...voting is of relatively tiny significance. Which is why you should not waste time worrying about it, and just do it.

This is related to the "debate" following Scats' recent posts.

I wanted to emphasize what I didn't say clearly enough in my ramblings:

It is important to recognize the manifest criminality of the Democrats (and not just their "weakness" or "failure to live up to their ideals");

and it is important to see that the violence of the United States continues in an unbroken chain back to Jamestown, is part of the very fabric of what Americans understand by "constitutional democracy";

and that liberals and great Americans have from the start been complicit in this violence;

and that Hillary Clinton will surely preside over the ongoing functioning of the death machine if she somehow manages to be given the presiding role;

and--at the very same time--

it is also true that one manifestly OUGHT to vote Democratic in national elections;

and that the two parties are NOT the same (EVEN IF at a deeper level they REALLY ARE founded on the same murderous principles).

The Republicans really will cause more deaths than the Democrats; the difference between 10.5 million and 9.5 million deaths worldwide really is significant.

You have to be able to live in a contradiction, and say, I don't support the Democrats, they don't stand for me, they are part of the problem, and I am going to give the better part of my energy and aspirations to real alternative forms of politics,

while also saying, I can go to the fucking voting booth and vote for one of these assholes. Actually, it's not that hard.

The "libloggers" ARE worthy of criticism because they seem to think that there are no alternatives to the Dems, that the Dems really have good in their hearts, that America is at bottom a fine place and the best thing to hope for politically is empowered and confident Democratic rule.

This is indeed deadly nonsense.

But you can say all that, and commit yourself to altogether anti-Democratic-party politics, and STILL not say bullshit like Hillary will somehow be "as bad" as Bush.

Why even make the comparison?

That kind of talk is deliberately inflammatory and sensational, and people talk that way for self-aggrandizing purposes--to strike out a new position, to establish a niche for their journal, to express inchoate anger and rebellion, or whatever. I don't buy it.

Saying Hillary is as bad as Bush is like saying piss is as bad as shit.

It doesn't mean anything.

Once again: Hillary is CERTAINLY part of the problem, as is evident from all of the examples cited in Scats' posts. And Bill Clinton was a self-aggrandizing opportunist who certainly did set up the truly genocidal neoliberal economic apparatus that is now the frame for U.S. global domination.

Still, at election time, I want Bill and Hillary over Bush et al.

That doesn't mean I like them. I might even pray for forgiveness, or curse Satan for forcing me to make this vote.

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The reason this vote is difficult for some "radicals" is because they are STILL accepting the terms of the established game and insisting that the moment of voting is somehow of great significance, as if this were the one moment for political expression, as if this were the one moment when consent could be given or refused, as if this were one's only chance to express one's political will.

But to assume this is to take on the main assumption of liberal-statist politics. In the language of the state, yes, the vote is the one and only moment that the individual has a living political will. The will is reduced to a mere option between two given choices.

This is pure ideology, reducing the will's diversity of desires and directions to a single option for one or another pre-given choice. This reduction of politics to consumption is built into the very idea of voting as the sole means of political action for solitary individuals. This breeds the passivity, apart from voting time, that enables state mis-rule.

The vote is not that important, in fact is more or less meaningless at this point.

As has been said repeatedly by Scats et al., Hillary or Rethug death is NOT a real substantive choice.

STILL--that is all the more reason not to waste time turning the decision into a big deal, or pretending that rejecting the vote is somehow putting oneself above it.

That sick deadly choice is, on voting day, the only choice there is. But there are many other days. So vote for Hillary and then (unlike the libloggers) forget about her doing anything very good; and go about the business of constructing a REAL politics that has nothing to do with her.

Voting is nothing. Voting for Hillary over Rethug death is like making sure you separate cardboard from regular garbage. It is an unbelievably minor point in the larger and deadly scheme of things.

The problem is NOT voting for Hillary.

The problem is thinking that the vote means very much. BOTH the pro-Hillary libloggers AND the posturing anti-Hillary radicals assume that the moment of voting is somehow important in the ongoing functioning of the global death machine.

It is NOT. Voting for Hillary does NOT AT ALL negate the horror that will certainly continue as long as the death apparatus is in place. But perhaps for somebody somewhere such a vote will help make the situation one milli-increment less horrible. In the same way, dropping 5 cents in the tip cup at a coffee shop is doing somebody a very very tiny, virtually insignicant favor.

Just do it. And don't think about it or waste time talking about it or pretending it matters very much.

There are many, many more ways to act politically. Worrying about your vote--and writing columns arguing against voting is STILL worrying about your vote--is buying into a bankrupt system.