Election Reform
Elections Aren’t Enough, Revolution is in Order Here!
Elections aren’t going to change the path America is on. Organized revolt, massive civil action and economic boycotts at the very least would be the beginning a perpetual commitment to protecting public governance from private take over. Our system is a farce. Obama is a tool to placate “Liberals”. Every candidate that can assume a position of any real power is vetted by corporate power. To believe otherwise is to be ignorant and live in a fantasy world. Americans that continue to invest in this fraud only empower it.
We need an American Spring!
If I wanted to further the accomplishments of corporate and right wing America… I would tell people to vote for this corporate shill and Reagan revivalist, Barack Obama and just shut up. He’s doing a great job of subverting well meaning democrats into the right lane as it is. The last thing I would do is advocate for populist revolt yet this is the response I get from rank and file “democrats”.
I submit that the elections will be another fraud from top to bottom and any approach that relies on using the system without a radical and coordinated battle plan of follow up measures and policing in perpetuity is doomed at worst and will result it glacially slow progress if any at all at best. My view remains a call to massive revolt against the system and a commitment to reformation backed by civil disobedience and economic boycott.
I stand outside the popular opinion on some critical issues, one BIG one in particular:
I believe that participating in the Federal election system is to support fraud and the crony capitalism that runs America.
I respect each individuals right to free speech and the expression of it through the vote. I would never tell anyone how to vote but I don’t have to agree with it. Having said that…
From my outsider’s position, a position that–were it not so isolated, I believe could start an avalanche of populism–I am calling for withdraw from the Federal election scam by anyone interested in starting a movement to free ourselves from this fraud. This is only a part of a larger movement and not a scheme to elect Republicans in spite of the bleating from the Obamabot sheep.
That a republican might win is a fact I concede but to center on that issue as if it is the only one that matters is ignorant and short sighted. This plan calls for the discontinuation of the mind numbing, false sense of security that comes from participating in a fraudulent system and electing Wall Street scum bags like Barack Obama just because they are “less evil” than the Republican candidate.
I suggest the disconnection and disengagement of the greater mass of Americans from their complicit activity in what is a scam designed to marginalize the citizen and empower the powerful. A movement of this nature would rely on creating large disruptions in commerce and the operation of repressive private and government activity. Simply not voting is a wasted act without proper follow up and planning.
This would be a massive act of civil disobedience that would not relent until the citizens are acknowledged and policies made a reality. This would require sacrifice by all involved and some more than others. People like my wife and I bound to corporate medical treatment extortion to stay alive and those in compromised earning capacities would have to be willing to weather this storm. It would require commitment and sacrifice not just going to a corporate voting machine and pretending to make a difference.
For this movement to succeed the goals to be met would have to be clearly enumerated and negotiated with strength and clarity of purpose. This would only be the beginning of would would have to be a new model and path for the future of America. The application of eighteenth and nineteenth century social and economic protocol is over.
America is already a laughing stock around the globe, an executive litter box famous for its disengaged, ill informed, gullible populace. Continuing on this path and playing in to the same hands will not lead to a different end but rather more of the same.
Desperate times call for…
Desperate Times Don’t Call For Lesser-Evil Voting
I really wish I could post at DemocraticCircleJerk.com. I love to poke these “lesser-evil-ites” in the sternum.
The way I see it, it’s not business as usual.
Lesser-evil, fear driven voting from the Left does two things:
1.)Pushes the Left further right.
2.)Creates a false sense of accomplishment and security.
The only way I could justify this AGAIN is if we had an independent and forceful grass roots movement in motion… RIGHT NOW that would be setting up targets and taking them out one by one. What targets? Overturn Citizens United, campaign finance reform, fixing black box voting, busting up media monopolies and a host of other NECESSITIES.
Otherwise we just slide further and further to the right until one day shit heads at D.U. are defending the democratic party’s version of Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry against the “Greater Evil” of the day.
There comes a time when you have to face the fact that you can’t just take the path of least resistance, the safe route. You have to look inside and realize that, all things considered, if you throw in with the status quo you are actually aiding and abetting the delayed demise of your party and the things you “claim” to hold on to ideologically and morally.
How much worse will these people let it get? What will they eventually do? Will they EVER call out their own?
I’m saying that writing in a candidate or, if you’re actually okay with it, not voting CAN actually signal and initiate a sea change. Could it elect a Republican? Realistically? Yes. I know, that would be disastrous but consider this; not standing up, not taking the reigns, not calling out failure of our own can’t possibly help our cause. It only delays the slide into crazy corporofascist land. And judging by this new breed of Right Wing Democrats we’ve bred somehow lately, the situation calls for serious action.
