Bayard Rustin was a gay Black man who was instrumental in making the March on Washington happen. Even though he was a close ally of MLK, he never pushed King to speak on gay rights, because he knew it wasn’t something america could handle in 1965.
Frederick Douglas supported Abe Lincoln in 1860, even though Lincoln has said that abolition wasn’t as important as keeping the Union together. There was an abolition candidate, but Douglas didn’t think he could win, so Douglas decided to back the person with the best chance in hope of having a seat at the table later.
You know, I can quote a whole bunch of civil rights icons’ opinions about moderation and compromise, but that’d just be us arguing over who has the best black friends.
So I’ll just point out that despite all the wise compromise and statesman concessions to white supremacy, it remains a problem somehow.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
Dr. King was a preacher in a mid-20th century southern black context. He likely didn’t believe in gay marriage. Hell, Obama only supported “civil unions” in 2004. Most prominent figures on the left were silent on gay rights until relatively recently.
I don’t know if that’s the argument you think it is? The first modern Chinese and Russian billionaires are products of the 80s/90s, decades after the deaths of Stalin and Mao. Arguably, there’s a fair amount of compromising that led to the collapse of the USSR and the rise of capitalist communism in China created these billionaires. Maybe if they’d kept a harder, purer, uncompromising communist line there’d be fewer billionaires.
You can also take a look at Reconstruction. Any black person will tell you that while there has been progress, it’s obviously not been enough. And Reconstruction played a large part in that. We were uncompromising at first, which led to real results. Then we compromised and Reconstruction ended. And the South went right back to the way things had been.
The sad truth is that if more people were uncompromising on their moral core, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess.
now, instead of a gaza genocide problem, we have a gaza genocide and iran genocide problem. that’s of course ignoring the america genocide, the climate apocalypse, and the healthcare and economy crises, which were bad before, but now…
not that 3rd party/ abstainers are responsible for all this, but i really want to understand what they thought they would accomplish by yelling and shouting about the 100% guaranteed fail route of sitting out or voting for jill fucking stein
i really want to understand what they thought they would accomplish
I’ve been asking for almost two years and no one will say. I get a lot of “screw you, fascist!” And “Oh, so everyone hasvto have a plan now?!?” amongst other head-scratching non-answers.
The most important thing appears to be to not be involved in any decisions, movements, or other political realities that might conceivably ever have a chance at existing in our lifetimes. I guess.
Honestly at this point most are indistinguishable from straight up FSB bots. Divide the left, no other goals.
actually it would be fucking nice if we could reach 50% agreement of the issues. too bad the establishment dems have more in common with republicans then their own base
They are alright and I wouldn’t mind seeing more people like them in our government. However, we have fundamentally different goals and major disagreements on policy that aren’t exactly reconciliable. I only said it would be nice to feel somewhat represented but I am aware that’s entirely unreasonable given my political agenda stands in direct contradiction to that of the people who run this country.
Being opposition doesn’t make you left. These aren’t people that oppose capitalism they are people who want a capitalism that is easier on the domestic working class. At the expense of the imperial periphery of course, though this goes unsaid. I sort of like them but their end goal is not the destruction of capitalism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but capitalism isn’t going anywhere in the US. You’re in a tiny echo chamber if you think that the wholesale destruction of capitalism is even a viable choice.
I don’t believe we are going to destroy capitalism. I believe capitalism is going to destroy itself (or most of the world which is kinda the same thing) and we have to prepare and alternative for when that happens. This belief does not come from online message boards it comes from reading innumerable books on political economy and history. The echo chamber is where I go to find like minded people.
You are not bursting my bubble. I have existed in yours most of my life and understand it well. I have made a choice between two world views that I have plenty of experience with and I am satisfied with that choice.
I had a long chat with you about this recently. And I don’t think I said “screw you fascist” or “who needs a plan?” And I think I stated it pretty clearly. If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position. If literally no votes are held back for that modicum of decency then they have absolutely no reason to change. There’s absolutely nothing confusing or illogical about it, and I don’t know why y’all pretend you’re so bamboozled by it. I mean…you can disagree, go for it. Vote blue no matter who if that suits you. That’s what I think.
But you want to know what I feel? All of you are in here with a photo of two characters whose lives have been destroyed, imagining “this could be me thanks to those assholes who wouldn’t vote for this to happen to other people.” It’s so unbelievably selfish. We all gotta just accept that Palestinians will suffer like this…that’s the price we pay for it not to be us.
so now we have a fascist rapist pedophile con man in office, the genocide is worse than ever, and now we have a new genocide in the making, not to mention in the states, and i’m skeptical that “votes” will even be a thing ever again.
