>New Democracy is proposing a strategy that meets these requirements.
>We are calling on people to refuse en masse to vote in the 2004
>presidential electionñ and to say why they are doing it. This is a
>strategy that can include the entire electorate, including the 50%
>who already do not vote. It makes a powerful statement: that the
>electoral process is a fraud. Its mass character and its message
>will strengthen people's understanding that real change must come
>from them, not from some front-man for the monied elite. The only
>risk it poses for individuals is the combined thrill and fear that
>come from admitting to ourselves that we're on our own: no man on a
>white horse is going to save us.
Wow, that's extraplanetary. How many people does this fellow think he can get to sign up for this project? I'd bet that a serious majority of the people who came out to antiwar demos in the U.S. are going to vote ABB and would laugh at anyone proposing something like this. So who's left? At best (quantity not quality), it'd affect the turnout by a few tenths of a percentage point. It wouldn't delegitimize the result (that didn't even really happen in Haiti, with a 5% turnout, did it?). It gives people nothing positive to rally around. It looks like weakness and despair masquerading as strategy.
>The shock and awe our strategy proposal has caused among activists is
>actually a sign of how badly it is needed.
That's one way to look at it. Another way is that it's a sign of how incredibly silly the proposal is.
Doug