US Election: Indecision 2012!!

[Engel]

Thoughts on how to use my vote the next election? It will be the first time I am able to vote but both parties do nothing but suck up to the bourgeois business class. And I don't event want to start on the "Jesus for president" sect of both parties. That's the thing that sucks about a two-party system. Those are you're only choices. :glare:

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The purpose of a socialist voting in a bourgeois election is to raise class consciousness and to help build a movement. I voted for Nader last time, mainly as a talking point in case someone asked me who I voted for. Cynthia McKinney may have been better, although she has been acting strange and largely discredited herself.

If there is a broadly based radical leftist candidate, vote for them. Otherwise put Bernie Sanders in as a write in. Bernie would be the perfect candidate-he has public recognition and since he's already in office the corporate media has to give him at least some coverage. Alas, he has said he's not interested in running.

It might actually be good if Obamanation is reelected (although a leftist should never give him any support) because this would discredit the Dems even more, one of most important tasks leftists face.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Thoughts on how to use my vote the next election?

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1386/1433817953_1344a4528d.jpg

[Zav]

Thoughts on how to use my vote the next election? It will be the first time I am able to vote but both parties do nothing but suck up to the bourgeois business class. And I don't event want to start on the "Jesus for president" sect of both parties. That's the thing that sucks about a two-party system. Those are you're only choices. :glare:
If you don't like the system, then don't perpetuate it by voting.

[Crux]

If you don't like the system, then don't perpetuate it by voting.
The problem though is, the system isn't perpetuated by voting.

[thefinalmarch]

Vote for Obama - I understand our comrades at the RCP will be supporting him.

[Le Socialiste]

Participation in bourgeois elections can't (and won't) alter the basic functions and responsibilities of the government. The political and financial elite tolerate it for the sole purpose of providing the illusion of democracy, without which they'd be completely exposed. As Emma Goldman put it, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

[Tablo]

Never voted and never plan to. I don't see any point in it.

[Bardo]

Voting isn't revolutionary. It's not intended to be revolutionary and it never will be revolutionary. However, staying home and refusing to be counted isn't something I can endorse. If you're going to waste a vote either way, waste it on a socialist party.

[Engel]

Vote for Obama - I understand our comrades at the RCP will be supporting him.

Though I support our comrades at the RCP, I still view Marxism as the only pure form of communism. Besides, I'm put out with Obama on personal grounds. I'm a transgenderist and I wanted more advancements in ending discrimination, and all that happened was DADT got repealed! I think that anyone joining the army is just signing up to protect the status quo if there ever was a revolution here. :mad:

Just my 2 cents.

[Le Socialiste]

I had to learn about the farce that is our "democratic" system the hard way. After using my first ever vote on Obama, I quickly realized the true nature of how this state is organized. I haven't voted since.

[thefinalmarch]

Though I support our comrades at the RCP, I still view Marxism as the only pure form of communism. Besides, I'm put out with Obama on personal grounds. I'm a transgenderist and I wanted more advancements in ending discrimination, and all that happened was DADT got repealed! I think that anyone joining the army is just signing up to protect the status quo if there ever was a revolution here. :mad:

Just my 2 cents.
It appears you have yet to get used to revleft's style of sarcasm and humour :lol:

The RCP isn't exactly held in high regard here - probably due to its cult-like nature.

[thefinalmarch]

I haven't voted since.
Well that's kind of obvious. Aside from state elections, wasn't 2008 the last election anyway?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The CPUSA also supported Obama.Of course they are no longereven remotely communist.Until about ten years ago the RCP was officially homophobic, they felt that homosexuality was caused by the contradictions of capitalist society. They seem to be okay with it now.The RCP is not terribly popular on RevLeft, just look up "Bob Avakian" in the search function.

Voting can't change the system. Election time is when most people are conditioned to be more aware of politics, in our heavily de-politicized society. Most people on this forum know that voting doesn't matter but having said this, much of the population believes that their "right to vote" is something hard won and precious. We have to go with this.

Elections can be a legitimate way of explaining socialist ideas and attempting to build a movement. Nothing more, nothing less.You can explain to people that there can be an alternative to the "lesser of two evilism", there certainly has been in the past.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

much of the population believes that their "right to vote" is something hard won and precious. We have to go with this.

The majority of people in the U.S. don't vote.

Polls have shown that a majority of young people would trade their voting rights for life for an iPod.

So what other excuses do you have?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Also: “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.” - New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.htm?_r=1)

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The majority of people in the U.S. don't vote.

Polls have shown that a majority of young people would trade their voting rights for life for an iPod.

