cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21396125
Stephen Starr in Hamtramck, Michigan
Mon 14 Oct 2024 11.00 EDT
This is question-begging a number of critical elements, e.g. that the “rafts” cannot be influenced by “passenger” input, and that there is only this one, totalizing crossroad of literal, immediate survival.
We can do it too:
You’re in a runaway train accelerating toward a cliff and the break only really stops acceleration, it doesn’t decelerate. You can sit in the engine room and hold down the break, and you’ll live longer, but you aren’t changing the fundamental dynamic of the situation, which ends in your eventual death. Conversely, you can jump off the train, surely injuring yourself, possibly crippling yourself, maybe even killing yourself, but it’s the only potential way to change the dynamic of being doomed to fall off the cliff.
Does this prove anything? No, it’s just a model of how some people think of the problem, not an argument. It would be really obnoxious and disingenuous to present it as an argument.
Maybe we should see if there’s any point of agreement, one step at a time.
Do you agree that either the Dem or Rep nominee will be the next president?
When I said:
and that there is only this one, totalizing crossroad of literal, immediate survival.
This was me saying “It frames things as though losing the election means that all is lost and there won’t be future elections.”
As I’m pretty sure I explained to you an hour ago in another thread, I think it’s an acceptable loss for the Democrats to lose an election to put pressure on them to change or else to establish that they are more loyal to the US project of Israel than they are to trying to win elections or do what voters want or anything like that.
I don’t proactively want Trump to win, but I find it totally acceptable since what sets him apart from other Republicans is not that he is especially fascist in the substance of what he is likely to do. It might actually be possible to browbeat me if we had a Tom “throne of Chinese skulls” Cotton or someone as the nominee, he actually represents something that could be totalizing to me, but Trump is just kind of a deranged grifter and Vance is a more even-keel grifter.
So to save us both time, no, I don’t think we agree on any points. I wasn’t commenting toward that end, I merely wanted to say that the comic is unhelpful.
Do you agree that either the Dem or Rep nominee will be the next president?
Do you agree that theres no excuse possible for aiding in a far right wing genocide?
False dichotomy and incorrect question. It doesn’t matter who wins the next presidency. the general outcomes will be the same.
will both candidates break strikes when convenient to their corporate overlords? yes. will both candidates continue to drain our economy by not reforming health care/holding corporations accountable? yes. (as demonstrated by harris’ unwillingness to commit to keeping khan) will both candidates continue to support israel wholeheartedly? yes.
the only different is the speed of the decline. frankly I’m done emotionally suffering because the national democrats are shit people. you’re welcome to your positions and beliefs I just have no interest in supporting them when all they do is cause more harm to my communities. I also live in a blue bastion, harris’ will win here regardless of my actions and my local government will more or less prevent the worst of trumps nonsense for my community.
This except the raft has a bunch of holes in it, is covered in blood, and by setting foot in it you are implicitly giving your consent to fund a genocide on the other side of the world, and then the raft sinks anyways in the last panel.
edit: Bright side, the water may not actually be that deep. At least it’s certainly not as deep as the peoples’ whom you would have sacrificed by getting on the raft. That’s just what people tell you, but they also told you the raft would be perfectly seaworthy in its battered state.
passenger 1 - “Oh crud. Our boat is sinking. We are in great peril indeed.”
captain - “We’re going to be okay everyone, just get into this liferaft.”
Pulls out liferaft with a huge fucking hole in it.
passenger 1 - “Is this the only liferaft we’ve got?”
captain - “Yes, but don’t worry about the hole, it won’t sink and we’ll be fine I promise.”
passenger 2 - “Hey guys, I have a liferaft over here that doesn’t have a hole in it.”
captain - “Guys, that’s not important right now. Our boat is sinking.”
passenger 1 - “Eh, I guess I’ll go in that one.”
passenger 3 - “Sure me too, captain says we should - wait where’s captain?”
Looks up, in the distance sees captain floating away on functional liferaft.
captain - “So long fuckers!”
Passengers board remaining liferaft, liferaft sinks, the passengers die.
Where you fucked up:
passenger 2 - “Hey guys, I have a liferaft over here that doesn’t have a hole in it.”
You can’t reach the other one with no holes.
One of 2 things is happening with this comment.
-
You actually don’t know how FPTP voting works.
-
You’re pretending to not know how FPTP voting works.
Captain represents capitalists falsely promising to fix our problems
Broken liferaft is the false promise (i.e. voting is going to fix our problems despite genocide, imperialism, deporting illegal immigrants, hurting homeless people, fracking, etc)
Fixed liferaft is what actually will save us (i.e. food, housing, healthcare, etc)
While everyone is hyperfocused on who to vote for, the capitalists take the rest of the food/housing/healthcare and everyone else dies.
I will note your liberal dem in this comic also didn’t get in the raft through their own inability to take the correct path regardless of the choices of others. which I think is pretty spot on for individuals like yourself.
I think that’s a statement about how other people’s shitty voting decisions affect everyone.
Believe me, if I could just choose the president (life raft) myself with no other input, I would.
