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[–] 1 point 1 month ago (17 children)

Hey. Remember when the Biden Administration listed "anticapitalist views" as a good reason to suspect someone of being a domestic terrorist?

No, and the documents you linked don't either. "Capitalism" only appears once, and while violent anti-government/anti-authority action is referenced, being anti-capitalist is not in itself started to be a cause for suspicion. They only talk about the targets violent anti-capitalists might choose.

And yet you vote for the austerity party instead of going for any of the various left wing parties and devoting your energy there

I spend my energy supporting a left wing party. I vote for that left wing party in Democratic primaries, when available. But voting for a third party in the general election helps no one except the fascists.

You're here scolding people who held to their principles and voted for what they want

What they want doesn't matter if they don't have the ability to get it. If we had ranked choice voting or something, you'd have a point. But we don't, so voting for what you want is mathematically worse than voting against the worst outcome.

can you at least quit actively endorsing the status quo?

If you think I'm endorsing the status quo, you haven't paid attention to a single word I've said. I'm very much not endorsing the status quo, I'm endorsing a specific action within the status quo to mitigate damage until we have the organized power to dismantle the status quo, and dismantling the status quo is in fact what I'm endorsing. But that takes time, and until then our best electoral action is voting for leftists in the primary, and voting against the far right in the general. Luckily, we're reaching a point where leftists are winning more primaries, so hopefully in a few cycles we won't have to vote lesser evil anymore. But I'm not going to pretend we're closer to that than we are.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (16 children)

    Well if you're just going to lie about shit then there's really no point in continuing the discussion, is there?

    Both of those documents list anticapitalist views among warning signs of domestic terrorism. The existence of those documents gives Federal Authorities permission to use anticapitalist views as a reason to open an investigation into someone who isn't even accused of doing anything else.

    And since I now know you're definitely being either disingenuous or completely illiterate, I'm not going to waste any more time in your servile, cowardly bootlicking. Keep doing the thing that created the problem on the first place, some day it will solve the problem (by starving us all to death so we don't have any more problems).

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (15 children)

    Both of those documents list anticapitalist views among warning signs of domestic terrorism.

    Prove it, because I looked and couldn't find it.

    permission to use anticapitalist views as a reason to open an investigation into someone who isn't even accused of doing anything else.

    Which is a different thing than using anti-capitalist views alone to arrest someone.

    Keep doing the thing that created the problem on the first place, some day it will solve the problem

    You're the one doing that. How many decades of protest voting, and what has it accomplished? We have this problem because of people like you, who confuse strategic action with boot licking. Without people like your, we would've gotten Gore in 2000, and we wouldn't be in this situation.

    Delude yourself well you like, but don't try to moralize your foolishness.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (14 children)

    Prove it, because I looked and couldn't find it.

    Then either you're a fool with no idea how these documents are used and you're looking for it to openly say "anticapitalist sentiment is a valid reason to open an investigation", or you're being disingenuous. Second paragraph on page 41 in the first document, I'll leave the second as an exercise for the reader.

    Which is a different thing than using anti-capitalist views alone to arrest someone.

    That's not what I said they did, but the difference is largely academic. Once an investigation is opened a pretense for arrest can be manufactured easily at any time.

    We have this problem because of people like you, who confuse strategic action with boot licking.

    No, we have this problem because of people who confuse supporting Neoliberal ghouls who are polite about it over Neoliberal ghouls who are in your face and arrogant about it with harm reduction. Had the party you're scolding people for turning on not spent damn near half a century gleefully helping the other half of the uniparty gut the working class and force people into serfdom, Trump would never have gotten on the ballot in the first place. Sonyesz you are absolutely advocating for people to continue doing exactly what created the problem, and scolding people who won't join you in that because you don't understand the problem, nor how to solve it. And you never will as long as you accept the narratives about the problem that are pushed by the people who benefit from the problem not being solved.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (13 children)

    Second paragraph on page 41 in the first document

    Yes, that was the one reference to capitalism which I referred to. It doesn't say what you're implying it does.

    That's not what I said they did

    No, but that is what the current administration is doing. So yes, there is a difference.

    Had the party you're scolding people for turning on not spent damn near half a century gleefully helping the other half of the uniparty gut the working class and force people into serfdom, Trump would never have gotten on the ballot in the first place.

    Hard disagree.

    you are absolutely advocating for people to continue doing exactly what created the problem, and scolding people who won't join you in that because you don't understand the problem, nor how to solve it.

    Again, no, that's you. Your suggested actions won't work, and you're scolding people for damage mitigation. No one here is supporting neo-liberals, they're fighting fascists. The fact that you're intent on demonizing damage mitigation for a delusional fantasy where you sway 150 million people is all the proof I need that you're not a serious adult worth continuing this conversation with. Come back after you've spent some actual time in the real world, and get some context for how social change works.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (12 children)

    Hard disagree

    Can you find me a single example in history of fascism arising in a Democracy without the working class being under extreme enough pressure to make fascist strongman rhetoric appealing?

    Or are you arguing that the Democrats don't have a track record of hard Neoliberalism, or that that Neoliberalism isn't the cause of the working class pressure that led to Trump?

    Come back after you've spent some actual time in the real world, and get some context for how social change works.

    Ten years in the trenches working for Progressive Democrats' campaigns and seeing how the party functions from the inside was the real world. You should try it. Go volunteer for your local DSA. More importantly, start showing up to local Democratic Party meetings. See who weilds power there and how they do it. With the way things are going, it won't even take you ten years to realize how utterly futile it is to expect the Democratic Party to fight fascism in any effective sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (11 children)

    Go volunteer for your local DSA.

    I do.

    it won't even take you ten years to realize how utterly futile it is to expect the Democratic Party to fight fascism in any effective sense.

