Forum Post: We can't afford to entirely abandon the current political system.
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 6, 2011, 5:46 p.m. EST by Just1MoreVoice
(76)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
While I understand and even support the efforts of many in the OWS movement to do away with the current political system and replace it with something more appropriate to our times and technological level, I think it would be foolhardy to put all our eggs into that one basket. Until that system actually exists and can be shown to be effective, it is vital that everyone continue to be involved in the established system.
You may think that everyone in the current system is bought and paid for, and perhaps that is true, but at least put your assertion to the test. Vote.
If the resultant Congress (both houses) are controlled by the same party as the President, then we will see just who is bought and who isn't. We have seen how the blue dog Dems sided with the Republicans during the first two years of Obama's term to lock up the process so we know that politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt. I suggest we look at the current crop of candidates very closely and vet them carefully.
The 99% have the power to rise up with one voice to say "We are not going to put up with corrupt politicians any longer, and if your actions reveal you are bought and paid for then you will be replaced."
If we boycott the next series of elections, we give up what little voice we already have. What kind of message will that send to the rest of the nation?
To run for president takes USD 1 billion. To approve laws takes US billions in lobby: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php Everything runs on money created out of the thin air from the money creators. That is it.
If that is really the case... if everything is controlled by the "money creators" then why is it the Right is taking such drastic steps to suppress the votes of the youth and the poor? Why would they waste the time, energy, money, or put themselves at risk of being convicted of election fraud, as just happened to Paul Schurick?
The money creators are just watching and funding theirs “workers”. They were never at stake. In the current social class there are the masters (money creators that dictate all policy), employees (the puppets that people see giving orders) and slaves (the ones that obey orders).
If your theory is correct, then the OWS movement ought to be meeting far greater resistance. I suggest that you put it to the test. If OWS were to make a concerted push to get more people out to the polls at election time, and to vet the candidates carefully and to hold them to their word, then within a few years, that whole scam would become painfully clear to everyone.
Right now, it looks more like a conspiracy theory. Take the time and energy to expose it properly. There is a way to do that, but it requires being vigilant and keeping the pressure on for a long time. It's worth the effort.
I think you are an young naive student or trying to make the Occupy waste time. Talk to your grandfather if he heard about the 2nd bill of rights, or the JFK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZ5bx9AyI4
Each candidate is previously chosen by the 1% through funding. Candidates with bigger donations are most likely to win. In every election I put a clown nose and go to vote.
I agree that we should not abstain from voting. We should dump the two parties serving the 1% and build up (and, of course, vote for) a third party that will be responsive to the needs of the great majority of Americans.
In the current system any new party will need money to run for anything. There is other way, if we had the guns to take over the current system, but we do not have the guns. Did I say I never miss any election, but I wear a clown nose and go to vote.
I never miss an election
That makes sense, but it needs to be done properly.. shrewdly, and not recklessly.
Any third party needs to be built up slowly, over time and to gain it's support over more than one election. The first step is to garner enough of the votes to warrant attention. That can be done without splitting the vote in such a way that it hands the election to politicians that will certainly make things worse than they already are.
Here is my suggestion: If you live in a state that has a solid history of going for one party or the other, then cast your vote for the third-party candidate as you have suggested. But if you are in a "battleground" state, then cast your vote for a candidate of whichever of the two main parties most represents your viewpoint. That way no one is "throwing away" their vote or risking splitting the vote in a way that will have a detrimental effect.
I think we have a lot of agreement here on principles, but I believe many people are missing a couple of key points about strategy.
One is that, while big bucks carry a lot of weight in elections, they are NOT the bottom line. Its the number of votes, not the number of dollars that decides the outcome. If the Occupy Movement continues to grow at the current rate it will be able to influence a majority of Americans, most of whom are already disgusted with both major parties. A large number of small contributions from such people would supply enough money for basic media exposure to supplement the kinds of things OWS is already doing to reach the public. We don't need to match the billions that the 1% needs for their effort to persuade the great majority to vote against their own interests.
Another key point is that we have nothing to lose by going all-out to build a new progressive party (or to build up the Green Party). If this leads, in the near term, to a Republican victory that would by no means be a disaster. To use a term coined by Black Agenda Report editor Bruce Dixon http://blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obama-vs-those-craaaazy-republicans-he-lesser-evil-or-more-effective-evil, the Democrats represent, not the lesser evil, but rather the more effective evil. Note how, while the Obama administration is continuing virtually every bad policy of the Bush administration, liberals who loudly opposed such policies when Bush was in charge, are now largely silent because they don't want to weaken Obama's position.
I concur.
I don't think most people here are talking about abstaining from government. I think most of us are very apt to vote. It would be nice to see the abolition of the political system and replaced with something better and less corrupt. We need to be a part of it, or else the corporate interests will take control over it.
If people really wanted to shake up the political system, they would occupy it through refusing to pay any taxes. Then you run into bankrupting the system that many of us need, Medicare, Social Security, etc.. So I am not really in favor of that.
I can be in favor of constructing a parallel government that uses its funds for our own interests. If we can pull that off, fine, but we need to come up with enough to help pay for the things we need to support collectively, e..g health care.
How about this.....www.nationalday911.org....best thing I could brainstorm...
People are already voting. They vote in every election. They came out in mass both for and against Obama and against great odds, those who came out for Obama won. Look where that's gotten them. Engaging in the same failed process of simply voting will change nothing. You can't remove anyone from office until the next election when their betrayal will have already served their interests and another person will be ready to take their place to enact their own betrayal. Voting for people who can't be held accountable is meaningless. You ARE going to put up with corrupt politicians longer and longer until you finally decide to hold them accountable. This means you would have to come together across party lines with the people in your voting district to create a legal contract for any prospective candidate to sign, obliging them to support the issues that you demand. If no one signs, You Don't Vote For Anyone! If you are the majority, someone, most likely an independent, will sign to get elected. If you are not the majority, an unaccountable candidate will be elected by the majority and you will have at least two more years to become the majority.
If you vote without binding candidates to a contract to support your issues, you've already lost. The only way your vote will ever become meaningful is if you have the solidarity to withhold it whenever the candidates fail to meet your contractual conditions and you build a voting majority that will only vote for a contracted candidate. The bottom line is that You, the People, have to apply some kind of selective power that holds candidates legally accountable. Without it, you're just voting for anyone who will betray you to serve their own agenda. An ignored voice, is no voice at all. Create the condition that will make your voice heard.
haven't trusted an election since 2000
I think that as "the people" we should be calling for things like opening the borders to trade. in fact, the industries and countries that are doing the worst in these hard times are those that are more socialist and try to close out other countries goods in addition to having more equal income distributions. The bankers and other people with money aren't the problem, start a business and that to could be you, it's the politicians.
I found this article insightful and I think it is worth a mention: http://www.economist.com/node/21533400
I'm not telling any one to vote or not to vote but let's be real. It doesn't matter if our government is Democrat or republican controlled. It doesn't matter if we replace all our politicians with new ones. Nothing will ever change until we remove the ability for the rich to buy our politicians.
People don't get this. Our politicians do not sit at their desk all day going over bills and policy to help improve our country. They sit at their desk making call after call to the wealthy and pandering for campaign donations.
Wake up before it's to late.
So vet your candidates better. Make sure they know how closely they are being watched, and how they will put their jobs in jeopardy if they don't put forth and support legislation to end that practice.
What does voting them out of office do ? Get them a high paying job in the private sector as payment for all the corrupt deals they made with the banks and corporate America ?
Wake up. The problem is so obvious and the solution is even more obvious.
It's not obvious enough. It could become obvious to everyone and therefore easily fixable if you use the system properly. Think of this as political judo. Force them to expose their corruption by flexing our electoral muscle.
