chapotraphouse

If you're going to vote, the least you can do is not vote for genocide. It's the bare minimum of political activity! If people can't even do this how do you expect them to pick up a rifle and fight in a revolution?

I think voting doesn't achieve much by itself, but the PSL seems to be pretty invested in getting people to see Claudia and Karina, because the visibility helps them a lot. I don't see why we shouldn't be trying to help it along by encouraging as many people as possible to vote for the PSL and telling off libs for trying to browbeat us into supporting genocide.

So what's your number of Palestinians?

I disagree.

Just because stating "I support the genocide, I want them to keep doing the genocide" isn't the thing that actually keeps the genocide going, doesn't mean that a person saying it isn't a Nazi.

There's literally no logical contradiction there. You're not as smart as you think.

I think focusing on the fact that the current system gives us a choice between two genocidal fascists is actually an effective thing to do and a solid foundation for radicalising arguments.

I do agree that the focus of argument should really be on dismissing any claim that voting (in the current system) makes a difference. That being said, I think part of that argument can be composed of "look at the choice that voting has driven us to, genocide or genocide".

You actually can believe exactly that.

Should we participate in bourgeois parliaments? (V.I. Lenin)

Parliamentarianism is of course “politically obsolete” to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements).

Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags. [Emphasis added]

Lenin's view was that bourgeois elections were not an effective vehicle for affecting change, but that communists should still participate in them so long as the people are putting faith in them and paying attention to them. People care about the horse race, so we should have a clear position on the horse race in order to advocate for socialist policies in the broad cultural conversation, but that doesn't mean we should expect the race itself to actually produce results.