No ruler has ever had your best interest in mind.
From the Roman Emperors to modern day Presidents, the ruling party or individuals in charge of your country have been interested in one thing only: power, and the retention of it. This has nothing to do with you, unless you make up one of the small percentage of people on this planet who have a direct hand in the rule of those aforementioned countries. And no, I do not mean voting.
Voting presents you with an illusion. The illusion of choice, the illusion that you are a special snowflake and that your vote matters. The illusion of change, that the current power structure of the world would ever relinquish their ongoing plans because you and your little friends voted Trump or Sanders.
Not only that, the act of voting makes you complicit. I have heard it said over and over that “if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain.” I believe this is faulty logic. I don’t vote because my not voting is, as Jack Donovan has said, “a vote of no-confidence.”
By choosing to vote, you perpetuate this system. By getting drawn into the debate of one candidate versus another, you are falling to the same idiotic distraction that every other citizen is embroiled in, spewing their “stats” and “facts” on social media, arguing with foam dripping from your mouth that “your guy” is the one who will bring this place out of the swamp of ignorance and hate.
Your guy will be the one who brings about a free love utopia, or wall off the country from the foreign hordes defiling it, or whatever your concern is. From the pill-ridden hellholes of backwoods Appalachia to the concrete jungles and glass high rises of Los Angeles, everyone has an opinion, everyone takes part in the shit-show.
You are consuming the bread and circus with both hands, belly stuffed and bloated on the reality TV antics of talking heads and power merchants, puppets and figureheads who you have placed your faith in through the symbolic ego masturbation of “voting.”
The idea that with your ballot, you will change the flow of history, that the power structure has placed so much of their future to chance, to the rabble, the diseased, crawling, scrabbling masses- is utterly laughable.
The naivete that it takes to believe in such a fairy tale is staggering.
Further, I see intelligent men and women, who would label themselves “outlaws,” “rebels,” “free thinkers,” getting caught up in this mass hysteria, for one side or the other, aligning themselves with narcissistic billionaires or withered old social justice warriors, contributing to this insane waste of thought and energy.
I view the entire concept of voting as something akin to being locked in a cell with two rapists.
You know that you are about to be fucked by one of them, and a voice comes over a speaker from somewhere in the cell:
“You are about to be raped by one of these men. One will do it while whispering sweet nothings into your ear, the other will say things which you find disagreeable. Please cast your ballot to choose which one.”
In a situation where I know a rape is inevitable, and that neither individual cares about me or what happens to me, I will not be complicit in the rape.
Rather, I will resist, and attempt to escape the room altogether.
Fly the black flag, and this year, vote for the best candidate of all: no one.
POST-SCRIPT:
Because the aim of Operation Werewolf is not to remove hope, crush dreams, or be meaninglessly antagonistic, but rather, to empower the Self, to uplift the individual, and to resist the emptiness of the modern world; here are some ways you can create positive change in the world directly around you, and “vote” in a way that matters.
Buy local or support international small business. Supporting businesses run by people you know or actually want to see do well is a powerful way of “voting with your dollar,” and ensuring that you will see more of a thing. Each time you spend money, you are essentially saying “I want to see more of this.” Consider that when you spend.
Skill-share. Increasing the ability of your little tribe to fend for itself, from changing your oil or fixing your car, to building your own structures and growing food- educating your peer group on how to become more capable raises the strength and quality of life.
Create a trade-market. Reach out to those within your community and create a barter system. Teach jiu jitsu for homegrown produce. Fix bikes in trade for clothing repair. The possibilities are infinite- by removing capital from the equation, you set the value of things based on what’s real to the people involved.
It can be argued that you can’t pay your rent with good intentions, but you can! Trading work to reduce rent, or reducing other bills by trading skills and services for things you would otherwise pay for can free up cash that would have been spent elsewhere. Trust me, this works.
Take up an exercise routine or start learning a martial art. This is just good sense and will contribute not only to your overall sense of well-being more than winning an argument on Facebook ever could, but it is a tradeable skill, and something that cannot be taken away from you.
For more ideas on how to spend your time directly improving your world instead of relying on politicians to do so (because they never will), check out the Complete Zines over on the Equipment page.