SYNDICATED COLUMN: Boycott the 2012 Election

Hey Liberals! Time to Stop Getting Rolled

We might as well have defaulted.

Regardless of where you stand politically, the deal to raise the federal debt limit came too late for the U.S. to achieve its main objective, avoiding the downgrading of debt issued by the U.S. Treasury that would have followed a default.

“The political and financial world surely thinks less of us now, and one demonstration of that will likely be a downgrading of the credit rating of the U.S., probably imposed in the next few months,” writes John Keefe of CBS’s Moneywatch. “The net result will be higher interest rates on U.S. government debt, which is likely to bleed through ultimately to higher costs for all sorts of other interest rates.”

The buzz on Wall Street says that Standard & Poor’s will soon downgrade T-Notes from a sterling “AAA” either to “AA+” or “AA”, the same as Slovakia. That’s exactly what would have happened had there been a default.

It is true: Our leaders are idiots.

“I have a home in Nevada that I haven’t seen in months,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid on the floor of the Senate. “My pomegranate trees are, I’m told, blossoming.” Too bad. He missed his pretty flowers for nothing.

Liberals got rolled.

Just like on healthcare.

Just like on everything else.

Everything about the way this deal went down, from the initial posturing to a compromise that will make the Great Depression of 2008-? even worse, along with Congress’ total lack of concern for the hardships being faced by the 20 percent-plus of Americans who are unemployed, has people disgusted.

“The big loser after this exercise is Washington,” Republican strategist Scott Reed tells The New York Times. The 2012 election “has the potential to be an anti-incumbent feeling in both parties.” Gee, ya think?

If any good comes out of the debt limit fiasco, it’s that this embarrassing showdown could serve as a long overdue wake-up call to liberals who still have faith in the Democratic Party. Maybe, just maybe, these ideological rubes will finally accept the obvious truth:

Those corrupt corporate-backed pigs just aren’t that into us.

So boycott the pigs. It is time for Real Liberals to kick Team Democrats to the curb. It isn’t hard. Next November all you have to do is…

Nothing.

Just.

Don’t.

Vote.

In other countries voter boycotts have a long and proud tradition as a way to effect pressure on a non-responsive political system. Think the politicians won’t care if you don’t vote? History proves you wrong. Even in dictatorships where only one candidate appears on the ballot, regimes go to desperate lengths to get people to turn out to vote. Why? It proves the government’s legitimacy.

Samuel Huntington cites the example of apartheid-era South Africa in his book “The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century”: “In the 1988 municipal elections, the [pro-apartheid] South African government…clamped down on pro-boycott opposition groups and made it unlawful for individuals to urge a boycott.” The African National Congress then upped the ante, declaring its intent to “use revolutionary violence to prevent blacks from collaborating [by casting a vote].”

Extreme, perhaps. Effective, definitely. The ANC is now the majority incumbent party in post-apartheid South Africa.

Are you Real? Or do you play for a Team?

If you’re a Real Liberal, you espouse liberal values and policies that you think would make America a better place. If you’re a partisan of Team Politics, you only care about one thing—whether the Democrats get elected. You couldn’t care less about policy.

Which side are you on?

Like Clinton and Carter before him, Obama has sold out core liberal Democratic principles, such as fighting for the weak and poor and expanding the social safety net, as well as civil liberties. He can’t point to a single major liberal policy achievement. Heck, Obama hasn’t proposed a major liberal bill. Even so, Team Democrats will vote for Obama in 2012. Team Democrats are Democrats first, liberals last.

Real Liberals, on the other hand, have no reason to support the Dems. The debt limit deal makes this painfully clear.

Paul Krugman, the only reason to read The New York Times op/ed page, calls the debt limit deal “a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.”

Krugman is a Real Liberal. Real Liberals care about liberal policies—defending old liberal victories such as Social Security and Medicare, as well as struggling to achieve new gains like a public-works program to put the unemployed to work.

Real Liberals give Democratic politicians the benefit of the doubt. But after they prove themselves to be a DINO (Democrat In Name Only), Real Liberals withhold their support. Classic example: Joe Lieberman, the senator from Connecticut. Current version: Barack Obama and his allies.

Obama has been locked in an epic showdown with House Republicans for weeks. Matador vs. bull. Scary and exciting.

First and foremost, the debt ceiling debate was ridiculous from the start. The economy is at a standstill. Recent GDP numbers came in at a sub-anemic 1.9 percent, so low that the real unemployment rate of 21 percent will continue to increase. Foreclosures are emptying out whole neighborhoods.

The traditional, historically proven Keynesian response to Depression is for the government to spend more. Members of both major parties know this. Yet here they were, both agreeing to spend less, indeed to slash the budget by historic amounts. If the Democrats had an ounce of sense, much less principle, they would have refused to discuss budget cuts at all. (Although an end to the wars would be nice.)

Obama and Congressional Democrats went along with trillions in cuts, cuts that may lead to Soviet-style collapse. The Dems’ only demand was that a final agreement include tax increases on the wealthy.

In the end, the Hopey Changey matador hopped the fence and fled the stadium. The GOP got their cuts. The Dems didn’t get a cent of taxes on the rich.

