FNs: don't vote for Canada!

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

It's a vicious cycle. 

Which is to say nothing about the relative ineffectiveness of nonvoting compared to voting, let alone the type of people who benefit from voter supression.

Non-voting is a work in progress.  Obviously we'll need more people to come around to the idea.  The gist of non-voting, at least from this perspective, is that there is little to no difference between the parties, and thus some faction or another along with their friends and supporters will stand to benefit from the participation of those who still come out to vote.  If one party in a three party race can somehow benefit from non voting, it is only because the other two parties are so invested in their own fortunes as to negate the effects of working together for something other than that.  This is certainly not the fault of the non voter.

The non-voting advocates in this thread are just that -- advocates of not voting. They are not First Nations advocates -- they are trying to use a First Nations context to advance their agenda which has nothing to do with First Nations concerns. If you read the comments that came after the OP you can see very clearly their priority and that is to use FN to encourage people not to vote rather than discuss any activism on behalf of FN or even really address any of this from an Aboriginal context.

My objection is this call for non-voting -- aimed at FNs -- comes in the middle of an almost desperate appeal by a majority of FN leaders to get their people to vote -- to elect some of their own people and to make a difference in this election for their people. They have already succeeded in that there are more Aboriginal candidates than ever before. And they recognize the near emergency of a change in government for their people.

So I challenged the non Aboriginal people who are nonvoting advocates with the legitimacy of them taking and promoting a minority view against voting to suit their purposes partly becuase it places the conversation where we cannot have a debate without telling FN what to do or not do and it goes against the majority. Secondly, because it attacks a majority position taken by the leaders of a disadvantaged group. And lastly, in psite of the veneer of this being a FN voice the frame remains in a non Aboriginal campaign for people not to use their voting rights -- rather than a specific purpose for and by Aboriginal people.

I asked for more context -- which I provided. And this context is not just about what FN leaders are saying but the wider arguments and context of what the person quoted in the opening post is saying. He has a lot more to say than this. If you are going to quote him for your purpose, then at least read the rest of what he is saying and encourage others to do so.

FN people are not tools for the debates of others.

You can talk about non voting and what that means in the rest of Canada to you and you can deal with our objections but if you want to apply it in a specific direction towards FN people then the conversation should not be the ramblings of those giving their views about why voting is good or not but specifically related to what will benefit First Nations -- Now. Their desperation is in a totally different universe. Throwing out this quote when it is clear that the purpose of the call is to help non Aboriginal people who dislike voting advance their cause rather than offering anyting to Aboriginal people is not somethign I can respect. It is clear to me that this appeal is designed to be placed out of reach of argument by non Aboriginal people to be used in the debate by non Aboriginal people.

This approach stinks of imperialism and faux allies who are only looking to use someone elses' condition to advance their project.

The fact that you use a FN writer whose opinion I may respect against a position I hold does not mean I have to respect your employing of this.

I am not interested in a debate in this thread about the wider merits of voting or not. Nor am I interested in your abuse of a FN debate to place objections to your position out of reach.

As I said -- this could have been simply a thread reporting what one writer is saying about non voting and left the clear advocay out of the thread title -- or it could be a debate about how other Canadians can best support FN. This is a thread about how FN can be used to support the positions of non FNs who want to campaign againsty voting.

For the record: I have a lot of contact with FN people -- I advocate generally for the NDP but not sepecifically to FN people. I do not tell FN how to vote. I do promote the needs for reconciliation and I do praise the NDP (and the Liberals) for positions they have taken on FN issues. But I do not direct any instruction to FN on how they should vote. I also do not challenge FNs who advocate nonvoting. I do challenge this.

This is about respecting FN, listening to them rather than advocating to them what to do and respecting the fact that they were denied the vote longer than any others in Canada.

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The non-voting advocates in this thread are just that -- advocates of not voting. They are not First Nations advocates -- they are trying to use a First Nations context to advance their agenda which has nothing to do with First Nations concerns.

+1

I don't believe there was any such claim of advocacy.  Sean states it that way as if the act of posting a couple of links to FN authors were unsolicited attempts to advocate FN issues from a non-FN point of view.  The sharing of links is somehow taboo in Sean's estimation.  In the meantime, Sean has been putting up walls of utter nonsense and then goes on about respecting FN opinions. Classic. Well, there was a grand total by my count of three FN perspectives around non-voting that were linked in this thread, points of view that some of us share an affinity with, but all Sean wants to talk about about is how this might effect his brand of politics, along with hassling other points of view that evidently won't ever jell with his myopic view of what constitutes politics.  I suppose the only response to all of that is to go ahead and add in a forth article that was sent to me, along with a hefty quote for good measure:

Why play the white man's game?

