Fair play to British Socialist/Communists for working together with their anarchist & green allies to put Facists beyond the boundries of acceptable debate in a way that has't happened in the rest of Western Europe. But if we want lasting & significant change
the fight against Capitism and its extreme Facist expression must be rooted a sense that all forms of Representative Democracy are fucked-
as someone once said..
All Representation is Alienation
Don't count on others to do it for us-

forget elections
lets associate- empower ourselves- take control of our lives- lets use direct democracry
We live in the World of the Many
fucked Up By the Few

our struggle continues...

beltane kisess
=:-) xxx

Last time I didn't vote.

That was too easy for Anthony Blair. His smear was to say we were apathetic.

This time I spoiled my vote. For the time being it is hard for them to hide the spoilt-vote figures, although that will be remedied in the near future.

Knowing that the soft pencils make writing anything difficult, I prepared several stickers. After crossing out all the candidates I placed the stickers over the voting papers.

The wording on the stickers was as follows:

'Everyone knows the political parties are run by and for the British Establishment. The same British Establishment that blows the arms and legs off Iraqi children to line it's own pockets. You are the stinking corpse of a Democracy which died many years ago.'



Don't waste your vote - spoil it.

Vote-spoiling is a form of Direct Action.

The winners of this election are already known, and are the same as in every other vote. The winners will be representatives of the Establishment.

Imbeciles always claim that those who do not vote are not entitled to any say. On the contrary, those who vote abdicate their decision-making to others. It is voters who have forfeited any right to complain. Having rejected the established order I now have a mandate to run my own life.

On one voting slip I was offered by those who run this country a choice of their Labour or Conservative flavours. As if!!!

I chose the real third way.

The game is over. It's time we GOT UP OFF OUR KNEES.

Start today.

If you are in Dorset you may have a chance to vote for a Dorset Stop the War candidate....10 in all...9 more than the BNP

Abstention is not the road to revolution.

Abstention is the sure road to fascism.

Abandonment of the political space of elections is criminal negligence for anyone who considers themselves in favour of a more just and free society.

Do you think the Sun readers and the BNP and the security services and the multinationals and the conservatives and the animal abusers and the corrupt backhander merchants and the cultists and secret society mobs and the CIA loving reactionaries and the warmongers will weep because you abstain? No, they will love it.

But stay in your pure ivory tower if you wish, ignore the vast majority of your fellow citizens, arrogantly label them sheep if you wish....but don't be surprised when your civil liberties evaporate even more, and society becomes even more unfair and the environment is degraded even further. Well, you can be smug, cos you and a couple of hundred mates had some ineffectual demo or got your heads kicked in or broke a few windows - FAR more effective than voting or talking to REAL people and trying to persuade them to vote, or change their ideas.(I don't think)

Rant over.

Elections are not the only way to achieve change, but they are one , flawed tool, and they will be used against us if we abandon them.

Far from hiding away in an ivory tower i will be joining the vast majority of the electorate and not voting. Most people know that it doesn't matter who you vote for, government policies are determined by business interests, not the will of the majority, and electoral politics serves to present a facade of participation.

The fascists to be concerned about are the ones currently in power. Labour's policies on asylum seekers are not just pandering to racists, they are racist. And the present escapade in Iraq (and Afghanistan before) is fascist, pure and simple, as is the recent legislation that has further extended police and secuirty service powers of arrests and surveillance. To the likes of BP executives iraqi's are just so many brown people who were stood in the way of their oil profits.

People who continue to vote are offering the system the appearance of legitimacy. Instead of trying to canvass for votes, people who identify with progressive ideas could maybe consider involving themselves in local and community events and projects. Their is a lot of social and economic deprivation out there - direct involvement in the community is the way to overcome the all-pervasive alienation, and way more empowering than passively leaving it all to an elected 'representative'.

But surely it's possible to do both. It is possible for someone to involve themselves directly in local and community events and projects AND vote. Who says you can't do both.

If all of the candidates stink, at least you could vote for the one that stinks the least. Instead of it being a vote for the party you like, consider it a vote against the parties you don't like.

If people who identify with progressive ideas don't vote, they will be flooded by the fascism of the ruling class.

The thing is Dirk that the ruling class run the leading Parties already. By voting for any of these parties you are simply re-electing the ruling class again.

If any genuinely left/green alternative party stood any chance of a significant showing in future elections then they would also be infiltrated and taken over by the ruling class.

While tactical voting against the BNP has some merit, it should be remembered that the BNP are clumsy amateurs. The real racists are already in power and employ the best marketing teams.

People vote for parties like the BNP for psychological reasons, driven by instinct and fear. If our society was not so deformed and depraved by capitalism then I would hope that there would be little demand for what they offer.

The fact remains that voting is a sham, and gives legitimacy to a system which no longer works as intended.

Democracy was established as a means to an end, to allow ordinary people to ultimately control the direction in which society develops. Since the establishment are able to take control of any parties worth the bother, the system does not work.

Ordinary people like ourselves must find new ways to manage our lives, and have some input into the political process.

I agree completely that we should all endeavour to take part in and promote community based projects. Any alternative to what we have now must be built from the ground up through new social structures.

In the meantime, I stand by my basic point, that at the current time, a spoiled vote gives us more tactical advantage than not voting, in as much as not voting can be easily dismissed as apathy, whereas spoiled votes are harder for the establishment to explain away.

Vote for the socialist or communist parties, there is still a little time left!! Hurry up! Run anarchist run!!
A spoiled vote is irrelevant, it accomplishes nothing. Like so many anarchist forms of revolt, such as smashing a shop window, it only has symbolic value, both to the ruling class and the protestor. It has no actual practical effect.Furthermore, these symbolic actions look for change on the good will of consumers (dont go to starbucks,starbucks is bad spend... your money somewhere else...) it does not actually empower workers or anyone else. Few people seriously think that voting can bring about a revolution or create a new world, but we have to fight tactically. There are many fronts on which we have to struggle, and voting and elections are one of them. Something is better than nothing.

With the greatest respect zorro, the whole world knows the track record of communist parties which have gained power. As I said, all elected governments are run by and for the establishment.

Shame the Labour Party no longer go in for socialist policies (and for the record I used to be a solid Labour voter, having grown up in a mining town).

Also, you should take a look at the counter-revolutionary behavior of the institutionalised communists in Paris in May 68. Where were they when things started to take off? Telling the workers to go home and pay their membership subs on time. Don't believe me. Read it yourself at  http://www.marxist.com/1968/may68.html (I could point you to anarchist summaries of the events which are somewhat less flattering about the communists, but better to come from the horse's mouth don't you think?)

I think you've impaled yourself on your own sword Zorro!


That said, I think this has been a good thread on Indymedia. Respect to everyone who contributed.

FYI the latest results are that the turnout was 30%. Each of the three main parties got around 30% of the vote, giving each party approx 10% of the electorate.

So the 70% who don't vote are revolutionaries eh?
I don't think so.
More likely most of these people would describe themselves as "apolitical" (i.e. quite happy/only marginally disgruntled/fatalistic about the status quo or supportive in an uninterested way of one of the main parties, but can't be arsed to go and vote for them - look at the opinion polls, look at the newspapers that are popular, speak to your flaming neighbours!) In other words, the mass abstention is another symptom, if more evidence were needed, of the continuing atomisation, depoliticisation and rampant individualism of post modern, globalising capitalism in the technologically advanced core countries. Hardly something to celebrate!
The capacity for self delusion of self proclaimed revolutionaries knows no boundaries.
IMO there will be no "revolution" without evolution - in all arenas - social, cultural, economic and electoral.