Half of the eligible voters in America do not vote.
More than half of America does not vote in Mid Terms.
Not voting does not equal a protest, it equals fading into the wall paper and allowing others to decide your fate….and the fate of the poor….and the fate of Iraqis and Afghans….and now the fate of the planet itself.
It does NOT register as a protest to The Powers That Be.
It registers a victory for The Powers That Be.
The less The People participate in the one way we have left to us to alter or at least affect the world, the more the The Powers That Be rub their hands together in glee.
I understand the impulse, I understand the anger, the despair, the feeling of powerlessness and the urge to send a message. I didn’t vote in 1984, lol, in disgust at what America had become, voting for a freaking ACTOR, fer gawds sake. And a bad one at that.
My not voting, my not participating, did not make one whit of difference. In fact things only got progressively (pun intended) worse.
My participating, my making my voice heard, my voting…..makes about exactly one whit of difference. And that one whit is good enough for me.
If you do not vote, no one anywhere will notice.
If, however, you start a movement, write a petition, post diaries, make a web site, make a FUSS ….about why you are choosing to protest the system by not voting……maybe someone WILL notice.
Personally I think it is bad, bad strategy to do exactly what “they” want.
And what they want is to drive as many people out of the political process as possible so that they can run roughshod over everything we hold dear.
On the other hand I can completely empathize with and understand the impulse.
But allow me to reiterate what I think is the most important point. Half the people in America already don’t vote.
You not voting will not be taken as a protest.
If it is noticed at all….
It will be taken as a victory.
It will not be noticed except as further evidence that the American People have given up and that “they” have won. It will have exactly no effect other than that.
You starting or participating in a movement to withhold your vote…..and your money….will be noticed, will have an effect, will make at least a whit of difference.
I am not going to condemn anyone for not participating on principle in a system so obviously corrupt. Your vote is yours, do what you feel is right.
My nose is permanently black and blue from holding it every two years to vote for Democrats, for the lesser of two evils.
But I am damned if I am going to let “them” drive ME out of the system.
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I will probably vote Green or Socialist.
will i withhold my vote.
but i tell all those damn beggar-dogs who call not one more penny until y’all start doing your job
on these newfangled electronic voting machines?
you think Im kidding? I am not.
between millions of people not voting for a particular party, and millions of people saying loud and clear to that party: “we guarantee will give you millions of votes, more than enough to tip the scale…… once you have done a or b or c or d or any combination of those things, and as soon as we see that you’ve done that you can relax in the confidence that you have won even before election day arrives, otherwise you’ve already lost and you might as well tell your corporate donors now that their money has been pissed away for absolutely nothing and that you were an utter and pathetic waste of their time, and quit campaigning”.
It takes planning, and it takes a determination to make decisions not out of fear but out of the power and leverage you know you have, but have only if you use it.
The best that can happen with this approach is beyond your wildest dreams, and the worst that can happen with this is that if nobody else does it while you do you won’t be defending yourself after the fact for having voted for people who could have done their jobs but wouldn’t.
what if none of the candidates are hot enough lookin’ to deserve my vote? And don’t say “Eugene V. Debs” again because that dog ain’t gonna hunt.
like a small voter pool as it is easier to manipulate and spin the results. They also get to appeal to the most fearful/cowardly or the people who are partisan loyalists and the really low information voter. They can claim that they have political capital or a mandate from the voters. I have always voted but I will not cast my vote out fear again. Sad thing is that when the Democrat’s lose as in MA with the truck driving asshole they always use it as an excuse for even a harder right turn. Too bad that a majority is useless once they are in office. Kinda of makes voting surreal and an exercise in futility. The last movement I participated in won but lost. I’ll be damned if I’ll let them push me out.
I would register as an Indie but primaries especially local ones are the only real chance I get to actually chose anyone who isn’t a put up corporate job. I have candidates down ballot who I worked hard to get elected and punishing them for being Democratic won’t help at all. I no longer adhere to the don’t throw your vote away on unelectable candidates or challengers theory. I get called a Nadarite all the time, when I wouldn’t vote for him as he creeped me out, so fuck that, What a waste to vote for who the machine tells you is electable when the candidates they back and fund won’t do you a damn bit of good once they get your vote. I’m voting for getting rid of the Pentagon, Canadian Health Care and Kucinich although he’s not really left enough for me.
but after Nixon and then Reagan, I realized that the candidate no longer mattered. Both parties are flawed but, in Illinois, there hasn’t been a good Republican since Charles Percy and they have only gotten worse.
Now, I have taken an oath to never vote Republican again because of the disaster of 8 years of Bush. We may not recover under Democratic leadership, but I’ll be damned if I ever give a vote to any Republican for supporting Bush.
“Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil”
– Jerry Garcia
Babylon system is tilted against We The People.
I don’t need to be pushed out of a system that is turning into a political LaBrea tar pit. Trapped and powerless to effect the course of events in that trap is not where I want to be. Both my intellectual and intuitive side have been sending up warning alarms “Total System Failure! Total System Failure!” for quite some time now.
And as to making a movement out of it? That’s precisely why I attended the Northeast Anarchist Network assembly last month, and am an active participant in one of the working groups that emerged from that gathering.
and we validate it every time we play.
If I have no Socialist Candidate? I either won’t vote, or I will write in Chjvez, or something equally enraging to them.
I will never, ever vote Dem again.
It’s the Democrats that have done the most to destroy third parties in the US.
A third party vote is a protest vote, no vote at all is also a protest vote, and why does whether the MSM recognize that fact have any bearing on this or any other issue?
If you’re a progressive that votes, it should be for a third party, or Mickey Mouse. But, they don’t have to count those votes in most places–and they don’t. What kind of a vote is it if it’s not counted?
The sound of one hand clapping?
I agree though that not voting should be campaign, not just another excuse to do nothing.
Yell it from the rooftops. Picket the polling places with signs–saying why a vote ‘choosing’ between 2 right of center candidates put in place by corporate (or their own) money is not a real option for change.
Like any campaign for public opinion it makes little sense if one doesn’t explain it well.
one whit