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Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate for President of the United Capitalist Imperialist States in 2012, and she certainly appears to be the much lesser evil. Of course Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, know that they can’t win, but their goal is to get on the corporate ballot in as many states as possible and get enough votes to qualify for corporate matching funds. Stein doesn’t want to win the election, and probably wouldn’t be running if she thought that there was any possibility that she’d win. For a Green to become President of the United Corporate Empire would be suicide for both the candidate and the Green Party.
The Green Party is anti-war. A Green Commander-in-Chief would have to make at least a pretense of attempting to stop some of the wars. But that would incur the wrath of every member of Congress, as they all have military bases and defense contractors that provide jobs in their districts, and most are also heavily invested in defense stocks. It would incur the wrath of the Pentagon, the CIA, and every defense contractor in the country. It would incur the wrath of our foreign allies who count on the US to support their dictatorships (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia) or help keep their people suppressed by constantly training terrorists, sending death squads all over the world, and staging false flag operations to keep everyone in a state of fear. Hundreds of countries rely on the US for military aid and derive income for their oligarchies by allowing US military bases on their soil. Stein could posture and gesture about peace, but any effective action would result in her assassination and she knows it. Of course she could compromise her principles and that of her party in order to stay alive and pretend to stay in power, but she couldn’t end the wars. Not that she cares about Green Party principles. One of the Ten Key Values of the Green Party is decentralized government, so it is hypocritical for Greens to run candidates for election in a centralized government.
But in seeking to get on the ballot and get enough votes to qualify for federal matching funds, Stein is helping the big corporations, banks, and defense contractors in their multi-billion dollar campaign to get out the vote for continued corporate rule. The turnout in 2012 will be extremely important. Many people have predicted that it will be a historically low turnout for a US presidential race, due to the fact that the major party candidates are widely disliked, even within their own parties, and there is no possibility of hope or change. Still, whoever is alleged to have been elected will claim their mandate, the consent of the governed, from the entire turnout, not just from their own voters. Every vote for a third party candidate like Stein is the consent of the voter to be governed by the system in power right now, under whoever is alleged to have won the election.
I say alleged because we know for a fact that millions of votes go uncounted in every US presidential election, and that there is no way to verify the results, even if the Supreme Court allows the popular vote to be counted by easily hacked and totally unverifiable central tabulators, most of which this year will be owned by a private corporation in Spain. But people who believe in the system are willing to take the announced results on faith. It doesn’t really matter to them who wins, as long as the capitalist imperialist system continues in power.
So this year it isn’t Democrats or Republicans who are most viciously attacking the Election Boycott Movement, it is Green Party supporters of Jill Stein. If people don’t vote, how will they get their corporate federal matching funds? That’s a lot of money–about forty times what they spend getting out the vote. So what if the drone bombing continues? Greens want that money and they’re not going to let a little genocide stand in their way.
This year, say the Greens, you don’t have to vote for one of the two major evil Party candidates, you can vote for a true lesser evil, somebody who doesn’t intend to win and is in it only for the money–a reluctant imperialist, but a true capitalist.
And those of us in the Election Boycott Movement who don’t intend to vote, who will not grant our consent to the capitalist imperialist system, are now the enemy of the Green Party Get Out The Vote campaign. Sure, they know they’re getting out the vote for capitalist imperialism, for corporate rule, and to show public support for and consent to the system and the corporate party winner, but they have a goal and they’re single-mindedly pursuing it. They want to seek power within the system, by growing their party, and they want to qualify for corporate federal matching funds. They don’t care that the system is a bureaucracy that cannot be changed from within–they seek power and they want to be part of the system anyway. They don’t care that in countries with proportional representation where Greens have gained political power, it has invariably corrupted them. They don’t care about anything except the money.
Capitalism’s lesser evil is still nothing more than a lover of the root of all evil.
Boycott 2012!
ORIGINAL: http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1456
74 Comments
An article of faith with you. You really have nothing to offer to people who don’t share your religion. Note, though, that nobody is saying that electoral efforts will ever suffice, absent movements that push elected officials in the right direction.
I find the Green Party lacking both electorally, and ito building a movement. That in no way means that seizing power through the ballot box is a hopeless task. It means they haven’t manifested the wherewithal to get a larger percentage of the vote. They can force the Democrats to make concessions, by taking away votes from them – they don’t necessarily have to win seats in Congress to start having an effect. Indeed, if they were mentally (and perhaps otherwise) flexible enough to grasp the concept of injecting themselves in legacy parties’ primaries, they could force a major reaction as well as additional concessions by mustering an electoral army equal to 1/15 of eligible voters.
An ugly smear of the Greens, indeed. Not unlike the ugly smear of OWS by members of Tea Party Nation, who referred to OWS locations as “rape camps”.
It’s amazing to me that anybody would take the “rape camp” meme seriously. Tell me, do you think anybody is going to take this diary seriously, when it smears the Greens as abiding genocide? Why aren’t you ashamed to have quoted bovine excrement?
If you think about it, amassing a guerrilla army of Green Party affiliated D/R primary interventionists is a wonderful way to prove your notion that the voting is so rigged that the Green Party will never have traction. As long as the GP is willing to get their army go to local notaries and verify their votes that way, en masse, you’d have proof of how corrupt voting machines are, that you could then use to pressure state attorney generals with, to prosecute.
I seriously doubt you’d like to see such proof, especially if it led to remedying whatever problems exist with vote fraud. It would spoil your “let’s not vote” parade.
Now you’ve gone and done it. We don’t want none of yur kind here offering up evidence-based pure reasoning and common sense.
We’re voting for Jill “the Lone Ranger” Stein and her faithful sidekick Cheri “Tonto” Honkala come hell or high water, Missy, and don’t you forget it!
But, bt, but, how about that Alexander Stewart, because he’s the most least lesser of all evil.
Doncha know?
LOL! Hi there, Donkey Tale!
And those of us who are not Green party and still say you’re dead wrong?
Forgetting the false equivalencies you try to front and ignoring the ad hominem attacks on Stein the simple fact is that not voting at all signals only one thing to the elites: Your surrender.
It will mean that you capitulate. That you bow to them. It will mean nothing else.