    Good thing I don't expect that. You've misunderstood my point really, really badly.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (10 children)

    You've misunderstood my point really, really badly.

    If that wasn't what you expect, how is being a safe vote for the Neoliberal ghouls any form of harm reduction?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (9 children)

    I expected it, I just hoped you were better than that. How is harm increase beneficial in any way? Absolute nonsense.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (8 children)

    Lol, I meant if you didn't expect the Dems to fight fascism, how is voting for them harm reduction. And I'm pretty sure you knew that and took the cheap dodge bcs you don't have a good answer but let's make that explicit and find out.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

    Because they do slightly less harm than the fascists. I'm not even voting for the Dems, I'm just voting against the fascists. It's not a cheap dodge, it's the whole principle. Voting isn't going to give us "good" anytime in the.near future, so trying to use it for that is foolish. The comparatively slow march towards fascism under the Dems gives us time to utilize tools besides voting: mutual aid, community building, workplace democracy, etc.

    I think you fundamentally misunderstand the concept of "harm reduction". It doesn't mean "Vote for Democrats because they will reduce the harm caused by fascists". It means "Both the Dems and fascists cause harm, but the Dems cause less harm, and since one of the two is going to win in the current political landscape, voting for Dems reduces the amount of harm added".

    The only rational voting strategy is voting for leftists in the Democratic primary, and then voting against the fascists in the general, even if that means voting for the neo-lib. If you want to vote against the fascists while also voting for a leftist, you need to make sure leftists win the Democratic primary. We're seeing that starting now.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (6 children)

    The only rational voting strategy is voting for leftists in the Democratic primary, and then voting against the fascists in the general, even if that means voting for the neo-lib.

    That strategy is only rational if you believe that voting progressive in the primary will create change faster than the status quo will kill us all. And forty years of the party continually fucking off further right at the behear of it's Wall St paymasters screams loudly that that belief is a fantasy, and your strategy is delusional.

    You continue to hand power to the people making things worse and pretend you're doing harm reduction.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    That strategy is only rational if you believe that voting progressive in the primary will create change faster than the status quo will kill us all.

    False. The best strategy is still the best strategy even if the outcome is still bad. Voting for a third party has a worse outcome. Not voting has a worse outcome. Despite voting for Dems still being a bad outcome, it is the least bad achievable outcome. Hence, harm reduction.

    And forty years of the party continually fucking off further right at the behear of it's Wall St paymasters screams loudly that that belief is a fantasy, and your strategy is delusional.

    On the contrary, it screams loudly that protest voting is not only ineffective, it's counterproductive. When they lose progressives, they don't shift left, they shift right to try to get more centrists.

    You continue to hand power to the people making things worse faster and pretend your protest achieves something. It does not, the rightward shift of the Democrats screams this.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    Voting for a third party has a worse outcome. Not voting has a worse outcome

    Only if you're a spoiled child incapable of thinking any further ahead than right now.

    In the king term your strategy has no chance of ever improving anything. Your best case outcome is "thing get much worse. But a little bit more slowly".

    You're clinging to the ratchet for fear of the wheel, when the only answer is to destroy the whole machine. Voting outside the duopoly or abstaining altogether offer even a slim chance of that. The good news is the chances get less slim with each person who gives up on the genocidal war party in disgust, so the numbers are shifting in ways that give me hope. In ankther cycle or two, when even more Dem voters realize that the DSA isn't going to change anything either, I expect the rate of attrition for the Neoliberal ghouls to increase starkly.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Only if you're a spoiled child incapable of thinking any further ahead than right now.

    On the contrary, that's your position. You want the revolution right now without the work required to build it, regardless of who gets hurt in a failed attempt. Spoiled and short-sighted nonsense.

    the only answer is to destroy the whole machine.

    We don't have the organized power to do that yet.

    Voting outside the duopoly or abstaining altogether offer even a slim chance of that

    Only in your mind. Not in reality. There is absolutely zero evidence that that works.

    when even more Dem voters realize that the DSA isn't going to change anything either, I expect the rate of attrition for the Neoliberal ghouls to increase starkly.

    Counterproductive doomerism. You're not a serious adult.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    You want the revolution right now without the work required to build it,

    Said the ShitLib to the people doing the work to build the revolution, despite the best attempts of the ShitLibs to convince them to abandon that work and vote for the status quo.

    We don't have the organized power to do that yet.

    And you never will if you're "organizing" with people who don't recognize the DNC as being just as much the enemy as the GOP. The Democratic Party absorbs and neuters any organizing it sees being done, just ask Occupy Wall St. Or wait 5 years and ask the DSA. If the climate wars haven't killed them all by then.

    There is absolutely zero evidence that that works

    There is a great deal more evidence this will work than there is that continuing to guarantee your vote to Neoliberal ghouls on exchange for no political concessions whatsoever will.

    You're not a serious adult. Oh no! The ShitLib lamb doesn't think I'm a serious adult, how will I ever console myself!

    You're still a selfish child voting to protect your privilege and comfort instead of being brave enough to abandon the reassurance of a mainstream party to try to affect real change. You're such a coward that you stand on the sidelines haranguing anyone who draws to step outside the lines painted by your masters, and it disgusts me. The Dems are already showing that they're about to throw trans people under the bus, so in two years when we do this again, you'll be arguing how we have to support that in order to keep some other imaginary worse thing from happening, and you'll still lack the self awareness to recognize that the "center" you're defending has once again lurched right and taken you with it.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    brave enough to abandon the reassurance of a mainstream party to try to affect real change

    Being bad at math and ignoring political reality does not make you brave. It makes you foolish and short-sighted. Like I said, an unserious, counterproductive child.

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