Remember my post about leftist accelerationists? Saw some evidence of it in the wild. Couldn’t get a screencap and lost track of where it was, but it was one of those pro-palestine trans anarcho-whateverist tumblr gals who discourage voting and mock people for promoting it. And in this post she said something like, “how can you be aware of the US and what it does in the world and not want it to fail? not yearn for its utter destruction?”
This is what I mean. The only way for the USA to improve, in their eyes, is to be utterly destroyed. And if that takes X years of fascist rule and a million dead LGBTQ people and women who needed reproductive healthcare and unionists? Fuck all those dead people, serves ’em right for being born in the wrong country. And every other country that will be worse off because fascists control the USA, including Palestine? Fuck them too.
Given this accelerationist impulse, I wonder if they would look at the terrorist actions of Hamas that inspired the current genocidal push and think, yeah, no matter how many Palestinians are slaughtered, it’s worth it to see the world being inspired to stop Israel and liberate the leftover living among the mountain of corpses.
Accelerationism bad. Anti-voting leftists are accelerationists, and they’re bad. Don’t be like that.
–
So the argument is that lots of people should pay in cruel, unreasonable ways so that after a bunch of bad people have gotten what they wanted, those bad people will be stopped.
Ok. Who pays the price though?
My humble suggestion to anyone who thinks this is “You first.” Where that is not practical, “Oh, sorry, women/people of color/etc. will pay the price and I’m not in that demographic,” one can safely sneer at them, call them a disgusting mysoginist/racist/etc. and move on.
Given the endless firehose of disinformation that’s been coming from Republicans for over twenty years now, it’s quite possible these “leftist accelerationists” are just more Republican-funded stooges, just like Jill Stein, and no more real than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A PAC funded by #QElon has recently been found to have put up a fake Harris agenda page. This sort of COINTELPRO shit is older than I am, and it’s a central feature of Republicanism.
Maybe not quite the same as accelerationists, but I’ve known a few leftist purists that absolutely refuse to vote for whatever democratic candidate because of .
Sometimes if it’s something really personal, I can kinda get it, but all too often it just seems like they asked for a tuna sandwich, and got offered a PB&J or a shit sandwich, and are smacking the PB&J to the floor…
I don’t like the two party system of the U.S., but it’s what we have. I’ve voted for the Green Party and Peace and Freedom Party in the past when I felt the elections were pretty well decided, but in recent years, I’ve lost pretty much all respect for the major leftist third parties. Jill Stein reportedly had some questionable ties to Russia in the past election or so, and also seemed to take some anti-vax stances.
And, if a party isn’t running anyone in local elections, but manages to front a presidential candidate every election; I can’t take them seriously. The president can’t do much without backing from congress, and an outsider like a third party candidate will most likely face opposition from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, (on the unlikely occasion they’d ever actually win). For comparison, just look at how much opposition AOC (or other members of “the squad” have faced from both Republican and Democratic politicians…)
I used to vote for those leftist third parties on “safe” elecetions, hoping to contribute to that mytical 5% voter threshold for election funding…
But that’s never happened, and we’ve seen how the absurd right took over the Republican party with running a ground-up program, filling in on school boards, city councils, county seats, etc, and then marching up the ballot to House and Senate seats. They’ve shown us the road map for an extremist party to gain political power, and for whatever reason, Green, Peace&Freedom, whatever don’t seem to have any interest in following it.
So, I’m of the opinion that anyone running on a “leftist” third party ticket is just doing it as a vanity project. if they don’t realize the president can’t fix much (they can break a lot, tho…) without the backing of congress, they are too… ignorant? naive? to be suitable for public office. If they are running regardless… why? other than as a vanity project? I don’t understand any of this…
I’m reminded of the addage: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
ain’t as simple as them being misogynist / racist etc, because they are of targeted demographics. see my hamas example. they knew they were getting their own people slaughtered and did it anyway.
i have no doubt a handful of influential left-wing jerks on tumblr have been paid for, but… i also have no doubt whatsoever that the majority walk this party line freely and of their own will.
the third idea here, that’s the hands that must remain unsullied i alluded to. to these saintly saints i say, congrats. we know what you won’t do, but what will you do? leftist january 6? chop chop comrade, clock is ticking.
I see the distinction about that sort of person not being specifically a mysoginist or racist (or whatever). But it’s kind of like… having a preference about whether you hit by an electric car, a gasoline powered car or a deisel car. Assuming they all weigh about the same I doubt anyone really cares as their main concern would be to avoid getting hit in the first place.
Hamas is a terrible but interesting example (terrible in the moral sense – it works fine as an example). Like a lot of groups that fight each other or like to look like they do, Hamas needed the right wing Israel politicians. And they needed Hamas. It looks like Hamas made a coldly calculating gesture knowing it would have severe consequences for the people they are responsible for. Unfortunately for Hamas and the people they are responsible for, the Israeli right wing appears to have decided they can find plenty of other enemies and they just went for the throat without concern for anything else.
So the end result seems to be Hamas attempted a (very terrible) stunt to kick off a recruiting drive off of the response, but overplayed their hand and got hammered. Hamas as an organization will still be there and still get lots of new recruits but the leaders who kicked it all off undoubtedly thought they would still be in charge in the end rather than getting picked off.
In regards to the accelerationist idea, Hamas is a good practical example of how poorly thought out it is. An accelerationist would say we were better off having had a Hitler and a Nazi pogrom but without it not only would there be more Jewish people alive, I think it’s fair to say there would be no Palestinian genocide now either.
real.