By all means, vote independent in state and local elections. We need more choices than a two-party system offers. If the candidate seem qualified, then help new parties establish themselves. Once they build enough followers to make a difference, we can start electing senators. Then the presidency becomes a serious option.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any third party candidates with a realistic chance of winning. The only responsible thing we can do for now is choose the lesser of two evils.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any third party candidates with a realistic chance of winning. The only responsible thing we can do for now is choose the lesser of two evils.
I don’t know anyone who thinks this is about winning. Everyone knows their third party vote isn’t going to result in a win for their candidate, and their candidate also knows this, and they know their candidate knows. When you lecture someone on what they already know, all you do is annoy them. You’re not going to get far with them if you don’t understand what their reasons really are. I can’t tell you; you’ll have to ask them.
One reason for some, that I think you can easily understand, is that unless you live in a swing state, it costs nothing to vote left of genocide. There is no downside, and it may make the Democratic party sweat enough to move slightly left. The party isn’t going to move left if they know you’ll always vote blue no matter who: all that does is make you a reliable and politically irrelevant punching bag.
I wonder if Claudia should rebrand their logo (that they have in the bottom right hand corner of OP) to say something like “*swing state? Vote Harris”
There’s no way she wants 45 to become 47. So she must have some guilt about marketing herself and Karina where a swing state voter might accidentally help get a bad man elected.
(I don’t know anything about her but I’m trusting she has her heart in the right place and is alarmed at all the same things the average Lemming is)
PSL is a Marxist Party. They believe revolution is necessary, and despise the Democrats and Republicans alike. They want their voters to vote in swing states to advertise their party platform and delegitimize the failure of the electoral system in general. They aren't pulling punches because, like all Marxists, they believe the Democrats are unacceptable as well as the Republicans.
There’s a part of my brain that totally gets the logic behind needing a revolution to shake up the system, but then the other part of me is like, ‘Violence? Nah, hard pass.’ So I end up with this funny little cognitive dissonance. I’m all, ‘Yeah, REVOLUTION!’ and at the same time, ‘But let’s make sure no one gets hurt, okay?’ It’s like being stuck between a revolution and a group hug, if that even makes sense!
‘Violence? Nah, hard pass.’
people are experience violence in this genocide to maintain the lifestyle that we're accustomed to.
we're still choosing violence when we support politicians who enable violence; it's just that, that violence isn't for us this time around.
our declining status gaurantees that the violence will eventually come back to bite us in the ass and the sooner we change things; the less violent it will be.
the sooner we change things; the less violent it will be.
this is the most succinct argument illustrating the issue that I've seen so far, kudos!
Marxists would pick reform 100% of the time. The reason Marxists are revolutionary is not because they desire violence, but because reform is about as likely as asking the owner-board of your local megacorp to hand over the regins. Impossible without force.
Trying to plead with corporatists to reform is wasting your breath as they will offer empty promises to do something after your support is required then inevitably do fuck all afterwards, saying either they need to get so many other things done or they'll look at your concerns at the next election cycle/when they need your support.
Also when corporatists realise their coercion has failed, they will immediately use violence to obtain your complicit obedience.
Yes, that's also why Marxists are revolutionary. Reform is impossible because there are more layers than a croissant required to work through, and each layer is made of iron.
This is a good article on why pacifism has not helped us overturn injustice historically, and won't in the future.
The current system is holding up a violence far beyond any revolution. And the violence doesn't have an end. It is selfish and cowardly to not oppose such a system.
“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Swing states aren’t the only states that matter. Also, states “flip”, surprising even experts.
Do you understand how incredibly privileged your stance is? You’re willing to let a horrible person take control of the country just so you can make a point.
Also, states “flip”, surprising even experts.
Everyone also knows that states flip.
Do you understand how incredibly privileged your stance is?
Are the undecided Palestinian-American voters whose families and friends are being slaughtered by the current administration also incredibly privileged?
This is not about winning. Putting votes on third parties is a long term investment. It directly shows both evil parties they are missing out on votes.
Votes they would have had if they changed their agenda.
Rewarding a "lesser evil" for not appealing to left wing voters will teach them they need to keep doing evil because that is what makes them win.
You should be using your voice to pressure Democrats to change their stance on genocide, not shaming voters into becoming complicit in the genocide. This is the one time you have any power and if you back down now, it will not end. You are a coward if you continuously put yourself above the project of ending American empire.
Either candidate who has a real chance of winning endorses genocide. One hates millions of Americans; the other doesn’t. I don’t understand how siding with those millions means I’m putting myself “above” them. The accusation of cowardice is laughable.
We barely kept from defaulting on disability payments to our own veterans at the beginning of October. But we've got all the money in the world to create more suffering. Including putting our own troops in harm's way.
FFS.
But if they don't send them to Israel then what will the poor arms manufacturers do? Some still haven't bought a yacht for this month.
For those with a skeptical nature, I hunted down these numbers.
HUD does not provide numbers to "end homelessness", they report on the state of homelessness including an estimated census of the homeless.
Some annalists have taken these numbers and multiplied them by the cost to imprison someone, or the average cost of American housing. These estimates come out to $11-30B.
So the numbers check out. The only fault I could find with this meme's claims is that they are slightly misleading in suggesting $20B could "end homelessness" without the caveat that that's only for one year.
20 billion could go a long way to curbing homelessness.
20 billion invested in high density, low rent housing units could make housing more accessible to millions of people, including the homeless.
Remember, not all homeless people are completely jobless. Many are couch surfing or sleeping in their cars, have stables jobs, and just can’t afford rent where their job is. An apartment they can afford could do a lot for these people.
Biden just wants to see more dead children
I don't know about all that, but I do believe he has been captured by the MIC/Corporate influence and has no choice or control at all. But, I might just be naive in my thinking, lol.
Biden? No. Here's him in 1982 wanting to kill women and children:
Begin said he was shocked at how passionately Biden supported Israel’s invasion when Biden “said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.”
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-israeli-invasion-lebanon/
Yikes, thanks for sharing that. I’ve not seen anything like this. I have seen him say other pretty asinine things in his past, but nothing like this.
Unbelievable, but at the same time, being the USA the military hegemony it is, unsurprising too that these are words said by their leader.
American democracy in action.
Homelessness isn't a bug in the system, its a feature. Employers need the threat of homelessness to push wages down and artificially inflate the labor supply. They need high rents to segregate portions of the community into "worthy" and "unworthy". They need car-culture to keep people isolated from one another in between work and home. They need student debt to trap people into corporate jobs, rather than setting out on their own as entrepreneurs, co-operative partners, and social workers. They need mass media to keep people more afraid of "crime" and welcoming of the "police" than they are welcoming of neighbors-in-need and hostile to state surveillance and harassment of dissidents.
The $26.7B we're sending to Israel is money towards an experiment in regional social controls and ethnic domination. If the Israelis can do it over there, the plutocrats back home can do it over here.
This implies that they care about the homeless issue. 23 billion is a rounding error in the budget. They just don't want to fix it.
Need poors so that the middle class can think they will become the billionaire class and continue to support their needs
Classes aren't income divisions, but social relations to production. The US, since WWII, has always been thoroughly dominated by the Imperialist Bourgeoisie.
Why would you end homelessness though when you can simply criminalise it and send them to prison to work as slaves?
The site design could be better though. Human brains don't understand how insanely large those numbers are without a visualization.