TOTW: Electoral politics

kobe!

Topic of the Week: It’s that time of year again, on repeat every four years; where in a little more than a month, the spectacle of the USA presidential election will take place live over the virtual stream of 2020. This week we’re taking a look at elections, politics, and their impact on anarchist ideas.

Do you have a hot take about the upcoming election? What happens after the election? What does the future of anarchist ideas and actions look like under the same / new president? In your anarchist practice, do you feel strongly about any situations over the years, where anarchists have successfully inserted themselves into politics? Or, is it more based to consider how anarchists can liberate themselves from politics and what that may look like?

*[No need to confine the TOTW to the USA; please feel free to open up these responses to other recent elections around the world.]

There are 63 Comments

A friendly suggestion... Is there any way y'all could spell out "Topic of the Week" in these posts? I feel like, unless you've been coming here for years, you would have no idea what TOTW stands for. Seems like it could contribute to anews in-the-know lingo, that might turn away some people who might have interesting things to contribute. Just an idea.

yet somehow you, who were totally not concern trolling, learned it thus proving its learnability... OR it is unlearnable and you are part of and complicit to the anews in-the-know lingorati!

As a typical U.S. of Aye-type anarchist, I am against electoral politics -- except, of course, at the beginning of November.

So obviously, I'm willing to flash my gatekeeper badge on this topic: anarchists DO NOT vote, immediate disqualification, no exceptions, get the boot out of your mouth and have some basic dignity, blah blah blah. I cheerfully spoil otherwise pleasant social engagements with this topic and no fucks are given.

All that should be obvious.

But this particular american election? Might be some pretty dark drama that plays out around this one! I'll be watching from outside the US with great interest! You poor ... miserable bastards. My sympathies. Seriously.

...do what It's Going Democrat tell me to do! Not sure what that'll be yet... probably volunteering ('mutual aid') at my local post office or something.

They're just IDpol compromised ideologically captured elective struggling morons with no genuine radical creativity. I give them no credit.

I appreciate respect lumpentroll's opinion and think it has a ring of truth to it, but I disagree.

Full disclosure: I have voted before and, fuck it, I might even do it again if I'm eligible to vote (and/or I can fraud my way into it) and the idea strikes my fancy

Voting is NOT an "anarchist act", but neither are a lot of other things I do. Voting doesn't change what I fundamentally believe either. It just means I have decided to play this game because, apparently, I am invested enough in the outcome that I feel like exercising the small amount of power that I am accorded by a democratic system of governance.

(Incidentally, I might have more power pr capita in some situations than others - i.e. a local referendum about whether or not to allow developments over a certain height, which I know will be used to build more condo buildings, and where I can reasonably predict about 15% of a maximum voter pool of a couple of hundred people are gonna turn out. Not a U.S. federal election, in other words)

Obviously anyone who is spending time and energy ENCOURAGING people to vote for Biden (or any other "the most progressive option") isn't an anarchist. But if some people go ahead and do so, cuz they don't want to Trump to win or whatever, who cares.

The gatekeepy attitude encourages these people to think, "Welp, because I voted, I'm not an anarchist at all" or even "there's no way I possibly could be an anarchist" - and I don't see how that's, like, beneficial in any way whatsoever.

Obvy people who are already in anarchist shames should have the proper attitude of shame or something, i.e. don't go bragging about voting (and I have spent time in "anarchist" scenes in other cities where, like, people talked about who they were gonna vote for at parties, and it was completely brutal). But yeah, my opinion is that Voting Doesn't Matter - not that Voting is a Sin.

you know, fair enough! I think at least part of the problem with this topic is that definitely not-anarchist folks will come at you pretty hard about it and I tend to pull both guns and blaze away with my rhetoric for that reason. not so much to shame nuanced perspectives like yours.

But that's a bad faith version of the discussion which might be better: something more like... in the same way that few decent folks would question the entire legitimacy of a serious anti-state position from say, an indigenous sovereignty perspective, why not OTHER serious anti-state positions? How can you participate in ANY voluntary legitimization of a system you're seriously opposed to?

