Who is there left to vote for? What good does it do?

Many people are struggling with these questions after witnessing the NDP trend to the political centre and attack activists within its own ranks. There is no political party in Canada that truly represents leftist values or that can be trusted to act in good faith.

We've already made the case that the NDP does not deserve free labour from the very people it will turn around and demonize, or evict. So what does one do on election day then? What would the impact be if one side of the political spectrum stopped voting entirely?

Preventing the worst-case scenario appears to be the only reason most people can justify giving any politician their vote of approval. In fact, most people feel their vote is against something, than towards something better.

Author and cybersecurity expert Kim Crawley wrote a recent blog called Don't Vote. She expands on her own political transformation from a libertarian to an NDP Convention delegate to someone disillusioned with the entire system.

All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: Patreon

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Resources:

• Don't Vote: Kim Crawley Substack Blog

Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. Welcome back, Kim. In case anyone missed the previous episode, can you introduce yourself?

Yeah, my name is Kim Crawley. I am actually by profession a cybersecurity researcher and

writer, but I get to talk about cybersecurity on a lot of different podcasts and YouTube

channels. This is where I talk about stuff that is not cybersecurity related. So Well, you

know what? I know nothing about cyber security, so I wouldn't even know where to start with

you. So I'm glad that you're coming on to talk about something else, even though I should

learn. But I read your substack the other day, obviously going to link it in the show notes.

And it hit home for so many obvious reasons. Kim's experience, you got to go and read it

for detail. We'll go over it a little bit, but it's just so. Parallel to mine. and so many

other stories that we've shared on the podcast or that I've just collected over the years.

And sometimes I wonder just how many people are out there that are so dismayed with politics,

especially now, especially leftist politics in response to the siege on Gaza in particular

has heightened this position where a lot of people just don't know who to vote for. And

The title of your sub stack was, don't vote. How do you end it? Hold on. Let me, we're gonna

have to pretend this was Seamless after. You have a line at the end, it's, don't vote, don't

vote, don't fucking vote. Ride in the streets instead and give money directly to homeless

people. Absolutely. So yeah, it's not that you're saying, don't vote, check out, walk away. There's

nothing to do, nothing to see here folks. is you imagine a different avenue for change?

Yeah, absolutely. What made you write that? What made me write that? I am very active on

social media. Obviously, I am a cybersecurity researcher, but that is just my job. That's

just the thing that I do to pay my bills. I have a lot of different interests. Like you,

I have been very politically active in the past. And so... You definitely identified a lot of

similarities between your experiences with politics and mine. Although I believe that you've been

even more active with the NDP than I have. My story, to briefly summarize my story, my relationship

with politics, as I mentioned in my Substack blog. I didn't get into this so much in my

blog, but I was raised in... a very, at least superficially stable, middle class, white family

in the Sasauga. And my parents always voted for the conservatives if they voted for anyone.

And so I was shielded from a lot of the realities in the world and also, you know, I thought

that capitalism was great when I was a child. I definitely don't- Did you know what capitalism

was as a child though? Yeah, that's a good question. That's a good question. I guess if you were

to ask 15 year old me, I would have said capitalism is this great free enterprise thing where anyone

who wants to produce a product or service can put it out there. And if it's good, they make

money from it. And let the free market decide, yada, yada. I believe, now that I know that

I can swear on this podcast, yeah. I believed in that shit when I was... Before I had adult

responsibilities, before I went out there in the world and I learned firsthand how horrible

it is to be poor and how easy it is for someone to be poor if they don't have financial support

from a rich family. So my mother refused to financially support me once I left home. So...

So financial support from her was conditional on I move in back with her and I live under

her rules and all that, and she was very abusive. So that wasn't an option for me. So then I

learned that, no, actually it's pretty easy to become poor if you don't have mommy and

daddy paying your bills and mommy and daddy aren't rich. And I think I was on OW for the

first time when I was 19. And I... I had no choice. And, you know, being an OW, like I

was 19 in 2003, and I moved to Hamilton on my own. I first lived in a women's shelter, and

then I got an OW and I got a place. And it was absolutely horrible to be on OW back then.

It's much worse now, I believe. It's much worse to be on OW now than it was in 2003. That's

welfare here in Ontario for folks wondering. Yeah, yeah, that's the non-disability welfare

program. Yeah, Ontario Works is the lovely name that they've given it, but, you know, folks

understand welfare. I found a room, a private room, so it wasn't like exactly a room in a

person's house, it was more like a one-room apartment with a toilet in downtown Hamilton,

and the rent there... This was 2003, you must understand that context, was $350 a month.

And I think OW at the time was 550 something. So I had a little bit, a tiny bit of money

left over after paying my rent. Now, forget about Toronto, like you couldn't even rent

a room in someone's house in the middle of nowhere Ontario for the amount of money that OW gives

you. You can't even like share a house with roommates on that money. So it is like beyond

impossible to survive on. It was close to impossible to survive on OW back in 2003. Now it's way

beyond impossible to survive on OW. And then ODSP, which gives you a little bit more money,

you can't survive on that either. It's still like institutionalized poverty. It forces people

to remain well below the poverty line. You just can't survive that way. Is that what drove

you to the NDP? Because I know a lot of folks on disability specifically that see their only

hopes in upping those rates or creating a system that doesn't legislate them into poverty. 100%.

My teenage libertarianism evaporated quickly when I learned the realities of the world trying

to survive like that, definitely. I politically awakened overnight. But. But that's when the

process started, definitely. And I thought, I thought, you know, if I voted for NDP politicians,

and if I volunteered for their campaigns and whatnot, that could help me get out of poverty.

And it's kind of ironic because I volunteered for a lot of campaigns for Hamilton area NDPers.

