PugJesus comments on Solidarity is not just with members of your political 'tribe'! Allow a little leftist pluralism

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] -1 points 7 months ago (19 children)

People’s views of what enables fascists are different. If you view the DNC as another fascist party, then voting for them is a fascist choice. A lesser fascist is still a fascist after all, whether you view them as lesser or equal is up to you.

So you don't actually understand what 'harm reduction' means despite using the term. Got it.

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 1 point 7 months ago (18 children)

Harm reduction to me is no harm being caused (unless it's to a member of the bourgeoisie class cause it's always open season on them) aka reducing harm to 0. Some view it as stopping 1% of harm which works for them. Both want the same end goal, but disagree on how to go about it and get passionately argumentative and sometimes hostile about it.

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago* (17 children)

Harm reduction to me is no harm being caused

So you don’t actually understand what ‘harm reduction’ means despite using the term. Got it.

In any case, this is an argument over the validity of a method, which is not what the meme is about. The meme isn't saying "Don't argue with other leftists when your positions clash!", it's saying "Remember that there is broad room for cooperation and allyship, and that a different kind of leftist is not automatically your enemy just because they have different end-goals."

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 1 point 7 months ago (16 children)

But that's what I'm saying. Working together towards the same goal of defeating capitalists is what matters. Yelling at each other over how to achieve it cause one believes it undermines the other is bad. Like the political party I do volunteer work with works with a variety of leftists to the point of of us refers to the party as "marxist-non-denominational". They've acknowledged having problems with some in the past like anarchists, but never shut them out if they want to help. The end goal is all that matters.

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago (15 children)

But that’s what I’m saying. Working together towards the same goal of defeating capitalists is what matters.

Sure.

Yelling at each other over how to achieve it cause one believes it undermines the other is bad.

Fuck no.

If you believed my work was undermining the end goal of overthrowing capitalism, why the ever-loving fuck would you stay quiet about that?

If someone believed that helping Nazis genocide the Jews was going to help the Allies win WW2, would that not be a point one should object to for reasons both moral and strategic, regardless of the fact that the end goal of defeating the Nazis is the same?

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 1 point 7 months ago (14 children)

Thing is my belief isn't the only one that matters. If I think it's bad, but others on our side see it as good, then who am I to tell you to stop doing it? Sure I can suggest my preferred way of doing things, but that's just it. My way of wanting to get things done is my way and possibly the way of others that agree with me. Just like your way is how you'd prefer to get things done and people that agree with you will join and help. We both can amase a community built "army" (or whatever term you'd use) to achieve the end goal. Mine can support third party candidates at every level from local to national along with working to convince people in a deep red midwest state to do the same. Yours can support the Dem candidates at every level and work to primary out corporate Dems while holding your nose for the "lesser evil". Neither hurts the other, even if you want to believe getting people to vote for a non-Dem candidate hurts your goal even with plenty of other work being done at the community level.

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (13 children)

Thing is my belief isn’t the only one that matters. If I think it’s bad, but others on our side see it as good, then who am I to tell you to stop doing it?

If someone believed that helping Nazis genocide the Jews was going to help the Allies win WW2, would that not be a point one should object to for reasons both moral and strategic, regardless of the fact that the end goal of defeating the Nazis is the same?

We both can amase a community built “army” (or whatever term you’d use) to achieve the end goal. Mine can support third party candidates at every level from local to national along with working to convince people in a deep red midwest state to do the same. Yours can support the Dem candidates at every level and work to primary out corporate Dems while holding your nose for the “lesser evil”. Neither hurts the other, even if you want to believe getting people to vote for a non-Dem candidate hurts your goal even with plenty of other work being done at the community level.

Man, I'm not even talking about primaries, I'm talking about one vote every four fucking years for the sake of minimizing the harm of a presidential position which has become far too fucking powerful. I'm not here to fight with anyone talking third party anywhere from local dog catcher to the fucking Senate. Just on the presidency, which, as we have seen presently, kind of does affect the lives of literal millions by the one fucking person who gets into office.

If you think taking 20 minutes out of your fucking day once every four years to minimize the chances of mass-murder of American minorities, marginalized groups abroad, and, as with this latest insanity, thousands of Iranians, is too arduous, or too much of an intrusion on your 'purity'...

I'm not going to pretend that's a course of (in)action worthy of anything but utter disgust, same as someone who says that the way to win WW2 is to help the Nazis genocide the untermensch. I'm sure as shit not going to asspat you for it. We may be able to work together as-needed in other areas, but I'm never going to pretend that that's anything but abhorrent.

