Tuesday, October 7, 2003

VOTE


Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

Robert Lewis Stephenson (1850 – 1894)

And how did he know that Ahnold would some day decided to run for office? I had no idea that guaranteed good box office was all you needed to be governor of a large state. I’m sure the other governors are a little put out, having put in years of unsexy public service in boring, staid, work a day positions before finally getting into the Big Show. The fact they wasted all those years and all that knowledge about laws, and policy and codes and legislation not to mention the electorate to have to face Ahnuld.

They spend a lot of our hard earned cash learning about us or their version of us. How poor, rich, educated, religious we are. And to think that actor is going to get elected and he knows nothing about anything. I should run for governor. I’m a citizen. I’m old enough and I’ve never held political office. Go Me! . If those pols had known that all they really needed was name recognition and good box office... Golly. I hope to God that California doesn’t get screwed and if it does, I hope it knows that the GOP just wants them to sit back and enjoy it.



Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 - )


The more I learn about the choices that are available for me to vote for the less I want to vote. The more I vote against instead of for. I will however, Vote. I always vote. If I don’t vote I can’t bitch and I never give up an opportunity to bitch. If I vote for the tree hugger is the tree hugger going to have it in him to get the damn trees out of my power lines? will he have the balls to really prune or will he get all precious about each little twig? Are they twigs more important then my electricity and if so why?. That is my single issue. I am tired of my power going out every time the wind blows. Will this guy, the lesser of the two evils, help me or keep me in the dark? Will voting for the more evil keep my lights on or does he want me in the dark?

It also allows me to be self righteous with people who don’t vote. I have so little to be genuinely self righteous about, that I grab onto any little bit I can get. Sadly, most votes do come down to which candidate seems like he will wait the longest to peal off his mask and reveal that he really is the low down snake his opponent kept claiming he was. It would be easier as a voter if they would just let their reptilian selves just hang out. If they are all going to misrepresent themselves they could at least admit from the first that they like eating bugs and their idea of a good time is sunning themselves - just kind of ease us into their snaky thing.


One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)


Our leaders are not really folks who work and play well with others. No matter how loudly they claim to be one of the common man, to feel our pain, to understand our problems – they don’t because they can’t. You can’t understand about having no money when you have money. If your biggest financial issue is not getting your check book balanced you can’t understand about not having a check book – about spending every dime you have every month just to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head. You can not save for a rainy day when it rains every day. And these are the people who are the least likely to vote. The people who need to vote the most, who need the most , who get the least. They don’t vote thus they don’t count. If you don’t care about who gets elected you will get a body elected that does not care about you either. Back again to the if you don’t vote you can’t bitch argument. When only morons vote only morons get elected.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)


Doesn’t this sound awfully familiar? Like something we read in the paper everyday? Like something we experience on a daily basis? Hmm. Could it be we are being played? Lied to? Made fool of? And what can we do about this? Vote! Vote! Vote!

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