@woozle @chromatic

Sorry, which one is which?

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

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...

@chromatic @woozle

Oh, but the protests are being violently suppressed right now

@HeavenlyPossum

By whom?

@chromatic

@woozle @chromatic

By agents of a state run by a democratic president

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

Which state?

@woozle @chromatic

The United States (and many of its subsidiary political units, such as New York, which also have democrats in senior elected office)

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

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

@chromatic @woozle

So either democrats ordered it, or are helpless to stop it?

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

...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

@woozle @chromatic

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?

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

What authority does he have? IANAL... (and unlike the GOP, Dems do feel some compunction to stay within the law...)

@chromatic @woozle

In his authority over the justice department, in his control over the national guard, and in his bully pulpit.

Or maybe he’s helpless?

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

Which specific authority does he have, when it comes to actions of municipal police?

This isn't a binary choice between "can fix it now" and "can't do anything ever". Given the things Biden has done while in office, I can hardly think he's okay with all of this. ...but I haven't yet heard what his take is.

@woozle @chromatic

He could, at the absolute bare least, make a public statement in opposition to the violent suppression of peaceful protests by agents of a state he ostensibly leads.

At the other extreme, he could nationalize the national guard and deploy them to protect students from violence by local police.

In between, Biden has a variety of options to respond—or maybe he doesn’t and being president doesn’t matter that much!

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

Well, here's what the consensus reality appears to be at the moment -- TLDR: he's buying too much into the "support for Palestine = antisemitic" trope. Points to consider: (1) the GOP has apparently been actively advocating for suppression, and (2) you'll never be able to talk sense into them because they're fundamentally fash, whereas Biden/Dems can sometimes be reasoned with.

President Biden has faced a challenging situation in responding to the police suppression of student protests against the war in Gaza at U.S. universities. While the administration has reiterated its support for the right to peacefully protest, it has also condemned "antisemitic" rhetoric and violence among some protesters.
The White House has rejected criticism from Hamas, which expressed support for the protests, with Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates calling Hamas "the least credible voice that exists on this subject" due to its history of terrorism.
Biden has also emphasized his lifelong commitment to combating antisemitism and his implementation of the first-ever national strategy to address this issue.
However, the administration has faced accusations of carrying out a "police state crackdown" on the protests in alliance with the Republican Party.
Hundreds of students have been arrested at campuses across the country, with some alleging excessive force by police.
The FIRE organization has emphasized that while colleges can set reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on protests, they cannot limit the views being expressed.
Biden's handling of the situation is being closely watched by both Jewish and Arab American voters in key swing states.
While the protests have so far been a distraction, they could potentially build momentum and lead to scenes of unrest at the Democratic National Convention in August.
The president will need to navigate the issue carefully to maintain support from young voters while also addressing concerns about antisemitism and violence.

@chromatic @woozle

Hm, so he doesn’t want to stop the violent suppression of peaceful protests?

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

the administration has reiterated its support for the right to peacefully protest

..and I don't know what else he may be doing that is within his legal power.

@chromatic @woozle

Ok, thanks for helping me answer my question: “no one”

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

I can't stop you from putting everything in absolutist framing.

I'm sure the authoritarians will be fine with this, too.

@HeavenlyPossum

Perhaps I'm being a little unfair.

Taking your question literally:

if someone wanted to vote for “a society in which snipers are not deployed against student protests,” which candidate should they vote for?

-- you are correct that right now the answer is "none". The Dems can't stop local police from deploying snipers, and the GOP doesn't want to.

If that very narrow and binary question is the only lens that matters to you, then that's the answer.

If that binary question is truly the only lens that matters to you, though... then I have to question your ethical framework.

@chromatic

@woozle @chromatic

Yeah, in my ethical framework, state violence is pretty bad and having rights is pretty important, so I can see why that might be questionable for some people.

