{"id":24451,"date":"2015-10-23T20:16:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=24451"},"modified":"2015-10-23T20:17:09","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:17:09","slug":"election-boycott-advocates-no-matter-who-wins-the-working-class-loses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=24451","title":{"rendered":"ELECTION BOYCOTT ADVOCATES: “No matter who wins the working class loses”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We did not vote ourselves into this mess and we cannot vote ourselves out of it.\u00a0<\/span>
\n-Adolph Reed, Jr.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An Introduction to the Election Boycott<\/h2>\n

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Since the 1950s Americans increasingly stopped voting. Even in the historic 2008 Obama election with a record number of African Americans and youth turning out, only 58 percent voted. In non-presidential Congressional elections, less than 40 percent vote. While voting advocates charge apathy and laziness, most nonvoters say they are fed up with a corrupt government and elections with no reasonable choice. In recent elections, non-voters have been the majority, and if they had been a political party, would have been by far the largest party in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

The loss of faith in the government is not only reflected in low voter turnout; the most recent Gallop Poll found only 7 percent have a positive view of Congress.<\/p>\n

Laws restricting third party participation, an elections system that favors money over votes, a two-party system that has no room for any other than the official liberal and conservative ideologies, a Supreme Court that protects the right of billionaires to buy elections and politicians. Why bother, the majority of Americans ask as they throw their hands up in exasperation with a system that just doesn’t work for them.<\/p>\n

Isn’t it time to consider joining together with other non-voters to create a massive Election Boycott of US Elections?<\/p>\n

Explore the website to learn more. To learn why so many are turning the current silent boycott into a militant act of electoral defiance, click here.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Election Boycott on Carson’s Corner!<\/span><\/h2>\n
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PODCAST #2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Making the Case for an Election Boycott: Why the Left Should Refrain from US Imperialism’s Electoral Charade<\/strong><\/span>
\nby\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Danny Haiphong\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>– \u00a0<\/span>Re-posted from <\/span>B<\/span>lack Agenda Report<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>June 17 2014 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>The left should not participate in, \u201c<\/strong>and thus provide\u00a0consent for,\u00a0the rule of imperialism every four years.\u201d Say \u201cNo\u201d to the charade. \u201cBarack Obama’s two-term presidency has been a lesson for the entire left that\u00a0voting for a\u00a0Wall Street politician within the imperialist state can only bring more misery and political confusion, not less.\u201dMaking the Case for an Election Boycott: Why the Left Should Refrain from US Imperialism’s Electoral Charade<\/strong>by Danny Haiphong<\/strong>\u201c<\/span>The two-party US political system more clearly than ever\u00a0works exclusively\u00a0in the interests of the imperialist ruling class.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There are many dangerous trends emerging from progressive and revolutionary forces in the US. One of the most concerning\u00a0is\u00a0a growing\u00a0focus on electoral campaigns as a tactic to achieve grassroots objectives.\u00a0 The electoral victories of Kshama Sawant, Chokwe Lumumba (Rest in Power), and Ras Baracka are a clear indication of popular discontent with\u00a0austerity, gentrification, and privatization in\u00a0US cities under capitalist siege. \u00a0However, whatever encouragement these victories provide cannot resolve the contradictions of US capitalism. The primary purpose of US capitalism’s state machinery is to manage the affairs of the ruling class. This poses the important question of whether electing\u00a0representatives into political office is a worthy tactic for the left or whether it should be abandoned all together.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Historical Context of Capitalist State-Reform\u00a0and the US left<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The English colonizers, after defeating\u00a0the British Crown in\u00a0the American (counter) Revolution, made it clear that African slaves, property-less Whites, women, and indigenous people would have zero decision-making power in who would represent them in the newly formed\u00a0US\u00a0nation-state. As US capitalism industrialized, property restrictions were lessened\u00a0to further privilege White Americans into “citizenship” at the expense of Black and indigenous people.\u00a0From the very beginning,\u00a0electoral politics were a stage where capitalists performed for\u00a0the state power needed to manage the profits\u00a0obtained from racism and labor exploitation.<\/p>\n

