Re: All right, the US election is over..

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>Allow me to have a saying on a reality I do not actually know. The
most urgent task seems to be to fight for the right of what may
curiously be seen by Americans as an "undemocratic" law: that vote be
COMPULSORY. <<

Oh,I don't know about this. People have a democratic right to tell the
purveyors of bouirgeois electoral farces to go fuck themselves; if you made
non-voting punishable, within four years you'd wind up with 98 or 99% of the
population in jail, for it takes such a concetrated dose of electoral
cretinism to actually go out and vote every time the United States has an
election that I've known even more than one hardened stalinist and union
official labor faker who simply could not drag themselves to the poll one
more time, despite their best intentions.

We have primary elections and general elections, special elections and
district elections, revivals, runoffs and redoes. In the United States
electoral politics is such a sport that CNN devotes a half-hour show to it
every weekday from the day after the last general election

    (Bernie: "Well, CNN's William Schneider, with her win in New York, what
do you think Hillary's chances are to eventually return to the White House
four years from now... and what are the chances that then former president
Bill Clinton would still be with her....???)

    (Judy: "That's an excellent question, Bernie, but why don't we wait to
take it up until after the polls close in New York tonight, when we'll all
have that "dead time" to fill between our proclamation of the winner and the
vote count catching up so the candidates can give their concession
speeches?"

The turnout Tuesday, BTW, was about 50%, "slightly higher" than the 49% of
1996's race. It was discovered just in the last couple of days before the
voting that the 1996 turnout was indeed less than half, when it seemed that
this year's turnout, despite the extremely tight the future of the human
race depends on your vote blah blah blah nature of the election might evoke
a response from less than half of the VAP*. This new discovery conveniently
changed what would otherwise have been this year's record low turnout to an
increase from last time's.

[* The "VAP" -- Voting Age Population is, just like the rest of the news,
whatever it is that newspeople say it is.]

Now, you may think I'm making that stuff up as I go along but it isn't true
(well, at least not in front of  THIS computer).

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 6:42 AM
Subject: Re: All right, the US election is over..


En relación a Re: All right, the US election is over..,
el 8 Nov 00, a las 2:37, Macdonald Stainsby dijo:

> ... This will cause a
> chance for American activists to challenge the legitimacy of the
> franchise itself. I suggest that people not hammer on about the
> obvious: that the parties are both serving the same class, but rather,
> for the time being, discuss what a pathetic system you are being
> handed. Think about it: Americans are asked to pick between just 2
> parties and 2 men and can't even make their decision stick.

Allow me to have a saying on a reality I do not actually know. The
most urgent task seems to be to fight for the right of what may
curiously be seen by Americans as an "undemocratic" law: that vote be
COMPULSORY.

Compulsory vote would force the State to ensure that everyone has a
chance to vote, thus forcing decissions such as making election days
non-laborable, ensuring transit of people to their voting place, and
so on.  And compulsory vote would allow for a space in the "last
minute solution" for the Left and progressives in general: to vote
blank to delegitimize any of the candidates.

OK, OK, I know I should not have said the above...

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx