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So I just became a registered voter...

Discussion in 'General political debates' started by JesusCrust, May 18, 2010.

  1. JesusCrust

    JesusCrust Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Hello wonderful member of anarcho-punk.net
    Yesterday I registered to vote, and I'm not too sure exactly how I feel about it, I mean of course smash the state, but I think it's reasonable to, while the state IS there, make changes and improvements in to to better society.
    There is a two side able argument here, some anarchists say stay out of the system all together, but I'm leaning towards the more practical "If you didn't vote you can't complain about what you don't like."

    What do you guys think about this?

    Also, I registered for the Democratic party.
    I would have registered for the peace & freedom (California), or green party, or even communist party of the USA, but I didn't know much about them while I was registering, and with the Democratic party I knew what I was getting myself into.
     

  2. Anxiety69

    Anxiety69 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    well, you are now going to be called on for jury duty...

    voting in this capitalistic system will accomplish nothing.
     
  3. bgrass

    bgrass Experienced Member Experienced member


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    The bolded part is the dangerous part. Just remember all the state does is by violence and you are responsible for violence that goes with the vote you cast. So vote to protect people from the aggressions of the state and do not become the aggressor through you votes.
     
  4. raindeer667

    raindeer667 Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    vote for no war.

    and call it freedom, your right.

    wave a flag at it too
    vote, vote, vote...

    it seems if this is making changes then community action and organization is null?
     
  5. JesusCrust

    JesusCrust Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    It's better then doing nothing and waiting for a revolution to happen.

    I mean on certain things, voting could be a major factor in the fair treatment, and freedoms of people. I mean it's not like I'm making anything worse, just trying to better what we're all stuck with for now, until something drastic happens, and we all know thats not going to happen over night.
     
  6. ungovernable

    ungovernable Autonome Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Experienced member


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    Fuck vote, fuck reformism... A big waste of time...

    You vote to chose your master... now if you do that then you can't complaint about the system since you support it and you choose your master...

    The elections are a joke, it's like playing a game with someone who is cheating... After a while you will get sick of it and you will refuse to participate to the game anymore... Well that's exactly what is happenning with democracy and abstentionism.

    Like a famous french anarchist says, the only difference between dictatorship and democracy is that in democracy, you have the ILLUSION that your voice can change things.

    We don't need someone to take decisions in our place. And by the way there is NO political party representative of anarchism, even the green party or the democratic party. Voting is a total contradiction with anarchism. I never voted and will never do.

    By the way, who cares who get in power ? Who cares about changing thing and making the current system better ? that's called reformism. and reformism kill the revolutions.

    If you take a look at the history, peoples turn to alternatives like anti-capitalism only when things are going really bad, only when they realize that the current system isn't working anymore. The biggest rebellions only happens when the worst tyrans are in power.
    Spanish revolution happened because of dictator franco, cuban revolution was because of dictator batista, russian revolution was against the monarchy, china revolution was against the nationalists, etc etc etc...

    If you reform the system to make things better people will keep thinking the current system is working, and they will not turn to alternatives.
     
  7. JesusCrust

    JesusCrust Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    So basically, you're saying is that you'd selfishly allow things to get progressively worse, ruining thousands, maybe even millions of peoples lives in order to get a hop skip and a jump closer to the revolution. Let people get evicted and homes foreclosed, let millions go hungry everyday and die from lack of healthcare, just so you can self-righteously participate in your revolution?


    Kind of defeats the purpose of revolutionary thinking to me, I always thought the point was to better life for people and to help those less fortunate, I guess it's all so we can throw bricks through bank windows so we can drink our 40's in public with no paper bag.
     
  8. Anxiety69

    Anxiety69 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.
     
  9. JesusCrust

    JesusCrust Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Do you participate in Anti-war, Anti-Racist, and Anti-capitalist protests hoping that your voice will go unheard just so you can mindlessly riot? Or do you go in order to show that millions stand strong world wide against these things hoping that at the very least politicians will re-think their stand and do something about it?

    Idea's of revolution will always be, no one is free while others are oppressed will always ring in peoples ears. Common knowledge that the state is harmful not helpful will always be there as long as there is a state, but for the time being until the revolution happens you want others to remain oppressed just to fuel the fire that's already about to explode into a resistance against that status quo?
     
  10. JesusCrust

    JesusCrust Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Yeah, but doing nothing and letting the greater of two evils prevail is a much less logical idea, and I'm kind of off that topic now, I'm kind of going on about Ungovernable's idea of revolution, and the tactics in which he believes to go about it.
     
