Someone said it's important say this publicly in the US: so I will. (And I think each of us should, online and to friends)
This November I will vote for Biden.
I would regard not voting for Biden, particularly in: PA, OH, MI, WI, IN, IL,VA, GA, FL, AZ, ME, NC, NH, etc. as a huge error. I'd be disappointed to find out anyone I knew didn't vote. It's one of a long list of things we need to do. We can't skip it.
And still? We deserve better choices, and in the future we shall have them.
Basically I feel a little silly even posting this, because to me it's obvious. It's like there is a big red button that says "Fascism" and I'm like "do I really need to say that I think pushing that button is a terrible idea?"
But just in case? Under no circumstances should we push the big red button.
Elect Biden again and proceed to make him miserable
Better than being too miserable to get anything done.
@futurebird A terrible idea? It depends on whether you dig genocide I guess, if you do then by all means vote for a senile old fart who aids and abets the mass murder of babies.
Biden has actually achieved the impossible, he has made Trump electable again
Many people don't believe that pushing that button will make any difference to their future. They believe that they will be safe from Trump's depredations.
Other people don't look ahead. They don't understand, for instance, that, while Roe ended under Biden, it was lost because of Trump.
It's going to be a hard-fought election. Trump will not concede. We must do what we can to stay in the better future.
@futurebird yeah. This whole disastrous fascist arc, going back two, perhaps three, decades has been one long lesson in how politically unaware people vote and how propaganda works.
@futurebird
Except here's two buttons, and both effect a different flavor of fascism.
Sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better. Your vote is not among the options you have to make it better.
@tob@futurebird
That is how it works most of the time.
When the Germans were ruled by the Nazis? When the Italians were ruled by the Fascists? When the French were ruled by Luis XIV? When the Cubans were ruled by Batista? Every time the fascists take power, it has to get worse before enough pushback builds up, internally or externally, to finally get rid of them.
Now it's the US's term to get rid of their oligarchs, and boy you are in for a lot of getting worse before it can get better.
Friend, there were no push-backs in Germany....
And as far as Louis XIV goes, you might have heard about the restoration. Or you might be the one who considers the revolution the low point ...
"Now it's the US's term to get rid of their oligarchs" => Haha. I'll be back from my cryo chamber in 10 years. We'll see how that went.
@glitzersachen
There were actually a lot of pushbacks in germany, before the fascists managed to kill most of the resistance. But i made sure to talk of internal or external pushbacks, the nazis followed a political ideology that made sure that they eventually succumbed to external 'pushback' in the form of allied troops, most notably in the form of Georgy Zhukov and the Soviet red army.1/2
Them among others, sure. But before 33 there was a lot more in german society that fought fascists, even social democrats ;)
But after the nazis had seized power, there was still a lot of underground left opposition.
@glitzersachen
The Theory is that it had to get worse before it got better after the Nazis took power. There was no possible way of incremental small steps towards something better. And worse it got, Germany had to be steamrolled from both sides and bombed for years before it could get better.
Wether it was a LOT or just a little bit of internal pushback is beside the point and open to definition anyway. The point stands: It had to get worse before it could get better. @tob@futurebird
So, when it was worst, it could get better, right? But before it could get better, even then, it had to get worse (according to your theory). Since, regardless were you stand, it has to get worse before it can get better. So when it was worst (at time t1), we know it got better later (at time t2). But since it had to get worse before that, at time t1 it was not worst, because it had to get even worse than at t1.
@glitzersachen
You are misrepresenting my "theory".
I am not saying it ALWAYS has to get worse to get better, that would indeed be paradoxical.
So please, spare me the cheap straw men and engage with my actual argument: In certain situations it has to get worse before it can get better.
In fact that is so obvious i am astounded that it is even debated. @tob@futurebird
(b) A theory that cannot identify the actual certain situation (provide a recipe to distinguish those situation from those where it doesn't apply) is worthless, because it cannot be falsified (see Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery).