It's different when they're threatening you, like financially or just with a gun or whatever, that's coercion. But anything voluntary ... where I personally gain so little and am definitely legitimizing the rule of the jackals who either don't care if I die or worse ...

Akin to being trapped in a room with an axe murderer and some of the other ppl about to get the axe in their face are trying to bicker with you about whether they prefer axe wound in their back or their front.

I don't think I accept the premises of what you're saying. Like, if I vote... I don't know if I am "definitely legitimizing" anything. Why? Because: Voting Doesn't Matter.

I'm not sure if I follow you on indigenous sovereignty stuff either. But I think, like... a lot of indigenous people vote (or have voted). Including some of the folks who also do direct action. Trudeau's first election, he said the right shit, and some indigenous folks voted for him (sometimes voting for the first time ever), if some of the reporting at the time is to believed.

I don't think these people legitimized shit, though. They were just invested in the outcome, and they exercised the power at their disposal by voting - which, to be clear, is (probably) the only power they have to influence that outcome.

Because I am an anarchist and I believe in and prefer DIRECT ACTION and/or CRIME and/or THE COMING INSURRECTION, I suppose I would say, Maybe it would be better if no one cared about the outcome of the election? Cuz it's all fake or some shit and we should do, like, counterpower and/or general strike and/or union of egoists and/or decolonization?

But saying this, I would be a hypocrite, since I occasionally find myself a bit invested too. Alas!

which is why i'm totally uninterested in conversations about "what anarchists should/nt be doing", i'm still convinced that there's any other useful trajectory to my life other than to enjoy it.

hi! So like, I'm not essentializing native folks here, first off. No categorical statements are being by me except that it's pretty weird to voluntarily participate in a fetishized circus when you claim to oppose the empire's entire existence.

The reason I put a genuine sovereignty position on the table, is because it's something even the most dyed-in-the-wool, pedantic, latte sipping, college professor liberal, will hesitate to dismiss. It blows the "harm reduction" argument out of the water. The truly sad thing here is that most people's overton window of coherent political positions is so skewed towards the allegedly democratic institutions of corporate capitalism, that I have to play a game of rhetoric to even get them to seriously consider what being opposed to it even means ... EVEN THO THEY CLAIM THEYRE ANARCHISTS .... *facepalm emoji*

I also hope it's clear that I'm implying most native folks don't have a serious anti-state position, same as most other contemporary political perspectives ... and it would be racist to assume otherwise?

Put another way, pointing to liberals who happen to be of indigenous ancestry is meaningless. Radical sovereignty folks are quite rare, native anarchist folks, even moreso, but those sets of ideas happen to map over each other in interesting ways imo.

yeah, I didn't think you were essentializing at all, I just didn't get it before.

I both think that the "voting is harm reduction" is completely untenable - and also, based on what I see with other people who cling very closely to other sorts of untenable ideas (and in fact, exist in isolated information silos that confirm and naturalize that position), I am not totally sure an articulation of the indigenous sovereignty really does blow "voting is harm reduction" out of the water?

like, for me... it sounds like you have known some annoying liberals-cum-anarchists (i.e. people with absolute shit ideas, and/or true liberal charlatans who like a radical aesthetic, and/or people who are still figuring their political ideas out) - and that is a separate issue from the very specific concern I'm trying to drive home, which is that

Voting Doesn't Matter!

yeah sure ... it doesn't matter. Except if you're an otherwise intelligent person who for some god damned reason, insists on making your perspective completely incoherent by doing it.

anyway, which portion of the analogy is mystified? if you truly get that you're living under an occupying military force, then it follows that whatever empty posturing the hostile forces permit, to lull the subjects of their conquest in to complacency, only because it's less messy than shooting all of them, is akin to gleefully pinning the yellow star on your own jacket back in the camps of occupied europe? which part don't you get? there's no harm reduction ... there's only drinking the koolaid of your conquerors while they laugh in your face and wait to see if they'll need to shoot you tomorrow.