And the NDP is stronger in Hamilton than they are in many parts of. country and in the province.

And now, in hindsight, I look back. I'm almost 40 years old now. And I look back and I think,

my labor was totally exploited by those political campaigns. I was out there going door to door,

handing out flyers and shit. But I'm sure the campaign manager was paid very well. And I'm

sure a couple of other people on the campaign were paid very well. So. And it was kind of

cool that Jack Layton supported marijuana legalization and whatnot, but otherwise I was, I think I

was projecting a lot of values onto the NDP leadership they didn't actually have. Like

the majority of people who support the NDP and are NDP members have these ideals, but the

NDP leadership doesn't. The people with power in the NDP don't have those ideals. Maybe they

pay lip service to them occasionally, but that's it. Leighton's a great example of that. I know

Jagmeet is a good persona. He polls well and whatnot, but Leighton was something else. I

think until you get really close to politics, and you don't have to fly too close to the

sun, it should really just take one convention, to be honest. you become so disillusioned,

you know, whether that's staffers, members, really, unless you're absorbed into that tight

inner circle and that is what you wanted, that real sanitized version of politics, then most

of us come floating out. in horrible ways, like burnout is a great way to describe how most

people come out of politics. We've heard that from MPPs and folks like us, who just kind

of wandered in thinking that was by far our best option, even a very hopeful one. And then,

you know, I'm of the position now that the NDP is a detriment to the left. We don't have to

use that language, but it's a detriment to achieving meaningful equality. Absolutely. Actual freedom,

right? And I think so many more people have gotten to this point recently. But, you know,

Santiago, you've been disillusioned with the NDP for maybe even a little longer than me.

Right. I think you probably watched me a little bit still there. I was like, OK, well, this

isn't going to end well.

Um, it's funny because if anything, you were probably the reason I, I stuck around in the

NDP. No, I'm sorry. It's okay. But, uh, I mean, for me, there was a certain frustration because

I feel like before, like when I was first getting involved in politics, I looked at the NDP and

I was like, I don't really see myself represented here. I don't really think that this is the

place for me to do my fighting. And I got convinced otherwise by a lot of great organizers and

activists that I know. And I think that was a little bit frustrating for me because like

having gone from the place of like not even believing in this thing to believing in it,

to going back to not believing in it was like, oh man, I really like, I wish I had just not

believed in it. And And it was a really frustrating experience because all of those, like watching

all of those people that I came up with in, in organizing burnout around me and fall out

around me, many of them who aren't even involved in anything anymore because they never recovered

from that. I that's such a universal experience and such a frustrating experience. And like,

I think that there were moments of hope when I believed, you know, like fighting the system

from within is possible. And. expulsion after expulsion after expulsion that illusion. That

makes me scream when you say that. I'm sorry. Yeah, got taken away. And actually a funny

thing, one of my professors the other day, he had a funny comment about the expulsions. He

said something along the lines of if Tommy Douglas was in the NDP today, they would expel him.

And I thought that was that was a. We have some links we can share with them. Because there

might be people listening who haven't heard our show before, who haven't heard the Inside

the NDP series. And so we don't have the time here to go through the so many, many reasons,

whether it's external policy or internal workings, why that is a toxic environment. I wanna kind

of move along to the discussion of to vote or not to vote. And because there's people there.

And there's people that don't want to give up on electoral politics, right? Now, that would

mean ceding a lot of ground to conservative politicians. And the one thing that the vote

is for some people who understand that the NDP is not the solution, but it's a means to prevent

the worst case scenario. Voting for the lesser evil, that's a major pet peeve of mine when

people talk about that. Because the lesser evil is evil and so both options have just been

getting, well both or all three options have been getting increasingly evil.

What I wrote in my blog was, regardless of your intentions behind your vote, there is in the

electoral process no such thing actually as voting against someone. The politician gets

your vote, they don't think, oh well, I'm not their favourite candidate, but they hate the

other guy more. They think, wow, I earned all these votes. These people love me. They're

endorsing my stuff. Trust me, that's how I felt about every vote I got. Yeah. So like, there

is no such thing as voting against someone. So, but that's, you know, most of, I think

most of the time when people vote, that's what's in their head is, I'm gonna vote for the lesser

evil. I'm voting for this candidate because I'm against the other candidate. So actually,

I'm voting against the other candidate. Or you get a lot of deranged neoliberals on social

media from the United States who are like, if you don't vote, that's a vote for Trump. If

you don't vote for Biden, that's a vote for Trump. And then clever people reply with, okay,

well, so I didn't vote for Trump, so that's a vote for Biden, right? I didn't vote at all.

You know, blaming non-voters is very popular in Ontario as well. There was notorious low

voter turnout. There is for most elections now. But in the predicament that we're in now with

Doug Ford, most of the commentary, you know, once people get there and go, you know, why

do we have him? It's not to our electoral system. They don't look to the political party's lack

of ability to inspire people or gain trust. It's blaming the, you know, 60 odd percent

of people who don't vote. And I'll be honest, in the last two or three elections, I've lost

track, but I have not voted. I have not had a candidate that I wanted to send that message

to. And there was a part... in my political science education, where it was explained to

me that we can't openly consent to the system that we're in. We're kind of born into it,

but we do cede a lot of our rights to a representative, to our government, to make decisions for us.

And that casting your ballot was that moment of consenting that and paying your taxes. You

know? but there's punishments for that, was your way to consent to that system. And so

I have moved from places though, like I started not as a libertarian Kim, no, that is, I'm

all in jest. I'm pretty embarrassed by that, but I'm pretty embarrassed by that, believe

me. That shocked me, but you know, we learned, yeah, no, that was just all in good fun. But

you know, I came from a place where, you know, democracy, was sacred, it's your duty to vote,

we voted as a family, and yeah, it was driven home. And I believe that for quite a long time.

And I think the first time I didn't vote, wasn't out of laziness, it was out of disenfranchisement.

I had nobody that represented me anymore. And I think at first I felt bad. I felt guilty.

And in fact, like I didn't really talk about it. I didn't boast about it. But now I am so

defiant of the system that I refuse to engage with it. But I know not everybody's there.

You know, I know a lot of people like Santiago. I wanted to make sure, make sure he was available

to talk with us today. Cause I thought he would balance us out at least a little bit because

I'm where you are Kim. But I do have this kernel of understanding for folks that don't want

to give up entirely. Now, I don't know if I have as much understanding for people who are

actively still engaged with the NDP trying to change it after what has just happened. I think

my patience, my patience for them is just gone. But starting a new party, finding candidates

that you can vote for, I don't know. But maybe Santiago can talk some reason into like Santiago,

do you vote? What do you still vote? I have been. voting still. I think for me where I

am at is I've completely given up on electoralism as an avenue for change but I still kind of

I don't know when I cut like when I see a tight race like I still like I've had a lot of tight

races in places where I live recently like in Parkdale. I, no, sorry, not part, that's not

where I voted last time. Splendid Fort York. I ended up, I was not planning on voting and

then it, the liberals expelled their candidate and suddenly Norm DePasquale might win and

I was like, and then I voted. And then when Anna Bailão and Olivia Chow were going at it,

I was like, and then I voted. And like, that's the thing is that like, even for us who like

were very much on the... we need to organize in the streets, not like, like my saying is

democracy doesn't begin or end at the ballot box. It's still like so deeply ingrained that

I do find myself still being like, okay, well, I don't believe in this, but I'm not doing

anything today. And if you reluctantly voted for Olivia Chow, then how do you feel right

now? Because she's ready to endorse renaming the stadium after Ruff Ford. She's not making

the She's not sharing compassion toward homeless people beyond just lip service. And yeah, no,

it's disappointment doesn't begin to describe the way I feel about Olivia child right now,

like the absolute frustration. I think what I was saying at the time was that I believe

that Olivia child was somebody that like if we were to pressure her, maybe we can get her

to budge on a few things. That was kind of my. My logic at the time was like... Like how Americans

would say, vote for Biden, we can push him left. Except Biden... Something along those lines.

I'm a lot more sympathetic toward people expecting Olivia Chow to be a leftist than Joe Biden.

You know what's the real thing for me was I thought if I vote for Olivia Chow, there would

be no more encampment evictions. Now imagine my frustration as I'm standing in the snow

when... the city is evicting St. Stephen and the fields encampment the other day. The anger

I felt, I was, I was throwing things in my apartment when I found out that was going to happen.

I was legitimately like, I was screaming. I was more angry than I've been about anything

in a very long time because I just, I thought that part was over. I thought that at a bare

minimum, they wouldn't go that far as to be evicting encampments. at the start of winter,

an encampment in front of a church that wants them there. I thought that would be something

that Olivia Child wouldn't do. And I was very mistaken about that. And that was like, you

know, you know, the whole, there's a meme, like man loses little bit of hope that he didn't

know he still had that that's, that's how I felt. It took me like a couple of decades to

get to where I am now, at least. And I mean, I attended one NDP convention, which I wrote

about in my sub stack. It was the Ontario NDP Policy Convention 2004. And I was only 20 at

the time. But I had gotten active enough in the Hamilton East Stony Creek Writing Association

that I got a delegate position. So I got to attend as a delegate. At one point I was even

briefly sitting next to Sid Ryan, who is a well-known labour leader for anyone who doesn't know listening

to this. And I did not want to, I didn't go in there thinking that anything was gonna happen

other than I was gonna attend and vote on some policy and stuff. But a bunch of people in

the disability rights group and a bunch of people in the socialist caucus. kept encouraging me

to run for a junior position in the executive. So I ran for it and I made a speech and everything

all very spontaneously. And the way I was treated and I felt like I was almost laughed at by

the party leadership. And at one point I just I ran out of that room in the convention center

straight into the washroom and I cried. But I was still... That experience with the Lewises

and their working behind the scenes and stuff like that, that should have been the trigger

that made me give up on the NDP. But I mean, because it was even, like it wasn't even a

high ranking position in the executive. Like it was probably one of the lowest ranking positions

in the executive. But yeah, if you're not one of their favorite people, it doesn't matter,

you're not getting any of those positions. But still, in my blog I wrote about how in 2014,

when I was back living in Toronto, I was there in the audience when Olivia Chow announced

her candidacy for mayor, because she ran for mayor a couple of times before, this time when

she finally got elected. And I was there and I was rooting for her and she wasn't even talking

about any policy. I was poor up until about 2016. And in 20... 2016, 2017 is when my career

took off. And interestingly enough, since leaving poverty, I have not, I've just gotten farther

and farther left. Like- You've bucked the trend. Yeah, like being basically not worrying about

how my bills are gonna get paid and living well has not de-radicalized me. In some ways, some

of my experiences have radicalized me further being, you know, superficially middle class.

