vote, please

timemachineyeah

drives me up a wall living in a very very red district, like "no democrat is ever going to win any local election, let alone a real leftist" district, like "our school board members ran on who was the most anti-mask" red, like "I pass white supremacist signs on the way to buy weed" red

and being in the local leftist community and the guy who runs the anarchist book club and the lady who helps keep the warming shelters open and the people who marched on city hall when a local business was getting death threats for having a drag show are all members of a discord and we get on this discord and have frank discussions about how best to vote

the people who do the protests and the mutual aid and all the real work

going "okay, they're both fascists, but this one lacks ambition and seems happy to just glide in the position" or "they both suck, but this one can be reasoned with if you frame it patriotically enough" like we don't even have a democrat to vote for. we know what a vote is. we know what we hope accomplish with it. we know what it can do, and we know what it can't.

and going from those discussions to here where people think that your vote is some kind of fucking??? enabling maneuver??? as if someone isn't going to end up in that seat regardless of what you do???

we didn't build this system, we just live in it. we're just trying to survive. a vote isn't a statement of your values, it's not an endorsement, it's not a marriage contract, it's a strategic play you make to keep alive.

the biggest mistake I see leftists making is overestimating their own popularity. "well but everyone would be leftist if they just-" no, stop, 1) you can't possibly know that 2) everyone will not just

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Here in Huntsville, AL, a Democrat recently won a representative position by a wide margin.
It's possible to turn a red city blue or keep a blue city in a red state. It just takes all people to show up to vote.
And here's the rub: Democrats far out number Republicans, so the more people that vote, the higher the percentage that Democrats can win by.
- Glad the city known for its phycists finally got a blue vote in!
- It doesn't just take that in situations where deep red is the only real color. Perhaps in smaller elections, I don't know. What I do perceive is how divided we are as a Nation and as communities. I'm hoping we come together in agreement despite various valid arguments being made.
  I'm just also expecting us to continue slap fighting as the Right gains a stronger hold due to our own inability to take cohesive action. This tends to be an unpopular opinion. Yet I've noticed the same trend for the last twelve years. So I try and talk about it whenever I can.
- If it couldn’t be done redmap wouldn’t’ve worked

This is good. I like this actual explanation way more than the shitty bus metaphor.
- yay! that’s the cool thing about rhetoric is different styles represent the same ideas effectively to different audiences

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

people need to remember that part of the reason the country keeps moving to the right is because there are large swaths of the population that like it that way. it's not just the elite feeding the right propaganda to the people - it's the people looking for more and more conservative candidates as they watch their 'christian nation' become secular and their white cis male dominated culture become more open.
we need to stop believing that most people are by nature good. there are plenty of little fascist dictators in every small town community that want to see people suffer.
the truth is that we need a great culling of the rotten apples in every aspect of society.
- it’s the people looking for more and more conservative candidates as they watch their ‘christian nation’ become secular and their white cis male dominated culture become more open.
  Spot on.
  plenty of little fascist dictators
  While I'm not a Marxist, he had a brilliant term for these people: "Petty Bourgeoisie" They think they're in line with the upper-crust, but are just Proles that are kidding themselves.
  
  Huh, when I initially read "petty bourgeois" I thought you'd got the term wrong, but when I looked it up to check its a common anglicisation of "petite bourgeois".
  I find the latter more intuitive, as it's "little bourgeois", but both are right.
  
  Temporarily embarrassed millionaires
  
  You're actually looking for the term "false consciousness". Economic classes, however, are defined (as per Marx) by your objective relations to the means of production, not your mindset or sympathies. If you make a living from rents/capital rather than from selling your labor/time, you are bourgeois. If not, you're not.
- Exactly this. No, people aren't voting for racists because they're upset with taxes or unemployment. They're voting for racists because they're racist.
  
  it's both, but understand that both mindsets are synonymous with narcissistic behavior. both lead to suffering.
  
  And people aren't voting for Democrats who refuse to address unaffordable housing, healthcare and education head on. Someone who realizes the traditional means aren't options and goes for riskier strategies because they know the population can't abide with loss after loss after loss.
  The rail strike was a perfect opportunity for Democrats to show who they're fighting for and that's exactly what they did. Turns out, they're fighting for corporations.
- we need a great culling
  Are you calling for slaughter?
  