OK, Real Liberals. It’s been three years. You know Obama’s record. Obama never fights. When he does, it’s for conservative values, like slashing the federal budget and giving our money to millionaire bankers.

Why would you vote for him, or any Democrat, next year?

I know, I know: the Even More Insane Evil Republicans would take over. Après nous, la deluge. To which I ask, really, truly, no sarcasm—what difference would it make?

What if John McCain had won in 2008? Do you think we’d be at war in more countries than Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Libya? Would the Republicans have done less than Obama for the unemployed and homeowners getting evicted from their homes?

How much longer are you going to tolerate the sellout Democrats? How many more times are you going to stand in line to cast a vote for these treacherous scum?

(Ted Rall is the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto.” His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2011 TED RALL

114 Comments.

  • Yes, if John McCain had won in 08 we’d be at war in more countries. He’dve started WWIV, with a better than 50% chance of it going nuclear.

    Ironically, that would’ve been the only thing that might have stood a chance of pulling us out of the massive depression he would’ve also caused. (For the record, we’re in a lost decade now, NOT a depression).

    There is NO question that Republicans would’ve done less for the unemployed- they are several extension of benefits that simply would not have happened under President McCain, and many more people would’ve been evicted.

    Oh, and lets not forget Vice President Caribou Barbie. Keeping a mind that feeble out of a place where she’d be one heart attack away from the nuclear football? That ALONE was worth my vote for Obama.

    And, as always, not voting is plain stupid. It makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution. Enabling the greater evil makes you just as responsible for the damage they cause as they are themselves.

  • Oh, and real liberals get that the way to get liberal policies enacted is one victory, one inch at a time. Rewarding those who gave us small victories with the electoral power to give us bigger ones, each time shifting the field a little bit more in our favor.

    Phony liberals on the other hand, don’t really give a damn about how the process actually works, think they’ll get everything they want in one go, and urge abandonment of the field to those who will roll back progress simply because enough progress has not been made to suit them.

    Because all phony liberals care about is looking smug and being able to claim “They could’ve solved this if only they’d listened to ME”; without bothering to have solutions that are practical and implementable in the real world.

    A solution that can’t be implemented? Is no solution at all. Real liberals understand this.

  • What about voting for a third party? I think a third party that called itself populist rather than liberal would have a chance. If a candidate focused on protecting entitlements and on taxing or otherwise punishing companies that sent jobs overseas, that candidate would have a shot at winning. Liberals are most angry when the Democrats do not support liberal policies that are actually favored by the majority of people. A candidate who would actually do what the majority wanted would be a novelty.

  • I disagree, Ted. Half of the electorate already boycott elections. For many reasons, American is peculiar place and what works in other parts of the world doesn’t work here. The already existing boycott doesn’t matter.

    I suggest another tactic: we should all show up at the polls, vote, but not for any of the choices provided. We should write-in “someone to the left of [Democratic candidate’s name].” This is what I’ll be doing. There is no way the media can paint such an action as “apathy.”

    I also tend to disagree with everything “Whimsical” said.

  • I’m with you all the way Ted. I voted for Obama but have seen he is just like everyone else. They are all the same and I am totally convinced that Republican….Democrat…..it wouldn’t matter, it’s all the same policies, the same ruse. Nobody is working to make things better but to further their own agenda. They put on a show to make it look like they are putting up a fight, then they all shake hands and laugh, walking away with their corporate checks in the back pockets. I’m done. No more voting for me. No more investing in a system that is fake anyway. I suggest for everyone to read The Anti-American Manifesto!

  • It was a good essay with some important facts, but you still have not swayed me from my standard position which is the exact one that Grouchy outlines above. Even if voting for third parties doesn’t put them into power it still sends more of a message then not voting especially when more or less half of the electorate does not vote anyway.

    Heck I would gladly write in random people on the ballot in preference to not voting. It is all probably moot as I am an ex-patriot now, but if they accept my write-in ballot it would be easier for you to convince me to do a write in vote for “tit-dog” (as seen here on a real ballot from 2008 (NSFW!): http://rule34.booru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=595578) then it would be for you to convince me not to vote.

    • As I discuss in the Manifesto, voting for a Third Party (as I have in the past) validates the system in its entirety. It shows your willingness to participate and, indeed, to accept the marginalization of your views.

  • I dare you to prove to me that not voting sends more of a message then voting for a third party, or even voting for tit-dog.

  • Tyler Durden
    August 2, 2011 3:19 PM

    I don”t wish ill upon him, but if McCain dies within the next 14 months, that’s the day Palin would have become President.

    • The Sarah Palin poison pill is probably the reason Obama prevailed in 2008. No doubt about it. It’s a valid concern, too. Still, as rancid as Sarracuda would have been, I find it unlikely that she would have started as many new wars as Obama has. I mean, really–three new wars! Really? Plus the escalation of the two old ones.

  • I too am inclined to think that voting third-party is more meaningful than not voting.

    And I’m inclined to think McCain would have gone to war with Iran.

    But I understand your frustration, Ted, Obama is no liberal.