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So why do people do it then? I have to believe that most of the Indian people who vote in Canadian elections are not consciously betraying principles, but vote simply because they have not considered all of the implications of the act. But I suspect it is a different story for Indian leaders who get deeply involved with Canadian political parties. I may be accused of being cynical here, but let's remember that politics is a very cynical business these days. Most Indian politicians who give their support and allegiance to Canadian political parties do so out of selfishness and greed - they possess a hunger for money and power that drives them to knowingly betray the principles of nationhood in exchange for favors and status within the white man's system.

There's no taboo. There's nothing that will ever stop people from advocating ineffective non-strategies. I'd be relieved if the original poster was merely "sharing links" for an opinion he did not personally agree with, but the original poster made their reasons clear, and then looked for the quickest exit when their point of view was discredited.

It scarcely helps that some of the advocacy comes from nearly 20 years ago, when the political circumstances were very different. The "nation-to-nation" approach has gone from a marginal idea to something that is actually acceptable in mainstream discourse in 2015. Just imagine if we focused our energy on promoting those ideas from acceptable to even sensible or preferable, instead of telling marginalized peoples to do nothing.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Are there any other things that FN should or shouldn't do?

I don't know.  This thread is about sharing some opinions around non voting as it concerns FN communities, from an FN perspective, which have neither been added to or subtracted from, at least up until the point when all the oppositional partisan noise was cranked up here.

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

There's no taboo. There's nothing that will ever stop people from advocating ineffective non-strategies.

Precicely what strategy is being realized by voting.  Today Mulcair made it one of his priorities to find ways to export Canada's energy resources.  In other words, pipelines.  Is that the kind of 'effective' strategy people are aiming for?

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I'd be relieved if the original poster was merely "sharing links" for an opinion he did not personally agree with, but the original poster made their reasons clear, and then looked for the quickest exit when their point of view was discredited.

But they're not discredited.  They have been inveighed against at best, in weasely fashion at that, by going after the person linking the articles in, as opposed to taking on the content of the articles directly.

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instead of telling marginalized peoples to do nothing.

No, they're telling themselves not to vote.  We're observing on it.  It's as cut and dry as that.  It just doesn't jive with the hype being dredged up by partisan shoulder parrots and their swashbuckle.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

And promoting one of them, from a anti-voting settler perspective.

Our perspective on voting is known well enough in other contexts, but for the purpose of this thread we haven't said what they should or shouldn't be doing.  I don't know how many times this needs to be repeated before it sinks in to the thick skulls hereabouts.  Odd that your questioning of what we're supposedly telling people to do, winds up telling them what to do by default, which is to vote in the settler processes.  Shame about that.

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I'm not even telling them not to listen to two white dudes who want everyone to not vote.

We're listening to them, or at least reading what they're saying, in between all the sword play.

Can't a principled decision to not take part in Canadian elections be a form of deliberate action? Does it have to be "inaction"? 

I don't think it can be, not by itself. A principled decision to boycott an election has to be combined with some kind of tangible demand, otherwise it's just unilateral surrender. 

For example, there is a Palestinean debate about participation in Israeli elections, but there's a very tangible outcome that the boycotters are asking for: the inclusion of Palestinean political parties in a fair electoral process.

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

A principled decision to boycott an election has to be combined with some kind of tangible demand, otherwise it's just unilateral surrender.

"We do not need to be shoemakers to know if our shoes fit." - GWF Hegel

When an oppressive foreign government throws your traditional government out of its longhouse using miltiary force (as Canada did to the Six Nations), imposes Canadian-style elections in place of indigenous forms of democracy and consultation, bans women from their previous right to take part in governance, and forcibly requires some of your nation's members to vote in the foreign country's elections, I can understand a campaign to avoid taking part in those elections. 

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We're listening to them

Well, the ones who oppose voting, anyway.  Not the deluded ones who insist on validating the system even after you educate them.

Slumberjack wrote:

 but all Sean wants to talk about about is how this might effect his brand of politics, 

[/quote]

Slumberjack -- STOP LYING.

Nowhere in this thread have I advocted for any particular political brand in this thread. This lie has been stated more than once.

Slumberjack wrote:

Sometimes we're left with precedence/historical fact to explain a person's behavior.  Doubtful that you'd have much of a problem if we were linking to FN articles urging people not to vote conservative.  Here, your issue either has to do with defending the sanctity of the electoral process itself, wherein your preference is that everyone should be subsumed into it, or your concern is that if a few FN commentators are urging people not to vote for any of it, somehow this might end up siphoning off support from your favorite party, the NDP.  Either way you're reasoning is more problematic than the faux outrage you've been flinging around over a few posted links.

Stop the bullshit.

