I’m envious of the way the French protest their government. They’re literally setting things on fire because their schools aren’t adequate. Because the government tried to raise the retirement age. Because their politicians are shitbags.
I think the biggest obstacle to organizing in the US is the sheer distance. It takes 40 solid hours of driving to get from one side to the other. That’s not counting any breaks. France takes about 14 hours. Doable in a day or so if you push it.
Anyway, I’d sign up for a Revolution if there was a serious contender.
False dichotomy. There are many things to do between “do nothing but vote for evil” and “revolution”.
I don’t want to write the whole thing again, so I’ll just leave this here.
I think that’s the first reply I’ve seen with an actual action item and not just diverting from actual criticisms of the “don’t vote” mentality. The revolution doesn’t have to be violence. A cultural revolution can also affect change. Dr. King’s civil rights movement was famously non-violent.
My point is the nay-sayers here say “don’t vote”, but offer no alternatives.
You say join a union? I say hell yeah, sign me up! Can I join yours?
Just one small facet of the civil rights movement; Dr. King is the “public face” selected by the government to admire because he was so unoffensive.
On his own, he would have accomplished nothing. Black Panthers are not as widely admired by the public, because they’re only taught about Rosa Parks and MLK, not about the BP patrols and Death Angels.
Revolutions need a widespread diversity of tactics, with a spectrum of action; everything from refusing to sit in your assigned seating all the way to openly fighting the police.
The key is action, so think about what you’re doing and how you can contribute. What are your strengths?
I’m one of these.
I’m a nay-sayer (to doing no more than perpetually voting for the lesser of two evils), and I’ve offered alternatives. I’m also not alone in this, I’ve seen about as many people, proportionally speaking, advocate for the same things in past posts about this here on Lemmy as there are on Reddit. Might this be a bubble issue on your end?
Feel free to come to Germany and join one of our unions. The one primarily responsible for negotiating the collective agreement currently determining my salary is ver.di.
The problem is nobody on the left is actually doing those things. It’s almost like bitching about people on the internet has taken the place of actual activisim.
I want to have things like Universal Healthcare and a living wage and/or UBI before I die. That stuff isn’t going to happen by not voting. If “the left” were capable of achieving these things by not voting then we’d have them already.
People removed on the internet way too often, for sure. But I’m very involved in my local organizing scene, and people are always doing something, and a lot of great things have been accomplished in my region, as a result
In the USA (which was the focus of OP) I would argue there is virtually no left in the first place. Outliers excluded even their left-most people are still centrists, at best. Note that nowhere I said people should stop voting, it’s kind of crazy how that’s always a knee-jerk assumption. Obviously you still ought to choose the lesser evil - but that must come with doing the other parts. Otherwise, again, you’re just choosing evil.
That being said: If you live in the USA and you want that to happen, you need to step up. Not say “nobody else is doing it”. You need to do it. If you already are: Congrats! Next you need to accept that you can do everything right and still lose. That’s just life.
Plenty of people on the left (even here on Lemmy) are telling me that by voting for democrats I’m “enabling fascism” or “voting for the people who gave us Trump.” What I haven’t seen from any of the people saying that is an explaination as to how we get the things we want by not voting. We do not have basic things that people in other countries have, like Universal healthcare for example. Even Mexico has universal healthcare now - and it didn’t happen by a “movement” of activists doing it on their own. It happened because people voted.
I’m just tired of this shit where when I vote for the opposition to the fascists, the people on the left turn around and blame me for the actions of the fascists I voted against. What kind of shit is that? If anything it’s the other way around - I actually tried to stop the god damned fascists, while they sat around and did nothing. If anything they’re more responsible for this shit show than I am, because they didn’t even try. God damn.
Edit: Not mad at you specifically @extrajudgement, just frustrated.