  • One thing I don’t understand is why is a default alright for Argentina and Indonesia, but unthinkable for the mighty Uncle Sam? The US should have defaulted and faced the bitter medicine of fiscal discipline. It wouldn’t hurt if the Chinese stopped being so, well, stereo-typically patient as Asians are wont to, and stopped feeding Uncle Sam a life line.

  • “The US should have defaulted and faced the bitter medicine of fiscal discipline.”

    Is this guy a troll?

    Why the fuck should the US default when its perfectly capable of paying its bills. When you look at foreign debt as a percentage of GDP, the US’s % is quite modest when compared to other countries–certainly more or less the same as all the other rich countries, and nothing like the troubled economies. Families use credit to invest in their future, as do countries. Until the fucktarded Tea Party started playing their fucktarded game, the government could borrow at a very, very low rate. But that might be ending soon.

    Bucephalus appears to be selling the same old tired lie that got us into this mess.

    • I think the US should go the Cuban route: nationalization of corporate assets. So much wealth is locked up in private hands. Imagine what the US could do with all the cash the Fortune 500 companies have been hoarding.

  • This is an interesting concept. Certainy, Obama gets no more campaign contributions from me, and I often wonder if we’d all be better off letting the Democratic Party either just die off or be completely exposed for the sham it has become…sometimes I think having a fake liberal party is worse than having no liberal party.

  • To be fair both parties are fake, I mean You have the Democrats on one hand the Pseudo peace party, which supposedly wants to expand the safety net, and protect the rights of citizens, despite finding more wars to fight, shrinking the safety net, and supporting the patriot acts, and keeping secret prisons, and no trials. On the other side you have “Small government” Republican party saying they will shrink government spending, despite going to wars which increase it, prevent government involvement in day to day decisions (patriot act, standing in the way of gay rights, ) and most of all security (pissing off other countries does not make us more secure) So the reality is both parties campaign to do things they never do, and both parties end up making the same choice, regardless of who is in power, strange how that works.

  • […] Ted Rall asks: Are you Real? Or do you play for a Team? […]

  • One thing I just can’t get over is you’re equating your political views with those of Real Liberals (and by all means, Krugman is indeed a Real Liberal) and I’m willing to assume it’s a bona fide dellusion on your part. Real Liberals are the people Phil Ochs wrote “Love me, I’m a liberal” for. All you commies may have found a home convenience in the Democratic Party, but that does not mean their core constituency (who also gobbles everything Krugman writes) share your views.
    Notice for instance, how Krugman’s once cogent critique of Bush’s military misadventures all but subsided once the Chimp was gone.

    • I’m not a liberal. I am to the left of Krugman insofar as I have completely given up on the system and indeed have published a book explicitly calling for its overthrow. However, I have many liberal sympathies. I grew up liberal and most of my friends are liberal. Also, I don’t think I ever used the phrase “we liberals” in this column. My critique of liberals’ support of Obama no more requires that I be a liberal than my critique of conservatives who supported Bush (despite being pro-Big Government) requires that I be conservative.

  • A real liberal (e.g., Krugman or Kucinich) could challenge Obama in the Democratic primaries. We could vote for him/her and send our signal, without having to give the general election to Michele Bachmann.

  • “I know, I know: the Even More Insane Evil Republicans would take over. Après nous, la deluge. To which I ask, really, truly, no sarcasm—what difference would it make?”

    I agree completely, which is why I am all for “la deluge”.

    My guess, though, is that American “Reason”, in the form of slick marketing, cheesy reality-TV drama, and historic turning-points engineered and post-produced to look remotely probable will win the day, and Hillary Rodham Clinton will get her second chance at the glorious American presidency.

    Why do I think so?

    1) Her AP photo gallery is building up. She’s practicing “looking presidential”, and the mainstream media are likewise practicing making her “look presidential”.

    2a) She’s had a long history of being reviled by the Republicans, and Rush would bellow and blather himself into an oxycontin induced coma if she were the Democratic candidate. Many Team Democrats would consider this a plus.

    2b) She also has a long history of voting with Republicans on everything that has ruined our country since the Bush years. Conveniently, she’s been shielded from doing more of this these past few years, thanks to President Obama’s appointing her Secretary of State. Team Democrats could claim plausible deniability: “She’d have done things differently.”

    3) She’s a woman.

    Some voters thought they were making history when they elected the heroically Black Barack Obama to the Presidency. They cheered as the results came in. They openly wept in the streets. Now they probably feel a little foolish for doing so.

    Why not double down on a heroic stand-by-your-[fellow] [con] man woman like her this time?

    Some so-called progressives could be tempted to do that even if it (the election of a female presidential candidate) were the only so-called progress we’d see for the next four years!

    # # #

    I realize that putting her forward as the Democratic candidate in 2012 seems odd given that the sitting president would basically be put in the awkward position of having to admit he’d done something wrong or would be challenged to find a graceful way to exit the stage without jeopardizing the chances of the Party’s (not the People’s) big “win”. Obama’s graceful exit and golden parachute are already in place: he’s the great Healer, the great Uniter, remember? He’ll do it for the good of the Party, and “stun” the very same punditocracy that’s presently rehearsing their myriad of in-character reactions for the fatal moment.

