ANTI-ELECTIONEERING:

MILWAUKEE ANARCHISTS BEGIN ANTI-ELECTION CAMPAIGN:

A few hundred kilometers south of civilization here in Winnipeg (cough,cough) anarchists in Milwaukee have begun their own run-up to the 4 year farce of electioneering in the USA. Banners have been placed in anticipation of both the Republican and Democratic national conventions eight months down the road. The picture to the left is one of them. This is the statement of m"some Milwaukee anarchists" as they urge abstention from the upcoming circus:

"Dear Politicos...Do you expect us to be excited about this leash you have so kindly put around our necks ? Every four years we're allowed to have a meaningless impact on the ordering of things by marking up a piece of paper and putting it in a box. The punch line of this is that even if this ritualized illusion worked without scandal or foul play it would be an insult to our integrity to validate our domination by bowing down and telling somebody we aren't worthy of making our own decisions. Do you think that if we heard this repeated in volume and for long enough that we'd forget that we don't have to ask or wait to take control of our lives ?

Forgive us our disgust at this cruel joke you call a choice. We will not forget to laugh, but it will be at your expense. Eight months remain until the Democratic national Convention and the Republican national convention, and you would do well to expect resistance. Everyone can smell the shit you peddle; they've just forgotten how to act, and some are starting to remember. Your end will come.

Why not vote, you ask ?

Some short answers:

1)The relationship and tension of our lives being out of our control is perpetuated through voting and the idea that other people are more qualified to order them in all areas of life. It validates our continued domination, being only qualified to reproduce it, to ask for that which imposes upon us.

2) Voting is inherently reformist. No meaningful change can ever come about through it. It looks as if we might be able to change some things of insignificance, but only on the terms and within the parameters of what makes voting possible. It encourages that we look at details and never the whole of our social relationships. We could never vote to end the relationship we have between us and the infrastructure that counts the votes. We could never vote to end capitalism, the state, institutions of domination, etc. "If voting could change things it would be illegal", a wise woman once said.

3)Voting takes the place of direct participation in the ordering of our lives as it creates meaning out of meaningless choices, preserving the illusion of individual agency where there is none to be found in the difference between options that present almost identical minor alterations to the misery of society and in so doing recuperates the desires of exploited and oppressed people into a form that can be managed and controlled by those responsible for exploitation.

Here it is, spelled out a little more clearly. A gun has been held to our heads since birth, and all the say we are allowed to have on the matter regards the colour of the bullet. Whether it resembles an elephant, a donkey, or anything at all does not matter in the least. And you wonder why we are far from interested in dialog. Dialog would only exist as a means to blur our chains, to confuse and muddle the relationship. We know full well that the slave closest to the master depends on and develops the most affinity to him. Servitude becomes their world and meaning in life.

We are only interested in one thing regarding your parasitic relationship with us. Ending it as soon as possible.

"Some Milwaukee anarchists"