It's funny how you 'anarchists' lead remarkably normal lives anyway, shopping in supermarkets, drinking in pubs, using the building society, availing yourselves of consumerism and capitalism. Apart from the odd shot-lived demo when does your anarchy take place?

Whether you vote or not, the far right can always resort to a coup, like in the U.S. when Reagan and George W.'s dad helped prepare for the political coup de etat in 2000 by stacking the U.S."Supreme" Court with their lackies so they could select a (p)Resident for the White House of their choosing. So what if the court was acting outside its jurisdiction(a felony under U.S.law)-it worked, didn't it? Add a little help from George's brother in Florida throwing out thousands of legitimate ballots in counties with a majority "Democratic" Party registration(as with the three parties in France, very little difference between the two that run the U.S.), and the Bush Family dictatorship is in power.

So, in reality, voting doesn't help keep out the far right, they can stage coups or worse to gain power. Democracy can only be gained and retained through direct action of the people.

France's Bove says no choice but to vote Chirac



PARIS, April 26 — France's most rebellious farmer, McDonald's basher Jose Bove, never thought he would ever vote for a conservative -- but now he says he has no other choice.



With Socialist Lionel Jospin ousted from the French presidential race by extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, the anti-globalisation icon said all French should vote for President Jacques Chirac in the May 5 runoff.
''For me it doesn't mean voting pro-Chirac, it means voting against Le Pen, but still I'll go with a clothes peg on my nose,'' he said.
But Bove, an Asterix the Gaul figure with a walrus moustache who has become a trademark hero of the anti-globalisation movement, stressed he would go to the polls grudgingly.
''Whichever the political affiliations or the resentment against the system, we all need to vote (Chirac) that Sunday,'' Bove, who shot to world fame when he ransacked a McDonald's site in southwestern France in 1999, told Reuters in an interview.
''We have no other choice.''
Bove also echoed a call by left-wing politicians, activist groups and students to join a massive march on May 1 to demonstrate the broad opposition to the anti-immigrant leader.
''May 1 should be the opportunity for the French to show a massive rejection against Le Pen, there should be at least one million people in the streets of France that day,'' he said.
''We must go out and beat the extreme right and Le Pen, both in the streets and in the ballot boxes,'' he added.

FEW WEEKS BEFORE JAIL
Bove's appearance in the May Day protest could be one of his last in public for a while. The leader of the Confederation Paysanne of small farmers is due to enter jail soon after the presidential elections.
Bove was sentenced to three months in prison in February for ransacking the MacDonald's outlet to protest against U.S tariffs, but the prosecutor put off his imprisonment until after the vote to make sure Bove did not ''muddy the political debate.''
The unionist said he would serve his sentence despite numerous calls by high-profile politicians to keep him out of jail to avoid turning him into a martyr.
''It is out of question for me to hide or to try to find ways not to go,'' Bove said. ''I have done something illegal so I accept to be condemned for that.''
Bove estimated he would have to stay in jail around 50 days -- three months minus 19 days already served under investigation and reductions of sentence he hopes to obtain.


GMO ATTACKS TO CONTINUE
The anti-globalisation guru should thus be back on the public stage in July, just in time to resume his attacks on experimental fields of genetically modified organisms (GMO).
Bove was twice sentenced to a total of 14 months in jail for these attacks and the cases are due to be reviewed by France's highest court later this year.
He said he would continue battling GM crops as long as there was no scientific evidence that the tests were safe.
''If the government does not act to protect the people against the consequences of GM experiments, we'll be obliged to start (the attacks) again,'' Bove said.
He added anti-GMOs activists would try to remain within the law so not to worsen pending legal actions against their leader.
''There are ways to destroy experimental fields without hurting the plants,'' Bove said, adding that the latest idea was to soak fields with non-GM pollen in order to wreck the results of the scientific experiments.
''It will totally destroy the nature of the experiment,'' he said. ''And that is not forbidden by the penal code.''



Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

So a soluton to fighting the rise of fascism is to vote Labour? Are you one of those anarchists who wears suits and works in Millbank?

the system thrives by convincing us to vote for the 'least bad option', whether this is for exploiting, murdering liberals such as chirac and blair or for those who mislead us by promising reforms which are impossible to achieve within capitalism, like the socialist alliance and greens. the rise of the BNP, le pen etc is a result of the failure of liberal democracy - people are angry and so turn to alternatives of both left and right (in france people turned overwhelmingly to the parliamentary left - le pen got in only because the left vote was split between so many different parties. encouraging people to vote capitalist will simply exacerbate this problem, since the poor will continue to be screwed over by capitalism and so more and more will accept right-wing rhetoric and turn on immigrants as the source of their problems. so telling people to vote is the WORST thing we can do, as in the minds of the working class from whom the BNP look to their support it puts us on the same side as their exploiters, and would merely re-enforce the their claim that the left are just lackeys used by the government to justify the 'pollution' of our race and the giving up of our national sovreignty to europe and international capital. i repeat - anyone who is considering voting BNP is obviously highly dissolusioned by capitalism and liberal democracy. by aligning ourselves with the system which exploits them we drive the working classes into the arms of the far right.

As with any action, voting is not an end in itself. It is a tactic, pure and simple. On some occasions voting can achieve positive results for the community, or at least lead to a reduction in harm. On other occassions abstaining from voting, or preferably organizing a ballot boycott, is more effective in the struggle for change. Let's not deprive ourselves of any weapon because of ideological reasons, there's too much at stake.

I'm with Half Man Half Biscuit - Irk the Purists!