The problem is that your argument isn’t really ANY argument that I can discern. You seem to be saying that we should all be simply voting for the people and things we believe in, EVEN if those votes are a totally meaningless waste of paper and time.

Why should we bother at all? What do we accomplish by embracing futility? Is that the purpose of our party?… of ANY party?

There’s almost a suicidal flavour to this argument.

I don’t do that sort of self-abuse, there’s plenty of people lined up to abuse me.

respectfully
BJ

so far all you have said is ..”it’s easy..”..and..”it’s choice”…

if that’s it..?…..q.e.d….:)

phil(whoar.co.nz)

we’ll just have to agree to disagree, eh?

cheers!

and do you think the penny has dropped yet for those who didn’t think nandors’ decriminalisation bill went far enough..and so voted alcp..(’cos that was the mantra used to secure those votes..the alcp deliberately white-anted the green vote to achieve their ends..)

surely the big “duh!” factor in this election..eh..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)

It is choice, it is stupid, and people cannot be denied the opportunity to be stupid. It is not however a weak argument to point out the nature and magnitude of the stupidity.

Gore and Nader voters combined had the numbers to deny the Neocons the prize of the Presidency and the complete disaster of the domination of the US government by the forces of repression. Gore had the only credible chance of actually keeping some of the events of the last 5 years from occurring.

I rather doubt that the Democrat voters for Bush numbered much over 100000 in spite of the traditional “conservative” democratic voters there, looking at the historical patterns reveals some startling inversions of percentages. The credibility of the count is dubious without appealing to coincidences with odds similar to being struck by lightning… inside a submarine. The real point however is that the nature of the election was clear and Nader KNOWINGLY risked, and ultimately caused, it to go to Bush.

Nader is smart enough to know better. Greens are smart enough to know better. When I encounter someone who IS smart but does something outstandingly stupid like that for reasons of ideological purity I call it like I see it. Not a weak argumentl, and far more rational than voting “for” Nader or indeed any hopeless cause, because such votes are exactly the same in that situation, as voting for the candidate or principles you LEAST favour.

When you understand the reason why this is true you’ll also understand why UNTIL 123MMP is in place, such ideological purity makes losers. The object in politics isn’t to make a statement, it is to get something done. You don’t do that by adhering blindly to some vision of perfection. You want to make a statement? Buy space on a billboard or write an editorial or organise a protest march… but make damned sure to cast a VOTE that will count against your worst opposition. IF you can also vote FOR something you want, that’s bonus. If you invert those two priorities you’re roadkill.

Which is what the US Greens turned most of the USA into, and what the ALCP et.al. did to Nandor. Overall I don’t mind if the ideologues on the RIGHT of center act out their idiology, but I have a real short way with people who are otherwise politically savvy and who agree that a National led government (or in the USA a Neo-Con led government) is not to be permitted, yet toss their votes into the bit-bucket.

Sorry to disagree so vehemently, I LIKE most of your stuff on this blog… but I have never forgiven Nader for what he did to the Corvair and I will never forgive him for Florida either. He AND the Greens in the USA, should have worked through the states to institute preferential, or instant-runoff balloting. They should have been making sure that the electronic balloting had paper trails to prevent some of the more obvious frauds and errors.

Now it is too damned late. If the NeoCons manage to hold both houses of Congress in 2006 and there’s any question about the balloting procedures the next effective ballots will be the first shots of the next American Civil War/Revolution. It is not as bad as you think it is… it is worse.

So ideology has its place, but that place is not in the voting booth… OK?

Sorry if I am coming on strong… I really have some “issues” with respect to the Corvair

respectfully
BJ

thank you for your replies.
unfortuntely, these type of arguments are so weak.
“bame Nader”"
“blame the ALCP!”
ah, this is called choice, y’know, democracy?
if Gore couldn’t pull enough votes to beat the “smirking chimp” it’s NOT Nader’s fault or the fault of the people who voted for him. as i said, there were hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats (in Florida) who voted for Bush or didn’t vote. Many more in these categories than all of Naders votes for the state. so why not blame them and leave the Nader voters out of it, please?

and as much as i am pissed off about Nandor’s exit, this is not the fault of the ALCP. or the voters who voted for them. and i think the people who outright blame them or infer blame are being quite disingenuous.

scapegoating is silly. and irrational.

what both these show is how important the single vote is…and how vastly different paths can open up…largely down to the whims of a few thousand voters….

and yes..there are those who just stay at home…but the thing that really grinds the gears about nader/greens in america and alcp here is that both groups are politically aware animals…..who knew how close and how important the election was in front of them….yet they willfully chose to piss their votes up against the wall..

in the case of america…it got us bush junior..and here it meant the exit of nandor..and a centre-right government..those five and a half thousand votes swung things that way…they could just as easily have swung things our way..

the parrallels are striking…

i wonder what the alcp will do in 2008…

are you there michael appleby..?…how about answering some of these questions..?…though i can understand your reluctance to raise your head…(yes..it is a pun..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)

In Florida and in other states as well, the Green party ran Ralph Nader against Al Gore and George Bush. Green voters, knowing that in a FPP electoral system they were basically casting a vote that would not be counted but being pure of heart, voted for Nader in a razor sharp election (and we all knew it would be), instead of voting to keep the smirking chimp from grabbing the reins. The results are what we all see and decry, but the Greens in the USA have a special answer. “There is no difference between Democrats and Republicans” - which is like saying there’s no difference between National and Labour.

With MMP at 5% you get more than a choice between 2 evils, but you still don’t get an unlimited choice of goods. With straight MMP there is even more choice, but again you can waste your vote “making a statement” and fail to accomplish any part of your purpose. 123MMP allows you to make the statement and accomplish something anyway.

In Florida the Greens split the vote on the left and took a bit over 1.5% IIRC. Bush won that state by about 0.1% and thus became President by a negative 50000 votes- such a system ! Since then there’s been the consolidation. The raping gerrymander of the Texas legislature and the systematic exclusion of democrats from the voting booth in Ohio… and the neo-cons reign in gloating triumph over disaster after debacle. Because some people (Greens in this case) decided to ignore political realities and vote their conscience no matter what the consequences.

Yes, the swing back to the left in the USA is likely to be savage and excessive and possibly violent… and it may well carry the green party to positions of honor and even some power sometime in about a decade or so… in the meantime the US has lost almost all its friends, its budget surplus, 4 Jetliners, 2 World Trade Centers, about 12000 casualties (roughly 2000 fatal), Osama-Bin-Laden, the Alaska Wildlife Preserve and the City of New Orleans.

Personally I don’t think it is worth that much to “vote my conscience”, but as others have noticed here, I am not a “true” green. My background is NASA JPL and environmental sensors and software. I worked on the MER and AVIRIS. I used to be a US Naval Officer. I grew up with Vietnam.

I learned. Politics is NOT about what’s right or what’s wrong. It’s what you want to do that you CAN do, and so the term “The art of the possible”. Political parties and people have to learn this and understand it just as thoroughly as they learn the rules of MMP and 123MMP and FPP elections. Then they have to want what is right.

Greens WANT the right things. They have to be/stay practical about getting them.

respectfully
BJ

yeah, right.