Remember: The biggest party in America is neither Democrats nor Republicans. It’s the party of non-voters — a group that outnumbers the other two.”
- Robert Reich, Business Insider October 9, 2012
Read more: http://robertreich.org/post/33252781710#ixzz29HgVdC00
How can the public ‘surrender’ in a rigged system in which the popular vote makes no difference? Seems to me that ‘surrendering’ is impossible when voting has no impact!
Logic, my dear Zapkitty, logic!
How can the public ‘surrender’ in a rigged system in which the popular vote makes no difference? Seems to me that ‘surrendering’ is impossible when voting has no impact!
Logic, my dear Zapkitty, logic!
Non sequitur. In your article you harp about the possibility of the Green Party getting enough votes to qualify for matching Federal funds… by libeling this public funding as “corporate funding”… and now you say those same votes cannot make any difference?
Precisely. And despite their size, what have they accomplished?
I have never heard of any social change that occurred through inaction.
An electoral boycott is not the same as an economic boycott. The latter can put one out of business. The former just entrenches the status quo.
One is a threat, the other is not.
She’s confused, that money comes from federal income taxes (it’s that box you check off for presidential campaign funding).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_election_campaign_fund_checkoff
Saying this is corporate funded is pure nonsense.
It’s Stewart Alexander, not Alexander Stewart. The least you can do is get his name right. Or was that intentional? Just another ploy to ridicule those who disagree with your two-party fascist system? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it was.
x2.
Pure balderdash, as usual. Plain English translation: Resistance to the Imperial Corporate Machine is futile, so why try? Just give up because it’s BOHICA time once again! Or “the lesser evil is really to boycott voting!”
You remind me of the old Victorians who counseled wives who should not morally enjoy sex to “Close your eyes and think of England.”
Or is it that you are too craven to really stand up and oppose a system with which you claim to disagree? Far better to do nothing and then preach your moral superiority over those of us who really do give a damn and are at least trying to do something about it.
That way, maybe, just maybe, the PTB will leave you alone because you’re not a threat to them.
I find your attitude as defeatist as that of the Vichy French. You are nothing but a collaborator, a running dog lackey of the corporatist regime.
It should be noted by onlookers that here we have donkey“You Must Vote Dem No Matter What!”tale chiming in on behalf of not voting.
Of course the Dems would love for you to vote for them in approval of their backstabbing treachery… but if you will not then they’d just as soon you not vote at all.
A vote for Stewart Alexander, Jill Stein, or Rocky Anderson is a vote against the status quo. Her claims notwithstanding, Terri is for the status quo and will disappear after this election and refuse to build anything. In the meantime members of the Green, Justice, and Socialist parties will continue to build for a better tomorrow.
The next election we will again fight
-But this is the most important election ever! We can’t afford to start a third party now.
-Even if they are right, can you guarantee they will win?
-Everybody is the same, so why vote?
-The other party is so much worse.
Forms of noncompliance with the system include, but are not limited to boycotting elections, building alternative systems, and not paying taxes.
The US government takes money from workers and gives it to wealthy capitalists (bailouts) or spends it on war. It also gives some to political parties helping to get out the vote so that corporate rule can continue to have the appearance of the consent of the governed.
After the election, when Obamney is declared winner and continues to expand the drone bombing of innocents, people can claim that they didn’t vote for the winner, just as third party voters did in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but both Bush and Obama continued the drone bombing in the name of the people who voted, no matter who they voted for. A vote is not a vote for your candidate, it is a vote for whoever wins.
This is even more so in our system where votes can be flipped from one candidate to another without the voter having any way to know it, no less any way to prove it. It isn’t uncommon for people to vote for third party candidates and then have the results show no votes for third party candidates in their district. In one election Ralph Nader got a huge number of votes in a district where he had no known supporters and hadn’t campaigned, and it was widely suspected that votes had been flipped from the Democratic candidate to Nader, but since US votes aren’t verifiable there was no way to prove it.
Once the election is over and Obamney increases the bailouts and expands the wars, they will be doing it with the consent of voters–the consent of all voters, not just those who voted for them. In the United States, even if votes were counted accurately, they would still be nothing more than consent to allow the winner to make decisions without consulting the voters or taking the public will into consideration. Votes in the US are not a voice in government, as they would be in a democratic form of government, they are consent to tyranny–consent to be governed by whoever wins, and that won’t be a third party candidate.
Many countries allow a “vote of no confidence” in government, and if the government doesn’t get enough votes, it has to step down. Since the US is not a democracy or a republic, the only way we can demonstrate no confidence in government is by not voting. Voting for third party candidates demonstrates faith in government along with a desire to see a few different players within what voters believe to be a basically good system. I call it putting good apples into a rotten barrel.
The election will be in three weeks. The success or failure of the election boycott will not lie with the Democrats or Republicans, who are predicted to vote in historically low numbers due to their dislike of their candidates and of the direction the government is going, but due to third party voters who know their candidate can’t win but are determined to vote anyway.
You can’t uphold your sincere opposition to war by voting in an election where only a pro-war candidate can win.
I’ve been reading some history. It turns out that Hitler wasn’t elected. Hindenberg was elected and then, having the power that the consent of the voters gave him, appointed Hitler to be Chancellor.
Voting in the US is your personal consent to grant the winner–the winner, not the person you voted for–your power to make your decisions for you. And the winner, no matter how people vote, will be pro-war, pro-bailout, pro-Wall Street, anti-Main Street Obamney. The loser will, of course, decry the third party voters who took some of “their” votes away from them, but the same agenda will continue as before and will continue to get worse–with the consent of everyone who votes.
Voting in a system where the popular vote doesn’t have to be counted, where your vote can be flipped to a different candidate without your knowledge and without you being able to prove it, where your vote cannot influence government policy, and where only corporate-funded candidates have any chance of winning, is voting for corporate rule.