@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic

So, yeah, the Dems are historically bad on this issue (separating Palestinian rights from antisemitism -- not the same thing at all, of course). Palestinian rights are human rights.

Thing is, I don't see how the Dems aren't by far more amenable to reconsidering this position, over time -- and some Dems have been actively supportive.

Try finding any support among the GOP.

The choice is between (a) Dems: slow, reluctant support and (b) GOP: active hostility and suppression.

I think that is a much more useful answer to your question, even if it doesn't literally answer the exact question you asked.

(...and that's without going into all the other rights which Dems do actively support, and which the GOP opposes. I'd like to see one example of a civil right that the GOP is better about, or even not-clearly-worse, than the Dems.)

The question, narrowly framed and carefully positioned as it is, is a right-wing framing of the situation, designed to make two very unequal things appear equal -- and I have a hard time believing that anyone genuinely believes it is the question which matters when it comes to this year's elections.

@gekitsu @woozle

So again, voting would an ineffective strategy for achieving a society in which snipers are not deployed against student protesters. I agree.

@woozle @HeavenlyPossum @gekitsu not speaking for Possum here but I'd encourage you to consider whether there are circumstances under which voting is not a *long-term* solution either. In which case you could spend your whole life voting yet wind up no closer to justice at the end than you were at the beginning. Perhaps further.

Try asking yourself this as a serious exercise: "what rules should I use to decide whether voting is actually working, and what should I do if I decide it isn't?"

@darcher

If we don't vote against dictatorship, the people who like dictatorships will vote one in, because they don't stop to debate about it; they just follow orders. They've been getting closer to their goal every decade or so for 40 years now. ...and I should hope that you'd be as concerned about that possibility as I am.

I'd rather survive with a government that at least tries to help people live better, than possibly die under a government which actively sabotages anyone outside their in-group.

The more time and energy I have to spend fighting against powerful people punching down and pulling the rug out from under me and other non-wealthy people, the less time I can devote to working towards a better system of governance and a better society.

I'm not sure why this isn't obvious.

...and now I'm having to spend time fighting against people who want to equivocate between those two options. WTF? Have you really thought this through?

@woozle oh I promise you I have thought it through, and not only that but I've lived through it. So I wouldn't dream of discouraging anyone from voting.

That's why I asked that very specific question. And I still think you should address it seriously instead of assuming I don't know what I'm about. By all means vote, but remember voting is *the least* you can do, and GOTV is only a little more.

If you don't like my other question, here's a new one: what exactly are you "fighting me" about?

@darcher

I did respond to your question seriously, although it wasn't a direct response.

I'll try again.

I think the problem is that your question is rather open-ended -- which leaves it to me to clarify your meaning. When I choose an interpretation that seems meaningful to me, you can then say "no, that's not what I meant" -- and much like HeavenlyPossum, you can then avoid taking any position on what it is you're actually trying to say.

...so I'll give you some possible interpretations without choosing one, and you can tell me whether any of them is what you mean (or clarify what you do mean, if none of them).

You suggested I ask myself:
[quote]

"what rules should I use to decide whether voting is actually working, and what should I do if I decide it isn't?"

[quote]

The ambiguity here is: what do you mean by "working"? Possible interpretations:

• Do I get what I want, when I vote? (Do I get less of what I want when I don't?)
• How does the outcome of the election affect me (directly or indirectly)? Does it really matter who wins?
• Do we get better social outcomes when more people vote?
• Is the aggregate personal cost of voting (time off work etc.) generally fairly compensated for by the gain in doing so?

So: is it any of those? If not, please clarify.

@woozle the last one is actually a pretty good way to put it, though I would like to emphasize that "in aggregate" across society is the important part, because your personal cost/benefit ratio is entirely dependent on how you feel about the choices you already have.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not trying to discourage you from voting. I'm trying to encourage you to think about whether voting gives you the kind of "power" that you think it does.

@darcher I have no illusions that it gives me any power.

