In most Western countries the ‘far’ left party can usually get anywhere from 5-15% of the vote. That kind of vote would sink the Democrats and maybe shift them, or at least the Overton window, leftwards. But I think third party votes in the US are much smaller right? At least for the left wing parties.
I would reflect first on why you have chosen to embrace absolute and nihilistic egotism and selfishness. This is ultimately a choice you’ve made. It’s like asking “why don’t I just stay at home masturbating all day?” You can do that and no-one will stop you, but it may not be a very rewarding life, and eventually you will regret such a shallow and unnatural mode of existence. Something inside you must crave meaning, even if you’re trying to repress it. The escape from egotism isn’t always easy, but it is an essential part of growing up. Embrace the desire for something beyond your self.
Once you understand the innate baseness and falsehood of pure egotism, you will probably also come to appreciate that the lives of other people, in general, have the same worth and validity as your own. Then the absurdity and cruelty of capitalism will be apparent, even if you don’t necessarily feel you suffer from it personally (which I would assume is the case, given the nature of your question).
There is a balance between how much harm you are preventing by voting for social democrats versus how much harm you are contributing in re-enforcing the system as it exists. For me, in my country, I vote for the soc-dems despite the internal conflict it causes me, to prevent things like the total privatisation of healthcare and total inaction on climate change. I’m not sure, from afar, how much damage the US Democrats prevent. The only reason I could see for voting for them is the insanity and borderline fascism of the GOP, but again that is obviously a product of the system as it exists.
Really what is missing here is proper organisation within the left. If the left withheld their vote in an organised and collective manner, that could be a way to exert real power - the kind of power that would be worth sacrificing the scraps from the table that soc-dems throw. If it’s not organised and the perception is just ‘the youth don’t vote because they can’t be bothered’, then it’s probably valid to argue that not voting is cutting off one’s nose to spite the face, because nothing positive is going to come of it, whereas it may produce significant harm. We can say that electoral politics are worthless, but in reality they do have a significance that can’t be ignored, even if their not the pathway to real change.
Of course the other argument against voting that leftists have is that acceleration would benefit us, but I think that’s a highly dubious and naive argument, based more in wishful thinking than any evidence.
Having said all that, I would never shame anyone for not voting. On a moral level, it is disgusting to actively re-enforce the system. But to be completely realist about it, if there’s no strategy and no organisation in the refusal, then it’s not going to produce a desirable effect.
I used to use hard drugs but I don’t really find it interesting to talk about. What is interesting is the absurdity of the drug war, and the culture around drug use that it creates. I was a functional addict for a long time and it was the eventual poverty and the nature of criminalisation that truly caused the great harms to my life, at least moreso than using as such. In Switzerland addicts are provided with pure heroin from the state. Society has not collapsed and afaik there are less addicts there than in the US. The drug war is a farce causing enormous misery, poverty, violence, ill-health and crime, and I suspect one day we will look back on it with the same abhorrence and confusion that we look back on the criminalisation of homosexuality with. I suspect also that our attitude towards drug use, - the ‘cultural capital’ it has amongst young people, and the self-destructive nature of their use - is also conditioned by their illegality.
I think it’s important for leftists to beware of the kind of moral Puritanism that is common in some circles and which condemns behaviours like drug use and sex work with a special obsessionality. The morality of these kinds of actions in themselves is irrelevant, and arguably non-existent - the conditions they exist in is what determines their nature. Those conditions can be changed, but drug use itself has existed for longer than civilisation has, and is unlikely to disappear. That is true regardless of whether the trade is decriminalised and rehabilitation is a priority, or alternatively whether dealers are lined up and shot. So we regulate in order to control, and we change the conditions and the culture to minimise the harms, rather than being morally prescriptive and idealistic. Communism is not a vehicle to impose one’s own values and fantasies on society, the aim is the dignity and agency of the working class, freedom from exploitation and alienation. Sometimes leftists can forget this.
