I feel the same way about (not) voting, that I feel about this article. So many people have told me, my vote doesn't count. I voted, and they didn't listen to us even when our vote/phone calls/petitions said to represent us in a different manner. Your wasting your vote, if you don't vote Party Line. If you don't vote party line, then your vote will count for the more evil man. If you vote third party, you are just helping those who are our opposition AND MORE EVIL THEN OUR GUY! (instead of supporting someone that stood for what they state that they believe in).
Those whose job it is to control the population (political talking head but all of them, and the Mega Main Stream Media) know exactly, to the penny, how many dollars they have had to invest to keep this sham of an election system going. They know within a small percentage how many people voted for the bilk 'their only viable candidate' spewed, and how many were voting simply against THEW OTHER GUY. They know to the cent how much they have to invest to make this political system appear to be a two party system, and that those people are opposites, not two sides of the same rotten coinage, as is shown if you follow what votes pass, and how voted for their passage (yet didn't you vote for them to stop that same stuff they just approved?). And if you give up in despair, they know this. They don't have to invest ONE RED CENT to manipulate you anymore. In fact, they tell the masses, they have the option to vote, obviously it isn't as bad as your making things out to be, or more people should vote like you want. They know exactly, how many votes had to be manipulated to get the Only Viable Candidate in office, that is, the only viable candidate for their moneyed interests. Not voting gives them more revenue to invest in the things you already gave up on thinking you could change. Who'd a thunk, that anti war protesters, even while they were ridiculed constantly by the media, kept those who run our Military and Government, those who INVEST HEAVILY, MONETARILY in our political system, from nuking more civilians then we already have in the 1960's and 1970's. Don't forget, we are the only nation on this plant to nuke civilians and spread uranium around making millions more sick or creating deformed babies. This happens, because too may of us have given up, we don't vote against it, we don't protest. How many Americans are aware that in the European WW II Campaigns, we killed many more times the numbers of non combatant ON PURPOSE, then we did with nukes in Japan? We burned down entire civilian cities with firestorms, not even military targets (and none of the nuke targets in Japan were military targets either). _YOUR 'Government', needs your complacency, to commit the most atrocious crimes against humanity. _ They can only do this if you don't vote against them, if you don't show your head to be counted in protests, as those who've given up changing things, are the desired end result of what the Population Control experts want. Scott For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing. Simon Wiesenthal <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/simon_wiesenthal.html> Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/simonwiese405090.html#ixzz1OZAqCMBE On 6/6/2011 10:55 PM, Scott Peden wrote: > > http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/protest-works-just-look-at-the-proof.html > > > Sunday, October 31, 2010 > > > Protest works. Just look at the proof > > <http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/protest-works-just-look-at-the-proof.html> > > > Its astonishing to see how Americans have been conditioned to think > that political action and engagement is futile. Im old enough to have > witnessed the reverse, how activism in the 1960s produced significant > advances in civil rights blacks and women, and eventually led the US > to exit the Vietnam War. > > Im reminded of this sense of despair almost daily in the comments > section. Whenever possible action steps come up, virtually without > fail, quite a few will argue that there is no point in making an > effort, that we as individuals are powerless. > > I dont buy that as a stance, particularly because trained passivity > is a great, low cost way to hobble people who have been wronged. I > mistakenly relegated an article by Johann Hari in the Independent on > this topic to Links, and Richard Klines commentary on it made me > realize it deserved its own post, so I am remedying that error now. > > As Kline observed: > > The nut of the matter is this: you lose, you lose, you lose, you > lose, they give up. As someone who has protested, and studied the > process, its plain that one spends most of ones time begin > defeated. Thats painful, humiliating, and intimidating. One cant > expect typically, as in a battle, to get a clean shot at a clear > win. What you do with protest is just what Hari discusses, you > change the context, and that change moves the goalposts on your > opponent, grounds out the current in their machine. The nonviolent > resistance in Hungary in the 1860s (yes, thats in the 19th > century) is an excellent example. Communist rule in Russia and its > dependencies didnt fail because protestors won but because most > simply withdrew their cooperation to the point it suffocated. > > Americans have cultural norms that work against trying to move the > political/social needle. Class and economic aspirations are one of > them; protestors are by definition malcontents, and thus presumed > losers. Busy successful people obviously have not reason to waste > their time this way, right? Another impediment is the weird American > fixation with optimism. Talk candidly about how stuffed up things are, > and you can be dismissed as being negative. Despite how much it is > revered in pop psychology and the how to succeed in business > literature, optimism is not necessarily a good trait for long, hard > fought struggles. Those who anticipate that success will come sooner > than it does will find their hopes dashed repeatedly. Some may be > resilient enough to themselves up and try again, but that isnt > universal (being pessimistic and tenacious is probably a better > stance, but our culture does not breed for that). > > From Johann Hari > <http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-protest-works-just-look-at-the-proof-2119310.html>: > > There is a ripple of rage spreading across Britain. It is clearer > every day that the people of this country have been colossally > scammed. The bankers who crashed the economy are richer and fatter > than ever, on our cash. The Prime Minister who promised us before > the election were not talking about swingeing cuts just imposed > the worst cuts since the 1920s, condemning another million people > to the dole queue. Yet the rage is matched by a flailing sense of > impotence. We are furious, but we feel there is nothing we can do. > Theres a mood that we have been stitched up by forces more > powerful and devious than us, and all we can do is sit back and be > shafted. > > This mood is wrong. It doesnt have to be this way if enough of > us act to stop it. To explain how, I want to start with a small > scandal, a small response and a big lesson from history. > > In my column last week, I mentioned in passing something > remarkable and almost unnoticed. For years now, Vodafone has been > refusing to pay billions of pounds of