"The
world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined
by those who are not behind the scenes." – Benjamin
Disraeli
“The
dominant values of any social system do not come from the people. Rather, they represent the power elite such as the church, the
military, the banks, and the corporations. For the most part, they
determine the public agenda to serve their own interests, while they
perpetuate the illusion that society’s values are determined from
the ground up. They do this with such notions as freedom,
patriotism
and democracy."
- Roxanne Meadows
“Democracy is a suggestion box for
slaves.” – Stefan Molyneux
Have
you ever heard the phrase, “Vote or die”? It’s yet another lie
told by people who are lying to themselves. Guess what, plenty of
people don’t vote, and they are still alive! “Vote or die” is
both a threat and a false choice which reflects the false choice of
voting between people who ultimately are not very different. I often
equate it to choosing between Coke or Pepsi; they have a different
label, but almost the exact same ingredients. This is a perfect
analogy for political voting as well. Whatever party people consider
themselves or others has absolutely no bearing on how government
works. The form and function remains unchanged, only different
people with titles are swapped around every few years.
“The
United States is not a democracy. It’s what’s called in the
technical literature a polyarchy… The idea is very old; it goes way
back to James Madison and the foundation of the Constitution. A
polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those
who Madison called the wealth of the nation, the responsible class of
men, and the rest of the population is fragmented, distracted,
allowed to participate every couple of years. They’re allowed to
say ‘Yes, thank you. Why don’t you continue for another four
years?’” – Noam Chomsky
“The
oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular
representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress
them.” – Karl Marx
“When the Fed was passed, the
people of these United States did not perceive that a world system
was being set up here... a super state controlled by international
bankers, and international industrialists acting together to enslave
the world for their own pleasure." – Louis T. McFadden
Under
this system, if you have career politicians and corporate people with
no term limits, then all they have to do is wait a few years and they
will be dealing with different people, so the politicians which are
“elected” are very temporary employees. I use quotation marks
around “elected” because this is part of the illusion of
participation. Many “elections” are actually “selections” by
other people who have influence over ANY candidate; so even if the
election is fair, it doesn’t matter because whoever is elected can
simply be bought, blackmailed, threatened, removed, or in many cases
killed. Another part of this illusion is the education system, which
teaches a false and limited model of reality and society. It leaves
out SO MANY other people, groups, influences, factors. Chomsky calls
it a “polyarchy”, which is accurate enough. Other terms could be
techno-corporatocracy, or corporate technocracy. The more you learn
and see the influence of lobbyists and the “revolving door” of
people in government and business, you realize it really doesn’t
matter who you vote for because other forces are at work which
override and determine any choices or decisions made by either the
public or their politicians. This is also quite obvious the more you
learn about history and see a pattern of supposedly powerful leaders
being assassinated or booted from their positions, demonstrating they
are not the top of some imaginary hierarchical pyramid.
“...We
are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy
that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence –
on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of
elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by
night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted
vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly
knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic,
intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations.” –
John F Kennedy
“We
have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely
controlled and dominated governments
in the civilized world, no longer a government
by free opinion, no longer a government
by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government
by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -
Woodrow Wilson
“…
A
financial element in the large centers has owned the government of
the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." - Franklin D.
Roosevelt
"The
end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur
when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and
moneyed incorporations." - Thomas Jefferson
To
some, life is a game of power. Fundamentally what happens when you
vote is that you are actually giving your power, attention, and
responsibility to someone else. Politicians have no technical
knowledge or abilities. They talk, that's mostly it. They are
basically paid to distract us at this point since they are puppets
and tools of lobbyists, corporations, and industries. People have
been brainwashed to think that voting will solve their problems. It
is literally the definition of insanity, doing the same thing
expecting different results. Engineers build and fix things, they're
the ones who solve problems; politicians write laws and bills that
are just words. And they often do the opposite of what they
say.
“The
whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and
hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” - H.L. Menken
"When
you want to put a man on the moon you bring scientists together. If
you want to make an atom bomb, you call upon science. Any problem
that threatens the existence of the Earth, we call upon science. We
never call upon politicians, because they can't solve any problems. They don't know how. They don't have that type of training." -
Jacque Fresco
“All progress has resulted from people who
took unpopular positions.” – Adlai Stevenson
The above
quote is especially revealing when you realize that voting is
basically a popularity contest, which is the antithesis of progress! It may seem counterintuitive to some who think that whoever gets the
most support is the most worthy of making decisions; but really all
it has shown is that they are capable of pandering to more people and
reinforcing the status quo. A common definition of democracy is
“rule of the people”, but notice the vagueness of that phrase. It could be interpreted either as the people are the ones who rule,
or that they ARE ruled by someone else. Even under the first
interpretation, it is still a majority rule, which means up to 49% of
the population could still be very unhappy with whatever is decided. This system actually creates conflict by dividing people into
different parties and ideological camps. Just look at all the social
issues which exist in places which call themselves democracies. Does
it really seem to be working for everyone? Is it really the best we
can do?
"Britain is the slave of an international
financial bloc." – David Lloyd George
“Politics
are obsolete, war is obsolete, and selfishness is obsolete; you don't
have to rationalize it anymore. This is a completely new way of
challenging humanity. That's what your young world is feeling... Now, I want to get to what are the blockages here... We have then all
the great corporations going completely transnational; and yet those
pens, those 135 pens or ‘sovereign nations’ are blocking the
flow. They have to go... Humanity is not local anymore, we are
getting to be world human beings.” - Buckminster Fuller
“If
you want to be incrementally better, be competetive. If you want to
be exponentially better, be cooperative.” - anonymous
Again,
the above quote demonstrates the inherent weakness of partisan
politics. By nature it is weakening our ability to solve problems by
creating competition between parties,
people, and ideas. Typically it is overly simplified into a limited
choice of either this or that, summed up in terms like “pro” or
“anti” abortion, guns, oil, or any other subject. This does not
allow for any nuance, compromise, exception, or choice. To believe
that all people must do and think the same thing is incredibly
unrealistic and impossible to enforce. This is a fundamental flaw in
a system based on imposing the will of some on others through voting. It is a win/lose situation, instead of being beneficial for all. So
what is a better way? How can we change things?
"The
youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting
from all sovereignties and political ideologies. The youth of Earth
are moving intuitively toward an utterly classless, raceless,
omni-cooperative, omni-world humanity. Children freed of the
ignorantly founded educational traditions... shall indeed lead society
to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and
legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They
can lead all humanity into omni-succesful survival as well as
entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and
ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious universe." - Buckminster
Fuller
Telling people to not vote is just as authoritarian
as telling them to vote, so I won’t do that. I will say that
learning more how the system works leads to less voting because you
see how it doesn’t really do as much as some think. Is Nikola
Tesla famous for his voting, or for his creating? Are those who have
the most impact on society the people who have been voted into power,
or have they simply used their own power and passion to do what they
love? Doesn’t this benefit humanity more than simply pulling a
lever, pushing a button, or marking a form? Gandhi didn’t say to
vote for the change you wish to see; he said to BE it!
"Rise
like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number. Shake your
chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you. Ye are
many, they are few." - Percy Shelley
