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PugJesus @lemmy.world

To those in countries where democracy might last another election - harm reduction is not optional

509 comments
  • Is voting for controlled opposition harm reduction?

    Like I agree that Kamala was the correct choice, but her inevitably milquetoast liberal policies would keep us stagnant until people voted in the next Republican out of boredom

    • Like I agree that Kamala was the correct choice, but her inevitably milquetoast liberal policies would keep us stagnant until people voted in the next Republican out of boredom

      Luckily, as voting in Republicans has historically shown us, voting in the Republican will lead us to radicalize and become socialists. /s

      If the core issue is that we're not putting in the work after engaging in harm reduction, harm acceleration is not likely to fix that problem.

  • I bet a lot of people living in Germany in the '30s said "I don't do politics" too. Oops.

    • In Germany the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the early 1930s prioritized legalistic resistance (e.g speeches, court challenges) over mass mobilization. They rejected general strikes against Hitler even after the Reichstag fire. Also there was No mass uprising when Hitler dismantled civil liberties, the people and the parties had no coordinated strike network.

      Guess what happened. Guess whats happening now.

    • I bet a lot of people living in Germany in the '30s said “I don’t do politics” too.

      Thats a wildly ironic statement. The last election held in Germany before the fascist took over was the highest voter turnout in the weimar republics history, over 86%. Theres so many parrellels between the end of the Weimar republic and the US right now, and you are talking about the period of time and the place that maga modeled their 2024 strategy after. And I think you're mistaken about the voters then as you are about voters now.

      In the late 20s and early 30s the SDP (social democratic party-- the centrists in Germany) failed to address the rise of the conservatives and in some cases cooperated with them. They were the party who negotiated the treaty of versailles after vanquishing the left shortly before the treaty negotiations, which was disastrous for a lot of industries and created new classes of privilege, and an opening for the conservatives (NSDAP) to whine about money and make a stage show of austerity, just like GOP conservatives have been doing for years in the US. The actual financial burden of the treaty on Germany was manageable-- but unpopular, especially during a global depression when fear ran high.

      The SDP dem centrists were seen as corrupt, weak, and indifferent to the struggles of their voters-- much as todays dems are. The SDP were fighting gentelmans games and writing sternly worded letters while the far right NSDAP systematically took power bit by bit. The SDP were fragmented and weak by internal division, and distracted by the center of the party fighting the left (the KDP)-- who were ostensibly allies but disliked each other. Do you see all the parrellels with 2024? I sure do.

      Whats different than today is that the left back then were agitating for actual communism, whereas the US progressives today are more like republicans from the early 80s. Today's Progressives are 99.99% capitalists-- barely leftists at all by European standards, and they are just flatly not communists. There's less reason for US dems and the US left to come to blows, but they still do today, like an eternal clockwork. The German KDP were also generally unpopular, and tended to garner only single digit percentages in national votes. Much like today's progressives, but they were needed for centrists to win elections, same as today.

      The fascists appealed to a muscular uniparty nationalism after labeling the centrists as weak and corrupt, and the KDP as nuts, especially after just battling the Russians-- exactly like trump is doing. Its not that German people said they "didnt do politics", its that the centrists lost the trust of the voters so enough of them sought the strength of a group that said they were sick of the centrists and leftists ineffective and perceived as corrupt bullshit. The KDP were also hated along with Hitlers NSDAP far right, who each had militia groups of WW1 veterans that took low level actions and intimidations against each other. Picketting, stinkbombs, fights, the occassional murder. I've left out the competing histories of antisemites and zionists, but theres a lot going on there too, although less important to the NSDAP's rise than the economic and trust issues of the parties themselves with the voters. But I will say that the eventual holocaust of Jews and Poles didnt just arise out of nowhere, there was a lot that led to it, some of it related to trade boycotts of all things, and people seldom talk about what politcs and disputes actually led to the murderous hatreds of the holocaust. They prefer george bush-esque "they hate us for our freedoms" or "no one knows why Hitler hated Jews" type of reductive avoidance of any investigation of facts.

      So-- same as then-- dont blame the voters. Blame the doddering centrists leadership of then and today. Theres a reason that 85 year old German president Hindenburg who ran as a centrist and then made a deal appointing Hitler chancellor is ridiculed throughout history, same as Biden looks like he will be. A very reduced and dementia ridden Hindenburg died in office one year after appointing Hitler chancellor and was often ridiculed and doubted by voters in all parties, in exactly the same way Biden was/is. After he died Hitler consolidated the presidency with the chancellory and there was then no one to realistically challenge him. You'd think people would learn that trusting 86 year presidents like idiot Paul von Hindenburg -- Or Biden-- or trump to run a country doesn't work out well for the voters.

    • They also said "we didn't know", 2000 feet downwind of a human oven factory. "And if we did what could we have done?". Those people are still alive and they're not a small minority of even our country.

    • Actually the turnout was the highest in that time and the conservative centrists and "progressive" centrists made sure to demobilize people and hand power to the Nazis.

