I think you miss the point of history and cultural legacies.
I'm not making the argument that genocidal violence is in the genetic markup of white folks.
White folks is broadly speaking "European-descended people".
I think this group of people is... Special in this regard. Most likely due to infighting and a long history of savagery - not due to their DNA!
So... Other peoples won't necessarily have this brutal background, and so would not necessarily have done what white folks did.
I think owning up to the uniqueness of what it means to be white, or European-descendant, is an interesting project. And that project should not be tossed aside by some rationalisation that, incidentally, is terribly convenient for.. white folks.
The non-voters had nothing to do with this. They literally did not participate.
Any real democracy would count the non-voters as part of the results. 20M not voting? OK then, any policies that affect everyone can no longer be enacted. No new laws. No new wars. Government can then maintain plumbing and provide public services, that's it.
Why isn't that the case? Why is it not a requirement for people to vote for government to have power?
Democracy...? Sure. Whatever hope you need to feel, friend, see you in the streets I hope.
Sure they are. Politicians are some of the most ambitious people in the world - they're just not working in our interests. The issue is that they only need to appear to do that just enough to get or maintain power.
"The man does not make the circumstances, it is the circumstances that make the man." I wonder when we will take that seriously.
I think we can pick one story and show one thing, and then another one to show another thing. Or hell, pick the first one again to say something different than the first time.
History is a malleable thing, and what you base your argument on is a version of it, not sure it's the truth.
But the gist of what you are saying is that any people would have done what White folks did. Just give them time.
You know, I don't believe that. White folks were exceptionally OK with genocide, we always have been. Intergenerational traum, I guess, from the millenias of tragedy of the Continent.
To presume that our white trajectory is the necessary trajectory for ALL PEOPLES, because 'ecology' (which is a scholarly discipline defined by who, may I ask) is.... BONKERS.
I'm sorry, I am sure you are bright and you seem well-read and intelligent but the idea you propose as an infallibility for all humans is completely and utterly bonkers.
"That's because bottled water often isn't subject to the same rigorous quality and safety standards as tap water, and it can carry the risk of harmful chemicals leaching from the plastic bottles used for it, especially if it's stored for a long time, and/or exposed to sunlight and high temperatures, they explain."
Thank you. Wow. I was basing that on something I saw or thought I saw in Cosmos (the 1980s version with Carl Sagan). Perhaps I was stoned when watching it. There is little better than to watch one of the Cosmos series while stoned - or the autotuned versions by Melodysheep (on YouTube).
I shall have to revise my world view now. 🤯🤯🤯
Wow. I feel optimistic.
Tardigrades - they will likely survive then. And cockroaches, and other life. So even if we all + most animals die out, we will be like the dinosaurs, and life may indeed bounce back.
I mean... A shadow has been lifted from my soul.
Goddamn. I know it seems like I am joking but I am not.
Yes... and what good it did everyone to reduce the distance of objects... Sometimes distance is good. Gives me time to think about why I'm really going there in the first place.
Actually there is a serious risk that Earth turns into Venus. Perpetually self-reinforcing green house effect. All life on Earth, fried, for all eternity.
From an evolutionary perspective, only the ones who survive matter.
So in that spirit, the only way to create a society resistant to power consolidations is one that actively recognizes, seeks out and annihilates said power consolidations.
As otherwise, they will annihilate everything opposing them -- as history tells us.
There are gentler social traditions to distribute wealth and power so as to avoid consolidation. Probably the post-colonial world is beyond that point.
A scary prospect, to be sure, but in the grand scheme of things.. "The secrets of evolution are time and death" as Carl Sagan said in Cosmos.
One very frequent argument I hear when I suggest that people, and especially anarchists should abstain from voting is that by doing this, we only play into the hands of fascists who use the lower turnout to get a bigger influence in electoral politics and therefore actual power. It is claimed that if the fascists manage to get in the government, things can only end up being worse than if a liberal or social democrat was there. It’s suggested then that it is a a better option to vote for the lesser evil just so that things don’t deteriorate even more.
