"Just a reminder that not voting causes even more harm to the already marginalized people of your country."

Submitted by BlackFlagged in Anarchism

Just a reminder that this is liberal propaganda. Your vote is meaningless. Worse, it actively harms your community by misleading them into thinking you can vote for change. You can't.

That's why Exarcheia's anarchists burned the ballot boxes the last go round in Greece. The leftists that were in power did nothing but harm to the people, and the rightists that replaced them did nothing but harm to the people. They each take turns on the political merry-go-round making the people they rule grow more and more impoverished.

There is no state apparatus that works for the people. The state is not on your side and it will never be on your side. Every politician whispering sweet promises into your ear will become thoroughly corrupted the moment they take power. No ruler is capable of serving your interests, only you can serve your interests.

No person that tells you to vote for a ruler to help your community or marginalized people is an anarchist. They either have no understanding of the nature of power and of the machinations of the state, or worse, are shills for the state and its monopoly on violence - Violence used to crush the marginalized people these shills claim a "good" ruler will serve when again and again every ruler that was ever elected throws us off a bridge and leaves us for dead.

All arms of the state, left and right, serve the same masters. The state functions by building divisions between people to convince them that they have choices. That they can control the direction of their society by picking a ruler.

There is no choice. The state's only interest is to accumulate power for itself. It has no interest in harm reduction. It has no interest in making your life any better. It has no interest in giving up even a modicum of its control over you. It wants more police, more prisons, more suffering for anyone that fails to conform to the state's demands.

Do not believe the empty platitudes of shameless electioneers.

Reject "anarchists" that claim rulers will work for you.

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Comments

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

Between the Neoliberal Democrats and the increasingly openly fascist Republicans, I'm not entirely sure if that talking point is even remotely true. Assuming that every individual vote does matter (it doesn't); gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other means of manipulating the electoral system exist and the only solution that these people can put together is to waste time attempting to reform a broken system by using the broken system. I find it interesting that this talking point discusses the conditions of marginalized people of my country; I'm pretty sure anyone I vote for has no problem with brutalizing the same people that these electoralists claim to want to protect; whether it's through drone strikes overseas or domestically through police brutality.

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lori wrote

I personally do believe voting is a good idea out of harm-reduction The cited example of Greece, for instance; the new right wing government is already cutting programs and increasing repression even further. It's not that the left wing reduces harm, its that the right wing is more harmful.

But good god I can't stand these people on Reddit who shout down everyone who doesn't want to play in the state's little game because they're such a fan of these rulers.

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kore wrote

I'm glad you said this. I also think it depends a lot on situation. Like when Obama was elected, things probably would have been pretty similar if it was McCain instead. But with Trump it doesn't really seem like that. There's also the case of local politics which I think is a completely different story, where elected people can put in some beneficial programs. As a random example take the idea of sanctuary cities in the USA. Those exist because people voted Democrat in their localities.

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Bezotcovschina wrote (edited )

I don't think that voting can bring a sensible change in most of cases. But I think that the statement "You should never vote ever, period" is too dogmatic.

Edit: explaining why something is harmful is great, though.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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Bezotcovschina wrote

Is it as dogmatic as saying you should vote, considering those people who say that have magical thinking and assume it will fix... anything.

Agree 100%

Seems to me that the word dogmatic has lost all meaning and simply means 'the opposite of what I believe.'

As many words did, really. But I firmly insist that any strict statement, especially "You should always..." or "You should never..." is dogmatic and harmful by itself.

Or, maybe, it's just me wanting to stab people that tell me what to do.

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AnarchoSpook wrote

Well any kind of appeal starting with "You should always" is referring back to some transcendent plane of ethics detached from direct experience. There is also a striking resemblance between the assumptions of institutional justice imposed by authority and these kind of claims. imo anarchist ethics is really about the inclusion of all but domineering perspectives (whether collective or individual) of the world as we recognize and act on it here and now.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I'm under the impression that Trump was a direct result of a Black man having been voted in previously, so I think that when we take a longer-term view on the consequences of a vote, it often undermines this kind of argument.

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ziq wrote

It's hilarious how much electioneering is being done in the "no electioneering" post:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/egdtl8/a_new_rule_was_just_made_by_the_users_of/

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote

I've literally seen people with emma_goldman usernames saying people who don't vote hate minorities.

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[deleted] wrote

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote

I mainly see it used by tankies trying their hands at entryism and anarcho-brocialists trying to appear polite and reasonable while I'm calling out their bigotry.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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ziq wrote

I use it sarcastically sometimes. Manc uses it as a straight up insult?

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Bezotcovschina wrote

Frankly, I, personally, love the word "comrade". Not sure about the usage on r/@, but I literally blush when somebody I respect calls me "comrade".

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ziq wrote

It makes me want to break things.

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ziq wrote

Also the phrase "I'm not a liberal, I'm an Anarcho-syndicalist".

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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ziq wrote

It'd be a lot worse if raddle weren't brigading the shit out of it.

Yeah, the whole "we can't wait for revolution, we need TO VOTE FOR A RULER now" thing is surreal. If revolution is a unicorn, voting for "justice" is that most elusive of all creatures - the ethical billionaire.

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