  Rwandan style genocide
- It's mostly upper middle class people who believe they are entitled to be better off than others and don't want progress.
  
  that's also true. i think there are a lot of selfish people that understand that if america came to live within its means and stopped profiting off of a lot of other people's misfortune, that our collective quality of living would go down a little bit, and they'd rather see other people suffer than sacrifice any bit of convenience or luxury.
  that kind of thinking is incongruent with altruism and those people need to be culled or reeducated.
- Funny, you sound like the exact people I assume you want to cull with that statement. Dont get me wrong, I'm not both sidesing here the Republican party is fucking scary and fucking crazy at this point, but if you wonder how they got there, its because they were fearful that the other side was insane and evil (At least the poor supporters, not the wealthy who grifted that fear to gain more power)
  
  okay, so you admit that they're dangerous but yet you want to wait until they're at your doorstep before you do anything? you people are going to deserve what you get. stop being cowards.

Frederick Douglas wasn't allowed to vote.
He worked hard for candidates who couldn't promise to abolish slavery, because Douglas knew that a tiny step forward was vastly better than doing nothing.
A lesser known hero was Dashiell Hammett. You might have heard of his books, 'The Thin Man' or 'The Maltese Falcon.' There have been dozens of movies based on his book, 'Red Harvest.' In 1941 he was richer and more famous than Stephen King is today.
Hammett supported Left causes with his money and his actions. When WW2 broke out he was a triple 4-F. Too old; a veteran of WW1; and he'd been gassed and had a medical discharge. Hammett knew all about America's Jim Crow laws, and the imprisonment of the Japanese Americans, and everything else. He volunteered, and fought hard, to get into the Army, because he hated Nazis that much.
Mention those guys when someone tells you that they can't vote for the Dems in 2024.
- What?? Frederick Douglas had a famously contentious relationship with Lincoln. He wrote scathing indictments about him in his paper "Douglass' Monthly" and traveled the country agitating for Lincoln to abolish slavery. He even endorsed the dump-lincoln movement during the re-election campaign over his reconstruction plan. It was exactly his raving against Lincoln during his re-election that brought them together, because Lincoln needed Douglas's support to win. It's fucking wild to see someone name drop Douglas in defense of an incumbent candidate facing scrutiny.
  He didn't 'work hard for candidates who couldn't promise to abolish slavery', he worked hard to agitate them into action. This kind of revisionist history is fucking infuriating, especially when it's used to undercut voices trying to push for progress.
  
  So, me telling people to vote for less than perfect candidates instead of staying home is a block to progress?
  Or are you saying you think my single line about Douglas emcompases his entire career?

Sure, if you really only have two shitty choices, by all means pick the one that's less shitty. That isn't what Democrats are proposing, though. They have 4 choices (or more) and are eliminating candidates based on "electability", not values.
Going back to OP's Discord group, what happens when a progressive runs for office? Do they support them? Or do they say "Sorry, you have no chance of winning here, so we're going to support the lesser fascist"?
- Democracy isn't a sprint, it's a marathon you have to participate in for the rest of your life, every vote should be made strategically to take the next step toward whatever your goal is (and sometimes, to try to mitigate the size of a step taken backwards)
  Support your candidates of choice in primaries, but if it becomes clear that they won't win, we must swallow our pride and pick the lesser of two evils, because baby steps forward (or active harm reduction) is better than nothing

