things to consider against the booth

Well, now that the position on why voting is worthwhile has been posted, now I felt like it was just fair to defend the other position held by some marxists - that of electoral abstentionism.

The state is a mechanism of class domination, and as such, anyone trying to participate in it, whether the most honest socialist or the worst machiavellian careerist, is going to become integrated to capital. The state is the safeguard of the economy and the foreman of the fiber of society and as such, its only logical modus operandi is to continue protecting the social order it perpetuates.

Some abstentionist theses on the Democrats:

1)The anti-war left suffers a collective amnesia, for their attachment and general support to the Democrats invalidates their general opposition to the war. The democrats under Woodrow Wilson ran under an "anti-war platform" in WWI, and yet under his administration american workers where still sent to murder european workers. Kennedy and Johnson continued to escalate the vietnamese war. Obama voted for the Patriot Act and threatened in national television Pakistan and expressed his interests to continue the "war on terror."

2) The platform of the Republicans, Democrats, and any party integrated to the state are either meaningless or in constant flux, for such platform and positions are expressions of the interests of the different factions of the ruling class at a certain time. This is why the "platform" the democrats and republicans put forward in the electoral spectacle changes dramatically every four years, not only in "strategies" but in the principles themselves. This is why the democrat party is traditionally thought "in the left" yet Obama supported the billions of dollars bailout and has a pro-war platform. Or why, decades ago the old republican party was made up by isolationists and "econonomic nationalists", differing from the new "neo-conservatives". This is also why someone like Warren Buffet would support Obama, while opponents slander the democrat politician as "socialist".

3) Supporting an electoral party in the name of "relevance" is as sound as supporting the left wing of the NSDAP. We as socialists should look for creating independent class organizations that have nothing to do with the state. We should not compaign for the state at all. I wonder how leftists are going to justify their vote when the politician they voted for starts dropping bombs in Afghanistan or Pakistan...... Or the politician they voted for starts attacking the living standards of the general populace. Or the politician they voted for starts sending friends, brothers, and sisters to war.... In short, campaigning for the state is a compromise of one politics and principles.