Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Lasagna on December 15, 2011 at 2:36pm

Geeze Louise,

I've been in and out here just checking in on the conversation. Finally spent an hour or two composing my latest two cents. Right after submitting it I see that Mark and Victoria are now buddies and that things have changed a lot in the tone and thrust of the conversation. I hope my latest contribution doesn't roil the soup too much as it looks like the group as evolved well beyond where I thought it was when I started my latest response. Ah well...Good luck to all.

Dave

Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 15, 2011 at 3:04pm

Yeah, David, we smoked the peace pipe. You're certainly invited back into the circle.

None of us are free of blame on attacking and defending and responding from our anger and frustration. 

Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 15, 2011 at 2:20pm

I will be with you in spirit in the bunker and from where I am salute you both for the good will with which you have gone beyond your differences.. I am truly inspired.

 

What you and Gisele & Mark have accomplished here is exactly what we all have to accomplish.

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Permalink Reply by Gisele Theriault on December 15, 2011 at 3:21pm

It's the magic of Occupy. :)

Permalink Reply by Gisele Theriault on December 15, 2011 at 3:10pm

Wow, thank-you so much, I am not as educated as yourself. Now I have to go find out who "Doug Rokke" is.

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Permalink Reply by Gisele Theriault on December 15, 2011 at 1:12am

Mark, you ask what has changed to make voting useful given that the problem of rigged-elections hasn’t changed.

The rigging may not have changed, but Americans have changed. Obama excited people, especially young people, to believe that change is possible. Then he pulled a bait and switch. That has pissed them off. The economic situation has them pissed off. Occupy tapped into a deep dissatisfaction. Protests are not ending. That is new. That is what Victoria and others are trying to tap into. If enough progressive people are elected it could make concrete changes. Countries reach critical points in time when direction can change. People could be emboldened by having more progressives in Congress. That could seriously change things for 2016.

Victoria and others are trying to prevent the next elections from being rigged. They will fail in some instants and succeed in others. The thing is, this time people are pissed off. Protests could be sparked by more vote-rigging and the protesters would have widespread public support. That is why Victoria says that if the elections are rigged again that in itself could be the spark that sets off a chain of events leading to what you want, a complete overthrow. It’s more likely to happen as a result of that than of not voting at all. Not voting takes no energy, no passion. It doesn’t send people protesting into the streets.

The most likely outcome of not voting is nothing. Telling people their vote doesn’t matter doesn’t get them more engaged in politics. It does the opposite. Most just think ”fine then, if there’s no point I’ll go do something else with my time”. Not “I’ll go protest”. By getting people involved in the process they become more invested in the outcome, angrier if they think they have been hoodwinked, more likely to protest, especially with the support of the Occupy movement. Like it says here http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html, if some people protest more are likely to join them.

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on December 15, 2011 at 1:49am

Yes, Gisele, if enough progressive people are elected, it might make some reforms possible--maybe not within our lifetimes, but possible.

I don't want a violent overthrow, Gisele, which is what you are saying when you say protests leading to a complete overthrow.

I would like to see people understand the system, understand that the system has NOT become corrupted, but is working exactly as it was designed to work because it was established by the Framers of the Constitution to ensure that those who owned the country (the wealthy 1%) would always run the country. I think that if people who are angry understood that, they might withdraw their consent from the system by not voting. 

People are more content with plutocracy, rule by the rich, when the economy is in a boom phase, and less content when it enters a bust phase, but they often blame it on politicians because they don't understand that such cycles are normal to a capitalist system. 

People who don't understand that a game is rigged, may get angry the first time they gamble and lose. They may become angrier the second time they gamble and lose, particularly if they think they understand the game and that they're a good player. The third time they might begin to suspect that the game is rigged. They might then gamble a fourth time, knowing that they're likely to lose, but hoping to be able to find some evidence they can use to prove that the game is rigged. If gambling isn't illegal, they could then take that evidence to the authorities and get the game shut down. If gambling is legal, they could appeal to whoever owns the game to stop rigging it and run a more honest game. It is sometimes hard to figure out how a game is rigged, so the person might gamble and lose ten or fifteen more times until they have figured out and documented exactly how the game is rigged. But if they take their evidence to the authorities or the owner of the game and nothing happens, they're likely to get angry. They might go back and knock over the table and break up the game. They might gather a mob of people, tell the mob how rigged the game is, and go back with an angry mob to burn down the building. If they've lost everything and they're desperate, they might shoot the dealer and then shoot themself. Things like that have happened. But if people really understood that a game was rigged and had lost a lot of money in it, collected evidence that it was rigged and been unable to get the game shut down, and decided to hock their furniture, sell their house, withdraw their pension money, and borrow from friends so that they could continue to play, I'd say you've got some folks who should join Gamblers' Anonymous. A sane person, by that point would walk away, even if it's the only game in town and even if walking away is passionless and just doing nothing. 

