: SDF: So what's your position on Salvador Allende? Would you rather the Chileans had spoilt their ballots rather than elect Allende? Or that the Nicaraguan people shouldn't have re-elected Sandinismo in 1984, they should have chosen to spoil their ballots instead?1:Allende - yes, I'd have hoped that Chilean socialists would have opposed Allende, just as british Socialists oppose The Labour Party.
2:I'd have hoped that the Nicaraguans wouldn't have elected the Sandinistas in the first place.
I'd rather in both cases that they would have voted for socialists, but if socialists aren't available, i feel it is better for them to spoil than to vote capitalist.
: I don't buy this idea that there are principles of behavior toward bourgeois democracy that are good for all times and places. Some tactics work in some situations, others in other situations. Today, in the US, building a movement is the most important matter at hand. Revolution? We ain't even CLOSE.
But why in the name of buggery build a reform movement? If you are going to build the movement, surely it takes as much effort to build a movement for r3evolution as for reform? It is a waste of time to build a movement that isn't revolutionary, if socialism is your goal. You totally managed to avoid my previous substantive points - why give a palliative when there is a cure?
: And I don't believe that "protest against the system" and "voting" are mutually exclusive alternatives. I think that's a false dilemma -- one can vote while protesting against the system, just as one can walk and chew gum at the same time.
And I am calling for people to vote, I'm calling for them to vote for socialism - spoiling is qualitatively different from abstentionism - and I hope that anyone here who actually does believe in, and does want socialism, will spoil their ballot to vote for it.
:And, as I said before, what legitimizes bourgeois democracy is not voting, but the cops. Getting rid of bourgeois democracy means first getting rid of the cops, and having a President who will weaken the power of the cops might help toward that goal.
No, police need legitimization in order to function - the police are irrelevent to legitimization, but the whole point of sending delegates to parliament is precisely to disable such repressive arms of the state when the revolution comes about - I see no need to weaken the cops and then try and revolt...
None.