Metaphorically speaking, The politicians would never cut their own throat and that's exactly what we would be asking them to do if we want to fix the problem.
If our politicians were to repent their ways and vow not to bend to the pressure that the need for campaign funding creates, then they could reform the system in a way that not only removes that financial pressure but also gives them enough credibility with the voters to believe they might survive elections beyond this current age of inherent corruption.
What in our political history leads you to believe that they would do that ?
I don't trust our government because i understand our government and how it works. Maybe I'm just more cynical then you but i can't think of one thing any politician can do to gain my trust, especially when they have to pander to the same people we are fighting against just to get elected. The system is broken and needs to be fixed. I'm not saying we need to destroy our government. We do how ever have to make the decision our self and leave the politicians out of it.
Our politicians are public servants. They are there to speak for the ((( people))). As it stands right now, they only speak for the kings.
Nothing in our political history leads me to believe that. It's the current level of technology increasing the capability of our citizens to be informed in combination with the energy and staying power of OWS that leads me to think this way.
Never before in history have we been able to keep such a close eye on our politicians, and never before have we been able to network among ourselves as we do now. OWS has shown me the strength of our resolve is such that we can refuse to be swayed by the amount of money politicians raise and to look at their records instead and then vote accordingly.
They will do it if they want to keep their jobs. It's as simple as that.
And never before in history has the elite been able to brain wash the masses so easily with 24/7 propaganda news networks... And i use the word News loosely.
Money will not give up it's power so easily.
In the current system any new party will need money to run for anything. There is other way, if we had the guns to take over the current system, but we do not have the guns. Did I say never miss any election, but I wear a clown nose and go to vote.
There is no cure for the current system. While there is hierarchy there will be Tyranny. While a few creates money out of the thin air, and we take this money as debt (through direct loans or through Government that lent it from FED) there will be slavery. And all we produce and all we have we change for this debt... Even Government, elections... run on this money. There is no way the money creators let the 99% take control of the current system
The most pacific way is to get out of this system and create a new one for the 99% where everybody creates its own money backed by its own work and may store it in form of energy.
Maybe we should mimics how Nature works and create the open source tools for humanity to change all the rules we currently take for granted in our industrial age economy and complete our shift into completely different information age dynamics. We have an anthropocentric notion of intelligence. Consider, for a moment, the cells in our body. They communicate, collaborate, share scarce resources, work together to build, maintain and manage extremely complex systems, and each one carries a copy of the agreements (DNA) that they use to cooperate. Cells do all those things better than we do, yet we don't recognize that as intelligence. But what would happen if humanity had a breakthrough in our capacities to do these kinds things together because of the advent of new kinds of "Social DNA?" Social DNA which enables rapid self-organization, organizational adaptation, resource allocation, communication, decision-making and new patterns of collective governance... What if these breakthroughs free US from the inefficiencies of bureaucracy, the inequities of centralized financial instruments and computing architectures, and the ineffectiveness of representational hierarchies?
You cannot be certain that there is no way to re-take the system from the "money creators". That is just a theory. I propose you test it by voting. It will not cause you harm nor hurt your chances at replacing the current system, but keep in mind, the framers of the Constitution designed the government specifically so that the people could take it back.
Both the republicans and the democrats have already proven that they have done more damage then good for the American people and it does not matter which side you vote for because both sides plan on screwing us even more in the near future. Our government is most likely going to self destruct on its own when the dollar has no value anymore so let it hit bottom so we can rebuild it.
Refusing to vote will not contribute to the fall of the current regime. It only leave you without a voice in it.
If it's going to self-destruct, then it will do that whether you vote or not. Might as well vote. Hedge your bets. It can't do you any harm.
You mean pick one of the lesser of two evils?
In a word, yes.
