• jabjoe@feddit.uk
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      10 months ago

      And how does that translate into a two party voting system? One is multiple times worse than other. What can you do so neither ends up president? Nothing. You only choice is to choose the least bad.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        I referenced Tunisia because a man committing suicide literally changed their government.

        If the only choice is “genocide lite” and “genocide deluxe” then the system must be destroyed.

        If my only choice is to vote for genocide then I want to die.

        • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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          10 months ago

          Those two presidential cadets are your only choices for president. Please do not kill yourself over it. I can’t see how it would even be noticed by the process, let alone change it. Be just another tragedy for another family.

          Again, don’t kill yourself or even talk about it.

          • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            You’re expending your effort to support a genocidal status quo… and you want us to believe that you care about a single individual’s life?

            • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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              10 months ago

              I’m not supporting it, I’m saying this is the reality. That you have to work with what you have.

              I don’t believe in the killing anyone. Including not agreeing with death penalty for anyone.

              • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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                10 months ago

                Then you need to re-examine your beliefs. By arbitrarily confining your scope of legitimate action, you are promoting the conditions for fostering genocide as unavoidable reality when that is clearly not true.

                By that logic, the individual becomes without value and killing becomes palatable. Participating in that narrative gets people killed every single day.

                The reality is that individuals have been deprived of means to enact change except through means that are 1. illegal, and/or 2. extreme in the sense that they otherwise require sacrificing one’s future. Maybe that’s a commitment that you aren’t willing to make, but by tone policing those who have deeply analyzed the situation, you are working to prevent others from acting effectively against our institutions of violence.

                Our society is the privileged beneficiary of the sacrifices that activists make. We can beg them to prioritize their own lives, but it is an act of great disrespect against the most wise and dedicated among us to gaslight and tell them that their analyses are baseless. It is cruel to ask them to not act and to save themselves, when that means living a life integrated with the very systems that they would sacrifice themselves against. These people bare the burden of generations of inaction that led to them being born into our calcified state of affairs.

                Empathy toward them comes in the form of joining the activism and organizing so that they do not have to fight this fight alienated and alone, or reminding them that generally the most important activity that we can do is walking the walk and being a role model - but that their shoes would empty tomorrow if they were to leave us. These people need to feel meaning. And they are struggling to fulfill it with their intentionally limited agency. If they conclude that there is no escape from the two-party system, then there is nothing left to keep them bound to this planet another day.

                That’s presumably where they’re already at when contemplating such actions. I hope you will be careful playing on this precipice, if you’ve never waged such a large stake yourself.

                If you think I’m wrong, I’m open to a non-reductionist discussion about it.

                • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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                  10 months ago

                  You honestly think the choice isn’t Biden or Trump? (If nothing unexpected happens)

                  • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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                    10 months ago

                    The choice is much bigger than electing Biden or Trump, yes. If you don’t want more Trump policy in the future, then Biden doing well in the election is counter to your interests. Pretending that there are only two outcomes - even that there is only one “Biden wins” outcome and one “Trump wins” outcome - is very much reductionist, to the point that no political analyst would take you seriously.

                    Biden’s record oil-drilling, draconian immigration policies, climate inaction, sacrificing the poor for the rich with the economic policies - if he commands a strong lead, it only shows that Trump-like policy is acceptable as long as a Trump-like character isn’t behind it. If you oppose MAGA policy then it is in your interests to decouple from the Democratic machine. It is in your interests to sink the victim-blaming narrative that Democrats lose elections because Democrats don’t vote, so that the reality that the Democratic platform has no unique appeal (other than nominally not being Republican) can be exposed.

                    Or you can take the easy way out and believe in a reductionist view of the world that consoles your ego at the cost of supporting the killers and giving up your own agency. But you can’t expect everyone to be able to live with being a sellout.