It's clear that tomorrow's election will likely be over before anyone reads this, but I'm a pompous gasbag who will post this anyway. I'll be honest witchya. For the first time in a long time, my enthusiasm for an election is next to none. (Ohsnoes, another disenchanted Demoncrat!) Don't mistake my intention; I will indeed vote and my wife will as well. In fact, I expect that turnout will be slightly better than predicted for off year elections. Nor is my ennui related to whether or not Democrats will win or lose. Very much as in Football, some unexpected will win and some will lose. And very little will change at all.
For months now, those of us with a history of voting for Democrats have been innundated with the dire warnings of what a disaster it will be if the Senate falls to the Republicants. No. There will be no disaster. I can't be the only one who's been paying attention here, and if you have, then you know that the Senate has accomplished next to nothing for at least 6 years. In fact, everything they have accomplished in about 14 years has benefitted only corporations and/or financiers. Part of that, of course, is the easy out of the filibuster. The Republicants won't pick up 17 seats, and so they will still be able to excuse their do-nothing salaries while caterwauling about the obstuctionist Democrats (hypocrites, the fucking lot of them.) That is, just as Amanda Curtis will be able to blame obstructionist Republicants if she gets elected. There will be no disaster. What, the Senate will not confirm Obama appointees? With a Democratic majority, they've already set a record, that will not be broken anytime soon, for that. Oooop, they might repeal Obamacare! Not one chance in hell that will happen. The Insurance companies, especially those who have become money launderers and income sinks for the large banks, will absolutely never let that happen. So, I'm begging those smarter than myself to clarify where "the disaster" will occur?
The good folks at 4 & 20 Blackbirds will clarify that we are an Empire and killing innocents all over the world. Of course, they mostly blame Democrats for that anyway, and actually have a point to make. Mark T will chime in with agreement, and not a one of them have any solution beyond "don't vote". Fine. Steve Kelly, Democratic candidate extrordinaire betrayed by his own sympathetic sheeple voters, clarified that voting is useless at the MT. Cowgirl's site. Of course, his complaint was to insult readers and clarify how 'parties' are to blame. Foolishness. He desires that we not cooperate with "Big Money". Again, fair enough. My response:
An effective non-cooperation effort could go viral in short order IMO,
And only your opinion it remains. Please do tell, exactly *how* a non-cooperation effort could ever be effective? Since you’ve shown a history of confusing such things, Steve, please notice that I’m not asking how it could “go viral”, but rather how it could be “effective”. Given context, the only possibility of your “non-cooperation” is in voting. Fair enough, save this. If you’ve read this website for any length of time (or are you just slumming while Mark is on vacation?) then you would now that one of those awful parties is working overtime to prohibit people from voting. That would be the same party that has won every off term election in Montana for about 30 years. Now, even ignoring the party aspect, it seems that ‘Power’ (call them corporatists, or the shadow government or the MIC, or the illuminati, whatever you wish) doesn’t want people to vote. They work very hard to convince people voting is the only power we have left, knowing that power is ‘illusory’, but attempt to hand pick our candidates and gerrymander districts and character assassinate those candidates the Power doesn’t trust . That doesn’t actually make sense, does it? Unless, the Power fears people voting ‘the wrong way’. That’s my opinion, that they know one of the very few powers they have left the people with, by necessity, is the vote. They simply seek to ‘fix’ that, something I’m certain you would agree with. But the question still remains: why would someone, anyone, spend so much money and effort to ‘fix’ something they knew was in the bag?
Here you are, telling us all to not cooperate with the vote, to give up the illusion that voting matters, when obviously it does to those who are our enemies. I’m not going too far at all out on a limb to suggest that your opinion about ‘non-cooperation’ serves the power far more than it does the people. It gives them an easy road to nullifying something they find dangerous, the people actually having a power, a power you want us to give up to show our displeasure at how they have taken the power you want us to give up willingly. They makes no sense, Steve, not a lick of it. We are a nation of laws, not voters. If we don’t vote, then those who do (suckered in as they are by power) will set the laws, and we lose even more ground to those in control. Your plaintive plea for ‘non-cooperation’ isn’t organizing against the enemy. It’s serving their purpose.
Big money knows that voting matters, but strangely enough the very people who argue against serving big money are the ones serving "Big Money", by promoting the idea that voting doesn't matter. If there was nothing broken in my electoral spirit before that exchange, than it most certainly occured then. That's truly the tricky part of the whole damned shabang. America is not a nice country because it's ruled by moneyed Oligarchs who are violent and we shouldn't stand against them by voting, which is the only right they seem fearful about removing in entirety ... excuse me, why now? Other than to send the message that they have me by the balls, why shouldn't I vote? Because Libya? Because the environment and the Keystone XL? Because ISIS and the Ukraine and good guys half way around the world are fighting the Oligarchs and I need to give up my life for those brave enough to pick up a rifle who hate American Empire by not going to the fairgrounds and blackening ovals on the right day? Because it's a bad country with bad leadership, and the only fear I can instill in these assholes is to vote against them? Tell me, tell me do, how does that make sense?
I don't give a salient shit about the doings half a world away. I care about what I can control, without having to march on a capital with a pitchfork. Ezra Klein tells me how my goals will not be achieved, even though the majority of my fellow country-persons agree with me. I respect Klein a great deal, and he's right, about *HOW* this election will likely happen. But that isn't enough any more. I wanna know why. It isn't because Americans are stupid, or sheeple. Americans know what they want, but they will turn out for the people they don't want in numbers certain to harm themselves. How is not a question worth answering; it's boring, mundane and known. Why is the actual question and no, the media and money is not the answer. What makes people hurt themselves given the only power that the Oligarchs have left us with, by neccessity. This is not an easy question to answer; it's quite complex. But it's also worth looking into without the certitude of conspiracy. Here's a conspiracy for you: Mark T agrees with me that the worst thing that the US citizenry could have done was elect the former head of the CIA to the Presidency. But he spares no effort in telling people how stupid they are for struggling mightily against a covert Navy Seal officer running for the House. That makes no sense, and it really shouldn't, because he can't make anything of this complexity any more than others can. These choices, these complexities, are all we face on tomorrow, when we do the ritual and vote.
I like that ritual, and none of these mentioned folk have any good reason why I shouldn't. If anything, they offer me greater evidence why I should enjoy it. In truth, they offer *you* greater evidence why you should get your ass to the polls and vote. It's all we have left, unless we are willing to pick up rifle and hand-gun and pitchfork and stand against the oppressors. I may not be enthusiastic about voting in this current political climate. But I owe it to you, to me and my wife and those who think it useless to do so anyway.
So go vote.