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Do you vote?
Simple question, do you vote and why/why not? Also where do you live (for context).
Me, UK, Yes, Labour reason I like their policies on relaxing austerity.
No, voting does nothing in the United States. Your vote often goes nowhere and the national bourgeoisie already has decided upon their candidate to be their cheerleader. Voting is a sham, and an illusion of freedom and democracy in the United States. Your vote goes nowhere pretty much in every bourgeois democracy.
"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first free-thinker and emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge." ~Mikhail Bakunin
Why would any class conscious proletarian vote for their bourgeois rulers, when their agenda is all the same? Voting is for suckers.
Yes, to support some comrades and to get cool leaflets. Not necessarily in that order.
EDIT: and, of course, voting is mandatory here. So unless I'm willing to pay a small bill, I'd better vote.
Last edited by motion denied; 21st January 2014 at 00:11.
"We have seen: a social revolution possesses a total point of view because – even if it is confined to only one factory district – it represents a protest by man against a dehumanized life" - Marx
"But to push ahead to the victory of socialism we need a strong, activist, educated proletariat, and masses whose power lies in intellectual culture as well as numbers." - Luxemburg
fka the greatest Czech player of all time, aka Pavel Nedved
Don't you guys have far left wing parties, or is it democracy itself that you contest, many on this website seem comfortable with democratic socialism.
There are no far left wing parties, the CPUSA sucks, the Green Party is anticommunist, and other parties are way too small or are revisionist, or aren't even communist. Direct democracy is the only kind of democracy that can exist and socialism is an extension of democracy. Democracy is not what you're thinking it is, also bourgeois democracy is the democracy that prevails in the large capitalist dictatorships. It's democracy for the capitalists and corporations, not the proletariat.
"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first free-thinker and emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge." ~Mikhail Bakunin
Nope.
bourgeois democracy, yes we contest it. Because it is nothing but a sham. The state is an organ of class oppression.
Also, the term democratic socialism, is a bit redundant. Democracy needs socialism, and socialism must be democratic or isn't socialism at all.
Why don't you set up a communist party? That way you'd have a party to rally around and build support for your movement, I'd be a Marxist if I thought I could be at the head of the proletariat dictatorship but if you refuse to engage in democracy you will never get there in your life time, I can almost guarantee that, I think that the left shoots itself in the foot and if you really believe in your ideology you should consider backtracking a bit so you can move closer to realizing it.
I don't vote because it is pointless, and because I don't want to give legitimacy to the government and/or representative democracy. Regardless of who I vote for, the very act of voting gives legitimacy to whoever wins the election. When leftists advocate voting, they are implicitly arguing that people should give control over their lives to a representative (who of course doesn't share their interests) which is exactly the opposite of what we want to advocate. Energy would be better spent organising in the workplace and the community, encouraging and empowering people.
"Her development, her freedom, her independence must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children unless she wants them; by refusing to become a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc. ... by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life-giving; a creator of free men and women."~ Emma Goldman
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yeah out of habbit, but i know its useless and unimportent.
there are tons of "far-left" partys all over the world who participate in elections, yet the point is that a revolution will destroy the state and not just put another useless party in power. cause the state is a tool of class opression and stays that way even if "far-left" partys are in power.
also you couldnt be the head of a proletarian dictatorhsip, cause its a class dictatorship and not a party dictatorship
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
Setting up a communist party in my area would draw no one. It would do nothing because there are way too many conservatives and I do not want to draw attention to myself like that. Having a party would be good, but you cannot have leaders of a party, the socialist party will be a party of the people and the people do not need bosses, they can lead themselves. Proletariat dictatorship? You do realize we wish to get rid of dictatorships and when socialism is achieved there will be no hierarchies, right? Having a party I will not be the leader, and no one else will because socialists do not wish to rule nor do they wish to be ruled. I don't think you know what socialism is, and what a real socialist party would be like. Also fuck parties tbh, that's a bourgeois thing. Often parties are very hierarchal.
"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first free-thinker and emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge." ~Mikhail Bakunin
I think this post is a good sum-up
but there is something to be said about getting this message out to the people. Most people aren't aware of this reason to abstain. Imagine if there was a campaign to write on the ballot "This is a sham" if millions or even hundreds of thousands partook. It would be a huge media event and could raise a lot of energy in the right directions.
There is something to be said that the revolutionary left is not the best at publicity or getting our message across. And it's such a ridiciliously good one lol
He doesn't even understand capitalism, the system he advocates for, much less communism.
I vote, on occasion, however, I only vote for candidates in races that are too close to call, which means I don't do it very often. I'm mostly interested in ballot initiatives, for example, over the past few years, we decriminalized cannabis, then, recently, legalized medicinal cannabis, here, in Massachusetts, and now there's an effort underway to introduce another ballot initiative to legalize recreational consumption of cannabis, which, I expect, will happen in the not-too-distant future.
Personally, I think categorically abstaining from elections is pretty dumb. There's really no way an ideologically consistent socialist could be neutral on something that directly affects the working class.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
I vote. Liberal democray is a sham and I don't agree with the idea that electing officials to run the government for us is a good way of going about things. Indeed, direct democracy is the only way to go in my opinion.
However, In my country voting is mandatory so honestly even an anarchist has no reason not to participate because the system makes it so that his vote will go to the party with the highest number of votes if they don't take part. In practice that means you're vote will go to either the nationalists or the christian democrats in my country. Neither of those are an option for me.
I'm not an anarchist though (even though I sympathize with their ideals) so even if this wasn't the case I'd still vote. We've got a few good radical left parties here who could use some MP seats as a platform to spread their ideas. Having said that, reformism shouldn't be an end in itself. Making changes to a capitalist system from a position in the government to eventually make it socialist (the original goal of social democrats) isn't realistic. I do support reforms if they can help people, that's why I became a socialist after all but I don't think it will get us where we want to go.
Living in the area I do, the furthest party to the left who run in elections are Labour. And for numerous, obvious reasons I would never vote for them.
What was that quote again... 'if voting actually changed anything, they'd make it illegal'.... or something along those lines
Exactly, voting is a sham. That's a good quote btw.
"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first free-thinker and emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge." ~Mikhail Bakunin
Vote for Labour. Remember new labour, new Britain, the poor are suffering under the coalition government.
A lot of folks don't think parliamentary politics are an effective route to get where we need to be (the overthrow of capitalism). And I agree with that to an extent -- we aim to smash the state (even us Marxists), not just have a nominally socialist or communist party at the head of it.
At the same time I feel like ignoring that aspect of the political struggle there is a bad idea and would probably support a communist party that was playing the long game, refused municipal positions and coalitions, and recognized that the political struggle goes way, way beyond the success of the party in an election.
But no such party exists. So no, I don't vote.
I'm on some sickle-hammer shit
Collective Bruce Banner shit
FKA: #FF0000, AKA Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
It bugs me every time.
But presently, the two parties that dominate my country's politics are so alike that I doubt it would make such a difference (if any).
"We have seen: a social revolution possesses a total point of view because – even if it is confined to only one factory district – it represents a protest by man against a dehumanized life" - Marx
"But to push ahead to the victory of socialism we need a strong, activist, educated proletariat, and masses whose power lies in intellectual culture as well as numbers." - Luxemburg
fka the greatest Czech player of all time, aka Pavel Nedved