I feel like this is a thing where we have a disconnect. Like, again, doing something contrary to what I believe is right or correct doesn't make my intelligent person perspective "incoherent". For instance, I used to be vegan, and that choice was made for animal liberation reasons. I don't think my position on the issue of factory farms or anything has changed, but I do eat meat etc. now because, well, I don't think my personal consumption habits matter very much, and I certainly don't think refusing the dinner my friend cooked for me is really helping out the animals that are already dead.

And the WWII analogy lost me again, but like... I'm not talking about harm reduction. Voting is not harm reduction, and it's also not, umm, pinning a yellow star on your jacket either. Voting is probably just a waste of a few hours.

would better be spent wasting a few minutes buying a lottery ticket. You have more chances of winning the lottery then being the deciding vote in an election. There are basic game theoretical reasons why voting is nonsense from a point of individual rational calculation.

doing something contrary to what you believe, WITHOUT BEING FORCED TO, IN ANY WAY BUT JUST CUZ WHATEVS LOL ... is what makes your perspective incoherent. ftfy

well, i don't intend to pay much attention to it at all, but I'm definetly going to watch the debates on the 29th because i think seeing those two lunatics argue with each other is going to be awesome.

Or not...i'll see...

I don't vote for people NOT out of of some anarchist principle, but because i have enormous contempt for all politicians, even the ones who say stuff i agree with, and it's also for me personally a move against identity politics. I always find that people tend to identify with whatever candidate they vote for, as if they are defending them or something. I am totally fine with voting for or against specific legislation, but not candidates.

ALSO, you can never know what a candidate is going to do, and much of the things politicians do are behind closed doors. The only presidential election i ever voted in was the first Obama election, and that was also the first election the state allowed me to vote. I did so entirely because he called out the mistakes in Iraq very eloquently, i was hoping he would be an anti-war president. In a few ways he was, in many ways he wasn't. Finding out that he strengthened both the NSA and DEA during his time in office made me never want to vote ever again.

As far as predictions, i think that Biden is going to win this time, just because Trump has stepped on way too many toes, and americans are little sheeple who think that president's are necessary for situations we've seen this year, and Trump "failed his duty", both by intentionally down playing how series the virus is/was and reacting clownishly to all the uprisings...

...i think biden is going to be a way more effective fascist! But who knows. I hope he winds up being even less competent than trump, yet that is unlikely. Pretty much trump was just the Twitter and failed border patrol president...and one thing i really hate about him is he un-did all of Obama's reductions in military spending.

I just don't see how Seniliberal Teleprompted Career Powerpolitics can defeat Charismaporn Fuckswamp Muhricandream Shockjock if the rabble get their act together and get up off their slobby lazy butts and vote. Its won on attendance by the democratic smucks who make up the junk food beer guzzling mob.
True anarchs such as myself have never voted our entire lives, ohh the horror, to lower oneself to the act of ,,,casting a vote for a powerlusting megalomaniacal parasitic peasant magnet, Uurghhhh!

and a month ago i looked at some of the shit biden was saying online and thought "trump is definitely going to win again, and the democrats are going to throw a fit and they're gonna hate anarcho nihilists even more", however, polls do tend to be semi-accurate, and biden has been consistently walloping trump in the polls. Plus, voting overall is a nationalist thing, and the last election trump's key to victory was a combination of anti-immigrant shit [first and foremost] plus anti-establishment rudeness. He might have a new trick up his sleeve, or he might cleverly respond to something that trump says or does. I'm confident he's probably just going to repeat the same strategy over and over again which might work.

might cleverly respond to something that BIDEN says or does.

Not that they are different kinds of people.