    You don’t have to be President of the United States to BE President of the United States. Dick Cheney proved that. Since, FOX noise and the Republican Party have perfected the art of shadow government to the point that they don’t even have to be on the winning ticket!

    As far as staying home on election day goes, I don’t honestly know how much that will help. I wouldn’t count on ANY of the media reporting anything less than a respectable turnout of voters, even if facts ran completely to the contrary. It’d be like the exact opposite of the coverage we receive of well-attended protest events.

    Cheer-up, America! Four years of Hillary won’t be so bad. True, the wars will go on, with domestic surveillance, TSA checkpoints, and Guantanamo full speed ahead. Nothing will be done to halt impending environmental and economic disaster, nor yet that fatal decision when our Wehrmacht takes on one “evil” country too many, and the “allies” we’ve economically screwed with indifference will be only too happy to boldly fill in the gaps in our “strength” at times and places of their own choosing.

    We’ll still have Jay Leno to revive stale Monica Lewinsky jokes. We’ll have Hillary’s mechanical cackle to shock and awe everyone, at home and abroad. We’ll even have the bittersweet amusement of calling Bill our First “Gentleman” (?!). If we’re REALLY lucky, we’ll even have Ted Rall appearing on that year’s opening season of “Dancing with the Stars”!

    God [insert favored expletive or polite request here] America!

  • I’m with you Ted. Though I am looking forward to getting on board with a campaign to challenge Obama in the primary. I did vote for him…I wanted a black man in the white house (I was hoping he’d have the guts to rename in the black house) and I really…REALLY hate the Sarah Palin crowd. . . but this time around Palin and her minions and surrogates (Bachmann for example) are toast and I really just don’t care anymore. I don’t know if I’d be classified as a ‘real liberal’ by your definition…I’ve voted democrat because the Repugs running were lunatics and fanatics, but I’m actually a socialist, so the whole system is a POS in my book.

    Maybe working to mount a primary challenge to Obama validates the system…I dunno…but I do want him to lose now. I want every democrat who can’t stand up for principles gone…and I want the lunatic right wing to own their incompetent disasters…right now the Democrats freely take the blame for them….it’s embarrassing and I’m done with it all.

    Where do you stand on a primary challenger in 2012?

  • ….or are you done with them completely? I don’t plan on voting, but it is my right as an American to find amusement in the fireworks show.

  • And yet I know a TON of liberals with their head in the sand that insist 2008 was a mandate for progressive policies rather than the hatred of Bush/fear of Palin election it actually was. And then they wonder why they are so disappointed when they had a “mandate”.

    I still maintain McCain would be at war with more countries. He and Sarah would’ve invaded Iran which would’ve kicked of WWIV (Or III if you don’t count the cold war).

  • @Ted: yes I read your book, I understand your viewpoint and line of argument on the matter, but you still fail to convince me. All the examples you use to show where not-voting was useful are invariably cases in which voter turnout is very high relative to the US’s ≈50%, and are when there are NO legitimate alternatives for the people to cast or write in votes for. Thus these examples do not in any way validate the “don’t vote” strategy you are trying to sell to the rest of us because they look nothing like the situations you cite as precedent.

    The system you wish to oppose is the plutocracy, thus only voting for one of the two major parties, or perhaps third parties endorsed by Thomas Friedman, “validates the system”. Write-in or alternate voting is only within the system of democracy and thus only validates democracy. Frankly if you are opposed to democracy then I simply can’t agree with your world views though I would agree that not-voting would be the most effective way to prevent “validating [or supporting] the system [democracy].”

    • The U.S., even according to the right, is not a democracy. It is a republic. Many issues of major import–war and peace, what to do about the economy, etc.–are never put up to a referendum. American citizens have little to no direct voice in the issues that impact their lives, unless they live in states with ballot referendum systems like California.

      I am proposing a voter ban to express contempt for this system, pseudo-representative democracy for and by gangster capitalists, not the fictional democracy we don’t have and never will get.

  • Sure, because the Cuban “model” has worked out sooo fine…

  • So whatever happened to that protest that everybody was claiming would last for days?

  • >>Sure, because the Cuban “model” has worked out sooo fine…>>

    Have you ever been to Cuba, Bucephalus? Or do you just make your assumptions about it on what you’ve been told by Miami exiles?

  • >>Oh, and lets not forget Vice President Caribou Barbie. Keeping a mind that feeble out of a place where she’d be one heart attack away from the nuclear football? That ALONE was worth my vote for Obama.>>

    >>And yet I know a TON of liberals with their head in the sand that insist 2008 was a mandate for progressive policies rather than the hatred of Bush/fear of Palin election it actually was.>>

    Yes, Whimsical. You’re correct. But, you see, voting *against* someone rather than *for* someone is not democracy. We essentially had a choice between a backstabber and a lunatic, so of course we chose the backstabber instead of the lunatic. If anybody would have turned the world into a nuclear wasteland, it would have been Sarah Palin. She has exactly the kind of personality that would have initiated a nuclear exchange.

    But the problem with this is that it is not *democracy* by any true definition of the word. If we had a true democracy, people like Sarah Palin would never in a million years be considered a candidate for mayor of Wasilla, let alone a candidate for the Presidency.