However this argument, especially when coming from anarchists, seems to suggest the the slugginess and ineffectiveness of the state somehow is lifted when a extremist right-wing party is in power. That somehow fascists will be able to push through measures that other governments couldn’t without a hassle and that they would be even more in league with the ruling elite than every other politician.
I do not see any of this as very likely. The state will remain ineffective and the fascists will not be able to change either the constitutions or the legal system. Much like the conservatives and the social democrats, they will be mired in parliamentarism and forced to sing the capitalist’s tune like every other politician. This means that they will be unable to boost their support in the working class by making things any better for them in any practical way and they will be unable to crony up to the capitalists without risking working class direct action.
Perhaps the fear is that they’re going to try to pass more xenophobic and authoritarian measures while they’re in force, but to tell you the truth, I don’t see this as any different than what the current governments are doing already. Perhaps you fear that they’re going to accelerate this? I doubt it, not only because it’s unlikely that they’ll have enough electoral majority to do this without the usual degree of incompetence but even if there’s enough people abstaining from elections (in favour of direct action) to give them a powerful parliamentary majority, then it would also mean that there’s a lot of people to resist and consciously ignore any new fascist rules.
Perhaps the fear is that through Parliamentarism, they’ll be able to gather popular support by gaining visibility and/or funds from the laws that provide state funding to parties. History should have proven how useless the former is. Marxist-Leninist parties have been in the parliament for ages and it has done nothing to increase their support or their visibility. They only end up sounding antiquated and largely ignored except by those who are already convinced. Using parliamentarism for propaganda is a failure. As for the latter, this is not really going to empower them any more than any other party. At best they’ll simply abuse the money for their own personal expenses and destroy their own trust and at worst they’ll use it to fund extra-parliamentary activities with an amount that is less than what they would have if they put their efforts there in the first place.
Perhaps the fear is that they’ll increase and intensify the corporate cronyism, but this in turn would simply make them indistinguishable as a party from any other right-winger. History has shown how much the state is a tool for capital anyway, regardless of which position the ruling party espouses rhetorically. A Fascist party will at best sell the interests of the working class to the capitalist at an unsustainable rate, that is, a rate of exploitation that will quickly radicalize the working class to the point of rebellion, rather than the slow erosion of conservatives or the sweet palliatives of the social democrats. This in turn will only marginalize the Fascists more and turn more people towards the only thing that can actually work for change: Direct Action.
Perhaps the fear is that the parties of the early 20th century will be revived in different forms and enact similar atrocities. However this misses a few very important differences with that time. First of all, those parties manage to do what they did, exactly because they had significant support from the populace at large, who at that time was clueless about the intentions of Fascists. This was in fact the reason why they managed to gain power even while not being democratically elected and why they didn’t have to. Their power did not stem from elections but by the large number of citizens who, even when not supportive, were willing to passively accept their rule, even when they voted against them during elections.
In fact, elections had very little to do with the power of those regimes. Mussolini practically grabbed power by the throat through fear and terror. Franco simply maneuvered himself into position within the Rebel forces during the Spanish revolution and then conquered all the outside opposition – and was not even a fascist to boot. Hirohito was a monarch and assumed power via birthright. Hitler was the only one who could be said to have been elected, but that is seriously stretching the meaning of democracy and ignores the significant maneuvering and terror he had to manufacture in order to place himself into power. It’s ignoring the real material circumstances that surrounded his rise to power (the economic situation in Germany particularly) and how those don’t exist in most areas which have fascists running for office. It was the material circumstances, combined with a reign of terror, ignorance of fascism, handy scapegoats and the still heavy religious and traditional populace which could be dragged along via their delusions and respect for authority.