I use that term very carefully because that term is used to make people who can pay their

bills think that they're in a different class from people who are struggling when we actually

have a lot more in common with poor people than we do with rich people. So you lose class consciousness

if you take the term middle class seriously, but superficially, yes, I'm middle class, I

guess. But that experience actually radicalized me further because I thought about all the

really shitty service jobs I did in my teens and my 20s and how hard I worked and how extremely

little I got paid. And then I think now I write a blog post for a tech company and I get paid

like $800 for it. And I think it took me. four hours at my keyboard to do something that I

got paid $800 for, whereas when I was struggling I would have to toil like long hours for a

few weeks to make $800. And there are maybe a few exceptions here and there, but as a general

rule, the easier a job is to do, the higher it's paid. And I have seen that firsthand in

my own life. The meritocracy is total bullshit. Like, okay, I'm smart, I can write well, I

understand cybersecurity well, but my labor is not more valuable than like a nurse's or

like a construction worker's labor or whatnot. It's total fucking bullshit that, you know,

and I'm not even rich, but I get paid a decent amount of money to write a couple of pages.

where someone has to kill their body for weeks to make that much money. It's absurd. It makes

me think of a couple of sociological experiments. One of them, they took a few people and got

them to play a game of Monopoly, but they gave a couple of the players an advantage, so they

didn't need more money, they already had some of the property. And they played the game and

obviously... it goes the way it's going to go when someone has an advantage. And then they

asked, what they found was interesting was that the people who started the game with an advantage

seemed to believe that they deserved to be winning the game. They had, they didn't think that

they're only winning because of the advantage. They thought that they were winning because

they were playing better. And I think that is something that applies on, on a much grander

level outside of just a simple game of monopoly where people have this. They want to believe

the meritocracy because they don't want to believe that they got lucky or that they're in a position

because of things outside of their control. They need to believe that the reason that they're

here and someone else isn't is because of their own decisions. Because otherwise, that lack

of control feels... painful and you start like having to sympathize with others and realizing

how screwed up the whole system is and rewrite your whole worldview, which is unacceptable.

So it's easier to think, oh, I deserve to be here. Right? Yeah. So I deliberately try to

fight back against that. So I think I think the vote plays a part in that too, where we

are looking up to people, we are still then looking to that system and even though Santiago

is learned and went in emotionally cautious with his vote, still felt burned, right? Still

thought that vote would help change something that is important to him and that was naive

of him. I'm sorry, like we're just using this as a learning experience. And it's not like

him, that's not like him, but that experience at the ballot, all the hype around the election.

It brings that out in people, even the most experienced people. And imagine what that's

doing to people who don't truly understand the system. Like it's unreal how many people still

look at Ford and all he's done and the fact that he was reelected and scream vote harder,

vote harder, vote harder. And as though. If they could just get more people to vote or

strategically vote, then everything would be better. And like, Christ, we've done so many

episodes with liberal failures, conservative horrors, NDP betrayals, green party. We don't

really talk about them, but when we have, and I just read an article of a spurned candidate

that used, exploited a lot as welcome. to describe their experience, you know, celebrated and

then scorned, especially if you don't follow all of the instructions carefully. And I think,

you know, the audience doesn't so much need convincing that those parties are not good

in any way and they're not gonna deliver, but I think they still really fear what would happen.

if we don't vote, but I think it would be an awakening. Like I'm looking to folks then saying,

okay, fine. How do we break the cycle then? Right, federally it's red, blue, red, blue,

back and forth, back and forth. Other provinces, it doesn't seem to matter. We're losing ground

every year, every election, no matter who wins, right? So then how do we break that cycle if

we continue to go to that ballot box, right? Building a new party, let's go there for a

second. That is a solution that a lot of people are bringing up. And one, we had this, many

of us have had this discussion many, many years, right? I don't know how many people out there

have had this discussion. But one of the things that it hinged on was you would need at least

a seat. Really, like you could start something completely different, something akin to the

Black Panthers that we've discussed on the show that maybe doesn't make electoral politics

the most important part of what they do. That would be eventual. but the goal is to build

your community, show a different model, supports, and all of that. But if you did have a candidate,

like a Sarah Jama, and you did start a party that was completely different model, right?

Cause just repeating it, people, I see people out there choosing new slogans, new names,

colors, worrying about the color, but I'm afraid they will follow the exact same structure that

they have experienced already. So that's why that projects I'm wary of at the moment, but

I want to hear from you too because is that an alternative? Because I agree there's really

no one to vote. I mean if I lived in Hamilton I would vote for Sarah Jama. There might be

some municipal politicians that I would vote for if I had the option, but given the current

situation I think it's honorable to vote for Sarah Jama. I mean especially considering that

she's independent right now and you consider the way that the NDP treated her for like being

against a genocide in Gaza, like, which should really wake people to fuck up about the NDP.

So I'm very sympathetic toward the idea of like voting for her and I am certain that she's

a good person with good intentions. And I'm sympathetic to the idea of like starting a

new party or running as an independent. And I would have, even like a year or two ago,

I would have thought that those were the best options. I feel that if you have, if you have

radical leftist values, which you should, like radical anti-capitalist values, I think the

way the system is designed, you will be locked out of the political process no matter what.

I like, it's like, in our current, as long as capitalism exists, You need a lot of money

to run for political office. And that money has to be coming from someone and somewhere.

And of course, who has the, you know, that's what's fucked up about capitalism. Who has

the lion's share of the money, the people on the side of evil and concentrating wealth to

fewer and fewer people. So, you'd have to overcome. There's definitely a correlation between how

much money you have to spend on your campaign and your odds of success at the ballot. And

that's incredibly difficult to overcome. And then some politicians do somewhat work around

the system when it comes to fundraising. Like Bernie Sanders in the United States, a lot

of his funds came from individual, normal, proletariat. contributing to his campaign. He didn't get

as many corporate donations as his competition. But holy shit, it was Bernie Sanders. I mean,

we can't vote. We were never in a position to vote for him because we're in Canada, but I

know we were all watching him very closely. Was he ever a crushing letdown? At times on

the campaign trail, he said all the right things. And like... I'm crushed just by seeing people

like him and AOC and whatnot attend all these, and NDPers attend all these events maskless.

