THE LIMITS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS Roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of "government": (1) Unrestricted freedom (2) Direct democracy (3) Delegate democracy (4) Representative democracy (5) Overt minority dictatorship

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THE LIMITS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS

Roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of "government":

(1) Unrestricted freedom
(2) Direct democracy
(3) Delegate democracy
(4) Representative democracy
(5) Overt minority dictatorship

The present society oscillates between (4) and (5), i.e. between overt
minority rule and covert minority rule camouflaged by a facade of token
democracy. A liberated society would eliminate (4) and (5) and would
progressively reduce the need for (2) and (3). . . .

In representative democracy people abdicate their power to elected officials. The candidates' stated policies are limited to a few vague generalities, and once they are elected there is little control over their actual decisions on hundreds of issues -- apart from the feeble threat of changing one's vote, a few years later, to some equally uncontrollable rival politician. Representatives are dependent on the wealthy for bribes and campaign contributions; they are subordinate to the owners of the mass media, who decide which issues get the publicity; and they are almost as ignorant and powerless as the general public regarding many important matters that are determined by unelected bureaucrats and independent secret agencies. Overt dictators may sometimes be overthrown, but the real rulers in "democratic" regimes, the tiny minority who own or control virtually everything, are never voted in and never voted out. Most people don't even know who they are. . . .

In itself, voting is of no great significance one way or the other (those who make a big deal about refusing to vote are only revealing their own fetishism). The problem is that it tends to lull people into relying on others to act for them, distracting them from more significant possibilities. A few people who take some creative
initiative (think of the first civil rights sit-ins) may ultimately have a far greater effect than if they had put their energy into campaigning for lesser-evil politicians. At best, legislators rarely do more than what they have been forced to do by popular movements. A conservative regime under pressure from independent radical movements often concedes more than a liberal regime that knows it can count on radical support. (The Vietnam war, for example, was not ended by electing antiwar politicians, but because there was so much pressure from so many different directions that the prowar president Nixon was forced to withdraw.) If people invariably rally to lesser evils, all the rulers have to do in any situation that threatens their power is to conjure up a threatof some greater evil.

Even in the rare case when a "radical" politician has a realistic chance of winning an election, all the tedious campaign efforts of thousands of peoplme ay go down the drain in one day because of some trivial scandal discoveredin his (or her) personal life, or because he inadvertently says something intelligent. If he manages to avoid these pitfalls and it looks like he might win, he tends to evade controversial issues for fear of antagonizing swing voters. If he actually gets elected he is almost never in a position to implement the reforms he has promised, except perhaps after years of wheeling and dealing with his new colleagues; which gives him a good excuse to see his first priority as making whatever compromises are necessary to keep himself in office indefinitely. Hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, he develops new interests and new tastes, which he justifies by telling himself that he deserves a few perks after all his years of working for good causes. Worst of all, if he does eventually manage to get a few "progressive" measures passed, this exceptional and usually trivial success is held up as evidence of the value of relying on electoral politics, luring many more people into wasting their energy on similar campaigns to come.

As one of the May 1968 graffiti put it, "It's painful to submit to our bosses; it's even more stupid to choose them!"

--Excerpts from Ken Knabb's "The Joy of Revolution."
The complete text is online at http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/joyrev.htm

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SOME CLARIFICATIONS

My intention in circulating these observations is not to discourage you
from voting or campaigning, but to encourage you to go further.

Like many other people, I hope that the Democrats recover the majority
in one or both houses of Congress, because I think this will tend to
counteract or at least slow down some of the more insane policies of
the current administration (some of which, such as climate change and
ecological devastation, threaten to become irreversible).

Beyond that, I do not expect Democratic politicians to accomplish
anything very significant. Most of them are just as corrupt and
compromised as the Republicans. Even if a few of them are honest and
well-intentioned, they are all loyal servants of the ruling economic
system, and they all ultimately function as cogwheels in the murderous
political machine that serves to defend that system.

I have considerable respect and sympathy for the people who are
campaigning for the Democratic Party while simultaneously trying to
reinvigorate it and democratize it. There are elements of a real
grassroots movement there, developing in tandem with the remarkable
growth of the liberal-radical blogosphere over the last few years.

But imagine if that same energy was put into more directly radical
agitation, rather than (or in addition to) campaigning for rival
millionaires. As a side effect, such agitation would put the
reactionaries on the defensive and actually result in more
"progressives" being elected. But more importantly, it would shift both
the momentum and the terrain of the struggle.

If you put all your energy into trying to reassure swing voters that
your candidate is "fully committed to fighting the War on Terror" but
that he has regretfully concluded that we should withdraw from Iraq
because "our efforts to promote democracy" there haven't been working,
you may win a few votes but you have accomplished nothing in the way of
political awareness.

In contrast, if you convince people that the war in Iraq is both evil
and stupid, they will not only tend to vote for antiwar candidates,
they are likely to start questioning other aspects of the social
system. Which may lead to them to challenge that system in more
concrete and participatory ways.

(If you want some examples, look at the rich variety of tactics used in
France last spring: http://www.bopsecrets.org/recent/france2006.htm .)

The side that takes the initiative usually wins because it defines the
terms of the struggle. If we accept the system's own terms and confine
ourselves to defensively reacting to each new mess produced by it, we
will never overcome it. We have to keep resisting particular evils, but
we also have to recognize that the system will keep generating new ones
until we put an end to it.

By all means vote if you feel like it. But don't stop there. Real
social change requires participation, not representation.

BUREAU OF PUBLIC SECRETS
P.O. Box 1044, Berkeley CA 94701, USA
http://www.bopsecrets.org

"Making petrified conditions dance by singing them their own tune."

Authors Website: http://www.bopsecrets.org

Authors Bio:
Ken Knabb is a writer and translator living in Berkeley, California. His translations include Guy Debord's film scripts and the "Situationist International Anthology" (texts by the notorious group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France). His own writings, collected in the book "Public Secrets," have been translated into over a dozen other languages.