this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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I've been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can't believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C'mon guys

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

if voting changed shit it would have been made illegal. don't legitimize slavery by acts of expressing gratitude for being able to pick your masters.

[–] HUMAN_TRASH 32 points 8 months ago

Most brain-dead take right here

[–] ZombieMantis 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They are, especially in the south. Or did you sleep in on 1/6? Express your democratic right, or loose it.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

in this day and age, there is no progressive wing of the bourgeoisie. Revolutionary communists fight for a workers’ government and do not give any support to any capitalist party or politician. (...) However, mass dissatisfaction with the Democrats does not mean a majority of Americans are right-wing reactionaries. On the contrary, most people merely want stability, good jobs and wages, and a safe and healthy place to raise a family. But this simply isn’t possible for everyone under capitalism. The exploitation of wage-labor by capital and the relentless drive for profits precludes this. As an arch-capitalist himself, Trump can’t square the circle either, and he is merely filling the political vacuum in a temporary and distorted way. If reelected, those workers attracted by his poisonous bravado will eventually realize that no American president can magically wave their problems away.

https://socialistrevolution.org/election-2024-why-genocide-joe-and-trumps-system-has-to-go/

Evil is evil and lesser evilism is a disgusting idea.

And when it comes to Trump, just as Hegel put it, historical necessity is often expressed through accident. Donald Trump is a giant, catastrophic accident for the capitalist class.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

but election rigging in post-Soviet Russia was actually started by the CIA to not let the communists get back to power in 1996 elections. Which is actually yet another proof that what is needed in any country really is a revolution and actual thorough democratization of every aspect of social and economic life possible, instead of neo-aristocratic electoralism. And that to that goal, a party able to lead a way towards it is needed (instead of trying to work within those that actually just prop up the system and will actively fight back when that is challenged (look up SJ Voralberg case in Austria as the most recent example, or even more glaringly, CPRF purging anti-war faction or the Blairite hostile takeover in Labour a couple years ago)), which was sadly lacking in Russia in the 90s as well as today.

[–] QuaternionsRock 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

what is needed in any country really is a revolution and actual thorough democratization of every aspect of social and economic life possible

Good luck accomplishing any of that while under a dictatorship :)

[–] force 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

the iranians revolted... into another dictatorship...

and the french revolution ended swell! wait

what about the cuban revolution? oh god damn it

lol i'm just kidding, i can think of a few. the italian civil war and the libyan civil war, and technically the russian revolution and german revolution but i guess it helps when the government you're fighting against is getting brutally beaten in a war against other countries. but i can't say all of those ended in an extremely democratic system

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Incredible how the majority of their comments come at hrs when most Americans are in bed..

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Also I hope the Russian government is overthrown by it's people and that the right to the self determination of the myriad of ethnic groups of Russia is actually honored instead of them being used as a cannon fodder to oppress another nation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I live in Russia. First, that won't happen soon, it's a bad situation with apathy, fragmentation and decay. Second, that myriad of ethnic groups is by geographic distribution mostly unable to secede as states with clearly defined borders. Third, where they can (say, North Caucasus), they depend on central financing to not be terribly poor (and they are still very poor).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

isn't Tuva an exception in this case due to it's isolation? Also a question of leadership, how relevant was Boris Kagarlitsky, actually?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Not of the third point.

Also a question of leadership, how relevant was Boris Kagarlitsky, actually?

So relevant that I've heard about him a few times, but never paid attention.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

stagnant wages, no real influence on the politics because the Overton's window is so narrow and all major parties filled with out of touch millionaires and also just because the political system does not really benefit a common person in a meaningful way, the cost of living and debt crisis, needing to join the military for basic public services, creeping corporate censorship and oligopolization creating a generation of dependent, depressed people with growing self-censorship instinct?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ok but none of this is slavery. I wouldn't even call it indentured servitude. There's a million miles between things sucking and being literally enslaved

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yeah I mean police brutality exists and although a peaceful revolution would be preferable to adventurist bloodshed, we must reckon with the high odds of the powers that be not giving up their power to "the mob" peacefully, this bears no comparison to the rampant abuse of the rural south before the Second American Revolution. But still for real emancipation I believe a third revolution is needed, first the colonial rule, then chattel slavery and now the oligarchic, imperialist capitalism need to go. The continued existence of the previous two was an impendance to the proper development of the United States (the latter two also a humanitarian tragedy, first directly, the latter indirectly*) while nowadays it is also and probably even more importantly, not just anymore due to the climate crisis but also due to hawkish foreign policies being on the rise – a threat to the continued existence of humanity.

* I think I get your point. We used to have that buffer called the middle class that for decades ensured some relative social peace and fostered some faith in the American dream because some people were able to advance socioeconomically. But we are the first generation to actually have a worse standard of living than our parents, so all of that is crumbling. I used to be a software developer but the absolute shitshow that has been the 4-month long failed job hunt in the current state of the market forced me to become a food delivery driver. It all feels so disempowering when you feel your efforts amount to nothing. And I believe it's not just me. Lots of young people have been scammed into wasting their time and money pursuing degrees that produced no ROI for them. I now really think I should've trained to become an electrician or other deficient, decently paying blue-collar vocation but now if I don't find at least a support/admin job in IT soon it will be another couple years of debt and uncertainty and feeling easily replaceable, cheated out of future after being promised an irrationally exaggerated market value.

But I feel like again, I'm not alone in this sentiment and soon we'll see another wave of people training for highly demanded blue collar jobs, the market will saturate and some people will again end up feeling duped into another Ponzi scheme with their livelihoods. Because capitalism is a permanent crisis of overproduction, chaos and speculation, a dog eat dog world

inb4 Ayn Rand's "Anthem"

I don't really care about getting rich. I actually care about my craft and believe everyone should be able to do what they are passionate about without the fear of hunger, not receiving healthcare or homelessness. Most commercial software development is just as wasteful as marketing anyway.