You sentence "sometimes it has to get worse ..." is just a meaningless phrase of small-talk. It does not help to understand anything.
(b) I am taking offense at the "has" which implies a mechanism of necessity.
Your "sometimes it has to get worse" is observationally completely indistinguishable from "sometimes it gets worse, we don't know why, could have gotten better, but it got worse"
The latter sentence is also completely not helpful.
"Sometimes, in history, a war happens". "Some people die in wars". "Some (unspecified) time after some wars, people who didn't die in he war, fare better than they did before the war".
@glitzersachen
You do not need to teach the basics of theory of science to me, thanks. I have given lectures on it myself.
It wasn't me who tried to claim it was anything more than a phrase to highlight the fact that there is not always a way of incremental change towards the better without first accepting serious adverse effects.
And yes: there is a necessity. When you got cancer, you have to do chemo and it will make you worse at first. Or i guess you can just give up.
Given the quality of your admittedly late night argument, I'm a bit surprised.
You where I think the one trying to apply this to the US. Which was, frankly, unconvincing. Esp. in the context of Trump vs. Biden. This should not be am opportunity for both-siding. The orange menace is by far the more insidious cancer.
@glitzersachen
Both are fascists and the US has a one party system with two right wings of the great capitalist party, and no amount of voting will change that, just like the GDR or the USSR wasn' voted out of existence.
And if you are really convinced that there are no situations where it has to get worse before it can get better, then frankly you have a problem that goes way beyond making up arguments because they are easier to debate than what the other one actually said. @tob@futurebird
Perhaps we should by you completely and concisely stating your theory and showing how it fits in the context of the OP. Because I, certainly, am lost.
But I feel a certainly reluctance to go the rest of this way with you: For once, I feel certain vibrations in your responses I can do without and second, its late and I have other things to do in the coming week.
" When you got cancer, you have to do chemo and it will make you worse at first. "
Depends on your definition of worse. You life expectation gets better from day one. The amount of days you're going to barf gets less from day one.
So day zero: No life expectation. Day 1: Good life expectation, (N-1) barfing days, Day 2: Good life expectation, (N-2) barfing days.
@glitzersachen
That's not how chemo works.
So, let me get that straight - you are saying that there are no situations that can not be bettered by small incremental steps towards something better, without the overall situation ever having to get worse first? @tob@futurebird
@glitzersachen
Response here because they blocked me to prevent me from calling out their bullshit:
Except i never called it a theory, and i even put the "thesis" in (slightly ironic) quotation marks.
But yea, i also have better things to do and in fact i do feel certain 'vibrations' in your responses too.
If you believe there are no situations that require things to get worse before they can get better, go ahead and believe so, i don't care. @tob@futurebird
@glitzersachen
Of course we both know it was never about that, you don't actually doubt that there are situations that require it to get worse before it can get better, you just don't want to admit that the US is run by a one party-two right wings oligarchy and voting won't change things for the better, and you're consciously or unconsciously using all the tricks of the eristic playbook of pseudologics and populism to evade that conclusion. @tob@futurebird
If we do not apply logic, on the other side, it becomes a meaningless trivial saying: "You know, perhaps it has to get worse (your poor chump), before it can get better".
This kind of sentences, posing as theories of history, enrage me.
@glitzersachen
We do apply logic. The thesis is: sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better.
And it is obviously true. There was no way for it to simply get slowly better after the Nazis had seized power. @tob@futurebird
Well, yes, Greece and Spain would like to have word here. Not all fascist dictatorships are overthrown by a war. Some more or less peter out, because they could not be overthrown.
@glitzersachen
Again a Straw man. Nowhere did i say it always had to be war. But neither of those just "petered out" on their own, there was a lot of internal and external pressure on them.
That was an example where the fascist dictatorship was not overthrown in a spectacular fashion. Of course we can no discuss the meaning of "fascist" and if it applies there. I am not inclined to do so. I have better fish to fry.
@tob@futurebird
It's a realistic take on world history. And logical one.
