Participation in modern life means you participate in things every day that you do not support. Do you never eat food grown, transported, sold, etc. by profit making capitalists firms? Do you use roads built with tax funds raised by the state? How do you avoid actively participating, in thousands of way every day, in the structures that are against ones own interests? Yet one voluntary collective action like voting sends anarchists over the edge.
> Yet, some anarchists see something of value in voting?
>
> Or look at the system in another way. What kind of significant social
> change has been achieved through voting in the past 30, 50 years?
>
Do you really want a list of improvements in peoples everyday lives brought about through parliamentary procedures? It's pretty long.
> I'm just astounded that a bright guy like B. would argue that through
> voting, we can "stave off the worst of the lot of ruling bastards."
> Come on, B.! Do you really think it would make a difference if the
> Democrats were in power instead of the Republicans? Sure, Bush may be
> the worse case scenario, but let's remember all of the things that
> Clinton did to make Bush II possible.
>
> And which major party cares if anarchists (or leftists) for that matter,
> vote?
>
> Chuck
How many times is this nonsense about there being no difference between the Dems and the Repugs going to be trotted out and then followed up with some caveat. Your refusal to see that even incremental differences mean real differences for millions of people is scary. It's like a religious fundamentalists who keeps clinging to his faith no matter how many holes you poke in it.
John Thornton