Americans, You Need To Vote

[Samantha]

As a CANADIAN, I encourage all of you AMERICANS to go out and vote to put Bush and his Motherfuckin' gang out on the lawn. Enough is Enough. I know that there isn't one person on this site voting for Bush, I know so....

Bush Is...

An Idiot
A Motherfucking liar
The Wrongly selected President of the United States of America
An ignorant asshole portraying that he wants to "help the people", who's head is he fucking with?

Americans and the WORLD can't TRUST someone who stole the presidency! So don't let him get away with it this time.

BUSH is incapable, and always was of leading the American people and the most dominate nation in the world. A vote for Bush isn't a vote at all.

So here is how it goes, RESIST BUSH AND HIS ILLEGITIMATE OCCUPATION OF THE WHITE HOUSE! When voting time comes around, make sure you are registered and vote that ***** right back from wherever the hell he came from. Make your voice heard!

If you don't like Bush, and you have expressed that through words, express it through your vote at this year's upcoming election.

-- "Words that do not match deeds are unimportant."
Ernesto Che Guevara

PEACE. ONE LOVE.

[seen_che]

this desition will effect many people do the right thing.... :P

PEACE

[RevolutionNow]

Thanks for the post man as an American I really appreciate a Canadian who is concerned with our struggle. This will be my first time voting im 17 and, I will be 18 come november so I look forword to voting "The Idiot Son Of An Asshole" out of office. :)

[truthaddict11]

are we going to have do deal with this get out and vote crap the rest of the year? and the likely backlash if Bush "wins"
and just for your knowledge every single damn "leader" ever "elected" has "stolen" the "election", the working class is robbed every single time. Bush is no different nor will any future "elected" "leader".
We have several several threads on the 2004 "election" please use those!

[MiniOswald]

realisticly speaking mr truthaddict is right on this one, bush stole his first term and he'll steal this one too

[truthaddict11]

i think you missed my point, as long as the bourgeosie "elections" are around the the bourgeosie will steal the "election" every damn time, Wall Street controls america not the people. The only way for real change to happen is through direct action.

[Samantha]

If you are going to lose, what are you prepared to do about it? Not vote because it doesn't matter anyways? What are you going to do? Instead of voicing your opinion in a national forum you are going to entertain all the ways you were conned by the Bush Administration? It makes no sense. It kills me, because it is the people who don't vote are the ones that gripe the most about those in "power". There is no real "choice", but choose the one better than the other. Do what you can, where you can, when you can and REMEMBER, it is the people who liberate themselves. So when we are prepared to stand together and UNITE (it is about fucking time), we do what we can, something we know will have true impact, and in my opinion, that is vote.

PEACE. ONE LOVE.

[James]

i think all americans who post on here are relatively "politically aware", and are going to vote.

Although i don't really think Kerry is a saint... I wanted Edwards.
Edwards for president!

Look at the coming UK elections though. We are just as buggered. Labour can't really carry on for another term, its bad for government (a new government is a good thing after so-so years).
- Blair is a bastard.
- Kennedy is a wasted vote; and just as bad.
- Howard - well... don't think we need another Thatcher government
- other parties - see "Kennedy" option

[RevolutionNow]

Lol I don't know about you guys but im voting for Jesse Ventura in 2008 pres election. :lol:

[Commie Girl]

:) Here is a site to help with your anyone but bu$h vote! (http://www.notbush.com/)

[BuyOurEverything]

Samantha (and all the other ABBers): I assume that by 'voting against Bush,' you mean voting for Kerry. Any sane person can see that Kerry is as much a corporate whore as Bush. You view our opinion on American politics as a defeatist attitude. I beg to differ. I think that voting for someone who is just as bad as the current president, while telling yourself that you have no other choice is much more defeatist. What will you do when Kerry wins and we're still spending billions of dollars to butcher Iraqis, homosexuals are still oppressed, American (and Canadian) workers are still living on shit pay, and wetern economic imerialism is still decimating impoverished countries? Celebrate? Tell yourself that at least it's not a republican in power? I say fuck that.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

i would if i was old enough :(

[struct]

Don't vote, Organize!

We say to everyone who agrees with us that there is something very wrong with this system: don't vote, organize!

All our lives Amerika teaches us that we live in a democracy. Part of this so-called democracy includes everyone having the right to vote so that we can decide who will have the power to make decisions about local, state, Federal, and international issues. We have been taught that this is the greatest and most democratic country on earth.

Some of us learn that this democracy does not work for kids growing up in the projects where basic education is not a right that everyone has. And in neighborhoods where people are shot at by the cops for being Black or Latino, democracy starts looking like it is only for some people. We also need only look at the criminal injustice system and see the disproportionate conviction of Blacks and Latinos to know that this so-called democracy is not for everyone.

When we look around the world at all the countries that Amerika invades, or countries in which Amerika installs puppet dictators, murdering or overthrowing popularly elected leaders, this democracy doesn't work. And when we look at countries where Amerikan corporations use the cheap labor of the starving people and steal the natural resources because puppet dictators have enacted laws saying this is OK, we know that's not democracy for the oppressed.