We have to draw a clear distinction between reality and the world created by corporate money. Time and time again polls are ignored, Congress is despised, we WANT single payer health care, we WANT to make those who crashed the global economy pay-and on, and on but NOTHING really happens!
Desperate times..
Desperate Times Don’t Call For Lesser-Evil Voting
I really wish I could post at DemocraticCircleJerk.com. I love to poke these “lesser-evil-ites” in the sternum.
The way I see it, it’s not business as usual.
Lesser-evil, fear driven voting from the Left does two things:
1.)Pushes the Left further right.
2.)Creates a false sense of accomplishment and security.
The only way I could justify this AGAIN is if we had an independent and forceful grass roots movement in motion… RIGHT NOW that would be setting up targets and taking them out one by one. What targets? Overturn Citizens United, campaign finance reform, fixing black box voting, busting up media monopolies and a host of other NECESSITIES.
Otherwise we just slide further and further to the right until one day shit heads at D.U. are defending the democratic party’s version of Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry against the “Greater Evil” of the day.
There comes a time when you have to face the fact that you can’t just take the path of least resistance, the safe route. You have to look inside and realize that, all things considered, if you throw in with the status quo you are actually aiding and abetting the delayed demise of your party and the things you “claim” to hold on to ideologically and morally.
How much worse will these people let it get? What will they eventually do? Will they EVER call out their own?
I’m saying that writing in a candidate or, if you’re actually okay with it, not voting CAN actually signal and initiate a sea change. Could it elect a Republican? Realistically? Yes. I know, that would be disastrous but consider this; not standing up, not taking the reigns, not calling out failure of our own can’t possibly help our cause. It only delays the slide into crazy corporofascist land. And judging by this new breed of Right Wing Democrats we’ve bred somehow lately, the situation calls for serious action.
We have to draw a clear distinction between reality and the world created by corporate money. Time and time again polls are ignored, Congress is despised, we WANT single payer health care, we WANT to make those who crashed the global economy pay-and on, and on but NOTHING really happens!
Desperate times..
Love Teddy, Love Bush
Here we are after the Presidency of George W. Bush, an idiot that had approval ratings in the twenty percentile, a Congress that had approval ratings in the teens, a vice President that swaggered around lying and speaking like he was the President, a list as long as Shaq’s arm of war crimes, invasions of privacy, torture… and on and on; and now when someone criticizes compromise with this party that was so hated, so destructive, and championed these actions, they are labeled unrealistic dreamers or worse yet Republicans!
FireDogLake? Republican. Cenk Uygr? Republican, Bernie Sanders? Well… never forget he’s Not a Democrat! And what is it that these sites and people advocate for? Roosveltian policy! Yeah, that’s right, FDR or Teddy, take your pick! If you come around talking WPA, Big Sticks and “welcoming critics and confrontation” you’re a Republican!? Again, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Election cycles don’t offer many of us enough replays to see the patterns. I for one have never witnessed those within my own party strain so hard to cover failure and just plain weakness and bad performance. I would have thought if someone told me this is what an Obama Presidency would yield that no one in their right mind would sit still for it let alone excuse and justify it!
But this is a learning experience and a challenge for my self and many others. How we respond to these circumstances reveals things we may not have known about ourselves. For example, I once fought tooth and nail against those who claimed that the parties were run by the same special interests, that Democrats were playing good cop and I took the “lesser-evil” approach.
Today, after taking exactly that, the “lesser-evil” approach, and actually going so far as to believe that Barack Obama would be just the man to respond to the devastation of the Bush years–someone who would capitalize on the overwhelming popularity of the Democratic party and victories in both houses and the Presidency, I see that this leads to the same end as voting Republican but just takes longer, offers a false sense of victimization, and defangs the outrage and disgust commensurate with these right wing enabling behaviors.
Here’s a simple thought experiment, let’s say every Democratic Presidential candidate that runs wins the next two to four election cycles and each of these candidates performs like Barack Obama–where will we be? Anywhere NEAR Teddy or FDR or closer to, or beyond George W. Bush? If all of our rational becomes “lesser-evil,” what will the composition of our Congress be?
Many of us thought these questions would not even come up. Me? I thought Barack Obama would appoint Progressives and the brightest of the Left to his cabinet! When he didn’t I was like many still are… in denial. I thought “well he wants to keep his enemies close”. No! That is NOT what he wanted to do. He wants them to do exactly what they have done! Further Neoliberal/Free Market, Corporafascist, right wing fiscal policy.
Admit it! If Barack Obama cleaned house… that is to say, provided “Change” by calling in Progressive talent, would that then be Republican? Well, in one aspect it would be! Republicans play to win! Republicans would stock their cabinet with ammo of their choosing that will take out their targets. Maybe we should be more like Republicans!
