Nobody International
Is this an Invasion of your Country's Elections?
Is this Meddling in Another Country's Politics?
Well...The One Thing We are not, is the US Government
with its Intrusive and Disastrous Foreign Policies.
We feel there is good reason these days to offer EveryBody...
...Nobody's t-shirts.
NOBODY for President!......Premier!......Chancellor!......Prime Minister!To All the Citizens of the World...
Walk Into The New Millenium With NOBODY on Your Back!
02-14-2002An Open Letter to the People of the WorldToward a Fuller, Fairer, In a paper titled MORE DEMOCRACY! MORE REVOLUTION!, Benjamin R. Barber, the director of the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy at Rutgers University, and Professor of Political Science at Rutgers concludes- "In old, well-entrenched democratic states, it is easy to forget that
democracy is a radical principle, perhaps the most radical of all
principles. Jefferson summed up the inherently revolutionary spirit of democracy when he insisted that each generation repossess its first principles anew". Barber goes on to illustrate his point with numerous examples out of USA history. The women's suffrage movement in the USA which gave them the right to vote entailed...more democracy. "To abolish slavery required--more democracy. Martin Luther King Jr. assailed the American nightmare of racism by embracing the American dream. The outcome? More democracy....Peaceful and largely effective revolution has taken this form: "Let me in!" & "More democracy" has been the American ticket to emancipation, inclusion, equality and social justice. Not that there isn't still a long way to go before the democratic ideal is firmly established and universally acknowledged as the most practical of governing agents. Which is the point I am attempting to make here...more democracy! Thankfully, this urge toward inclusion and full participation in the political process that only more democracy can bring, is NOT merely an American phenomena and never has been. What solved the crisis in South Africa and diverted a major blood bath that at one point looked inevitable? More democracy. Or at least the appearance of more democracy. For all the touted changes in South Africa, the same elitist group still rules the sociopoliticaleconomic sphere. Call it a surface democracy. Which is pretty much what we are stuck with everywhere. However, South Africa has a fairer democratic system in place than the USA's. South Africa simply had no good choice but to come up with something fairer than apartheid. There is a lesson in that for other country. Racism and Apartheid being so omniprevalent. Here in the USA, purportedly the primary player and purveyor of the democratic ideal, there are powerful and entrenched segments of our society that tend to fight more democracy tooth and nail at every point. Our advances in democracy are given only grudgingly, and then usually in scant half measures. Unfortunately to one degree or another, this seems to be the case in all so-called democratic countries. For humankind everywhere, struggle and revolution are the handmaiden and midwife of more democracy. Today worldwide, this is the cry- the battle cry, the cry for peace, the cry for empowerment, equality, recognition, autonomy, and of welcome of many many various groupings of people. To mention only a very few, the gamut runs from Ireland, to Palestine. To the Zapatistas in Mexico, to the antiglobalisation movement everywhere. The cry is one of inclusion, self determination and MORE DEMOCRACY. Set against this are the power elites,and those they manage to dupe. We can witness the destructive effects of their crypto-fascist model of heavy handed rule everywhere. Rule from the the top down, no matter what it is called, can only ever be a "psuedo-democracy" at best. Everbody's histories teach us in one fashion or another, that even with the best of intentions of any democratic nation, the ideal degenerates quickly without regular infusions of MORE DEMOCRACY. In these fateful days, in most cases on hand to study, it appears that the major pillars of our democratic institutions have been thoroughly subverted. Majority rule ends up as a tyranny of the majority. This "majority" in turn is manipulated by a tiny, powerful elite minority. The vote is manipulated in so many ways as to have become virtually meaningless. The freedom of dissent, which is one of the very best ways we have to guage the effectiveness of democracy, is under attack everywhere. Instead of listening thoughtfully and engaging in dialogue with those who have grievances, the troops are marshalled and demonstrators physically attacked. Democracy seems to be under a sustained attack everywhere. Thankfully, the solutions to these grave problems are relatively well known. More able writers than I have written at length about them. And more effective organisations than ours are working overtime at putting the solutions into practise. The world's peoples are in the process of uniting in a grassroots movement everywhere under the banner of MORE DEMOCRACY. This appears to be happening ON A GLOBAL SCALE. That a decentralized global democracy is in the process of it early stages of formation, is