VANGUARD: An Election About Nothing? (fwd)

Forwarded message:

> Subject: VANGUARD:  An Election About Nothing?
> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 98 00:35:09 -0600
> From: Vanguard <Vanguard@theVanguard.org>

> 
>                       AN ELECTION ABOUT NOTHING?
>                            30 October 1998 
> 
>                     Copyright 1998, Rod D. Martin 
> 
>                    "The Vanguard of the Revolution"
>                            National Edition 

> An election is at hand, and yet again, the vast majority will not
> vote.  Just as they have shown a complete disinterest in the
> character of the President, they will Tuesday show a total lack of
> concern for the fate of their country.  For them, this is the
> Seinfeld election:  an election about nothing.
> 
> It is just as well that such nincompoops won't vote; and yet it is
> a sorry commentary on the state of our body politic that so few
> understand, that so few even care.  Another fatal disaster just
> this month, this time in Taft, California, shows us again just why
> it is so tragic.

Perhaps they're not stupid. Perhaps their not nin-compoops, but rather you are
for assigning any value to the entire process.

It is a standard litany of conventional science to choose the lesser of two
evils. Perhaps the lesser of two evils in this corrupted, Constitutionaly
bereft system is *NOT TO PARTICIPATE*. Sine it obviously doesn't matter who
wins, since the mighty spectre of compromise will dilute any real difference
into a verbal shell game devoid of meaning. Maby deToquville (sorry for
spelling - early morning) was right about mediocrity being the result of
democracy, except in one fine point. It won't be the people as a whole but
rather those who are too stupid and wedded to outmoded ideals to change. The
social and political dinosaurs if you will.

Maby the polls where drunk dwarves win over 'serious' candidates is actualy
demonstrating the absurdity of those who insist their issue are serious.
Perhaps people are finaly seeing that these nin-compoops who want the
political power in this country are simply blind to a social and economic
change in the winds.


    ____________________________________________________________________
 
       To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

                                                     Confucius

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage@ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
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Jim Choate writes:
 
 
> It is a standard litany of conventional science to choose the lesser of two
> evils. Perhaps the lesser of two evils in this corrupted, Constitutionaly
> bereft system is *NOT TO PARTICIPATE*. Sine it obviously doesn't matter who
> wins, since the mighty spectre of compromise will dilute any real difference
> into a verbal shell game devoid of meaning. Maby deToquville (sorry for
> spelling - early morning) was right about mediocrity being the result of
> democracy, except in one fine point. It won't be the people as a whole but
> rather those who are too stupid and wedded to outmoded ideals to change. The
> social and political dinosaurs if you will.


Not voting tells the current politicians that you don't care
what they do to you.  They'd be happier if only 5% of the electorate
bothered to vote- that's fewer people to market to.

If you don't like the Republicrats in office, then vote for
what the media denigrates as a 'fringe cantidate'.  If they
lose, which is likely because Americans tend to want to vote
for the winner, then you'll be satisfied because you voted
against the idiot in office.  If they happen to win, then
you'll either get someone wiht some new ideas which (hopefully) you
agree with, or someone so seriously wierd that they paralyze
government for their entire term. 

Here in California we have Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom,
Reform and Natural Law candidates for almost all the state positions.
The Natural Law people are so wierd that it's very tempting to
vote for them, here's a sample:

Jane Ann Bialosky, Natural Law candidate for Secretary of State:
"My ideal is to bring fullfillment to the electoral idea, a wise electorate.
Government is the reflection of collective conciousness....
Our government should sustain the influence of harmony, positivity, wholeness,
in which no one can go wrong and everyone will spontaneously be right...
The government of nature governs from the holistic nasis of creation
according to the principle of least action.... Everything must be held up
by natural law.

Another Natural Law candidate for state Controller:
"My vision is for prevention-oriented government, conflict-free politics
and proven solutions to America's economic problems by cutting taxes deeply
abd responsibly while simultaneously balancing the budget through
cost-effective solutions to America's problems, rather than by cutting
essential services."


I was thinking as I read the voter pamphlet that an Absurdist party
would be quite amusing and would point out the silliness of the
current politicians.  But I don't think I could come up with anything as
wacky as the Natural Law people can.


> Maby the polls where drunk dwarves win over 'serious' candidates is actualy
> demonstrating the absurdity of those who insist their issue are serious.

That's my point.  Absurdisim sends a much stronger message
than just not voting.  Voting for serious 'fringe' candidates
(i.e. Libertarians) also sends a message.  Not voting just
says "I don't care what you do to me".



Of course the whole thing _could_ be rigged- 
last night the ABC web site had pages up with _today's_
voting results, with 100% of the "precincts reporting".

 http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/elections98/results/senate.html
 http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/elections98/results/governors.html
 http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/elections98/results/issues.html

They're not up now, but I managed to get a copy of the senate "results"
yesterday (10/2) at 18:40 PST.  It'll be interesting to see how well
they match the "results" from today. 

A copy of the page I saved is at www.lne.com/ericm/senate.html



-- 
Eric Murray          N*Able Technologies                    www.nabletech.com
(email:  ericm  at the sites lne.com or nabletech.com)     PGP keyid:E03F65E5

At 09:00 AM 11/3/98 -0800, Eric Murray wrote:
>The Natural Law people are so wierd that it's very tempting to vote for them,

One reason their rhetoric looks so weird is because it's avoiding
coming straight out and saying "Our plan for fixing society is to have 
the government fund teaching of Transcendental Meditation(r) to everybody,
and once everybody is doing TM, they'll all be healthier, better behaved,
and will do things in accordance with The Laws Of Nature As Taught By
the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, so the problems of the world will all fix themselves."
Meanwhile, of course, they describe their national health plans as using
"Proven Scientific Principles" (TM having been proven to fix everything)
and their education plans using similar obfuscatory rhetoric.
(On the other hand, I haven't heard them saying that the TM-Siddhi program
will let them replace the Air Force with levitation yet;
they tend to take the view that calmness and niceness will scientifically
reduce the need to shoot people, which I can't fault them for too much...)

It's basically a wimpier version of traditional Western moral reformers 
pushing the view that if government gets rid of Sin, society will work better,
but getting rid of ignorance is usually a "kinder, gentler" process,
not that you want to tell the ignorant what you're doing,
because they may think that offering fruit and flowers to a guru's picture
and chanting the name of a fire-god while breathing quietly
is not only a strange way to fix ignorance but is an inappropriate thing 
for governments to spend their money on, especially in the name of Science.

Most of the Natural Law Party candidates I've talked to, except when
they're on direct meditation-revenue-enhancement topics, tend to be
reasonable folks, somewhere in the liberal-to-libertarian range,
thinking the government should mostly let people do what they want,
which will naturally lead to calmness and niceness as they follow 
natural law, and a lot of the TM folks, especially around
Maharishi University in Iowa, have gone into business for themselves,
so they prefer lower government interference and red tape.

On the other hand, like any small party trying to get enough candidates
to run full slates for office, some of their folks really are flakes :-)
I like to believe that Libertarians do better on that score,
but we've got our share as well, and the only real way out of it
is to grow large enough that the supply of people willing to run
includes enough competent people.

On the other hand, it's still tempting to see about putting Frank Zappa
on the ballot.  He is a bit metabolically challenged these days,
but it wouldn't bother him much, and he's still be a better candidate
than most live Democrats or Republicans.
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639