Comments on: The Essence of Indie: thoughts on yesterday’s by-election http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/ You might be awesome, but we are the Indyish! Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:03:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Lise Treutler http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15890 Lise Treutler Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:56:05 +0000 http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15890 sarah, i was glad to see you at the polling stations and am also pleased as punch with the outcome of the election! my old roommate julia and i used to have voting expeditions much like you described... of course, we'd take it that one step further and invite people over to watch election coverage on the cbc afterwards! i completely agree that voting is an right to be honoured and always participate myself. i always feel so refreshed when i leave the polling station and walk back home! sarah, i was glad to see you at the polling stations and am also pleased as punch with the outcome of the election!

my old roommate julia and i used to have voting expeditions much like you described… of course, we’d take it that one step further and invite people over to watch election coverage on the cbc afterwards!

i completely agree that voting is an right to be honoured and always participate myself. i always feel so refreshed when i leave the polling station and walk back home!

]]> By: sarah pearson http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15797 sarah pearson Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:45:12 +0000 http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15797 I agree that the "democratic" system is somewhat a sham, and that not voting can often seem like an effective way of protesting bad candidates. I have often caught myself considering "not-voting" and calling it protest rather than apathy. But in the end I always vote - I've never missed an election since turning 18 - because it's just so dangerous a right to take for granted. And by taking that hour of your day and just coming out, I feel the statement you make is much stronger - and contributes more towards a healthier non-shamlike democracy - than abstaining. Despite all this business about bad candidates, ineffective democracy and defensive voting in quebec, do you not still feel that it is a bold and decisive statement just to leave your darned apartment, get out to the polling station and just vote? I do. I think it's huge. People are so lazy. If it was only the people who supported the candidates who voted (while those of us who dissagreed with/didn't care about any of them abstained), then THAT would be some SERIOUS non-representation. Ambivalence, ignorance, or frustration with candidates is no excuse - you still gotta dip your toe in the pond, however murky it may be. I agree that the “democratic” system is somewhat a sham, and that not voting can often seem like an effective way of protesting bad candidates. I have often caught myself considering “not-voting” and calling it protest rather than apathy. But in the end I always vote - I’ve never missed an election since turning 18 - because it’s just so dangerous a right to take for granted. And by taking that hour of your day and just coming out, I feel the statement you make is much stronger - and contributes more towards a healthier non-shamlike democracy - than abstaining.
Despite all this business about bad candidates, ineffective democracy and defensive voting in quebec, do you not still feel that it is a bold and decisive statement just to leave your darned apartment, get out to the polling station and just vote? I do. I think it’s huge. People are so lazy. If it was only the people who supported the candidates who voted (while those of us who dissagreed with/didn’t care about any of them abstained), then THAT would be some SERIOUS non-representation. Ambivalence, ignorance, or frustration with candidates is no excuse - you still gotta dip your toe in the pond, however murky it may be.

]]> By: Risa Dickens http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15754 Risa Dickens Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:27:02 +0000 http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15754 "no party is really representing the change that voters want to see." holla. “no party is really representing the change that voters want to see.”

holla.

]]> By: alanah http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15748 alanah Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:04:58 +0000 http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15748 I'm also thrilled to have a national NDPer in Quebec - our one and only at the moment (second in the history of time). However, I've gotta disagree with Sarah's viewthat democracy - or at least the current canadian version - is "freedom of expression at the very simplest, emotional, individual level." I think voting tends to be more deffensive than expressive, especially in Quebec, where every election is hautned by polarizing sovereignty issues. Rather than emotional and individual, it becomes an excersice in population-wide psychoanalysis, where voters aim to jump onto the bandwagon of whatever party can snatch the riding out of the hands of the Bad Guys (who are usually the last government). In recent electiosn, the media has made much of the fact that Canadians and Quebecers have voted for Change. What they want beyond that is pretty up in the air. There may as well be an "anything but this" box on the ballot. Nail-biter ridings - or entire nail-biter elections which we have recently witnessed in Quebec, Canada, the US and Mexico - may be great media frenzy fodder, but democracy isn't supposed to be a freaking action movie. To me, the fact that election results are this unpredictable is a sign that no party is really representing the change that voters want to see. There are so many ways that democratic systems can actually become more representative and more creative. There's proportional democracy where parties who get a certain number of votes get a seat in parliament even if they haven't won majority in any given riding, and there's preferential voting where voters can rank candidates. Both of these systems allow voters to show their support for less popular candidates without "throwing away their ballot." How do we get on this? I’m also thrilled to have a national NDPer in Quebec - our one and only at the moment (second in the history of time).

However, I’ve gotta disagree with Sarah’s viewthat democracy - or at least the current canadian version - is “freedom of expression at the very simplest, emotional, individual level.”

I think voting tends to be more deffensive than expressive, especially in Quebec, where every election is hautned by polarizing sovereignty issues. Rather than emotional and individual, it becomes an excersice in population-wide psychoanalysis, where voters aim to jump onto the bandwagon of whatever party can snatch the riding out of the hands of the Bad Guys (who are usually the last government).

In recent electiosn, the media has made much of the fact that Canadians and Quebecers have voted for Change. What they want beyond that is pretty up in the air. There may as well be an “anything but this” box on the ballot.

Nail-biter ridings - or entire nail-biter elections which we have recently witnessed in Quebec, Canada, the US and Mexico - may be great media frenzy fodder, but democracy isn’t supposed to be a freaking action movie. To me, the fact that election results are this unpredictable is a sign that no party is really representing the change that voters want to see.

There are so many ways that democratic systems can actually become more representative and more creative. There’s proportional democracy where parties who get a certain number of votes get a seat in parliament even if they haven’t won majority in any given riding, and there’s preferential voting where voters can rank candidates. Both of these systems allow voters to show their support for less popular candidates without “throwing away their ballot.”

How do we get on this?

]]> By: Risa Dickens http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15746 Risa Dickens Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:36:54 +0000 http://www.indyish.com/the-essence-of-indie-thoughts-on-yesterdays-by-election/#comment-15746 i gotta say- i don't always vote - if all the candidates anger or bore me i don't bother and consider it an objection. i really agree with this comment about last night: "People voted, in the case of Outremont, probably for Thomas Mulcair; they didn't vote for Jack Layton" Layton rubs me the wrong way, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Mulcair" rel="nofollow">Mulcair</a> was the strongest environmental vote i felt i could make, given the state of the green party, so i got off my duffer and did the deed, and i hope Ottawa gets the fricken message. i gotta say- i don’t always vote - if all the candidates anger or bore me i don’t bother and consider it an objection.

i really agree with this comment about last night:

“People voted, in the case of Outremont, probably for Thomas Mulcair; they didn’t vote for Jack Layton”

Layton rubs me the wrong way, but Mulcair was the strongest environmental vote i felt i could make, given the state of the green party, so i got off my duffer and did the deed, and i hope Ottawa gets the fricken message.

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