a distinct possibilty. The governments of nation-states although they must play along, are not the focus of these efforts. Neither is the thoroughly co-opted United Nations. Rather, the changes are coming from the streets, towns and communities in which we live. When the changes such as these come from our hearts, they are unstoppable. Granted the battle rages hardest, and the worst excesses of the aggressors always happen when they know they are losing. We obviously are in for a pretty rough ride before we get to our goal of a democracy large enough to truly include EveryOne and empower EveryBody. Our collective future actually can be a bright one. Or we may yet end up as "only a barcode". The choice is more ours to make, than our leaders, the so-called movers and shakers of the world. When the call for a fuller freedom rings, the walls of the city shake. Yours toward the only collective goal worth Jon Stoneman poetician & chairdog for the- Oregon Committee to Re-Elect Nobody for President |
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Our OfferWould you like to see this T-shirt circulating in your country
Revolt on the Web! Revolt on the streets! Revolt at the polls! Featured News and Links to Global Elections and Information The button below will take you to a java loaded page where you can view Selected Election News From Around the World Voters massively rejected the nation's two traditional political parties on Sunday March 10th's Congressional elections. When the new Congress takes office on July 20th both houses will contain an absolute majority consisting of Senators and Representatives of smaller independent parties. What this means is that the people in Columbia have overwhelmingly rejected Plan Colombia. The two largest vote-getters, Senator-elect Antonio Navarro and Representative-elect Gustavo Petro, are former armed combatants in the M-19 guerrilla movement who favor a negotiated peace settlement with the rebels. The daily El Espectador analyzed the former rebels' victory as "a rejection by a large part of the population of the idea of 'frontal war' against subversion..." President Andrés Pastrana's Conservative party shrunk to just 13 seats in the 100 member Senate, and 21 seats in the 175 member House. The chief of his party resigned in disgrace last night after the electoral drubbing. What this means in terms of USA's interventionist policies in another countries affairs, remains to be seen. Just don't expect the US government to hie to its own Monroe Doctrine and drop the lucrative Drug War in South America just because the will of the people in their own country wishes them to leave. Nobody Makes Strong Gains in the Netherlands Apparently the stable political climate in the Netherlands is starting to change. For years the big traditional political parties formed coalitions that governed the country. People actually supported them with their votes. This is no longer the case. On March 6 only 57.7% of the voters went to the ballot boxes. Though voters got two hours more time to vote, participation was 6% smaller than in 1998.
In the capital Amsterdam (47.8% voters) and the government seat, the Hague
(44.2%) the number of non-voters even exceeded the number of voters. What is happening is that the democratic process is breaking down. (What if they held an election and NOBODY came? The farce that democracy is made of by the ruling power elites in so-called democratic countries, is getting so threadbare that the they can't hide behind it anymore. Without popular support to prop up the lie, who is to believe it?) In Rotterdam, the Labour party which has ruled for more than 50 years slipped from garnering 30.1%. in 1998 to 22.8%. Comparable downturns were experienced in the rest of the country. While two new smaller populist parties enjoyed more votes than anyone expected. Why? Though the economy is the Netherlands is strong, the government is not perceived as people friendly. Contact with the
population is rare and big problems are left unsolved e.g. in health,
security, education and public services including public transport. The
aversion against the political elite has never been so outspoken. Our contact in the Netherlands, Joos van Stennis, has this to add: "In the past political parties had a distinct program, we had on the left a
communist and a socialist party, on the right a liberal party and somewhere
in between a Catholic and two Protestant parties (besides many smaller
parties). People knew for which party they had to vote. Then the political
programs of the parties started to change and in the end all parties arrived
at the middle of the political spectrum where they played into each other's
hands. The last eight years we had a pink government formed by the Labour
Party, the Liberal Party and the Pragmatic Party (D'66) but the political
ideas of all parties including the opposition were similar. No ideology, no
ideas of a new future, only pragmatic short-term solutions. And the old
method of governing was restored: We (the elite) decide and You (the masses)
have to listen. The oligarchy retook the ground it lost in the sixties among
other causes because of the mass activities during the PROVO Movement."