Like that is really hostile and horrific in an airborne pandemic. And I would not feel

safe in any environment where people were unmasked and indoors and all that. And disabled people

who are more aware of the danger of that are totally cut out too. Yes, extremely hostile

in the current situation to have all these events indoors and you're not wearing a mask. Incredibly

hostile, but anyway, there's that. But there's also like Bernie Sanders recently is like in

support of AIPAC and being against a ceasefire in Palestine and all that. And I feel the anger

of so many good people who are American on social media being like, I... I'm broke, I'm poor,

and I went into debt contributing to your campaign, and this is what you do. Fuck you, Bernie.

And the same with AOC. Like, AOC was crying over the kids in cages, and now she's a part

of the Biden administration, and it's like, no, those are just immigration detention facilities.

It's okay. They've got to be kept somewhere. No big deal. Whereas they're concentration

camps. What ICE is doing... our concentration camps. Yeah, I feel AOC is an interesting example

for me because I remember when Justice Democrats became a thing that was kind of almost the

peak of my belief in electoral ism, like, you know, this ragtag group of organizers, David

Goliath type, you know, defeating the giant of Jim Crowley. And I believed in that. I was

like, okay, so here we have a blueprint. Here we have something that can be replicated. Maybe

this can be replicated in the NDP. Maybe it can be replicated by a whole new party. And

seeing what has become of pretty much every single person who had anything to do with that

has been really telling. And I think one of the things that we had to like when we think

of like, okay, I can do it different, I could be better, is that we have to realize that

like being in these environments affects even the best of us. Like this idea that we are

so strong to us to not be movable by our environment, like we're informed so much by our environment.

And so if we got into those positions of power and we're facing all of these moral conundrums

where, you know, we're being told, hey, sell out all of your values and we will give you

the tiniest of crumbs. What does it do to us to sell out our values? So, and I think that

that's particularly important when we talk about, you know, the Canadian electoral system because

it's that much worse. It's that much more undemocratic. We don't live in a democracy. So the idea of

creating a party to run in a fake democracy that does not have a function, has anything

even resembling a democracy. Like we had to ask ourselves, is that really the best thing

that for us to do in this moment when the stakes are so high? Is that where we should be putting

our energy? Because we're just going to burn out that way. But the one thing that really

complicates the question for me of like electoralism, like whether or not, is when I look at Latin

America, because there's been electoral victories recently, and those electoral victories have

led to real change. And so I look at that and I am like, I don't know. I don't know. It took

decades and different movements, but I don't know. I don't know if such a thing can be replicated

here. I don't know if that's even what we should be trying to do, but it definitely does confuse

me a little bit. I don't have the answer for that. You would be a lot more familiar with

the political processes in Latin America than I would be. My feeling based on my limited

knowledge is there's something about Anglo-American empire that is so rotten to its core that what

is possible, you know, in Colombia or Chile, for instance, is just not possible here. Yeah,

I would agree with that. Yeah, we've come to that conclusion. And in South America as well,

we see... losses as well. So the systems that they're using, although have delivered victories,

they're the same systems that allow them to be taken away seemingly legally. Sometimes

it's obviously not, and that doesn't seem to matter to anybody. But yeah, I think there

is a better understanding of how those systems work that's needed. But, you know, there'll

be people out there and Bernie Sanders is a great example, AOC as well, on how we— one

could overcome the funding. There's been incredible kind of crowdfunding, grassroots level small

donation ability when you inspire people with these great orators that promise the world

and don't deliver. And so that could be surmountable. And you could find people like Sarah Jama who

are willing to be censored and fight back and just remain principled no matter what. Even

if it does exclude them from the system, sometimes going through that system at least demonstrates

its illegitimacy. I think people are starting to see that's not a very democratic process

at all, considering what happened to her. But it's that factor of burnout, wasted energy,

like... those funds that you could raise for a new party, what else could you actually be

doing with those same monies if you're not buying ads and leaflets, well, you might need leaflets.

Every revolution needs leaflets. But you know, that is just energy, hope, money that needs

to be channeled into the streets, proverbially. I always use that analogy, but there's so many

other ways. You know, it's kind of like an ableist. way to describe on how you can participate

in said revolution. You know what I think about, though? When you think about if we can overcome

the fundraising, then that could give a chance to actual anti-capitalist candidates having

power. I think about the UK, and our political system is based on the British one. And I have

no idea what it would have been like if Jeremy Corbyn had become prime minister. He might

have, you know, I might have learned that he was going to be a total fucking sellout like

Bernie Sanders and whatnot. Don't do that Kim. But he said all the right things on the campaign

trail, even to a further extent than Bernie Sanders or any other like supposedly progressive

American. Like he really, really said all the right things. And he never became prime minister.

And, and The two main tactics in the UK that they use to keep him away from power is, one,

the media in the UK, as you probably know, being a journalism student in Santiago, the media

in the UK is even more fucked up than it is in Canada and the US. The British media is

evil beyond any evil anywhere in the world, probably. So the British media kind of conspired

to get this idea out that because Jeremy Corbyn supports the rights of Palestinians, he's an

anti-Semite. And that, you know, every British major British Where we heard that before. Yeah.

And that those smears didn't work for Bernie Sanders because he's Jewish. But every British

media outlet did that with Jeremy Corbyn. He's an anti-Semite, he's an anti-Semite, Jeremy

Corbyn hates Jews. And it became the mainstream belief in the UK that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite.

