> Joe wrote:
> > > Millions of people writing in their own name would send a
> > > better message about refusal to participate in the sham.
> >
> >Perhaps. This would probably be as good an option as not voting. The
> >more done to screw up the system the better. Participating in the
> >system only legitimizes it.
>
> You might also consider a possibility that capitalism is now so
> triumphant and challenges to the system so negligible that the system
> may need no "legitimization" in the form of mass electoral
> participation. This country may be simply changing from a republic
> with universal franchise (which existed only for a short period
> between the victory of the civil rights movement and the beginning of
> the war on crime) to a republic with de facto property-based
> franchise -- in other words, back to the foundation of liberalism. :)
Perhaps. That's something I've thought about before, the WTO, IMF, etc. are already moving us in that direction. The MAI would have brought us much closer. In all likely hood such a government would end up being a world government. The majority of Americans at least think democracy & freedom are a nice idea so creating a government which is openly anti-democratic and corporate controlled will cause massive unrest. The amounts ceded to the WTO have already caused unrest, completely handing over all government functions to corporate control will magnify it many times. IMO, some kind of a legitimization will be needed for a signifigant amount of time, at least a generation. Once people are used to defacto total corporate rule then such legitimization can be removed.
-- Joe R. Golowka joegolowka at earthlink.net Anarchist FAQ - http://www.infoshop.org/faq
"The essential difference between a monarchy and a democratic republic is reduced to the following: In a monarchy, the bureaucratic world oppresses and plunders the people for the greater benefit of the privileged propertied classes as well as for its own benefit, and all that is done in the name of the monarch; in a republic, the same bureaucracy does exactly the same thing, but in the name of the will of the people." -- Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy