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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 25th, 2023

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  • I voted for Harris, but I feel like it’s pretty obvious why someone would vote third party instead.

    One need only reject the premise that voting should be a strategic act of harm reduction. Mind you, I’m not saying “is” here. I’m saying “should be”.

    We may not take their approach, but you have to admit that there’s value to it. They are embracing the world as it ought to be, whereas we are trying to work with the reality of the situation as we perceive it.

    And we could be perceiving incorrectly. For all we know, Trump could loose-cannon his way into making Netanyahu’s whole party lose their next election. It may not be likely, but nothing in this world is certain.

    For all we know, the Heritage Foundation could destroy so much of the government and economy so rapidly that it weakens all of the property rights and FBI operations aimed against self-sufficient mutual aid, and communes start springing up all over the place. It’s not likely without massive turmoil, starvation, and bloodshed. But however unlikely, we cannot predict the future!

    Cyncism is costly in terms of mental health and well-being. In order to choose pragmatism over principles, we must accept a reality where no good choices exist. But that’s not something we can do everywhere. We can’t repeatedly choose the “least miserable option” and still be able to hold ourselves together and function. It’s just not possible.

    Humans need hope to survive. They need a hill they can hang onto. They need to be able to say, “on this ground, I fight for what should be rather than what is.”

    Some people’s hill is their ballot.


  • I see the question differently.

    Tl;Dr:

    I think OP is hoping to read the 21st century equivalent to Muck Rakers.

    Long version:

    A whole lot of improvement in American quality of life came about as a result of publications and journalists called Muck Rakers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    They didn’t cover false stories. They simply covered stories that newspapers owned by capitalists tried to cover up. Things like, “physical abuse inside of Factory A” or, “employees at factory B reject union contract.”

    It’s similar with r/antiwork. Most of America never realized why PopTarts were shipped with serious defects for a few months in late 2021. To most people, the quality declined out of nowhere, with no explanation.

    And I don’t think most people realized the real reason California’s ports got congested. (It was a bill designed to protect gig workers – it required shipping companies to pay truck drivers for the time they spent waiting for their trucks to be loaded (instead of just the time they spent driving)).

    People didn’t know because, even if current events directly impact everyone’s lives, all it takes is a few corporations deciding, “you don’t need to know about that” and access to the information through mainstream channels is shut off.

    Everyone using r/antiwork knew though. They knew why there was a shipping crisis, and they knew why the glue that was supposed to seal the outside of the box of Cheez-its was now instead gluing the individual Cheez-its together.

    News that wasn’t considered, “newsworthy” outside of r/antiwork got intense coverage on that subreddit.

    And yeah, the subreddit was certainly biased against those corporations. But biased or not, its users were more up-to-date on those events than anyone outside of the sub.

    I don’t think OP is asking for a leftist perspective on the same current events everyone else is covering. I think OP is asking for true, well-investigated stories that capitalists simply won’t air on the major networks.

    You know: Muck raking.