Let's talk about the current futility of Burger electoral politics and abroad
What are some digestible ways of explaining that voting is antithetical to enacting meaningful social change? What are some historical examples of decisions made via voting that weren't immediately undone by reactionaries? How can the voting system be changed to make it's eventual removal more palatable to the average person?
Why not to broaden up discussion to Europe as well?
Do I need to say more about voting?
Carter Nguyen
In the US the whole system is rotten with pointless obstruction, corruption and careerism. No matter who you vote for, the mass-surveillance will continue along with endless wars and imperialism. We need participatory democracy where officials are the legitimate servants of the people and are instantly recallable by electors. If someone isn’t doing their job or pursuing some agenda of their own, get rid of them. Public officials don’t need to be making 6-figure salaries either, cut their pay dramatically. Also importantly is that the power of deciding whether to go war should be put before the people who will fight it– the people
Caleb Carter
Electoral politics have always been futile regardless of geography. If your party/candidate wins they get absorbed into the state and act as the left wing of capital, if they don't win they devolve into social clubs or cults. Our response to such a reality should be to organize outside of the electoral system and the legal system in many regards with a focus on direct action to win reforms and prepare ourselves for revolution or civil war.
I fucked up the wording in the first sentence; by all means share your views on the situation in Europe as well
Gabriel Moore
absolutely but I think there's a need to make this idea palatable to people who are going to reflexively respond "I don't wanna get arrested for storming a capital building"
How does one enforce this system without entrenching people further into bureaucracy
Evan Green
think elections can be slightly meaningful in some cases but have only tactical significance for example in burger politics. I mean of course here is no meaningful difference between dems and reps but for example as a nonburger I am unironically glad drumbf won and I would have voted for him, hillary winning would have meant she would have attached to herself the "left" label and furthered the meme of "the left is lgbt paid by george soros" or some bullshit. trump still is an orange monkey but I truly think he saved the american left (the real one) from disaster.
Hudson Green
I think the situation in Europe right now is pretty much f-d up. Either you have social democrats or populists cooping with small group of libertarians. Since 2016 the whole talk about who to vote in Europe was crumbled down to migrants question. I don't see serious left gaining power or anything, people will choose social democrats anyway. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe the voting rate (percentage of people who actually go vote) is very low and populist right-wing voices gained a lot power. Socdems had to accept here some of the rhetorics of right-wingers, so you hear here soc-dems talk about "muh we are christian country so say no to muslims and gay marriage". Oh yes, different sexual orientations are another huge issue as well in Eastern Europe. They are not even scared to put laws in constitution which say that "marriage is only between man and woman". It's funny and sad at the same time how everything blends together in Eruope so you don't know anymore who is left and who is right.
Kevin Foster
Voting, actually. Voting itself is an important method of exposing the impossibility of real change.
The other thing you should explain to people is Duverger's Law: Why is it that the United States only has two political parties on power? This is more powerfully in operation in the US than perhaps any other country, and the two parties and their arms in the corporate media collude regularly to make it as difficult as possible for people to know about third parties or even allow them on ballots.
After that, you can explain this important political science study by Princeton researchers which concludes that the interests of the top 10% and special interest groups representing businesses can predict federal government legislation while the interests of the bottom 90% have miniscule, statistically non-significant predictive power. In other words, the bourgeois get what they want no matter who's in office and everyone else doesn't. We literally live in an oligarchy. The punchline is that their analyzed data was nearly two thousand surveys conducted between 1981 and 2002–well before the Citizens' United v. FEC, McCutcheon v. FEC, and similar supreme court cases that have basically opened the floodgates to completely unlimited, unregulated, and unaccountable campaign finance.
Finally, once that is done you can dive into exactly why electoral politics tends to favor the interests of the already wealthy and powerful, which is that we allow a dictatorial economic system that empowers a small class of people through the exploitation of others.
Leo Ward
Only vote for people like Corbyn or Allende. Accelerationism doesn't really work imo and voting for liberals/socdems does nothing at all.
Nicholas Gray
Glad somebody with more objectivity or at least a different perspective sees things as I do.
I voted for Stein after a few minutes of contemplating voting for goatse.es or Princess Molestia. Was hoping a non-lolbert 3rd-party candidate would get 5% or however-much it is of the vote so they'd get funding.
Jace Garcia
Although Stein didn't end up getting that 5% or even Ralph Nader's numbers, I think her profile in 2016 became large enough that she was successfully able to raise a lot of money to challenge election results, exposing fraud in all three states she challenged. It's a shame the Green national leadership got so pissed off about that because that did some real good.
Cooper Lee
Storming the capital building isn't the other recourse to voting though, that's the wizard behind the curtain. They 'elect' an actual clown. Just go kill the brezidendt and see that nothing at all changes because power does not rest in any of the criminal politicians who just collect lobbying checks and pass whatever is good for big business. The real power lies in infrastructure, so by not engaging in electoral politics, you are not giving away your power to 'hope n change', when factually no impact is made by voters in the passed 30 years. Tldr build dual power
Owen Myers
An actual Nazbol post that isn’t shit and I agree with. Dual power is essential
corruption is poor terminology when referring to 1st world nation, statistically some politician violating a few rules != mexico call it "suboptimalities" or something
dont exist in EU, unless you mean green/pirate party vote neocon/socdem or populist, we all lose
real power lies in meta-narrative this changes only mildly every few decades history is an unstoppable force, currently driven by the totally-not-a-market called "democracy"
Robert Walker
The discussion is meaningless in burgerland (and probably in other countries too), you just end up in stupid arguments that dom't even amount to anything if you manage to win. There's zero people in the US who aren't organizing outside of electoral politics because voting takes up too much of their time. The people who put more effort into it than just voting are either doing it for a job in which case you might as well tell a burger flipper he's not being revolutionary enough, or are so far doing the path of liberalism that they never had potential to be your ally in the first place
Anyone elses parents desperately trying to get them to vote because it's so important???
