Unless you vote

Millions can protest for a thousand years but unless you vote or stage a coup it means diddly-squat.

Conservatives in Canada vote instead of protest and it seems to work well for them.

Conservatives in the US protest and vote and its worked very well for them.

Protests are great at raising awareness of an issue and telling people there's others that think the same way. But that's it.

You know I think Frank is right.

We change democratically. If the democracy isn't working then it needs to be changed. You do that by voting and convincing others. It is a lot harder than say an armed revolution but much less risky.

Oh I forgot.

Love the cartoon.

Well, get out and vote then !

If you don't like the system, get out and vote, encourage others to vote and volunteer as a driver to help other make it to the polling station.

At least this article doesn't blame right wing 'voting suppression'. If that exists, then the right wing's tactics are smarter than the left.

You would think...

If there really is a 99% (a wee exaggeration, in my opinion) they should easily be able to oust the right wing, not only at the federal level, but provincially as well as municipally. And that's where it all starts. We need to make major changes this fall at the municipal level, removing all the mayors and councillors who have been simply reacting to the donations from developers and corporations (the big ones).
And, by the way, what happened to the changes that were supposed to have been made to municipal election regulations?

breaking news...

Posted by Occupy Canada on its Facebook page: the general assembly of OWS has announced its' first convention to be held July 4, 2012 - delegates will be elected from every congressional district. OWS wants government to enact resolutions from the convention, and has plans to run THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES from every district...

Instead of looking at how OWS should fit in to the existing system, we might do well to ask how the existing system can be made to fit citizens.That is the point of the political process, after all. Or rather, that is the point of the political process in a democracy. The fact that democracy has been bought doesn't mean we can't reclaim it - but we would be foolish to go along with those who have been bought and paid for.

VivianLea

I assume they were posting an American news release? Canada doesn't have congressional districts and we already have a "third party", its called the Liberal Party :)

The myth the vote individualizes and disempowers

Jerry has a good point, though I would soften it slightly: never let voting substitute for real political action.

When confronted with the need to act, people have a tendency to do one thing and then feel that they have done their bit. Psychologists call this the "single action bias." Voters all to easily fall into this trap. Worse, if they pour their emotion into the excitement of electoral politics, they are likely to be left with little energy (and not a little dejection) for genuine political participation.

Voting alone is an incredibly weak form of political action. It individualizes politics. By Viviano's account it might appear that the failure in the U.S. was one of individual voters: an electoral version of the lazy entitled protester caricature. But why, then, was there such a precipitous drop in voting? The phenomenon he describes was not individual - it was social. How did the Republicans win? Not through individual anger, but through the cultivation and coordination of that anger.

Voting as a purely individual act is worthless except as a way to distract people from real participation. Mythologizing the X on the ballot disempowers citizens. A vote only matters if it is part of a larger group and a larger narrative. Personally, I think Obama's failure was bloody obvious 20 months in. A vote for the Democrats would have reinforced the narrative that Obama was transformative when he's nothing of the kind.

As long as the mainline parties and media are in charge of the narrative, then they - not the voters - get to decide what the votes mean. If OWS can take control of the narrative, then their votes might actually count. But that means putting protest first - and making it clear that voting is the least significant political action one can take.

Not voting is a vote against the system

It seems to me that those Canadians who did not exercise their right to vote in the last federal election were protesting against the inertia and inequity of the current financial and political systems just as much as the Occupy protesters are, since the status quo remains regardless of which political party is in power. Citizens across the globe are waking up to the fact that their vote is meaningless.

http://chainthedogma.blogspot.com/2011/10/canadas-christian-fundamentalist-prime.html

NYT excerpt:

Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box. “Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”

Economics have been one driving force, with growing income inequality, high unemployment and recession-driven cuts in social spending breeding widespread malaise. Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes that, in London and Athens, erupted into violence.