I am responding to brynden here, but this is for anyone, especially those who believe the most moral choice in Nov 2024 was to vote third party or not at all…
Do you pay taxes to the US government? If you do, could you explain to me how not voting for Harris absolves you of moral culpability for genocide, but giving thousands of dollars every year to the Feds (who have always been controlled by a major party), who will use that money to directly fund genocide, doesn’t make you even more culpable than that single vote for Harris?
because they would have been better off under trump? how’s that going btw?
how about the iranians? how about immigrants? how about education? healthcare? environment? economy?
dude, the “i won’t vote for genocide” thing is noble, but you’re ignoring the real world in favor of your idealistic delusion of a country where we can just throw our vote away and think that will change something.
can i tell you a secret: the united states of america will NEVER stop fellating israel. no matter who is president. did you think jill stein (or who the fuck ever) would snap their fingers and all of a sudden put a leash on israel? honest question
I mean…i’m sure you agree with this: if the democrats want to win, they should not be making choices that cost them votes. Their post-mortem on 2024 tells them that continuing their pro-genocide position cost them votes (according to axios anyway, who I guess got a peek at it somehow. the democrats have decided they are not going to publish it.).
That’s real pressure for them to change. Not voting for the democrats created that pressure. They now know that abandoning israel will lead to a net-increase in their votes.
And yeah, I would hope that when looking down the barrel of more domestic fascism, knowing that it will matter from a purely Machiavellian perspective, the democrats will stop arming a genocide.
Like…I get how scared everyone is. I have family members who are undocumented immigrants in the US. It is terrifying. My neice might get shipped off to some el-salvadorian torture prison. Life would have been better for them if Harris had won. But I don’t regret refusing to vote for Harris because (a) I reject the claim that I have some ethical culpability for what the the fascists do (that’s just some ontological fuckery that I can’t straighten out in my mind, even with the benefit of a philosophy undergrad and years more of school and work figuring out all kinds of tax-law fuckery), and (b) people taking this position has created measurable pressure on the democrats to change. I guess there’s also the sneaky (c) my vote would not have counted anyway because I’m not from a swing state.
you’ve done a lot of work to justify your wrong position of doing nothing to keep the rapist pedophile fascist con man moron out of office.
bravo.
i’m sure you’re very proud of yourself. but you haven’t defended your position in the slightest, despite your “i’m an undergrad in philosophy” (fucking seriously, dude?) “authority” on the subject of how a populace should avoid authoritarianism, which is a key objective in a democracy.
don’t worry bro–i give it 50/50 whether the votes will even matter in november, and if we come out on the bottom, then the chances will be 00/100. but that’s just me. maybe the country will wake up and realize that in order to change things for the better, the only thing we can do is flush our votes down the toilet.
for fucks fucking sake. i’m glad you’re happy with yourself
I had a long chat with you about this recently. And I don’t think I said “screw you fascist” or “who needs a plan?” And I think I stated it pretty clearly
That’s true, that was not you. We did have a good chat and iirc you had voted for Dems up until Harris? I forget but you weren’t against voting, you just had the single issue that defined all others.
Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position. If literally no votes are held back for that modicum of decency then they have absolutely no reason to change.
Yeah, but that’s where we are now and it’s very very bad. I disagree that change of the kind you’re looking for will come about through throwing the election to avowed fascists, but it is at least a defined position with room to move forward, which is a lot more than some of the other intransigent non-voters.
I think “throwing the election” is overstating it. Harris lost votes because she decided to continue arming a genocide. The democrats know that…if they didn’t know it before (doubt), they do now. Their position cost them votes. That’s what their post-mortem says, according to Axios anyway. So if they don’t change course, they’re choosing to have fewer votes. They really really should not risk choosing to have fewer votes.
If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position.
The problem is that this way of thinking is backwards and ineffective. I don’t give a shit about rewarding Democrats with my vote; I care about securing the most favorable conditions I can. When both popular options are bad, that means picking the less bad one, even if it’s only slightly less bad; even if it’s exactly as bad by one metric, and only better on other metrics. Our votes aren’t to give them some achievement trophy, they’re to determine who will be making policy decisions.
Further, it isn’t really an effective way to force them to change. People who didn’t vote for them didn’t fill out a questionnaire to communicate why they didn’t vote for them. The only way they get that information is if it’s given to them somehow.
They have information about what will happen if they break with Israel: AIPAC will dump tons of money into opposing them. Not only will they lose the Zionist portion of their voter base, but wealthy Zionists will inundate them with attack ads to jeopardize other portions of their base.
They’re going to do calculations, based on the actual communicated data they have, to weigh the number of voters they’d lose vs. the number of voters they’d gain by withdrawing support for Israel. The data against withdrawing support for Israel is highly organized, heavily funded, and very clearly communicated. However widespread you think the movement to withdraw support is, it’s less organized, less funded, and less clearly communicated. From the perspective of DNC leadership, the calculations are clear.
If you want them to change, you need clear, organized data to show them what the change needs to be and how many people support it. You need tens of millions of signatures on a clearly worded petition. Otherwise, you’re essentially just a loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment.