My parents are establishment democrats who have fallen hard on this anti Trump meme. I told them im not voting because it wouldnt do anything and they just about had a stroke.
Chase Ward
He's right though.
Henry Reed
My parents fall for the “civic duty” meme. I just tell them to fuck off (politely)
Henry Brown
Why don't you edgelords at least for for the Socialist Party or whatever local equivalent? Y'all motherfuckers acting like you figured the game out when Porky wants you to not vote.
Nah, my parents avoid talking politics or economics with me. Last time I explained to them how federal taxes and fiat currency work, and it just made them depressed.
He sure as hell has a funny way of showing it what with all the "rock the vote" campaigns and constant election coverage on every news program.
Jaxon Murphy
The only people on the ballot in my area are Democrats and Republicans. I’d vote if there was a legitimate alternative or anti-capitalist party
Ethan Wood
Youtube poster, my dude. I feel really bad for you. I've noticed from your posts that you are a simpleton liberal deluded as fuck, like deluded AS FUCK. You should seriously read more theory and turn off the TV.
Easton Ward
i usually tell them about how mlk and gandi didn;t do shit without black panthers and the indian military and continue to give examples before writing them off because they are propagandized
Parker Ross
Ok sure
Kayden Roberts
Truly the issue of our time. Capitalism, exploitation and private property BTFO. Pack your bags, porky
Jaxon Thompson
It's still SOMETHING Logically speaking 1 is still more than 0 Voting does effect minor issues. Obv does affect the entire system
Owen Harris
*doesn't
Jaxon Brown
Yes, I’m sure weed is a great triumph in the quest for the liberation of the proletariat. Stuff like that can be changed by voting because it doesn’t mean shit, it placates the wage-slaves and keeps them content. Change the system itself, the system which perpetuates wage-slavery, imperialism and exploitation? – like you said it will not be changed without a fight
Jason Hall
Weed legalization was driven in good part by activism and ganja porky backing it rather than elected officials running on such a platform. If we wanted labor reforms like a minimum wage hike or safer conditions, we'd be better off going on strike and shutting shit down than we would spending inordinate time and effort pushing some socdem into power where they will be outvoted by liberals or reactionaries.
Levi Young
Shitloads of people go to prison for possessing weed.
Hurf durf you expect me to care about poor people and niggers going to jail or getting shot over possession? What are we, champions of the underclass or something?
I just can't compromise on my principles enough to write an X in a box once a year!
Have fun poisoning yourself. Abstaining from drugs and alcohol will be much better for people’s health in the long-run.
Ryder Hughes
fuck off bootlicker
Parker Campbell
I don't want to be an inefficient worker for my boss, screw experiencing anything interesting!
Jaxon Hughes
I don't even smoke weed but the man who is getting beat by the cops because he's going home to smoke an ounce is my brother. You can say that voting Democrat or whatever the equivalent is in your country isn't going to end capitalism and you're right but it doesn't mean it won't make life a little better for a lot of people. Accelerationism doesn't work, the shift to the hard right in the 80s killed the left for decades, why are we in favour of letting that happen again?
Blake Brooks
You don’t have to get drunk and high constantly to experience interesting things in life. I never said they should be banned, though drug-dealers should unironically get the bullet. Banning causes more problems than it solves. Alcohol is a social ill, along with drugs
Isaiah Reed
It’s all about cultural change, not clamping down and using drug-war tactics. It is like with religion, attempted suppression creates martyrs. Someone should not be beaten for using, but rehabilitated if the drug is serious or addicted enough. In time the evils of alcohol and other intoxicants, along with delusions of the mind such as religion will fade with the global triumph of communism, along with the birth of the New Man
Ryan Scott
So why the fuck did you even post in this topic replying to comment that weed should be decriminalised, you gibbering retard? Go edgepost somewhere else.
All reactionaries look the same to me. Same criticism applies.
Levi Ramirez
You are the dumbest poster on this board by far and can’t seem to comprehend the simplest of sentences. ESL subhuman for sure
John Ross
Don't be upset now just because I called you an ebebehebiefile. I don't see how you can be upset that I can't follow who you are when you don't even have a flag, it's your own fault.
Benjamin Wood
Solution to the trolley problem you posited: Jump in front of it, everything is already lost. the game
Kayden Brooks
The revolutionary subject of the 21st century is the precariat not proles u derp
John Gonzalez
As I posted over in >>99214:
My choices for Senate:
And for Congress:
Why should I even bother?
Bentley Torres
You can't kill yourself.
Vote for None of the Above.
Charles Rivera
So close. This is seriously what to expect from the SPD.
Blake Price
It's 7465 though.
Christopher Morgan
The worst thing is some people really do believe this.
any vote in America is a vote for Israel. unless a coup d'etat happens here, I ain't participating.
Kayden James
There is a large underground community of credentialed psychiatrists and psychotherapists who administer illegal drugs and are building a literature of how useful those drugs are.