#don't stop at being critical of the shitty voting system. use it AND fight for change. and if you can't do both do the bare minimum and vote

[hellfridge]

This is important, but let's avoid immediately ending USA's democracy first, yeah?

Do not let this keep you from voting. You can vote and criticize and do activism about that criticism. Inaction never helps.

If you're not voting, ask yourself right now what you're doing instead. And if you have a strategy, great! But if your answer is waiting for a better option you're gonna watch the world burn, and waiting for someone else to put out the fire is only gonna get you so far.

The Democratic Party: "We are the champions of democracy! We believe in voting rights!"

Also the democrats:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-allies-plot-thwart-third-party-bids-that-threaten-his-reelection-2024-01-18/

[rotationalsymmetry]

OK. I'm going to go off about voting for a minute.

First, it is fucking weird that the tumblr fight over this is Side One: You Must Vote For A Democrat For President No Matter What, Don't Even Think Of Voting Third Party Or Whatever, This Is A Moral Imperative vs Side 2: Voting Is For Chumps.

Uh, ok?

So, the people I know in real life have a spectrum of political beliefs, mostly I don't interact with actual conservatives much but I do interact with the sort of people who think that Bernie Sanders is too far left and people who think he's just about right and people who aren't really thrilled with anyone who has a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected president and people who think that states shouldn't exist. And people whose beliefs don't necessarily line up perfectly with the left-right framework, even when you let the left side go that far.

Mostly, I know people who want minimum wage to be higher and public schools to be better funded and immigrants to not be treated like complete shit, things like that. Sometimes they also do land acknowledgements and stuff.

And these people vote. And they call their representatives. And they campaign for politicians they like. And they go to protests. And they go to town hall meetings and ask questions and sometimes shout down whoever's speaking.

And you know what?

I want minimum wage to be higher. I want public schools to be better funded -- I'm critical of schools and I think truancy laws are fucked up, but given that schools are a thing I want them to have more money than they have. Similarly with minimum wage, I don't think anybody should have to work, but given that in practice most people do, I want a lower wealth gap and I want everyone to have enough resources to live on and raise kids on, and one of the most effective short to mid term ways to get closer to that goal is raising minimum wage. I want open borders, but failing that I at least want things like the DREAM act and less blatant cruelty from ICE and sanctuary cities.

And I want schools to be able to teach about historical racism and to use books like Maus as teaching aids and to be able to say the word "gay", and the most direct way to get that is to vote for people for school board who also want those things. (Although, being a PITA is sometimes effective against elected officials who don't want those things, so it's not the only option.)

And I want the criminal justice system to get completely scrapped, but that's not going to happen tomorrow but what can happen is electing more sympathetic and justice oriented people to roles like the district attorney and public defender. And sometimes getting the right people into local office, county boards of supervisors and whatnot, can mean that the cops get less funding and that programs designed to help ex-convicts have places they can live and work after getting out get more funding, or at least that things don't get worse.

And of course showing up to town hall meetings and protesting in the streets are still options, but they're still options whether there's relatively cool people in office or not, and when there's relatively cool people in office you can push things more towards what you want and when there's shitty people in office you end up doing reactive actions that might or might not work, like when Bush got elected president -- for the love of all that is good and worthwhile, autocorrect, I do not want to dignify that title with a capital letter -- and then 9/11 happened, and anti-globalization activism in the US basically stopped dead so that we could all protest the Iraq War instead, which may or may not have done no good whatsoever but certainly did not end the Iraq War.

A formative expeience in my life was Critical Mass. I got really into bicycle activism and I loved Critical Mass. And not everybody who does Critical Mass, which is basically the sort of protest where you don't have a permit and you might get arrested on wheels, seriously one time San Francisco mass went onto the Bay Bridge, also goes to town hall meetings, and probably not everyone who goes to the town hall meetings does Critical Mass, but a lot of people do both. There's nothing stopping people from doing both. It's not ideologically inconsistent to both sometimes block traffic with a bunch of bicycles because getting bike lanes striped takes too long and you want to be safe riding a bicycle on the streets right now, and begging/pressuring your elected representatives to stripe more bike lanes. You can do both. I did both. People do both all the time.

And sometimes eg some fucking jerk of a rich boy is running for mayor and wants to cut general assistance payments for homeless people to under $50 a month and is making this out to somehow be good for them, and you've been feeding people with Food Not Bombs but Food Not Bombs needs someone to be a liaison with the Coalition on Homelessness, and the Coalition on Homelessness is freaked out about the proposition, so you do electoral politics stuff with them while you're also feeding homeless people without a permit, because nothing's stopping you from doing both. (And maybe you're also a young person who has a lot of free time and a lot of energy but no real idea of how to get anything done, so you just throw a lot of energy at problems and hope something does some good.) (hypothetically, I mean.)

