DON'T VOTE ! IT JUST ENCOURAGES THEM.
The accumulation of wealth brings with it an accumulation of power and influence disproportional to the actual numbers of wealthy groups, and individuals existing in a society.
1) I believe there is a way to break the hold of big money on the Presidency, and other major political positions at the national governmental level. This can be achieved by modifying our views on how to utilize the electoral process to recapture and strengthen the limited democracy we had. Whatever power voters had was stolen from the American people by U.S. and foreign moneyed interests.
2) Nullifying political bribery by the Duopoly can be accomplished in a non-violent manner, and DOES NOT REQUIRE ACTIVE COOPERATION AMONG GROUPS WITH DIFFERING IDEOLOGIES.
Please consider the following: The diversity and size of the U.S. plays right into the hands of the ruling class and their institutions. It's easy to keep a society like this divided along natural fault lines. Class, race, religion, gender, sexual preference, occupation, philosophical outlook, regionalism, and multiculturalism, are some reasons that truly mass movements are almost impossible to organize in this country. The obvious exceptions are war, and disaster.
Though there are more people getting involved in grass roots politics, they are organizing around narrow interests. I'm not belittling those interests. I'm simply saying that the mass power of the public is not being focused on the weak points in the system. Those are, the ability to effect change through voting ( or not voting ), spending ( or not spending ), and paying taxes ( or withholding your taxes ).
The problem with voting, is that those who have stolen the democratic process, present us with the option of picking any one of THEIR candidates that we like. The process of running for any national office, is actually a filtering process that "BOTH" parties use to insure that only those acceptable to the ruling class will be presented to us for rubber stamping. Thus, they have taken the choice out of our choosing process. Most people now realize that something is very wrong here, and are quite angry about it. This is not democracy.
["Don't cling to a political party that has been converted to neo-conservatism. Once the party has been taken over, maintaining solidarity on the outside while seeking change from within merely gives them more time. When the spirit of the party is dead, shed the old skin and create something new".
- TIPS ON HOW TO OPPOSE CORPORATE RULE -
from the book " Economic Fundamentalism " by Dr Jane Kelsey, U of Auckland, NZ ]
Because he was elected with only 43% of the vote (1992- in a three way race ), Clinton was perceived as being politically weak, and forced to compromise more than he really wanted to. Of course that didn't extend to pro business issues like NAFTA and GATT.
Reagan, on the other hand was perceived as having won by a "landslide", and had a strong mandate to do anything he wished, while the press cowered before the will of the people. Consequently, he became the " teflon " president. ( Referring of course, to the substance between his ears.)
The point is, the importance of the perception of popular support. Imagine a President elected by only 35% or less. How difficult might it be for such an unpopular elected official to raise taxes, cut social programs, get us into an oil war, or turn our national forces over to the institutions of World Federalism, when so few would have voted for him (/her)?
I am convinced that elections in the near future will incorporate" third " parties. This will become necessary to maintain the illusion of democratic participation. The Duopoly has played itself out. Too many voters hate the Democrats, and the Republicans. Successful "third" parties will also be owned by Big Business. Why give up a good scam? This will then camouflage the lack of democracy for yet one more generation, while rich ruling "elites" around the world link up to achieve their long held dream of a worldwide economic system with them in charge. If this scenario does in fact play out, then imagine what it would take to dislodge them from positions of power around the world.
I have a simple, doable plan to stop, or at least slow down this process of fake democracy. The solution is to allow people the choice of NOT voting. Legitimize not voting as the only real choice in a field of hand picked candidates, and you will have a defacto "NO MANDATE" movement. A national expression of no confidence. For all the world to see. The American Emperors have no cloths.
Not voting will require legitimization. For all our lives we have been propagandized into thinking that the vote is a powerful, and meaningful act. But this is only true when there are real differences between the parties or the candidates.The unfortunate fact remains, that statistically, the single vote is irrelevant ( at the national level ), and casting our ballots for pre-chosen candidates of the Big Business Parties is not really to our benefit as citizens who at least theoretically control our own government.
