Tag: voting

The Week of 02/21/2021 with STL

Greetings Comrades,

Due to personal reasons I have to miss posting anything substantial this week. But I would like to make a few observations before you go:

  • For the next four years, Pres. Biden will not take up the minimum wage increase issue again. There are ways around the parliamentarian’s decision and yet the Dems do nothing. When Biden included the measure with the COVID-19 relief bill he knew it wouldn’t go through. He was just trying to deceive all of the progressives who came out to vote for him back in November 2020. And you know the GOP will do anything to pass their legislation. Why can’t the Democrats do the same on such a vital issue? Because our government does not care about us.
  • I’ve been watching the CPAC conference this Saturday and the Trump-ist con-job is still on. Trump’s followers are speaking mistruth after mistruth in an effort to reach out to the non-college educated, blue-collar voter. And if you look at the numbers, it’s working. Watch some yourself over at C-SPAN and “know your enemy.”
  • See Judas and The Black Messiah. I do not know if you will like the movie as an entertaining, Hollywood film, but it’s a good beginner’s look into the life of Fred Hampton and his demise. It’s in theatres now and it will be on HBO Max until Sunday, March 14. You can follow up with this great documentary, The Murder of Fred Hampton from 1971. The quality is not great but it’s not about the cinematography.

“No!” to Corrupt Voting System, “Yes!”to Taking It to The Streets

The official stance of Sparking The Left is that voting in so-called democratic elections is useless. It is taking part in a corrupt system.

This opinion is based upon the fact that I would never waste my vote for either of the two dominating political parties out of respect for my own personal dignity.

You probably miss it in the media because it is so common that the media does not report it: Candidates host fundraisers at places like Goldman Sachs and/or JP Morgan Chase all of the time for campaign contributions. They also raise money from special lobbying groups, too, like the pharmaceutical industry and automaker groups. This is every presidential candidate, every leader in Congress, and both the Democratic and Republican party in whole. It’s just the nature of the corrupt beast. They get ridiculous amounts of cash from Wall St so they remain too big to fail. Pharmaceutical prices remain sky high. The auto industry makes cars in the cheapest way by doing the bare minimum to keep cars safe and reduce the amount of pollution they omit. And deregulation is at the center of it all.

Wall St. and special interest groups are not concerned with the well-being of the country. Don’t get that wrong. They are capitalists. They are insuring their financial and/or cultural interests. This is a way of keeping the working class under control. You may think that you are first in the minds of our leaders, but you’re not. This system puts in politicians who are funded and lobbied by individuals and business groups so as to keep their interests first and foremost.

And remember this: One party doesn’t care about the poor; the other party pretends to care about the poor. Don’t think candidates of either party has not sold their soul to Wall St. They hold huge debts to big business and use it as a trade-off: they rule in the interest of those donating large campaign fund amounts.

Therefore, the official stance of STL is to abstain from voting.

If you consider voting a good vehicle for change, go ahead. I’m not here to force my opinion on you. But STL believes in protests, occupations, direct action, mass actions, strikes, and general strikes. The effectiveness of street politics through solidarity is more powerful than participating in our voting system when such a radical change is needed. Voting is just crumbs thrown to us by the rich and powerful to keep us calm and obedient so we don’t threaten the real decision holders: the elite rich.

To Vote or Not to Vote?

voteOne weekend about a month ago, on MSNBC’s weekend roundtable show “Up with Steve Kornacki”, Mr. Kornacki interviewed former liberal Representative from Massachusetts Barney Frank. They were discussing the difference between the liberal “Occupy” movement vs. the conservative “Tea Party” movement and their affect on Washington. During the discussion Rep. Frank  stated something I found profound:

“The Left march, the Right votes.”

This statement shook me because I have never voted. I feel that no politician has yet to earn my vote. Both the Democrats and the GOP offer no real, meaningful solutions to our societal problems. They do not offer serious proposals for change, such as addressing the state of inequality between the rich and poor here in the U.S. and around the globe, or the problem of minority discrimination, or general issues of injustice. They are identical in this problem.

So what to do? The Tea Party has had success in affecting change within the narrow confines of power between two extremely similar ideologies in Washington. But so what? Should we then just take what we can and vote for Democratic candidates?

Today I want to propose the first Sparking The Left poll for our readers to participate in and we would love to read your comments on the issue, too: Should we vote for liberal candidates or not at all until a real voice for change can bare a real chance at winning office?

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Elgible Voter Disputes Expected in Courts Post-Election

A good article in the NYT explaining how the battles over voter elgibility in battleground states may lead to 2000-like legal battles over who won the Presidential election.

The problem here is conservative efforts to hinder the voting power of poor minorities who vote Democrat. These strong-handed measures are no different than poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crowe era.

Read Here.

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