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What's your level of political participation?
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| Vector A |
| Now that we're all old farts around here, statistics tell us that we are probably more consistent about voting and other forms of political involvement. How much do you care about this stuff? |
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| Lira |
Voting is obligatory in Brazil, no matter how small the election, so I couldn't possibly choose low.
I've seriously considered joining either the Green Party (which is a centrist party here) or Marina Silva's Sustainability Network (think of a centrist green party led by a Macron-like figure), but the political climate in Brazil is so unbearable, I can't be arsed to deal with so much nonsense from both ends of the political spectrum right now. Also considered going to a protest a couple of years ago, but decided not to when I saw the loonies who kept showing up. I already get enough hate supporting both Corinthians and the NE Patriots :p
So, yeah, medium. |
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| Midlothian |
| It's difficult to compare my experience down here in the upper low countries to those of others and it would perhaps be somewhat impertinent given the extents of unbearability elsewhere. Nevertheless Lira's "unbearable" is my feeling too. It's just full of nonsense and class-a loonies indeed, and all I think is it's getting progressively worse, at a ridiculous pace. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I read a lot of news and political commentary these days, but knowing more of the details only increases my conviction that those who become invested in the whole grand ideological farce are suckers.
For what it's worth, I voted in the Brexit referendum, and, for the first time ever, in the last general election. So I do participate marginally more than I used to. I have more developed political opinions and understandings of policy now, but I don't find any of the major parties coincide with my views closely enough to get caught up in supporting them. |
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| r5a |
0.
maybe im naive but in the grand scheme of things i feel like i have 0 impact and these s are gonna do what they want to do anyway. i follow the news and read about things but don't vote. |
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| Woony |
I don't really read the news, sometimes I accidently land on the Guardian website, or even worse, some german newssite, and my brain wants to commit suicide.
I vote strategically but I'm quite dissilusioned about it. That said, I've had discussions with people that are really smug about not voting and it's like dude, the system doesn't give a crap if you don't vote, it'll function just fine if even just 30% vote. At least here in Germany we have a 'satire' party (DIE PARTEI) that is run by actual smart people and they do a lot of good stuff to keep the fat ers from the other parties on their toes. They get more money back the more votes they get so even if doesn't have an actual political impact, it does help them out.
| quote: | | On 3 September 2017, members of Die PARTEI assumed full control over 31 secret Facebook groups dedicated to the AfD, a right-wing party, by infiltrating those groups and ascending to the rank of a group administrator. This was made public by altering the group names, removing all other administrators, making those groups public and uploading a video which shows a member of Die PARTEI, saying that all people in this group are now being fooled by real people instead of robots. According to the video, these 31 groups encompassed about 180,000 members |
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| Silky Johnson |
Have made more of an effort to vote ever since I was in school. My profession is pretty political here, and with more knowledge about socioeconomic issues it's kind of hard to turn a blind eye to it and not want to participate. Even moreso now that we have a kid/family. So yeah I vote in municipal, provincial, and federal elections. I pay a reasonable amount of attention to the issues/news, but am not consumed by it.
The first time I ever voted I was 21 or 22, and knew basically nothing about the purpose, procedure, candidates, etc. It was a municipal election and my friend convinced me it was important for me to vote with her. We were stoned of course, and when I went in the booth I looked at the ballot and had no ing idea what I was looking at. I poked my head out to ask my friend "Wtf who do I vote for??" and everyone was looking at me like "You ing moron." LOL |
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| DJ RANN |
I follow just about everything I can politically on a USA national and local level, as well as still a fair bit in the UK, but especially the Russia rabbit holt/Magnitsky/Steele/Mueller probe. I take a lot of it with a pinch of salt especially as I know some people involved in politics/diplomatics circles and it's amazing to see/hear the disparity between what its reported and what actually goes on.
I voted in the Uk prior to moving but now sadly, I can't vote in either the USA or UK though :(
I doubt I would vote in the UK if I had the choice though as I find it incredibly disingenuous of ex pats to rail against the political climate of a country that they don't live in nor have a the feeling for whats happening on the ground. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
I know some people involved in politics/diplomatics circles and it's amazing to see/hear the disparity between what its reported and what actually goes on. |
This is something I also find troubling.
I want to be more active politically, but I've noticed this disparity when they talk about something I know (my workplace tends to be on national news sporadically, for one thing). Worst of all is, most of what passes for "news" online is even worse, so that's the best we can rely on.
I'm sure I'd dread this even more if I had WhatsApp and got flooded by family members warning me Mike Pence resigned and a possum is now VP. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
This is something I also find troubling.
I want to be more active politically, but I've noticed this disparity when they talk about something I know (my workplace tends to be on national news sporadically, for one thing). Worst of all is, most of what passes for "news" online is even worse, so that's the best we can rely on.
I'm sure I'd dread this even more if I had WhatsApp and got flooded by family members warning me Mike Pence resigned and a possum is now VP. |
Tbh, these days I try to take in a variety of news sources and then mentally compile them, knowing that a portion of the truth lies somewhere in the middle and then there's a great deal that isn't reported.
A great example of this is the Mueller investigation. The few tidbits that we get to hear are simply and very selectively what has been allowed to be released and its likely two months+ old. Some of them have been bombshells (Flynn and others going being charged, Cohen was in Prague etc) and some have been nothing burgers that the the left wing press jumped all over as if Trump's impeachment had been given the go ahead.
There's the obvious point that something is news if outed as a secret which is why people keep stuff secret, but then there's the fact that most news outlets are desperately aiming for clicks/views and not printing truth or nuance as it doesn't sell as well.
The thing that shocks me is how easily the main news outlets can be manipulated; Burlusconi was the master of this, and trump is a more chaotic version of this but it still staggers me that they'll give a clearly made up tweet airtime right as some serious misstep is being made (there's often been points where trump has said something that's personally damaging say for instance about stormy daniels, because it's better than the alternative newspeice of allowing the russians to strike the out of Syria that day from getting any mainstream airtime). |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
voting is compulsory here so i always rock up to get my name ticked off the roll. whether i actually vote or not depends on the parties' policies at the time. normally though there's at least one issue i can't tolerate so end up putting in a blank form. or that one time i drew a and balls.
currently, (federally) the right-wing party are full of AGW deniers and the "left" party have a taxation agenda i disagree with. and most independents are single-issue wits.
funnily enough i've actually got an upper house election this saturday. last time that happened i didn't know and ended up with a fine. cunts. |
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| djshire |
| I put "high" but its more medium-high. I vote in every election, sign tons of petitions, read the news all the time, and retweet petitions and news. |
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