Compassion, Ego and NPC Elections

Compassion Ego and NPC Elections

I have recently been following Ghion journal because I have a sense of like-mindedness, my apologies if this is just my wish-fulfilment.

I want to consider electoral democracy. Teodrose Fikre, editor and founder, through his understanding of what is at play wrote this on why he was not voting. At first I noted that there were marginal reasons for voting, I used the percentage 0.001% for a perfunctory vote. I was trying to be too sympathetic as I now realise my reasons rate a higher percentage. The main reason is that the 1% invest in corrupting elections vis-a-vis campaign finance and Citizen's United; as the 1% are only interested in profits and their own bank balances the fact that they invest shows they gain something. That is sufficient to vote against the 1%. I changed the blog to include a defensive vote - a vote for the 99%.

In countries with bipartisan democracies such as the US and UK there exists a 1%-satrapy, I believe Ghion journal use the term oligarchy, and Teodrose describes this aspect of the neoliberal system as "There is a reason why people are up in arms. We are led by millionaires in Congress and a petulant billionaire in the White House who are all puppets of the American oligarchy. We should be focused like a laser on the policies both immoral parties keep enacting and the legislation that they pass that is turning America into Qatar for the top 1% and a developing nation for the rest of us," [here].

The point, we should be up in arms - enraged, but as Teodrose points out in this article not enraged with each other but enraged at the 1%. Unfortunately we are not. As activists too much of our time is focussed on our electoral system. When my activism was directly political in the UK, I saw many good hard-working comrades propping up this electoral democracy. In Britain these comrades energised Labour party activity (Labour equivalent to Democrats) at the local level whilst the opportunists fatcatted themselves around Westminster (parliament). Especially under Blair opportunists filled all the power positions in the party machinery including of course the MPs, and this is why Corbyn has been under attack by the neoliberal control within the Labour party, and why he appeals directly to the grassroots for change. He appeals to the local comrades, and not the opportunists in parliament, he always has.

But that is still electoral democracy even though the local comrades would be better described as community activists as that is what they do most of the time. And here is the problem of electoral democracy, allocating power to these opportunists (Rep/Dem or Tory/Lab) forces genuine activism to engage with their governmental bureaucracies in order to enact change. Community activism is where our compassion needs to be directed helping each other, helping us all survive the 1%-satrapy that syphons money out of our community economies into their enormous coffers.

These local heroes, community activists, become recognised for what they do, but they are always eschewed from the real power. And this of course leads the ego to be tempted to become active in electoral democracy. But we are deluded if we think we can effect change though that time-wasting electoral process. The 1% has setup the electoral system to delude people that the system will give them power, and some of those deluded people are the activists who become electoral activists as opposed to community activists.

Community activists need to promote activism in the community, whichever community. With increased activism people will confront the power of the 1%-satrapy. In that confrontation ordinary people will recognise how the 1%-satrapy is not interested in them. Except for their vote, because as opportunists they need votes to be in power. Instead of choosing what the opportunists offer, lab/dem or tory/rep, activism can say we want certain things, if you opportunists want our vote you must give us what we want. As the activism is helping each other within the community, this change will be based in compassion. At present most voting is economic, traditionally we vote on economic lines, voting in patterns that come from our conditioning. Through traditional conditioning the 1% control our votes because they control the economy, the number of jobs, etc:-

Through promoting activists and grass-roots activism we are regaining the control by turning it to compassion, compassion for all people - not just the benefit of the 1%, compassion for all, freedom from suffering for all.

Because electoral democracies are designed to be ineffective, I call people investing in the process NPC from here. Not all people are invested, conditioned into accepting the electoralism as real power but for those people the electoral process is perfunctory, something they do as part of their community activism.

We have been conditioned to turn our activism into electoral activism based on economic gain. We need to reject that conditioning and turn our activism into promoting community activism. Let the opportunists campaign for themselves. Make them come to the activism for their votes, and make that voting contingent on compassion and not economic gain. Take control away from the 1%.

The fundamental issue is conditioning. How do we work on the conditioning that directs ordinary people into seeing that the electoral system can produce change? Through community activism, make them want our vote. Teodrose chooses not to vote to highlight the ineffectiveness of the system, but over the years I have seen a number of such stands that have had no impact.

But it is not just conditioning as applied to the electoral system. For me the issue is to examine conditioning and how we can begin to change it, once we go beyond conditioning then we see clearly about more than just the political system. However we can definitely know the electoral system is not designed as representational democracy. If more people see this, there is some chance of change. With people becoming active in their communities they will see how little the system represents us, the system represents the interests of the 1% and the opportunists who benefit.

But the conditioning that burdens us is not simply adherence to an electoral system that is ineffective for us but benefits the 1%. We have been conditioned to follow idealisms to such an extent that the idealism take over and divide us. Our egos are conditioned so that our own personal importance is seen as more important, conditioning our egos into turning us into opportunists seeking power instead of becoming activists helping in our communities - building our communities and building activism within our communities. We need to question idealism and detach from our egos.

Historically I have seen two sets of people seeking change within our societies. There are those who are spiritually active and those who are politically active. Unfortunately these agents for change have been divided, and they have been divided by idealism. There are many good religious people who follow their doctrines. These doctrines are essentially caring but 1%-interests within these religions have used the religion for political ends. They have turned the followers of the religious idealism against certain political ideals. At the same time because religion is used to create followers who are against certain political ideals, that political idealism has turned against the religious followers. The problem in both cases is that there are followers of idealisms divided against each other. But instead of being divided by idealism we should be united in compassion. Religious people are often caring, spiritually active people are always caring; if someone has found their path then they essentially live their lives coming from compassionate. The basis of socialism is to promote the interests of all people by working against capitalism whose interests are only the 1%. Compassion for all means freedom from suffering for all, so socialists are working as compassionate people. But the spiritually active and politically active have been divided, and they have been divided by adherence to idealisms.

Caring religious people, those who are more than just church followers, are active within their communities. Some political activism also occurs within communities, and often my political activism met with spiritual activism. That is not surprising as I think the source is the same, our own fundamental nature of compassion. Electorally we get divided by the financial interest and political opportunism. By focussing activism on the community that division will disappear because all activism will unite in compassion.

And then we can be happy to vote because we know that we are changing the system by voting for compassion - against the 1%-satrapy.