READER COMMENTS ON
"Democracy or farce? Courtesy of the Onion"
(5 Responses so far...)
COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
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Mark E. Smith
said on 8/31/2010 @ 3:40 pm PT...
Thank you, Ernest. To make it seem funny, the Onion selected as "winner" the candidate of the political party that was getting fewer corporation donations, whereas everyone following the campaign knew it was the candidate whose party was getting the most corporate donations who would win.
Since they were both pro-war and pro-bailout, and had virtually identical Senate voting records during Obama's Senate term, it really didn't make much difference who won. I don't think Democrats expected Obama to expand the Bush agenda as much as he has, but the rest of us knew it would be more of the same.
As an election boycott advocate who has been begging people for years to stop casting meaningless votes in sham elections for candidates they can't hold accountable, the rest of the Onion video didn't seem funny to me.
As long as approximately 50% of Americans continue to mistake tyranny-with-a-vote for a democratic system, nothing is going to change.
But of course a lot of Americans fear democracy, which they call "mob rule" or rule by the poor, more than they fear plutocracy or rule by the rich. That's not likely to change until the economy gets so bad that more than 90% of Americans are desperately poor. At the current pace, that could take a few more years yet.
Unless we attack Iran or Venezuela, in which case it could happen overnight.
COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
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Ernest A. Canning
said on 8/31/2010 @ 7:10 pm PT...
With all due respect, Mark Smith, your "boycott elections" approach is an exercise in self-inflicted, political impotence.
Yes, the differences between Obama and McCain were negligible. Yes, Obama has not only betrayed "change we can believe in" but has actually expanded upon the Bush/Cheney lawless "war on terror" to the point that I believe he should be impeached.
Now, I know that it may come as a shock to you, Mark, but there were and are other choices and issues that one can vote on beyond the "Obama vs. Mc Cain" question.
In my state, during the last election, one could have voted for a Green Party candidate, or for Cynthia McKinney for President.
During the primaries, a better informed public would have voted consistent with their issue preference, in which case Dennis Kucinich would now be President.
Here, in CA in the upcoming Nov. election, there is Prop. 19 which would "make it legal for anyone 21 or older to possess, share or transport up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use and to grow up to 25 square feet per residence or parcel" that a true progressive could vote for. And there is the oil industry-backed Prop 23, which would suspend The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, eliminating current CA emissions standards, to vote against.
Do you really propose that voters stay home and allow the oil companies to poison the atmosphere because you are distressed by Obama's betrayal?
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
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Ernest A. Canning
said on 8/31/2010 @ 7:18 pm PT...
The solution, Mark, lies in finding a way to pierce the corporate media's electronic curtain and educate the public on issues that truly matter.
The solution is to end e-voting and replace it with paper ballots and a transparent count.
An election boycott is nothing more than a cynical, petulant, self-defeating form of protest offered up by a defeatist who is so taken by his or her own self-pity that he or she can't see the forest for the trees.
Sorry for such a harsh assessment, Mark, but you've been playing those out-of-tune dissonant notes for so long, that it was time someone recorded them and played them back so you could hear what others are hearing.
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
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Disillusioned
said on 8/31/2010 @ 7:29 pm PT...
Ron Paul was on the ballot in my state, and I felt completely justified, and pleased to vote for him.
The 22,000 other people who voted for him must have felt likewise.
Now if we could just get transparent elections and 99% of the other voters to vote for the candidate they WANT instead of the lesser of two evils. Sadly, that wouldn't have changed the 2008 election (Obama did talk a good talk, but he sure as hell isn't walking the walk), but I think it would have changed the 2004 election, and maybe even the 2000 election.
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
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skeptic94505
said on 9/5/2010 @ 9:44 pm PT...