Militer > Boycott to take control of our own affairs !
Boycott to take control of our own affairs !
Every day brings a new wave of revelations, every day brings a new scandal ! And it’s not just the prime targets of Fillon and Le Pen who come under fire but the whole of the bourgeois political class which has lost face in one ‘affair’ after the next in a never-ending saga dished up by the media over and over again until we’re sick to the back teeth, churning over attitudes and positions, allegiances and betrayals and even the clothes they wear all takes pride of place over anything else... When in all of this are their political programs ever mentioned ?
Despite their apparent differences, their election manifestoes are merely variations on the inevitable responses to capital by any government that subscribes to a capitalist economy. Set against the backdrop of the crisis and the global economic war, this means more drudgery and job insecurity and increased unemployment, plunging us further and further into misery, unleashing more violent backlashes in the working-class neighbourhoods and the factories to keep us in our place.
Can we really be expected to put up with them lining their pockets, cheating and scheming ? They don’t seem to realise the problem it causes when they’re caught red-handed. We recoil in disgust when they laugh in our faces and scoff at the life they foist upon us and turn our backs on the electoral system, bolstering abstention as the result of the all-too-clear decay of the bourgeois democracy.
But the real issue behind these polls isn’t the corruption, real or otherwise, of the political clique. As at every election, what is really at stake involves us giving up our collective political force for the sake of naming a representative of the bourgeoisie. That’s what’s really behind the ballot. They take over our voice and experts of all stripes claim to speak on our behalf, telling us what’s good for us and deciding what needs to be done in our place !
Boycotting the elections seeks to trigger the fight against the bourgeois strangle-hold over society, taking a step towards taking control over our own affairs. It means refusing to continue to play by the rules of the electoral game where you vote one day and the rest of the time you sit on the side-lines. Boycotting the elections means feeling concerned by the whole of society, the way it works and develops. It means standing shoulder to shoulder with the undocumented workers demanding papers for all, with the migrants defending freedom of movement and residence, with the Roma, with the young people in working-class neighbourhoods fighting for equality, standing up to racism and discrimination, with the workers fighting lay-offs and the hardship and drudgery that break the body and the spirit, and with the unemployed. Boycotting the elections means building an empowering project based on the union of all of those who are exploited in order to combat the upsurge of reactionary ideas promoted by the National Front, Fillon and their ilk.