The funny thing is that if people just walked away and refused to play in the rigged game, it would be forced to shut down because it wouldn't be able to attract any suckers. 

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Permalink Reply by Gisele Theriault on December 15, 2011 at 2:26am

If people didn't actively overthrow the government it would simply keep running as is. The President wouldn't quit and leave the White House. Other countries wouldn't pull their money out. Pundits would write articles about the shocking voter turnout and how Americans can be encouraged to become more politically engaged.

You don't need a poker game but you do need a government, at least most people want one. People do not want the kind of economic chaos that is inevitable when an entire political system is replaced. Accusing them of being baby-killers isn't going to motivate them to decide otherwise.

I'm all for dreaming, but in this case your dream is to make something happen that most Americans simply don't want to see. Heck, I'm Canadian and I don't want to see that happen. Our countries are closely tied economically.

If a critical mass of progressives get into office their votes may not change much. What it will change is create more loud voices objecting to government malfeasance. Maybe so many that they convince voters to elect even more of them. Or maybe the progressives will point out something that sends people into the streets to protest. Maybe not, but it seems a more realistic thing to hope for and more importantly to work towards.

Americans are hardworking "can-do" people with a lot of faith in themselves. If they decide they want something enough they will go for it whole-heart. That's just the way Americans are. It's easier to fix the vote-rigging and institute recalls than it is to change the entire system.

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on December 15, 2011 at 3:09am

I mentioned one situation where an election boycott caused a dictator to flee, and another where it caused a government to start making concessions. I don't believe that things which have happened cannot happen.

If it was just killing a few million innocent people here and there that enabled the capitalist imperialist system to continue in the way so many people are happy with, I guess there wouldn't be any way to convince them that their lifestyle isn't worth the price of other people's lives. Unfortunately the capitalist imperialist system also requires the pollution of the planet and many experts say that we're past the tipping point. So now the lives being sacrificed to profits are their own children's, which I'm sure that many people will also consider worth the price, and I don't suppose that the total extinction of life on earth could dissuade people from a lifestyle they're willing to kill for. 

As for protests, that's really great for the capitalist imperialist system. It gets to spend billions more on crowd control weapons and training and to enlarge the highly profitable prison industrial complex. 

Anyway, people may risk their lives and their freedom to protest for reforms, but if they're happy with the system they will, as you say Gisele, continue to vote for it. You can't change people by calling them baby-killers if they're perfectly happy with being baby-killers.

If people in the US (most lefties, in case you've never encountered any before, Gisele) don't refer to people in this portion of North America as "Americans" because we consider everyone in the Americas, including North, Central, and South America, to be Americans. We call people in the US, US Americans or citizens of the US, or, if we happen to know them really well, just baby-killers for short. They're proud of it, laugh, and make patches for their sons' and daughters' jackets to wear when they're on R&R. 

Of course if US Americans wanted something done, they'd get 'er done. You may even have see pictures of Fallujah, Sirte, and other accomplishments. We even built Fukushima. We're number one! Now please excuse me--I have to go do number two.

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Permalink Reply by Gisele Theriault on December 15, 2011 at 2:33pm

I realize there is a political message in using "Americans" to refer to all Americans not just US citizens, an effort to counter U.S. exceptionalism, but sometimes a word is just a word. We leftists and academics can be too strident which alienates the people whose opinions we want to sway. I am a proponent of "pick your battles".

"Americans" is broadly understood and accepted to mean "US citizens" and is less cumbersome to use than US Americans or US citizens. "North Americans" include Canada, South America refers to the south. Canadians refer to themselves as "Canadians". We don't need the word "American". We never refer to ourselves as "Americans" and are insulted by it. We may refer to "North Americans" but rarely, because we consider Canada quite different from the United States.If you are trying to influence the general public, it is "othering" yourself. It creates a separation between yourself and the people you are seeking to influence.

Statements like this:

"Of course if US Americans wanted something done, they'd get 'er done. You may even have see pictures of Fallujah, Sirte, and other accomplishments. We even built Fukushima. We're number one! Now please excuse me--I have to go do number two."

Express the strength of your convictions, the anger at the devastation caused by the American war machine. I suspect that the emotion behind it is to attempt to shock people into waking-up to US imperialism. The actual effect is to put people who consider themselves to be Americans on the defensive. To many Americans supporting the troops is patriotic. Your comment is alienating rather than educational.It may shock and anger, but it doesn't further your cause.

