i wrote this in response to a piece by http://rabble.ca columnist Duncan Cameron's Vote Green: And get what you do not want
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2011/04/vote-green-and-get-what-you-do-not-want
please, stop telling me to vote strategically.
only a vote for the conservatives is a vote for the conservatives. voting for any of the other parties is a vote for those parties. "splitting" the progressive vote will happen until "progressives" can all hold the same ideas. which wont happen. if the liberals take power because people vote for them it is not as though any real improvements will take place. look at the last stretch of liberals in power if you want to see inaction on environment or the erosion of personal freedoms or the spread of the military, security, and prison-industrial complexes (love for NATO, spread of the tar sands, undertaking the coup in haiti, invaded afganistan). when we really look at it, the liberals are not even a "progressive" party unless war, policing, indentured migrant labour, and disrespecting indigenous rights is now somehow progressive.
now, as long as people believe in this idea of strategic voting, they will never understand what real democracy is. urging people to vote "strategically" is telling them to not vote for what they want to, and in many circumstances voting for something that you do not argee with (or in the case of voting liberal may be something you utterly can't stand - iggy is a "humanitarian" bomber).
your comment on May wanting a referendum on changing to proportional fits very well with her understanding of democracy and wants to do one of the only things that actually represents the voice and the true wishes of the people - a referendum - to change from FPP. Referendums represent an opportunity for fuller participation from people in choosing more directly one more aspect on how they are goverened. and while you may come back with some comment about media manipulation, poorly written questions on the ballot, or miseducation campaigns, it does not make my point less valid. i feel people should also be framing the questions about how they are to be goverened as well deciding on the system for choosing this goverance. plus lobbying is expensive (and pretty ridiculous), and to do so on the cheap requires capacity that has not yet been mobilized at grassroots levels, and likely wont be as the greens do not represent most of those in the grassroots social and ecological justice movements.
the reasons the greens dont work with communists, socialists, or other parties here in canada is because they do not share many of the same core values (the reds dont want the greens), and the communists and socialists who engage in canadian parlimentary processes are even less organized than the greens. the greens did not cause the NDP to lose in sask, weak leadership (an inevitability with leadership...) and policy, and failures to rally the unions, working class, migrants, farmers, and students are what caused the NDP to lose. this just shows that the greens are gaining momentum in sask if nothing else. maybe you should blame the ndp for splitting the left...
and in a "democratic" society, choice is good (right?), and since once every 2-4 years is not enough, i would argue direct involvement is even better. many parties with all types of ideas need to be engaged and a change in electoral process need to be made to stop the ability for any government to take such ill-informed, racist and xenophobic, anti-women and ecologically devastating stances in the future that the conservatives (and the liberals in many cases) have taken in the past and are acting on in the present. if all those fools who voted liberal voted for the greens, the bloc, the communists, the marxist-lennininsts, the wild rose party, the reformers, the marijuana party, the rhinos, independents, or the ndp, there may have also be many fewer harper clones in parliament.
you will never be happy in a parlimentary democracy by voting for anyone who does not represent you. being scared into voting for someone that does not represent you because that person does not have enough support other wise to beat a different person who also does not represent you (and is likely to be somewhat worse) is not a social organisational system i want to live in. if no one represents you or you do not believe in the system of governance or choosing who governs you, do not legitimize the process by voting. vote on the streets on May 1st (international workers day) and every other day of the year (like may 2nd, 3rd, 4th...) and take direct contol over your communities, your relationships, your health, and your lives.
