Suddenly I'm reminded of the mayor in The Wire.

Oh my god do you think nobody's Fucking tried this? It doesn't work. The elections are fake, my dude. Remember 2000? Remember 2016 dem primary? Remember 194...4(?)? 2020 dem primary?

And I live in California. My vote literally does not count.

Fuck your bullshit elections, I can't respect that shit

Gotta respect your choice of home Lemmy tho. I feel ashamed for not thinking to do the same.

That's one tac. More in line with the Great Man theory of history. If I had to guess I'd say we have hundreds of people in politics who are exactly like this. And it's maybe a part of making things better.

But those people will be powerless to do anything until collective and direct action gives them the political capital to point out in a room full of chuds, "look we've got to give them something."

This is just to say, don't wait for your heroes to save the day for you. Even if they're there, dormant, they need your action to do anything.

Okay maybe boats were a bad example. I probably should have used something I know about, but that's all shit everyone thinks they can't do.

Still, compare the effort you put in, keep in mind you're being gouged on materials (because you're being gouged on everything), and figure out how many hours at minimum wage to buy the sameish quality.

Slightly less obnoxious, but equally ineffective; vote with your hands, your eyes, your feet. Don't let them steal your labor your attention your time your anything. You can be passive and hold a strike. You van be active and strike back. I think a mix of both would be a lot more effective than just one.

But whatever you do, if its not just useless theatrical bullshit (which isn't to say all theatrical bullshit is useless; just the useless kinds) its going to be illegal, and will face state retribution, even if its explicitly legal and protected in your local constitution.

Further, this is one case where decidedly not voting (to borrow the analogy) would have an impact.

Reminds me of the short story Enough, by William Ledbetter that I just read.

See also https://bdsmovement.net/ for a practical, targeted example.

My point is it fucking should be, with modern tech and skilled specialists and economies of scale, but rarely actually is.

That all that shit isn't for us, we do not see the benefit of it.

it's more work, but you can absolutely do it for less money. You need to have a realistic scope and be able to meet your own needs, and nothing more. You probably don't need the shit that exists in a suburban home for example. So don't build one. Build something to specifically serve you.

It's a little different for boats naturally, but that was just an example.

I bought a 12 year old thinkpad laptop to be used as my daily driver laptop. It's not fast, it's not small, it's not light, but it's a fucking trooper of a machine, and i love it. It does exactly what i need a machine to do. And all in, including the screen upgrade which i got from another used machine i'm probably about 200 dollars in. And have two batteries that i managed to get from either machine. Did i get lucky? sure, unrealistically lucky? No, i was just eyeing ebay every now and then. And i have a spare parts machine.

I don't want to criticize that, it soubds pretty nice, but that's nowhere near as radical as I was thinking.

Plus, remember; there is no outside, walled gardens do not endure, thermodynamics apply, and you cannot lifeboat the coming catastrophes.

Copy pasting:

So I’m in the united states. The second (or third) major step towards fascism… Well here’s how I remember it:

It was the year 2000, first election I was remotely politically conscious for. I, uh, didn’t vote. Had opinions tho.

So there was this fascist piece of shit-his dad was a former CIA director, his grandpa was point man for a failed fascist coup (thank you smedley butler. Not that I knew about this at the time, being a literal child), and the guy running against him was kind of a bland milquetoast wonk-but his credentials and rep were, in retrospect, pretty perfect. Conscious and cautious about global warming, knew about the internet, kind of all the right shit for the moment.

So when the fascist piece of shit took office, everyone gave my mom shit, because she voted for a third party and allowed it to happen. Nevermind that we live(d) in CA, where votes in federal elections are between like 1/5th and 1/500th of a full citizen, and the electoral votes for CA still went to the bullshit wonk. She caught shit for years. And it kind of confused me.

Because here’s the thing; the bland milquetoast wonk won the election. I don’t mean “he won the popular vote; the electoral college is bullshit” (although he did and it is) but he won in college votes too. He won by every metric.

Nobody cared. Because elections don’t count. They’re not real, and you will never win begging. It was entirely a wasted effort. The aristocracy just appointed the guy they wanted. Don’t get me started on 2008, the first one I did vote in, and how that bastard betrayed every single fucking thing he promised.

You tell me to get off my ass and do something, have you ever actually done anything in your life? I don’t mean sucking some aristocrat’s dick, so you can beg them for scraps later, that aren’t worth 1/10 of the effort you spent doing the lobbying, much less getting them their throne, but actually fixing building solving something with your own fucking hands abd organizational capacity?

Ever? Or are you so obsessesed with being in a fucked up machine you can’t even see what it’s for, what its doing, and what purpose you serve within it?

When you see someone dying on the street between five buildings, all of them with ‘(residential) for rent’ signs on them so old they’re barely legible, what’s your first thought? Do you think every politician doesn’t fucking know? Is your first thought to beg all the people who are profiting off this poor fuckers death? This isnt a hypothetical BTW, I saw this enough times this week that I straight up stopped fucking counting. So what should I have done, according to you?

Yes, don't try to fix it all alone. Organize. Change. But the systems that allowed these Fucking oligarch shit stains to ruin it so bad? The 'good' people when they do take the reins in a system where their only levers are 'taxes' and (ratcheted)'cops'? What century are we on of prison reform? 2? 10? I know it's been nonstop since before the steam engine. Still seems pretty bad.

Direct action doesn't mean 'go it alone'. Bring your friends. Collab with strangers. Make new friends. Actual democracy can actually be pretty fucking fun, but it gets a lot sweatier.