Post by fred on Nov 5, 2011 16:40:57 GMT
I haven’t voted since 1951 when I cast my ballot paper for the Labour Party! I thought it a complete waste of time and realised that to change the system, we needed not the House of Commons, or some working class bureaucrat on the make, but an active , thinking working class. Who thought for themselves and were disciplined and intelligent enough to work out, collectively, the mechanics of their own life through a series of neighbourhood and Area Committees in social life and workers control of the means of production, through Shop Floor Councils, all affiliated at base level. We haven’t actually succeeded yet, but we're hopeful. If not today, there's always tomorrow.
In all that time however I have always booked in, as it were, to get my name on the Voters List! It is the don't votes, who register the opposition to the Government and not only to the establishment, but to the whole flaming system. On the whole , while government is easier in some ways with a decent majority, all one needs is a simple one, the system still works.
At some local elections only 30% of the electorate turn out and in general elections though the turn out is somewhat larger vary rarely, if ever has a Government got in with a true majority. Australia and some others trying to make a stronger basis for the system has made it punishable by a fine not to cast your vote , even here if you spoil it, which I have done in local elections, it makes little difference, it is those who don't participate in the farce who make the strongest protest!
Today, the establishment are looking at ways of getting more people committed and one way is to make every person responsible for getting his own name on the voting register! Yet even though they got the names on the register the next step would be compulsory voting! If folk are to idle to put their names on a sheet and go to vote, they're not likely to be encouraged by compulsory methods. Now we are to discuss the idea of Individual Registration, taking the onerous duty from the Head of the Household and placing it on the back of the individual. This idea stems from the same people who dreamed up Registration Cards, because everyone over a certain age, will have to Register and be identified and it has been claimed, (K.Ghosh, ERS,) that some 15 million citizens would be left without a vote! Worse still they would be unrecognised!
As it is the DON'T Votes, are still there ,a looming Presence that springs to life at every riot and every demonstration. They are recognised and recorded, but if this idea gets adopted it will be another plank in the Establishment's efforts to marginalise us!
In all that time however I have always booked in, as it were, to get my name on the Voters List! It is the don't votes, who register the opposition to the Government and not only to the establishment, but to the whole flaming system. On the whole , while government is easier in some ways with a decent majority, all one needs is a simple one, the system still works.
At some local elections only 30% of the electorate turn out and in general elections though the turn out is somewhat larger vary rarely, if ever has a Government got in with a true majority. Australia and some others trying to make a stronger basis for the system has made it punishable by a fine not to cast your vote , even here if you spoil it, which I have done in local elections, it makes little difference, it is those who don't participate in the farce who make the strongest protest!
Today, the establishment are looking at ways of getting more people committed and one way is to make every person responsible for getting his own name on the voting register! Yet even though they got the names on the register the next step would be compulsory voting! If folk are to idle to put their names on a sheet and go to vote, they're not likely to be encouraged by compulsory methods. Now we are to discuss the idea of Individual Registration, taking the onerous duty from the Head of the Household and placing it on the back of the individual. This idea stems from the same people who dreamed up Registration Cards, because everyone over a certain age, will have to Register and be identified and it has been claimed, (K.Ghosh, ERS,) that some 15 million citizens would be left without a vote! Worse still they would be unrecognised!
As it is the DON'T Votes, are still there ,a looming Presence that springs to life at every riot and every demonstration. They are recognised and recorded, but if this idea gets adopted it will be another plank in the Establishment's efforts to marginalise us!