this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Which is it? Dont vote and then shut up, or go out and organize? What you are seeing right now is a variant of people organizing - people going out and talking to each other, convincing that we dont actually have to vote for a genocider and that a better world is possible
I think you misunderstood me. I am saying do not just go vote and then chill. Voting does not stop you from organizing, volunteering and getting involved in your local community and leftist orgs. I'm saying voting is not the be all end all. It's not the secret weapon. But it is a small, basically functionless tool for harm reduction.
"Harm reduction" is when you have a genocide in Palestine, a ceaseless and pointless meat grinder in Ukraine, kids in cages, expanded border walls, overturned Roe V. Wade, no pushback against anti-trans laws, immense inflation with no help, ignores a pandemic and give more money to the police.
Voting for Biden isn't harm reduction.
So you should vote for trump then. If you believe him to be the less harmful of the two options. This is me baiting you to tell me you think trump is a less harmful option. Or did you not understand what harm reduction means? Or was is just not enough people whomst harm would be reduced for you to think it's worth it? Or is the people's whos harm would be reduced not be worthy of it?
I cannot in good conscious as a cis straight man tell my non binary partner that they need to be the sacrifice to the political statement of "sticking it to the libs"
Holy shit, I missed this before. You are right now a cis straight man telling me, a non binary person, that the current climate isn't an increase in harm. You are telling me that what Biden is doing is acceptable.
I didn't want to pull that card, because it does not matter wether or not I personally experience the direct effects of the obvious fascist, but you pulled that card. Lol, lmao even.
I am not saying shit didn't get worse under Biden. I am saying between Biden and trump that I believe it would be worse under trump and I do not see it within my rights as a group that wouldn't be targeted to cross my arms and say that I won't participate and risk people who would be targeted. I cannot in my own mind be okay with that. It's not my choice. I'm sorry that I implied moral superiority for this mindset. I understand this is my own personal hangup and I got emotional and argumentive. Sorry.
You are not sorry. It is painfully obvious what you are. This high road act isn't fooling anyone. If you actually were sorry, then you'd have listened and done some self-crit. You wouldn't try to diminish the discussion, you would not continue the same question despite having it answered several times, you would engage with the arguments presented or shut the fuck up. You would respect it when you were asked not to take the mantle of friend or comrade upon you. You would actually attempt to understand instead of repeating tired lib-cliches. You wouldn't attempt to pull several sad debatebro rhetorical tricks. You would reconsider instead of all the sanctimonious pearl clutching you've been attempting.
Instead you chose to misgender me.
Fuck you, you are not fooling anyone.
Harm reduction is when you vote for a fascist who arms and funds Nazis in Ukraine, while arming and funding the mass murder of innocent children. Harm reduction is when we decide that genocide is not a red line, this time
Genocide is happening either way, I believe the liberals will do less of a genocide because they at least try to pretend like they aren't doing it. Trump wouldn't care as much. More people would suffer. It's a small insignificant chance in terms of numbers of bodies on a page, but I truly believe less people fucking die this way. Is that not enough?
How many human beings need to live over the other option to make it worth it to you? For me it's 1. And I genuinely believe Biden will kill at least 1 less person at least. I am not willing to sacrifice that person on pride.
I believe them both to be incredibly harmful pieces of shit and I don't have to vote for either. If we're going to pretend voting in any way matters, then we're going to have to pretend that representative democracy functions. In a representative democracy you vote for a candidate which you feel represents you, not the candidate you feel is the least bad. In the absence of a representative, you do not vote for someone else, since that would then signal that they represent you.
Actually I don't think doing a genocide is acceptable, even if the genocide happens to brown people. Call me a radical for that.
I understand what harm reduction means, which is why I pointed out how Biden has not reduced harm. Do you understand what the word "reduction" means? Harm reduction isn't when you signal that "genocide is okay actually, and you don't have to do anything about abortion or kids in cages or the pandemic or the climate or starvation or the police or the rise of organized fascist movements or anti-lgbtq laws or not arm actual Nazis".
If it's any consolation I'm going to not vote for Trump 10.000 times and only not vote for Biden 1.000 times, so that means I've actually given Biden 9.000 votes.
Just because voting doesn't matter in the way it's advertised doesn't mean it actually has no effect whatsoever. It does. Just not the one we was told. That means not to rely on voting as the be all end all, but recognizing at times we can shift things ever so slightly away from the worst case scenario.
As for reduction, it doesn't require biden to do anything other than not make things worse than trump would. You answered the question. You believe that harm reduction as in, avoiding a worse outcome of an already bad outcome isn't worth it. If you can't have good, there's no point stopping the worst. I do not understand that stance, besides being blinded to material outcome by anger. I do understand anger. I feel it with you. I just cannot allow that anger to put people on a sacrificial block they don't have to be on.