The only way to show that we do not support the wars, the bailouts, and the privatization of Social Security that both Obama and Romney agree on, is to refuse to vote. If only Democrats and Republicans don’t vote, the turnout is likely to be comparable to the turnout in a midterm election, perhaps as low as 40% rather than 50% or 55% which only happens in Presidential elections. But if third party voters boycott the election, the turnout could go as low as 30% or 25%–a definite statement of no confidence in government. Of course if only those who want to spend another four years under Obamney, another four years fighting wars instead of creating jobs, and another four years bailing out Wall Street instead of Main Street voted, the turnout would be less than 10% and while Obamney would still be declared the “winner,” he would not be able to claim the consent of the governed or to have been democratically elected with the consent of the people.
Personally, I’m not optimistic. I don’t think that third party voters, who still believe in the system even after the Bush and Obama regimes, will stop believing in the system now. Most of them are completely out of touch with reality. If they didn’t believe that their votes might be counted, they wouldn’t bother to vote, yet they know that in Bush v. Gore 2000 the Supreme Court found that there was no Constitutional requirement to count their votes and that Jimmy Carter has stated clearly that the US has the worst election system in the world. These are people who think they can expect different results by repeating the same mistake over and over. These are people who think that their freedom to cast uncounted votes is synonymous with democracy, and nothing will shake their irrational beliefs.
Since voting is voluntary in the US, not voting is consenting to be governed by whoever wins the election.
Examples of people actually “withholding consent” to the status quo:
HERE
HERE
HERE
and,well…HERE
Too funny, Ohio Barbarian. I suggest you read the last essay in Consent to Tyranny: Voting in the USA http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1431 entitled, “Consensual Political Intercourse” if you want to know who’s really going to lie back and think of England. ;)
” A vote is not a vote for your candidate, it is a vote for whoever wins.”
So I vote FOR the Socialist candidate, Stewart Alexander, and others here vote FOR the Green candidate, Jill Stein, and Romney wins. Therefore we all voted FOR Mitt Romney?
That doesn’t even make rational sense. It DOES make propagandistic sense. Do nothing, be lazy, sit around and moan about the system, and then invent ways to feel superior to those who are actually trying to make a difference.
Very bourgois of you.
So, marym, first you vote to give the government the power to make decisions for you, and then you go out and get yourself beaten or arrested protesting those decisions? How about not giving government that power in the first place? When you vote, you are delegating your power to government. If you want to take back your power, stop voting to delegate it to government. If we want to take our country back, the first step is to stop giving it away.
If the votes actually had to be counted, which the Supreme Court ruled, when it stopped the vote count in 2000, that they do not, and there was some way that you could be certain that the central tabulators hadn’t flipped your vote from the candidate you voted FOR, to a candidate you didn’t vote for, you could be certain that your vote for a third party candidate wasn’t counted for Obamney. That doesn’t happen to be the case in US elections. US votes not only don’t have to be counted, there is no way to verify that they were counted for the same candidates people voted for. You are trusting a system that is not worthy of your trust.
Vote or don’t vote, your choice. However, while voting third party may be a small step, among others, of working toward something in the future, “not voting” isn’t a first step toward anything.
Very easy to say he had been granted the right to govern by the “good people” who cared enough about their country to come out and vote–lots of propaganda value there. Boycotts are traditionally “advertised”, so to speak–how do you propose to show that your keep-home-the-vote boycott is anything more than approval of the status quo?
Terri isn’t going away. I’ve been an Election Boycott advocate for six years now and I’m not going away. While you third party supporters are “building for a better tomorrow,” you are voting your consent to continue the drone bombing and the bailouts today. After the “election” when Obamney wins, you’ll remain complacent and continue to try to build your party in the forlorn hopes that you might, within a few generations, be able to work to make some reforms within the system. You’re reformist and you believe that the current system can be reformed by inserting a minority of good people into a system with a majority of evil people.
We in the Election Boycott Movement do not believe that the capitalist imperialist US system of government can be reformed from within. We are not trying to work within it, we are opposing it and withholding our consent from it. We are not complacent enough to be willing to endure a few more generations of capitalist imperialism while we try to “build a better world.” We believe that a better world is possible now, and we are working to support such a world now. We don’t want to seize power, we want to redistribute and decentralize power.
We are the only populist movement in the United States today, the only one with no office, no funding, and no paid staff. We haven’t bought a single ad. Yet we seem to be reaching critical mass because most voters really do want change and are beginning to understand that they can’t bring about change by voting.
Here’s an article by somebody who woke up: Don’t Vote For Evil by Paul Craig Roberts http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/12/dont-vote-for-evil/
No matter who you vote for, you know that the “election” is rigged and that only Obamney can win. So that’s who you’re really voting for–one of the Wall Street candidates. It isn’t about the puppet candidates, it is about the capitalist imperialist system where only puppet candidates can win. You can vote for whoever you want–a third party candidate, Nobody, Mickey Mouse, yourself, or yo mama, but you already know who’s going to win. In a capitalist imperialist system, Wall Street funds both major parties so Wall Street always wins.
The Constitution of the United States was written to ensure that those who owned the country, the wealthy elite 1%, would always rule the country. This was done, in part, by ensuring that the popular vote didn’t have to be counted and wouldn’t be the final say. So it didn’t matter who got the vote or who they voted for, the rich would remain in power.
In Venezuela and Iceland, by contrast, every vote must be counted, the results are verifiable and don’t have to be taken on faith, and the people can vote directly on budgets, issues, and even on the Constitution. They can directly and immediately recall any candidate, even the President, who they feel isn’t representing them. Not only are they allowed to vote directly for President and Vice-President (no Electoral College), but they can recall them by direct vote at any time, so they don’t need term limits. Their votes are a voice in government, whereas US votes are mere consent to be governed, or, as I call it in my book, Consent to Tyranny.
mymarkx conveniently forgot to answer the actual question that gesneri asked…
“how do you propose to show that your keep-home-the-vote boycott is anything more than approval of the status quo?”
gesneri writes, “Boycotts are traditionally “advertised”, so to speak–how do you propose to show that your keep-home-the-vote boycott is anything more than approval of the status quo?”
Traditional boycotts, in countries that have had them, are usually called by a political party. We are not a traditional boycott and we do not represent any political party. To our knowledge, this is the first time that an Election Boycott has been called for in the United States, and we have not advertised. Millions of dollars are regularly spent advertising toxic pharmaceuticals that kill people and have to be taken off the market, millions of dollars are spent advertising unhealthy food products, and billions of dollars are being spent advertising toxic candidates, but an idea whose time has come spreads by word of mouth and doesn’t have to be advertised.
