November 6, 2010

A note to the Dissafected Non-Voters out there:

The reason our Government sucks, is because nobody participates.

To complain about not being "given" enough choices on the ballot reminds me of the Russian Folk Tale of the Little Red Hen:



Where she worked growing wheat, she could get no help from anyone.
She harvested it, and got no help from anyone.
She ground it to flour, and got no help.
She baked it into bread and got no help from anyone.
They all slept.

To make it a closer analog to our Democracy-- when the Democracy Bread was finally baked, everybody wanted a loaf of their own, and when the Little Red Hen said "no" they all bitched and whined that it wasn't fair. When she ate the bread herself, the Dog, the Cat, and the Mouse used this as an excuse to further justify their lack of participation. So they never got any bread, and were miserable.

The Mouse took up teaching linguistics at MIT, and wrote books about how the Little Red Hen was stupid for working to bake bread when the bread would likely go bad over time, or have small rocks in it from being ground at the miller, and how since the only REAL way to get bread is to plant seeds, nobody should participate in harvesting or grinding flour, and thusly the effort that goes into baking bread is a wasted effort.

The Cat went on to become an anarchist philosopher and would publish books decrying the Little Red Hen as a "slave of the system" and published books saying that bread would make itself all on it's own if we stopped participating in the making of bread.

The Dog muttered, "they're all crooks anyways" and went back to sleep.

The end.

11 comments:

  1. Ok, so the solution as it goes was communism.

    Now one chicken owns the land, doles out crumbs to the few workers she needs and spends the bread on security to kill off the other animals who feel like writing poems and finding meaning in their existence.

    This feels like comparing cherries to durian.

    The old story itself is overly simplistic to be effective in its metaphor. No Animal sleeps all day. They all specialize in some contribution to nature, otherwise they wouldn't be here. Unfortunately the structure as it stands is abstracted by its own monetary reality. In Fact, Life is Priceless. In Fact, Time is ALL You Have. In Fact, Time Equals Either Art OR Money. Which One Do You Choose?
    Art builds strong communities(a place to express, accept and be open for the greater good)
    Money builds Las Vegas(a place to live out your perversions in secrecy for just yourself)

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  2. I'm not disaffected. I don't vote because I'm not a Patriot of the corrupt bureaucracy we call a government. I'm an inhabitant and patriot of Turtle Island. I'm anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-fascist.

    As long as voters are so apathetic (and pathetic) that they'll cast votes they know don't even have to be counted, for candidates they know they won't be able to hold accountable, we'll continue to have a plutocracy instead of a democracy.

    Nice to hear you did your civic duty, Punk, but did you remember to flush afterward?

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  3. Mark E Smith is not making any sense here.

    It's funny, how people say the stupidest sounding shit when they've almost finally realized that they're wrong.

    You keep on rambling nonsense to yourself Mark. Don't bother thinking about things too hard.

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  4. Interesting take on the story.

    It also can be seen in the completely opposite way. The hen is the producer in this society, and the others represent participants in the democracy. Those three decide it is unfair this producer is not sharing the final product, even though they know they all would have been better off if they all contributed. So the 3 left out of the consuming vote to get their "fair share." Thus, making them all worse off. They all could have contributed to make the bread or even more bread.

    I think it is easy to make associations with this story because it is so open ended. I think Ronald Reagan had one about poverty or welfare or something...

    And I don't think government produces anything. It does stuff, yes, but equating it to the hen who is producing goods doesn't really work. Just voting for stuff doesn't make stuff. It usually results in the transfer from one group to another. Admittedly in America the transfer usually goes from the working people, who produce, to the rent seekers that know how to work the system (corporatism).

    Also, I disagree that government could be better if more participated. Is Australia any better off than we are? It is illegal to not vote there.

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  5. @ Anonymous:
    I'm not saying that that's what the story is about specifically. I'm saying that it can be used to understand good governance.

    The reason our government sucks IS because people do not participate in it. Period. That is a demonstrable fact.