X-D

i find it funny the topic writer says the spectacle is on the night of the election, as if we haven't been living through *checks watch* over a year of this crap already.

of course, anarchists don't vote, unless they do. whatever. i don't care, you do you.

but i do think paying attention to what is happening, the rhetoric, the dog-whistles etc, is something anarchists should (yes, i said the s-word) do. why? it seems like a good idea to have an inkling of what is coming at you, probably. ;P
like today with this thing of designating certain cities as "anarchist jurisdictions". (i mean, if only right?) but what are the consequences of this, how does the rhetoric play out in the coming weeks?

i, too, used to be a do-gooder. i voted in every election from 1984 until 1998, even the mid-term elections. for the most part it didn't matter, not in any meaningful way. the first election after i stopped voting then was 2000. and that was fun, watching everyone pull out their hair, and ultimately looking on as the election was 'stolen' as if it even made a difference. my suspicion is this year's outcome will play out similarly, though i won't put money on it because we seem to be in a time of maximum turbulence so predictions are almost impossible. except the state will continue on, either 'democratic' or 'fascist' as if there is a difference.

the real issues we, all beings, face will go un-addressed, as per usual. the ice will melt, the forests burn, the hurricanes will churn while capitalists count coin.

don't forget the scorched skies and air turning to poison! can't forget that. i work outside ffs!

cough cough cough

it's implied in the burning forests

cough

It's pretty hard being an anarchist. A person aspiring to be one might stress looking around thinking "What to do?! What to do?!!". And nothing seems enough. Voting seems like making an effort to not be an anarchist, in fact, making an effort to disqualify yourself as one. Most people abstain from voting (by percentage of population eligible to votei), so by voting you are less anarchist than average.

People that vote have all kinds of reasons and justifications, none of them being that it's the anarchist thing to do. Emma Goldman was not in favor of voting, and was in fact against it, and she's (mis?)attributed the quote "It's not my revolution if i can't dance!", seems like today's liberals that fancy themselves anarchists would say "It's not my revolution if I can't vote!".

Maybe if voting is such a potent urge in them, and brings them such joy, maybe us anarchist should host our own mock polls and mock elections, so that these people can release these pent-up built-up energies in a way that does not legitimize and serve the state. This would be real "harm-reduction", similar to handing new needles, this vote is sterilized, this is a clean vote, contrary to voting for the "lesser evil" in which you always dirty your hand with the blood of those brutalized by the state and its policies.

High propaganda season often has its absurd humour to look forward to and the US version this round is especially laugh and cringe-worthy. And then there's "ugly anarchists", "radical left anarchy", "anarchist jurisdictions", and "Biden anarchists" for extra lols.

The thing that blows my mind (ok, not really) are the true believers who point to the current butthead of state as one who is following the textbook of the Austrian who shall not be named, yet who also think it would be nice for said demented dictator to be calmly and patiently removed through the dubious power of their bizarre electoral system.

That said, this particular election might have an unusual direct impact on my life. I have to move, don't know where or how. I cannot assess the level of statist rage and social upheaval that is likely to increase, post November 3rd - though prob not to the degree I would joyously celebrate. Thing is, whichever asswipe wins or loses does not change this one bit. Just like always.

I take my quite unusual decision-waffling, as troubling as it is for an ailing boomer, as a positive sign of an ongoing demise of this especially egregious nation-state. No one said it was going to be smooth or easy or painless.

which is why i'm totally uninterested in conversations about "what anarchists should/nt be doing", i'm still convinced that there's any other useful trajectory to my life other than to enjoy it.

This accurately sums up the one hundred percent red white and blue nothingness of a lot of what gets called anarchism in the United States. There is no there there.

People look at Trump (for which I can no longer be shocked or even be mad since he has nothing to offer and nothing to say but toxic narcissism), but the social media apparatus continually absolves itself and washes its hands of how it has weaponized and gamified reality in a very polarizing fashion(see the latest two episodes of Behind the Bastards podcast to get a deep dive into how Facebook foments civil wars and stands back with its hands up, Zuckerberg obsessing over Augustus down to his hair and child's name). Engagement is constantly needed, and the more we participate the more reality is warped.

I doubt it's a hot take, but if Biden wins he'll be a "Do Nothing" president, and the theocratic feelings that elected Trump will continue and probably resurface under a media personality for 2024. Think Tucker Carlson.