So what other excuses do you have?

Its been the case for quite some time. In 2008 with Obamamania the voter turnout was 56.8 percent and there were higher numbers of people from demographic groups who usually don't vote.

Election time is when people have politics (a very circumscribed version) on the brain, even if they are outwardly (and rightfully) apathetic. People are bombarded with messages from the media that the circus means something.If the Florida primary is moved to January, which looks like it'll happen, this will go on even longer.People are rightfully sick of the charade and are increasingly facing nightmarish living conditions.
Voting doesn't lend legitimacy to the system, even if less then 10% of the population voted bourgeois democracy would continue.In the US an important role of the multi-billion dollar PR industry to is to provide the illusion of legitimacy.Abstention is not going to effect the Spectacle.

Groups who are marginalized, African-American, Native peoples and others historically see the right to vote as an important gain, even if this "right" isn't "exercised".

Why throw away this "teachable moment"?

Is it better to say to someone, "your vote is meaningless, why fall for this?" or is it better use elections as a way of bringing someone into socialist politics.

Elections of course are only a tiny part of what revolutionaries have to do. They can be a small part of a tool kit, and far from the most important part, but they shouldn't be dismissed.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Pick whoever has the coolest name.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Is it better to say to someone, "your vote is meaningless, why fall for this?" or is it better use elections as a way of bringing someone into socialist politics.

It depends what you want to do. I'm for the self emancipation of the working class. Your organization spent the last four presidential cycles trying to get anti-immigrant, anti-union professional politico Ralph Nader elected, first for the small time capitalist Green Party then later as an independent.

[eyeheartlenin]

I should clarify that what follows is exclusively my own opinion, not that of any organization I work with.

I wanted to respond to a couple of statements from one of the comrades:

"It might actually be good if Obamanation is reelected." With respect, I could not disagree more. Obama's probably inevitable re-election will be a catastrophe for US workers, just as his first term has been an continuing disaster for working people, with the 15.1% poverty rate, the highest since 1993, and a 9.1% official unemployment rate (which, according to a seemingly informed story on the web, equals 15.8% real un- and underemployment, which is, without a doubt, a genuine social crisis for our class). And may it never be forgotten that Obama was the Democrat who, in his tireless quest for "consensus" with the slash and burn Republicans in Congress, put Social Security and Medicare "on the table," that is, on the chopping block. If Obama gets his way, the age for Medicare eligibility will be raised from 65 to 67, as the Prez royally sticks it to millions of retirees (including yours truly). Under Obama's leadership, the US government recently committed itself to keeping GI's in Afghanistan for two more decades, thereby giving GW Bush's appalling war a new lease on life. The US working class does not deserve four more calamitous years of Obama's jobless "recovery."

In response to people's understandable disdain for voting, since nothing ever changes in this country, except for the worse, the same comrade writes, "Why throw away this 'teachable moment'"? A better question would be: "Why pander to people's illusions in voting?" Why not tell workers the truth about US "democracy," namely, that the elections are a shell game workers cannot win, a meaningless waste of time, While voting does not perpetuate capitalism, since Obama's class could govern without elections, if they desired, voting certainly legitimizes rule by the exploiters, and that is why the left should encourage abstention, pointing out to working people that, even when they vote the Democrats in, they still get Republican results, as proven beyond any doubt by what has been done to us during Obama's first term.

[Black_Rose]

Pick whoever has the coolest name.

Thanks for the advice! I guess I'll vote for Barack Obama again.

:laugh::lol:

[HEAD ICE]

Its been the case for quite some time. In 2008 with Obamamania the voter turnout was 56.8 percent and there were higher numbers of people from demographic groups who usually don't vote.

Election time is when people have politics (a very circumscribed version) on the brain, even if they are outwardly (and rightfully) apathetic. People are bombarded with messages from the media that the circus means something.If the Florida primary is moved to January, which looks like it'll happen, this will go on even longer.People are rightfully sick of the charade and are increasingly facing nightmarish living conditions.
Voting doesn't lend legitimacy to the system, even if less then 10% of the population voted bourgeois democracy would continue.In the US an important role of the multi-billion dollar PR industry to is to provide the illusion of legitimacy.Abstention is not going to effect the Spectacle.

Groups who are marginalized, African-American, Native peoples and others historically see the right to vote as an important gain, even if this "right" isn't "exercised".

Why throw away this "teachable moment"?

Is it better to say to someone, "your vote is meaningless, why fall for this?" or is it better use elections as a way of bringing someone into socialist politics.