    Furthermore your dichotomy between producing goods and participating in democracy is a false one.

    The two issues are unrelated. Goods can be produced by labor under any system of government, fascism, democracy, theocracy, etc

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  6. This will relate I swear.

    I just finished reading Mark Burgess's book "A View from a Hill". He talked about how The Chameleons got totally shafted money wise by record companies over the years.

    He said (for example) a band like U2 actually makes money because they are obviously successful and sold millions of albums, the record companies couldn't steal money from them and had to actually pay the band.

    My point is, if the other 60% of the population actually VOTED there is no way they would be able to "hide" votes because the margin would be so huge.

    I honestly don't understand the inaction in voting. You are just falling for the trap and at the same time insinuating that the right for women and African Americans to vote was futile.

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  7. How is my dichotomy between two separate systems false? please explain. I was only arguing that democracy (just another system where people gain the ability to rule over people) doesn't produce anything except political power(coercion by the other animals) at the expense of others (The Hen).

    A good example of a vote that would only go sour if the turnout was higher is the vote for gay marriage. It is well known that more people oppose it than support it, but the outcome would be political oppression.

    And Isn't my example of Australia's system of 100% participation proof that high participation does not in fact mean a better government? They have 94% participation.

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  8. @Anonymous - You're conflating totally unrelated issues. That's why your dichotomy is a false one. It's not either or. It's either/or/both/and. The two are totally unrelated.

    My post is about good governance, not production of goods.

    Australia is NOT a good example, because that's a) that's ONLY voting and b) it's mandated

    There's more to good governance than just voting, but voting is part of it. You have to vote, you have to lobby, you have to bird dog, you have to research, you have to campaign, you have to run for office, you have to do all sorts of things. Being a full-time citizen is a lot of work. Just ask Ralph Nader.

    But it's worth it. Just ask Ralph Nader, who had a hand in just about every good piece of legislation passed between 1959 and 1994, without ever running for office.

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  9. Ok I just e-mailed you and posted a message on a youtube video of yours, but this is just full of shit I have to address it.

    Ralph Nader? Ralph Nader is a joke and what hand did he have any any piece of good legislation? What has he done other then be a spoiler vote in some elections? Where did you get the idea he was a good example of an active citizen?

    He only seems to have one issue to go by, and his party is a retard fruitcake Green Party that doesn't seem to have any leadership that can press their points effectively. it has
    nothing to do with money and being drowned out by the other two parties. It has everything to do with retard spokespersons.

    Third party and independent candidates have always been jokes, plain and simple. Case in Point - Ross Perot? What a fucking retard!

    Good case is Massachusetts: They had a gubernatorial
    candidate in Massachusetts, and the Green Rainbow candidate was so earthy-crunchy, new-agey, and just plain retarded that nobody could figure out what she was offering. Even in the debate (all candidates
    got to debate together) she couldn't make any points at all.

    In this case I'd say don't blame the reps and the dems for the lack of independent candidates getting elected. It is the independent candidates themselves
    who are to blame, or their parties.

    In reality, the Democrats selling out means our doom, because The Democrats were for open government -- they were the ones who came up with the Freedom
    of Information Act, which gives Americans the right to see classified documents. Unlike the republicans, the Democrats were and still a lot are all about creating a just and equitable society, free of racism and sexism. the vast majority of Jewish and Black politicians in the country are in the democratic party, as well as Latinos.

    Dictators. Nazis. Klansmen, anti-semites, Jesus freaks, Survivalists, and Gun nuts...Those are the people in the republican party, and now it's time to let them run the country.

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  10. Hey, DaFreeMazon: You have no clue what you're talking about.

    Ralph Nader was a consumer advocate who was the driving force behind just about every good piece of legislation to come out of congress since 1950.

    http://www.votenader.org/about/achievements/

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  11. Wow, his website, great unbiased source *rolls eyes*

    Keep on fighting the good fight XD XD XD XD

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