[edit, added] I mean, why would you think that I would think it does? "Power" is not what it's about. It's about keeping too much power from accumulating elsewhere. It's swimming in the ocean. It doesn't confer power, it doesn't even guarantee we'll live; it's just the best chance we've got.

@woozle Ha! That is a very anarchist perspective.

But that makes it sound like you're on team "Voting Is Harm Reduction - Not A Way To Achieve Substantive Change"

Is that a reasonable way to describe your position?

@darcher Halfway. It doesn't achieve substantive change on its own, but it does make such change more possible.

Yes, I am more or less an anarchist (of the "don't burn down the house until you've got another one built and have moved into it (and maybe dismantle it instead of burning it)" school of thought).

@woozle Excellent. Dual Power FTW (unless you prefer to call it something else). We are on the same page as far as that goes.

So to go back to the original question, what is the relationship (in your view) between voting and building the new house? Or, put differently, do you think voting removes any of the impediments to building a new house?

Edit: maybe a better way to ask is HOW do you think voting makes change more possible?

@darcher It's not so much that it removes them as that it keeps new ones from accumulating. It prevents change (which is generally a slow, effort-intensive process) from being kneecapped.

Hypothetical:

If Trump wins, a lot of my friends will be making plans to move -- to flee the country if they can, or at least to find a safer state to live in if they can't, because they would know the federal government won't be protecting them against authoritarian hate, and hate will once again be officially sanctioned at the highest level.

That kind of thing uproots communities, disrupts projects for change, takes away resources. (...quite aside from being discouraging.)

When more people vote, authoritarians tend to win fewer elections, and the slow processes of change are stomped in the face by fewer and smaller boots.

When fewer people vote, more well-behaved Nazis are able to walk into the bar.

...only I think now we're past the stage where they have to be well-behaved to get in; too many of the bouncers are sympathetic. We now need to get them out.

That's yet another way of explaining why this election is so important: if the GOP somehow wins in any substantial way this November (which I don't think they can do honestly), they will have taken over the bar, and we'll be done with elections until there's an actual revolution. (I can't imagine that being pleasant to live through, assuming one is somehow able to do so.)

@woozle sorry, had to break for chores.

Yes even "good" revolutions are best avoided, yes Trump again probably means no more elections and no more federal protection (though I suspect we'd disagree strongly about how much protection we have now). There's no need to persuade me to vote, and no need to persuade me this is the most important (US) election of my lifetime.

Of course it is, because at least half of them have been. 1/

@woozle And I'm very much a pragmatist, so no need to sell me on compromise in politics.

What you won't to be able to persuade me of is that there's any meaningful "social contract" or "obligation" between voters and politicians. I've been voting for 40+ years and every single time, the people I voted for either made things worse, or actively helped the people I didn't vote for to make things worse.

That's my lived experience, as the kids say. 2/

@woozle OTOH, I'm also on board with Harm Reduction, so I put years of serious and sustained effort into getting less-evil candidates elected anyway. Because, to be fair, things get worse slightly slower when the less-evils are in charge.

Which gets to what (I think) we disagree about factually. You say voting (and winning of course) keeps new impediments from accumulating. I say it doesn't. Actual power is the only thing I've ever seen work. 3/

@darcher

You say voting (and winning of course) keeps new impediments from accumulating. I say it doesn't.

I don't think I ever used the qualifier "only".

Actual power is the only thing I've ever seen work.

When it comes to dealing with the Right -- which, yes, has far too much influence on Dem policy -- force is in fact the only language they speak. ...and Dems lean this way when they say things like "give me a popular mandate, and I'll do what you want". I haven't forgot when we-the-people did that at Occupy, and Obama allowed the police to do what they did anyway.

So, yes, we need our own power-base -- but if we use the same sort of top-down control structures, then in the long run the fash take over.

We have to work out ways of organizing that can act quickly and powerfully without putting too much power/control in too small a space.