zeitgeistmovement:

feministslut:

18goingon80:

1. What we know as Democracy is nothing more than a fleeting moment of illusory power.
2. The political system exists as an integral State apparatus. Its primary concern is self-preservation.
3. Irrespective of a party’s alleged progressiveness or the faithful promises of politicians, the most “radical” of governments will only ever be able to implement the most tenuous of reforms. 
4. While governments may implement piecemeal policy changes for the better - such as the reformation of Australia’s immigration policy or the improvement of Medicare - these ameliorations will never challenge capitalism, the state or our hierarchical society. 
5. By participating in the electoral system you validate government. Will an isolated and exclusive body of politicians - governed by elite powers - ever be capable of making the correct decisions for you, your family or your community? Can anyone accurately represent your interests? In fact, do you really want representatives to make and implement decisions for you? Surely we can resolve dilemmas, discover solutions and determine our own lives without recourse to alienating mediation, that is, indirect action and representation.
6. Voting is incredibly disempowering as it abdicates control over our own lives by forwarding that control to someone else.
7. Political abstention does not entail apathy. 
8. We are individuals who, knowingly or not, lust for authentic life. Renouncing control within the political and economic spheres of society results in losing control of our personal life.
9.  We can construct an alternative to the state, capitalism and faux democracies.

You know, the suffrage movement lasted 72 years to get the 19th Amendment passed. Not all women could vote in 1921 (the first election after the ratification of the 19th Amendment) and fought for their right for another 40+ years. Men and women of color fought for about a decade to get the right to vote and spent longer fighting to get the right to be seen as citizens of this country. Some women could vote before the 19th Amendment, mostly in the West. Some men and women of color could vote before the Civil Rights Movement but it was not a lot because of the ridiculous ass laws on voting. While you may find voting to be disempowering, there are many people who see the right to vote as a powerful thing. Throughout this country men and women have fought for the right to vote because when this country was founded only the elite white men could vote.  In the US voting is seen as something that is very important because for the longest time most people did not have the right to vote. Even today not everyone over the age of 18 has the right to vote. 

Also, if we convince liberals/democrats/social justice activist/etc. not to vote, our country will go to fucking hell because the people who would go out to vote are Republicans. While both parties are god awful, democrats are at least the lesser of two evils in our two party system. Not voting, does take you out of politics because you had no say in who got elected. I get that individuals voting does not seem like a big thing but in the past people have won or lost based on a couple votes. 

I still stand by not voting and not participating in the political game. As George Carlin said: 

“I don’t really, honestly, deep down believe in political action. I think the system contracts and expands as it wants to. It accommodates these changes. I think the civil rights movement was an accommodation on the part of those who own the country. I think they see where their self-interest lies; they see a certain amount of freedom seems good - an illusion of liberty - give these people a voting day every year so that they will have the illusion of meaningless choice.

Meaningless choice - that we go, like slaves and say “Oh, I Voted.” The limits of debate in this country are established before the debate even begins and everyone else is marginalized and made to seem either to be communist or some sort of disloyal person.”

Don’t feed the illusion. The post points out why.