  • Many of the criticisms of Obama and the Democrats are on the money and they have been disappointing,

    BUT

    if you take Ted’s advice and not vote for Democrats this election, you are an idiot. Yes the cliche is right, if Democrats aren’t elected, the much worse Republicans and teabaggers will win and make things worse. Don’t let them, VOTE!!!!!

  • And Ted’s admission of “I’m not a liberal” is surprising considering that he published a book called “Wake up, You’re Liberal.” If Ted isn’t a liberal anymore, maybe someone who is should give their advice instead. You know who else doesn’t want people to vote for Democrats? Republicans. Being woeful and not voting will not help and will make things worse. Ted really has changed the past few years and I think we need to move on with leaders who will do stuff instead of just standing on the sidelines.

    • The situation has changed. Reform is no longer viable. Now replacement is necessary. Whether you are liberal, conservative, or anything else, how could anyone credibly believe that this system will address the problems we face?

  • >>But the problem with this is that it is not *democracy* by any true definition of the word. If we had a true democracy, people like Sarah Palin would never in a million years be considered a candidate for mayor of Wasilla, let alone a candidate for the Presidency.

    Well, not to be overly ignorant , but DUH. I’ve known we don’t have a true Democracy since high school civics. Perhaps you were absent that day?

    Wanting the system to be other than it is does not remove your obligation to deal with the system as it is, Susan.

  • alex_the_tired
    August 7, 2011 10:40 AM

    Ted,

    Quick question. Setting aside the very likely notion that Obama is simply unqualified, is it possible that all of his screw ups are deliberate? Could he be allowing Reaganomics to run to its conclusion in order to wake everyone up, once and for all? I realize that’s highly unlikely, but I simply cannot understand Obama’s behavior from a rational perspective.

    Any thoughts on this?

    • There is nothing in Obama’s past to suggest that he is progressive. He never wrote a notable bill. He never pushed a legal theory as a law professor. He never campaigned for leftist issues. He is just what he has always been, a center-right cipher, a corporate shill.

      People didn’t want to believe it because, well, who’d WANT to lead such a worthless life by choice?

  • I’m with Ted, the system is broke and it doesn’t matter who becomes president. Hyper-capitalism won’t last much longer. The Empire and our legions are over-extended in faraway lands where we have no business and can no longer afford them. Americans think they’re immune from the lessons of history, on rare occasions when they actually do read history.

  • >>Well, not to be overly ignorant , but DUH. I’ve known we don’t have a true Democracy since high school civics. Perhaps you were absent that day?>>

    You could’ve fooled me. You’ve given us no indication that you knew this, whatsoever.

    >>Wanting the system to be other than it is does not remove your obligation to deal with the system as it is, Susan.>>

    Well, one of the ways of dealing with the system would be to sit our asses down in front of Congress’ building, make a list of demands, and not get our asses up until they are met. It’s called Civil Disobedience, and it’s the only thing that will work short of violent revolution right now.

  • Count me in for the boycott, Ted. As Emma Goldman already knew, “if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

    Or, to paraphrase another old favorite slogan… what if they gave an election, and nobody came? Talk about a panicked scramble… 🙂 In a European system, the gov’t would have to resign. In this one? Maybe lots of heads would roll, figuratively speaking. I don’t see how the system could survive a massive loss of confidence.

    Refuse to legitimize!

  • The system has not 100% failed, it just needs some major tweaking. But part of the tweaking is NOT election day voter apathy.

    • What tweaking? How?

      How can you foresee either party taxing the wealthy and redistributing money downward? How will they shake off corporate power? End their addiction to war?

      Neither party will allow anyone withintegrity to run under its banner for high office.

    • We’re not talking about apathy. Apathy is laziness. We’re talking about the active, conscious refusal to participate in a system that oppresses others and you. Were participants in the Birmingham bus boycott apathetic, or just too cheap to pay the fare? Of course not. Would you encourage Germans to participate in Nazi-rigged elections in order to “tweak” the system?

      A voter boycott isn’t enough. It doesn’t fulfill your moral responsibility as an American to overthrow a reprehensible system of government that causes savage destruction all around the world. But it’s better than active participation.

  • >>You could’ve fooled me. You’ve given us no indication that you knew this, whatsoever.

    You’ve got a long history of pretty much willfully missing my point, but even I’m baffled at what I could’ve said that you could twist into me not knowing basic history.

    >>Well, one of the ways of dealing with the system would be to sit our asses down in front of Congress’ building, make a list of demands, and not get our asses up until they are met. It’s called Civil Disobedience, and it’s the only thing that will work short of violent revolution right now.

    Good luck with that. They’re going to do their best to provoke violent revolution, because that gives them the leverage to declare martial law, which has been the endgame all along.

    So, best case scenario, you’re ignored until real world obligations force you home. Worst case scenario, you help trigger the end of America (and not in the dreamer way Ted references in his book).

    • I don’t know, Whimsical. If revolution only worked when rebels were taking on a state without superior firepower, there never would have been one. There are many challenges to a successful revolution here and now, but the argument that the military-police state is too technologically sophisticated and well-armed to defeat doesn’t stand the test of history.

