and i'm equating voting with doing nothing. political change, in my opinion, and i've seen it in action, comes from three places: a loaded gun a briefcase full of cash organized grassroots organizations.
And those organized grassroots organizations which are organized at the grassroots level effect change... how?
By assembling enough of a voting bloc that the legislators and executives listen to them. Protests don't do shit to make the government change its mind, except to show that there are a lot of people out there who will vote that government out of its cushy job.
Go ahead and organize a huge bloc of 13-year-olds who want political change. Get millions of them together. And they won't be able to get shit done, because they can't vote, and no one listens to them for that reason and that reason alone.
when i think of large organizations effecting change without resorting to voting (or armed revolution), i think of the fall of the berlin wall and the changes of governments in eastern europe, east germany, czechoslovakia, and hungary in particular. in those countries, people organized, gathered, protested, marched, and forced the sitting governments out of power. the voting came later.
Well, yes. When you're explicitly laying out your criteria of large organizations effecting change without voting, then you're probably going to come up with a lot of examples of large organizations that effect change without voting. If you're willing to accept that maybe large organizations can effect change via the ballot or the threat thereof, then perhaps you can think of some instances when it's happened.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:17 pm (UTC)(falsely attributed to Edmund Burke, but still a pretty damn good quote)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:24 pm (UTC)political change, in my opinion, and i've seen it in action, comes from three places:
a loaded gun
a briefcase full of cash
organized grassroots organizations.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 11:04 pm (UTC)By assembling enough of a voting bloc that the legislators and executives listen to them. Protests don't do shit to make the government change its mind, except to show that there are a lot of people out there who will vote that government out of its cushy job.
Go ahead and organize a huge bloc of 13-year-olds who want political change. Get millions of them together. And they won't be able to get shit done, because they can't vote, and no one listens to them for that reason and that reason alone.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-06 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-06 04:05 am (UTC)