Reply #22: Christ wouldn't be bitching about Caesar on an internet board [View All]

[IrateCitizen]

That much is for certain. He would be directly confronting the system at its root, and attempting through his action to inspire others to refuse to cooperate with it and its corruption.

Do you think that I suddenly feel that all of the loss of life, all of the death and destruction is suddenly justified? Not at all. I am still greatly saddened by it.

But I also realize that electoral politics is a complete cesspool -- and that politicians, for the most part, are able to get elected because they support the status quo, not because they propose great and sweeping change. As a Kucinich supporter, I have seen that in full effect this campaign season, to be certain.

Given these limitations, I am forced to operate in the realm of reality, and rather than seeking to cast my vote for someone "pure", to instead cast my vote for the candidate who represents the lesser impediment to the implementation of my progressive ideals. While I might feel good about voting for a candidate with no chance at winning, in the end if it serves instead to help enable the greater impediment, then it is for naught.

You talk of going into the streets on March 20th. All well and good. But what will you do on the following day? And the day after that? Will you further that action with a sustained effort of non-cooperation with the status-quo by, say, refusing to pay your taxes because they are used to fund nefarious ends? Will you be willing to suffer the consequences for such non-cooperation, which could possibly involve jail time? Or will you choose instead to maintain your comfort and passively cooperate with the system.

The point I'm making is this -- it is very easy for us to project our disillusionment and disgust with the state of affairs on to politicians. After all, they're the ones who vote on the laws, and we live in a society in which our true political freedom is limited to election day. But in the end analysis, so long as we continue to passively cooperate with the establishment status-quo represented by those politicians, then few instances of action are overshadowed by our long histories of passive acquiescence.

To refuse cooperation is to invite serious sanction -- to invite the violent backlash of the system. And it is extremely difficult in our increasingly atomized society, where everyone is out for themselves more than the common good. But in the end analysis, it is the only true option for transforming our society and achieving the kind of political freedom that eludes us.

But expressing that outrage through the electoral process and voting for a national third-party candidate will most often only serve to increase the hold on power of the more reactionary forces standing in your path. This will hardly make progressive change more likely -- in fact, it will most likely make it even more distant a possibility.