  • “If revolution only worked when rebels were taking on a state without superior firepower, there never would have been one.”

    LOL! Awesome! 🙂

    There’s a reason Gen Petreus is now Director of the CIA. That’s a tactically bad move, in my opinion, because it kind of gives away the State’s battle plan / perceived areas of weakness.

    They’re afraid of us just the way we are.

    They’re not afraid of mobs of shotgun wielding lunatics raiding armories. They’re not afraid of seceding territories, either, nor should they be. What they’re afraid of are guerillas: people who can strike quickly and blend back into the populace, enjoying the support of the communities they operate within. In short, they’re afraid of Robin Hood, 2012.

    And they should be. With all the BS that’s happened since 2001, you tell me: if a large band of citizens working within your community raided the local Citibank branch, and distributed the heist among great numbers of the poor (including you), would they have your support? It’s insured, after all…which is to say, the government will steal it back from you when and if they get the chance…it will just be “legal” then.

    What if this band of brigands raided big Pharma warehouses and put your $500 monthly meds on sale in a flourishing Black Market for $40 and provided you with easy access?

    What if the number of people involved in these raids were unimagineably staggering? What if the very witnesses to the scene of the crime (offering conflicting reports, naturally), the drivers in the traffic obstructing law enforcement’s reaction to the scene, the passersby on their cell phones observing the movement of patrol cars, the patterns and placement of security cameras…people of all ages, races, sexes, and backgrounds…were all IN ON IT?

    Martial Law! The US declares Martial Law, and the revolution is half-won!

    The people screaming “socialism” as though it were an evil, dirty word had better try to reconcile themselves with it a bit more. The scenario I describe above would, I’m sure, be liked by these same people a lot less.

    Cheers!

    • We actually saw similar situations in New Orleans during Katrina, when “looters” (often with the approval of store owners) entered stores and distributed needed supplies to residents when the government failed to rise to the occasion. Also in Haiti during the earthquake. It can and will happen again, and it will happen in the United States, and it will work.

  • The issue with violent revolution though isn’t even a moral one.

    Put aside morals for awhile and instead consider something I call “The Rock index.” At its most general the rock index is a rough measurement of how effective the violent capability of a citizen is against his or her oppressors. While it is more general it is named based on how effective a weapon a thrown rock by an angry uprising citizen is against the forces of the powers that be. In reality the rock index must be adjusted a little by what the people have access to. In the US people can make things like Molotov cocktails with materials they have access to which improves their rock index, but many people are too dumb to even be able to do this which weakens their rock index. Thanks to what is left of the second amendment people have access to some guns which improves their rock index, but few people actually have guns and amo which diminishes the net rock index of the citizenry ect…

    In the modern US, however, the largest effector on the rock index is the denominator, i.e. the violent force potential that those who oppose the people posses. The US possess a truly colossal army the and other pacifying forces (last I checked the U.S. coast guard alone constituted as one of the top 10 navies in the world) the likes of which have never previously been seen. It is massively technologically advanced and has spent years training in oppressing people all over the world via needless wars and occupation, it will be even more effective and established at home with all the information fed to it by the CIA, NSA, TSA, FBI, homeland security, ect…

    Thus I conclude that rock index for the modern US is just about the lowest it has been anywhere ever, and hence violent revolution in the US is the most useless it has ever been anywhere ever. It doesn’t matter how necessary or just it might feel it is just a bad idea even once morality is completely cast aside.

    In conclusion, even with morality cast aside, peaceful revolution really is the only option for the US because the rock index suggests anything else is doomed to failure. I mean good luck throwing that rock, or even a Molotov cocktail, at that passing drone plane while it drops napalm on you.

  • “If voting worked it would be illegal”.

    But the masses are restricted in many ways, not just laws. One of the most important restrictions is the mental prison. Ted just wrote about this in Al Jezeera, where he points out how one frequently sees the US major media defeat decent simply by taking decenting ideas and upending “no one seriously believes…” on them to crush dissenting ideas before they can spawn effective action. This has been done to voting. Third party candidates and non-establishment voting options are made invisible to the people in conjunction with the people’s head being filled with the propagandist statements: “voting for third parties is a waste of your vote because they never get elected”, “If voting worked it would be illegal”, and “no one seriously believes that voting for a third party can solve anything.”

    They don’t need to make voting illegal to stop its effectiveness. It is much cheaper, easier, and more effective if they can just get you to swallow their propaganda, as listed above, which many of you have already done hook-line-and-sinker. Making third party voting illegal would require such an obvious act of abusive power directly in front of the people that it would be counterproductive for the powers that be to do so as it would wake up and anger too many people. Besides if you look at the laws that have gone into place to make it difficult for third parties to even get on ballots, and how much time and effort is actively spent denying media access and such to third parties, it becomes obvious that they have actually worked VERY HARD to do everything but the actual final step of making third parties illegal. This is because populist politicians do represent a major threat to the system. But the powers that be don’t need to take the final step of actually making it illegal so long as enough of you continue to buy their tripe that it is ineffective and would be illegal otherwise.

