this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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I literally said "Voting helps," and talked specifically about how it helps. At no point did I ever say not to vote. I even kind of said that I think people should vote. Why the do you think I'm telling people not to vote? Take a look at my post and ask yourself where this is coming from and maybe you'll understand why I'm calling you out.
I'm not saying anywhere, at any point, that people shouldn't vote. I'm not saying anyone is bad for voting. I'm not even hinting at the idea the voting is not at least a little helpful. I'm just fucking sick of everyone focusing on voting when it's one of the lowest valuable type of action you can take after canvasing and posting shitty memes.
I organized, I got shot, I kept organizing. The whole time I watched liberals tell queer and trans folks, black and brown folks, and all kinds of other marginalized folks and every intersection of those to vote harder any time they'd call out liberals. Liberals got Biden, stabbed radicals in the back, and went back to brunch. They had fucking years to organize, and instead they just got disappointed again and again by the failure of the system they believe in to address existential threats against it. Whenever they get called out for this shitty behavior, or whenever anyone points out that voting isn't enough, they hold up those same marginalized people they've been throwing under the bus between election years.
When I'm saying "make the system untenable" I'm meaning that you have to make oppression impossible by organizing. You have to make ecocide impossible by making it so expensive to extract petroleum that it stops being an option.
You think that you have to be close to revolution to make the system untenable? It took one person attacking an immigration facility to stop Trump's ethnic cleansing plan. Slavery didn't end because people voted against it. It ended because people formed a guerilla resistence that attacked plantations and smuggled people out, illegally. The civil war started because John Brown lead an armed assault on Harpers Ferry with the intent of creating an armed slave insurrection. They, and a lot of other people carrying out direct action, made the system untenable.
You know how they got to the point of making the system untenable? They organized. You should absolutely vote if your conscience lets you. I will shame you for not voting if you're as privileged as I am, but I won't if you're not. But for fuck sake, organize. Organize small groups. Organize too many groups to infiltrate. Go fill jails like XR until they can't afford to put people in jail anymore. Make this shit expensive. Organize locally to abolish free parking.Make perpetuating climate change so expensive that every oil company is forced to invest in renewables. That's what making the system untenable means. The fact that you jumped immediately to assuming I could only have meant something like "don't vote," even though I explicitly said voting has value, says something. Please take a minute to reflect on why you've spent this much time and effort arguing against something I did not say.
Very fair points, theres been a lot of ppl on this site yelling at me in a short period of time. I got a little fixated on making the system untenable bc in this very same thread theres no shortage of shitheads arguing against voting, all while countless other russian shills all across the web eg them on in hopes of enabling russian imperial interests.
Im just very frustrated, as i can tell u are. Im looking for leftists to come together regardless of how far left they swing. Ur points on making the system on tenable sound more like the types of direct action i seem to most believe in. Its about making life untenable for the capitalist owner class, not the poors foghting for their lives down below.
On that point tho, i still would urge you to find room for some more sympathy/empathy for those, erm- lets say, highly misguided poors still simping for the neoliberal way. With the amount of propaganda they consume, its no wonder they are the way they are, but that doesnt mean that theyre entirely lost. Ppl are fickle and change their minds drastically all the time, especially when their ego is in play. Ive gotten far right wingers to agree with me on dismantling insurance agencies, enacting a maximum wage, shit even to abolish currency altogether and trans rights. Its about how its presented to them, and by whom. Im not going to tell u to waste ur time convincing them actively, that is a waste of time.
But a newly found culture based on sympathy and kindness isnt necessarily all that far away. Anarchist theory is largely based on assuming that humans are naturally inclined to cooperate with one another. Theyre just never going to if u call them out for being the hypocrites that almost all of us naturally are. My 2 cents, anyway.
Thanks for ur time, but more so for ur energy irl with what u do. Continue yelling at everyone else in here, ur energy is wholesome.