I don't doubt that the public will continue to be gaslit, as wealth has shifted upward into so few hands that a form of democide underway will be continually scapegoated (ie 'anarchist jurisdiction'). Nowhere on table are plans for needed services and infrastructure overhaul...or what happens to all of us when automation does replace our jobs. Who needs camps when you can neglect people, make them fear and doubt their own power by subduing them through policing and surveillance?

After we stopped working and crippled the economy it was deemed okay for 200k domestically to die off so that we could all go back to work.

No matter who the person or which party is being voted for, ALL voters vote for one thing in common - they vote YES!! to the entire system of governance. It is as close as it gets to placing a signature on the invisible "social contract". What it means to declare oneself an anarchist is changing - and not in a helpful way imo. Any of the poseurs promoting a nonsensical "harm reduction" reasoning are worse than merely naive. But true, their vote will do no EXTRA harm.

If SMOD was running again this time around, I might cast a ballot for the fuck of it! Best candidate I've seen so far.

"It's pretty hard being an anarchist. "

that depends on how you define "being an anarchist", no? if being an anarchist means changing the world to be without governance, economy, religion and every other authoritarian institution, then yes, i'd say likely impossible.

if, on the other hand, you see anarchy as a way of living your life and relating with other individuals in non-oppressive, anti-authoritarian ways, then ...

perhaps that is a major distinction between "social"-focus and "individual"-focus, in the realms of anarchic reality.

well, it seems simple enough to me, but i guess it's hard to people judging by comments and articles saying things like:
"anarchy is not chaos" or "well, i'm an anarchist, but i can still vote" or "but what if i'm a senator on the weekends, or a sheriff deputy like every once a blue moon, only on riots, i'm still an anarchist most of the year right?" or "anarchism is just when government works just right" or "look, i'm as anarchist as the next guy, but sometimes, come on, just sometimes, prison and the justice system is necessary, but i love cops okay, there's nothing wrong with it don't make a big deal of it, i will vote for cops, for cop-loving ex-cops that got promoted to vice-ultracop candidate, but just because i'm a realist, i love the world i want to save it and all the people in it and i love cops i want cops in my mouth, but i am an anarchist i swear don't mock me it's not funny, why are you so immature"

it's same as "is it vegan if i chew on the meat and then spit it out?" people trynna get on the anarchist bandwagon on some technicality, like somehow secure their status while being the complete opposite. "i'm an individualist, you can't tell me not to vote" or "i'm a collectivist, i'm voting to protect my community, this has real impact on us!" ok, fine, but not anarchist!

OMG I'M TERRIFIED TRUMP IS GOING TO WIN OHHH NOOO, HE'S SLOWLY CREEPING UP TO BIDEN, AND WITH THE SUPREME COURT CONSERVATIVES IN POWER, IF ITS A CLOSE CALL, OMG NOOOOO, ALTRIGHT ARE GOING TO SURGE IN NUMBERS, AND ANTIFA WONT HAVE THE POLICE SUPPORT AT RIOTS, OMG NOOOO, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
NOW IS THE TIME TO VOTE ALL YOU BIG TOUGH PURIST ANARCHISTS, VOTE SENILE BIDEN, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A BLANK SLATE OF A PRESIDENT, AND HE'LL KEEP OHHHH NOOOO THE HORDES OF ALTRIGHT AT BAY AND GIVE THE LEFTISTS A BOOST, AND THEY'LL SPIN OFF A LITTLE TOLERANCE FOR THEIR ANARCHIST COUSINS LIKE THEY DID IN SPAIN 38, SO COME ON ALL YOU DECENT ANARCHIST LIBERALS, VOTE BIDEN.

