November 9th Coalition

Politics in the context of the United States has for a very long time been largely directed (intentionally) in to the narrow forum of electoral politics and their election cycles. November 8 is this year’s ultimate day that ends an election cycle, after which the constructed consensus is that common people—either feeling as winners or losers based on election results—have played their roles in the democracy and ought to return to their private affairs, leaving the professional politicians to their business for some hundred odd days.

Not all, but most Americans have agreed—albeit through their actions and lack thereof—to this arrangement where they shut up and allow government to govern the majority of the time. The November 9 Coalition, now as a facebook group, is my humble attempt to introduce new fuel to chew on for the people fired up during this electoral politics season (especially Berners and maybe some Trump supporters) and provide an alternative viewpoint that doesn’t confine democracy to the highly controlled ballot box and supplementary corporate media bombardments. I have a disdain for facebook in particular, and social media in general, but I often make compromises and try to leverage these systems more than they might leverage me, and in this case the benefit of using social media is that is where many mainstream political people have confined themselves to, and there they can be brought in to quick acquaintance with other individuals (anarchists, anonymous) who do not see November 8th as the day to place all of one’s hopes AND fears. There are many allies that respective groups don’t know they have outside their own defined space(s)—I would argue it’s part of the job of electoral politics to create multiple blindspots to potential potent unions of peoples.

The group is just a platform for connection, my hope is to inspire some awareness that democracy can be more than just voting, it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy (if we all act that it is true, it will become true). The group itself, due to my poor time management that I allow for my creations, will come to limp in to Wednesday November 9 and afterwards resemble a bastard child as I allow myself to be consumed by other interests. But perhaps not! Anyways, another set of dice that I roll, we shall see…

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People’s Political Pipeline: Political Searching for a Cartoon

If I had the skill or digital know-how, I would draw this political cartoon:

A man or woman—drawn to represent an everyday sort—is being shown a pipe labeled “representative democracy” by another man, a swindler/marketer/salesman type (actually a politician). The pipe is a u-turn fixture, similar to the picture below

and has an entrance port where participants (constituents) are encouraged to put all their political energies. The salesman actually will be saying, “if you just put all your political energy into that pipe—anger, indignation, and so on—we as your representatives will put it to good use and make sure the causes and convictions you have are put to bettering your situation”. The reader of the cartoon will see, however, that due to the pipe system shaped as a “u”, all the energy is going to be turned and used against the very person participating.

Perhaps if this were to be drawn as two or three part comic, the person would ask “what’s that pipe for?” pointing to the other end, with the salesman telling some lie about its use, and then the final scene would be the person all burnt with exhaust smoke after doing as they were told.

Underneath would be a caption such as:

“This is what happens when you turn to them—they turn on you.”

Representative democracy is when oligarchs decide to put on a pageant

OR

representative democracy is when oligarchs take up acting

OR

representative democracy is when oligarchs dabble in comedic theater