However, the search results do not specify which government officials or university administrators directed the police to intervene and suppress the student protests in those instances. More information would be needed to determine the specific decision-makers responsible in each case.
If you have any additional information, or anything which contradicts this, please let me know.
[edit: adding sources]
- [1] https://works.bepress.com/gerald_lebovits/354/download/
- [2] https://www.newyorkappellatelawyer.com/blog/new-exception-to-the-exclusionary-rule-and-fourth-amendment-suppression-issues/
- [4] https://supreme.justia.com/cases-by-topic/search-seizure/
- [5] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/22/us/campus-protests-columbia-yale
So either democrats ordered it, or are helpless to stop it?
...or haven't stopped it yet. It's not clear what the timing is on all of this. Maybe Wikipedia has an article...
This looks useful: Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States
So maybe Joe Biden is just waiting for the right moment to publicly denounce the violent suppression of peaceful protests and exercise his authority as president to stop them?
What authority does he have? IANAL... (and unlike the GOP, Dems do feel some compunction to stay within the law...)
In his authority over the justice department, in his control over the national guard, and in his bully pulpit.
Or maybe he’s helpless?
Adrian Riskin 
Stoneshins@HeavenlyPossum Cornel West will be getting my vote, democrats have done too shit of a job to earn my vote, if they were really worried about democracy they could have ran a more competitive candidate and not done basically the same thing as Trump on our borders and with supporting genocide. But also trump will almost definitely win my state, trying to build local groups that can resist shitty policy from the federal and state gov is where you can make more of a difference I think. Getting on a neighborhood board has been helpful in my neck of the woods, it’s certainly not all anarchists but it helps a ton to know your neighbors and actually help folks out.
MARIOiVARGASI no longer play mental gymnastics to justify voting for either party.
People forget that republicans were the revolutionaries during the civil war. The party was created for the movement.
The will of the people united is what eventually moves the parties.
Time and energy is best spent mobilizing a movement and voting for candidates that truly energize and represent that movement. I don't bother with establishment party rhetoric. That's energy wasted.
Display Name@HeavenlyPossum if it is the ONLY metric , sure, non. There are other metrics, too, though.
Yeah, I could also ask who to vote for to oppose genocide in Gaza
@HeavenlyPossum start by not expecting everything from a single election/vote. First pick the party that you can persuade better candidates into. Then work to get even better people in who not only be against a genocide but actively do better in other issues. There are progressives in Democratic party but none (according to the voting record in Congress) in Republican party. So here is your direction. One party still has hope and the other none. But if you want all or nothing and right now, sure. But it is too obvious a rhetorical question then.
“The freedom to exercise basic constitutional rights without state violence” is not “all or nothing,” it’s the absolute bare minimum.
@HeavenlyPossum so not voting gets you closer to it how?
As you noted, voting plays no role in whether Americans live in a society with basic freedoms or not. They’re unrelated.
What do we usually call a state in which you can’t exercise basic freedoms and you can’t vote for a government that will respect your basic freedoms?
@HeavenlyPossum I didn't say that. I said vote for lower level people and populate the party. Start with getting more progressives in then if they are not enough work on getting others that you think are best into positions of power. One vote in one election will keep the boat afloat. Then you work on the direction thing. You can't do that while sinking. Fight establishment Dems even harder than R's and you'll have a better representation. That's the whole logic of it.
The whole logic of it is to hope that a government that doesn’t respect your basic rights will allow you to peacefully and democratically change the nature of that state through a series of elections over an indeterminate period of time?
@HeavenlyPossum then YOU run for office. This nihilistic rant is going nowhere. This government isn't deciding who is the nominee at the local level. Start there, support groups that work to bring decent people to places of power. It will shift. There are more progressives in the Congress than ever before. And there will be more. I'll support them until I'm represented better there. Eventually we'll pass that threshold and those people will be in the minority. If you think you can (or you're entitled to) fix hundreds of years of injustice, inequality and corruption with one vote in one election this conversation is futile. Nobody is going to give you that "government that respects your basic rights" to stamp on the ballot. You make them.
I assure you that I am anything but a nihilist
Lord HeeHaw II@HeavenlyPossum
I suspect it'd be difficult to find one in the US, as they seem there they be either bad, or not quite so bad.
I suspect it'd be difficult to find one in the US, as they seem there they be either bad, or not quite so bad.
hex@HeavenlyPossum again, why are there not pro-democracy protests in the US?
I suspect that the problem is complex, but two important reasons would be
a) the knowledge that the state will violently suppress even the mildest of public organization to critique the state, and
b) the widespread belief among many people in the US that voting once every two or four years is meaningfully “democracy”
@HeavenlyPossum IMHO, the second one is the one that is most fragile right now. If that illusion can be broken for enough people then the first will break the illusion for a lot more.
Coach Pāṇini ®@HeavenlyPossum
There is no Snipers Loaded With Blanks Party, is there
There is no Snipers Loaded With Blanks Party, is there
@HeavenlyPossum I think it's worth riffing on this a bit more too...
Single payer healthcare is supported by the majority of Americans. Which party do I vote for to get that?
A sizable minority wants UBI. Which party can I vote for to get that?
The vast majority of Americans want to see banks be held accountable rather than bailed out, who can I vote for to see that? Can I vote for a party that won't send troops to break up protests against banks straight up robbing Americans twice?
The majority of Americans have wanted to see the drug war end for like... Decades. Which party would one vote for to see that happen?
Which party, exactly, would one vote for that would not force people back to work during a pandemic? Which one is that again?
Speaking of forcing people back to work, is there a party that would make return to office mandates unenforceable? I bet that has a fuck load of popular support, but where are those politicians looking to leverage that support? Which party do I vote for again?
Oh hey, which party do I vote for to bar senators from holding stock in the companies they write legislation for? This is super popular. If this is a democracy, then any issue with even a basic level of popular support would definitely have *someone* willing express the idea. Which party do I vote for?
Which party do I vote for to, at the absolute minimum, bar members of Congress from owning stock in companies that benefit from war?
Which party do I vote for to bar politicians from becoming lobbyists and vice versa? Which party is it again?
Which party do I vote for to not send troops to support oil companies suppress people protesting to keep their water safe to drink?
Jennifer@Hex @HeavenlyPossum if you find one let us know!