People in these countries did not vote for Amerikan imperialism to invade their country. They did not vote for Amerikan imperialism to install a puppet dictator. They did not vote to allow the CIA in to kill off the revolutionaries and keep the dictators in line. And they certainly did not vote to starve to death, to die from preventable diseases, to die in labor because the medical facilities are only open to people who can pay, or to die fighting a war against the imperialists over whether wealthy Amerikans get to exploit their country or whether they themselves can take control. When we see all of this we know that democracy is only for the few.

We live under an imperialist government. This government receives donations from multinational corporations as well as political lobbying groups that have lots of money. The corporations, the CIA, and the military industrial complex are all very powerful parts of the government that don't answer to anyone and they force the "elected" officials to answer to them. As long as these institutions of imperialism exist, an individual elected to president, senator, representative or governor is not going to make a difference.

In fact, as long as we live under this imperialist system the only people who can even run for office are the people who already have the support of these wealthy, powerful organizations. It takes a lot of money to run an electoral campaign. So even if you had wonderful ideas and a brilliant plan that you thought all of the people of this country would support, it would not matter because you couldn't get elected unless you were independently wealthy (like Ross Perot), and if you were independently wealthy it came at the expense of the international proletariat and you probably have no interest in the oppressed (like Ross Perot).

PROGRESSIVE PEOPLE VOTING?

Many progressives organize around elections because they believe that this is the way to make change. These people genuinely want change, both inside and outside of this country. But they are convinced that there is no alternative for action and they believe that democracy works.

Living in this country it is tempting to believe in voting. It is easy to ignore the plight of the rest of the world and just focus on problems at "home." And if you really think narrowly and you are a part of the very large white middle class, you might vote for the president/senator/representative who does not want to cut Medicare so that when you retire you will be better off than if the other guy wins.

The fact is that there are differences between candidates, but these differences are very minor and generally come down to tactical tweaks in domestic policy issues that benefit one section of the middle class or the other. For all the people who believed that Clinton would be better for gays, this should be obvious. For all the people who thought that Clinton would be better for the poor, the imprisoned, the victims of police brutality, a quick look at the increase in numbers of cops and prisons under Clinton should also make it clear that the Democrats are not really different from the Republicans.

WHAT ABOUT LOCAL ELECTIONS?

A lot of people who agree with us that voting for a president, representative or senator does not mean anything, still organize around state level elections. They believe that by working on a more local scale, they will be able to exert slow steady pressure for change. A recent conversation with a woman who is very active in local electoral work makes this clear. She kept pointing out the great work done by a woman in the state senate. When it was pointed out that this state Senator has never taken a stand on imperialism and the gross things that Amerika does around the world the woman responded that "of course she hasn't because that would cause her to lose her legitimacy". But we don't even have to look so far away at international policy, we can see that these same officials don't take progressive stands on prisons and instead vote to build more prisons and put more cops on the streets to put more Blacks and Latinos in prison.

It is possible that in elections to city hall, some small battles can be won locally that won't mislead people into believing that electoralism works within the non-democracy of Amerika. For instance, if there were several candidates running for city hall who supported putting up public bulletin boards all over town and making public space available for revolutionaries to hold educational events, it might be worth supporting them. But we should never confuse these potentially winnable battles with support for candidates who operate at the state or continental level and who support imperialism both in words and in practice.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

Many people believe that the advances made in the past century for women, national minorities, and others in our society were the result of the electoral power of these groups. But in fact, most of the progressive reforms won in this country in the past century were the result of organizing and agitation outside of the electoral arena. Just think back to the Black civil rights movement and remember the role the Black Panther Party played, outside of the ballot box, in forcing the government to make concessions out of fear of this armed revolutionary organization.

Unfortunately there is no tidy little alternative to the bourgeoisie's vote. The vote is so appealing because it only takes a few minutes in a ballot box once a year (or once every 4 years). But real change does not come easy. MIM and RAIL are working to educate people about the effects of imperialism and to organize people for the only way in which progressive change is possible: revolutionary struggle. This means that we fight winnable battles against things like prison repression, police brutality and other reactionary policies. But at the same time we organize for a larger movement against imperialism.

Even before winning the revolution there is a lot that this movement can achieve. The article in this issue about the Massachusetts prisoners released from Texas prisons back to MA is one example of a battle recently won through agitation outside of the ballot box. There are many more such battles that need to be taken on by progressives.

Don't vote for the imperialists! Organize against the imperialists!

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/elections/dontvote.html

[Morpheus]

Kerry is more of a warmonger than Bush. He voted for the war and for NAFTA. He called for sending 40,000 more troops to Iraq and openly says he'll be more of a "war president" (ie. warmonger) than Bush.

[James]

openly says he'll be more of a "war president" (ie. warmonger) than Bush.



Please can we have some links?
(i wouldn't be surprised if he'd said that he'd deal with the war better - i.e. he'd be a better war president)

[redstar2000]

MIM and RAIL are working to educate people about the effects of imperialism and to organize people for the only way in which progressive change is possible: revolutionary struggle.

A "plug" for MIM (Maoist Internationalist Movement) cannot pass without response.

Mickey-Maoists (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083851178&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

What they mean by "progressive change" and "revolutionary struggle" has to be seen to be believed...think Pol Pot.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas