[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] Re: Progressive Fest 3 this Sat - Getting Out The Progressive Vote

[C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss]

"I would not vote for anyone who allows, and in effect promotes, such massacres as we’ve seen in Gaza."

You could not therefore vote for any incumbent member of Congress. Both houses voted without dissent to approve Israel's massacre.

But when those members of Congress come up for re-election, progressives will urge a vote for some of them: "You wouldn't want those nasty Republicans to get in, would you?"

Whether boycotting US elections becomes a useful tactic is yet to be seen, but it's surely essential to realize that GOTV campaigns serve to reconcile popular movements to a controlled system that produces only office-holders in service to the one-percent. ("How can you complain about government policies? You voted for your preferred candidate and won/lost!") 

It should be clear now that Barack Obama was never the lesser evil but in fact the more effective evil. His military and economic policies serve the interests of the one-percent and are therefore opposed to the interests of the vast majority, at home and abroad. They must be reversed, and it's not clear that that can be done electorally.

--CGE


"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."  --Emma Goldman

"I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." --Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." --Noam Chomsky



On Aug 18, 2014, at 11:28 AM, 'Brussel, Morton K' brussel at illinois.edu [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> Perhaps characters like Bernie Sanders, exemplar of U.S. liberalism, should be less categorized as "child murderers", than as « disgusting »  vis-a-vis U. S. foreign policy, militarism, and in particular the Israel-Palestine situation. They find it expedient to go along with an imperial system in which we all are trapped. Sanders of course is not unique in this respect. 
> 
> 
> I think the decision [of voting or not for a candidate] depends on what one considers of utmost importance: For example, foreign policy (wars an militarism: Gaza, Iraq, Serbia, Ukraine, …), or domestic policy (civil rights, minimum wage, education, conservation, health insurance, etc.). That the two are inter-related is not always comprehended.  
> 
> I  would not vote for anyone who allows, and in effect promotes, such massacres as we’ve seen in Gaza. One should vigorously protest, resist, organize against, such behavior, not excuse it. My disgust is beyond measure at the turpitude of our current elected (and appointed) officials (with few exceptions) and the system which they permit, one which perpetuates the horrors to which we continually are witness. 
> 
> It is, however, likely that most do not so react. Their empathy is limited.
>  
> This incomplete discussion can carry one far afield. 
> 
> --mkb
> 
> 
> On Aug 17, 2014, at 8:54 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
>> An interesting discussion of the co-optive effect of "getting out the vote":
>> 
>> http://blackagendareport.com/content/making-case-election-boycott-why-left-should-refrain-us-imperialisms-electoral-charade
>> 
>> --CGE
>>