I disagree with your ethical framing (to my personal moral compass, I’m less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide), but setting that aside, I guess this loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment have had an effect. The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
They know. The calculations are clearly against supporting a genocide…which should be a no brainer no matter how organized or funded the genocidiers are.
less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide
You seem to be a strict deontologist. I do not subscribe to that worldview. I find it childish and self-centered, both ineffective and rarely consistent. But putting that aside, “legitimacy” is irrelevant. It will continue with or without your personal blessing. It’s moralistic posturing with no material effect.
The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
I don’t think that’s what it says at all. I think it may have said that it resulted in a raw loss of votes, I do not think that it reflected a net loss of votes. I think their data implies they would have lost more votes in changing positions than they would have gained. Like it or not, the propaganda is strong, and there are more low-information voters than high-information ones. Go against Israel, and you go against AIPAC. Go against AIPAC, and you’re in for a world of hurt on the political field. You’re not just losing active Zionists, you’re losing fence-sitters who are not immune to waves of attack ads.
Obviously not supporting a genocide is a no-brainer, but the majority of voters have no brain to speak of. You can’t beat organized and well-funded propaganda with the silent treatment.
Hamid Bendaas, a spokesperson for the IMEU Policy Project, said that during the meeting “the DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election.” Two other senior aides at the pro-Palestinian organization also said the DNC had drawn that conclusion.
What do you mean, you don’t think that’s what it says? Have you seen it? I’d love to get a copy if you’re leaking it! Do you just mean you imagine it wouldn’t say that?
I’m not a strict deontologist; I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole. The democrats and the republicans actually have power. They are the moral agent here.
In a trolley problem (since you seem like someone who might be familiar), voters are just watching from afar and wishing for the people at the switch to make one choice or the other. And that’s fine. But don’t give me shit for not wasting my time wishing.
I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole.
You are very much not. Again with the “legitimizing”. There is no “legitimacy” metric in elections. Power doesn’t scale with vote count. All that matters is which side beats the other. If only one person “legitimizes” the system, and everyone else refuses to vote, the winner still has all the powers of the president. The outcome is exactly the same as if every single voter chose them.
They don’t get fewer powers for winning with only one vote, they don’t get any extra powers by winning by 100 million votes. The concept of “legitimizing” the system is a fiction that exists only in the mind of deontologists.
In the trolley problem, voters are voting on whether to pull the lever. If enough people vote to pull the lever, the lever is pulled. It’s even more clear cut than the trolley problem, because Gaza is on both tracks. You don’t even save them by not pulling the switch, you just let everyone else on that track die too. There’s no reason not to pull the switch, there is no dilemma. Inaction is objectively the wrong choice.
I think these are the people who choose “Do nothing” on the 5-v-1 trolley problem. i.e.: they would rather let 5 people die than take an active role in killing one. I can understand the moral argument, but it really does make for objectively poor outcomes.
The Trolley Problem isn’t a correct Games Theory representation of this situation, not even close:
For starters, those doing the chosing don’t know for sure what’s down each track (we do know now, with hindsight and only for the chosen branch, but that’s long after making the choice and you still don’t know what would be down the other track)
Second, it’s not an individual choice, it’s a mathematical calculation (not even an average) of multiple choices which were not coordinated (i.e. each individual does not know enough at the time of their own choice to predict the final result), so unlike in the Trolley Problem, there is no individual responsibility.
Last but not least, this is a cyclical choice were how many victims are on the tracks for the next choice is influenced by what was chosrn in an earlier cycel and even how many people made that choice - sending the tram down a line with more victims now might actually mean fewer victims on the line of one or even both branches for the next choice, or the opposite (clearly past choices created this situation were both candidates were Genocide supporters hence there we’re far more victims on both tracks)
You have either been deceived by this propagandistic misuse of Games Theory and are now parroting it without fully understanding it or you are knowingly being deceitful for the purpose of supporting the leaders of your party.
if you intervene you own the consequences. Who tied these people to the tracks? are they watching me decide? refusing to participate in a rigged game is perfectly rational and moral.
A mentally ill guy who’s mentally ill because his alcoholic father treated him horribly as a kid, and his father was an alcoholic because he lost his job because of the economic recession.
What now?
are they watching me decide?
Why do you care? Does that affect your decision?
There is no “non-rigged” game, this is a very messy world burdened with centuries of unfairness. At some point you’ll have to move on from merely pointing out who’s at fault towards actually trying to fix things.
the trolley problem is the rigged game. It captures none of the important ‘messiness’ of the real world and ultimately is used to help you rationalise voting against your own best interests within a 2-party political paradigm
You barely responded to anything I wrote. The key words seem to correspond, but nothing here actually builds upon the previous comments, it’s either restating things or saying something (as far as I see) unrelated and illogical.
What exactly are my own best interests that I’m supposedly voting against by supposedly voting for Democrats? Why are my best interests crucial here anyway? Could we also take into account the 200 dead Iranian children’s best interests? I think they’re more important than mine, honestly.
Whatever you gotta tell yourself, but the election happened and votes were counted and now it’s another four years of killing everything. If you didn’t do the one thing that you could do, that’s neither rational nor moral.
You are not responsible for actions which you do not take, and further, you are not responsible for consequences proceeding from actions you did not take.
