Post by @artemis@dice.camp

I will always tell you that we are not going to be able to vote our way to freedom.

That does not mean that voting is irrelevant, especially when we are talking about voting FOR things that could really improve people's lives, alleviate poverty, & create at least slightly more just conditions.

Hong is one of those candidates who frightens the Democratic establishment, because she is running on the idea that elected leadership has a responsibility to change the world for the better.

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Artemis

@artemis@dice.camp yesterday

>It’s simple: Cannabis should be legal. By developing a licensing system like Michigan’s, staffed by regulators familiar with the industry, Fran will finally make this safe recreational and medicinal drug legal in Wisconsin and use the revenue to fund languishing state infrastructure like rural broadband. Fran will also exhaust every resource possible to expand eligibility for expungement, work to get people out of jail, and help get them good-paying jobs in the new industry.

Artemis

@artemis@dice.camp yesterday

Note that second bit: not just "weed should be legal" but the idea of justice & an economic future for people (disproportionately Black & brown) who have been imprisoned for it.

See, that's the shit that really interests me: the idea of working to repair the harms of the past, not just moving forward while leaving those who were crushed under the boot behind.

I am excited by that. That's the shit that could get us closer to something better.

Artemis

@artemis@dice.camp yesterday

I think there is probably great value in pushing through these actually left-leaning candidates in the Democratic party.

Centrist Dems will not hold the line against fascists LET ALONE do things that are good for the people not for corporations & oligarchs.

We will not save the world at the ballot box, BUT if you want "harm reduction" in your politics, it's going to have to come from people who may actually enact policies that reduce harm.

Artemis

@artemis@dice.camp yesterday

I don't believe a candidate is actually anti-fascist unless they are pushing for prison reform.

Edit for clarity: I don't mean that being for prison "reform" makes someone anti-fascist. It's that anyone who doesn't have an issue with prisons by definition can't be anti-fascist.

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