Not voting (in your election)

Here's the thing. If you read what I rant about, you'll know I suggest plenty of positive shit. Depending on my mood, okay, I'm not perfect 😆

Frankly, I believe that surviving and thriving in the future of the West is going to mean building community networks, building mutual aid groups, building resilient non-governmental structures to meet people's needs in the absence, neglect, or open hostility, of government structures.

I believe everyone's time and energy is best spent on that work.

I believe every dollar and every minute spent on trying to reform government through the electoral process is wasted time and money at best and actively contributing to the collapse of civil society at worst.

And I think every driven, passionate activist, every person who sees the problems with society and tries to fix them by putting the right candidates in office, could do so much more good for the people around them by unionizing workplaces, or fundraising for community organizations, or a hundred other things - hell, if I walked out and picked up one piece of litter off the street, I'd have more of an impact on my community than every vote you've ever cast in your life put together has had on yours.

And honestly, I know a lot of those people, and it hurts to see all these amazing people pissing their time and energy away trying to help one billionaire win a popularity contest against another.

Trying to reform democracy from within is like walking into a crooked casino and imagining you can win if you pick the right machine to play and spend enough money playing it. All the machines are rigged. The only winner is the house.

And that's completely independent of my moral objections to a system based on, essentially, the tyranny of the majority.

So yeah, I'm going to come here, to a community called "notvoting", and talk about not voting and what people could do instead. Because it hurts to see so many good people's efforts go to waste.