US government hostility\u00a0to the interests of the working class and oppressed understandably deterred the left from pushing\u00a0revolutionary goals through electoral politics.\u00a0 Prominent socialists like Eugene Debs ran for\u00a0President\u00a0a handful of times with little success. For the most part, leftists understood that running candidates for political office was a drain on resources and political morale. So, rather than run candidates, the left organized people to win\u00a0concrete victories from the capitalist state\u00a0in specific historical moments. \u00a0Progressive\u00a0labor and civil rights legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act and the National Labor Relations Act,\u00a0were won because the collective organization of workers and victims of white supremacy presented a direct threat to the interests of capitalism.\u00a0What made such\u00a0gains so important was how they expanded popular vision of what was possible and at the same time failed to fully transform\u00a0the inherent antagonisms of the US capitalist social order. Poor Black and colonized peoples in the US, largely excluded from state-reforms,\u00a0saw no other option but to demand complete self-determination and liberation from capitalist\u00a0domination.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge Jackson warned that\u00a0imperialism\u00a0ensured that the US government could no longer\u00a0reform itself in the\u00a0last stage of capitalism.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>
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\nGeorge Jackson was a leader of the Black liberation movement that was partly inspired by inadequate state-reforms.\u00a0 Jackson wrote extensively in his book\u00a0Blood in my Eye\u00a0<\/em>(1971)\u00a0on the changing nature\u00a0of capitalist state-reform. He learned quickly from his experiences organizing for the\u00a0Black liberation movement from behind the walls\u00a0that there was nothing left that Black America\u00a0could wrestle from the US capitalist state. The conditions of the working class were on the decline. Prior reforms had improved the economic conditions\u00a0of White America while doing virtually nothing for the economic needs of\u00a0poor Black and indigenous nations.\u00a0 Jackson concluded that these developments were evidence of\u00a0US capitalism’s last stage: imperialism.<\/p>\n

Jackson warned that\u00a0imperialism\u00a0ensured that the US government could no longer\u00a0reform itself in the\u00a0last stage of capitalism to appease certain sectors of its exploited subjects.\u00a0And he was, and still is, correct. The ruling class went on an offensive that has yet to end, brutally repressing revolutionary upheaval in the US while making calculated and necessary changes to ensure the survival of capitalism on the global stage. Some of these changes included ending of the Vietnam War,\u00a0monopolizing\u00a0corporate power into the realm of finance, and most importantly for the purposes of this article,\u00a0opening up avenues to Black candidacy in corporate and political office. These “reforms” isolated revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party and re-directed\u00a0popular energy\u00a0toward what the\u00a0imperialist ruling class deemed acceptable\u00a0forms of political participation.<\/p>\n

Boycott the Vote!<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

George Jackson’s\u00a0analysis points to the need to direct political energy away from participation in the imperialist state. \u00a0Popular\u00a0mistrust in the US government is at a high point, as shown by low voter-turnouts and percentages of Presidential and Congressional approval.\u00a0\u00a0However, the political vacuum created by imperialism\u00a0has strengthened the illusion of legitimacy around\u00a0running\u00a0candidates for political\u00a0office. This contradiction exists\u00a0despite the fact that\u00a0the two-party US political system more clearly than ever\u00a0works exclusively\u00a0in the interests of the imperialist ruling class.<\/p>\n

The political party for bankrupt liberal leftists, the Democratic Party,\u00a0has\u00a0jointly expanded\u00a0the prison state, austerity,\u00a0surveillance, war, poverty, and\u00a0by extension, corporate rule with its Republican counterparts. Still, both Democrats and Republicans rhetorically perform\u00a0a show of\u00a0opposition for the corporate media. And in no other historical period has any\u00a0President provided a more effective assault on oppressed people for the imperialist ruling class. Barack Obama’s two-term presidency has been a lesson for the entire left that\u00a0voting for a\u00a0Wall Street politician within the imperialist state can only bring more misery and political confusion, not less.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Occupy Chicago activists burned their voter registration cards outside of Obama’s\u00a0campaign office.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So while some organizations like Socialist Alternative are seeking city council victories to achieve goals such as a $15 per\/hour minimum wage, others are organizing to boycott US electoral politics all together. In 2012, a group of organizers campaigned for an election boycott of the Presidential election. \u00a0The campaign\u00a0emphasized a shift in consciousness around the act of voting. \u00a0Instead of voting for the Democratic\u00a0or Republican\u00a0Parties of imperialism and legitimizing their rule, the campaign\u00a0called on people to\u00a0actively<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>withhold their vote. \u00a0This meant not only being absent from the polls as individuals, but also collectively organizing others to withhold their vote in opposition to the electoral charade of the capitalist class.<\/p>\n