This is the attitude that causes people to fall for the "loony left" narrative and the "intellectual elites" label that the ruling-class uses to discredit progressives. It is how they convince the middle-class that they are better off with the "sane" conservative right. Academics deconstruct language and evaluate it from the perspective of the academic concept of American exceptionalism. It makes us appear to be out of touch with "real" people who are too busy to think about such intellectual nonsense. One of the most astonishing successes of the ruling-class has been to make intellectualism and higher education seem like a bad thing. "Elites" used to refer to the ruling-class. Now it refers to intellectuals.

I don't react to your aggressive mode of communication because I know that you are reacting in frustration at your inability to persuade others and their criticism on your perspective of how to effect change. 

I know that I cannot change the behavior of others. I can only change my own, therefore I refuse to "take the bait". I will never influence someone by being disrespectful even if they were disrespectful first. Through gaining the respect of others they are more likely to try to understand my perspective. I still may not succeed in persuading them to my way of thinking but they are more likely to remember my arguments and give them serious consideration. When they hear others denigrate me they are more likely to speak out in my defense. They may still see me as misguided but not as "the enemy". I get angry. I want to bite back. Sometimes I do, but it is a failure on my part when it happens.

Onlookers will judge me by my behavior not the behavior of others. That is why I spoke so strongly against Victoria and David's behavior. I could see that they are intelligent and dedicated activists. In their anger and frustration they were discrediting themselves not you. In so doing they lose influence not gain it.

You have a condescending tone and use insults when people refuse to agree with you. It doesn't bother me because I know that you are harming your own reputation not mine. People don't read your post and think "Gisele is XYX". They read your post and think "Mark is XYZ". Because my primary goal is communication I put your style aside in favor of genuinely exploring your message with as open a mind as is possible. Even if I am convinced that I will not be persuaded I can only benefit by understanding in depth the reasons behind your opinion.

Through Victoria's own behavior (and Lindsay's) I can see that she is an intelligent woman with a deep dedication to social justice and a desire to make the world a better place. She cares enough to take action not just speak. Even if you are correct and she is entirely wrong in her approach to change she does not deserve your rudeness and disrespect. She is not your ideological enemy. She is even willing to concede that her plan may not work in which case she is willing to consider yours.

You may think I don't get it, but I have tears falling from my eyes in this very moment because I am thinking of what you -might- have seen in Afganistan. Is it inevidable that pyschopaths rise to power? People say they don't understand suicide bombers, they must be mad, and yet destroying the Earth is collective suicide so how is that sane?

Mark, you are a good man. Regardless of whether or not you persuade people to stop voting you are still needed for whatever is to come. If chaos comes you will not be the man who rapes. You will be the man who shares his bread with a child, who helps the woman next door hoe the ground so she can plant seeds without requiring sex in exchange. You will be the man that teaches people how to survive, that organizes people to defend themselves. I know it's difficult, but try to reserve the violence in your heart for real culprits.

Peace, hugs and respect

Gisele

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on December 15, 2011 at 4:18pm

Don't make me into something I'm not, Gisele. While I wouldn't rape and I would share bread with a child, I am not nonviolent, and if I could, I would use force to prevent somebody else from raping a woman or taking bread from a child. And yes, I would try to organize people to defend themselves.

I'm not a saint. Maybe I'm not even worthy of the Occupy Movement because I won't renounce violence. 

It shows when I use words that may shock, may even hurt, may even make people angry, and might not further my cause, but if I see injustice I will use every weapon at my disposal to try to stop it. Maybe I'll fail, maybe I'll make things worse, but I won't remain silent or passive in the face of injustice.

I try to respect others, and often I fail there also. But if it alienates patriotic US citizens who support the troops to be called US citizens or US Americans, and it comforts people of Central, South, or other than US North American countries to see that somebody recognizes their existence and respects their identity, I fail to see what I could gain by conformity. "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," right?

I'm an atheist or anti-theist, Gisele. But I never try to win over believers to atheism. You can't argue or reason with beliefs. US exceptionalism is a belief system. My election boycott advocacy isn't aimed at winning over those who believe in capitalism and imperialism because they live in a might-makes-right world and only respect force. 

In advocating that people withdraw their consent from the system by not voting, I directed my message, to the extent possible, at people who had already expressed discontent with the system, such as peace activists. I didn't succeed in winning any over, but as it turned out it wasn't because of the way I framed my message, which may not have been optimum, but because many of them are Democrats or Zionists or both. That's an identity. When a person says, "I am a Democrat," or "I am a Zionist," they mean that's their primary identity. That's who they are. They can't change because then they wouldn't be who they are. A person who identifies as a Democrat will oppose war when it is a Republican war, but not when that same war is commanded by a Democrat. A person who identifies as a Zionist might oppose segregation, discrimination, and ghetto-ization used against Jews, but have supported such things in Apartheid South Africa and in present-day Israel when the victims aren't Jewish.

