@Cassiodorus How about bring in the military? That is implicit in your post and I agree with Crane Brinton that a revolution succeeds when the troops will not fire on the people. We should therefore recognize that soldiers and cops are part of the 99%, and include them as individuals in our movement. Voting can indeed play a role in organizing resistance, but the votes do not do anything meaningful. I have no gripe against Stein or the Greens -- I just don't think they are on the best path of resistance.

#2

Voting for the reincarnation of Gene Debs -- or a whole Congress full of Perfect Angels of Anti-Imperialism -- will only bring down the hammer from the uber-mafia that has the armed forces and the cops at their disposal. And an infinity of Lee Harvey Osgoods for individual assassinations.

The US is still a lawless oligarchy because it only ONCE came close to dealing with a situation like the one you describe, in 1968. And, in 1968, the rebellion against empire in the US (as opposed to the rebellion against US empire, which had some subsequent successes, notably in Nicaragua in 1979 and in Venezuela in 1999) discovered that it only had the power to prune out the worst cases of armed idiocy, and those were occurring on the battlefields of Vietnam (e.g. "fragging"). The point of "fragging" was nonetheless not lost on the shadow government of that time: if you rely upon the military too much, there are consequences. 1968 was, moreover, in the midst of a cultural revolution which resonates to this day, and it inspired the birth of the Peace and Freedom Party of California, a very small thing, but a good one nonetheless. (There were also the Yippies; too bad they also remained small.) Said rebellion didn't have the strength to prop up the Black Panthers as opposed to the FBI of COINTELPRO, but what if it did?

And as for voting, the public repudiated Johnson only to elect Nixon. It could have done better than that, but it didn't, because it was too early. It is no longer too early.

At the current juncture, "the vote" has been used so stupidly that it has granted us a genocide and a mass slaughter with no end in sight. The groups in power, both outgoing and incoming, do not get the idea that overuse of the military has consequences, although they are starting to realize this fact of life in Lebanon and with the Israel-Iran exchanges. I am suggesting an end to the practice of hearsay voting, and not in nonvoting, which hasn't changed anything either. Remember, it is in Chomsky's endorsement of hearsay voting that he deviates from anarchism and stops being an anarchist altogether.

Sure, voting doesn't do a lot. But it can do more than nothing, which is mostly what it did this year. Voting did, however, persuade the Harris campaign to run anti-Stein ads, a waste of seven figures of money. But that was the sort of voting I am recommending.

@Cassiodorus @fire with fire @Cassiodorus Divide and conquer is always the Oligarchs' strategy. They divide along lines that will support their agenda. Our primaries are not democratic in the least (See Bernie 2016). The battle is between Establishment candidates (compromised - either party) and anti-establishment (not corrupt-either party). Trump is clearly anti-establishment -- so is his team (Musk-former Dem; Gabbard-former Dem; RFK Jr.-former Dem; and, for that matter, Trump-former Dem). I suggest ignoring the labels and focus on going the opposite way that the Establishment promotes. Why do we allow ourselves to be herded into pens? That's right -- constant propaganda from Establishment-controlled media -- which is now dead. How many lies do you need to be told before you re-think your beliefs? It did not take many for me.

#3 never had to deal with the organized idiocy that the Democratic Party became after McGovern's loss in 1972.

The Democrats, moreover, became a support structure for the Republican Party. When push comes to shove they will, like Gore and Kerry in the Zeros, imitate Republican platforms only to concede in November to the Republican when evidence of rigged elections comes up. That's their best effort; that's what pissed Ralph Nader off.

Their peak effectiveness, as such, came during Obama's tenure as President when they conceded 900+ state legislative seats to the Republicans. The most prominent point of my diary here is to deprive the Democrats of reasons for existing. In this regard, individual Democrats would greatly benefit from 1) therapy and 2) self-reinvention as "third party" politicos.

As for lazy incompetence, remember that Team Biden has done a great deal of damage to the world while Joe was taking extensive naps or staring off into space. Watch for that.

So long as anyone believes that voting will make a difference, that person is mistaken -- the permanent government controls the politicians, not the other way around. Voting for the reincarnation
of Gene Debs -- or a whole Congress full of Perfect Angels of Anti-Imperialism -- will only bring down the hammer from the uber-mafia that has the armed forces and the cops at their disposal. And an infinity of Lee Harvey Osgoods for individual assassinations.

Getting into a position where that is no longer reality is the task ahead. Voting does almost nothing toward that end.