chapotraphouse

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, “What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or Apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?” The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

they are not coming from a place of evil with their choice

they're making the conscious decision that murdering Palestinians is okay if it benefits them personally

when people show you they don't care about genocide, believe them

Nobody is immune to propaganda, yet the effect that propaganda has is overstated here IMHO. Read Masses, Elites, and Rebels. If a cis white lib is saying they're voting L3Harris out of fear, they've really just been granted moral license to not care and are using that moral license to justify doing the same thing they would be doing if no pressure was applied to them at all.

I think yelling at libs about voting is effective because the vast majority of them are not joining orgs, they're not communists that are just doing this one thing wrong, etc. They're libs! And they perceive voting as the singular most important political action (especially since the George Floyd protests have been memory holed). If we can radicalize liberals' understanding of voting, we can radicalize their entire politics. I know that because when I was a liberal myself, the first piece of theory I read was Bourgeois and Proletarian Democracy. After I read that, I radicalized very quickly, because my whole understanding of politics was based on voting for the right candidate and it was quickly shattered. So I believe that electoralism represents an attack surface for the left to exploit, since it has become the singular focus of the rank and file liberal politic.

All that being said, at some point it probably is worth shutting up about voting and just focusing on getting people to learn some useful skill, get organized, and agitate as many other people as they can to do the same. It would be really, really stupid if, for example, this whole site alienated a ton of its own already radicalized users over voting. It would be even worse if the same happened at unions and the DSA. It ain't that deep.

I feel like a lot of these callout posts that are definitely directed at specific people would be solved with the understanding that everyone on here understands the difference between Hexbear and real life and that rhetorical hyperbole exists as a means for commiseration and venting. Does it occasionally get a little extreme on here? Sure. Should you be concerned that we're all baying for blood in the streets? Nah.

Calling it now

I will stay out of it, except for this comment.

I think I get what you're trying to say, and I don't entirely agree. As you've said it though I think I disagree a lot instead of just a little. I think presenting it as "1 vote =/= 1 dead palestinian" is flawed and a bit ghoulish and does you no favours. Likewise I think presenting yourself as a grass-toucher as opposed to those that disagree with you as being not-grass-touchers likewise will do nothing but inflame something that could otherwise give you a good and productive discussion, which I think is what you aim to do. As someone who is proud of being able to talk to liberals, I am a bit bemused that this is how you would phrase yourself when in discussion with comrades. Surely you yourself can see how provocative you are being?

I think that while voting normally does not significy a lot about morals due to people being surrounded by capitalist propaganda, this vote does, due to the fact it requires the voter to somehow rationalize accepting genocide (yes I know the rationalisation is "trump is worse", but I've got a lot of hangups with that.)

I'm of two minds about this and while I agree with you mostly I do take a bit of an issue here

Like ive actually talked to liberals about their vote. I didnt even have to touch grass to it! Where their coming from is wrong and ive told them that, but ive seen the effect the lesser evilism propaganda has on their mind. they are not coming from a place of evil with their choice Hating, "not forgiving", or throwing in the pit (as ive seriosly seen suggested) the 10s of millions of people who will vote Kamala in November is simply not practical. You cant hate humanity to that extent and organize. And you definitly cant desire to kill that many people lmao.

I don't think anyone is serious about wanting to kill all libs, I can't speak for everyone but when it's coming from me it's clearly hyperbole because I'm just yapping

I think libs should be treated as individuals, there's a nice old boomer lady who feels genuinely scared of another Trump term who I'm completely kind and civil to because she's out with us every week protesting the genocide, I can see that she genuinely cares and we don't try to vote shame each other

Now on the other hand that old boomer dude I've never seen before who showed up at our protest last week to campaign for Holocaust Harris and vote shame us got none of that kindness or civility from me because he didn't fucking deserve it, frankly I regret not being a bigger dick to him

Online it's the same way, if they're trying to scold us I'm going to tell them how I feel and I'm going to tell them that there's blood on their hands

You are right that it doesn't matter

they are not coming from a place of evil with their choice

except when they are, ie, when they're white and benefit from the white supremacy that undergirds the whole Election Spectacle, whether they're willing/able to acknowledge that or not

otherwise good post

Death to America

This ignores that the average USAmerican will let their country murder millions of foreigners if it meant their grocery prices went down by 10 cents

You cant hate humanity to that extent and organize.

I don't hate humanity, I hate people who want to officially cosign a modern Holocaust.

Legitimate question, would you feel this way if someone told you they hated German Nazis who lived in and supported Germany during and in the lead up to WW2?

Because the moral calculus is identical.

We're talking about people who support the modern equivalent of Hitler.

The US presidential election is a sham election even by the standards of bourgeois elections, so voting doesn't matter in the end. But just because it's meaningless doesn't mean it reflects well on someone who casts their ballot for the current genocider. It's like if someone upvotes a reactionary comment or post on Hexbear. The impact is practically nil, but they still would need to be reeducated and banned if they refused to self-crit. A major moment in the history of this website is transphobes getting banned for upvoting transphobic content. Imagine if they tried pulling some "uh aktually, this is a niche website. There's no material impact for my upvote. It doesn't meaningfully combat transphobia" excuse.

Are you serious?

I don't mind people voting for liberal candidates if they're otherwise struggling, lost, and/or confused and need to feel like they're doing something, for lack of understanding of the nature of organizing collective action. If it's a little peace of mind, okay, they deserve it.

What offends me about electoralism are the people who speak of the act of voting in moral terms.

I don't care if anyone votes or not, it won't change anything, but a protest vote is better than no vote, in my opinion. Voting for a leftist is a chance to voice your dissent and not remain silent. If Harris loses Michigan because several thousand vote for third party leftists, then our message has been sent.

I ran into someone recently who was all smug about voting, asking me, “Did you vote?” Yet, he was completely unaware of the local ballot items. This is due to the stupid national campaigns that emphasize just showing up to vote without understanding the stakes at the local level. No local organizations were strong enough to educate him on the harmful propositions, showing just how unorganized the left is. We’ve all seen good local efforts get crushed by capitalism, and even sensible ballot votes get overturned by state legislatures or vetoed. I recognize that there’s no winning through pure electoralism alone and that non-swing state presidential votes do not matter. If you’ve got time, maybe it’s still worth voting on down ballot stuff and following advice from your best local leftist org.

yeah but then how can I virtue signal and feel righteous all day long online?!?

they are not coming from a place of evil with their choice

To the pure, all things are pure

I thought this was already pretty clear. The “lesser-evil” mindset is strong and so is the propaganda supporting it. I’m not going to get mad over someone voting Kamala as long as they aren’t a shit head about it.

But agitating is raising awareness and so continuing to pressure is good imo, even if some get a little overly zealous about it

Might need to start shifting from using the term "voting" to "electoralism" instead.

Maybe some of these libs will learn the difference.

Hexbear on people with bad views on forgein policies: i can fix them

Hexbear on people with bad domestic policies: scum of the earth