I think I'll start by saying Happy Halloween to everyone! I'm not too big on Halloween, but I hope you all get out there and dress up and do what you do.
In other news, I was reading this blog today, and they posted something that I rather agree with, at least mostly. My absentee ballot didn't seem to get here in time for some reason, so its probably even a bit hypocritical of me to post this, but here it is.
This morning I had a brief exchange with a fellow leftie my age who, though never slow to gripe about American fascism, scoffed at the idea that he should get himself and others to the polls and vote, claiming that it will make no difference. I’ve gotten used to this sort of apathy from most people our age (why bother with politics when I’m ‘gonna be a rockstar), but this sort of Naderite sourness a la 2000 makes me seriously ill. Petulantly folding one's arms and snorting with contempt for the only allies we have left makes things so much worse, and it is total masturbation to sit back and expect anything good to emerge from the system’s collapse. Anarchy only leads to fascist tyranny - black in 1933, red in 1917.
If "making a difference" means successfully raising up a vanguard of heroes to shepherd the world out of violence-for-profit and into an enlightened, eco-friendly peace, with social justice and dignity for all, then yes, how we vote right now makes no difference. Neither party will rediscover us, the people; nor will the workers of the world unite. The human spirit will find no lasting triumph. Not in 2006.
But the reality is that operating on such a romantic scale only distracts us from a job less glamorous perhaps, yet a thousand times more urgent – keeping the Republic on life support. Without the Republic, a progressive agenda amounts to jack shit.
Undivided government has delivered America into a smoldering train wreck laden with gore – a second Vietnam, our constitution reduced to an ashtray wetnap, real terrorism blithely ignored before and after 9-11, the starvation of science and flirtation with theocracy. Look around: the blood is everywhere, and the White House is only interested in sending more trains so it can continue playing smashy smashy with the remains of our civilization.
The White House’s terrible power is at the disposal not of conservatives, but of bad men. A couple may be passably evil; all are unfit to govern. Instead of governing, they mean to rule, by decree, as creators and destroyers of nations. Until 2008, the only effective obstacle to their agenda is with Congress, but the pack of Bushie lapdogs running it have no intention of even pretending to stand in the administration’s way. That’s why it’s up to us, the distracted public, to take our thumbs out of our asses, take a break from entertaining and branding ourselves, and act, NOW, to restore divided government.
What this means now, in November, 2006, is doing whatever we can to get out the vote for Democrats in the congressional elections in these crucial last days; it means phoning up the local Democrat for Congress’s campaign and asking if they need a couple hours of help one aternoon; it means spreading the word among your friends; it means bringing video cameras to the electronic voting booth before Diebold makes a move. At the very least, it means voting.
I have no illusions about the fact that as corporate whores, Democrats are no different from Republicans. In office, they won’t abandon their sponsors out of a commitment to trifles like, say, the working class. The sobering truth however is that this can’t be our only concern right now. What makes their brand of corporate whoredom superior, and worth the vote of anyone we can persuade, is the simple fact that that they are prepared to stand in the White House’s way for the next two years, if only to advance their own partisan interests. At this juncture, gridlock is what we need to stop the bloodletting and keep the Republic alive so that someday a viable progressive movement can make itself felt. Stopping the rise of an American Principate is plenty of ‘difference’ for me, and it should be for all of us who give a damn.
The person added on more to this in their own blog, but I think they put their opinion just a little too strongly in it for me to post that as well.
This is all an attempt for me to stop being so hollow.
| | Ginger (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7){kind=small} drunk_grantaire) wrote, |
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