Elections of course are only a tiny part of what revolutionaries have to do. They can be a small part of a tool kit, and far from the most important part, but they shouldn't be dismissed.

I don't see how advocating abstention and boycott of elections means "dismissing" it. That is revolutionaries using elections in a positive way. Advocating for a boycott (NOT apathy) requires you to be far more immersed within the class than standing and campaigning in an election. In fact I can't think of a way to make yourself anymore alien to the working class than running as a communist in an election to use it as a "tribune."

In fact the situation in the United States in regards to elections make the election tactic even less desirable than other countries. At least in countries with a parliamentary system if you get a small percentage you can get somebody to stand in parliament. That isn't the case in the United States. Oh, and advocating for a parliamentary system in the United States is not a "progressive demand", just to get that out of the way.

Of course the right to vote was an important gain, won solely through struggle. Any attempt to take away someone's voting rights should be fought against in the most ferocious way.

Sylvia Pankhurst, Helen Keller, and Emma Goldman were all "suffragists" (Pankhurst founding the Women's Suffrage Federation and the newspaper Women's Dreadnought, which she later renamed Workers' Socialist Federation and Workers' Dreadnought) yet advocated at the same time before and after women got the right to vote for abstaining from elections. The political struggle for the right to vote is not the same as saying that voting has power to alter society. Arguing for moving beyond the electoral charade is not "spitting on the legacy" of suffrage and the Civil Rights movement. It is hard for me to argue why it isn't because the argument itself doesn't make any sense.

That isn't to say running in elections is not at certain times a correct revolutionary strategy. The Internationalist Communist Party in Italy in 1943 participated in the new elections by the brand new bourgeois democratic state (because fascism failed to contain and defeat the working class, democracy made a return and crushed the working class far more effectively than all of the Blackshirts put together) because candidates were allowed equal time for campaigning as well as the fact that the situation in Italy at the time was potentially revolutionary.

What a shame we have communists who look at the apathy of voters in America and think "just if we can get them to vote for our worthless group" instead of trying to turn this distrust and disillusionment in the system towards an active and positive rejection of not just elections but bourgeois democracy.

[zenmaster]

Vote for whomever you think will cause the capitalist economy to collapse:

- Hawkish foreign policy to run up the military budget

- Support for laissez-faire economics leading to cuts in benefits and entitlement programs which will put people more in debt and on the streets.

- Support for increased security and invasion of privacy to make people more unhappy and distrustful of the government

- Support for free trade to put more people out of work

- The candidate should be intolerant and bigoted to the point where there's a good chance they'll marginalize minority groups.

[thefinalmarch]

Vote for whomever you think will cause the capitalist economy to collapse:

- Hawkish foreign policy to run up the military budget

- Support for laissez-faire economics leading to cuts in benefits and entitlement programs which will put people more in debt and on the streets.

- Support for increased security and invasion of privacy to make people more unhappy and distrustful of the government

- Support for free trade to put more people out of work

- The candidate should be intolerant and bigoted to the point where there's a good chance they'll marginalize minority groups.
Why does all this sound like a terrible idea? I can't quite put my finger on it...

[Mythbuster]

Thoughts on how to use my vote the next election? It will be the first time I am able to vote but both parties do nothing but suck up to the bourgeois business class. And I don't event want to start on the "Jesus for president" sect of both parties. That's the thing that sucks about a two-party system. Those are you're only choices. :glare:

Vote for the workers.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hAg8jtT177c/S4lnP8kvsLI/AAAAAAAABl4/UzGTTmMkyZU/s1600/2982.jpg

[#FF0000]

i'm not sure who i'm voting for yet. either bachman or perry or ron paul because that is how little i give a shit about voting

[#FF0000]

Vote for whomever you think will cause the capitalist economy to collapse:

- Hawkish foreign policy to run up the military budget

- Support for laissez-faire economics leading to cuts in benefits and entitlement programs which will put people more in debt and on the streets.

- Support for increased security and invasion of privacy to make people more unhappy and distrustful of the government

- Support for free trade to put more people out of work

- The candidate should be intolerant and bigoted to the point where there's a good chance they'll marginalize minority groups.

no

[socialistjustin]

I will vote for Perry because its hilarious listening to him use big words. He is even worse thsn Bush when it comes to that shit.

[socialistjustin]

no

But the working class will only develop a revolutionary mindset when they are starving and dying. Why dont people get this?