Three months ago nobody predicted that this was going to happen. General elections will be held May 15. Polls show that the two smaller populist partys will take 22% of the vote. The political establishment is in panic. However, with a long history of the elites manipulating virtually every situation to their advantage, and an equally long history of populist leaders selling out to the establishment the moment they gain any real political power, the song will almost certainly reamin the same. Populists only
use the masses to climb up to the political elite. They do not want to share
any power with the man in the street.
Don't look for any sweeping changes in how the Netherlands "does" government any time too soon. The news from the Netherlands is on par with the rest of the world. Low participation in elections all over the world proves that people are not
content with the elitist democracy. At this point in time, our honest and reluctant assesement is that, the even with the Zapatista's, there is no grass roots movement on the horizon that shows enough strength and promise to change the sorry state of affairs that the democratic ideal has fallen into anywhere. More- http://members.ams.chello.nl/jsteenis/catastrophes8.htm
Ballot Eaters Go On Trial Today
Stephen Harper Says "These jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control"
Apologies to internationals for our references below to obscure Canadain
right wing hacks and politicians, but we like to make fun of local
nutcases...
Edmonton - On Tuesday April 2, 2002 two members of the Edible Ballot
Society will appear in court at 9:30 am in room 448 of the Provincial
Court Building. Jill Sturdy and Stephanie Grossman have been charged
"with the intent to delay or obstruct the electoral process" by turning
their ballots into delectable soy smoothies during the 2000 federal
election. A dozen other members of the Society have been charged or have
been investigated and expect to be charged in the future.
The ballot eaters aren't swallowing Election Canada's claim that the voting
process was delayed by their actions. "I ate my ballot to express my
distaste in the electoral system and the state of democracy in Canada"
said Jill Sturdy.
The Edible Ballot Society has received support from around the world -
from an anarchist cafe in Amsterdam, to Free Software advocates in
Silicon Valley, to the Civil Liberties Association in Vancouver. Right
wing lunatic and Edmonton Journal reporter Lorne Gunter, called them
"freedom fighters in their battle against Elections Canada." Even
the new Alliance honcho Stephen Harper came out in support, calling
Elections Canada "jackasses" and "zealots" and insisted that "somebody has
to stand up for the right of individuals to free political expression."
Elections Canada is flying a witness from Ottawa to demonstrate the role of
the ballot in the election process. The Assistant Director of Operations at
the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada will be flown in
courtesy of taxpayers to present information on the highly relevant topics
of production of blank ballot paper sheets, composition of printing ink, and
how to properly count ballots.
The ballot eaters drank their ballots in a soy smoothie to
express their distaste for an electoral system which delivers 100% of
power to a party with 40% of the vote, which is controlled through
corporate contributions, and which has seen increasing
control in the hands of the Prime Ministe's Office in what is increasingly
a one-party state. They hoped to spark discussion about the state of
Canadian democracy.
The trial is scheduled to continue all day Tuesday and Wednesday when the
judge is expected to make a ruling on the case. If convicted the two could
face a maximum of 1 year in jail or a $2,000 fine. The trial begins at 9:30
am Tuesday April 2, 2002 in room 448 in the Provincial Court Building.
Updates will be made available on the groups website:
edibleballot.tao.ca
If you wish to ridicule the bizarre actions of Elections Canada, you can
write to them at 257 Slater St. Ottawa,
Ontario, K1A 0M6, or email
them at through their web page
at
www.elections.ca
Stephen Harper's statements can be
found at: electionresultscanada.com Statement of
support from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association is at
www.bccla.org
Do you live in another country other than the USA?
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As I get older . . . I become more convinced that good government is not a
substitute for self-government. -- Dwight Morrow
The fate of the country . . . does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your
chamber into the street every morning. -- Henry Thoreau
