• BmeBenji@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    There’s a large number of people out there that think “everything sucks right now and there’s a democrat president, so to make things different I should vote republican”

    Fund schools. Keep the department of Education in existence and quadruple its funding.

      • Spot@startrek.website
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        3 months ago

        And since enough dumbasses are actually putting forward enough effort to show there is a frighteningly high backing for a candidate that will prevent any presidential voting in the future, I’m gonna have to break my record and vote for one of the major 2 parties for this election.

        One of these 2 WILL WIN THE US ELECTION. There is no pretending that, this close to polling date, that there is any other outcome.

        We need to start locally and push harder for reforms from there up. Only one of the 2 party systems will allow this in our future at the moment. This is just the sad and horrible truth we face at the moment.

        If we really think the system has failed us and will not let us break free of the 2 party bullshit, well, then we need to be better educated and better organized. We have internet and advanced messaging technology. Our past is riddled with those who made amazing changes and voiced mass public opinion with way less.

        Knowledge is power. Protect and enhance the education to really power change.

        • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          Only one of the 2 party systems will allow this in our future at the moment

          The Dems sued to remove the PSL from the ballot in my state

          • Spot@startrek.website
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            3 months ago

            So, vote them out. Push for your local areas reform and campaign for a 3rd party replacement that do what the people want.

            A maggat republican will go the step further and make a law against it to be brought up for future elections if they think it will ensure their grip.

            I really don’t care what party affiliation a representative wants to have. The problem is that too many are easy to figure out they only care about money when they choose to go under our current pairing. We should always look at a candidates stance on issues, the follow through they’ve had in their past positions, and that they are representing the people’s wishes.

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          If you want people to work from the bottom up to achieve the necessary changes to prevent this country from being genocidal you will rapidly discover that neither the Democratic nor Republican parties can be that vehicle. They are our enemies and work against us, only dithering with cynical PR and pandering to avoid losing without actually needing to deliver on any demands. Unprincipled attempts to enter and change the Democrats on their terms leads to alienation or cooption, e.g. “the squad” supporting Israel or getting destroyes by capital.

          Rather than support a genocoder, please do the actual change work. At least then you can see it fail and then do actually useful things against the genocidal empire.

          • Spot@startrek.website
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            3 months ago

            Uh, duh? So start replacing them at the base levels and change our foundation? I didn’t say to keep voting for them locally?

            Do what work? What’s the plan?? Are you running for local government where you are?

            ALL CAREER POLITICIANS ARE “GENOCIDERS” from what I have seen so far in my life on this planet. This is why normally I will not vote for a major 2 party candidate. I want to be able to vote again in the future, so I’m willing to do my best to try and make that happen.

            What are you actually saying and doing? No where have i found a coherent cohesive plan for us citizens to unite and change this major issue. What’s our truly viable recourse here?

            Please explain like I am 5.

            • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              Uh, duh? So start replacing them at the base levels and change our foundation? I didn’t say to keep voting for them locally?

              Right that’s not going to work. But if you are wed to a failing electoralist strategy that will fail it is better to commit to it so that you can observe that failure sooner.

              Do what work?

              The work of building socialist organizations.

              What’s the plan??

              To build the size and quality of socialist organizations until they reach a large enough size to make demands that require real responses. Escalation. And to then depose the capitalist system via the means available to us. And before that, to survive the violence coming for us as conditions degrade and we are not yet big enough.

              Are you running for local government where you are?

              Why would I?

              ALL CAREER POLITICIANS ARE “GENOCIDERS” from what I have seen so far in my life on this planet.

              That’s right.

              This is why normally I will not vote for a major 2 party candidate. I want to be able to vote again in the future, so I’m willing to do my best to try and make that happen.

              What’s the point of your vote if you use it to support genocide? When politicians aren’t really answerable to their voters in the first place? When you have always voted third party, i.e. made your vote into a statement? Instead, just actually be against genocide. Tell others to not support genocide. Do actually helpful political work.

              What are you actually saying and doing?

              Building socialist and anti-imperialist organizations that are in solidarity with Palestinians. Educating the public. Running BDS campaigns. Materially contributing directly to Gazans.

              No where have i found a coherent cohesive plan for us citizens to unite and change this major issue.

              The vast majority of people are not organized and are not politically educated. They can’t demand anything because they don’t know what to demand nor do they have discipline to shed the propaganda handed to them by the two major parties. This “left” won’t even withold their votes! Why would anyone ever take them seriously? You must build leverage and make credible threats to have political power.

              This starts with the basics of organizing and of political education.

              What’s our truly viable recourse here?

              The most viable course to stop genocide in Palestine will come from overseas by people actually fighting Israel or undermining its sponsor’s (America’s) ability to isolate and weaken resistance actors. Multipolarity and a decline of the US itself that this would necessarily entail due to the economic system it has maintained. We can help this by helping those doing resistance work and by educating each other. We can minimize the harms of a declining empire by building against militarism locally. Don’t support weapons manufacturers, picket them and make life more expensive for them. Kick their unions out of labor orgs. Fight against the racism and xenophobia that liberals will be embracing evet more in order to justify their warhawk policies.

