Ten reasons not to vote
1. Reform is the biggest enemy of revolution and the
electoral system is the essence of reformism. Voting
gives the impression of participation and change, yet it is the
backbone of a society based upon alienation and boredom. Voting
lures me away from the real task of demolishing existing
institutions. In the short term the voter gets token, pacifying
reform, and in the long run we get the same electoral repetition,
with no significant change.
2. To vote is to accept the limits of my own power. It
makes me as powerful (or powerless) as the cross on the
ballot-paper. Democracy is the amassed power of several
million opinions reduced to a whimpering and stifled cheer for the
same masters we've had all of our lives.
3. There is nobody who can run my life better than
myself. Why then should I give others the power to decide how I
should run my life?
4. There are those who would vote, yet still be
active in the struggle for real change. They are like
vegetarians working in slaughterhouses.
5. Voting is the excuse we need to avoid organizing
ourselves, to avoid creating our own alternative. Voting is
accepting that the power of the state is preferable to the power of
the individual and the power of the community.
6. The weight and force of the blow of a policeman's
truncheon does not change when the truncheon is painted a different
color. All democratic institutions are 'law and order'
institutions.
7. Voting is a clever way of getting me to sign my name
to a whole series of measures, when in fact I am only aware of
three or four of them. Thus, my vote is my personal approval of
every single policy carried out by the party I vote for, without
exception. By the time the elected party has spent a year in
office, I won't even recognize the measures I voted for - but I
will be subject to the laws and restrictions imposed through each
and every decision made by that government.
8. Voting for the lesser of two (or more) evils
perpetuates the biggest evil of all: the evil of stasis, a world
where all change is superficial. Invariably this means that we
eagerly vote in order to grasp the available entertainment of
politicians walking tightropes between popularity and
personal wealth and comfort.
9. Voting legitimizes not only the system of government
we have now, it also legitimizes the pendulum-style inevitability
of the electoral process. (No matter how many times you flip the
coin, it will never land on it's edge. No choice exists in the
no-hope land between left and right, and voting for it only
strengthens the swinging regularity of the elections). Surely it's
far better to encourage real change - which can only happen outside
of government.
10. Voting is slapping a preservation order on
corruption, inequality, and mass-manufactured boredom. In short,
voting is the blinding of the people, by the people....and so it
is.
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