taxes to the British people > that are outstanding . > > Many people emailed me saying they were outraged that while they > pay their fair share for running the country, Vodafone doesnt pay > theirs. One of them named Thom Costello decided he wanted to > organize a protest, so he appealed on Twitter and this Wednesday > seventy enraged citizens shut down the flagship Vodafone store on > Oxford Street in protest. Vodafone wont pay as they go, said > one banner. Make Vodafone pay, not the poor, said another. > > The reaction from members of the public who were handed leaflets > explaining the situation was startling. Again and again, people > said Im so glad somebody is doing this and there needs to be > much more of this. Lots of them stopped to talk about how > frightened they were about the cuts and for their own homes and > jobs. The protest became the third most discussed topic in the > country on Twitter, meaning millions of people now know about what > Vodafone and the government have done. > > You might ask so what? What has been changed? To understand how > and why protest like this can work, you need some concrete and > proven examples from the past. Lets start with the most hopeless > and wildly idealistic cause and see how it won. The first ever > attempt to hold a Gay Pride rally in Trafalgar Square was in 1965. > Two dozen people turned up and they were mostly beaten by the > police and arrested. Gay people were imprisoned for having sex, > and even the most compassionate defense of gay people offered in > public life was that they should be pitied for being mentally ill. > > Imagine if you had stood in Trafalgar Square that day and told > those two dozen brave men and women: Forty-five years from now, > they will stop the traffic in Central London for a Gay Pride > parade on this very spot, and it will be attended by hundreds of > thousands of people. There will be married gay couples, and > representatives of every political party, and openly gay soldiers > and government ministers and huge numbers of straight supporters > and it will be the homophobes who are regarded as freaks. It > would have seemed like a preposterous statement of science > fiction. But it happened. It happened in one lifetime. Why? Not > because the people in power spontaneously realized that millennia > of persecuting gay people had been wrong, but because determined > ordinary citizens banded together and demanded justice. > > If that cause can be achieved, through persistent democratic > pressure, anything can. But lets look at a group of protesters > who thought they had failed. The protests within the United States > against the Vietnam War couldnt prevent it killing three million > Vietnamese and 80,000 Americans. But even in the years it was > failing, it was achieving more than the protestors could > possibly have known. In 1966, the specialists at the Pentagon went > to US President Lyndon Johnson a thug prone to threatening to > crush entire elected governments with a plan to end the > Vietnam War: nuke the country. They proved, using their computer > modeling, that a nuclear attack would save lives. > > It was a plan that might well have appealed to him. But Johnson > pointed out the window, towards the hoardes of protesters, and > said: I have one more problem for your computer. Will you feed > into it how long it will take 500,000 angry Americans to climb the > White House wall out there and lynch their President? He knew > that there would be a cost in protest and democratic revolt > that made that cruelty too great. In 1970, the same plan was > presented to Richard Nixon and we now know from the declassified > documents that the biggest protests ever against the war made him > decide he couldnt do it. Those protesters went home from those > protests believing they had failed but they had succeeded in > preventing a nuclear war. They thought they were impotent, just as > so many of us do but they really had power beyond their dreams > to stop a nightmare. > > Protest raises the political price for governments making bad > decisions. It stopped LBJ and Nixon making the most catastrophic > decision of all. The same principle can apply to the Conservative > desire to kneecap the welfare state while handing out massive > baubles to their rich friends. The next time George Osborne has to > decide whether to cancel the tax bill of a super-rich corporation > and make us all pick up the tab, he will know there is a price. > People will find out, and they will be angry. The more protests > there are, the higher the price. If enough of us demand it, we can > make the rich pay their share for the running of our country, > rather than the poor and the middle to name just one urgent > cause that deserves protest. > > And protest can have an invisible ripple-effect that lasts for > generations. A small group of women from Iowa lost their sons > early in the Vietnam war, and they decided to set up an > organization of mothers opposing the assault on the country. They > called a protest of all mothers of serving soldiers outside the > White House and six turned up in the snow. Even though later in > the war they became nationally important voices, they always > remembered that protest as an embarrassment and a humiliation. > > Until, that is, one day in the 1990s, one of them read the > autobiography of Benjamin Spock, the much-loved and trusted > celebrity doctor, who was the Oprah of his day. When he came out > against the war in 1968, it was a major turning point in American > public opinion. And he explained why he did it. One day, he had > been called to a meeting at the White House to be told how well > the war in Vietnam was going, and he saw six women standing in the > snow with placards, alone, chanting. It troubled his conscience > and his dreams for years. If these women were brave enough to > protest, he asked himself, why arent I? It was because of them > that he could eventually find the courage to take his stand and > that in turn changed the minds of millions, and ended the war > sooner. An event that they thought was a humiliation actually > turned the course of history. > > You dont know what the amazing ripple-effect of your protest will > be but wouldnt Britain be a better place if it replaced the > ripple of impotent anger so many of us are feeling? Yes, you can > sit back and let yourself be ripped off by the bankers and the > corporations and their political lackeys if you want. But its an > indulgent fiction to believe that is all you can do. You can act > in your own self-defence. As Margaret Mead, the great democratic > campaigner, said: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful > people could change the world. Indeed, its the only thing that > ever has. > > > > -- > It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really > one party representing four percent of the people. - Gore Vidal > > Never Never NEVER reward adolescents nor politicians for bad behavior > just because they can point to someone else whose behavior is even > worse than their own - you will either raise felons or put them in > office. - me > > /Gore Vidal/ - "there's only one /party/ in America today, with /two/ > wings,the /conservative/ wing, known as Democrats, and the > /reactionary/ wing, known as Republicans." > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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