CHOOSE AND LOSE

"In every generation, there are those who want to rule well - but they mean to rule. They promise to be good masters - but they mean to be masters." --Daniel Webster

The ad campaign's spokesmodels tell us in appropriately somber tones. What the defenders of the status quo would like most is for everyone to believe that voting is the sole outlet for a concerned populace. Thus, Election Day appears, you vote, you leave, civic duties neatly tucked away in the ballot box. The media will then blather on for a few days about how "the system worked" amid starry-eyed and predictably pious intonations about the fortitude of our great republic.

But the unspoken truth of this is: you CAN vote AND complain; you can abstain from voting AND STILL complain. You can do whatever the hell you want! Voting on Election Day is only one tiny expression of political will that people can engage in. Voting should be just the beginning of a person's involvement. In fact, things would be a lot better in this country if people stopped relying on the ballot box and started becoming activists (or radicals or extremists, as you will, no doubt, be branded, if you rock the boat too much--involved citizens are not popular with "decisionmakers" and do not get much in the way of favorable coverage by our "free" press)

Our rulers, of course, would much rather us remain docile, only interfering in the running of this country by drowsily punching a ballot card once every few years for one of the two viable choices that have been put before us. And face it, you get two choices in the American electoral system:

Take your pick. I guarantee you the winner will be Big Business, not you or me. They fund the lobbyists who pay the campaigns of Congress; they make the issues and frame the "debates." One dollar really does equal one vote, in the American system...it's like holding stock: the individual shareholder is meaningless--they have very little say in how a company is run. However, the holder of the larger shares of stock has a huge amount of influence. Thus, it takes a lot of citizens (or consumers, as we are now called) to equal one Exxon (or the tobacco lobby or any number of baddies), in terms of political clout. It's hard work to get that many people involved in being dissidents--which is what the ruling class counts on! All they have to do is write some checks, which amount to payoffs to those in power. People have to rely on action, not cash, to get results. The more noise we make, the better!

The two-party system in the US is a travesty! If you go to a buffet table, and a waiter holds out two platters of food to you, and tells you to pick one, would you say you had a choice, given a variety of other choices at the table? Fact is, if there are only two viable options to be had, then there is no choice. And where there is no choice, there is coercion.

What is the popular expression: "if you don't like it, just throw the rascals out." And replace them with whom? The OTHER RASCALS. Some choice, huh? It doesn't take much brains to realize why voter turnout is so abysmal in the US--it's not that people are lazy, stupid, and bad; rather, these people understand that NEITHER party represents their interests. No party CAN represent everyone's interests. That's not what they're about, anyway.

Anarchist contempt for parliamentary procedure was vindicated in actions by the US government in its cold war on the indigenous Left during the so-called "Red Scare," which set the stage for the later McCarthyite witch hunts.In 1919, the US House of Representatives refused to seat a Socialist Party leader from Wisconsin who had been elected to office! Further, the New York General Assembly voted to expel five Socialist Party activists who'd been already sworn in as members of the Assembly! (Kittrie, pg. 129) The US government was effectively saying, "even IF you play by our rules, we'll make sure you lose."

Anarchists could only shrug and say, "I told you so." The state makes the rules, and breaks the rules.

This is why anarchists are ambivalent about voting, at BEST. I know some who do, and some who don't. I urge you to do more than merely voting or supporting one of the two sanctioned candidates in their bid for power. If you believe your vote is your only political duty, then you'll be in a position like that of the German people in 1933, who voted Hitler into office (who was elected with an overwhelmingly high level of voter participation). Look what that got them!

Voting and representative government will NEVER bring about a more just society. Voting exists solely to ratify decisions that have already been made. It confers unwarranted legitimacy to authority.

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