None Of The Above - An Idea To Pick (Constructive) Holes In. Waffle Alert!

[Anna Woman von NRW]

Hope you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

I been thinking about this for quite a while now and went to back to it recently after Mr Brand's little forays into political "controversy". Now as ever, this is me so it's a bit long winded.............. And I'm gonna' try to be careful and make the words read exactly right rather than give un-warranted offence.

I need to explain where I am coming from before I got to the point.....  At the age of 16 I went to work in the House Of Lords. I spent 6 years in the place including postings to the Private Offices of the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General. One thing I developed was a unswerving commitment to voting. I firmly believed it wasn't just a right it was a duty. Grandfathers and Grandmothers fought and died to give ME the right to vote. That is not something to piss away lightly. In the ensuing 25 odd years I've voted red, orange, green or spoilt paper - whatever. It doesn't matter who, it matters that I voted. I've always believed that voting should be compulsory as long as there was a box to tick that stated None Of Them.

That ethic stayed with me until just a few years ago when a canvasser knocked on the door: would I vote for them-No, what about the other lot - no, what about the 3rd lot? - no. None of you represent my views. I thought this would be the opportunity for engagement but no he just looked at me confused, turned round and went back down the path. WTF???

So a few years later and I now longer vote in any election, not sure I'm still on the Electoral Roll to be honest. I'm afraid my view is that there is just no point as no real alternative views are offered for consideration. Minor variations on a theme is all we get thrown as scraps.

To the idea then.... What if a candidate stood for the "None Of The Above" party on a mandate to resign as soon as sworn in thereby forcing a bye-election and making the whole charade start again. It doesn't matter where you natural political sympathies lie - if you think that the shower of shit we get proffered up for consideration would be spat on by those who gave blood, sweat and tears to give us the right the vote then it would be a protest vote you could go for. That's it - no manifesto, no changing the world just a straight forward comment that it's not good enough. Go away and come back with something better to offer. Like I say, the only hook is that what we've got isn't good enough.

It costs £500 to stand as an independent candidate but you have to register as a party to be able to have "None Of The Above" as your voting box name. 650 odd seats in the Commons, that's what £350K? **** all in the grand scheme of things.

I appreciate that in some ways this is a very simplistic reductive idea and that it offers no real solutions but I don't believe we are at the point where alternative solutions could be heard. The problem needs to be identified  before we get to the luxury of what comes next.

Like I said, constructive holes picked please - I've sat on this for a while and I can't come up with a decent rational argument as to why this is a bad idea?

 

[Heno]

sorry anna but just got the time to read this.

i think its ok that you don't vote. its your democratic right.

i also think a valid reason for not voting is that the one that gets most peoples vote is that is the best of a bad lot or is aligned to ancient political party whose policies have no relevance today.

however, i am not sure the use of public funds to repeatedly run bi elections caused by apathy is a good use

and regardless, its the civil service that run the country at the end of the day.

[Master Ray]

Anna, that's an interesting and intelligent post, as are so many of your others and I hope to read many more... but it's not gonna happen.

We'd all like to think that 'the people' might get some power via democratic ideals and, thus, change the country... it's not gonna happen.  We don't have enough money and we aren't connected to the public school network which will always, forever, have the power in this country.  You've only got to see how certain ex-Etonians get a high powered position, make a total **** up of it, get a huge pay-off and then move onto another, yes, hugely well paid job... Adam Crozier, for example, made a total ****-up of running Royal Mail and then, after a huge redundancy payout, got a job as head of ITV despite having NO experience in working in television..?   

It's the same in politics.  You can throw as much money as you like at trying to get your foot in the door... you might as well try and knock down Tower Bridge by pissing on it.  You'll be an also-ran, forever, and you'll have nothing to show for it except the occasional two-inch story in a newspaper that everyone will skip over...

We, the people, are powerless and will be forevermore.  Sorry to be depressive but it's true.  The best we can do is take comfort in each other.

IMO, anyway... 

[Anna Woman von NRW]

Hey Heno,

Thought this load of waffle would rapidly end up on page million............