  • Whatever Ted, the truth is that the only choice is to vote for Obama in 2012 and hope for the best while working at the local or state level to improve the Democratic Party and hoping that filters up to the national level. A primary challenge would be good, but history shows that they normally lose and weaken the incumbent (Ted Kennedy), so Obama is the only choice and a third party statistically would be a joke unless one proves me wrong.

    Calling for a “boycott” to me seems like another attempt at voter suppression, it’s not at all like the Birmingham bus boycott. The bus boycott ended with a happy ending, a voting boycott would be pointless and make things worse. Democratic voters have to deal with suppression shit from Republicans, it’s wrong to call for self-suppression because both end with more Republican politicians. Nobody wants that Ted, do you?

    • Albert, your argument relies on the assumption that Obama and the Democratic Party would do the right thing if they could, but that they are stymied by the Republicans. In fact, recent history disproves this assumption. When Democrats have the power to push through a progressive agenda, they do not do so. The most recent example was January 2009, when a frightened America elected a Democratic landslide. Throughout the winter and spring of ’09, Dems could have closed Gitmo, helped homeowners, pushed through single-payer, banned layoffs. They didn’t even try. They didn’t even float the possibility.

      Self-suppression is casting a vote for a party that, when given a free hand, backs interests counter to your own.

  • And another thing. The bus boycotters made their intentions known which was why it worked. Unless you and those who follow you stand outside voting booths with signs that say “boycott the election”, nobody is going to care. You would be just another lazy person not voting in the eyes of everyone else. And if you do do that, people aren’t going to be as sympathetic to you as you think. You might be the subject of a Daily Show clip for a few laughs and that is it. The bus boycotters suffered through real oppression, people could relate to their strife.

    • Things have changed. These days, it’s easier to ask people to do nothing in a simple way than to ask them to picket their polling stations. Just…stay…home. If voter turnout drops to 30%, it won’t take a genius to figure out why.

  • @Albert Cirrus: I agree with you more then Ted on this matter, but the reason that third parties don’t work is because no one believes they are going to work. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the masses take third parties seriously, they become a serious threat, if the masses consider them a joke then they remain a joke.

    • That’s a good point, but third parties are also blocked by rules that make ballot access difficult to obtain, not to mention a media freezeout. Even Ross Perot’s billions couldn’t buy him decent press coverage.

  • I think the reason why third parties don’t get elected is because they spend a lot of their money on the presidency, so they try to win it all. If the Green Party funneled all their money behind a handful of candidates for Congress, they would have a voice. Bernie Sanders is the only true non-D/R candidate and there would be a lot more if they just pulled out of the presidency and worked from the ground up. Or they could run as a Democrat, but stay loyal to the Green Party and they could make the Democratic Party more liberal at the same time solving two problems.

  • >>I don’t know, Whimsical. If revolution only worked when rebels were taking on a state without superior firepower, there never would have been one. There are many challenges to a successful revolution here and now, but the argument that the military-police state is too technologically sophisticated and well-armed to defeat doesn’t stand the test of history.

    And if that were the ONLY argument, you’d have a point. The problem is it’s not; besides the very true fact that they out-gun us, we also have to deal with:

    – The fact that around 30% of the country would be stupid enough to SUPPORT actions to clamp down on revolution at the cost of Democracy. All Fox news would have to do is mutter the word “terrorist” and enough folks would fall in line to make success difficult. Most successful revolutions have 85-90% of the populace behind them. You’d be starting at 70%, if that.

    – The unpredcedented national security state. The average American is caught on camera 8-10 times daily. When the revolution is televised (and the perpetrators unmasked) it has the opposite effect of what you intend.

    – Technological advances. Yeah, I suppose a bunch of folks could knock over a bank- after being caught through modern CSI techniques and the cameras I mentioned above, they’re more likely to serve as an example of what not to do rather than “Robin Hood”.

    No, Albert has it right. It’s time for liberals to stop insisting that politics plays by the rules they think it should play by and start playing it by the rules it ACTUALLY plays by. They start doing that, they could get a liberal majority Congress and a liberal President by 2018 or so.

    But it starts with re-electing Obama and sweeping the Democrats back into control of the House. It’s the only solution that stands a chance of having a positive effect.

    • Taking your points one at a time, Whimsical:

      The fact that around 30% of the country would be stupid enough to SUPPORT actions to clamp down on revolution at the cost of Democracy. All Fox news would have to do is mutter the word “terrorist” and enough folks would fall in line to make success difficult. Most successful revolutions have 85-90% of the populace behind them. You’d be starting at 70%, if that.

      Again, revolutionaries have always had to contend with the fact that the existing regime enjoys popular support. The czar had support; he was defeated nonetheless. Batista had support too. No revolution has ever needed more than a significant minority of the population to seize power.

      A revolution is not an election. It is a violent insurrection.

      – The unpredcedented national security state. The average American is caught on camera 8-10 times daily. When the revolution is televised (and the perpetrators unmasked) it has the opposite effect of what you intend.

      This is something to consider, obviously. But again, every state has enjoyed technological advantages that were, at that time, “unprecedented.” Also, technology always cuts both ways, opening new ways for revolutionaries to organize and transmit information, as well as inflict sabotage.