When the Boycott is successful, you’ll know that it wasn’t approval of the status quo because the global mainstream media will be reporting that the US government had the lowest voter turnout in its history and has lost the consent of the governed–that it no longer represents the will of the people of the United States.
As you can see, I was answering the question while you were posting.
In others words no substantial change from the status quo. Which is what people have been trying to tell you.
And why in the world would you think the media report it as you describe? That isn’t what they’re paid for.
Sorry, but it still seems that the only thing you have to sell people is “Stay home while you’re being stomped on… it might make them look bad”
She’s convinced me that not voting is not the way to go.
And by the way, Jill IS on many, many ballots. And she would love, lovelove to win – are you kidding?
The status quo up until now is that 40% to 55% of the electorate has enough faith in the system to vote. That they support the system, but some of them would like to change the players. The system counts the turnout, the total turnout, no matter who people claim to have voted for or what the central tabulators manipulate the results to be, as the consent of the governed.
A successful Election Boycott would change that because a historically low turnout would obviously demonstrate that the governed no longer believe in the system and no longer consent.
As for the global mainstream media, including the US mainstream media, if they remained silent when all the other mainstream media was reporting a historically low voter turnout, they’d lose credibility. They’d try to spin it as best they could, but they’d have to report it.
Voting to empower the government that is stomping on you, while you try to grow a third party, is still voting to be stomped on. If a gang of hoodlums was literally stomping on you, would you be trying to join their gang? Would you be voting in an election where you knew that only their gang could win? People who vote in the elections of a government that is stomping on them are consenting to be stomped on.
Read the last essay (scroll down), “Consensual Political Intercourse,” in Consent to Tyranny:
http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1431
I don’t know if you’re too closed-minded to read anything except political party propaganda, or if your political party won’t allow you to do so, but you keep asking questions I’ve already answered because you can’t be bothered to read the answers I’ve already written.
Thank you for that long thought out reply. However, I agree with none of it.
And I say this as someone who used to refuse to vote for similar reasons as yours. Age and maturity have shown me that this proto-anarchist mentality is immature and irresponsible.
There is a lot I could say about what you wrote, but I won’t.
However, if you choose not to vote, that’s your choice. I don’t agree with it, but I do understand where you are coming from.
If you are trying to bring people into your camp, that’s fine also, but you are going to need a better rationale than this.
If Jill wanted to win, she wouldn’t be running in an election where the votes don’t have to be counted, where the results aren’t verifiable, and where only corporate puppets have any chance of winning.
If Jill really wanted to win, she’d be fighting for free, fair, open, honest, transparent elections, where every vote had to be counted, where the results were verifiable, where central tabulators, elections officials, the media, political parties, the Electoral College, Congress, and the Supreme Court couldn’t manipulate or overrule the popular vote, where there were no gerrymandered districts, where everyone had equal ballot access, where there was public funding of elections with no corporation money allowed, where all candidates got equal media coverage and could participate in the debates, where there was a verifiable publicly-overseen chain of custody of the ballots from the time they were cast until the time they were counted and agreed upon by all parties, where elections offices could at no time be closed to the public, where elections officials had to certify that the results were correct instead of merely certifying that they held an election the way they do now, where any processes that concealed any steps in the election from public scrutiny were banned, and all of the many other electoral procedures that the Constitution created to ensure that those who owned the country would always rule it were changed, and she would be doing this BEFORE she ran in a rigged election.
People who want to win don’t play in rigged card games or run in rigged elections. People who play in crooked games and encourage others to do the same are called shills.
x3
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And those matching funds help to get the message out next time and bolster the argument the party should be included in the debates…
a journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step…
These vote boycott supporters flummox me with their absurd contortions of logic. That aforesaid logic never passes even the most cursory examination yet they press on regardless. They say a few things that make sense but when scrutinized, it is all built on assumptions that are easily deconstructed. I won’t presume their motivations are nefarious, but they may as well be.
If not voting worked, we’d all be living in a paradise given consistently poor turnouts. Sadly, it doesn’t. Vote third party, it obviously won’t fix anything in the short term, but it is the only viable path to substantive change.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but it should be a step on the journey, not a step off a cliff. Voting in sham elections calls attention to your party and tells people that you’re so ignorant that you don’t even know or care that you’re voting in sham elections.
The step we have to take is a step back from the ballot and insist that we won’t vote until we have free, fair, honest elections. If you don’t care that the elections are rigged, that you’re voting in what Jimmy Carter recently called the worst elections in the world, you’re probably just pretending to care about everything else.
There’s nothing wrong with seeking attention if you have something to say, but the way in which you do it matters.
If the Election Boycott movement is making “assumptions that are easily deconstructed,” why not name just one of those assumptions and deconstruct it?
An Election Boycott is not the same thing as not voting. What we’ve had were moderate turnouts, where from 40% to 55% of the electorate voted–enough for the oligarchy to claim the consent of the governed and insist that everyone who didn’t vote, approximately half of those eligible, is apathetic. In fact, it is voters who are apathetic, as they don’t really care that their vote is their consent to four more years of a government they don’t approve of.
It doesn’t do much good to take a long term view of war while continuing to kill innocent babies with drone bombs every single day for four more years. All you have to do to immediately deny the government the right to continue killing innocent babies in your name, is stop voting. When an Election Boycott is successful, it shows the world that the government no longer has the consent of the governed.
Your vote is your consent. Consenting to be screwed now, because you believe that in the long run you might be able to seize power and stop being screwed, gets you screwed again and again, every election. Take the short term view for a change and stop consenting to get screwed right now. Let the government seat the “winner” with only a 10% or 20% turnout and see how many people take that government seriously or do anything but laugh when it claims to be a democratically elected government with the consent of the governed.
It is obvious who hasn’t read Consent to Tyranny: Voting in the USA, because they repeat arguments that have been thoroughly debunked. Repeating old get-out-the-vote canards isn’t logic, it is repetitive babble.