But even in India and Israel, where growth remains robust, protesters say they so distrust their country’s political class and its pandering to established interest groups that they feel only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html

50000 activists is all we need

I don't get why organizers, who shouldn't be as dumb as the mad a hell but haven't learned to read types that haunt the Occupy and Tea Party movements, don't just organize all these protesters to buy Fascist party memberships on mass. Take away the current Fascist movement in Canada's main vehicle the former PROGRESSIVE Conservation Party away from it, riding by riding, riding executive by riding executive, delegate by delegate and unseat the odious Harper.. Do under Harper and his Fascist horde what he did to Joe Clark and the relatively benign Progressive Conservative Party.

Without mass membership buys by environmentalists in our recent BCLiberal convention, the province would still be under the fascist yoke of Gordo's premier designate, Falcon. When compared to Falcon, Christy Clark, could be called a communist.

Similarly the recent success of progressives in Alberta in removing the fascist's there, returned the Progressive Conservative party back to its Progressive roots.

As useful as the occupy movement it is, it needs to focus on getting its members organized into the existing party system as basis for change, and as a vehicle for rebuilding from the ground up.

Then force the 1%'ers to disgorge giving them manual labor jobs working in the fields.

Why not to vote, or why maybe not

The argument is classic and impeccable, but flawed. Simply because if part of what you want to change is the way of doing things, then you have to make a clear statement for direct democracy, or more direct, and stop pandering to a system that gives carte blanche to politicians serving power interests. Including the centre right (the Democrats and the Liberals) or the centre left (NDP). Especially in this majority system that kills the meaning of huge voting sectors. Even in Spain, where the movement is grounded and has been going on for months, where a party can get into parliament with 3%, there are parties promoting blank votes who then, if they win a seat or a city councilperson, do not occupy it, as a visualization of what the mainstream politicians are ignoring. And support for them is growing exponentially. So don't vote (if you are not convinced of course), let them know they are not legitimated by the ballot box, and do not be pulled into mere expediency by such arguments.

Not voting?

If the protesters don't believe in voting then they will be ignored. And rightly so. I don't want to live in a society where the most vocal rule. The Tea Party can be pretty boisterous.

It'll be interesting to see how the Occupy people decide to do things among themselves at the protest if not by voting.

I can understand why some would be against voting, they don't think anyone would vote with them and prefer other avenues.

This was worth reading

Thanks for all the numbers and stats. There are several things we need to do if we are the people attempting to save our world. 1. vote for the least toxic party, 2. observe power and its instruments every second of every day, 3. do whatever we can to resist injustice, whatever is in our power to do, 4. weep for this world is full of the reasons to do so, and 5. organize ourselves to replace the commons with the spirit of shared worth and power.

coyote

"Oust the Right wing and the ruling class from their positions in the economy with a vote? What, for the NDP? ROFLMAO"

You're not going to oust anybody. You don't vote. Non-voters have been around in Canada since 1867 and they've never succeeded in ousting anybody, not even a dog-catcher.

If as you say you want to see a "street movement" like the Tea Party take power then I can only say that would be a very scary place to live.

Spoil your ballot - choose none of the above

I always exercise my right to vote, but for many years now I have always spoiled my ballot by writing some protest message on it. I realize that has very little effect, perhaps only on the person who reads and then discards my ballot. But its one way I have of expressing my disillusion that there is any meaningful difference between parties and candidates. I still participate in the electoral process, its just that when presented with the options in the voting booth I choose 'none of the above'.

OWS is re-focusing the debate

If continued "occupy" protests can keep the political conversation focused on substantive issues rather than the emotional hot-button red herrings and straw men used by TPTB to throw voters off the stench of their wholesale corruption of government, then it can only be positive for our democracy.

RickW

All the marches in the world aren't going to "force" anything if they don't show up on election day.

What would be Harper or Obama's motivation for ignoring the people that vote and instead doing what non-voters want? Certainly not job security. I can't think of a single benefit to either of them.

Whereas if protesters voted (like the Tea Party) then the establishment will start bending over backwards for them.

None of The Above and "A Free Society"....

Actually Perry, I do the same thing. I do vote... just for "None of The Above". :-) Good to hear there is another "heretic" out there.

But first some nuances to this business of the sectarian party system, which doesn't just include the NDP of course. There are also Greens, Communists, Liberals and I'm sure others I am unaware of. All of whom are fundamentally agreed on one or another version of "capitalism",in most regards, while at the same time creating skywalkers "illusion/delusion" of a "free society".

Yet, despite my rejection of this sectarian party system as essentially valueless in the cause of the kind of radical and democratic social and economic change that I want to see, there will doubtless be some who want fundamentally the same as I, who yet may be persuaded that there is some "lesser evil" value in voting for this or that party to capitalism. (Like I say, not JUST the NDP.)

I disagree of course, but I have no rigid, serious or unyeilding problem with such folks. And they will not give a rat's ass about my opinion in any case. :-) The "illusion of bourgeois/capitalist democracy" continues to linger and hang on, no doubt, by its fingernails but nontheless. And I understand that.

So the parallel of my negative view of the sectarian party system, with all their vanguards and elits, is that while they are pretty much by now of extremely limited value to the 99% working class, neither is there great harm in voting for any one of them. Other than maintaining the illusion/delusion. :-) That is, so long at least as one does not vote for the outright Conservatives/Fascists. Anything but that. :-)

Better though, that you do as Perry and I do, and we build that "None of The Above" vote... for its great value, assuming it catches on, of undercutting the legitimacy of the status quo sectarian arrangement that passes for current "bourgeois democracy", and the divide and rule around bullshit minutia policy differences strategy of the ruling class.

Vote for sure, for the "lesser evil" if you will, so long as it is not Conservative/Fascist. But better yet, vote for "None of The Above" and support, engage in, and build the "Occupation" street movement. Out of which will yet come the critical mass that can challenge and provide an alternative to Bullshit Democracy, such as excludes and marginalizes the 99%.

It's early days, there is still the start up fog of war, and "the street" is just beginning to come to grips with its way forward, and how it and we create the new "democratic paradigm" and challenge the status quo order, but it is finally in motion. Which has the NDPers and other "party sectarians" here just about in hysterics, that they are going to lose control of it all. So as Gandhi said, "First they ignore you, then when that doesn't work, they ridicule you, and then finally, when that fails, they proceed to fight you and you win."

They ARE about to lose control of it all.

Vanguard?

Ah yes, the topple-the-gov't-by-force method and then stop having elections because if you did they'd vote for someone else?

That method has been out of favour for a long time, besides, how does the vanguard select a leader? Cage fight?

Voting is the state's conjob perpetrated on the un-thinking

Well, the article is certainly one view, one meme in the minds on the brainwashed and state indoctrinated, one kernel of dissonance buried deep in the heads of those who romanticize our 'democracy' as being something it is not.

There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing. They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!

~ Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1848)

(con't)

con't

Try thinking for a moment about moving beyond the 'right and wrong' as determined by state. One day talking on your cell-phone while driving is legal; the next its not. Yet the truth of its consequence never changed.

Soldiers are the ones pulling the triggers; voters are the ones putting this crook or that crook into government -- neither group is willing to think for themselves about the truth of their acts and the consequences. If you truly desire a conscionable society, behave so yourself because your act is all you have.

One may not see the point, through attention not having been called to it; one may not understand the import of an action, as it remains unexplained. But once pointed out and explained, one can no longer fail to see, or feign blindness to what is quite obvious.

~ Tolstoy, On Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence (1901)

For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there,” King said shortly before he was assassinated. “Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.

