"Election Reform" is NOT all that important

[ProudDad]

The way elections are now and always have been conducted are exactly how the defenders of the status-quo want and allow them to be conducted.

USAmerican elections are designed to keep the duopoly in power; the two right-wings of the Big Business Capitalist Party, that Louis Black so rightly called "a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror!"

The Big Business Capitalist party has been created and is maintained to protect the privilege and wealth of the very few against the significant needs of the many.

Peeling off another layer of the onion, the basic system of dominator hierarchy that permeates most people's thinking and world view is the real problem. This is the frame that most people cannot escape, this short-lived experiment (less than 20,000 years) in a system that places a few in "leadership" positions and the many as willing and unwilling slaves, and a social and political economy based on that setup.

We all have to think outside of that box. We have to begin thinking about a Steady-State economy that fulfills the needs of Earth's creatures (of which we are but one group) and Earth's future as a habitable planet. We have to begin powering down to preserve Earth as a habitable planet. We have to begin realizing that we, the Collective, HAVE THE POWER in spite of the bullshit brain patterns inducing servility that the dominator hierarchy has imprinted in us all our lives.

Human brains are flexible. They were evolved in a much different social setup over millions of years and can be self-reprogrammed to throw off the chains of this recent, deadly programming!

DO IT!

[Odin2005]

1. If voting changed anything they would make it illegal. --Emma Goldman

All change comes from local ACTION, not whining to a national government that is beyond redemption.

[ProudDad]

2. Exactly!

It comes from a critical mass of persons realizing that they don't have to follow their programming.

Me and Mine are implementing our freedom from the chains of the thought processes of the dominator hierarchy LOCALLY.

[scarletwoman]

3. Hear, hear! As I said in another thread, our minds have been colonized.

The most important work we can do is to try to break people free of identifying with one or the other faction of the Ruling Class.

Thank you for your excellent post.

sw

[scarletwoman]

4. kick

[obxhead]

5. If the electoral college was removed in 2000

and every vote counted as a vote then Florida wouldn't have mattered and Gore would have been president.

I agree with the overall thinking of the OP, but I think electoral reform would have a more drastic effect than it is given credit here.

[ProudDad]

7. And Gore would have been just as hamstrung (maybe more)

than Obama.

Gore actually had some environmental credentials and ideas so they would have run a full court press on him and the corporate-funded Congress would have neutered him as far as environmental protection goes (think the egregious giveaway to corporate USAmerika misnamed the "health care bill".

As for the rest, in some ways he was as bad as the shrub...And Tipper -- my GOD -- enemy of free speech!

As Louis Black said, "the two parties are like a bowl of shit looking at itself in the mirror!" Until the underlying big lie that humans should be organized as a dominator hierarchy and spoil the Earth is destroyed, nothing substantial will change.

[obxhead]

10. I agree 100%

It will be hard to change our thinking without changing the system and the way it works as well. I feel the 2 must go hand in hand. Changing the way we think without changing the results of the process will lead to disillusionment, and changing the system without educating the populace may not bring about any meaningful change as well.

[BeFree]

12. EH?

Gore isn't in their bag.

Gore had the election stolen because they couldn't control Gore.

This idea that 'nothing would have changed' if Gore, and we, hadn't been ripped off is
asinine.

[ProudDad]

14. Gore wouldn't have been able to make the laws

The corporate-funded Congress makes the laws...

Gore's only choices would be veto or sign...

[BeFree]

17. Oh?

The Dems held congress for a time during the bush era.

And the voting machines made it possible for many pubbies get elected.

Your theory that the vote count doesn't matter is bunco.

I guess you are in denial about the e-rigged elections?

[Sebastian Doyle]

6. As we saw in Arkansas last Tuesday

DLC "Democrats" are every bit as involved in electoral fraud as the Repukes are. I suspected as much after shady results in the New Hampshire primaries in both 2004 and 2008.

I wish Howard Dean, who literally hacked a Diebold machine himself once and saw how easy it was, had done more in this area when he was Chairman of the party. I understand why rebuilding the party, the 50 state strategy, etc took priority, but now we have another useless DLC tool for a party chair, and I can promise you, he will do NOTHING about electro-fraud. Even though it will probably be exactly how the Repukes will "win" in 2012, since Obama will not have the high turnout to beat the fraud, thanks to his willingness to write off the very people who elected him.

[ProudDad]

8. Howard too is a tool of the capitalist masters... (n/t)

[BeFree]

11. You are a tool too, then

Right?

You are telling us that the only tool we have to select who our leaders will be is NOT important.

So what you are doing here is being used as a tool against us. Right?

[ProudDad]

15. Be your own leader...in concert with your community

You waste your time looking for a knight in a White House to come save you...

The electoral system as presently constituted and corporate-funded is just another part of the smoke-screen side show keeping you from using your own power...

www.transitionus.org

[BeFree]

18. I know what a being a leader takes

And for those too afraid or too lazy to take any other action, the vote is their only weapon, and that has been stolen from them via the e-vote.

Tell ya what, dad, stick to stuff you really know, and quit telling me what I should or should not wait for... IOW, stick to your own actions and you might find some success?

First thing you might do is understand how the e-vote has stolen democracy. That would be a start. EH?

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. Yeah, sure he is.....

Howard Dean could have BEEN a "capitalist master", as he was born into a family which participated in such things (does the name "Dean Witter" ring any bells?)

Instead he chose to be a doctor in rural Vermont. Yeah, real "capitalist tool" there :eyes:

[ProudDad]

16. He opens his mouth and out comes the near left

variant of the Big Business Duopoly line...

If it quacks like a duck...

Read the OP...

You might find that my original point is that the electoral system is a symptom, until you cure the disease, the disease will just find another way to manifest itself.

[Kalun D]

9. Yes, You Have To Wonder

When the dems regain power and they do absolutely nothing to correct the shambles that the voting system has become. Then you see the likes of Blanche Lincoln "win" when the vote has been going against the entrenched incumbents.

K and R

[LWolf]

19. k&r