  11. Anxiety69

    Anxiety69 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    I'm sorry but nothing in the usa (or most countries) was ever changed by voting.
     
  12. JesusCrust

    JesusCrust Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Maybe not changed, but it has, and will prevent things from becoming worse, how about all the free-thinkers back down and let the right-wingers write and pass the rules, I'm not to down for that, you can vote against laws that remove civil liberties and escalate the power of the police state. If only the unintelligent and the irrational voted, laws like the patriot act will continue to be passed and hope for any sort of resistance will be lost do to the escalating power of police and government surveillance and control. The world is becoming more and more like 1984 and completely totalitarian everyday and that's due to brainwashed individuals voting against their civil liberties for a false sense of "security" they are promised. Soon there will be camera's on every street corner, and every phone will be tapped, and every anarchist gathering and website much like this one will be heavily watched, possiblities for organization diminished and the hope for revolution annihilated.
     
  13. ungovernable

    ungovernable Autonome Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Experienced member


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    No, i'm saying i don't care and i see the capitalist system as the source of all problems you have quoted, so i refuse to participate to this system.

    If you vote for a party then you will be guilty of everything they do if they get elected, and i seriously don't support that.

    In canada and quebec, at the last elections we were close to 50% of abstention. This is sending a strong message to the government, and people start to realize that less and less persons believe in the efficiency of the election system.

    By the way, all partys have similar projects so it's all the same, and all the problems you have quoted would still exist with any party since none of them is anti-capitalist. Strategic votes is dumb and it's worthless. We live in a world where it's always the two or three same political partys who gets elected, this isn't democracy this is a two-party-system. And even is one party get less votes, it's just the other one thats going to be elected. It doesn't change anything. Partys like the green party will never get elected.

    Political partys are like smarties : they are different colour, but all taste the same.

    If i'm asked to chose between a cancer or a SIDA i will just say fuck off and refuse to chose, because the result is always the same : YOU DIE.

    And don't tell me that abstentionism is against revolution, this is definatly wrong since all anarchist philosophers are against voting.

    He voted yesterday, he will vote tomorrow, he will always vote. The sheep go to slaughter. They do not say anything, them, and they fear nothing. More stupid than beasts, more than herding sheep, the voter selects and appoints his butcher and selects his bourgeoisie. He made revolutions in order to acquire this right "(Octave Mirbeau. Strike Voter).

    "If elections could change anything, they would be prohibited"

    "The power must not be conquered, it must be destroyed" - Mikhail Bakunin

    "Until today you thought that the tyrans exists ? Well you were wrong, there is only slaves. Where nobody obey, nobody commands" - Anselme Belleguarrigue

    "Elections are parodies that use big words - democracy, the people, nation, republic, sovereignty - but who can barely conceal the cynicism of governments: it is for them to install and sustain a soft tyranny which produces a one-dimensional man - the consumer stupid and insane - worse than no dictatorship has ever managed to produce. " (Michel Onfray)

    "Make your voice heard, by not giving your voice!" - Alternative Libertaire

    "The fact to be able to elect your own masters doesn't change anything to the existence of masters or slaves" - Hebert Marcuse



    And a quote by one of my very favorite anarchist philosopher:

    "Anarchists are, as always, determined adversaries of parliamentary and parliamentary tactics.
    ... Opponent of the parliamentary struggle, because they think that far from promoting the development of popular consciousness, it tends to make the people forget about taking care of the problems by themselves, it accustom the people to address itself directly to its own interests and it is a school of servility for some, and lies to others.
    We must ensure that workers get used now and as far as possible, to resolve themselves their own affairs and problems, through associations of different types and not the tendency to rely on others.
    We do not want people to get used to send their friends to power, or wait for the emancipation of their accession to power.

    Everywhere we defend the consciousness abstention, without worrying whether it can support a particular candidate, make things better or worse. For us, this is not the candidate that matters, since we do not believe it is useful to send "good members" what matters is the manifestation of the state of spirit in which people find themselves, and among the thousand and odd states of mind in which a voter may be, the best is the one who makes him realize the futility and danger of the deputies in parliament, and who drives him to work for him what he wants directly (the revolution - not the reforms), in partnership with all those who have the same desires as he.
    Parliamentary action, in our opinion, accustoms the the people to expect that his own emancipation will come from above and prepare him for slavery.
    We want the people to be truly sovereign, we have every interest in preventing it takes seriously sovereignty of cardboard, and content hthemselves with it. "

    Errico Malatesta 1898
     
  14. ungovernable

    ungovernable Autonome Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Experienced member


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    and another quote.... (sorry, google translator)




    The issue of elections

    Ph. Corcuff wrote: "Why put the border priori, permanently, on the side of electoral and parliamentary institutions? Why would they be more corrupt that participation in paid employment, consumption, executives existing family, school, etc.. ?.