Only orthodox reformists believe otherwise, and they cannot explain why it ever gets worse.
@futurebird@tob
It can always get even worse. And tbf, you had it pretty good since about WW2 for quite while, at the expense of many others of course.
@futurebird@tob
And it did get worse in the south before it got better, didn't it?
Not only did they have slavery, but they were also being killed and the economy collapsed when they starting losing the war.
So, again, classic situation of it had to get worse before it could get better.
@futurebird
No, the thesis is that in certain situations there's no way to a better future that does not come with a temporary worsening of the overall situation.
You are ruled by oligarchs that have subverted the democratic process, it's futile to look towards that exact process to try and make it better. To get rid of them, you can't use the legal framework that they have set up precisely to prevent you from doing that.
Revolution doesn't come as cheap and comfortable as voting, sorry. @tob
Just because history went one way doesn't mean that’s the only way it could have gone. There are many countries with the standard of living of modern Germany that didn’t first doing the holocaust. Many through, yes, voting.
It’s such an arrogant position honestly to say basically you’ve gotta break some eggs to make a leftist omelette.
@tob
I guess here we have two prime examples of people who are still too comfortable to face the facts.
You are being owned by the oligarchs.
They own your government, they own your banks, they own your judicial system and they own your military. No amount of voting is going to change it, but of course you can pretend otherwise and arrange yourself with the new fascism for a while, as long as you are white and well educated, i guess. That's what most germans did, too. @Jackiemauro@futurebird
No one is saying voting alone will change those things. It won't. But what is true? Not voting can create circumstances that make changing those things through other means impossible.
@futurebird
But changing those things through "other means" is already impossible.
Look at how the supposedly less fascist option reacts to having its genocidal foreign policy challenged by some students with banners: The full might of armored and armed pigs combined with a propaganda onslaught that would have made Göbbels jealous.
So, again, how does voting or not voting make a difference in circumstances that allow changing those things through other means? @tob@Jackiemauro
@glitzersachen
You could argue that the US is not a developed country.
All the demographic statistics say otherwise, not just the health care system. Literacy, homelessness, child mortality, gini coefficient, violent deaths, teenage pregnancies, [...], they all make the US to be a second world country at best. @futurebird@tob
"You could argue that the US is not a developed country." => That is a stupid game of words. Of course the US is a "developed" country, but infected by a particular annoying kind of capitalism.
All so called "developed" countries have the one or the other weakness.
Like, they don't have industry? Most people are unemployed? Nobody got a car? There is only wealth for a small corrupt elite? There is no law enforcement? There are not citizen rights?
(I mean, yes all this has flaws, as probably everywhere, but I'd propose you look into the history of some other countries that where left as husks after colonization and then you refine your theory a bit).
I mean, they are citing Nazi Germany as a success story for her theory of historical progress. Which would mean the upside to Trump would be extermination camps, and all of us who are killed are just the price that needs to be paid for her "progress".
A wonderful demonstration of the counter-argument to your point, though horrifyingly honest.
When people treat other humans that way, they don't just bounce back from it. The ideologies that support such actions don't just die and vanish. I don't think there is any advantage to "things getting worse" it only delays progress. If we could erase those events we would know a better world than we do today.
What is true is that we have to try to come back anyway. But there is no silver lining to it.
@incoherentmumblings From outside the U.S., its politics is a scary and sad spectacle. I’m glad I’m not voting in your elections.
This statement does not make much sense though. The word “worse” itself implies the alternative is non-worse.
And: Naive technological development has given some future US govt an insane surveillance and propaganda apparatus. A fascist government fully taking advantage of that will make effective opposition impossible. No “worse to get better” anymore.
@hallvors@futurebird
Except i did not say "it has to get worse" to say "Trump has to win".
I said it will get worse, no matter who wins the election, before it gets better.
It might even be different people who it gets worse for.
I am aware of the technical possibilities, but you fool yourself if you think that your vote will prevent them from being used.