  • Fully agree with Nina Turner. If you don't wanna do politics, you blindly leave major decisions over your life to others, who - as we can see world-wide - don't necessarily have your interest at heart. Democracy, human rights, freedom or any other such ideas require a populace to vigilantly fight for them and not let those with opposed agendas undermine them.

    But that analogy afterwards is simply dishonest on many levels.

    Firstly, if you are talking about "harm reduction" or the "lesser of two evils", ice cream is hardly a fair representation of the lesser evil.

    Secondly this mixes in non-political people, who do not participate in the democratic process with moral objectors and the duped.

    Thirdly: It diverts equal blame (literally in the response) to those groups and to the voters, who actually want the bigger evil or the powerful actors enacting it. This presupposes some moral value on active vs. passive behavior, which can be argued.

    And lastly: Even if we find a fitting ice-cream substitute like throwing one of the passengers under the still moving bus, or - how another user suggested - braking before driving off the same cliff: The two who voted for that lesser evil also fight the four voters who are against evil harder, than they are fighting the ones who want the bigger evil. Why? Because they'd rather still drive off the cliff than not. And then they turn around and dishonestly shame the anti-driving-off the-cliff crowd for wanting to speed up instead. That is not a very good strategy.

    Are they the same? No. But please keep your arguments honest, or you might get the exact opposite reaction from people, than you are hoping.

    • Even if you engage in politics you have such a small amount of power that it’s effectively the same as letting other people make decisions for you.

      Republicans in Congress just made a bunch of decisions for me that I had no influence over despite having voted every time for the past quarter century.

      • Although I understand your point and would want to add that something like the Citizens United decision further diminishes power of the people without immense funds, I would like to point out, that participating in a democratic process doesn't merely mean drawing a cross onto a piece of paper every 2 or 4 years. Much more is possible and in fact necessary.

        As an example and can be witnessed right now, there is a severe lack of organizing of pro democratic forces. Which is also the result of a decades-long campaign by the capital-interest-serving political establishment to delegitimize or outright destroy such movements and organizations, from worker's unions to independant media to the "Bernie Bros".

        Make no mistake though. They did this, because they know, that this type of collective political actions bare real power. It is upon each one of us wanting to defend democracy, basic rights and the rule of law to do our part to take back that power. Voting is but a small part of that, if you don't have the people you need actually running, because they can't afford to and you cannot seriously pressure those elected like the donor-class does.

  • Its more like 9 people on a bus, 3 vote to drive off a cliff, 2 vote for a break to get ice ream and then continue driving towards the edge of the cliff after, 2 scream why the fuck are we continuing to drive towards the edge of the cliff, the other two believe things will just be the same regardless if they vote or not. Meanwhile the people who want other people to vote for a pitstop on the way to impending doom and death are complaining that the people with the most realistic assessment of the situation are being unreasonable, unrealistic and and/ or unwilling to compromise and if we are going to die anyway we might as well have some icecream (delay the inevitable and hope we can fix things before we get to the edge of the cliff but at this rate it looks like it’ll only get worse because one side turns the mechanism as far as they can get away with and the other ratchets back into a convenient position for the other side to turn the mechanism to their advantage again) this is the more accurate assessment and it’s because education standards were destroyed and the ego’s of people who are too gullible for their own good and don't understand the scope of the corporate apparatus/ system where the ultra rich all collude and work together because they have like interests and the people who don't want to understand this, or can’t because they are naive just keep telling us we need to continue to participate in a system that disenfranchises us not because its been temporarily broken and needs fixing through participation but instead because the entire purpose of the system is to disenfranchise us and the only solution is to implement democratic representation that addresses the economic issues being manipulated without our input or consent. Any system of democratic representation that aims to exclude economically democratic governance is nothing but a class dictatorship.

  • I'm sorry but this is an old tactic in my country. 2 major parties always fighting for power, and the one always ask to vote them because the other party will destroy the country.

    And the blame goes to the no voters or the ice-cream voters or the voters that turn their back, not to the party itself or to their voters that did shit when they were in power for many years. Maybe its time to pay attention to what caused the problem and not to the result.

    As for the USA, Trump is the outcome of the Democrats acting as Republicans for decades.

    Edit: Last sentence is a bit oversimplification of the story, but Democrats had abandoned the working class and the low income people. They acted like moderate Republicans, especially in the economy.

    • As for the USA, Trump is the outcome of the Democrats acting as Republicans for decades.

      Jesus fucking Christ, it's like no one has any memory of what Dem positions actually were for fucking decades - or Republican positions.

      • I hear minimum wage is the same as it was in 2010. Also big companies pay less taxes than small business or not at all. Military budget goes up every year. Healthcare is a joke for the richest country of the world. etc..

  • Being made aware I’m lashed to a bunch of psychotic apes is terrifying and makes me want to kill the rest of the people on the bus and take control myself.

    People are the absolute worst.

509 comments