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago (12 children)

I don't know why you keep acting like I'm against voting when that's all I've been supporting this whole thread. I do take the time out of my day to vote, even helping my elderly father who struggles walking get to the polls. I constantly advocate for more people to vote and convince my friends and coworkers to do the same. It's just that the bubble I fill in (we only have paper tickets here no electric machines I hear other places got) doesn't have a D or R next to it. The people I talk to are tired of the inaction Dems have shown for decades with many only voting for Conservatives cause they get tricked. I've gotten many who voted Trump in 2016 and 2020 to vote for actual progressives in 2024. We always talk about needing to build an actual progressive party and, as anyone will tell you, that starts by actually supporting them at every chance and takes a lot of time to achieve. Over 40k people supported a movement away from the major parties and no Harris would not have won the state had they all voted for her instead (she'd still be over 500k votes short and that's with 70% of registered voters voting which is pretty close to the 75% figure I see many wish would vote). She'd need basically half of the remaining people to vote for her and I just don't see a world in that happening after spending time with non-voters.

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago* (11 children)

I don’t know why you keep acting like I’m against voting when that’s all I’ve been supporting this whole thread.

Against voting for harm reduction. IE, anything that might actually make a difference in the lives of millions.

We always talk about needing to build an actual progressive party and, as anyone will tell you, that starts by actually supporting them at every chance and takes a lot of time to achieve.

Yeah, and voting for a third party presidential candidate when the two major parties have been consistently polling at near 50% for the month before the election? Maybe not so fucking helpful.

I mean, very helpful to those who want to see more genocide and oppression of minorities, I guess. But that's usually not a goal of leftists.

But hey, who cares about the thousands of dead Iranians? Not your problem, right? You have your moral purity to uphold.

I’m not going to pretend that’s a course of (in)action worthy of anything but utter disgust, same as someone who says that the way to win WW2 is to help the Nazis genocide the untermensch. I’m sure as shit not going to asspat you for it. We may be able to work together as-needed in other areas, but I’m never going to pretend that that’s anything but abhorrent.

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago (10 children)

We'd still be seeing genocide. Harris was very open about viewing Iran as a massive enemy and refusing to put any stops to giving Israel weapons. She publicly stated she wanted our military to get stronger when talking about Iran and had no problems with Biden going around Congress to support Israel.

But that's all fine cause at least then it's just be overseas and nothing happening at home (ignore that Biden gave massive funding to ICE also and encouraged police to deal with college protestors)

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago (9 children)

We’d still be seeing genocide.

In Israel, yes. That was never a fucking choice we had, considering that some 75% of this fucking country still thinks Israel is our friends-to-the-end ally.

That's what 'harm reduction' means. It doesn't mean "I'm doing this because it will lead to socialism and a good outcome." It means "Our policies currently don't get anywhere near enough support for our candidate to win, and there are only two realistic outcomes; we should cast our vote, one act which costs ~20-30 minutes of our time, with the realistic option that gives us the LESS fucked result which results in LESS harm and more room for us to fucking WORK AND ORGANIZE so that we can get a fucking time when two fuckwits aren't our only options - whether by the ballot or the bullet."

But that’s all fine cause at least then it’s just be overseas and nothing happening at home (ignore that Biden gave massive funding to ICE also and encouraged police to deal with college protestors)

"Harris would have totally invaded Iran and tanked her own approval numbers!"

I see you're a very stable genius, just like the current president.

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 1 point 7 months ago (8 children)

Look ya'll seem to love the % Hitler things so I'll put it like this. The choices you see are 100% Hitler and 99.99999% Hitler, but ignore the several 0% Hitlers also standing there wanting votes and have plans on how not to be Hitler then get upset when people support 0% Hitler over 99.99999999% Hitler. Like I said, I view harm reduction as being 0 harm which means supporting 0% Hitler.

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Considering the third party candidates available in the USA, there were no "0% Hitler" candidates, unless you only view some genocides as worth opposing.
I'm not upset that people support "0% Hitler"; I'm upset that people act like solipsistic morons when voting. If more people actually supported "0% Hitler" and they had a chance to win, this wouldn't be a problem.

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[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago (6 children)

So how do you get more people to support 0% Hitler if you constantly publicly yell at the people who do?

And and yes there was a 0% Hitler choice in the race

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social [S] 0 points 7 months ago (5 children)

So how do you get more people to support 0% Hitler if you constantly publicly yell at the people who do?

"Don't waste your vote on a candidate who is still polling under 1% in a race where there is a grotesquely worse candidate and a less-bad candidate both at near 50%" isn't telling you "Don't support 0% Hitler", it's telling you "Work on building support for 0% Hitler before you try to enter an election that requires a fucking plurality of the nation's population to agree with your choice."