I pain for the palastinians. I cannot express that enough. But right now, with the methods readily available to us, I believe that trump would ruin more of their lives too. I can't be so angry as to remove myself from the outcome and pretend that it wasn't my fault.
Are you illiterate or are you deliberately putting words in my mouth? I am saying that the two candidates are the same. They are equally shit. They're both terrible. They're both horrendously harmful in a way that cannot be quantified as one being 0.2% worse or some dumbass take like that.
I do not think voting matters since they both suck. You think voting matters. I am presenting you the logical conclusion to your belief. If voting matters and has the effect which you believe it does, then you believe that representative democracy functions. If you believe that, then you are to vote for a representative, not 0.2% less Hitler.
You don't. You're fine with them being massacred. Fuck you you racist piece of shit.
You obviously do not, you're living a comfortable life void of empathy for the suffering of others. If you had that empathy you wouldn't argue that Joe Biden is a harm reduction candidate because he very obviously isn't.
No you can just allow immigrant children, women's bodily autonomy, the climate, Palestinians, people of colour, trans people, the poor, ukrainians, houthis, Yemenis, and everyone else who isn't directly in your comfortable bubble to be a sacrificial block.
When they come for you there will be no one left to cry out, but they will come for you.
There is no point talking anymore. You are angry and resorted to insulting. I understand your anger. I share it with you. I genuinely do. Above all else, understand that.
In the end, neither your nor my actions will do anything at all. Me convincing your or you convincing me has no effect on anything but each other. Understand, please, on my own morals of wanting the least amount of people to suffer at any given time, i just believe less would suffer under Biden. That is enough for me to be unable to not vote.
I'm sorry this has driven us to this angry place. But as a comrade, which we both are, I love you. We are on the same side. Have a good rest of your day friend.
Oh no I insulted you! Oh no did I hurt your feelings? Do you need to have your boo boos kissed?
You genuinely do not. You started out by saying you did not understand. You do not share it with me, because you are fine with voting for a fascist (your words not mine) who is enacting a genocide. If you shared my anger, you would not be fine with that.
You're right, voting for Biden will not do anything at all.
I understand that you're a self centered piece of shit that only perceives suffering when it might happen to you. Understand that exactly the same amount of suffering will happen under both presidents, you just don't care because you do not have morals or empathy no matter how much your empty words proclaim otherwise.
Fuck you. No fascist genocider is a comrade of mine. If I met you at a protest I would beat the shit out of you because you would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Nazis and cops
You do not get to say that you are fine with genocide, climate collapse, the suppression of people of colour, revokations of abortion, implementations if anti-trans laws, pointless wars and massacres, more money to fascists, more border walls, more fascist border policy, more persecution and then call me a comrade. You are not a comrade, you are a fascist sympathiser.
I am not your friend. Eat shit and die.
Inb4 their "So much for the tolerant left, now that you've scratched me, I have no choice but to abandon leftism entirely and become pro-fascist!" response.
They already wrote they were pro fascist lol. They agreed biden was a fascist, but they'll still vote for him.
Oh yeah, I just meant their next response will be the typical "left lib" thing of "waah! You were mean to me on the internet! I was going to hold my nose and vote for a genocidal fascist and feel really bad about it, but now I'm going to do it with pride and support his every action because you were mean to me!" thing they always do in this situation after they try their condescending "let's just be friends" thing they do.
Hahaha yeah probably, either that or they'll continue to try this "high road" act, as if being rude is somehow more transgressive than cheap rhetorical tricks and, you know, being pro-genocide.
I was extremely uncivil to them in my last reply, so they're likely to high road for a bit because I got mad about them insisting that voting for genocide is ok if it means only 999,999 people killed instead of 1,000,000.
Because genocide is one of those things we should just calmly talk about the pros and cons of, instead of opposing entirely.
I've sometimes wondered what a lot of self proclaimed "leftists" would've done under Nazi Germany, and now I know. They would've insisted on voting for the "harm reduction" Nazi.
And, apparently, then they'd insist we were still comrades and say they are being "othered" when they are refused that label.
Figures they love Joe Biden so much, they seem to think that loyalty is something given automatically without question instead of something earned.
Fuck off. They're going to have to invent a new insult because I can't think of one bad enough to call you.
Fuck you and everyone reading this since I'm sure you're screen capping a bunch of these and posting them in whatever fash hellhole you come from
Fuck you and I hope you reap the consequences of your shitty politics faster than the rest of us.
Trump is a less harmful option. Biden is funding Israel's genocide because he rabidly wants to, at least with Trump there's a chance he might bail in the middle of it just because he's bored that day and he wants to cause some drama.
I disagree with that gamble. I'm tired of fighting today. I didn't mean for this to turn into an argument. I'm going to log off and cool it. Think over what everyone has been saying.
Just wanted to put it out there that we are comrades, even after this disagreement over something we both say ultimately does nothing.