This is just pure malarkey.
You claim to be the only movement with “no office, no paid staff or advertising”, yet “seem to be reaching critical mass”. Even if true, which seems illogical given the above, how can you measure your influence? More importantly, how will anyone know you have achieved your aim?
By definition, a no-vote is a silenced voice. In your scenario you leave the interpretation of the “non-voters” intentions to the very PTB you despise.The notion that the MSM will carry your message, even if the turn out was an historical-for-any-country low, is nonsensical.
Your rant is a non sequitur – so encumbered by circular reasoning, illogic and absurdity that it can only be a deliberate Democratic attempt to keep left-leaners from voting third party.
Not engaging further. ..
X2 to Kurt @36
TO BE “RADICAL” MEANS TO “STRIKE AT THE ROOT”.
Here is information on non-voting from the website “STRIKE THE ROOT”
“There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to no one who is striking the root.” -Thoreau
In his On The Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849), Henry David Thoreau asked:
THOREAU:
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it . . . . What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/vote.html
Well said.
Just voter suppression by another name…
Hello Firedupfirepup — Is anything said or done here preventing you from going to the polls?
That’s what a thought.
Voter suppression is voter obstruction.
This is educational and freeing — I have no interest in ‘suppression’.
Or as Thoreau says, “I was not born to be forced”.
Dear dunkindoggie and TontoTerri: people have decided not to vote for those who have crossed the line into “morally unacceptable” and “depraved.” It’s not simply the lesser of two evils, though you would prefer to misrepresent these folks. There is no demand for perfection, only the minimum qualification of acceptable morality. I know this incenses those who prefer to shit on all pretenses to principles and morality, but I think it is a better course of action which will have the additional salutory effect of better outcomes for everyone in the long run.
Spending a few million dollars on voter suppression ploys like Voter ID laws, illegal voter purges, etc., while spending BILLIONS of dollars to get out the vote, is a reverse psychology tactic.
It is difficult to make people think that their vote might be valuable when they know that their votes don’t have to be counted, can be flipped to candidates other than the ones they voted for, can’t be verified, and cannot influence policy decisions. The only possible way to make fools think that such “votes” might be valuable is to pretend to try to be taking their votes away. These are the kind of people who lock up their garbage cans and dumpsters if they see homeless people picking through them, because it somebody wants their garbage, it must be valuable.
If the Republican Party, Karl Rove, and the big corporations really wanted to suppress the vote, they’d be spending BILLIONS suppressing the vote and only a few millions on campaign financing, instead of the reverse.
Voter suppression efforts are doomed to failure. People who believe that an uncounted, unverifiable vote that cannot influence policy decisions is valuable, will fight for their uncounted, unverifiable, meaningless votes. Third party voters in particular know that their votes are valuable, because it can help their party qualify for federal matching funds. In other words, their parties will be paid by the government for helping to get out the vote.
In the end, as we’re always told, it doesn’t matter who you vote for, as long as you vote. Political parties have a stake in the system and they want to perpetuate it. Only those of us who are fed up with the system and no longer support it, will withhold our votes. We may or may not have reached critical mass yet, that remains to be seen. But we have one of the easiest jobs in the world. The government, with NDAA, the Patriot Act, bailouts, endless wars of aggression, refusing to prosecute war criminals, and by turning our economy into that of a banana republic, is doing our job for us.
You may feel that the system is benefiting you and therefore worthy of your vote, but you’re in a small minority. Most voters are voting in the futile hope that their vote might help prevent things from getting worse, when they know that’s completely impossible and that no matter how they vote, things will continue to get worse, the wars will expand, our economy will decline, our environment will continue to become more and more polluted, and we’ll continue to have a greater chance of being killed by a pharmaceutical drug properly prescribed by a competent physician, than by the disease we sought help for in the first place.
But don’t worry about it–just go back to sleep. You know you’ll be doing your bit for capitalist imperialism by casting your vote, so you have nothing to fear. As the rest of us, the approximately 90% of the eligible electorate who don’t approve of what this government is doing and no longer wish to grant it the legitimacy of our consent by voting in its sham elections, we must be either apathetic or conspiracy theorists. No concern of yours.
Your rhetoric (and the actual author’s) made more sense before you had to call Stein another lesser of two evils. Sorry, Mark Smith, that puts you way over the top in my book.
Shoot, Linh Dinh made at least a slightly more compelling (or at least interesting) case than y’all, and for the love of all that’s holy…so did W.E. DuBois. but shoot; really there was no alternative to the duopoly candidates (one Alabaman fringe party).
One bridge too far here, though, smacking Stein. I reckon that the greatest value we can express for her or another third party candidate is as a placeholder for our re-dreaming this nation as we sign on to spiritual insurrection and eventually…revolution, as massvie change and rebuilding from the ground up.
Interesting! I have struggled with whether I should boycott the election. In the famous Supreme Court case which found that “money equals speech” the justices said, in dicta, that if someday it can be shown that the election system is illegitimate the Court will re-consider its “money equals speech” rationale. So, since then, I’ve often thought it best that we help lower the voter turn-out rate to send a message to the Supremes to prod them to overturn their ridiculous ruling.
This post seems silly to me. Not voting is just bending over and grabbing your ankles. You think the winner will be “sorry” that more people didn’t vote. I think not. I won’t be voting for Dianne Feinstein, for example, but I will vote for someone else (and NOT her Republican opponent.) I want her to know that I voted….. just NOT for her. I probably won’t vote for Obama, but I WILL vote….. I want him to know that I voted, just not for him. Not voting just seems like pretending that this abomination is not happening….. whistling into the wind.
If you can’t withhold your vote in a sham election in which you know your candidate has no chance of winning, you’re not “re-dreaming” anything, you’re just dreaming.
Good point. But in the essay, “The Counterrevolutionary Constitution” in Consent to Tyranny, I make the point that the Supreme Court should never have had the power to make such absurd decisions in the first place.
Not. Engaging.
If you think that not voting is “just bending over and grabbing your ankles,” Deane, read the last essay in Consent to Tyranny, the one entitled, “Consensual Political Intercourse.” Feinstein and Obama will never know if you voted or not, and you will never know for sure if your votes for other candidates were switched by the central tabulators to votes for Feinstein or Obama.