I explained clearly in this thread what my concerns are with this thread and how this has been presented.

The logic is bankrupt.

So those non Aboriginal people who advocate general non voting and do so in this in the thread using one side only of a FN discussion are not trying to use this to their ends.

But a person who is not advoacting any partisan positions in this thread - nor even challenging the FN quote in this thread - is doing so is simply becuase of holding a partisan position external to this thread that has not been raised here.

In other words, becuase I happen to have a political position external to this thread I have no right to object as one side of a FN debate is presented here as a general instruction to FNs not to vote. And the fact that this thread was created by non FN people clearly seeking to use this quote to further their agenda over any particular FN discussion is not relevant becuase I am so evil as to take a partisan position elsewhere -- when I am not discussing the relationship between FNs and Canada.

Utter hypocrisy.

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Babble also has an entire, long running forum dedicated to First Nations issues and concerns if you'd like to finally introduce yourself as an advocate.

And if this thread had really been about First Nations issues and concerns, it would have been started there.

If you don't want to discuss or read a discussion about a particluar issue then don't click on the thread.  

I do want to discuss this issue. 

Hard to have a discussion when the original poster has checked out, and wasn't saying much to begin with. I've asked the other main champion of nonvoting to explain what the logical and practical conclusion of nonvoting will lead to, and instead I get deflections, and proclamations that we're just here to quietly observe a point of view.

Funny enough, it's the people who started this who want to relegate this thread to passive listening. Which is even funnier that the thread is about nonvoting. Doing nothing is apparently the new activism.

..i was just over at the tpp thread and the talk is no party will be able to get out of trade deals. also the talk is that pipelines are on the agenda. this affects first and foremost the first people. the problem i see with babble is that there is no plan b. you got the ndp then you have what? there is the resistance. and right now that’s all we’ve got between us and the corporations.

..this needs to be respected because those folks are nations. they are being attacked. indian act bands are being used to circumvent community democracy. i’ve decided for myself which i will follow. and i wonder what those inside the party the activists. how can we all intervene in this now that it’s election time. 11 wks of it.

..this thread is an opportunity.

epaulo13 wrote:

..i was just over at the tpp thread and the talk is no party will be able to get out of trade deals. also the talk is that pipelines are on the agenda. this affects first and foremost the first people. the problem i see with babble is that there is no plan b. you got the ndp then you have what? there is the resistance. and right now that’s all we’ve got between us and the corporations.

As usual, I agree with everything you've said here. Except one thing. Please don't identify babble with the "NDP, NDP, NDP, that's all there IS!!!" cheerleaders. There are many others of us who, whether we reject electoral politics or not, believe that real change never has and never will come from the Hollywood spectacle that passes for democracy in the polling booth. Please.

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..this needs to be respected because those folks are nations. they are being attacked. indian act bands are being used to circumvent community democracy. i’ve decided for myself which i will follow. and i wonder what those inside the party the activists. how can we all intervene in this now that it’s election time. 11 wks of it.

..this thread is an opportunity.

My opinion - as a non-Indigenous person, it's none of my fucking business whether Indigenous people decide to vote or not. My duty is to support their struggles in any way I possibly can. It starts and finishes there.

The whole Canada edifice has to be broken up to get out of the current corruption.

Newly incorporated, Canada would recognise for all peoples the right to self-determination. It would look a lot different than today, and perhaps closer to the vision of the Great Peace of 1701.

epaulo13 wrote:

Unionist wrote:

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..this needs to be respected because those folks are nations. they are being attacked. indian act bands are being used to circumvent community democracy. i’ve decided for myself which i will follow. and i wonder what those inside the party the activists. how can we all intervene in this now that it’s election time. 11 wks of it.

..this thread is an opportunity.

My opinion - as a non-Indigenous person, it's none of my fucking business whether Indigenous people decide to vote or not. My duty is to support their struggles in any way I possibly can. It starts and finishes there.

..i might just be confused. your words don't seem connected with the quote. i wasn't speaking about voting. i was referrering to directly intervening with polititions as they campaign. re pipelines.

Whoops... you're right, I was confused, I see it now. I was still focused on the thread title. I'm back to agreeing with you lol!!

Good point.  Also, I've seen no explanation of how a FN electoral boycott could possibly lead to FN self-determination being achieved.  It's not as if Harper would say "None of you folks voted?  OK, you have full title to your ancestral lands, effective immediately".

For that matter, can anyone point to any historical situation in which boycotting an election ever achieved anything for those who boycotted it?  I still remember the FMLN calls for a boycott in El Salvador.  That boycott produced no progressive or even vaguely positive results whatsover, IIRC.  Anyone remember that differently?

Don't know; not Tibetan.