I love how every discussion completely avoids the topic of people running against these far right fascists themselves. There's always a ludicrous number of scapegoat reasons why not from people of all backgrounds.
It's forgotten about all the time. Also, I'm in a state where you're not supposed to know what political affiliation your local representatives have. It's only for state government and higher that run partisan divides on the ballot.
It ensures that you're voting for someone who you'd potentially like and their actual issue stances rather than their political affiliation.
You'd be surprised how many common issues people bridge on despite them being on crazy ends of the Democrat/Republican spectrum.
Personally I think it's an easy plot to get more Republicans voted in at the local level, but in reality everyone can run. It's all practically a part time job or even a retirement job for most. And you often only need hundreds of votes. Meanwhile think how many times you've gotten up/down voted into oblivion here or on reddit. You'd be surprised how easy it is to run a local campaign with a free website and making sure to show up for candidate debates/round tables.
- I just want to counter with, I actually reached out to a progressive election group that's supposed to help left leaning people get elected into local office positions after being confused by some of the requirements of getting on the ballot and was straight up told I was not wealthy enough to even consider running.
  That unless I had a wealthy parent or a church group that I could collect more funds from, I shouldn't even bother but just donate to them to get someone better and wealthier elected in my place.
  When your barrier to entry isn't even just knowledge of the system, and having networking to assist you but literally the amount of money in your bank account, the concept of running against the people who will not only crush you and your campaign but likely hurt your non political career and livelihood of earned capital, then doing so becomes less of an option.
  I then supported a person I agreed with for a Legal position who was literally a public defender and he lost to a guy who played football in college with no history in law or civil service.
  It might be easy to run a campaign and I might have a slightly more skewed representation as I am closer to a larger city but when even the left side is looking at how mucho ey they can make on running campaigns and not how likely they are to help shift policy then we are royally fucked on the concept of representation by the people.

This is one of those things where I’m in agreement but I’m also fucking tired of hearing the “lesser of two evils” bullshit (in general). The country is going to continue to drag right because that’s what benefits the ruling class. That’s the reality. Both parties and both candidates are playing their roles in this continued push. Thinking we actually have a say in the end is the first mistake, like voting in federal elections in the US is some massive action. It’s the whole ratchet effect in politics. You can either vote for the far right candidate, or you can vote for the center right one. That’s it. Those are the choices. We can sit here and make these absolutely garbage people the focus of our entire discussion and move the needle nowhere, despite knowing exactly how this is going to play out, or we can make it moot and focus on organizing while not wasting time talking about filling a circle in on a piece of paper while patting ourselves on the back. In the scheme of things the working class can do, that is the bare minimum.
I don’t give a shit about any of these candidates. All I know is that one is committing genocide and the other is a boomer criminal that employs a bunch of family members and other sycophants, who would also commit the same genocide if given the chance. Because thats what the ruling class beast demands and nothing stops it. People make voting into a bigger thing than they do organizing and educating. Bide your time. Vote if you want or don’t. Scolding people is a waste of time and it’s divisive. It continues the divide that the ruling class wants because they know it’s one of the key factors that prevent the working class from uniting as one. We have the numbers. The fucking Ants movie tried to tell us.
The reality is that if we want real, actual change, it’s going to require us to get out of that comfort zone where we fill in a little circle with a pen and then act like we moved mountains. That right there is privileged lib shit. Your vote isn’t going to mean fuck all when we’ve witnessed the candidates change for years, while war and genocide continued under all of them; while the police state thrived under all of them; while trans and women’s reproductive rights were taken away or hindered under all of them.
These are the times when I wish Fred Hampton was still alive.
- What kills me about posts like this is that they paint leftist activism in a way that's indistinguishable from christian evangelicalism.
  Serves the poor by working at homeless shelters
  protests un-threateningly against opposition
  participates in book clubs and peer groups
  otherwise fully participates in a system that's hostile toward their existence
  Libs like this forget that the civil rights leaders they model themselves after were intentionally inflammatory -sometimes violently so- so that the people who were refusing to negotiate with them would be forced to do so at risk of material harm to their interests. All these people downvoting you would rather protests be silent and non-invasive than be loud or -god forbid- threaten the power structure they comfortably benefit from.
  MLK and Fred Hampton are looked at so favorably in hindsight because they forced the liberal structures at the time to concede some minimum amount of liberty to those who were actively under threat. They weren't targeting conservative fascists with their protests (they knew better than to think they would ever change their minds), they were targeting those centrists who thought themselves allys but stopped short of action because they themselves were not materially threatened by the systemic injustices being faced by the black community at the time, and they didn't want to risk harm to their own position in order to solve it. Protests were a way to hold hostage their interest in exchange for addressing the interests of black americans.
  To quote MLK from his letter from birmingham:
  You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
  The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
  One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
  MLK might as well have been comparing Biden and Trump with regards to their shared zionism. Biden deserves no less pressure to negotiate just because he is a "more gentle" person.
  