In almost every area where people claim that we need to vote just to prevent the fascists, almost none of these circumstances exist and in fact, many can’t exist anymore. For most of the first world nations, respect for religious authority and especially organized religion is in decline. Traditionalism is fading and only Nationalism is poised to regain some credence given worsening economic conditions. But nationalism cannot carry the ball alone. Furthermore, there’s no handy USSR and evil commies to use an as external threat, although I’m certain China might come in handy for that purpose if push comes to shove. Fascism has also been severely discredited in the minds of most humans by now, making it even more unlikely that they’ll ever enjoy the mindless support of the 20s and 30s.
So at the end, you have a toothless threat. I’m not saying it’s not a threat at all of course, but the issue will not come through elections, but by them gathering popular support and/or pushing through an agenda via terror and lies. And those direct action tactics will not be defeated by counter-electioneering any more than voting prevented Mussolini, Hitler or Franco from coming into power. They will not be defeated by simple arguments either for that matter as Fascism is far more about emotion than it is about reason.
No, the only thing that can prevent fascism from ever coming back to power is the same thing they will use to practically do so: Direct Action. By countering their terror through mutual aid. By countering their shows of power via counter-rallies. By striking back on their acts of violence. In short, by not letting people believe that the Fascists are the only ones willing to take action in difficult situations when words are not enough.
Suggesting to take part in elections in order to oppose the fascists is not only useless, but is furthermore playing into the hands of the state which uses a handy boogieman to gain votes for the lesser evil parties at best or simply provide itself with legitimacy at worst. And anarchists especially, should know better than to play into the hand of the ruling elite just because fascists are considered to be the greatest evil.
Zero. Eat an apple.
Sue?? You think the courts will rule in your favour? After the shit they've done already??
No my friend, the only solution is Luigi. May his example shine bright across the world, ushering us all into our new dawn.
I suppose our second worst problem will be ourselves, reacting in our various ways to that worst problem.
I think you miss the point of history and cultural legacies.
I'm not making the argument that genocidal violence is in the genetic markup of white folks.
White folks is broadly speaking "European-descended people".
I think this group of people is... Special in this regard. Most likely due to infighting and a long history of savagery - not due to their DNA!
So... Other peoples won't necessarily have this brutal background, and so would not necessarily have done what white folks did.
I think owning up to the uniqueness of what it means to be white, or European-descendant, is an interesting project. And that project should not be tossed aside by some rationalisation that, incidentally, is terribly convenient for.. white folks.
The argument I'm making is not that the cops should pick you up if you don't vote..
The argument I'm making is that politicians should not have full power if people don't vote.
This looks like an April fools joke, but I bet it's not. All hail Humongous Fungus 🙇♂️
I would never buy a Tesla and, despite my best efforts not to, I immediately despise anyone I find out owns one. Even friends just a bit.
The non-voters had nothing to do with this. They literally did not participate.
Any real democracy would count the non-voters as part of the results. 20M not voting? OK then, any policies that affect everyone can no longer be enacted. No new laws. No new wars. Government can then maintain plumbing and provide public services, that's it.
Why isn't that the case? Why is it not a requirement for people to vote for government to have power?
Democracy...? Sure. Whatever hope you need to feel, friend, see you in the streets I hope.
Sure they are. Politicians are some of the most ambitious people in the world - they're just not working in our interests. The issue is that they only need to appear to do that just enough to get or maintain power.
"The man does not make the circumstances, it is the circumstances that make the man." I wonder when we will take that seriously.
I think we can pick one story and show one thing, and then another one to show another thing. Or hell, pick the first one again to say something different than the first time.
History is a malleable thing, and what you base your argument on is a version of it, not sure it's the truth.
But the gist of what you are saying is that any people would have done what White folks did. Just give them time.
You know, I don't believe that. White folks were exceptionally OK with genocide, we always have been. Intergenerational traum, I guess, from the millenias of tragedy of the Continent.