I recently had an interesting exchange of posts and e-mails with Peter Werbe from Fifth Estate on the subject of whether or not anarchists should vote in American presidential elections, or if it even makes any difference. I found his position to be equivocal at best, somewhat deceptive (albeit unintentionally), and a bit delusional. On the one hand, Peter rightly points out that one or a few votes by anarchists would make little difference in the outcome of an election, but on the othe hand, he follows the standard Democratic Party tactic of insisting that this time (just like last time, and the time before that...), the stakes are much higher. While he never comes right out and says it, I get the impression that Werbe not only intends to vote himself ( and probably always has), but that he would like to see as many votes as possible for his favored candidate (always a Democrat - never third-party, because that would be wasting one's vote).

And therein lies the delusional aspect of his thinking: no matter how many examples he gives of just how horrible both Democratic and Republican administrations have been, and how both parties share the same neoliberal agenda, he truly believes that the Democrats would offer at least a marginally better alternative to the Republicans, although he is never able to explain exactly how. When Werbe asks rhetorically what harm one little vote could do, or suggests that one furtive little vote in the privacy of a voting booth (or a mail-in ballot) doesn't prevent one from pursuing anarchist goals the rest of the time, he is really subtly encouraging people to vote.

As I pointed out to Peter, we eventually become what we do, and if an anarchist continues to vote in one election after another, always with grave reservations and the best intentions, then a voter is what they become, both in spirit and practice. I said that for an anarchist to vote is a humiliating admission of hopelessness and despair, but that a better strategy would be a very loud and public propaganda campaign against electoral politics in general (demonstrations, posters, anti-voter registration cards, etc.), but this seems to be something Werbe has little interest in.

It's quite sad that the trajectory of FE has continued along this accommodationist path. It started much earlier than this year, and was exceptionally bitter for me because it was reading an essay by Watson/Bradford in FE sometime in the 1980s that pushed me to finally jettison my electoralist illusions. Werbe has always been less radical than Watson, so the latter's absence (plus Andy Smith's hippie shit in the interim) no doubt contributed to this definitively pro-statist editorial trend.

I am not really familiar with Fifth Estate or Peter Werbe. From your characterization, though, I would hope that the platform is actually being used to argue a pro-voting (and pro-Democrat) position? That, I would agree, is absolutely not befitting of an anarchist publication.

But you also explain that, while you get the impression Werbe is a voter, you don't even know - which makes me wonder why this exchange happened. If it's not explicit, I sort of feel like you might have just sniffed out a person who might be the voting type, then demanded answers from them. If you were correct, and if they took the time to write back to you and be relatively open about their thoughts on the matter, then I can see why you might write this comment - in order, I guess, to signal to the true believers that Werbe is, in fact, a heretic.

When you say "for an anarchist to vote is a humiliating admission of hopelessness and despair, [and] that a better strategy would be a very loud and public propaganda campaign against electoral politics in general (demonstrations, posters, anti-voter registration cards, etc.)," you're talking about one thing and then another thing. First of all, I don't think an anarchist is necessarily an admission of anything, other than that said anarchist is sufficiently invested in the outcome of a particular election that they will use the small amount of power they are accorded to affect that outcome. It's not a "strategy" that can be compared to the second thing you mention, the anti-electoral campaign. It's just an isolated act; there is nothing to stop a person from both voting and dedicating time to the prosecution of such a campaign (although it would admittedly be a bit incoherent).

I will admit that I don't find the idea of anti-electoral campaigns that interesting, either. First of all, my belief is that Voting Doesn't Matter, and secondly, lots of people are very emotionally attached to the idea of voting (for instance, people who would have been excluded from voting in previous eras), so I think it's a bit of a hard target as far as propaganda goes. Anyway, if I WAS to be involved in some kind of campaign oriented around the event of an election, I think there's room for improvement, but the CrimethInc. approach for the 2004 U.S. election was the best I've seen. Their slogan was "don't just vote, get active" - which doesn't tell you to vote (though it assumes you might already have voting intentions) and doesn't tell you not to vote. What their campaign did, instead, was to suggest other activities a person could get involved in before and after the election, and to drive home the point that the act of voting is not a particularly strong method of "changing society" or "exercising power" or whatever.