None of this is to suggest that drug use is good or safe. I don’t use drugs or drink anymore, the only thing is I still haven’t managed to quit smoking - thought I’ll do it when I can
Im not angry, I’m just disappointed
Disagree. The important bit in opium of the masses is not religion, but opium. We already have a new opium - the entertainment complex (sorry nerds but that includes video games). Personally I would prefer they just gave us the real thing, but the problem with opium addicts is, they’re not the most reliable workers and their not big consumers either outside of precious sweet opium. Agree the UFO phenomena is absurd, I’m not sure what’s driving it but my best guess would be - either organic stupidity, or domestic psychological warfare testing
Some of the post-war Keynesian countries had policies of full employment, or at least they genuinely tried to achieve full employment. It’s probably true that capitalism itself demands unemployment even then, although of course their will be people that can’t work for health reasons under any economic system, and they should be looked after too.
People just learn to repress things . Like sometimes if you have trauma or anxiety you can become hyper-aware of the dangers and horror in life to the point you basically can’t function anymore (at least this was my experience with ptsd). It’s not like those dangers don’t also exist for people who are well, they do but they just don’t register them, they repress them because they don’t believe that the threat exists for them personally, even if they are aware of it in general. And this is genuinely a healthy and normal way of engaging with life. So it’s natural and convenient to extend that kind of repression to something like climate change too, especially when that perspective is also tacitly supported by the belief systems of ideology, which is a foundational aspect of one’s psychology. For most people it’s a simple task to repress anything that would threaten their fundamental identity. We see what we want to see, unless something forces us to do otherwise. This is why the middle class is one of the more ingenious inventions of capitalism, because people who are materially comfortable will naturally avert and even defend themselves from recognising the realities of the system.
Yeah they might be jumping the shark a bit here. This is just not how the mass of right-wing voters are created in our society - even Boomers, although they may be directed in specifics by media propaganda, it’s not the media or any kind of indoctrination as such that originally sent them right. If liberal capitalism cannot reward people economically it’s not going to create any martyrs. I suppose if PragerU managed to incorporate their ideas into the curriculum in an especially subtle way they might be able to spread some brain worms among the kids. But my suspicion is, they’re just not that fucking smart. And if there is any effect, it will be to further deligitamise US ideology in the eyes of the youth.
The concept of meritocracy is fascinating. The power of the aristocracy fell when people stopped believing that Kings were appointed by God (and thus deserving of their position). Almost no-one would accept the condition of the poor if it was openly dictated along racial lines, or by some other kind of system that didn’t veil itself behind the idea of personal responsibility - including the poor themselves. South Africa of course was unable to sustain such a system. I wonder if the decline of the middle class and of social mobility (which is largely occurring in a generational way, as children being worse off than their parents), will also weaken the idea of meritocracy. It’s really the most important foundation of liberal ideology as a belief system.
Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Biden was getting yelled at to take his meds or something before a speech and the dog tried to defend him
I suppose you could call it economic apartheid, if you don’t mind stretching the definition of the word a bit. There is obviously a tiered system that now is going beyond even most historical norms of economic inequality or class separation. And there remains a racist as well as an economic intent behind that.
A lot of people imagine that housing and government services are available and that people are choosing to be homeless. Many middle class people are under the impression there is some kind of 1950s style welfare state that still exists for the poor and is simply overwhelmed by people that refuse to help themselves. It’s incredible the kind of roads that denial and ego-defence can lead down. I mean this is why Mao tried to do a cultural revolution- because some people just cannot learn except through personal experience.
Among the many faults of capitalism, I have a special hatred for the fact that it rewards the absolute worst of and in humanity. There really is a kind of meritocracy involved, it’s just that its not aligned with the kind of values that people imagine ‘merit’ would entail
If all he did was legalise drugs he would be the least evil president since FDR
When someone in a baseball cap is calling you cringe, you know it’s over
Destroying your entire country so that you can crack down on welfare
No-one wants to understand that homelessness is an intended product of the economic system. Just as neoliberalism demands unemployment and a pool of reserve labour to keep wages down, so too those at the bottom of society have to be punished with special cruelty as a warning to everyone else. I would imagine it is mostly middle class types absolutely blinded by ideology that hate the homeless.
I don’t know how useful this sort of action is, although I don’t see any harm in bullying rich arseholes other than the danger that the activists expose themselves to. And at least here it’s targeted. Which makes it a lot better in my mind than the sort of stuff that groups like Just Stop Oil do, where they basically act against the public in general (things like holding up traffic, interrupting public events and so on) and which might as well be a psy-op for all the good it does