I take your point about the waste of public funds in forcing another bye-election but I would counter with if you add on a manifesto or ideology to what is in essence a protest voice then you split that protest and dilute it to such an extent that it's impact is impotent. Many people would agree that what we have isn't good enough as the fundamental problem but as soon as you add on a viewpoint beyond that the protest is split far beyond any tangible effect. In regard to the money well I think we piss away far more than this would cost daily on nonsensical crap.

As for the power of the Civil Service, well my experience is obviously a while ago now (check the lines on my face for the truth of that  ) but while they will of course try to influence things for the benefit of their organisation they cannot act without sign off from the "masters" occupying the seats of power. How those "masters" react to that influence varies but without a signature the Civil Service can do nothing.

I'm not being argumentative just enjoying a good discussion over a beer - hope you got one in your hand too.

 

[Rusco]

To the idea then.... What if a candidate stood for the "None Of The Above" party on a mandate to resign as soon as sworn in thereby forcing a bye-election and making the whole charade start again.

Sounds like a consensus way of making decisions. What I know, there were actually some moments in history in past centuries when it was under experiment or even used with anarchosyndicalists. There the idea was to make the process start again as long as there was a consensus with everyone.

[Heno]

sure anna, its early days yet

i take your point on the spelling of bye-election ;-)

i guess i am so not political i find it hard why anyone would invest their time here on this rock on something that can never change. so being a philosophical anarchist i appreciate that this things must go on. however, i am not sure they should happen at the expense of healthcare or education. i hear what you say about the cost compared to the overall waste. but i don’t think even a fiver should be wasted when it can help vaccinate a kid somewhere.

any politician i have ever met, known or read about has too much baggage to ever do the right thing by the time they get to office. there is always someone to be rewarded even if there is no corruption. and civil servants are the furniture of whitehall. they are the constant. they never change. never revamped. never measured. never reviewed. so they may sway slightly with the new masters after every election. but the reality of their policies when dealing with the general public never changes. they keep the boot on the back of the neck.

and yes, i have some devils bit with me here. i think we’ll have a few pages of rant before it settles down to the more philosophical debate. and even then we’ll find ourselves starting all over again. oh, i am sure the lines on your face only add to the overall beauty of the person.

[Anna Woman von NRW]

Blimey - what's going on, another reply?

Master Ray - that's where I've been for along time. And you are bang on with your assessment of our powerlessness. But what do we do? Forever sit back and give in? In the NHS thread I referred to the "commidfying" of our world and I don't think this is any different. The more that politics becomes an industry or even ******* worse a "career" the less and less louder our voices become. Tony Benn, Anne Widdicombe, Charles Kennedy - love 'em or loathe 'em these people were conviction politicians not opportunists. Rare diamonds in a shower of shit. I don't care if I agree with a candidate or not I just want them to be genuine.

I had my revolutionary phase when I was much much younger then got passed it, slipped into despondency phase and now seem to be getting angry again. I look at my son at age 15 and think to myself what the **** are we teaching him? That this is good enough?  We know that the circles of power tighten their grip with every passing year and exclude us more and more until some weird sort of fucked up feudal idea becomes the de-facto system.

Guy Fawkes - where are you now we need ya'

As I said to Heno, just shooting the breeze with a beer and hope you enjoying yours.

 

[Anna Woman von NRW]

anarchosyndicalists.

Gonna have to google them dude !

 

[Master Ray]

Hi Anna... I'm angry too, I just don't have it in me to follow it up nowadays... I'm banging my head against enough walls nowadays... 

**** it.  I might feel better next week. 

I admire your passion when so much else looks so bad...

[Anna Woman von NRW]

@ Heno,

That's the trouble - one question leads to another. Should money be spent on more bye-elections or should it be spent on health or education. It's been proposed this week that we pay a tenner per month for health and today 11 teachers have been made redundant from my sons school, on the face of it either of those issues warrant the money far more than this. BUT underneath those problems is the issue of how do you try and fix things? To my mind the fundamental thing is that without change at the root level removing the inbuilt power systems and vested interests nothing we say/do is worth jackshit.