To presume that our white trajectory is the necessary trajectory for ALL PEOPLES, because 'ecology' (which is a scholarly discipline defined by who, may I ask) is.... BONKERS.
I'm sorry, I am sure you are bright and you seem well-read and intelligent but the idea you propose as an infallibility for all humans is completely and utterly bonkers.
Thank you. Wow. I was basing that on something I saw or thought I saw in Cosmos (the 1980s version with Carl Sagan). Perhaps I was stoned when watching it. There is little better than to watch one of the Cosmos series while stoned - or the autotuned versions by Melodysheep (on YouTube).
For anyone who wants a quicker read on the above: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect
I shall have to revise my world view now. 🤯🤯🤯 Wow. I feel optimistic.
Tardigrades - they will likely survive then. And cockroaches, and other life. So even if we all + most animals die out, we will be like the dinosaurs, and life may indeed bounce back.
I mean... A shadow has been lifted from my soul.
Goddamn. I know it seems like I am joking but I am not.
Good news.
Nah this is BS. Russian military bloggers don't need Telegram, they write on some website called New York Times.
Yes... and what good it did everyone to reduce the distance of objects... Sometimes distance is good. Gives me time to think about why I'm really going there in the first place.
Yay humans.
Actually there is a serious risk that Earth turns into Venus. Perpetually self-reinforcing green house effect. All life on Earth, fried, for all eternity.
Edit: Well, until the sun blows.
FTP?
From an evolutionary perspective, only the ones who survive matter.
So in that spirit, the only way to create a society resistant to power consolidations is one that actively recognizes, seeks out and annihilates said power consolidations.
As otherwise, they will annihilate everything opposing them -- as history tells us.
There are gentler social traditions to distribute wealth and power so as to avoid consolidation. Probably the post-colonial world is beyond that point.
A scary prospect, to be sure, but in the grand scheme of things.. "The secrets of evolution are time and death" as Carl Sagan said in Cosmos.
I don't understand the down-votes on this post, without even responding to its contents.
Personally I think this is better: https://dbzer0.com/blog/does-not-voting-help-the-fascists/
One very frequent argument I hear when I suggest that people, and especially anarchists should abstain from voting is that by doing this, we only play into the hands of fascists who use the lower turnout to get a bigger influence in electoral politics and therefore actual power. It is claimed that if the fascists manage to get in the government, things can only end up being worse than if a liberal or social democrat was there. It’s suggested then that it is a a better option to vote for the lesser evil just so that things don’t deteriorate even more.
However this argument, especially when coming from anarchists, seems to suggest the the slugginess and ineffectiveness of the state somehow is lifted when a extremist right-wing party is in power. That somehow fascists will be able to push through measures that other governments couldn’t without a hassle and that they would be even more in league with the ruling elite than every other politician.
I do not see any of this as very likely. The state will remain ineffective and the fascists will not be able to change either the constitutions or the legal system. Much like the conservatives and the social democrats, they will be mired in parliamentarism and forced to sing the capitalist’s tune like every other politician. This means that they will be unable to boost their support in the working class by making things any better for them in any practical way and they will be unable to crony up to the capitalists without risking working class direct action.
Perhaps the fear is that they’re going to try to pass more xenophobic and authoritarian measures while they’re in force, but to tell you the truth, I don’t see this as any different than what the current governments are doing already. Perhaps you fear that they’re going to accelerate this? I doubt it, not only because it’s unlikely that they’ll have enough electoral majority to do this without the usual degree of incompetence but even if there’s enough people abstaining from elections (in favour of direct action) to give them a powerful parliamentary majority, then it would also mean that there’s a lot of people to resist and consciously ignore any new fascist rules.