The trolley problem is designed specifically to illustrate the simple logic of utilitarianism. It allocates no blame to whoever tied the guy to the tracks, and doesn’t usually include any consideration of context. Unlike reality, the trolley problem reduces a qualitative moral decisionmaking to a pure binary, in a complete vacuum. It exists to demonstrate that one number is bigger than another number, with a couple of extra steps. No relationship to reality.
If you have a choice whether you wanted to have it or not, and you choose not to act. That in and of itself is you making a call as to what outcome you prefer. You are therefore responsible.
Choosing not to act is still a choice own it. You would choose to let 5 people die instead of 1 so that you don’t have to feel responsible but you are. You are putting your emotions over the lives of others.
There is such a thing legally speaking as gross negligence. You chose not to act and a worse outcome happens when you had the ability to stop it. Your argument would never hold up in court.
You can try to claim moral superiority all you like but in the end it’s just an excuse to allow you to put your feelings over the lives of others.
As a Canadian I’m am disappointed and disgusted by the selfishness of the US populace both left and right in different ways. Get off your high horse and own your decisions. The time for change is at the grassroots level. Stop with your mememe “morality” and do something beyond the absolute minimum of voting if you even did that.
You don’t get to choose whether you are in the trolley problem. Once you’re standing in front of the lever, choosing to not intervene is still a choice.
it’s unwise to negotiate with terrorists, and for similar reasons I would say that it is unwise to participate in a system that legitimises your own destruction
I said I understand the argument. You can rage at how the people got on the tracks and look for the real culprits all day, but while you’re ‘solving’ the big problem, people die who didn’t have to.
How about the Blade Runner question: You come across a tortoise on its back, belly baking in the hot sun: do you flip the tortoise on its feet or worry who flipped it on its back while you watch it die?
i would intervene with the tortoise, and i’d happily wear the consequences. I’m not obliged to be a pure witness nor am i bound by any kind of prime directive. I can explain to my conscience why an extra tortoise exists due to my actions but i couldn’t say the same about the trolley problem without extra information.
For example, if i am being observed then my decision becomes data, which carries its own weight and precedent. If the situation was arranged to view my response, then I am obliged to not participate, to send a signal to the experimenters to not tie anyone up on the tracks for future observers. I condemn everyone in front of me to death but how do i know they won’t be killed regardless? whoever arranged the situation obviously didn’t value their lives very highly…
either the group that would not vote for harris is small enough that they don’t deserve representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
or the group that would not vote for harris is large enough to have impacted the election and deserved representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
The group that would not vote for Harris is small enough that they will be overrun with demented fascism as a definite result of their ill-informed “voting strategy”.
The group that would not vote for Harris is large enough to be roundly mocked and derided for such an obvious and preventable fuckup.
you are incorrect, the only one with a voting strategy is the democratic establishment. and they are obviously bad at math. or have chosen this result vs reaching out to their orphaned base
Absolutely. Yet they hide behind bullshit excuses about how they couldn’t support Harris when they KNEW having Trump win would be terrible for America, and therefore great for their own personal goals.
Personally I hoped that the threat would be enough. I hoped if we were all really loud about it the Democratic party would go, “hey I think we might lose this one if we don’t stop murdering thousands of people”. I hoped they would choose winning the election and at least delaying fascism over genocide. They didn’t and it lost them the election. Now we have the beginnings of fascism AND a genocide. Fantastic. Maybe losing the election will motivate them to do better in the next one, if we have one.
Honestly, I’m mostly just shocked they didn’t even try. It’s insane to me that they didn’t even bother lying. They were just that dedicated to genocide. It sucks that Trump made it in to office so soon, it really does but the Democratic party had the opportunity to prevent it and chose not to. I consider them and their donors far more responsible than anyone in this comment section or in any of our actual lives. They have us in such a twist that we are scrapping with eachother over their decisions.
Time to post this again.
Bayard Rustin was a gay Black man who was instrumental in making the March on Washington happen. Even though he was a close ally of MLK, he never pushed King to speak on gay rights, because he knew it wasn’t something america could handle in 1965.
Frederick Douglas supported Abe Lincoln in 1860, even though Lincoln has said that abolition wasn’t as important as keeping the Union together. There was an abolition candidate, but Douglas didn’t think he could win, so Douglas decided to back the person with the best chance in hope of having a seat at the table later.
But Harris actually had a lower chance of winning than a hypothetical Harris-without-genocide candidate.
“Stop supporting Israel’s genocide” is something America could handle in 2024.
You know, I can quote a whole bunch of civil rights icons’ opinions about moderation and compromise, but that’d just be us arguing over who has the best black friends.
So I’ll just point out that despite all the wise compromise and statesman concessions to white supremacy, it remains a problem somehow.
So, your black friends are telling you that there’s been no progress since 1860?
And let’s turn it around.
Both Mao and Stalin were uncompromising in their efforts to get rid of capitalism.
Both Russia and China are rife with billionaires.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Thank you for proving my point.