Martin Luther King 1968

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

~ Mahatma Gandhi, Non-Violence in Peace and War (1942)

Now I ask, has voting ever ceased the crimes of war in our nation? Has voting put a roof over every child's head and fed every child's mouth? Go ahead, absolve yourself of your ability to make change by being change, go vote and it can all go away for another 5 years. But know in doing so, nothing of import will change.

voting

"To cooperate passively with an unjust system makes the oppressed as evil as the oppressor". M.L. King

I suspect that if all the non-voters had exercised their public responsibility to vote, we may well not be in the mess we are today. I find the reasons for not voting by some of the commentators here, lame.

?

Its all well and good to vote as long as you know that you're not really changing anything, just a different degree of power. We use a voting and politically system that was invented in a time when people thought the world was flat and we wonder why we can't tackle complexes issues. What we need is a more human scale system of social and political organization and there is no way of reaching this through the existing system.

Not A Dime's Worth Of Difference

If, like the Americans, I could only choose between a Liberal Party candidate and a Conservative Party candidate - I would not bother to vote.

The OWS crowd knows democracy is broken - we have corporatocracy where it's 1 dollar, one vote - a million dollars - a million votes. Government plutocrates only respond to the interests and instructions of the 1% ubber rich.

I read that the OWS movement is giving the Democrats and Republicans an ultimatum -- either things radically change for the better in terms of real democracy - or they will be starting a 3rd party in two years.

Obama keeps screwing the 'progressives' knowing they have no where to go - he needs a wake up call - OWS may be it - fingers x'd.

Out of The Mouths of The Sectarian Party Hacks...

Outstanding igbymac.... AND no less, though more succinct, sockeye. As these Occupations have been demonstrating, though they are yet nowhere near where they need to be, more people ARE getting it.There is no doubt of this.

And the distortion attempts and putting of words in mouths of such sectarian Social Democrats as Frank, are irrelevant, seen through immediately and ignored.

We have a ways to go here, let's be about it.

Love, Peace and Revolution.

facts of life

If you don't vote...don't bitch!

Suppose 80 or 90 percent

Suppose 80 or 90 percent turned out every election and voted on the principal "What have you done for me?" The default option would be to kick the governing party out and then apply the same standard to whomever replaced them. Do that for a few elections and maybe the politicians would figure out that they are there to work for you.

But more than that you can take democracy back by joining a political party, or if none of them are acceptable to you get together with those of like mind and start your own, and run candidates.

People who belong to political parties get more votes than those who don't. They get to vote to decide what person their party will run, and then they get to vote again for (or even possibly against) that person.

Don't tell me how futile it is until you've tried it for, say, a decade or so. I've been a member of one political party for nearly forty years now and for all that time I've had two votes where you had only one if you are not a member of a party.

The people in power now are purposely discouraging you from voting and if you go along with them you are empowering them to keep right on doing that.

This article is sad. The best

This article is sad. The best example of the uselessness of voting is Obama. How many millions were sucked in? He's just the latest puppet.

The entire political process is a tool of the elite to fool us into thinking we're doing something. Voting is palliative. As long as they control the money supply nothing will change.

The occupy movement on the other hand is the best thing going and really it's all we have. Let's hope that people start to ask, Where does money come from? That'll shake things up.

Frank

All the votes on election won't mean squat when politicians aren't compelled to carry out the spirit and implications of their election promises.

Ed Seedhouse

But isn't that essentially what happens now? Politicians never figure on "serving" more than one term when they are first elected, n'est pas?

The Occupy crowd is unfocused. They have no objectives.

They are like the BCTF in that regard and they are equally doomed to fail (that is a joke).

Look at real protest - in Cairo, Libya or Damascus. Look at Greece for a better example of an economy gone wrong. When the bullets start to fly is when the wheat is sorted from the chaff. In Canada we have very little to complain about, relative to the rest of ther world. Most of us can actually afford to buy food. The Arab Spring was started over food prices.

Not that everything is perfect in Canada; it never is, but we are doing well, all things considered. For one thing, we have drinking water that lives up to the name.

coyote

I didn't put any words in your mouth, you were simply using the phrase "vanguard" incorrectly.

From the boys over at Wikipedia :

"Marx and Engels outline the role of a communist party as a proletarian vanguard party:

"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.""

That certainly doesn't sound like the NDP. More like a group that thinks they don't need to test popular consent.

RickW

"All the votes on election won't mean squat when politicians aren't compelled to carry out the spirit and implications of their election promises."

Then vote for someone else, or yourself, next election. Over time your chances of getting what you want are better with voting than setting fire to a car in the middle of a street every few years.

Cynic -- Sad, yes, but expected

Cynic QUOTE:

This article is sad. The best example of the uselessness of voting is Obama. How many millions were sucked in? He's just the latest puppet.

It's voodoo politics, political bait and switch. One does not have to look too deeply to see what is going on. But actually connecting the dots and believing what is revealed, in the face of the cultural rhetoric and social meme to the contrary, is damn near impossible. As Bertrand Russell said:

"There is an imperialism of culture which is harder to overcome than the imperialism of power. Long after the Western Empire fell -- indeed until the reformation -- all European culture retained a tincture of Roman imperialism. It now has, for us, a West-European imperialistic flavour."

~ History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Until people come to have their own anagnorisis moment about politics, finance and power, one can hardly blame them for believing much of the nonsense (like voting) they have been taught as bedrock political thought.

fish counter

Yes we do have very little to complain about, relative to the Arab Spring - except, why do the film clips of demonstrators in the Arab countries seem to show everyone wearing brand name outer wear?

Also, isn't it prudent to agitate for change BEFORE our situation deteriorates any further?

Frank

I've been voting for 45 years, and this country has gone from the middle class societ described by Ed Deak to the crap that before us now. The average lifespan of Canucks is about 85. You do the math.

RickW

And for all of those 45 years there were non-voters. As well as the 99 years before that.

In Canada's 144 years the non-voters have accomplished what exactly?

To My Friends and Critic I...

You are some amusing Frank. While claiming not to be putting words in anyone's mouth, you proceed to attempt to put Lenin's and Marx's words into mine.

That said, other than writing the Communist Manifest, which was basically an outline of the broad aims of the then Communist League (not party), he and Engels had really very little to say on what should or should not be its organizational structure. That was really done by Lenin... and I am not really a "Leninist" per se, especially on the issue of "the party". I am really of a much older small "c" communist tradition, that is closer to Bakunin anarchism than Leninism, called "libertarian communism".... That is, opposed to authoritarian structure and particularly a highly centralized State.

In any case, of more current importance, ALL parties, not just the Communist Party, are really, once the bullshit is stripped away, built around essentially the same, in my view, anti-democratic "democratic centralism" model of Lenin. Which again, once stripped down to its essential means top-down direction, and adherence to "party policy" or "the party line". There are formal "convention" processes of course, likewise across all parties, including the CP, that go through the motions of democratic decision making, but thereafter, leadership gets to pick, choose and ignore those which it will or will not pursue, or formulate "on the fly" entirely new ones. And there is a shared disciplinary structure for "purging" from the ranks, where consistent following the "party line" as determined by "the top" is not adhered to. (The NDP in BC recently sought to go through such a process at the Prov. Exec. level, around the Carol James issue.)

The point being, essentially, all sectarian parties see themselves, more or less, declare they it or not, as "vanguard" parties, including the Communist Party, NDP, Liberals, Greens or what have you.... in my view.

I, on the other hand, rather advocate the rebuilding of democracy, a democratic economy and such democratic co-ordinating political structures, as "may" be needed, from the ground-up... over the course of a "renewal" or "revolution" process starting at the level of a "critical mass" street level movement of the 99% working class. That they should determine it, be engaged in it the entire way, and that such "co-ordinating leadership" as "may" be necessary, shall be bound to their decisions absolutely, or be subject to removal at any time. In short, I advocate for the turning of the current, fundamentally authoritarian class structure of society back onto its feet, where the decisions of the mass lead and all power resides with them.

