Some people out there seem to be confused, but I always vote in every local and every national election for every office and every ballot initiative since I was 18 years old. Some of my greatest civil rights heroes have fought and died so that we can all vote and I honor their memory in the ballot box every single time.
To some of us, especially those of us like myself who have been scheduling secretaries for US senators, it often seems like a morally reprehensible choice between compromised corporate Democrats and fascist-minded Republicans. Where I live in California, I have the luxury of voting my conscience for president for third-party candidates that better align with my ideas of justice and equality.
But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off, but don’t just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you’d like to really see without compromise and without apologies before, during, and after election day. And let’s stop the fascists every which way we can. Power the people.
There are dozens of ways it could be fixed. Here, I’ll do the thinking for you.
First of all, if you read your own constitution, you would see that there are multiple ways to amend the constitution:
source
There are two ideas right off the bat: either start writing amendments and getting them passed through Congress, or have the state legislatures demand a convention be arranged. You don’t even need your federal Congress to get involved if you use the second approach. Did you already know that? (And since you think voting is so effective, you can invoke this holy power against the politicians that don’t support it.)
See, here’s a guy that already tried to start the process, maybe you can jump on board!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig?useskin=vector#Article_V_convention
Or maybe you need to find a not-so-legal approach. Your constitution was written because the previous one (Articles of the Confederation) were not so effective. How is your current situation today different from the one then? They figured out a way to get it done, and they were under far less duress then than you are now so… why can’t you? You start writing the new one, then ratify it the same way the same way the old one was.
And in case you weren’t aware, this happens all the time! Look at France. France is on their Fifth republic, the most recent being established in 1958, according to Wikipedia. And they’re not the only ones. There are new constitutions being proposed and voted on all over the world all the time, in the Middle East, in Africa, etc. Read the news and you’ll find out more about it. I recommend Deutsche Welle, they have excellent coverage of global affairs.
There you go. Hope you enjoyed a small lesson about civics in your own country from a foreigner. There are plenty of ideas to get you started, and now that you’re more in the know, don’t complain if voting by the rules doesn’t bring about the change you’re looking for. Good luck!
And another edit to add: yes, it’s hard work, but you have to start talking about real solutions at the very least. You can see very clearly and easily from where we are today that working within the system as it’s currently designed isn’t working and it probably never will. It’s up to you to pick whatever path you think is best, but I think it’s obvious that voting in your shitty electoral process just isn’t going to work.
Oh, thank you, obviously I need that. What a shit opening.
This was supposed to be guidance from the “don’t vote” crowd. There’s no way that “don’t vote” leads to “constitutional amendment”.
At least a bit more closer to direct. Usually there’s an acknowledgement that this isn’t in the cards, and instead they advocate to vaguely organize and wait for some catastrophe to generate the popular support that is lacking.
The whole point was about people who refuse to vote by the rules not bringing about the change.
But such a tremendously condescending tone is pretty asshole way of commenting.
You wrote, “A complete lack of specific action suggested.” so I provided some specific action. I don’t like being an asshole, but people tend to act like assholes if they think the people they’re talking to are also assholes. I’ll be more polite if you’re willing to do the same.
In any case, what I wrote is, “Do whatever you want, vote however you want, but real change won’t come until you throw out that stinking piece of trash constitution” and somehow, you assumed that it means, “don’t even try not even in the primaries.” I have no idea how you made that mental connection. You asked how to fix it, and I told you how to get it done. You wanted a direct example, and I posted several of them. I even found a guy that’s already started the process, just go and read the wiki link I posted on Lessig. What more do you want?
You said that verbatim. It’s a safe assumption to say ‘voting isn’t going to fix the problems’ is intended to mean ‘voting isn’t going to fix the problems’.
In the USA we refer to this as “third party support” and it’s the crux of this argument.