If you think that an abomination is happening, voting isn’t “just bending over and grabbing your ankles,” it’s your affirmative consent to the abomination, no matter who you think or hope your vote might be counted for. Your vote says, “I want this abomination! I love this abomination! I won’t just bend over and grab my ankles, I’ll tear the abomination’s pants off and beg it to keep screwing me.”
If you had any way to know if your vote was counted or not, if there was any requirement that the votes be counted, and if there was any way to know if your vote was counted for the candidates you voted for or for the candidates you voted against, you’d have an argument for voting. But none of those conditions exist in US elections.
There are a few exceptions. In about 7% of US voting districts, votes are counted and verifiable. But 7% is not enough to sway the outcome of a Presidential election, so even the lucky 7% are voting to voluntarily submit to the whim of those who rig the elections. When the majority of votes don’t have to be counted and aren’t verifiable, voting is consent to corruption. In the United States, where third party candidates cannot win and votes cannot influence public policy, voting is Consent to Tyranny.
Oops–sorry for the typo, Dearie. I didn’t mean to call you Deane, I was just typing too quickly.
Also I apologize if my reply seemed offensive, but you started it with your “bend over” comment.
When you vote in a US election, you are saying, “I don’t care if my votes are counted or not, I don’t care if my votes are counted towards the candidates I voted for or for the candidates I voted against, I want to submit to this system completely and I voluntarily consent to allow it to have its will with me. It can count my votes or not, it can count my votes for the candidates I voted for or for different candidates–I’m completely apathetic and don’t care what it does, I just want the system to know that I’m obedient, dutiful, and am granting the system my consent to do whatever it wishes with my vote and therefore with me.”
Why would you post a comment in a discussion if you don’t wish to engage in it?
I’ll bet you also cast votes in a system you don’t wish to engage in either. ;)
Jill Stein has said that to bring about change, there needs to be both a political party, and a broad-based social movement. In my opinion, electoral activities – collecting signatures for ballot access, fundraising, campaigning, showing up in solidarity with striking workers or other activists, getting out the vote – are ways to organize and build the party and the movement. And there are certainly many brave people doing the work of building a social movement, with activism and networking around the serious issues confronting us. This seems sensible to me – not easy, or perfect, or guaranteed to succeed, but a reasonable way for the people of this country to approach the challenges we face locally, nationally, and globally.
Not voting, somehow the “global MSM” reporting this as delegitimizing the government, which will somehow stop the bombing just seems like magical thinking.
And no matter how many times you say that voting for someone who wants to end the wars and reduce the size of the military is the same as consenting to dropping bombs, it still doesn’t make it true.
From an old, old Wizard of ID cartoon which I do not have the time to locate.
KING: {I have enough galley slaves to equip an armada}
DUKE: Hows the election going Sire ?
KING: Not bad. Not bad.
In South Africa during the Apartheid regime, there was both a political party, the ANC, and a broad-based social movement against Apartheid. But the Apartheid regime made no concessions whatsoever and responded only with violence until after their successful Election Boycott demonstrated that the Apartheid regime did not have the consent of the voters and therefore could no longer be considered the legitimate government of South Africa.
What made the difference and made their Election Boycott successful, was that people considered the entire regime, the entire Apartheid government to be illegitimate and to not represent their interests. They were no longer willing to settle for a change of puppets or minor reforms. They had spent decades trying to oust the regime with violence, but the regime was more violent than they were. So finally they stopped voting for it. The regime tried to seat the winners of the election, even though many had only a few hundred votes, but nobody took them seriously. It was only after the successful Election Boycott, that the United States, which had said that it abhorred Apartheid but had no choice but to support the legitimate government of South Africa, could no longer use that excuse to support Apartheid.
What good is showing up in solidarity with striking workers if you vote for a government that is taking away their right to organize? Oh, right, you didn’t vote for the candidates who have been taking away the right of workers to organize, you voted for candidates who were taking a long term view and were willing to wait until workers had no rights whatsoever left at all, while they built their party. You certainly don’t want change to come about to quickly–not while anyone still has a job, at least.
You can vote for somebody who wants to tear down the White House and build a new one out of cream cheese, but if they have no chance of winning, you’re engaging in magical thinking because your vote counts only as part of the turnout that legitimizes a government that is killing innocent babies with drone bombs right now, every day. You value what you hope will be the eventual growth of your party, over their lives. You’re willing to vote in an election where your vote doesn’t have to be counted, could be flipped from Stein to Obamney, and will be part of the total turnout that lets the capitalist imperialist war criminal government claim to have been democratically elected with the consent of the governed, in hopes that you might be able to be a part of that government some day.
Why does Jill Stein want to be a part of a corrupt criminal government? If she wants to end wars and reduce the size of the military, why is she running for office in a government that is based on a military economy, a government whose primary business is and always has been genocide for profit? Why isn’t she opposing that government or at least withdrawing her consent from it instead of trying to become a part of it?
‘If the Election Boycott movement is making “assumptions that are easily deconstructed,” why not name just one of those assumptions and deconstruct it?’
Not to be disrespectful but I choose not to engage with you for the same reason I choose not to engage with Jehovah’s Witnesses at my front door or with rabid right-wing teabaggers who are convinced Obama is a Muslim Kenyan socialist or with people who are convinced that the WTC was a demolition job, because the gulf between us is simply unbridgeable and I don’t think productive dialog is possible. Sometimes the best we can do is simply to agree to disagree. I won’t sway you, nor you me and I’m sure we both have more productive uses for our time.
We’ve had that South Africa discussion before, and I haven’t read the book you recommended. However, the South African government never had the consent of the governed because only a very small percentage of the people (white people) had the right to vote. In the early 80′s another very small percentage of people (those classified as Indian and mixed race – coloured) got the vote and boycotted. The vast majority of people (black people) didn’t get the vote until the 1990′s when apartheid was ended. When or why the US chose to consider the government legitimate – that rarely has to do with whether a government represents the will and interests of its people, but as I say I haven’t read the book.