As for baggage you're bang on but I think this is symptomatic of the way democracy has become an industry (see Ray's point about Adam Crozier). If you move past the root cause you get bogged down in what the answer is rather than looking at the actual problem.

Civil service may be the constant but something has to be and questions of revamp/measure/review are as valid as anything else - tell ya' what if I was there the buggers wouldn't know what hit them but they ain't as bad as the world would want us to believe, they are as hamstrung in what they can do as the rest of us.

"the lines on your face only add to the overall beauty of the person" ? Ain't you lovely

 

[Anna Woman von NRW]

@ Master Ray

They rely on us feeling like that because they know that's how we all end up. Use your energy up just keeping going and we won't have the "oomph" to question anything.

Maybe not next week but one week sometime you will feel better

 

[Anna Woman von NRW]

@ Ruscoe

After a quick skim of Wikipedia , think I might have a foothold in that camp !

 

[Heno]

i couldn’t agree more. but how do you motivate people to act as one in the face of such manipulation and exploitation. you can’t. too many are brainwashed in the presence of their parents or guardians. we can only try and explain the machinations to our children and hope that it slightly allows them to see some things for what they are before they are old enough to have our wisdom

so the baggage must be removed or made to make it worthwhile to maintain. either way the baggage has to change. unfortunately i think the indoctrination process within any of these government tools are such that there is no change of an inside job. it needs to be torn down. ctrl alt delete. and then start from scratch. its a terrible thing but i had hoped that ireland would fail completely. not for the love of the country. but for the hope that there would be break with tradition and the filthy hands of greed and opportunism would be fought. but what i see now is the continued economic rape of irish society by the same faces that caused the problem in the first place. the civil servant puppets, their political masters and their corporate gods

you hit the nail on the head when you said “if you were there”. thats the key. you would measure. you would make decisions in the interests of everyone. you certainly wouldn’t maintain a system where the administrators outnumber the frontline operatives.

cheers

[Rusco]

If I remember right the consensus decision making was tried at least during Spanish revolution in 1930's and later on in 90's with Zapatista EZLN activists in Chiapas, Mexico, who continued in heritage of revolutionary heroes like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Zapatista's might still be actively running the Chiapas territory politics nowadays but have to say, most of us within western world hear only rumours about them and can make only assumptions. Also, I think that rumours get easily a bit romanticized view in acitivist scenes. There are couple of interviews, DVD's (and youtube videos for sure) of them as well. A friend of mine went to work there for them to coffee fields but, man, that was 15 years ago.

Getting in to consensus it's interesting how could it be different with making exceptions in every day politics? There are some different organized ways created for consensus making decisions. Sounds good if you compare it how today people get so easily knackered in parliaments while others push their statements angrily forth. But I think it wouldn't be nice in neither case because you know what people are.

Another friend of mine, used to be active and a well known person in anarchist movement, and under police scrutiny; was asked about what would it be in anarchist society if someone gets totally nuts and do something terrible - who have a right to prevent that if you had no police force? He answered "of course in every organized society people have to interfere in such cases". Well, today this guy is a non-aligned politician who abandoned anarchism somehow. I understand him well. So did I when people seemed to divide in "cobblestone throwers" and "peace block" after a paranoid post-stress so many had after the Gothenburg riots in 2001. It's perhaps my redemption I had many other important things in my life as well.

[Anna Woman von NRW]

Heno - motivating people and getting past the bullshit we all get fed? No idea. All I can say is that is that in moments of optimism it doesn't seem a reason not to try. CTRL.ALT.DELETE ? Really like that concept - sums it up a treat methinks. You say that your thoughts on Ireland are a terrible thing but I think I understand where you are coming from - not that you wish the worst on anybody but it's the only way to get to something better?

Ruscoe - You're exposing a gap in my knowledge here. Can you recommend a potted history of this stuff to read that will fill me in?

Oh and it seems I'm not the only one:

http://notavote.co.uk/