Although Obama was re-elected President, the efforts of boycott organizers were not\u00a0in vein. Numerous tactics were employed to make the stand against US imperialism’s elections visible. Occupy Chicago activists burned their voter registration cards outside of Obama’s\u00a0campaign office. Organizer Terri Lee and others presented the idea of an election boycott to as many media sources and events as possible, which included venues such as the Left Forum. \u00a0As a collective, the boycott organizers were most concerned with positioning themselves as a left movement that refused to vote in, and thus provide\u00a0consent for,\u00a0the rule of imperialism every four years. \u00a0This is an important position that\u00a0deserves\u00a0serious ideological and practical consideration from\u00a0leftist formations in the US imperial center.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Conclusion<\/strong><\/em>
\n<\/span>
\nUS governmental elections are advertised as a staple of Western “democracy” by the imperialist ruling class. However, the fact remains that elections under this racist, capitalist, neo-colonial system only legitimize the rule of the capitalist class over its exploited subjects. \u00a0Electoral politics are movement killers, not movement builders. In the 1970’s, the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party split with the more militant chapters around the country and began focusing on mayoral and city council campaigns. \u00a0Each\u00a0campaign drained the resources\u00a0of the Party and diluted the revolutionary ideological foundation that had once inspired\u00a0young, working class\u00a0Black Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Sawant\u2019s election has helped begin the process of removing\u00a0the “Fight for $15” out of the streets and into the seats of bourgeois government.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Kshama Sawant’s city council\u00a0victory in Seattle will inevitably run into similar issues in the fight for a $15\/hr minimum wage. It already\u00a0appears her election has helped begin the process of removing\u00a0the “Fight for $15” out of the streets and into the seats of bourgeois government.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Additionally, Sawant’s recent appearances on\u00a0Democracy Now<\/em>! alarmingly argued for\u00a0mass movement forces to run “third party” candidates for political office and emulate her victory around the country. If history is our guide, than Sawant’s strategy needs reconsideration. \u00a0Malcolm X, in his speech\u00a0The Ballot or the Bullet,<\/em>\u00a0cautioned Black left political forces on the limitations of merely exercising the right to vote with a vow of non-violence despite the white racist terror\u00a0that awaited them at the polls. \u00a0In this period, the right to vote has been rolled back by the same imperialist state the vote legitimizes.\u00a0 The US imperialist system only guarantees incorporation of revolutionary and progressive objectives into the imperialist state machinery.\u00a0 This spells defeat of, not victory for, working class power in contrary to what Sawant claims.<\/p>\n

An organized election boycott has the potential of channeling\u00a0the\u00a0mistrust that\u00a0most left-leaning folks have with the US imperial state into concrete political action.\u00a0Instead of electing city council members, let’s confront our municipal officials that are\u00a0hell-bent on selling\u00a0neighborhoods and assets\u00a0to the corporate ruling class. \u00a0Let’s confront our elected officials in Washington\u00a0for their service of empire and corporate power. \u00a0The left\u2019s most important task in this period is to take principled positions against US imperialism. Electing “third party” candidates into this machinery won’t do this, but campaigns such as an election boycott give us a chance to fight for transformation of the imperialist system we so desperately need.<\/p>\n

Danny Haiphong is an activist and case manager in the Greater Boston area. You can contact Danny at:\u00a0<\/em>wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com.<\/em><\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

http:\/\/electionboycott.weebly.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We did not vote ourselves into this mess and we cannot vote ourselves out of it.\u00a0 -Adolph Reed, Jr. An Introduction to the Election Boycott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}