I see why people are disengaging. You accuse people who run on a platform or vote for someone who runs on a platform of ending the wars, decreasing the military, and other worthwhile issues, of “consenting” to everything bad in the world, and saying people who decline to vote for someone who runs on a platform of ending the wars, decreasing the military, etc. are “withhholding consent” and thus not responsible for anything. You may disagree with political party and movement building as a strategy for change, but you haven’t offerend anything but inaction as an alternative.
So in your eyes, religious fanatics, right-wing birthers, and retired NASA physicists with distinguished careers like David Griscom and Dwain Deets who have the expertise, have done the research, and are convinced that WTC was a demolition job, are all the same? If that’s how you see things, I don’t want to engage with you either.
Voting in elections where your votes don’t have to be counted, is inaction, marym.
Voting in elections where your votes can be counted for candidates you didn’t vote for is inaction.
Voting for candidates who can’t win is inaction.
Boycotting corrupt elections is not inaction any more than boycotting corrupt banks or corrupt corporations is inaction.
If you know that a bank has engaged in corrupt practices, like selling derivatives it knew to be worthless, offering mortgages to people it knew couldn’t make the payments, or fraudulently foreclosing on homes without any valid reason, and has been bailed out with taxpayer money but has done nothing to help the people its corrupt practices have harmed, leaving your money in that bank is inaction. Boycotting that bank by taking your money out of it and putting your money in a credit union is action.
Continuing to vote in corrupt elections is inaction. Boycotting corrupt elections is not inaction. In fact it is the only possibility we have of every getting honest elections. As long as we’re willing to vote in corrupt elections, the government has no incentive whatsoever to allow us to have honest elections. It is your inaction, and that of other voters who continue to vote in corrupt elections, that makes it impossible for us to get honest elections.
Some people don’t care if their bank has engaged in corrupt practices and are too apathetic to move their money. That’s apathy and inaction. Some people don’t care about corrupt elections and are too apathetic to stop voting. That’s apathy and inaction. People who care take action. They boycott corrupt banks and they boycott corrupt elections.
You either purposely misunderstood me, or my comment was too brief. I’ve addressed your arguments on several of these posts, but I’ll run them briefly again.
Had this *no-vote movement* (which it really isn’t, imo), been organized at least a year or two ago, and had it gained enough national attention that the *non-voters* may have been extrapolated into the results, and the meaning of those non-vote numbers thus interpreted as citizens massively rejecting being governed by a government it no longer has faith in…effectively delegitimizing it, *then* more of us may have joined the alleged movement. Several have brought up South Africa, perhaps the Phillipines, where all of those things have been so.
I’ve also tried to make the case that showing up to vote, but *not voting* for any number of candidates for federal office could have shown a legitimate protest. In my own case, I have to vote. An amendment is on the ballot to legalize marijuana, which also provides protocols for farming industrial hemp, which initiative if passed could be the beginning of a national movement that would keep millions of brown and black-skinned people out of prison, open up the creation of green products that could be a major foil to petro-products that we need so desperately.
In California, voters are being given the opportunity to make it law that food labels indicate if products contain any GMO ingredients, and again, if that passes,even in the face of the $30-40 million GMO industry ad campaigns, it will be a major force along the road to outlawing them entirely.
Black-box voting with no paper trail makes voting seem absurd to some, and I respect their positions if they refuse to vote in the end.
Etienne de La Boetie wrote on the subject of involuntary servitude hundreds of years ago.
To me, this recent jaunt naming Stein and evil in the same title puts your argument in the too-go-driven category. That’s all.
Wendy, passing initiatives at the state level in not a step towards anything. The federal government usually ignores state laws, and can prevent progress at the state level by spending more on wars and bailouts so that the states have no money to implement local initiatives.
Medical marijuana passed here in California, but the federal government has continued to raid growers and clinics, and to arrest and prosecute patients, making it much more expensive and even risky. The GMO labeling initiative is also likely to pass, but will probably be struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of Monsanto’s Constitutional rights.
But even getting a federal law enacted or a favorable Supreme Court ruling isn’t necessarily a step towards anything, as a new administration or a new Supreme Court ruling can repeal or reverse any previous laws or rulings. Rights granted by a government are not unalienable. What the government granteth, the government can taketh away.
The goal of reformists is to have a more benevolent tyranny, the goal of Election Boycott Activists is to eliminate all support for tyranny.
It was indeed petty of me to name a specific candidate when my thesis applies to all third party candidates, however the Election Boycott Movement has been viciously attacked by Greens, so I felt it was justified.
There’s no formal movement to join, no membership cards, and no dues to pay. Direct democracy is self-governance, government of, by, and for the people, and it is something each person does for themself. Those who prefer to entrust their rights and freedoms to a centralized, authoritarian government, will never have more than temporary rights. Getting a President like FDR to rein in the excesses of capitalism through government regulations was a temporary benefit to millions, however most of those regulations have since been deregulated and Obamney now want to privatize Social Security on behalf of Goldman Sachs and will never socialize Medicare.
I’m sorry that it is more important to you to attempt to temporarily legalize marijuana and hemp, than to stop endorsing the drone bombing of innocent babies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Mali. At the same time that you’re endorsing state legalization, you’re endorsing federal persecution. But of course you have no way to knowing if your vote for marijuana will be flipped by the black boxes (not your local black boxes, the ones in Spain that will do the final tally in 2012) to a vote against marijuana.
Voters have an underlying faith in the US electoral system that is not justified by the facts.
I heartily second everything Kurt Sperry said. I will vote for Jill Stein. The only effect Terri’s diary will have on me is to make me feel even more strongly about voting for Jill Stein.
“I’m sorry that it is more important to you to attempt to temporarily legalize marijuana and hemp, than to stop endorsing the drone bombing of innocent babies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Mali. At the same time that you’re endorsing state legalization, you’re endorsing federal persecution.”
What horseshit that you think that one causes the other. Come back when you bring the No-vote idea a year before an election.
Meanwhile, I’ll place all my efforts in OWS and parallel movements, writing on issues and events. I’ve given up on the electoral system, but your calculations fail…for this election.