Like what was I going to do, just tell the more experienced people at the Coalition on Homelessness, most of whom had been homeless and who had way more expeience actually doing stuff than I did, that this whole distributing door hangers thing was bullshit and I wasn't going to help them do it? Because I knew better? Because I thought voting didn't matter?

I mean, I guess I wouldn't have had to look them in the face and say that, I could have just told Food Not Bombs I wasn't going to be a liaison -- I was an absolute dogshit liaison anyways, I had no clue what I was doing -- and then I wouldn't be doing anything with the Coalition anyways. But they had a problem, a threat that was going to make things worse for the group they were advocating for, a group that most of them at least used to be a part of, and I could help them, or I could not help them, and the way they wanted people to help was through electoral politics. Which also involved some protests because people do both all the time. But which also involved a lot of doorhangers.

[the-sour-patch-crew]

It's always fascinating finding out people have us blocked that we have never interacted with. Overall, I like to think we've never been antagonistic towards anyone in tags. Never attacked anyone. Never harassed. We've been very civil, even in our disagreements (that I recall at least). We have a few side blogs, and not many people have the main account blocked, so I always find out only after I go to make a comment and then see what accounts are greyed out. Silly little bonus feature of side blogs.

So

Is it because we sometimes have syscourse?

Is it because we are endogenic or identity as mixed origin?

Is it because we support all forms of plurality?

It's an amusing game. People may block for so many reasons, but those are the three main things we can think of. It's particularly amusing when people love or agree with things on our side blog but apparently hate this account. Extra funny.

If it's because people think we are toxic or out to get systems and corrupt singlets and poison traumagenic systems, then I feel quite awful for someone living in such a fearful and distorted outlook on life and others. Well, if that was the case, then why is our popular side blog not blocked? That blog is all of those things and very loud about it. But also, my partner is a DID system. I am very, very aware that multiplicity is not a silly little game. To say I spread misinformation and am bad for CDD systems blows my mind when I spend every day supporting one. What happens on Tumblr is pointless at the end of the day because what *really* matters is the support and understanding I give to them. We are a living example of how STUPID syscourse is between endogenic and traumagenic systems. Get the fuck off of social media and actually spend time supporting eachother instead of fighting.

Oh! Mayhaps it's our age. It's always interesting when it's our age. I promise we are not creeps and are quite safe to be around. Siblings, work, friends, and online communities have made me very aware of what is appropriate and how to coexist amongst a wide age range of people. I wanted to be a teacher once, and still would love to be an elementary art teacher. I promise I don't bite.

Maybe it's our fictives. I know some people cannot stand their sources or them as individuals. Which again is quite sad. Ashe and Alastor are both amazing people. I dont think I've met a single person who didn't like Ashe once they got talking with her (minus like two assholes that were ultimately voted as assholes by the entire server lol). I point her out because she's been here the longest and I owe her a lot so yeah I kinda play favorites a bit. Because I honestly love her. I say this with all the love for Al and the newest member. They aren't hurt by me saying that. They get it. Honestly, I don't think Al cares enough to be offended.

Maybe it's because I'm a furry. People always hate on furries. But that's okay. People hate on anyone who is different from them. Its why the furry, queer, and alterhuman community are so tight-knit. I'm just a silly fox in the end.

Is it because I'm critical of behavior and use of terms by people who kff or are transid? Is it because I'm thiiiiis close to being that "awful" trans guy that would still classify himself as a lesbian if only I could stop shifting gender representation every few years?

Is it because I'm working through trauma and people think that suddenly makes me being endogenic a lie? Is that the proof that people need to hate me? You hate systems with trauma and you hate systems without it. There's no winning.

Is it because I promote daemonism? *GASPS*

I'm not mad at being blocked. The internet hates and blocks people for so many reasons. I block a specific group of people every time we see them in the tags. I do it because I TRY to live by the motto if I have nothing nice to say I shouldn't say it at all. I also apply this to thoughts. If I see posts that constantly make me think shitty things about people and they aren't actively harming me or the people I care for, I block them. Because placing that into the universe is kinda fucked, even if they never would know about it.

I don't NEED people to like me. But I'll admit it's been a HUGE hurdle in my life. Trying to not care about what others think about me has always been a major issue growing up. I think everyone and anyone can relate to that. There's a saying I try and keep to and its how I'm going to end this post. [GRANTED this post has been an intoxicated, headache fueled rant at 2 in the morning. We all know how things get around 2 and 3. That's when shit gets fun (no it really doesn't I just want to sleep please) ]