Which I hope assists you Frank, in getting a better, more objective, and less partisan, sectarian view of what is currently occurring at the street level of our, and other societies.

continued next post...

To My Friends and Critic...

From previous post...

I think, as time goes on here, it is highly likely at least, that this ancient, going back to a bourgeois Cromwellian party and class parliamentary founding structure, will be more and more turned away from and seen for what it really is. Indeed, this process is already well advanced, given the numbers refusing to even participate in it. And which I think really explains what is behind this resentful, feeling threatened hostility I sense coming out of the NDP, toward the current Occupation phenomena. And which you folks are going to have to get over, if you are to retain any relevance at all into the future taking shape. Just my view mind, and perhaps that of many others. :-)

Cynic... you said, "The entire political process is a tool of the elite to fool us into thinking we're doing something. Voting is palliative. As long as they control the money supply nothing will change."

With which I obviously agree. Always a pleasure to read you brother.

And likewise, my friend igbymac.... Though I don't quite share his conviction on the absolute "possibility" of getting this all done non-violently, I do hope he is correct and I am not on this. And I will at least make every effort to be non-violent, and for which I advocate as the strategy most relevant to the current period, and likely to succeed. No one in their right mind wants "violence". Non-violence is certainly the preferred course to anyone with their head screwed on right.

And hopefully now, our class enemies will be of a similar view. In which case we may yet arrive at a peaceful revolutionary transition to a new economic and political order. We shall see. :-)

Frank

"In Canada's 144 years the non-voters have accomplished what exactly?" Frank

About as much as the NDP has? (Depending on what they were doing in the "real" lives, where they may have made greater contribuitions that the NDP or any other party.)

coyote

"About as much as the NDP has? "

Really? So non-voters introduced medicare somewhere did they? Just tell me one policy that non-voters got passed into law without the help of anyone else.

"The point being, essentially, all sectarian parties see themselves, more or less, declare they it or not, as "vanguard" parties"

No, we don't. Political parties attempt to get people to vote for them which is an actual demonstration of support.

Vanguards on the other hand don't ask for demonstrations of support because they already know what everybody needs and will therefore be the leaders.

"I, on the other hand, rather advocate the rebuilding of democracy, a democratic economy and such democratic co-ordinating political structures, as "may" be needed, from the ground-up."

A democracy without any voting allowed since voting is a waste of time and everyone's a corporate puppet and blah blah, that'll be pretty cool to see. Can't wait.

Vanguards and Delusional Thinking...

Oh, I'm sure "voting" will be a part of the new paradigm Frank. Indeed, it is happening already as a part of the Occupy decision making process. It is simply this "sectarian" arrangement that waste the usefulness of voting, offering only choices between parties inherently similar in their loyalty and serving of a privileged ruling class... which really controls the outcomes with its "money manipulations."

You are the delusional dreamer Frank, in my view. You think this Cromwellian, English Civil War ground parliamentary and sectarian party system is actually "democratic." We shall see what evolves here, but it will be democratic and inclusive, and rooted in the power of the people, not parties or elites, of that I am sure.

Voting and conversation

Lots of great points in the articles and comments, to me there has to be an on going conversation that hammers home to all of the ruling elites that we are paying their wages, they work for us, and then we also have to convince every eligible voter to vote. If we can keep this energy up positive change will happen..slowly and with little or no violence

coyote

So you do support voting? Because the thing is, democracy only works if you accept it when you lose.

You may not like the major parties in Canada but there's very little in the way of barriers to starting a new one.

If the Occupy movement wants to go beyond protesting and doesn't want to back any of the major parties then they will need to start their own. Short of a coup there is simply no other way to make changes.

But if there's another way to make major changes in our society without voting I'd like to hear it.

change begins...

in the heart and mind before it can be translated to the ballot box. That's where change begins.