And then, and then you look at what his own Labour Party did. So his own Labour Party,

you know, all the people with power in the UK Labour Party stuck their knives at Jeremy Corbyn,

and they replaced him with this man named Keir Starmer, who is a total neoliberal piece of

shit. Yeah, the Labour Party's going back to what it used to be. Yeah, and it's so ironic

because the Labour Party, it's the Labour Party, like this, just like the NDP, the origins were

supposed to be, you know, radical labour unions and shit. So I, you know, for the possibility

that Corbyn actually would have been... an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist in office. It seems that

like he's the, in the English speaking world, he came the closest to having a lot of power.

And even then like you'll all get, the system will fight you. So I think just looking at

the Corbyn situation, I'm sure Jemma has a pure heart and the greatest intentions, but if she

doesn't change, to become totally a sellout like AOC, then the system will do the same

thing to her. Either become a sellout or we spit on you and throw you out like Corbyn.

I think one interesting thing when we talk about people like Sarah Jamham, because I know the

theme of this is to vote or not to vote. But I think an equally important question is to

run or not to run. You know, and in the case of Sarah Jama, one thing that like, just now

we're saying at the time was here you have somebody who likely is more effective when they're in

their community, fighting in their community, then they would be sitting as a backbencher

and not being allowed to, to really say anything in parliament. Right. And I think that's the

case with so many people. So like, for many of the people who might be listening, I think

that's almost more of a question is whether or not to put that energy into these parties.

And then I just want to open the floor maybe to talk about that. Yeah, like it's like donating

money to the United Way is a waste of money. You should donate your money directly to a

food bank in the soup kitchen. And even then there's probably more direct ways of mutual

aid that are more ideal, but. It's even better to hand a hundred dollar bill to a homeless

person. But to run or not to run, I don't know if there's like a two week period that goes

by where someone does not approach me with some form of that question. And I'm really cautious,

I'm not going to be now because that's not like a one-on-one. But I'm normally cautious as

to kind of crush all of their hopes and dreams. I just I'm unsure what folks are looking for

sometimes when they're looking to run. It really puzzled me with Sarah Jama. I don't. But that's

such a personal decision. But at the time, all I could think is all of your power as a community

organizer will be stolen from you, even if it's temporarily and you thrive within the party.

It's still that is not. anything you can do, the office, the time allowed does not really

allow for that. And that's like outside of the completely toxic environment that you have

to then go in. So absolutely never ever run for a political party that currently exists

in Canada. Like never ever ever. Never. It is a dehumanizing experience. You will feel exploited.

You will be hurt. You will ask a lot of the people around you, your family. your friends,

you will take their money, you will take their time. And I believe it'll all be for naught,

even if you could win. Right. And if it's like a platform that you're looking for, I get that.

I have a podcast. I understand wanting to be heard. I ran in a really conservative area,

completely knowing victory was not in the cards. But I thought, you know, every four years,

four or five people from my area. are afforded a platform that is otherwise unheard of. The

local newspaper will print quotes from you. You will get to debate on public television.

You will get to say socialist ideals to people who will never, ever, ever otherwise hear it.

And so I ran with that only intention. For people, I wanted people just to hear ideas that they

had never heard before. So obviously I didn't take any of the NDP talking points, which is—

one of the reasons why they never ever liked me. But, you know, having that brand at the

time and that platform that exists during election time was something very unique that didn't

exist. I didn't have to do it, but I needed somebody, like I was the writing president

too, so whoever was gonna take that spot had to be someone who was going to do that or I

wasn't gonna do any of the work. I wasn't gonna put in any work in any political environment

if it wasn't gonna be pushing for socialist ideals, period. And once that became clear

that just was never ever gonna happen within that vehicle, I was out, right? But I still

understand why people maybe wanna run municipally or independently. Like that's still, you gotta

address what Kim is talking about in the funds that are required to do this. You will be at

a disadvantage from the people who do have a party behind them. Municipally, you have a

little bit more even ground. but I still fear that you're sending good people into a system,

not the party, but the democratic system where their time is just not well spent. It's still

not well spent, but you do have that platform. You do still need to speak to people on like

all levels. So like only what, like 10% of people listen to podcasts. Some people read newspapers.

Some people follow elections religiously. So I don't know, you got to speak to people still

at all levels. And if... all of us, all socialists, if all real leftists like walked away from

the electoral system altogether, I don't know what it would look like. And so when people

are talking politics, when people are trying to see what the full spectrum of Canadian politics

are, and like, then we're not there at all, that worries me too, even though I know the

work in other places is more important, right? Building from the ground up, building people's

political understanding when they're not. required to vote just when it's natural and organic,

right? When it's not like this high pressure sales tactic of I'm better because of these

reasons, boom, boom. I have five bullet points to sell you on my leaflet or 30 second answer

in a debate, right? Like you build these organizations that we talk about every week here on Blueprints.

But in the meantime, in the meantime, what is it gonna look like if we all abandon shit,

like all of us? I mean, I definitely agree with you that our energy could be put to better

use, like directly helping people in need and rioting. We do need to riot in the streets.

Like, disabled people who can't do that, that's great. There are comrades. There's a lot that

they can do from home. If you can... actually literally riot in the streets, you should be

doing that. But we need to organize doing stuff like that. Santiago's nodding along emphatically.

Okay, I was like, if you're not going to chime in, the audience needs to know how down you

are with this. Like all the beautiful pro-Palestine protests that we're seeing now. But I would

like that with a mask enforcement. That and I would like it with... barbecue on the streetcar

tracks like the French do. And 11, you know, like I think we need to learn from the people

who are very good at writing and then maybe throw more things. That seems like a better

use of funds than those orange election signs that all go in the trash after 30 days, right?

