Criticizing Biden right now is not “working to get Trump”. Biden could easily step down and get behind an alternative candidate. These things aren’t black and white when we’re still like 4-5 months out from the election.

Genuinely curious, what service are you comparing this to that makes it sound quite expensive? Asking for my wallet

Step 1 would be organizing and unionizing our workplaces (with a focus on strategic industries like food production, railways, construction… the stuff that really makes the gears turn). The next step would be aligning the collective bargaining contracts negotiated by those unions to expire at the same time. Solidarity strikes were made illegal in the US, so unions are only ‘allowed’ to strike against employers who employ their union members. The collective bargaining contract expiration dates would need to be far enough in the future to allow the union to build up a nice little strike fund, enough to pay each member a stipend to survive off of for a month or two. Then the unions and their members need to negotiate with each other and vote to decide on general strike demands to change the current system (my preference would be on revolutionary unionism to end capitalism and put industry in the hands of workers democratically, but you could also do things like change FPTP voting to something else, or really any demand you want to propose that you think could make our country better for us). Then when the contracts expire, the general strike begins. Unions issue their demands on behalf of the workers and the gears turn from there. The only real way to create fundamental change to the system is to use collective organizing and collective action. What I’ve said above is just one way to go about it and I think it’s a pretty democratic way to do it, but there are definitely others (communist vanguard party, democratic socialism via electoral politics, etc.). The UAW is actually advocating for the general strike method and have set a date of May 1st, 2028 (international labor day) for other unions to align their contracts accordingly.

Suggesting that others not vote isn’t undemocratic. People are allowed to not vote in a democracy. The opposite that seems to be suggested here would be forcing them to vote, which is not democratic.

You’ve assumed that because someone isn’t going to vote for the Democratic party or the Republican party that they aren’t going to vote at all.

Like ballpoint pen ink

Xcrete was right there, just saying

In what realm is 1 billion dollars not a lot of money? Also whether or not it’s “a lot” wasn’t even what the contention was about… OP said Biden was reducing weapons aid to Israel and the above comment proves that’s not true.

this is the political equivalent of “nothing ever happens”. Everyone who cares about genocide is a right-wing troll posing as a leftist! So stupid lol

This delay?

Right? Is the “reducing US weapons aid to Israel” in the room with us right now??

If you don’t want to actively vote for a guy supporting genocide, then exercise your right to not do that by picking a third party candidate that best aligns with your interests and vote for them. Disparaging the people whose votes you absolutely have to have isn’t going to persuade them to vote for the person you’re voting for. Just makes you look silly.

Cringe.

TIL I’m a Russian bot. I see this stupid assumption being made all over Lemmy anytime someone advocates for not voting for Biden. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian bot or a shill. Some of us have different opinions and you look like an idiot when you make this accusation.

Or there are lots of genuine American leftists in this space like me that believe the things they’re saying and are trying to argue for a better world or a solution. And then they get met with comments that tell them they’re likely not Americans or they’re anti-West or that they’re getting paid to shill. How do I know you’re not getting paid to post what you said? How do I know you’re not some pro-Democrat smurf account run by some party staffer? But instead of asking, what if I made a comment that just said you probably were?

It will continue to be that way in every election as long as people resign themselves to voting for either party that has no intention of ever giving you a “fix” to the two party system. Why would a Democrat or a Republican want to get a third party elected? Makes 0 sense. Let’s say you vote for a Democrat… How does that then incentivize them to do anything differently than how they’re already doing it? Your voting for them is tacit approval of their current agenda and party machinations. If they don’t lose or get challenged by something further to the left, they will never move left. They will continue to pander towards centerist voters. Since our Overton window is already right of center with the Democrats basically being center-right and the Republicans being further right, they will only move rightwards with this strategy. They only pander towards centrists because the centrist vote isn’t guaranteed. So in order for them to move leftward, they need to see that the left voter is not a guaranteed vote. The only way to do that at the ballot box is by voting for someone further to the left than the Democratic party. Yes that might mean that Democrats start to lose, but if they do it’s their own damn fault for not appealing to the leftist voter.

Why are you even asking this? Please tell me where I said that a business owner does not deserve compensation for their labor. If they’re working, they deserve compensation. However, for them to have profits (i.e. more money taken in than all of their expenses, costs, and taxes combined), that means they are by definition not paying their workers the full value of whatever the workers created with their time and labor. Wages are a cost for an owner/capitalist. If they paid workers the full amount of the value they generate with their labor, that’s less money that the owner gets to take home, even though they weren’t the ones who created that wealth. If they worked and paid themselves the same as the workers or split the profits with the workers, and made decisions about all of the expenses/management of the business democratically, it wouldn’t be exploitation. When I say exploitation, I don’t mean they are creating awful working conditions or being abusive or something extreme; I’m literally just talking about workers not receiving the full value generated by their labor.

By definition, they have to if they’re making profits and not sharing those profits with the workers. So unless it’s a co-op, yeah every business exploits people. The workers create the surplus value with their labor and the business owner gets to decide what to do with it, dictatorially.

I didn’t know, so thanks for explaining all that!