      But it starts with re-electing Obama and sweeping the Democrats back into control of the House. It’s the only solution that stands a chance of having a positive effect.

      But we did that in 2008. And look where it got us. Pure foolishness. Stop wasting time in the two-party trap.

  • @Ted: fair enough, you are right, the US is not a full direct democracy. But whatever it is, it does have a few democratic institutions in place that are themselves democratic even though the whole may not be. The vote you get is democratic, even if its only effect is representatively democratic instead of directly democratic. Thus, even still, not voting at all just undermines the little anemic slice of democracy you are given access to, while simply not voting for the establishment undermines the establishment while giving a hearty endorsement for the little tastes of democracy you are given access to.

  • >>No, Albert has it right. It’s time for liberals to stop insisting that politics plays by the rules they think it should play by and start playing it by the rules it ACTUALLY plays by. They start doing that, they could get a liberal majority Congress and a liberal President by 2018 or so.>>

    Whimsical, this is a direct fucking contradiction to your earlier claim to me that you KNOW democracy is dead. Quote:

    >>Well, not to be overly ignorant , but DUH. I’ve known we don’t have a true Democracy since high school civics. Perhaps you were absent that day?>>

    Oh, and I’d like to respond this this little gem of wisdom:

    >>Good luck with that. They’re going to do their best to provoke violent revolution, because that gives them the leverage to declare martial law, which has been the endgame all along.>>

    If they openly declared martial law, it would be the greatest gift they could ever give us. The phony veneer of pseudo-democracy would finally be ripped off.

    >>So, best case scenario, you’re ignored until real world obligations force you home.>>

    “Real world obligations” didn’t stop the Egyptians from going to Tahrir Square until they got what they wanted.

    >>But it starts with re-electing Obama and sweeping the Democrats back into control of the House. It’s the only solution that stands a chance of having a positive effect.>>

    Just for that, I’m going to take Ted’s advice and NOT vote next year. I was undecided, until you opened your mouth and said this. You are quite probably a paid Obama/Democratic sock-puppet, judging from this statement alone. You offer no ideas of your own. Nothing except play by the rules and vote for Obama. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not voting for Obama or Hillary or any other dog and pony they put in front of my face.

    So why don’t you go play in the playground while the grownups discuss revolution? You can come back when you’ve finally decided to grow up yourself.

  • “Just for that, I’m going to take Ted’s advice and NOT vote next year. I was undecided, until you opened your mouth and said this.”

    “So why don’t you go play in the playground while the grownups discuss revolution? You can come back when you’ve finally decided to grow up yourself.”

    Yeah, grownups make major election day decisions out of spite because they disagree with something someone said on an internet forum.

  • >>Yeah, grownups make major election day decisions out of spite because they disagree with something someone said on an internet forum.>>

    Grownups don’t do the same thing over and over again and then expect a different result. Like voting for the same fools again hoping that they’ll change. As far as the decision I just made: Whimsical didn’t make me do it. It was my decision. That was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  • And besides, Albert, it’s quite possible that more people today vote out of spite than any other cause.

    On a related note, Rick Perry just pulled a stunt designed to scare people into voting for Obama with his little “prayer” shindig. Sorry, but I know Perry is not crazy enough to push the nuclear button. Nice try, though.

  • The problem for the Democrats was in the Senate. Obama and the House Democrats were going to try to pass a whole shitload of liberal stuff, but Republicans kept bringing up filibusters or the threat of filibusters and Democrats could barely hold onto a 60 seat majority. Yes that could be considered an excuse, Democrats could have realized that Republicans would filibuster everything and either end the filibuster or force Republicans to follow through on their threats and make them talk forever like they did in the old days. But the solution is for Democrats to grow balls and elect Democrats with balls to replace the conservative/cowardly ones, not to boycott an election which will lead to more Republicans and maybe a crazier Republican president.

    And besides, the American people already pulled a “boycott” in 2010 by electing a bunch of teabagger Republicans. Yes that was to punish the Democrats for being lame and guess where that ended up, shit got worse. Do you think a boycott of voting for Obama would suddenly make everything magical? Are you just hoping that electing more Republicans would make things so bad that it would lead to some magical revolution that would change the system? If that’s so, it’s retarded and I don’t want any part of it!

    • The two-party trap has angry voters flailing back and forth between bad choices, punishing incumbents. A boycott is a step toward freedom, toward refusing to play a sick game.

  • “On a related note, Rick Perry just pulled a stunt designed to scare people into voting for Obama with his little “prayer” shindig. Sorry, but I know Perry is not crazy enough to push the nuclear button. Nice try, though.”

    That’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard to come from someone who is not a conservative. So let me get this straight, Perry started a crazy religious convention with the intention that people who see that it’s crazy and say, “oh we would rather vote for Obama instead of Perry.” Perry is some secret agent of Obama and he is trying to get people not to vote for Republicans. Maybe we should follow Occam’s Razor and say that Perry has been doing what every conservative has done since the beginning of time: stir up their crazy supporters. If they repeal voters because of their craziness, it’s purely unintentional.

  • >>That’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard to come from someone who is not a conservative.>>

    Yeah, but we live in crazy times.

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