It's drums, barbecue. I think we're in end stage capitalism and it's... totally going to collapse

into this really fascist feudalism very soon. So I think no matter what we do inside the

system, the politicians who have any power are going to be fascist anyway. As far as I'm concerned,

Joe Biden is a fascist. Did you hear our last episode? I'm like, they're here. They're already

here. Like fascism is already... Amigrafts are fascists.

or disabled or LGBTQI, you are more likely to know that fascism is already here. Oh yeah.

So, so I think, and our planet is becoming completely uninhabitable. So we gotta like take more radical

measures definitely. And yeah. Well I love like your- the meme that you include at the top

of your sub stack and I was kind of gonna throw that back at Santiago but I didn't wanna pile

on at the time but how's that voting working out for you? How many generations do we have

to do this? It's the Willy Wonka I'm So Smart meme and he says, oh, you voted for the lesser

evil? How has evil been working out for you? Voting for evil. Olivia Chow is... has me enraged

on a daily basis. I was so kind of relieved. A little part of me was sad when I heard how

angry Santiago was, but I know, because I talk to him, but like every day that enrages me

because I did not live in Toronto. Even if I did, I probably would have voted for Chloe

Brown to be honest or somebody else because any proximity to NDP is just like. eliciting

an emotional response from me at this point, right? Like it can be so irrational, but there's

no fucking way anybody running from that party is going to get my vote at this point, especially

after Gaza. Like plus autistic people, we hold grudges. My friends, I have not watched an

NFL game and I don't know how long. And I used to watch every Sunday and I would bet on pro

line like I was a junkie. And then I think they threw a flag for some guy praising a lot. after

a touchdown, when all they do is pray after every other touchdown, and I was like, I'm

out. This is a racist organized, like it was before Kaepernick and everything. And, and

there's no way I could bring myself to vote for anything that I see. I just can't, even

if I, I understand the consequences are forwards, because I feel like although people, when Olivia

won, or when she was running had like that, you know, we can work with her but even if

we can it doesn't matter we can't stop organizing and for some people that was true i'm not this

is not a call out for desmond cole i am but some people did not like people who rallied

behind her and got her in power have not held her feet to the fire publicly and but they

would have if it was anna bylaw doing this there would be riots outside of her office it would

be unreal especially if she had led us to believe that she would not do this you know, if you

didn't vote for this. But we don't, we're soft on them. We're soft on them. We still have

people in BC who are experiencing like insane wait times and they're still kind of working

the NDP campaign trails after what they do to indigenous land offenders, their response to

COVID, their response to wildfires and they're still going out and knocking on doors. Why?

I can tell you one of my theories about this is This is from my own social media experiences.

I spend more time doom scrolling than I spend actually doing my job. So... Good thing you're

a girl bus. I remember there was an acclaimed celebrated scientist who used to be active

on Twitter and now she's active on Blue Sky. Her name is Katie Mack. And she did a post

recently that inferred that people look to her as being a COVID leader as well, even though...

her profession is she's an astrophysicist. A COVID leader, not like a mass spreader, but

someone who educates us. Most of what she says about COVID on social media is pretty good.

Most of it. She once did a post a couple of weeks ago where she inferred that if we had

enough HEPA filters or CR boxes, those are ways to filter the air for listeners who don't know.

Or ventilation. Then it would be safe to dine in restaurants indoors. And I know that we

should be cleaning our indoor air and we should be improving ventilation. That is extremely

important, but it doesn't make dining indoors in restaurants safe or sufficiently safe because

if someone is actively infectious with COVID and they're in the restaurant table across

from you or next to you, the air filters, and I've got lots in my home. or the ventilation

does not remove that COVID from the air immediately. The best air filtering HEPA, MERV, 13 filters,

ventilation will hopefully remove COVID from the air after 20 minutes. People get infected

with COVID outside, so outside has the best possible ventilation. So that means that ventilation

alone is not a solution, but it can be. a good measure anyway. So anyway, she was inferring

that I was correcting her because people look up to her because she's like prominent scientist

and lady scientist and oh wow, we adore you, we worship you, we're your fan. And I was like,

I'm autistic too and I think we challenge authority a lot more than, uh, autistic people do. But

anyway. It's dangerous to leave that assumption that air filtering alone would make indoor

dining safe, to leave that unquestioned. So I challenged it and she has this very, I'm

rational and I don't get emotional in debates and I'll debate people in a very civilized

manner kind of persona. But all kinds of people, supposedly COVID cautious people were like,

geez, oh, don't worry about what Kim is saying, Katie, we love you. I think, and I get, I'm

not famous or anything, but I get, there are people who are fans of my books. And they message

me on social media and they tell me that they read everything that I write and they love

my books and stuff. And so I'm not even famous. I'm someone who sells books in the thousands,

not in the millions. But even, like, that's what the internet has done. You can have, like,

only a hundred fans worldwide. but you can be a person with 100 fans. Whereas that world

didn't really exist before the internet. But anyway, my point is people, if they think that

you're, if they look up, people will look up to you and they'll look at your professional

position or the work that you've done and they'll look at you with googly eyes. And I think people

do that with people like Olivia Chow. It's the, Olivia Chow is literally an NDP celebrity.

Like she is an icon in the NDP. So even like these people are not thinking about her critically.

They're like Olivia Chow, NDP icon. So it doesn't matter what she does. They will rationalize

in their head that what she's doing is leftist. And I think that happens quite quickly. It

is. Yeah. But I think that happens quite quickly, even without her historical status. I think

we're so starved and tired and wanting heroes that the second anybody gets up, and says anything

remotely brave or who seems like someone who can just do the work, we put everything into

them emotionally and whatnot, and then other people make bigger sacrifices like their work.