    I think I have shown above, how the use of democratic processes is likely to sterilize the social movements. I also recall that the refusal of electioneering is a founding principle of the anarchist movement, a key element of its identity because it is precisely on this point they are separated from social democracy. Anarchists have been excluded from the first international in 1872, the Hague Congress, because they had refused an article of incorporation stating that "the conquest of political power becomes the great duty of the proletariat" (7). One of the excluded and Mr. Bakunin explained the differences between the two socialist tendencies "one and the other party also want to create a new social order based solely on the organization of collective work, (. ..) economic playing field for all, (...) and the collective ownership of tools. Only the Communists [state] think they can achieve this by developing and organizing the political power of the working classes and especially the urban proletariat, with the help of bourgeois radicalism, while socialist revolutionaries, enemies of all alloys and clear of any alliance, think, instead, they can achieve this only through the development and organization of the power not political, but social, and therefore anti-political , the working masses of both town and country ... "(8).

    Later, the anarchists took part in the first four of the 2nd international conference where they continued their fight against electioneering. The London Congress in 1896 sanctioned their final expulsion by requiring that henceforth allowed only organizations recognizing "the need for legislative action and parliamentary" (9).

    Proudhon often seen as the father of anarchism. In my case, I prefer the figure of Reclus also considered "one of the leading thinkers of the libertarian movement (10) and was the first convener of the French anarchists. Long before Roberto Michels, Reclus had stressed the democratic mechanisms rob voters to elect. Reclus argued that universal suffrage has "increased the hideous politiqueurs class, who make a business of living their speech, courting voters at first, then when they are in place (...) beggar places, sinecures and Pension ...». He noted that "until now our job to vote merely consisted recruit enemies among those who call themselves our friends" (11). At the time of sentencing for illegal catches of interest and other abuses of social goods, these few sentences of the famous geographer still ring true. Today the "democracy" is so disappointed that it endangers through its own mechanisms.
     
  15. ungovernable

    ungovernable Autonome Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Experienced member


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    And also the USA and canadian democratic system is fucking bullshit. There are alternative that could be better, like in france the elections are divided in three turn... each turn a party is elected, and on the third turn there is only two partys left... So this is a way to avoid having far-right partys to take the power... For example recently the National Front got to the third turn, but then a lot of peoples stood up and voted for the opposite party to counter the National Front... If the elections had only one turn they wouldnt have been able to do this...
    And i'm not even talking about all the progress that has to be made in representative parliment democracy....

    it's a long long subject...
     
  16. QueerPunk

    QueerPunk Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Who said anything about waiting...? All the bullshit you hear about 'after the revolution' is just Trotskyist crap.

    Make shit happen in your own community, organise, subvert and take action.

    Voting will do nothing.

    As the famous Emma Goldman quote goes: "If voting changed anything they would have made it illegal."
     
  17. ungovernable

    ungovernable Autonome Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Experienced member


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    yeah, that's what i was trying to quote with my bad english :p
     
  18. Arjay691

    Arjay691 Experienced Member Experienced member


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    :thumbsup:


    And why would we be waiting for a revolution?
    We're not waiting, this very forum proves that no one here is waiting for a revolution.
    Ever hear of "The Battle In Seattle?" The riots over that completely collapsed the WTO Conference of 1999. Those people weren't waiting for revolution.
    The Pittsburgh WTO riots as well.
    Everything we do as Anarchists to try to wake people up and realize that by serving our political masters, just as well as their spiritual masters, is doing nothing for their freedom but supressing it proves that we aren't "waiting" for a revolution. We might be slowing stirring a revolution, but we are definitely not waiting for one.
     
  19. Anxiety69

    Anxiety69 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oh it's nice to know where that came from, I always attributed it to ALternative, cause it's spraypainted on a wall in a pic on their In Nomine Patri Ep.

    Another great Emma Goldman Quote, "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution."

    Shit who's waiting for after a revolution, I participate here in hopes of starting one.
     
  20. ungovernable

    ungovernable Autonome Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Experienced member


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