[zimmerwald1915]

But the working class will only develop a revolutionary mindset when they are starving and dying. Why dont people get this?
Because it's the opposite of what happens. Two things can happen to workers who are starving and dying. One, they can be pushed by their situation into acts of desperation, which may or may not take place on a class-wide scale and with a consciousness of acting as a class. Or two, they can be totally cowed by their situation, defeated and crushed by the success of the bourgeoisie's campaign against them.

Oh, were you being sarcastic?:unsure:

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Vote for an ass or a bigger ass. Maybe the bigger ass, as that will just lead to a collapse of American capitalism sooner.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Ron Paul 2012 baby. Time to make America great again.

But no, I will not be voting. People throughout history have known what a sham voting is in an "unfree society", from the Stoics in ancient Greece all the way to the present day. That saying of Emma Goldman's is especially significant if one considers that she, as a 1st wave feminist, lived through the suffrage movement and the battle for women's right to vote.

An argument could be made, I suppose, for strategic voting on local measures that will actually significantly effect the voter, but the presidential elections have always been and will always be a sham for anyone seeking real change.

[socialistjustin]

Because it's the opposite of what happens. Two things can happen to workers who are starving and dying. One, they can be pushed by their situation into acts of desperation, which may or may not take place on a class-wide scale and with a consciousness of acting as a class. Or two, they can be totally cowed by their situation, defeated and crushed by the success of the bourgeoisie's campaign against them.

Oh, were you being sarcastic?:unsure:

Sarcasm.

[Catma]

Vote for [/URL]Emperor Norton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton). 10,000,000 times.


Anyone with about $10, physical access to a Diebold voting machine and rudimentary knowledge of electronics can remotely hack into the device, according to experts (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/elections/2011/09/27/votinghack) at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. A hacker could potentially change a person’s votes without them ever knowing about it.

[url]http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/diebold-voting-machines-hacked-with-10-in-parts/

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The reelection of Obama will be disastrous for the working class. I was not trying to imply otherwise. On the other hand, the election of any of Obama's Republican opponents will also be disastrous for the working class.Perhaps I was being a bit flippant, but Obama;s reelection will serve the valuable function of further discrediting the Democratic Party. If he loses we will have to fight against the myth of the lost cause."If only Obama had beaten Perry/Bachman/Christie in '12."

I understand the contempt for the electoral process. I haven't voted in a while myself. We all know bourgeoisie democracy is a crock. This is socialism 101, the first thing I learned when I became a Marxist. Just the same how do you tell people the system is a crock? Elections, especially local elections, provide a wedge. The point isn't to get some tiny socialist group elected, the point is to talk to people.


Boston is a blue collar town run by the medical/insurance complex and an avaricious university with the second highest endowment in the US.Working people, people of color, like everywhere are treated like shit. The group I'm in ran someone for the Boston city council a few years ago. We did extremely well-we got almost 2% of the vote. Seriously and more importantly we were able to talk to lots and lots of people about socialist ideas. We intervened in town meetings, citizen's groups. We did a huge amount of flyering. People where often shocked by our ideas. You mean there is an alternative? We were able to get people to think outside the Dem and old boy network political hegemony. It was a start. A very very small start but it was something.

Nader was a very inadequate bourgpis candidate. We all know this. His campaign provided a small space outside the Dems. All my friends abnd co-workers who were dissillusioned w/the system liked Nader. For better or worse he was THE ALTERNATIVE. Class consciousness is very low in the US and we have to start somewhere. But yeah, he was/is woefully inadequate.It was possible to recruit a lot of people to socialism though his campaign.

I'm not sure how popular Lenin is on this thread but the Bolsheviks did elect deputies to the Duma. They and their campaigns had an important role.

But yeah, if Bernie or Marc Luzzietti doesn't run, I'm going with Emperor Norton the VII. I'm gonna use my contacts with Anon to hack into a Diebold machine!

[zenmaster]

Sarcasm.

I don't think you quite understand. The recession will likely continue even during the reign of the next incumbent. If the next president is a right-winger, the people will be disenfranchised with both major parties, albeit the entire US government, and will begin searching for alternatives. I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but the October Revolution was a classic example of the conditions that can lead to a Leftist takeover. The standard of living for the Russian proletariat was horrible, but they still managed to mobilize and dismantle the Tsarist leadership. The same can happen in the US. Remember, we came very close to turning to Socialism during the Gilded Age and the Great Depression. So don't vote for Emperor Norton, vote for Emperor Nicholas II.