  And the other classic MLK quote about “the white moderate”:
  I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice ...]
- Thank you for writing all of this out. It needs to be said more. We're not going to break the system constantly acquiescing to a rigged system.
  
  I'm happy to do it. I know I have some unpopular opinions, but part of breaking the cycle is getting uncomfortable.
  We need to collectively realize that the ruling class will never let things deviate too far out of their control. I'm definitely not saying one shouldn't vote (you should; it's easy and the least you can do), but we need to stop hinging so much on it. We've been doing the "lesser of two evils" thing for what feels like an eternity. It's tired and we need to move beyond it because it's a divisive key set piece in the arsenal of the ruling class. The division is the intent. If we keep arguing over which old white guy in a suit is worse, we're spinning our wheels in the mud.
  We're talking about a government that has been swaying people's minds and overthrowing governments in other countries for decades. They absolutely do use the same exact tactics on the working class in the US and it would be naive to think they don't. Everyone is affected by propaganda. That's a big reason the TikTok ban immediately received 81% approval, when other things like basic human rights get little to no traction. And it's not some thing that happens in the span of 5 years; it's a long, arduous process that requires a ton of moving pieces and has multiple benefits for the ruling class.
  Vote or don't vote. All that matters is remembering that the working class collective is stronger as one unit. That kind of unification and the numbers behind it are what truly strike fear into a fascist government.
- i agree. thank you for this analysis.
  
  Yet you keep posting memes exclusively focusing on voting and framing those who make the exact points orca here has made as "the real problem".
  
  Always happy to contribute. I hope I don’t sound combative either. It’s never from that kind of place, and more from a frustration and anger point of view that stems from US politics and western aggression. I know some of my opinions aren’t the most popular. It’s a weird battle against apathy when trying to keep your head up in a system that strives to turn us all into subservient worker drones.

I'm done being lectured.
If moderates and liberals won't allow anyone to fight fascism head on then it's not just a possibility it's a guarantee. Fascism runs on misery and this country has plenty of it. Addressing unaffordable housing, healthcare and education would take the fight out of people. When people are busy living and enjoying their lives they don't have the time or energy to worry about what somebody else is doing.
And to establishment Democrats credit, they pay lip service to addressing these things but that's about it. They claim they can't do anything without the presidency, a majority, a super majority, a super majority without any defectors. There's always an excuse on why nothing is getting done. But losing isn't an option. So if the establishment Democrats want us to believe we can't accomplish anything through traditional means for decades then guess what, it's time to try something less traditional.
Enter the rail strike, a real opportunity for Democrats to show who's side they're really on. Here's a clear cut fight between workers and corporations. Time to bring these disagreements to a head and draw a line. What do they do? Under Joe Biden's direction 44 Democrat senators vote with 36 Republican senators to block the rail strike.
Liberals and moderates praise Biden for this. They praise Biden for siding against American workers. We are not on the same side.
If liberals and moderates truly believe Trump and MAGA are a threat, if they truly believe Democracy is worth protecting then it's time to compromise with leftists and progressives. If they won't do it now they never will. Which means the choice isn't between fascism and democracy. It's between fascism now or later.
I choose now. Let's get this over with.
- I truly believe that Trump and MAGA are a threat, and while I consider myself pretty left, I clearly don't meet your definition. I'm willing to compromise. So tell me, what is your plan to keep to Trump out of the White House. As long as it's not starting our own genocide of everyone we disagree with (this one will be ok though because its the leftists doing the killing) and it's at least plausible, I'm game. What's your plan?
  
  I’m willing to compromise.
  Name one material compromise Biden has made with progressives and leftists over his term. Name one situation where moderates and liberals wanted one thing, progressives and leftists wanted something else and a material decision was made in favor of leftists and progressives. There is not a single example.
  Progressives and leftists are getting nothing out of this relationship.
  Here's things Biden could do today:
  Vow to veto any attempts to block a rail strike in his next term.
  Call off Yellen and Powells war against American workers and their rising wages.
  Stop forcing federal workers back to the office.
  I used to include "stop sending weapons to Israel" but now he's got Congress doing that. Fucking piece of shit.
  And before you say "it's too late the election is here we gotta just gotta focus on that first". Fuck. No. You know why it's too late? Because liberals and moderates fucked around for too long. Biden fucked around for too long. Get it done now or fuck off.
  Progressives and leftists cannot be both 100% responsible for Biden's loss while having a near zero, not half, not even half of a half, near zero influence on policy. You don't want to compromise with us? Fine. Elect your procorporate trash candidate on your own.