Once the public sees that not voting is a positive expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo, then all individuals and groups who are in fact dissatisfied ( for any reason ), will be acting in UNITY, no matter how ideologically diverse they may be. For example: The Ultra Right will not wish to endorse the Establishment's undermining of America's sovereignty for the sake of globalism. The left will finally come to realize that it has no home in the Democratic Party. Unions will have learned ( hopefully ) from the Clinton / NAFTA /FASTRACK experience that it's going to take much bigger bribes than they can afford to match Big Business' purchasing power of politicians.
Then there are the Libertarians, the Communists, the Anarchists, United We Stand America, Socialists, the extreme Right ( religious or otherwise ), all people who know that there is no one on the final ballot who represents them.
They don't have to communicate with each other, or marry each other's sisters, or even like each other. All they have to do is not vote. Quite a coalition!
A non voting protest movement will automatically include all those people who have been marginalized non voters. The poor, the homeless, the so called lazy apathetic masses, whom the media and the middle classes have despised for years, will be indistinguishable ( at least statistically speaking ) from the rest of protesting America. We are now talking about a very large majority of " eligible " voters no longer willing to legitimize a process that works against themselves.
A milder version of this concept would be a " None Of The Above " slot on ballots in all federal (and other) elections. A great idea. Even Ralph Nader has suggested it. So why don't we have it? Because, between the voters' desire for it, and its implementation, stand the politicians who want this like brain cancer. And this is the heart of the problem of working through the system.
One hundred and thirty years of incremental advantages for the rich and their corporations have brought us to the point of losing our livelihoods, our limited democracy, such as it was, our sovereignty over - our environment, our economy, our food supply, our energy supply, our educations, our safety, and our children's futures. The advances we made through the political system at the turn of the century, the thirties, and the sixties haven't come to much. Representative democracy doesn't represent us. We need direct democracy. They won't give it to us, we must take it anyway.
What if they gave an election and nobody came ? Well, you would have a government elected by a small percentage of the voting public, but takes taxes from 100% of the voting public. This means that a vast majority of Americans face " taxation without representation". As we know from U.S. history...the founding fathers used this as an excuse for revolution.
Once the duopoly is broken open, only then will real and fundamental changes have a chance. Real environmentalism, not relative to the bottom line, or nature shows sponsored by Shell Oil. Economic democracy. A serious rethinking of Capitalism, particularly corporate capitalism. Employee ownership and control of all businesses over a certain size. Permanent progressive taxation. And anything else that you can get into the national agenda that was excluded by some politician because his owner wasn't interested, or couldn't profit from it.
A boycott of national elections should be considered a TACTIC, not a permanent solution. If a real choice is offered, then that is different. The rule of thumb is simple - vote for the candidate you want, or don't vote at all. This notion of voting for the lesser of two evils is morally, intellectually, and logically bankrupt. For those of you bent to the Left, the Democrats are the lesser of two evils. For those of you bent to the Right, it's the Republicans who are the lesser of the two evills. If biology worked that way, we would all be devolving into bacteria. The fact that so many citizens feel compelled to vote on the basis of such a flawed philosophy, attests to the sophistication and effectiveness of America's political propaganda machine. By using such ploys as * Get out the Vote *, * Rock the Vote*, and the ever popular, guilt inducing, * think of all the dead soldiers who bravely gave their lives so that you may vote*, you dear voter are duped into rubber stamping the representatives of the rich.
Vote for a candidate you want, or don't vote at all.
Thanks for listening, Joshua2
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THE DEMOCRACY ILLUSION: Andrew Marr Of 'The Independent' Interviews Noam Chomsky (MIT professor)
What we call politics is really a shadow play conducted by corporate power. Parliament [Congress] is the buffer between the popular desire for democracy and the reality of corporate rule. People, after all, are unlikely to resist that rule so long as politicians (and journalists) succeed in persuading us that it is not there; that in fact it is we who are in control. The mass media plays a crucial role in supporting the democracy illusion by pretending that the arguments presented to us - together with the parties we are allowed to choose from - constitute a free and fair spectrum of choices, which are our choices, and not what is left after state and corporate power have filtered out choices that threaten to interfere. One of the choices deemed unfit for public consumption is the idea that the mass media is a propaganda system.
<http://worldmedia.com/archive/index.html>
"The Roman government gave them bread and circuses. Today we give them bread and elections..." Will Durant