King was as bad as any of those ‘Liberals’ when it came to gay rights.
Completely ignored the gays, because he knew that America in 1963 wasn’t ready to talk about that.
What point for I prove? Just because someone is wrong about one thing makes them wrong about another?
Dr. King was a preacher in a mid-20th century southern black context. He likely didn’t believe in gay marriage. Hell, Obama only supported “civil unions” in 2004. Most prominent figures on the left were silent on gay rights until relatively recently.
I don’t know if that’s the argument you think it is? The first modern Chinese and Russian billionaires are products of the 80s/90s, decades after the deaths of Stalin and Mao. Arguably, there’s a fair amount of compromising that led to the collapse of the USSR and the rise of capitalist communism in China created these billionaires. Maybe if they’d kept a harder, purer, uncompromising communist line there’d be fewer billionaires.
You can also take a look at Reconstruction. Any black person will tell you that while there has been progress, it’s obviously not been enough. And Reconstruction played a large part in that. We were uncompromising at first, which led to real results. Then we compromised and Reconstruction ended. And the South went right back to the way things had been.
The sad truth is that if more people were uncompromising on their moral core, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess.
“If more people were uncompromising…”
My favorite magic word. “If…”
We can wish for a better world, or accept and deal with the facts of the here and now.
now, instead of a gaza genocide problem, we have a gaza genocide and iran genocide problem. that’s of course ignoring the america genocide, the climate apocalypse, and the healthcare and economy crises, which were bad before, but now…
not that 3rd party/ abstainers are responsible for all this, but i really want to understand what they thought they would accomplish by yelling and shouting about the 100% guaranteed fail route of sitting out or voting for jill fucking stein
I’ve been asking for almost two years and no one will say. I get a lot of “screw you, fascist!” And “Oh, so everyone hasvto have a plan now?!?” amongst other head-scratching non-answers.
The most important thing appears to be to not be involved in any decisions, movements, or other political realities that might conceivably ever have a chance at existing in our lifetimes. I guess.
Honestly at this point most are indistinguishable from straight up FSB bots. Divide the left, no other goals.
Apathy is also participation.
They will tell you that AOC, Omar, and Mamdani aren’t really ‘Left’ because they sided with the Dems.
Purity first last and always!
I’ve seen people say that Mamdani is a traitor because he didn’t denounce the NYPD after that snowball incident.
Ex-New York Mayor Ed Koch put it so simply.
“If you agree with me 51% of the time, vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, see a psychiatrist.”
Meanwhile, American leftists: “if I don’t agree with them 100% of the time they’re not a real leftist”
actually it would be fucking nice if we could reach 50% agreement of the issues. too bad the establishment dems have more in common with republicans then their own base
Someone think of the consultants!
Not arming a genocide is not some extreme purity test.
God I wish there was a US politician I agreed with 51% of the time. Just for my own sanity if nothing else.
So, Omar isn’t pure enough for you?
Bernie?
They are alright and I wouldn’t mind seeing more people like them in our government. However, we have fundamentally different goals and major disagreements on policy that aren’t exactly reconciliable. I only said it would be nice to feel somewhat represented but I am aware that’s entirely unreasonable given my political agenda stands in direct contradiction to that of the people who run this country.
Being opposition doesn’t make you left. These aren’t people that oppose capitalism they are people who want a capitalism that is easier on the domestic working class. At the expense of the imperial periphery of course, though this goes unsaid. I sort of like them but their end goal is not the destruction of capitalism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but capitalism isn’t going anywhere in the US. You’re in a tiny echo chamber if you think that the wholesale destruction of capitalism is even a viable choice.
I don’t believe we are going to destroy capitalism. I believe capitalism is going to destroy itself (or most of the world which is kinda the same thing) and we have to prepare and alternative for when that happens. This belief does not come from online message boards it comes from reading innumerable books on political economy and history. The echo chamber is where I go to find like minded people.
You are not bursting my bubble. I have existed in yours most of my life and understand it well. I have made a choice between two world views that I have plenty of experience with and I am satisfied with that choice.
I had a long chat with you about this recently. And I don’t think I said “screw you fascist” or “who needs a plan?” And I think I stated it pretty clearly. If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position. If literally no votes are held back for that modicum of decency then they have absolutely no reason to change. There’s absolutely nothing confusing or illogical about it, and I don’t know why y’all pretend you’re so bamboozled by it. I mean…you can disagree, go for it. Vote blue no matter who if that suits you. That’s what I think.
But you want to know what I feel? All of you are in here with a photo of two characters whose lives have been destroyed, imagining “this could be me thanks to those assholes who wouldn’t vote for this to happen to other people.” It’s so unbelievably selfish. We all gotta just accept that Palestinians will suffer like this…that’s the price we pay for it not to be us.
so now we have a fascist rapist pedophile con man in office, the genocide is worse than ever, and now we have a new genocide in the making, not to mention in the states, and i’m skeptical that “votes” will even be a thing ever again.
congrats on your moral superiority
And all the democrats had to do to avoid it was not arm a genocide? Which they shouldn’t have done anyway? Failing to see how this is my fault.