[eyeheartlenin]

In response to what was written previously:

About Obama: Factually, it wasn't any Republican President who put Social Security or Medicare on the chopping block. It wasn't Reagan or either of the Bushes. It was Obama, the pro-war, multi-millionaire "peace" candidate of the Democrats, elected, by the way, with the backing of several socialist groups (like both varieties of Freedom Road, whose comrades subsequently faced repression from the Obama administration), who is screwing retirees royally by raising the eligibility age for Medicare. It is a Democrat who is screwing us, not a Republican, just as it was a Democrat, Clinton, who abolished welfare as an entitlement. That is the role the Democrats play in US politics: because of working-class illusions in that party, they are far more able to roll back/destroy the scant remains of any social safety-net, than is the GOP. That is why a second term for Obama, with his endless war in Afghanistan, and with unbelievable rates of poverty and unemployment that we already see, will be an unspeakable misfortune for working people.

About Nader: Nader, a lifelong Democrat, BTW, is an anti-Mexican, union-busting, sanctimonious lawyer creep, and in the year 2000 campaign, it amazed me that the socialist groups backing Nader could not have cared less about his anti-labor record. Leftists who campaigned for Nader were, in fact, encouraging working people to put a bourgeois millionaire (reportedly worth $2.9 million at the time, which makes him even richer than his fellow Democrat Chomsky), who fired his own employees for successfully organizing a union, into the Oval Office. Unbelievable!

And, as far as the Bolsheviks are concerned, I bet they never campaigned to put plutocrats into the Duma.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Write-in a vote for yourself. At least you know it's a vote for a revolutionary. That's what I do when there's no revolutionary candidate for a given position.

[Engel]

I'm writing in "Mickey Mouse" and on the next census my religion will be "Jedi". Seriously though if the revolution ever happens in America it won't be at the ballots. It will be when people decide to vote with a bullet.

:hammersickle: :che: ¡Hasta la victoria siempre! :che: :hammersickle:

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Vote for whomever you think will cause the capitalist economy to collapse:

- Hawkish foreign policy to run up the military budget

- Support for laissez-faire economics leading to cuts in benefits and entitlement programs which will put people more in debt and on the streets.

- Support for increased security and invasion of privacy to make people more unhappy and distrustful of the government

- Support for free trade to put more people out of work

- The candidate should be intolerant and bigoted to the point where there's a good chance they'll marginalize minority groups.
by this logic, socialism would of already happened a few years ago under Bush. I hate the irrational logic behind "having it worse will make it better" We've had all these qualities in presidents the last few decades.

[Ocean Seal]

Write some awful vulgarity on the voting slip.

[Rufio]

Yeah, spoil your ballot at least. Not voting is also useless.

[OHumanista]

by this logic, socialism would of already happened a few years ago under Bush. I hate the irrational logic behind "having it worse will make it better" We've had all these qualities in presidents the last few decades.

This.
In Ron Paul's distopia capitalist would be nearly omnipotent, so a revolution would be terribly difficult to organise. The same is true for Perry's(and even more with Bachmman's) theocracy that would soon turn the ability to speak against what they think a crime.

Obama is shit, democrats are shit, but voting for those who seek our destruction won't work. The rise of fascism in the 30s utterly smashed all chances of revolutions inside their respective countries. It will not be different with rampant capitalism or theocracies.

[Engel]

This.
In Ron Paul's distopia capitalist would be nearly omnipotent, so a revolution would be terribly difficult to organise. The same is true for Perry's(and even more with Bachmman's) theocracy that would soon turn the ability to speak against what they think a crime.

Obama is shit, democrats are shit, but voting for those who seek our destruction won't work. The rise of fascism in the 30s utterly smashed all chances of revolutions inside their respective countries. It will not be different with rampant capitalism or theocracies.

Voting for someone in hopes that they will fail horribly and bring about the revolution is woefully unrealistic. The revolution will only happen when the American worker educates himself on the system they are currently stuck in and revolt against the bourgeois establishment.

[Dogs On Acid]

The only collective benefit in voting is:

-Raising consciousness
-Attempting at a few reforms

Otherwise it doesn't change shit.

[Coggeh]

The majority of people in the U.S. don't vote.

Polls have shown that a majority of young people would trade their voting rights for life for an iPod.

So what other excuses do you have?
Throw in a copy of Fifa 12 and you have yourself a deal ...

[Coggeh]

The only collective benefit in voting is:

-Raising consciousness
-Attempting at a few reforms

Otherwise it doesn't change shit.
Voting can be useful for exmaple to provide a platform for a workers rep to like you said raise consciousness but also gives a platform for campaigns and struggles. That seems a bit unreasonable in the US maybe, However in Ireland we've had decent success electorally and have been able to further struggles by workers using those platforms such as the GAMA turkish workers strike in ireland being a prime example.