I'm different. For many years I voted a straight Democratic ticket because my parents had and because I hoped that Democrats were less evil than Republicans, but it was never my primary identity. I never thought or said, "I am a Democrat," as a statement of who I am. Later I joined the Green Party and voted for Green candidates, but again I didn't adopt it as my primary identity. It usually takes a life and death situation before a person can drop a primary identity and learn that they have an inner self. I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to learn that early in life. 

There is great comfort in conformity, in identifying with and being part of a group, a tribe, a nation, a religions, etc., any of the things that Annie Besant taught Krishnamurti are divisive and cause wars. Things like mob psychology and critical mass are based on social mechanics. While they are effective at organizing people, you are correct in observing that people are more easily organized for evil than for good.

Victoria's first posts here seemed rude and disrespectful to me, but we've reached a point of more than just mutual respect now. 

Most people will judge me on the basis of identity politics, who they believe they are and who they believe I am. For example, and I'm sure Victoria experienced this as well, when I first suggested on public websites that people not vote, Democrats would accuse me of being a Republican and Republicans would accuse me of being a Democrat. Since they identify with their party and want to get out the vote for their party, if I suggest not voting, I must be a member of the other party. People who belonged to third parties got the same reaction, that all they're doing is helping the Republicans (or the Democrats), as people with those primary identities see everything only in those terms.

Identity politics is indeed extremely divisive and causes many wars. It is one of the primary ways that the wealthy ruling elites divide and conquer, and there is no better tool for fostering identity politics than electoral politics.

It isn't just my style that alienates progressives, but also the content of what I write. I'm not a progressive. I consider that in many cases "progress" is just a euphemism for genocide. You know the sort of thing--'we have to move these indigenous people off their land to make room for industrial development.' Progress.

Democrats came to Occupy San Diego GAs from the very beginning. And their goal, as always, was to attract more voters to the Democratic Party. At one point I saw a group of high-level local Democratic Party movers and shakers standing in a circle and I walked over just in time to hear one of them say, "We need to keep a low profile and take this one step at a time." Why would they need to keep a low profile? What plan are they implementing one step at a time? I watched as they began to dominate the process. I tried to warn people, but very few listened. 

The late Walter Karp wrote a classic book about US politics called, Indispensable Enemies. Some people call it "US Poli-Sci 101." In it, Karp described how the two-party system keeps an iron lock on US politics through many different strategies, among which is a division of labor. The job of the Republicans is to represent the political right, and the job of the Democrats is to co-opt the left so that there can't be any effective opposition to the political right. Seeing that many Occupiers can identify with leftist causes, all they have to do is convince them to vote, and the chances are that they'll be able to convince them to vote for Democrats. In San Diego they succeeded totally. Canvass for a Cause, which is supposedly nonpartisan due to their 501(C)3 status but never seems to canvass for any right-wing causes, helped a great deal by bringing in organizers and helping to register voters. There's no conspiracy, not even among the people who said that they need to keep a low profile and take things one step at a time. Not at all. They all believe that they're doing what is best and right and good, etc. Progressives. Progress. Karp saw through it and knew that it wasn't progress at all, just politics as usual.

Politics as usual is what got us into this mess and led to the Occupy Movement. It isn't the solution or even part of the solution, and it won't solve anything. 

I was in Afghanistan during one of the few times in the past few thousand years that they haven't been at war. I didn't see horrors and I didn't see it the way most other US Americans saw it as just a dirty place with backwards people. I saw strong, beautiful, intelligent people with a proud history and a culture no more flawed than our own. Did they sell women into marriage? Yes. But before the USSR and then the USA invaded, there was no prostitution. You couldn't go out in any city or town and buy a woman on the street corner like you can here. They had fewer material goods, but less income disparity. I saw difference, not better or worse, just different.

Sorry, I've been up most of the night and it is almost noon, so I'm too tired to proofread and this might have more typos than usual. Also more rambling. But thanks for both the criticism and the praise, Gisele. I'm no different from anyone else in that respect--I'm sure I'm deserving of both.

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 15, 2011 at 4:47pm

Mark, one of the main books I recommend to people is Karp's "Indispensable Enemies"

You'll find it amusing to know that I went to high school with his son, Roy, and the two of us were radical activists even back then. We started a newspaper together called Uprising =)

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