Sorry if we got in the way of your plan to throw palestinians in the woodchipper and go back to brunch. Congrats on your moral inferiority?
Wow you really showed them.
I mean…actually though; their postmortem says they lost net votes due to arming the genocide.
But I’ve been told that it wasn’t enough to change the outcome? Which is it?
Yeah the better version of this meme has the text, “Well at least she didn’t say anything antisemitic.”
There’s that brunch thing again. I guess eating at 11am is horrifyingly bourgeoise, but that seems kind of dumb.
Brunch is lovely.
But I’m using brunch as a metaphor for “living a comfortable life and not worrying about the suffering inflicted with your tax dollars.”
I am responding to brynden here, but this is for anyone, especially those who believe the most moral choice in Nov 2024 was to vote third party or not at all…
Do you pay taxes to the US government? If you do, could you explain to me how not voting for Harris absolves you of moral culpability for genocide, but giving thousands of dollars every year to the Feds (who have always been controlled by a major party), who will use that money to directly fund genocide, doesn’t make you even more culpable than that single vote for Harris?
Do you all live off the grid on a barter system?
because they would have been better off under trump? how’s that going btw?
how about the iranians? how about immigrants? how about education? healthcare? environment? economy?
dude, the “i won’t vote for genocide” thing is noble, but you’re ignoring the real world in favor of your idealistic delusion of a country where we can just throw our vote away and think that will change something.
can i tell you a secret: the united states of america will NEVER stop fellating israel. no matter who is president. did you think jill stein (or who the fuck ever) would snap their fingers and all of a sudden put a leash on israel? honest question
I mean…i’m sure you agree with this: if the democrats want to win, they should not be making choices that cost them votes. Their post-mortem on 2024 tells them that continuing their pro-genocide position cost them votes (according to axios anyway, who I guess got a peek at it somehow. the democrats have decided they are not going to publish it.).
That’s real pressure for them to change. Not voting for the democrats created that pressure. They now know that abandoning israel will lead to a net-increase in their votes.
And yeah, I would hope that when looking down the barrel of more domestic fascism, knowing that it will matter from a purely Machiavellian perspective, the democrats will stop arming a genocide.
Like…I get how scared everyone is. I have family members who are undocumented immigrants in the US. It is terrifying. My neice might get shipped off to some el-salvadorian torture prison. Life would have been better for them if Harris had won. But I don’t regret refusing to vote for Harris because (a) I reject the claim that I have some ethical culpability for what the the fascists do (that’s just some ontological fuckery that I can’t straighten out in my mind, even with the benefit of a philosophy undergrad and years more of school and work figuring out all kinds of tax-law fuckery), and (b) people taking this position has created measurable pressure on the democrats to change. I guess there’s also the sneaky (c) my vote would not have counted anyway because I’m not from a swing state.
you’ve done a lot of work to justify your wrong position of doing nothing to keep the rapist pedophile fascist con man moron out of office.
bravo.
i’m sure you’re very proud of yourself. but you haven’t defended your position in the slightest, despite your “i’m an undergrad in philosophy” (fucking seriously, dude?) “authority” on the subject of how a populace should avoid authoritarianism, which is a key objective in a democracy.
don’t worry bro–i give it 50/50 whether the votes will even matter in november, and if we come out on the bottom, then the chances will be 00/100. but that’s just me. maybe the country will wake up and realize that in order to change things for the better, the only thing we can do is flush our votes down the toilet.
for fucks fucking sake. i’m glad you’re happy with yourself
That’s true, that was not you. We did have a good chat and iirc you had voted for Dems up until Harris? I forget but you weren’t against voting, you just had the single issue that defined all others.
Yeah, but that’s where we are now and it’s very very bad. I disagree that change of the kind you’re looking for will come about through throwing the election to avowed fascists, but it is at least a defined position with room to move forward, which is a lot more than some of the other intransigent non-voters.
I think “throwing the election” is overstating it. Harris lost votes because she decided to continue arming a genocide. The democrats know that…if they didn’t know it before (doubt), they do now. Their position cost them votes. That’s what their post-mortem says, according to Axios anyway. So if they don’t change course, they’re choosing to have fewer votes. They really really should not risk choosing to have fewer votes.
The problem is that this way of thinking is backwards and ineffective. I don’t give a shit about rewarding Democrats with my vote; I care about securing the most favorable conditions I can. When both popular options are bad, that means picking the less bad one, even if it’s only slightly less bad; even if it’s exactly as bad by one metric, and only better on other metrics. Our votes aren’t to give them some achievement trophy, they’re to determine who will be making policy decisions.
Further, it isn’t really an effective way to force them to change. People who didn’t vote for them didn’t fill out a questionnaire to communicate why they didn’t vote for them. The only way they get that information is if it’s given to them somehow.
They have information about what will happen if they break with Israel: AIPAC will dump tons of money into opposing them. Not only will they lose the Zionist portion of their voter base, but wealthy Zionists will inundate them with attack ads to jeopardize other portions of their base.
