Evan | October 27, 2003
Even voting for the right thing is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail.Henry David Thoreau
Throughout the years of the progressive (don’t you dare use the word “liberal”) political movement, there has been somewhat of an obsession with the right to vote, and the right to a “free and fair” election. To me, the concept of a fair election is rather bizarre. What is fair about me marking someone’s name down on a piece of paper, and them then having the right to tell me what to do?
My interest in exposing the Diebold memos has nothing to do with “saving democracy in America” or any other such blindly patriotic endeavor. Rather, I hope that the Diebold memos will help people to see just how much control corporations and the elite have over our supposedly “democratic” government, and that voting only serves to legitimize a failed system. I was worried when I read our first press release. It seemed to imply that the only reason we oppose Diebold is because they might help the Republicans win. Oh, the horror. I hate it when a rich white male calling himself a “republican” defeats a rich white male who calls himself a “democrat.” It’s just much nicer to say “democrat,” it brings on a sense of security indoctrinated into me by my parents from the time I was old enough to ask who that guy on TV was.
In reality, history shows us that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, and that attacking the president as a person or a party is useless, while the economic system that creates poverty and war remains intact.
I feel it is dangerous to propagate the myth throughout the movement that voting — or working on election campaigns — can change anything other than the face we have to look at when we watch CNN. Voting is a very useful tool for the elite to keep the people from truly rising up and engaging in activities that might bring about real change. I know many good activists who spend a majority of their time working on elections campaigns that either lose, or have little effect. As Emma Goldman once said, “It may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt in the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances. The State is the economic master of its servants. Good men, if such there be, would either remain true to their political faith and lose their economic support, or they would cling to their economic master and be utterly unable to do the slightest good.”
The Diebold memos are a direct challenge to the myth of democracy in America. My hope is that they will provoke people to question the assumptions that they have always held that voting for the most “liberal” candidate is the best they can do for the oppressed of the world, and that otherwise they should just work and consume. An employee in the memos has a quote that says, “If voting ever changed anything, it would be illegal.” I’ve got that pin on my bag. Think about it. If we accept that the ruling class — by definition — controls the state, and therefore have at their fingertips the State’s massive powers of violence and coercion, we can assume that they have the ability to formulate whatever Rule of Law they see fit. If this is so, why would they legalize anything that might have the slightest possibility of changing their position as members of the ruling class?
I’m tired of “Regime Change Begins At Home” bumper stickers. Regime change implies that after the supposed “change” there is still a regime in place. Why not get rid of the regime altogether?