As I said in my earlier post, why are we trying to fit the Occupy Wall Street movement into the existing system? That is a failure of imagination. OWS (which stands for Occupy Wall Street and refers to all the movements stemming from this original) is neither unfocused, nor disorganized. They know exactly what they want, and they have articulated many approaches to change. Stop framing the issue in terms of voting or not-voting - that is not the issue. The occupiers don't buy into the current system, but they certainly aren't 'apathetic youth'. And by the way, the movement both in Canada and the US has a wide range of ages.

As one simple example: the protesters don't issue a media release. They tweet, they text, they use Facebook, and the blogosphere, and they are everywhere. Of course, if you only watch/listen/read mainstream media, you will get that very mainstream view of what the protests are about. Nut Bar, anyone?

I have voted in every municipal, provincial, and federal election since I was old enough, as well as working on behalf of a political party for many years.It's not enough, and it doesn't define what democracy is - because above all else, democracy is citizens participating in the decision of how things ought to be run. As I see OWS, these are people who refuse to be sidelined from their own democracy, and they deserve our support and highest praise.

No, Frank, you obviously DON'T want to hear it

QUOTE: "But if there's another way to make major changes in our society without voting I'd like to hear it."

I do not believe you truly do. Not for a moment. You have a very common, and very indoctrinated, sense of politics, history and events. Substantive change has only ever come through resistance, not acquiescence, to state power. The examples are in the thousands.

The argument that there are just wars often rests on the social system of the nation engaging in war. It is supposed that if a ‘liberal’ state is at war with a ‘totalitarian’ state, then the war is justified. The beneficent nature of a government was assumed to give rightness to the wars it wages.

...Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were liberals, which gave credence to their words exalting the two world wars, just as the liberalism of Truman made going into Korea more acceptable and the idealism of Kennedy’s New Frontier and Johnson’s Great Society gave an early glow of righteousness to the war in Vietnam.

What the experience of Athens suggests is that a nation may be relatively liberal at home and yet totally ruthless abroad. Indeed, it may more easily enlist its population in cruelty to others by pointing to the advantages at home. An entire nation is made into mercenaries, being paid with a bit of democracy at home for participating in the destruction of life abroad.

~ Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence

If you could even entertain the idea of adding up the positive and the negative effects of your endorsement of the political paradigm, directed now by the free-market capitalists, via the mere act of voting, then you will begin to grasp what is going on.

Voting is a placebo for the people, it is the game offered by the state, passed on down through the culture. It poses as the peoples way to freedom and self-direction.

Wow, it is truly amazing that people still belief this fantasy despite the state of the world. Yet the voting addicts do love to gather others to be as equally inconsequential in their lives. Ahh, misery surely does loves company.

For some understanding about movements versus voting shaping the world, read Howard Zinn's A People's History.

Chapters 19 and 24 are a good place to start for an overview.

Frank

In those same 144 years, what exactly have the voters accomplished - except to perpetuate a system designed only to accommodate two parties. When the NDP became a national force, it showed up the inherent flaw in FPTP. Because our politicos refused to respond to this fundamental flaw (as you intimate they should be doing), voter turnout began to fall as people realized just how their choices were not likely to come to fruition.

Your "solution" fits the classic definition of insanity - ya know - the one that states that you insist on doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

RickW

That's exactly what they've accomplished. Conservative and Liberal voters have been very successful in getting out to vote and thus they've controlled the national agenda.

I doubt there's too many supporters of those parties that think voting is a waste of time. It certainly hasn't been for them and I doubt they think its insane.

In regards to the protests the Conservatives don't care how long the protest goes on. It won't affect them at all because they know they'll win the next election anyway.

Voting = power

Cynic..."the entire political system is a tool of the elite" Yes, it is if the 99% don't vote. The biggest protest anyone can have is the vote. No wimpy excuses-get off your ass and vote-municipally, provincially and federally. Voting is power-use it! Not voting is giving the 1% a free ride. Can you imagine what would happen if no one of the 99% voted?