Ask Lemmy

When Occupy was huge, I had wished they had not focused so heavily on camping in parks and instead bought cheap land in the middle of nowhere and built “Occupy town”. Somewhere people can come and join the movement with their family and not worry about living in a tent.

Make our own jobs in federated worker co-ops like Mondragon our own community defense organizations, our own public housing, our own city government. If we had picked a state like Wyoming, it would only take about 15k people from each state to move there to take over the entire state government.

I get people were trying to do that in every park and also stay visible in the media, but I felt like it was just to limiting to stay in such locations.

As for what should be the focus, clearly it needs to be electoral reform. While stuff like campaign finance reform and changing the electoral college is important, we absolutely must do something about First Past The Post voting.

Switching away from first past the post voting allows people to vote for who represents them best while still counting their vote against those they dont want to win. Just search for videos on FPTP voting if you want an explanation on how and why the spoiler effect exists.

Electoral reform is possible in each individual state (for now), we dont need federal reform! Maine and Alaska have already passed electoral reform.

Republicans are moving to make alternative electoral systems illegal in their states. Why would you want to use the same voting system republicans prefer?

More political parties means a higher percentage of the population is representedby their choices in the voting booth. More people involved in the electoral process, more people engaged.

Its a win win win all around for not just the people, but also for the democratic party. More people voting means more democratic votes. The numbers dont lie. So what’s the hold up blue states?

You believe it’s critical to vote for the democrats to beat the Republicans, thus you should 100% be fully invested in passing electoral reform in your state.

Electoral reform needs to be the number one priority for every democrat. This is a existential threat to our nation, so we must use EVERY tool at our disposal. No more waiting. This especially goes for those in blue states.

Consider starting a campaign to change how we vote in your own state! Force our representatives to compete with fresh outside ideas. We deserve the best representation, not excuses.

I usually prefer people to seek out information about electoral reform on their own, but today I come with some of my favorite videos on the topic.

First Past The Post voting (What most states use currently)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.

Alternative vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Ranked Choice voting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z2fRPRkWvY

Range Voting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Single Transferable Vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

STAR voting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-mOeUXAkV0

Mixed Member Proportional representation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

Edit: don't put ourselves down for things not working out yall. This is all our first lives, and we're up against a ton of cultural momentum. Plus things were heated in the moment with the banks getting bailed out. In such emotion, it's hard to see the bigger picture.

Like in Minneapolis, when the police station fell... imagine if people were deputized and the community just did their own policing.

But in the moment, after the police lit the fuse by using chemical weapons against the crowd. After such a lack of justice in the world, day after day of injustice and wrong in the world... you just wanna fucking have a fire. I get it. Hell, I wanted that to back then. But it didn't fix anything, as cathartic as it was.

Sorry about the rants. Hope we find our way. Peace.