Perhaps the fear is that through Parliamentarism, they’ll be able to gather popular support by gaining visibility and/or funds from the laws that provide state funding to parties. History should have proven how useless the former is. Marxist-Leninist parties have been in the parliament for ages and it has done nothing to increase their support or their visibility. They only end up sounding antiquated and largely ignored except by those who are already convinced. Using parliamentarism for propaganda is a failure. As for the latter, this is not really going to empower them any more than any other party. At best they’ll simply abuse the money for their own personal expenses and destroy their own trust and at worst they’ll use it to fund extra-parliamentary activities with an amount that is less than what they would have if they put their efforts there in the first place.
Perhaps the fear is that they’ll increase and intensify the corporate cronyism, but this in turn would simply make them indistinguishable as a party from any other right-winger. History has shown how much the state is a tool for capital anyway, regardless of which position the ruling party espouses rhetorically. A Fascist party will at best sell the interests of the working class to the capitalist at an unsustainable rate, that is, a rate of exploitation that will quickly radicalize the working class to the point of rebellion, rather than the slow erosion of conservatives or the sweet palliatives of the social democrats. This in turn will only marginalize the Fascists more and turn more people towards the only thing that can actually work for change: Direct Action.
Perhaps the fear is that the parties of the early 20th century will be revived in different forms and enact similar atrocities. However this misses a few very important differences with that time. First of all, those parties manage to do what they did, exactly because they had significant support from the populace at large, who at that time was clueless about the intentions of Fascists. This was in fact the reason why they managed to gain power even while not being democratically elected and why they didn’t have to. Their power did not stem from elections but by the large number of citizens who, even when not supportive, were willing to passively accept their rule, even when they voted against them during elections.
In fact, elections had very little to do with the power of those regimes. Mussolini practically grabbed power by the throat through fear and terror. Franco simply maneuvered himself into position within the Rebel forces during the Spanish revolution and then conquered all the outside opposition – and was not even a fascist to boot. Hirohito was a monarch and assumed power via birthright. Hitler was the only one who could be said to have been elected, but that is seriously stretching the meaning of democracy and ignores the significant maneuvering and terror he had to manufacture in order to place himself into power. It’s ignoring the real material circumstances that surrounded his rise to power (the economic situation in Germany particularly) and how those don’t exist in most areas which have fascists running for office. It was the material circumstances, combined with a reign of terror, ignorance of fascism, handy scapegoats and the still heavy religious and traditional populace which could be dragged along via their delusions and respect for authority.
In almost every area where people claim that we need to vote just to prevent the fascists, almost none of these circumstances exist and in fact, many can’t exist anymore. For most of the first world nations, respect for religious authority and especially organized religion is in decline. Traditionalism is fading and only Nationalism is poised to regain some credence given worsening economic conditions. But nationalism cannot carry the ball alone. Furthermore, there’s no handy USSR and evil commies to use an as external threat, although I’m certain China might come in handy for that purpose if push comes to shove. Fascism has also been severely discredited in the minds of most humans by now, making it even more unlikely that they’ll ever enjoy the mindless support of the 20s and 30s.
So at the end, you have a toothless threat. I’m not saying it’s not a threat at all of course, but the issue will not come through elections, but by them gathering popular support and/or pushing through an agenda via terror and lies. And those direct action tactics will not be defeated by counter-electioneering any more than voting prevented Mussolini, Hitler or Franco from coming into power. They will not be defeated by simple arguments either for that matter as Fascism is far more about emotion than it is about reason.
No, the only thing that can prevent fascism from ever coming back to power is the same thing they will use to practically do so: Direct Action. By countering their terror through mutual aid. By countering their shows of power via counter-rallies. By striking back on their acts of violence. In short, by not letting people believe that the Fascists are the only ones willing to take action in difficult situations when words are not enough.
Suggesting to take part in elections in order to oppose the fascists is not only useless, but is furthermore playing into the hands of the state which uses a handy boogieman to gain votes for the lesser evil parties at best or simply provide itself with legitimacy at worst. And anarchists especially, should know better than to play into the hand of the ruling elite just because fascists are considered to be the greatest evil.