I refuse to vote

as if someone isn't going to end up in that seat regardless of what you do???
Lol. Lmao even.
- You sent my brain in circles here for a minute. Dude definitely means, “skip the vote and some jackass is gonna end up getting elected anyway and you will have had no say over who it was. When that person has folks seigin’ and heilin’ at the library you’ll wish it had been the other guy.”
  
  People can't possibly be that stupid that they don't realize this, right? .......Right?
  
  That's for sure what he meant, but that sentence was just too primed to not cherry pick it and giggle a bit.

Feels like there's some sort of a spiritual element at play too. One option might be better irl, but it isn't worth it if you think choosing either will get your soul damned (in a religious, social or self respect sense)
- That’s part of my problem. I’m a moral absolutist about a lot of things, which is a luxury. I don’t currently have that luxury, but that knowledge doesn’t change my morals.
  The other part is the game theory aspect, in that the further right a candidate you accept, the further right the next democrat will be. The OP in this is trying to survive, not to change the system.
  
  in that the further right a candidate you accept, the further right the next democrat will be
  This too. Seen people that think there's literally no difference between conservatives and liberals so it'll be the same either way. I can't fathom how you can be so devoid of nuance so it feels like what they really want deep down is to accelerate.
  Also I like that oop is specifically talking about nuance between two repubs. People seem to equate 'better' with 'good' so they'll come up with reasoning like 'liberals are not better they will just let conservatives do whatever they want'. That's still better than more conservatives that help conservatives do what they want. And between conservatives there can still be a distinction.
  
  The OP in this is trying to survive, not to change the system.
  says who? genuinely, what leads you to believe that? what part of reducing harm in the immediate future also precludes one from working for systemic change?
  i commented this elsewhere but it bears repeating: why are we alergic to doing both?

Left isn't an ism. Left isn't an ideology. Americans are fucking stupid. Read a book.
- Left isn't an ism
  Leftism
  
  Define

This is why voting isn’t an option. What’s needed is violence and force, these people can’t be reasoned with or expected to take the rational option.
- This kind of take isn't "necessarily wrong", i.e. we have never seen fascism beaten by peaceful means and all, but talking about it openly on someone's platform is a bad move for several reasons. Put up and shut up, is my advice. Get with your local antifa group, or start one with guidance from one you trust. Keep your mouth shut, protect yourself and others for real.
  
  but we need to get more people on board, which means advocating for violence in public places. a tiny fraction of people in a super secret space is a recipe for getting charged as conspirators and co-conspirators. we need people across the entire fucking planet rattling their chains in unison. we need a movement that's too big to be jailed.
  
  Talking about it is the first step of getting people involved in it.
  This isn’t fight club.
- are we allergic to doing both or something
  the post clearly outlines voting as the last minute harm reduction option after all other avenues have been exhausted. do (violent perhaps) praxis and organizing, yea, but why tf would you throw away your option to vote when things haven’t changed yet and you have the opportunity to do 0.01% good for your neighbor?
- You first.
  
  You’ve convinced me, let’s go talk with the Nazis who are out to literally kill people for the simple act of existence.
  If we just tolerate intolerance a little bit more surely that will fix the decades of decline!
  The sooner you people realise this is a war for survival the sooner something can be done to protect the victims.
- Calm down Dollar store Robespierre
- my opponents doing political violence
  Cringe and bad.
  Me doing political violence
  Based ang good.
  Absolutely not unhinged god complex thinking, I'm sure you're not equally as authoritarian as the people you despise.
  
  Nazis killing people, bad.
  Stopping Nazis killing people, bad.
  We get it you tolerate intolerance.
  
  So you concede that our opponents are being violent, but only take issue with said violence when it's those they oppress who use it in self defence.. Curious.. 🤔
  
  you really don't get it. the sociopaths have conditioned you with goose and gander rhetoric. they use these types of arguments as their sheep's skin to blend into society.

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