Ok well I'm glad you are all with me. It is greatly appreciated. I'm gonna post a new blog soon.
In the meantime let me get back to some of you out there:
Trees, Fine you win. My next blog will be about my community work. But I'm really upset that you are making me take a break from pontificating about the election and the financial crisis.
Annonymous you wrote:
"It is not important to consider the alternative, however little the difference may seem? What I mean is, by casting a vote FOR someone, you may, in effect, cast one AGAINST another."
I will answer your question while also responding to the famous TGT who said sarcastically:
"But, yeah, Obama and McCain are like totally the same."
First of all I'm not actually condemning the act of voting just as I don't think people should condemn the act of not-voting. I don't believe that walking into a booth and voting accomplishes a whole lot but I don't think walking into a booth does much damage. The next step for most that follow this line of logic is "well why not vote?" I get it. I just don't subscribe to it for the most part.
I'm not condemning voting, I'm condemning the corporate capitalist, two party power structure and there bullshit elections. I believe that voting for a democrat today is voting for a republican tomorrow. I think people miss is a key piece of what the candidates are saying. If you don't vote for me, vote for the other guy. The republicans and democrats rule the United States of America with a partnership. Meaning they run the country together. Neither party ever challenges that basic principle. Sure Republicans and Democrats probably hope that they win every seat in congress and completely take over the government but they realize in reality that they will always share power. And that works for them. So what I'm saying is, if you vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976 you are also voting for Ronald Reagan in 1980. And if you vote for GW Bush in 2000 than you are also voting for Barack Obama in 2008. People often say imagine where we'd be if Gore had won the election in 2000. It actually isn't that hard to figure out. Al Gore would have been crucified by the republican congress and Fox type media. He would have lost to John McCain who would have run as a moderate and his VP wouldn't be Sarah Palin. I know it's conjecture but not really. This stuff is pretty easy to see. Barack Obama would not have become famous so quickly because the democratic convention in 2004 would have been focused on Al Gore and how awesome he was. (and for the record anything cool that Gore has ever done, didn't happen while he was vice-president and wouldn't have happened during his presidency.) After McCain's victory and four years of BS. The democrats wouldn't have looked to Barack Obama as they would need someone with experience to unseat President McCain, and that person would have been Hillary Clinton. And so now we'd have Hillary versus McCain.
Shortly after the re-election of GW Bush in 2004 I was listening to Rush Limbaugh courtesy of my father-in-law. And he warned his listeners that there will once again be a democrat in office. It's about to happen and guess what, I feel very confident in saying that there will once again be a Republican president. The reason is simple neither candidate challenges the other parties right to be plan B. And they will never change that basic dichotomy because works it for them...
Elections aren't decided by people, however some people (Iraqi civilians; uninsured families) are decided by elections.
ReplyDeleteUnity behind Obama is a functional response to the current dilemma, but definitely a minor one; why fight about it? Voting is a gesture not a lifestyle.
I'm more interested in your garden.
The soles of the feet. Choices in boots. Kudzu. That kind of thing.
I must admit that you have made quite a perfect picture of the what-would-have-been-if. I agree that's the way these powerful people want to rule over the rest of us. If the ball is too hot, just pass it to the other side until our hands get cold... Now, in what seems to be 100% sure. What do you think the Obama role will be in the political future of the U.S? Is he going to play the game?
ReplyDeletePeace,
Mario, Cuba
>> I don't think people should condemn the act of not-voting.
ReplyDeleteAgree.
>> I'm condemning the corporate capitalist, two party power structure
Agree. I would argue that BHO, however, is about as uncompromised as you could possibly be while emerging as a credible candidate under this system. The vasy majority of his professional life has been spent in community activism and academia, not govt.
>> I believe that voting for a democrat today is voting for a republican tomorrow.
Some truth to this. Though you could always, you know, not vote for the republican tomorrow.
Support open primiaries with runoff, as in Louisiana and currently on the ballon in Oregon. Support reform for "none of the above" choice, which if it wins discqualifies all current candidates, as is currently the case in Nevada.
>> neither candidate challenges the other parties right to be plan B.
Not quite sure what this means - nobody has a 'right' to be a candidate, but you can't challenge the legitimacy of a candidate who has hundreds of millions of votes. If a third candidate had some fraction of that, they'd be in the mix (Perot, Ventura, etc).