I’m not surprised, Janet. People who believe in something usually aren’t susceptible to reason, and facts that contradict their beliefs serve only to strengthen their beliefs.
Of course you agree with Kurt Sperry that voting for Jill Stein “won’t fix anything in the short term, but it is the only viable path to substantive change,” but you’re both wrong about reinforcing and perpetuating the status quo being a path to eventual change. The more people continue to run for office and vote in the current system, the less it is susceptible to change. By the time you grow the Green Party large enough to think you could bring about substantive change, the decisions made by the major party politicians are likely to have destroyed the entire planet through climate change so that there won’t be anything left for anyone to change.
But since you’re doing so well, you probably think that there’s no urgency and things can go on like this for a few more decades without any real harm being done.
I’m glad you’ve given up on the electoral system, Wendy. If enough people do that, it will be shown up for the sham it really is. And so will the government and the corporations spending billions to get out the vote. This government does not represent us and does not deserve our consent.
Oh wait! Wendy, are you saying that you’ve given up on the electoral system, but that you’re still going to vote?
That you’re going to continue to participate in something you’ve already given up on?
Isn’t that, shall we say, a tad irrational?
I’ve been a full time Election Boycott advocate since 2006, and I didn’t expect the response to be any better in 2012 than it was in 2008. The response this year has taken me by surprise. Whether or not it will be sufficient remains to be seen, but at least there are a lot more people who are no longer willing to participate in an electoral system that they’ve given up on.
“Greens want that money and they’re not going to let a little genocide stand in their way.” That quotation from the above diary is pretty representative of the “reason” and ” facts” marshalled throughout by the diarist. The reason this diary strengthens my resolve to vote for Jill Stein is that this diary shows the mentally unhinged quality of the vote boycott movement. By voting for Jill Stein, who opposes both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and who would drastically cut defense spending, we are lending our support to genocide–huh?! My advice to the diarist is please loosen your tin foil hat; it is cutting off circulation to your brain. This is one of the worst written diaries I have ever encountered on FDL. I laughed out loud when I read the opening sentence and encountered the phrase, President of the United Capitalist Imperialist States. I have read a few of the boycott vote diaries by now, and they are always poorly reasoned, making huge assumptions, leaping to conclusions. But this diary is set apart by the shrillness of its tone, which suggests that you know you are losing this argument. If you want to be taken seriously, I suggest you avoid flamboyant language and allow yourself to be “susceptible to reason, and facts that contradict your beliefs.” You can start by responding to the following facts. The right wing has put a huge amount of effort into destroying ACORN, passing voter suppression laws (photo ID laws) with a special emphasis on swing states, and has now begun putting up intimidating billboards in minority neighborhoods. If the powers that be believe that voter turnout will give legitimacy to the election and they somehow crave or need this legitimacy, then why have they been putting so much work into suppressing the vote? This is not the first time I have asked this question. I have posed this question in my own blog as well as in comment threads following blogs by you or teri. So far, both you and teri have completely ignored this question. Please address it now.
I’ve answered that question many times, Janet.
The right wing is spending BILLIONS of dollars financing election campaigns to get out the vote.
They are also spending a few million on voter suppression campaigns, like voter ID laws, dirty tricks mailing and phone calls, to suppress the vote.
If they really wanted to suppress the vote, they’d be spending BILLIONS suppressing the vote, and only a few million financing election campaigns to get out the vote.
They’re capitalists, so you can always tell what their real priorities are by where they spend the most money.
Voter suppression is a ploy to make fools think that their uncounted votes must be valuable because somebody is trying to take them away. Uncounted votes are not valuable, no matter who tries to take them away.
Why aren’t you voting for Ron Paul instead of Jill Stein? He has also opposed the wars and he also has no chance of winning.
If there was any flaw in my arguments, you’d refute them instead of mocking them. But since you don’t seem to be aware that the US is a capitalist imperialist state, you probably think it is a democracy where votes are actually counted and can influence public policy. There’s no point arguing with delusions.
Voting kills babies. Check.
What a load of horse droppings. Voting 3rd party does much more good than staying home, and your suggestion that most votes aren’t counted is just paranoid nonsense. Peddle your garbage elsewhere, please.
The popular votes for President do not have to be counted. The Constitution prohibits us from voting directly for President and Vice-President, tyrellj–only the Electoral College can do that. Supposedly when you vote for a Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate on the ballot, you are voting for their political party’s slate of electors on the Electoral College for that state, but the Electoral College isn’t bound by the popular vote.
In 2000 the votes weren’t counted because the Supreme Court decided to stop the vote count and install Bush themselves.
In 2004 the votes weren’t counted because John Kerry conceded to Bush before the votes could be counted and reelected Bush all by himself.
Subsequent counts found that both Gore and Kerry had won the popular vote, but the popular vote doesn’t have to be counted, wasn’t counted, and doesn’t have any influence on the election.
In 2008, Obama is said to have won both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, but since the votes aren’t verifiable, nobody can ever know for sure. What we do know for sure is that he got bigger campaign donations from the banks and big corporations than McCain did, so he was their chosen favorite long before the sham election. They donate to both major parties in almost equal amounts, and with billions of dollars in donations they always win and always control the puppets they support.
Third party candidates are locked out of the debates, so they have no chance of reaching the public in sufficient numbers to have any chance of winning.
Voting doesn’t kill babies, voting consents to allow the government to continue killing babies. If you know that’s what the government is doing, which any informed person should know because the drone bombings are even in the mainstream media news, and you know that the only candidates with any chance of winning will continue or even expand the drone bombings, and you vote, you are consenting to the killing of babies in your name. Your uncounted vote for a third party candidate who can’t win, doesn’t change the fact that you are voting to grant your personal consent of the governed to whoever wins and whatever they wish to do.
I’d also wondered if Jill Stein was a Zionist. This article on Mondoweiss addresses that issue, perhaps not conclusively, but at least in part:
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/green-party-presl-candidate-misses-crucial-political-opportunity-by-not-talking-up-democracy-in-israelpalestine.html
Stein apparently does not support a one-state solution, has not mentioned the sanctions part of “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS), and does not seem to be representing the Green Party US platform with regard to the Israel/Palestine situation.