The 2004 Electorate and Voting Strategies

There is little doubt that the majority of the voting population is simply incapable of intellectually grappling with the issues. At best, they skim the surface for some easy, token issue, contribute $15 and move on.

Of those who not only could grapple with the issues, and as fully enfranchised voters in what is supposed to be a democracy, should be dealing with the issues, most are either apathetic, afraid, in denial or despairing.

Of these, the sense of impotence is probably the single greatest obstacle to fighting a social collapse that is as inevitable as an oncoming train. The second is denial. Most comfortable yet worried people simply do not want to believe that conditions are as catastrophic as they are. They want to believe that life for them will go on as life has gone on up until now (this in spite of the historical record that shows that 95% of all the people who have ever lived on planet earth have not only lived far harder lives in far worse conditions but expected no better). This has led to the idea that W is nothing more than a very bad president that has caused some temporary harm and all that is necessary is to elect some one else and the system will eventually self correct and Americans can go back to living the life of the planet’s most spoiled predators. This is the head in the sand approach that is nothing less than the chickens granting permission to the fox. It consciously chooses to ignore the magnitude of the impending danger, the depth of the collapse and to acknowledge that the harm done is, even now, probably beyond repair.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do not recognize evil even when it is cutting their throats from ear to ear. Unless politically active voters recognize the problem, no solution will be forthcoming.

The sense of impotence is the prevailing mood regarding the seriousness of the present dilemma. If authoritarian and fascistic government increases in proportion to the growth of population, then so does the sense of political impotence. This sense of impotence stamped out the Athenian and pre Socratic experiments with democracy and self determination. It was the major contributor to the collapse of the Aztecs and Incas. It is a dangerous form victim trance, a fatalistic acceptance of defeat.

It is hard to argue against this. It seems almost suicidal to resist; certainly resistance is heart breaking and exhausting, if not dangerous, and most probably will change nothing. Yet, as everyone knows, if the majority would simply refuse to cooperate the insanity would simply cease to be operable. The problem with that, of course, is that it is not how things have worked in the past.

No matter what the explanation, the fact that very few will acknowledge the problem, let alone attempt to do something about it, is the chief symptom of the loss of democracy.

There is a hierarchy of choices on what the challenge is and what the problems call for us to do.

In order of the most imminent and the least effective the first is to vote against Bush.

Voting for Kerry is optimistic. The argument against Kerry is that he is another Clinton working for the same folks and the same agenda as W, and will, in the long run, lead to the same catastrophe, and that a vote for Kerry is a vote for the W agenda. The argument for Kerry is that perhaps it will buy time for something unpredictable to happen and will allow some small chance for a turn-around to take root. A second argument in favor of the strategic vote, is that W will most certainly destroy America and America’s ability to recover.

Voting third party is a vote of conscience for third party potential. The argument against it is that it has no chance of success in the election, and may even critically damage the chance of ousting W. In this sense, it also a vote for W. The argument for it is the view that unless a third party with real political clout emerges, we have lost democracy in any case. It has long been shown that our version of representative elections is the least democratic, least efficient and least fair method of holding elections. But neither a third party nor representational elections are likely to happen in what is left of American democracy. The argument for voting third party is that without some vestige of viability it will also be lost as a potential anodyne.

So, regarding the 2004 presidential elections, it is moot whether an individual decides to vote strategic or to vote conscience. The only vote that matters is to vote against Bush.

That leaves only the call to seriously consider the conditions, problems and solutions that apply to the general human condition after the collapse of the American empire.

Even if one is not entirely ready to abandon hope in an American renaissance, it only makes sense to include reasonable consideration for the future of the human species in the strategies of intelligent and progressive activists.

Of the three possible scenarios after the collapse of American democracy, the worst case of human annihilation makes all activism moot.

The best case, whether America collapses or not, in which the species stumbles along with the same old programs, implies that effort must be put into promoting the growth of sanity, humanism, democracy, self determination, population control, intelligence, empathy and an equitable, just and well regulated economy based on self sustaining resources and human needs as opposed to the needs of profits and markets. This would have to happen in some global backwater that does not come to the attention of what ever predatory states or supra-states replace American hegemony. It is not likely that it would have enough power to save the species from some forthcoming catastrophe; nor is it likely to be allowed to flourish; nor is it likely that the species will last long enough in its current race to self annihilation to allow such an experiment to take root. The argument in favor of such efforts is that happy accidents occur and that it is a necessary way to archive the culture and to potentially pass on the memes of intelligent sanity to some hypothetical future human society.

By far, the most probable crises in the near future of the human species is, barring happy accidents, some form of catastrophic collapse leading to the widespread destruction of human life and social organizations.

Surviving this and fostering intelligent human evolution is the single most important activity any human being can pursue at this time. This activism falls squarely on the shoulders of the few humans left who retain the intelligence, the ethical gravity and the resources to acknowledge the problem and to take steps to solve it. Certainly the population at large has proven itself incapable of managing its own well being, let alone its own survival.

It is also the most nebulous and the most difficult of tasks. To that end, I can only postulate some society of individuals dedicated in some or many ways to the survival and the evolution of human beings.

To choose to disregard the potential catastrophe is either to accede to the fundamentalist and monotheistic fatalism of the acceptance of their apocalypse. Or, conversely, it is to espouse denial. Those who refuse to read the handwriting on the wall simply choose to remain willfully blind, and they contribute nothing in terms of solutions and remain human obstacles to human well being.

Sad to say, but this is probably the state of the majority of homo sapiens. Nothing more notable than a herd of slightly drugged lemmings marching over a cliff. The cosmos at large will hardly notice our demise.

It is absolutely correct to be suspicious of Carter and especially Clinton. They are employees of free market supra-national forces. Perhaps they believed that they were ameliorating the harm, but in fact they were promoting the cancer. The best that could be said of them is that they suffered from well-meaning delusions.

There is very little that Chomsky has been wrong about, including his early whistle blowing on the dangerous takeover of the media. But he, like all truly serious dissenters and humanists, is denied access to serious media and to public debate. It is heartening to note that there are at least enough people of intelligence and good will to keep his books in print.

It is a thing trying to communicate with idiots. There is simply not enough time left in life, and very probably in the life of America, to even attempt to convert the apathetic or the stupid. It just distracts from the effort to pay attention to more critical problems.

The frustration level is high, for simply having lost all faith in humans, especially enfranchised American humans, to even lift a finger to help themselves, to help others and to help the generations unborn.

Michael Andrews

04/17/2004