              With organization, you will see escalations and overreactions that build organizations. The Biden admin wanted to ban TikTok because they did not hide the genocidal violence. We should be able to build from these kinds of reactions, all it will take is repeated attempts until it snowballs. Build, act, receive reaction, build from the reaction, act, etc etc.

              Please explain like I am 5.

              I can’t sorry but please don’t hesitate to ask questions.

      • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I agree, but I don’t have that choice right now. The issue of genocide isn’t on the two-party ballot. The issue of public education is. Fewer educated people means fewer people who can even identify genocide when it happens.

        “What good is identifying genocide if you’re not gonna stop it”

        How the fuck can I stop it?!?!??

        • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          The thing that I think really makes it obvious that your thinking here is completely defective is that you don’t even bring up the question “are you in a swing state?” I’m in a deep-blue state, why the fuck, even by your broken logic, should I vote for Kamala? She’ll win my whole state anyway, so all I’m doing is helping to legitimize her if I vote for her, not do a single thing to keep Orange Man out.

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          I agree, but I don’t have that choice right now. The issue of genocide isn’t on the two-party ballot

          It’s on there at least twice and you have every choice to not put a checkmark there or tell others to do so.

          The issue of public education is. Fewer educated people means fewer people who can even identify genocide when it happens.

          Lesser evil genociders is not a good argument, though this premise is also false. Dems cut education budgets as well. Blue states with blue districts in blue cities still underfunded and are at the forefront of charter school “experiments”.

          You cannot absolve support for genocide. You get no excuses. You should feel bad for even trying to make them.

          HOW THE FUCK CAN I STOP IT?!?!?!?

          The first step is to stop supporting it. The next step is to become educated in how the system works. The next step, which you can do simultaneously, is to join and participate in organizations with these same lines: no support for the genocidal capitalist parties, solidarity with Palestine.

          You talked about education. You need some yourself but the primary work is in organizing, which includes teaching others. Instead of trying to justify supporting genociders you should be working against them. Stop pretending you have no agency and there is nothing to do.

          • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            I do not feel good about voting for genociders. I feel fucking awful about it. But I know with absolute certainty that a democrat or a republican is going to be elected president, and yes democrats also defund schools but I’d way rather not have to start from square zero four years from now.

            • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              You will start from square zero either way. They don’t care about you or listen to you. One of the reasons they don’t need to is that there is no organized, disciplined opposition. Dems expect vaguely left people to fall in line, they don’t even pander most of the time. Look at the DNC where they brought in an Israeli to speak, denied a Palestinian, and brought in the daughter of a Contra to lie about Sandinistas. They didn’t even try pandering. They could have picked a comprador Palestinian to say some both sides BS but instead gave you the middle finger and lied about a ceasefire.

              Square zero is organizing. You will have to organize just as much in 4 years. Dems will not slow or stop the degradation of conditions, their neoliberal policies are driving that process. And if there is no left, this only fuels an ascendant right. Every election is going to be “the most important one of your life” for the foreseeable future and Dems will be complicit in this. Our only hope is to organize a left opposition as quickly as possible. Part of that requires shedding the false idea that telling people to vote for genociders is helping. It isn’t. It just normalizes genocide.

            • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              Genuinely, with no wish to sound snarky or get an “own”: That awful feeling is your conscience and gut telling you that this is both terribly unnatural and entering dangerous territory, respectively. Regardless of how this election goes, the US and it’s vassals are going to get more fascist, and we are all going to be asked, politely at first, to go along with more and more atrocities. The sooner we stop swallowing our humanity and start listening to the blaring alarms in our minds that this is all wrong, the safer everyone will be.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 months ago

      There’s a large number of people out there that think “even though democrats had a disastrous four years, they will magically fund schools and give everyone a pony when they’re back in power.”

      • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        ultimately, the federal Depart- ment of Education should be eliminated.

        Direct Quote from Project 2025

        Thanks to schools, I can read and understand that when someone says “we want to eliminate public education” they mean “we want to eliminate public education.”

        This alone is enough reason to vote democrat. Eliminating public education means fewer people will be educated enough to know when they’re lied to. I know the democrats are a bunch of shiteating liars but they have enough of a chance to win and they’re not trying to defund school and those two reasons are literally enough to vote for them.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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          3 months ago

          As long as people in US treat voting as the sole way to participate politically thing will continue on the exact same trajectory they are on now.

          • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            I agree. I need to further involve myself in informing more people

      • Taleya@aussie.zone
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        3 months ago

        You don’t vote for perfection, you vote the party in you can negotiate with

    • Spot@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      Hell yeah!

      I never had kids, never wanted kids. Have always pushed for education. As a stoner, was crazy excited about talk of legalization and taxes going to schools when the idea was first floated around by us. Happily. Hell yes.