@incoherentmumblings voting alone is insufficient. Voting, informing, organising, fighting to shape the values that contribute to shaping politics and Overton windows has worked and will work. Vote for the persons who can win and be more easily influenced by such organising. Why is this even hard?
@hallvors@futurebird
Leave the voting out of that list and you will be just as effective, if not more so because you don't have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of having lent your support to one of the fascists that send their pigs against you to violate you and throw you in jail as soon as you start to do things that actually have potential to annoy them.
@futurebird
Absolutely! There is zero excuse to not vote for Biden. If you don't, it means you are a selfish privileged asshole or very very ignorant as to what the stakes are. It's not #DonTheCon, it's the evil billionaires like Koch and Thiel and so many others pulling the strings.
It might not end totally, we might make it out, but it will be ugly and consume the energy and resources of people who are already overextended and who have the least to get back out.
It's not certain doom it's but why would anyone want to make this any harder than it already is ... that is beyond me. It's like someone spitting in your face.
If it makes people happy.
Personally I don't think that voting is an action that links you to any canidate. It's just about who can win and if you can have some influence to have a better person win or not.
I'm a Canadian, so my opinion has no real bearing on this. Take this with a brick of salt.
Not voting for Biden (who I greatly dislike) would be cutting one's wrists to spite their face. The US has a two party system masquerading as an open field democracy. It is either Democrat or Republican. No third party has any chance of claiming the presidency at this moment in time. Maybe when the Republican party finally implodes, you might get a better alternative. But as things stand at this moment in time, voting for Biden is your populace's only chance of survival.
We focused on certain things and they got better, we ignored certain things and they got worse.
Anyone who tells you it's just one more fight for utopia is a liar. It's an endless push for reform that we must pace ourselves for. Be alert but not afraid.
@futurebird@biplanepilot@palestine How do you think this strategy of attempting to rally grassroots organizers to help democrats do Hope and Change 4: Hopier and Changier will play out after the democrats voice full support for a genocide? It's already been dwindling, Hillary lost with the entire Clinton war chest. Obama and Clinton and Biden were all unpopular back when they quietly bombed Syria in a way Americans are trained not to think about. This is not something people can ignore.
Your invocation of "we will get better options" ignores that an option like Jill Stein only needs to hit 26% in this clusterf*ck of a race between RFK Jr. Trump and Biden, geriatric Zionists with maybe four brain cells between them. Ross Perot got 20%+ in a far more politically entrenched environment.
Trump as vile as he is demonstrated that the democrat-GOP duopoly had already begun to slip.
Even if the Greens with Jill already on the ballot in 3/4 states are a pipe dream they give a voice to the protest votes instead of demanding meekness, silence, compliance, like you expect it of the activists who would follow your campaigning demands. Your demands for their work! To legitmize the fascist two-party duopoly! To legitimize genocide! Many will refuse!
@biplanepilot@futurebird
Run for school board, if you have the spoons and resources. I'm serious. That's how it's done. The highest level decisions start at the most basic level which is what is allowed to be taught in schools. That alone set criteria for education, which sets criteria for social interaction, which sets criteria for society itself. A school board that has progressively minded people, whether politically or socially, will guarantee a better educational experience and product for you, the children, and the community involved. It's the long game with an 18-year minimum investment.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola is attributed to say, "Give me the child at seven and I shall give you the [adult]". Politics, is no different. The people we have running for office and in office are the direct result of the society we created through our education system. Change that, stay on it and just wait. Besides, that's exactly how the conservatives got their foothold as we fell asleep on the job.
@futurebird i mean, yeah. i'll vote for him. but i have a hard time believing there will be better choices in the future. that has not held true in my lifetime. the choices have consistently been bad. or bad masquerading as ok.
I think the right has become desperate and vicious because they know they are outnumbered and it's only a matter of time until popular ideas make their way into law... the bad part is a portion of the democratic party is also scared of this... but they are more pliable.
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