Harm Reduction and Disaster Control
Apr. 4th, 2020 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingMy friend says not to vote in the upcoming election
https://ms-demeanor.tumblr.com/post/614414765840859136/my-friend-says-not-to-vote-in-the-upcoming
People who criticize leftists for "electoral apologism" or whatever for voting are the "yet you participate in society, curious. I am very intelligent" comic.
Yeah, the system's shitty. Yeah, it sucks and should be overthrown. But it's not overthrown YET so we may as well take advantage of the few areas of harm reduction the system allows. Voting doesn't mean you STOP doing direct action or that you stop pushing for change, it just means you're doing the single easiest real-world thing to alleviate suffering. And if it doesn’t work who gives a fuck - you did the bare minimum and it cost you a small amount of time.
Vote and then go hand out food in the park or cut the valve stems off a cop car if you’re feeling angsty about conceding to the system.
This is how I felt during the entire eight years of the Obama administration, and I would have been equally as critical of a Clinton administration should the current timeline have split in that direction. Right now, though, even "harm reduction" can seem like an almost unattainable goal in the face of the ever-present necessity of "disaster control."
Not as if it matters to me personally, seeing as how my vote as a resident of the District of Columbia doesn't "count." Speaking of harm reduction, though, I genuinely thought that DC would become a state within the next five years when I first moved here. The movement toward statehood has been strong, visible, and unanimously supported by local residents and the surrounding communities; but, because of the constant state of emergency caused by the current administration, all we can focus on is disaster control.
My own political views most closely align with GIANT METEOR 2020, and I totally get it when people argue that Biden (or Sanders) is just as bad as the alternative. Still, anyone who thinks it's cool to even remotely suggest that they won't vote in the next round of American elections is going to get an immediate block from me. I am capable of tolerating that sort of nonsense if and only if I'm not preoccupied with disaster control.
https://ms-demeanor.tumblr.com/post/614414765840859136/my-friend-says-not-to-vote-in-the-upcoming
People who criticize leftists for "electoral apologism" or whatever for voting are the "yet you participate in society, curious. I am very intelligent" comic.
Yeah, the system's shitty. Yeah, it sucks and should be overthrown. But it's not overthrown YET so we may as well take advantage of the few areas of harm reduction the system allows. Voting doesn't mean you STOP doing direct action or that you stop pushing for change, it just means you're doing the single easiest real-world thing to alleviate suffering. And if it doesn’t work who gives a fuck - you did the bare minimum and it cost you a small amount of time.
Vote and then go hand out food in the park or cut the valve stems off a cop car if you’re feeling angsty about conceding to the system.
This is how I felt during the entire eight years of the Obama administration, and I would have been equally as critical of a Clinton administration should the current timeline have split in that direction. Right now, though, even "harm reduction" can seem like an almost unattainable goal in the face of the ever-present necessity of "disaster control."
Not as if it matters to me personally, seeing as how my vote as a resident of the District of Columbia doesn't "count." Speaking of harm reduction, though, I genuinely thought that DC would become a state within the next five years when I first moved here. The movement toward statehood has been strong, visible, and unanimously supported by local residents and the surrounding communities; but, because of the constant state of emergency caused by the current administration, all we can focus on is disaster control.
My own political views most closely align with GIANT METEOR 2020, and I totally get it when people argue that Biden (or Sanders) is just as bad as the alternative. Still, anyone who thinks it's cool to even remotely suggest that they won't vote in the next round of American elections is going to get an immediate block from me. I am capable of tolerating that sort of nonsense if and only if I'm not preoccupied with disaster control.
