This blog is unplanned… and possibly ill-considered. The planned blog was a simple call to “VOTE” and not much else. But I haven’t been able to post that blog — since I haven’t been able to convince myself that I am going to make it to the polls today. I’ve been wondering if I’m just too angry and demoralized to vote, this time around. (I’m reminded of the instances in my youth when in games or sports, I basically stopped trying to win once I realized that the other side was cheating or the game was fixed; I wouldn’t call it strength of character on my part, maybe the opposite…)
Mind you, I’m genuinely terrified about the possible consequences of this day: I’m very concerned that CA Prop. 30 will not pass (if only through competition with CA Prop. 38, which needs to fail in order for Prop. 30 to win) — and local schools and public safety funds will be cut by $6 billion over the next ten years (after $20 billion in devastating cuts over the last decade — a catastrophe!); I’m also worried that San Francisco Measure F could pass and pave the way for an all-out assault on the Bay Area’s (30 cities’) water supply — under the banner of “environmentalism” (but financed by the usual Republican suspects, hinting at commercial development opportunities and, my guess, water privatization); and, finally, I’m alarmed at the possibility that CA Prop. 32 will pass and corporate money will utterly dominate future elections in America (as California goes, so will the nation on this one), with organized labor’s ability to participate in elections eviscerated.
Compounding my fears and grief, there’s the presidential election: the lesser of two evils (Barack Chamberlain, who, past being precedent, will continue to soberly/stealthily surrender most everything to the corporate fascists) vs. the more evil of two evils (Adolf Mittler, who will proudly take most everything for the corporate fascists, as their smiling robot leader)… Either way, get ready for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to be unnecessarily slashed in the lame duck session following today’s contest… and don’t hold your breath waiting for the return of civil liberties or for America’s middle class to rebound (our next president will be well-positioned to put the final nails in both of their respective coffins).
Yes, it’s a special kind of bitter impotence I’ve been feeling this election season after my last vote for President unexpectedly helped end habeas corpus and due process and transferred the bulk of $16 trillion to America’s most serious enemies: the criminal banks who have crashed our national economy and defrauded hundreds of American polities along the way (knowingly selling toxic/junk securities to countless cities/counties/states and pension funds across America). These are the same government-shielded criminals who’ve illegally kicked millions of Americans out of their homes over the last few years with “robo-signers” and falsified mortgage documents (I highly recommend Charles Ferguson’s excellent documentary about Wall Street’s criminality and control of Washington, “Inside Job”).
But anger and despondency aside, listening to Amy Goodman’s “DemocracyNow!” program today seems to have had a positive effect on me (as it often does). Hearing about the millions of people who are apt to lose their votes this year to intimidation, fraud, and plain old voter suppression efforts (especially in Ohio and Florida) — and factoring in the local issues that I feel strongly about — I believe I’ll vote today, after all, both in the name of the disenfranchised and, also, to at least try to make a difference on those issues on my ballot that I genuinely care about (hoping for the best, even while fearing the worst).
Otherwise I’ll be voting to REGISTER MY DISSENT. It’s the least I can do, I suppose: participating in one of my former democracy’s slightly more democratic (if largely rigged) remaining customs, in the year of the Super-PAC. I remind myself that this voting ritual hasn’t lost all meaning — and my non-participation would probably represent the ultimate victory of the fascist corporatocracy I’ve spent so much time and energy resisting.
So, yeah, VOTE. While there’s still time… While it still means something.