Never, ever, ever worship anyone. Always be a critical thinker. Never be blinded by someone's

celebrity or their status or the work that they've done. Everyone— Myself included should be subject

to constructive criticism and skepticism. Agreed. Um, so as we're coming to the end here, I had

a thought in, um, about the whole voting thing that as much as I am working on it constantly,

I crafted a scenario that kind of created an issue for me. And I kind of want to maybe share

with you guys because maybe I need to like not be buying it. But I was like, OK, living in

Parkdale right now, a candidate who's run in Parkdale several times now is Paul Taylor,

somebody who I quite like as a person, you know, through their work with FoodShare Toronto.

And I was thinking, what do I do if Paul Taylor runs again? Do I vote for Paul Taylor? Do I

still like, you know, here's someone who I like. And I was like, you know, I think I probably

would. And it's like, is that just? I don't know. Is that just the. OK, I wanted to maybe

share that and get thoughts. If your support of him is based on his actions, then I find

that sympathetic, definitely. So as long as your support for him is based on his actions

and not. Oh, I'm such a fan of yours. And you got to like analyze your thoughts and feelings

and figure out, do I support you because I'm a fan of yours? Or is this objectively based

on the things that you've done? That's a tough OK. Municipally, no problem. No problem. Yeah,

sure. Like you said, it takes you a day. Please don't put your emotional. Anything into it,

though, right? Like, yes, good person. You want to go in there? You want to go in the ring?

I think you're going to lose. I think you're going to get hurt, but I will send you in if

that's your dream. Like I'm not going to hold you back. And still, still though, if it were

under the NDP, because this is how I felt about Sarah, right? I don't live in Hamilton, so

I didn't have to make this choice. But I thought, well, same thing. I would not do this. And

you have information where you should know better. So I'm assuming you want to go in and burn

it down. You want to go try. I'll let you go try. You're a big, big boy, big person. You

can make that decision if you are asking me to let you try to go in there. OK, you're a

good person. I will I will give you that. But I won't think that my ODSP will go up. I'm

not on ODSP. I'm just using this as an example. And I. I shouldn't even have added the disclaimer,

but let's try that again. You know, I don't think there'll be substantial change in any

system because you're there. I don't think my material well-being will improve in any way.

But I'm on your side. I think you know who the clear enemies are. And I think in a way, Sarah

did burn it down a little bit in a way that she couldn't have if she didn't get inside.

People fled. People have been given many reasons to flee before. You know, federally, they've

betrayed us so many times. We've all got so many stories like Kim, my own. Like many, many

candidates have told stories like this. Like everyone has been in a riding that has reasons

to just walk away from this party, but they did it after this, right? This was high profile.

It was an important issue. It was someone that people believed in. And so she did kind of,

so I'm gonna tell myself that is why she went in. And so she did do something. good, but

that was stressful, you know. But yes, so to your question, Santiago, I think there are

exceptions where I don't think I'm betraying my position on electoral politics by voting.

And I guess in a way, I'm probably consenting to the system. But if there were people like

that, that I thought had good intentions, I don't think I'm losing too much of myself.

In that. It's not like buying a soda stream machine or something during a boycott. Also,

just want to throw out a disclaimer, just because, you know, we don't have a lot of time left.

Can't go into details, but the green I've been in a green party. The green party is identical.

Every single issue that you have ever run into in the NDP is literally identical in the green

party, which just makes it that much more frustrating because they're not even getting as many votes.

Just want to throw that out there to the audience. So after this, I'm not sure if any of us are

going to vote. I don't know if any of you are going to vote. It's not really to sway folks

either way, but just it's a discussion worth having because a lot of people are there, man.

A lot of people. It angers me so much that so many people assume that if you don't vote,

it's because you're disinterested or you're lazy or you don't give a fuck. But I for the

most part, I believe I now believe that voting is it exists to make. people think that they

have influence over the system when they don't. Like, I was so shocked to learn as a child

that politicians are supposed to be public servants. They're supposed to be serving us. They're

supposed to be our servants. Well, and that's our measure of democracy in any country is

we send observers to their elections and if their elections seem clean, they're good. They

are good. Any policy they pass under there, it's good. They're legitimate. They can have

an ambassador in our country. That's it, right? That is a democracy. Making sure you count

the votes clearly and fairly done, done. So, yeah, all these people living under the illusion

that because they get to go to that box, that there is a democracy underneath them. And they

think and that's where that's where their political actions end. It ends at the ballot box, right?

So that's a very common theme with. liberals and we know that when we say liberal we were

referring to right-wing people who who think that they're super progressive because they

don't hate gay people as much. Yeah, the size of my left wing at this point is pretty small.

I'm pretty... It's like, I'm not like a purist, but like the criteria is just, it's a little

tight at the moment because there's so many neoliberals that... I would say it's more that

the overton window has shifted so far right. that what we consider left-wing that's also

within the Overton window is a sliver. A sliver. And I don't even know what that sliver is anymore.

But yeah. And even that sliver is not on the ballot box. So no, exactly not. Any closing

thoughts, Kim? Yeah, I guess I'm yes, I can. I feel sympathetic toward people who vote for

independent candidates, like Sarah Jama is independent now, who have progressive ideas. I should retire

that word progressive because that word has been tainted. Who have anti-imperialist ideals,

but I think the system will stop her from enacting her ideals and her values. But it's good that

she got to shake things up. and make people realize that the NDP was a facade. So that's

good, and I definitely see that point. But yeah, it angers me that the way that non-voters get

trashed as being disinterested and lazy, yeah, it's totally fucked up. For me, it's just like

vote or don't vote, but be prepared to dismantle the system either way. And riot. That is a

wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big

thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is

an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPEofDisruption.

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