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Michael Moore Talks To The Non-Voters of America

by IMC Print / Michael Moore Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000 at 7:54 PM

Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore throws his hat in the ring for Ralph Nader, and encourages the apathetic and disenfranchised to join him in doing so.

Dear friends,

DISCLAIMER: If you are planning to vote for Al Gore in November, good for you. Don

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don't vote, it'll only encourage them

by JoeG Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000 at 9:51 PM
JoeG@ieee.org

Voting is a means of state control. It generates the illusion that people have control. We don't; the elites do. That's why countries like Iraq and China have elections. Voting implies that you approve of the system; not voting is the closest thing we have to voting for none of the above.

I was living in Minnesota at the time Ventura won and there are many differences between him and Ralph. First of all, Minnesota has much more liberal election laws, making it much easier for third parties to win. Second, the Demacratic canidate refused to participate in the debates unless Ventura was allowed in. Neither Bush or Gore are doing this for Ralph. If Ralph could get into the debates I think he'd have a good chance of winning, but the ruling class won't allow it.

Even if Ralph won, it wouldn't help that much. Power corrupts and corrupt people abuse their power. Is Ralph going to abolish capitalism? No. Is he going to abolish the government? No. Then he's not attacking the root of the problem. If the millions of people who don't vote protest the Presidential Inaguration it'll have a lot more effect then voting.

Running for elections inevitably causes the winners to become reformist and eventually right-wing. Look at the once great social democratics in Europe. They ran for office and ended up leaving their anti-capitalist roots to become reformist. Now they're becoming NeoLiberals. When the Greens won in Germany they slid to the right and became partially neoliberal. Why would the American Green party be any different? If voting could change anything it'd be illegal.

Furthermore, if I were to vote I wouldn't vote for a Union buster like Nader. I'd rather vote for someone like McReynolds. You can read about Nader's Skeleton closet at http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

This system simply doesn't work. And no matter who wins the election won't change that. To paraphrase Marx, we get to choose which member of the ruling class will oppress us every 4 years. Even if we managed to elect someone who genuinely intended to destroy the system we'd end up seeing a Fascist coup. Look what happened in Chille. I don't want to be oppressed, and voting won't end that.

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