Guess what? Other forms of organizing and protest will also be opposed. And we should still do them.
If a movement is real and serious that organizing to vote in primaries is really not a big deal. Blue no matter who is really just a last resort and if you don’t want to then you should at least spoil your ballot.
PS anything you consider more effective than voting can still be done btw. Change is not an all or nothing (tho given the mindset around many here they should not be surprised when they really do keep getting nothing)
And they are also not marching in the streets.
And its a good idea. Like I’ve said before, voting is still part of organizing.
Okay. And?
It seems to me that you are very narrow minded about organizing and being able to do more than one thing. Is your community garden going to demolish the system? No. Its too small. Still I would not say its a waste of time. It is still a form of organizing and people taking action. Not all of us have access to one btw. Access to a ballot is still more accessible and we should vote as left as we can. If you are really that hung up on the DNC you can spoil your ballot on the general election day. Also did you know the ballot has more than just the presidential race?
Correct, the people are not marching in the streets because the working class party has not yet educated, agitated, and organized at the scale necessary, and because we are not yet at a crisis point at which people naturally take to the streets, like the BLM protests were. Crisis points happen all the time, what is important is taking them from opposition to one part of the system to the system itself. That’s the job of the socialist party.
I’m aware that you can do more than one thing. As an organizer, I know that resources are extremely limited. The point isn’t to dissuade people from voting, but to persuade people to get organized and to correctly identify capitalism as the problem, not this or that politician. That’s why the idea that I am arguing against voting is flawed, I’m against treating voting like the primary means of political change, considering it cannot actually bring the necessary change about.
That’s my issue with this meme, the strawman it makes. You aren’t arguing against an actual position, but are framing it as though it’s the position the majority of revolutionary socialists have. We don’t actually disagree on much here.
Sure does not seem that way taking a stroll around
.ml.I’m aware that you see it that way, I don’t. Considering there’s no way to prove or disprove this, I tried to focus on actual political parties like the PSL and DSA, and their approach.
Sure, but if you are disparaging to voting then its not relevant what party it is: PSL, DSA, or any other.
My point is that voting is still a form of organizing and disparaging it means demotivating the broader coalition. I think you have a point we won’t vote our way out of it. Still we can minimize harm. My life would be a lot better with Mamdami as my mayor. I live in Texas and a disappointing Talarico is still living to fight another day, where Paxton means assured death.
It is kind of a point of privileged to be able to dismiss elections and just wave them away as ineffectual. Its not a total dismantling, but taking the
.mlroad of don’t bother because you wont get everything is a total surrender and has serious consequences. Not all of us have the privileged to be able to ignore that.I’m not disparaging voting. I disagree that voting is a viable vehicle to gain necessary change, and that funneling people into that without funneling them into organizing work is ineffective. Again, you continue to rely on strawmen by pretending the revolutionary standpoint is “don’t bother because you won’t get everything,” the point is that voting cannot gain socialism. Reforms can be fought for, and should be, but the actual realm reforms are fought for is in the organizing front. Accusing me of having a “privledged” stance for actually sticking my neck out and rolling my sleeves up to do organizing work is just a provacation.
Well maybe you can pass along that message to the rest of the
.ml. Lot of the rhetoric coming from there is exactly what J. Edgar Hoover would have wanted for leftist movements.This phrasing can be interpreted as disparaging voting. I wouldn’t say voting is the start and end of reform; just that it is part of taking action and being visible.
Well elections have very real consequences for many of us and we don’t get to pick to move somewhere to be more shielded from them. Someone who does disparage voting is someone who is leaving cards on the table and likely does not have a sense of urgency and have little need for minimizing harm, so they have no issue skipping primaries and general or the rest of the local races on that same ballot.
Its unfortunate you feel this is provocative as this is just a calm discussion in a forum. No showing for elections and leaving the door open for motivated republicans to take office is provocative to me.
Again, though, in this comment and every other comment, you are happier to invent a position to argue against than to actually address the points raised. I see this as needlessly divisive for the purpose of eliciting an emotional reaction, not an actual calm discussion. Again, I never once disparaged voting, I affirmed the primacy of organizing on the ground as the most necessary.
You’ve got more patience and skill than I do, Cowbee. OP’s moral framework feels impenetrable