I have to say I agree with Just1morevoice on this. There's no point sitting out an election when you aren't happy with either candidate. One of them is going to win whether you vote or not, and it definitely makes a difference which one. I agree with you that the Democratic party is co-opted by big money, just like the Republican party. But the parties do have different worldviews. If you're an OWS supporter, you probably have a worldview more like the Dems than the Repubs. And really, that difference matters. Just imagine how much would have been different if Al Gore had won the 2000 election. No Iraq war, for one! Think of the lives lost. More attention to ecological concerns. No torture of prisoners. In fact, maybe he would have paid more attention to the warnings about terrorism in the first place, but we'll never know that of course.
Anyway, voting is important even when the perfect candidate isn't running. There's always a lesser of two evils, and after all, more evil is a whole lot worse than less evil.
Your vote is not your seal of approval, it's your voice... the measure of political pressure you are able to bring to bear. That is all. If you don't use it, then you are giving more power to those who you most disagree with.
VOTE by all means in 2012, but NOT in an election.
The completely useless and meaningless 2012 elections should be canceled and replaced by a NATION-WIDE REFERENDUM to overhaul the present, corrupt-to-the-core political system.
Such a referendum would IMO be VERY useful and meaningful. And the reason for demanding such a referendum would be that THE NATION IS IN A STATE OF CRISIS that threatens its very survival.
To me, that is THE DEMAND that OWS should focus on, and I think that the American people are so SICK of the two main parties that they would actually WELCOME the possibility of overhauling the whole corrupt system in order to start anew.
A recent poll shows that only 9% of us still have faith in the Congress!!I That tells me that a strong majority of Americans would vote "YES" in a "REFERENDUM FOR A NEW AMERICA".
Vote in both systems. There is nothing that disallows you from voting in an election AND also voting in a nation-wide referendum. Why throw away your power (however slight) in the existing system when you don't have to?
Refusing to vote in the existing system will not prevent corrupt politicians from being elected, nor will it send any message that the politicians in that system will listen to.
The FIRST question on the referendum - to be held next spring or summer - would be : "Do you agree to postpone the elections scheduled for 2012?"
I think that plan is flawed. How is it you expect the result of that referendum to be recognized by the current government?
It would be a BINDING referendum, because, according to the Constitution, We The People are sovereign. The "government" is merely our servant. If the servant proves dishonest or disloyal, the master upbraids him or shows him the door.
Truth About Voting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbBItLemsM
if you don't vote, someone else will. what do you believe is more probable: that everyone will stop voting, or that a faction, banking, retail, middle america, the one percent, will never quite voting. telling people not to vote in a republic is tantamount to telling some one to shoot his/her self in the foot.
This idea that voting somehow reinforces an evil system is blatantly false.
It is in the interests of the most corrupt members of the political process to keep citizens from voting. When you refuse to vote, you are not doing anyone any good.
A vote is NOT your seal of approval for a candidate. It is the measure of political power that you can bring to bear to express the policies you do support.
If you refuse to vote, then you are giving up your own power. Your uncast vote does not somehow magically empower some kind of change in the establishment
Participation by voting in a well known corrupt system that has no plan to reduce the debt, no plan to create jobs, is in the process of taking our freedom of speech away and creating martial law on its citizens does not inspire me to vote.
Vote anyway. You can be revolutionary and still vote. Certainly one party espouses policies that are less desirable than the other, vote against that party.
Can an Independent run as a candidate at this time in the game? I am willing to vote for anyone that isn't a rep or dem.
Yes, and I believe that some folks are planning to do just that. You won't see them getting any attention though, until after the Republican primaries.
Well that is fine as long as someone runs in the election. I beleive that the masses are so sick of the repubs and dems that many will vote for another party because they are desparate for real change in leadership.
Truth be told, the opportunity to alter the direction of a party is during the primary process. That is the time to put forward a candidate that will support your platform. It's not too late to primary a lot of legislators. I suggest that you vet the current candidates carefully and if they don't meet your standards, then primary them.
it's dead it doesn't work