They’re going to do calculations, based on the actual communicated data they have, to weigh the number of voters they’d lose vs. the number of voters they’d gain by withdrawing support for Israel. The data against withdrawing support for Israel is highly organized, heavily funded, and very clearly communicated. However widespread you think the movement to withdraw support is, it’s less organized, less funded, and less clearly communicated. From the perspective of DNC leadership, the calculations are clear.
If you want them to change, you need clear, organized data to show them what the change needs to be and how many people support it. You need tens of millions of signatures on a clearly worded petition. Otherwise, you’re essentially just a loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment.
I disagree with your ethical framing (to my personal moral compass, I’m less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide), but setting that aside, I guess this loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment have had an effect. The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
They know. The calculations are clearly against supporting a genocide…which should be a no brainer no matter how organized or funded the genocidiers are.
You seem to be a strict deontologist. I do not subscribe to that worldview. I find it childish and self-centered, both ineffective and rarely consistent. But putting that aside, “legitimacy” is irrelevant. It will continue with or without your personal blessing. It’s moralistic posturing with no material effect.
I don’t think that’s what it says at all. I think it may have said that it resulted in a raw loss of votes, I do not think that it reflected a net loss of votes. I think their data implies they would have lost more votes in changing positions than they would have gained. Like it or not, the propaganda is strong, and there are more low-information voters than high-information ones. Go against Israel, and you go against AIPAC. Go against AIPAC, and you’re in for a world of hurt on the political field. You’re not just losing active Zionists, you’re losing fence-sitters who are not immune to waves of attack ads.
Obviously not supporting a genocide is a no-brainer, but the majority of voters have no brain to speak of. You can’t beat organized and well-funded propaganda with the silent treatment.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaza
What do you mean, you don’t think that’s what it says? Have you seen it? I’d love to get a copy if you’re leaking it! Do you just mean you imagine it wouldn’t say that?
I’m not a strict deontologist; I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole. The democrats and the republicans actually have power. They are the moral agent here.
In a trolley problem (since you seem like someone who might be familiar), voters are just watching from afar and wishing for the people at the switch to make one choice or the other. And that’s fine. But don’t give me shit for not wasting my time wishing.
You are very much not. Again with the “legitimizing”. There is no “legitimacy” metric in elections. Power doesn’t scale with vote count. All that matters is which side beats the other. If only one person “legitimizes” the system, and everyone else refuses to vote, the winner still has all the powers of the president. The outcome is exactly the same as if every single voter chose them.
They don’t get fewer powers for winning with only one vote, they don’t get any extra powers by winning by 100 million votes. The concept of “legitimizing” the system is a fiction that exists only in the mind of deontologists.
In the trolley problem, voters are voting on whether to pull the lever. If enough people vote to pull the lever, the lever is pulled. It’s even more clear cut than the trolley problem, because Gaza is on both tracks. You don’t even save them by not pulling the switch, you just let everyone else on that track die too. There’s no reason not to pull the switch, there is no dilemma. Inaction is objectively the wrong choice.
I think these are the people who choose “Do nothing” on the 5-v-1 trolley problem. i.e.: they would rather let 5 people die than take an active role in killing one. I can understand the moral argument, but it really does make for objectively poor outcomes.
The Trolley Problem isn’t a correct Games Theory representation of this situation, not even close:
You have either been deceived by this propagandistic misuse of Games Theory and are now parroting it without fully understanding it or you are knowingly being deceitful for the purpose of supporting the leaders of your party.
if you intervene you own the consequences. Who tied these people to the tracks? are they watching me decide? refusing to participate in a rigged game is perfectly rational and moral.
A mentally ill guy who’s mentally ill because his alcoholic father treated him horribly as a kid, and his father was an alcoholic because he lost his job because of the economic recession.
What now?
Why do you care? Does that affect your decision?
There is no “non-rigged” game, this is a very messy world burdened with centuries of unfairness. At some point you’ll have to move on from merely pointing out who’s at fault towards actually trying to fix things.
the trolley problem is the rigged game. It captures none of the important ‘messiness’ of the real world and ultimately is used to help you rationalise voting against your own best interests within a 2-party political paradigm
You barely responded to anything I wrote. The key words seem to correspond, but nothing here actually builds upon the previous comments, it’s either restating things or saying something (as far as I see) unrelated and illogical.
What exactly are my own best interests that I’m supposedly voting against by supposedly voting for Democrats? Why are my best interests crucial here anyway? Could we also take into account the 200 dead Iranian children’s best interests? I think they’re more important than mine, honestly.
Whatever you gotta tell yourself, but the election happened and votes were counted and now it’s another four years of killing everything. If you didn’t do the one thing that you could do, that’s neither rational nor moral.
If you do nothing, you own the consequences too, even if you try to pretend that you don’t.
And they are much worse consequences. Much worse than the 5:1 ratio of the original trolley problem
You are not responsible for actions which you do not take, and further, you are not responsible for consequences proceeding from actions you did not take.
The trolley problem is designed specifically to illustrate the simple logic of utilitarianism. It allocates no blame to whoever tied the guy to the tracks, and doesn’t usually include any consideration of context. Unlike reality, the trolley problem reduces a qualitative moral decisionmaking to a pure binary, in a complete vacuum. It exists to demonstrate that one number is bigger than another number, with a couple of extra steps. No relationship to reality.
If you have a choice whether you wanted to have it or not, and you choose not to act. That in and of itself is you making a call as to what outcome you prefer. You are therefore responsible.
Choosing not to act is still a choice own it. You would choose to let 5 people die instead of 1 so that you don’t have to feel responsible but you are. You are putting your emotions over the lives of others.
There is such a thing legally speaking as gross negligence. You chose not to act and a worse outcome happens when you had the ability to stop it. Your argument would never hold up in court.
You can try to claim moral superiority all you like but in the end it’s just an excuse to allow you to put your feelings over the lives of others.
As a Canadian I’m am disappointed and disgusted by the selfishness of the US populace both left and right in different ways. Get off your high horse and own your decisions. The time for change is at the grassroots level. Stop with your mememe “morality” and do something beyond the absolute minimum of voting if you even did that.
Fix your shit American sorry not sorry
You don’t get to choose whether you are in the trolley problem. Once you’re standing in front of the lever, choosing to not intervene is still a choice.
it’s unwise to negotiate with terrorists, and for similar reasons I would say that it is unwise to participate in a system that legitimises your own destruction
I said I understand the argument. You can rage at how the people got on the tracks and look for the real culprits all day, but while you’re ‘solving’ the big problem, people die who didn’t have to.
How about the Blade Runner question: You come across a tortoise on its back, belly baking in the hot sun: do you flip the tortoise on its feet or worry who flipped it on its back while you watch it die?
i would intervene with the tortoise, and i’d happily wear the consequences. I’m not obliged to be a pure witness nor am i bound by any kind of prime directive. I can explain to my conscience why an extra tortoise exists due to my actions but i couldn’t say the same about the trolley problem without extra information.
For example, if i am being observed then my decision becomes data, which carries its own weight and precedent. If the situation was arranged to view my response, then I am obliged to not participate, to send a signal to the experimenters to not tie anyone up on the tracks for future observers. I condemn everyone in front of me to death but how do i know they won’t be killed regardless? whoever arranged the situation obviously didn’t value their lives very highly…
you get to choose one and only one:
either the group that would not vote for harris is small enough that they don’t deserve representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
or the group that would not vote for harris is large enough to have impacted the election and deserved representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
you can’t have both
The group that would not vote for Harris is small enough that they will be overrun with demented fascism as a definite result of their ill-informed “voting strategy”.
The group that would not vote for Harris is large enough to be roundly mocked and derided for such an obvious and preventable fuckup.
You can have both.
you are incorrect, the only one with a voting strategy is the democratic establishment. and they are obviously bad at math. or have chosen this result vs reaching out to their orphaned base
We were hoping the democrats would realize.their mistake and alter their platform
After losing. So after Trump wins and permanently fucks up our country?
Smart.
Some people here on Lemmy are also accelerationists who actually want things up get much worse before they get better. Even dumber.
Absolutely. Yet they hide behind bullshit excuses about how they couldn’t support Harris when they KNEW having Trump win would be terrible for America, and therefore great for their own personal goals.
Fuck those disingenuous trolls.
Personally I hoped that the threat would be enough. I hoped if we were all really loud about it the Democratic party would go, “hey I think we might lose this one if we don’t stop murdering thousands of people”. I hoped they would choose winning the election and at least delaying fascism over genocide. They didn’t and it lost them the election. Now we have the beginnings of fascism AND a genocide. Fantastic. Maybe losing the election will motivate them to do better in the next one, if we have one.
Honestly, I’m mostly just shocked they didn’t even try. It’s insane to me that they didn’t even bother lying. They were just that dedicated to genocide. It sucks that Trump made it in to office so soon, it really does but the Democratic party had the opportunity to prevent it and chose not to. I consider them and their donors far more responsible than anyone in this comment section or in any of our actual lives. They have us in such a twist that we are scrapping with eachother over their decisions.
Don’t forget the advancement of Israeli forces into Lebanon to create a “buffer” from Hezbollah that’s displaced a ton of people.
being smug on the internet of course
Edit: oh and fantasizing about how Harris would 100% for sure have attacked Iran as well
ShE wOuLd HaVe BeEn WoRsE!!!
Well they get to feel pure and superior, of course.
Feels great honestly
You say that in safety while others suffer the consequences of your actions.
The consequences of not stopping trump, yes. It was an option at one point.
Word
Sucking your own dick can be like that.
I’m sucking my own dick, yes
Yeah, we’re all very aware of that.
I don’t think you are
It feels wonderful and refreshing sucking my own dick
Take it a step further and go fuck yourself.