2020: don't just vote, burn down a precinct

"First of all, I don't think an anarchist VOTING is necessarily an admission of anything,"

That's pretty awesome how your typo correction ends up looking like somebody else pointing out the problem inherent in your argument lol

I'm definitely not saying anyone should waste serious time and energy, trying to convince other people not to vote. I mean, besides my snarky shitposting here, which I do just to pass the time while I drink my coffee. Fuck it, whatever. It doesn't really matter much, as many have pointed out.

BUT I'm interested in how ideas fit together and whether they make sense as a whole. It's a character flaw of mine.

hey, obviously I was addressing Makhno here, not you.

but I think, like, anarchism (or most versions of it that I find interesting) imply doing anything else with your day then going to the polls. that is just a good and solid point right there. do direct action. get naked and run around in the woods. play jazz music in a cave.

but like, my point is to that being gatekeepy - like, even just having a gatekeepy attitude about this - is stupid.

instead, I draw the line at "anarchists don't talk about voting intentions at informal social gatherings"

if I go to a party 2 weeks before the election, and every goddamn person there is talking about whether they're going to vote NDP or Green or whatever, I am going to have a TERRIBLE time and all of those people need to perform a quota of spectacular property crime before they can be considered anarchists again

(this happened to me last year and it sucked. where is the shame?)

oh sorry! did I interrupt in an open forum?! lol

look friend, our positions clearly boil down to both of us calling the other one "stupid".

but this gate actually keeps itself, it's not even shut, anyone can come and go through the gate but plenty of them ain't making much sense when they talk. why shouldn't anarchists challenge inconsistencies in each other's theories?

we should absolute challenge theoretical inconsistency. I just don't think that this is a theoretical issue. the inconsistency of "the anarchist who votes" is that they appear to be tarnishing their anarchism - but that's, like, not a real problem. certainly they aren't enacting their anarchism in voting, but whatever? I fail to enact my anarchism all the time

it is a secondary characteristic, which varies from person to person, as to whether they talk about voting and/or accord it a place in their strategic ideas about political change - which might mark them as, like, not really an anarchist. but I'm not talking to those people.

I'm talking about who might, for any possible reason, vote. I am open to the idea that, whether or not they went through the trouble of voting, some of these people don't suck - a possibility that I think the Voting is a Sin position basically precludes. which is why, I repeat: Voting Doesn't Matter

ok ... I think I understand. you're just confusing what I'm saying for personal attacks or something. sigh

I think I was just arguing against the practicality or usefulness of holding this position.

well maybe figure out what you're arguing before you do it next time? lol

but of course, this is how we learn. and how I ended seeming like an even bigger old grump than I actually am!

To anon 08:36 ---YOU WEAK CRYPTO-LIBERAL PIECE OF EXCREMENT-STAINED TISSUE-PAPER BLOWING IN THE WINDS OF CHANGE!!

the steaks have always been high.

okay, got that out of the way.

the thing is, everything is fucked up, yes, everybody knows this. we are all stuck in it, we are all complicit. we all know voting only changes the arrangement of who is sitting in which deck chair and who is on a lifeboat. and none of us are either place. we are always already in the water. the best we can do, maybe the only thing we can do is help each other swim away from all boats toward something else we conjure on the way there.

quick! someone call Shawn P. Wilbur! we have a sinking ship analogy in our hands!

we're all drowning in analogies.

you did see the part where i say swim away to other conjured places? my point is, stop looking to the way things are, start conspiring with others to find a way to what isn't already.

yeah, I saw it. conjuring on stormy seas be easier said than done, yaHAR

but what else we got?

we either attempt the improbable or perish in the impossible

oh I completely agree with you there, it's just hard to watch folks splashing around ... gets to me sometimes :(

They will save you from the turgid uncertainty of being a mutinous scum crew without loyalties. Vote for the crazy captain orange pompadou with the cheshire grin, not the ol' ahab-replica whose nautical experience does not extend beyond the goldfish pond on washington hill.

In a blatant instance of mod abuse, I have turned your caps lock uppercase comment and turned it into its current form.

-thecollective rogue miscreant schism sliver #0.01

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