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It makes no difference whom you vote for -- the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people. - Gore Vidal
An Irreverent Post to Conclude the Election
The festivities come to an end tomorrow. The fundraising and corporate wining and dining between corporate/special interests and politicians will subside just a little temporarily but those paying attention understand it will all start up again in the final months of 2011, as corporations get an even bigger shot at more wealth with the 2012 Election.
I chose to work the election because I figure I can use the income. Unfortunately, the way that the economy is organized people who create and produce are no longer valued. It's the people who beg, borrow and steal wealth from others and gamble and bet against people who seem to benefit from the economy. So, with there being no people lining up to hire me or pay me for freelance media work, I have to take odd jobs.
As I sit there in the polling place, I will try to think about how I am
collecting a proverbial life tile. In the Milton Bradley board game "The Game
of Life," it simulates your travels through life and, if I remember correctly,
when you hit a milestone or do something unique, you collect a life tile. I've
collected quite a few proverbial life tiles in the past years.I usually try to think along these lines when I am doing something new or different.
I'll sit in the polling place and think of how I haven't done this before, but that aspect of my job will only be good for the first few hours. Then, I will drift and I will start to think about all the people coming in to vote. The older people, who probably at the age they are at feel like they are playing craps and just hope to God they don't roll snake eyes. The middle aged, who cannot retire yet and have to muddle through life for the next twenty or thirty years until they are seventy-five years old cause that's what the retirement age will be once the Democrats are done caving in to the Tea Party. The younger people who"
Who am I kidding? The younger people won't be voting tomorrow morning. They may show up to vote in the afternoon. Many probably were early voters. Too many are apathetic slacktivist-types, who don't get me wrong think about the world but happen to be a bit too selfish when it comes to taking action. They only want to do what they can do personally and, if it involves other people, they're too good for that.
I'll think about the candidates and the record money spent. The Sunlight Foundation reports total outside spending is at almost $450 million. The money spent in this election has been moving in and out of this election in all directions. Notably, Karl Rove's American Crossroads, the Koch Brothers and the Chamber of Commerce have all been flooding the coffers of candidates, who can pump out toxic campaign ads that will outrage Democrats and please and animate Republican voters.
Some have noted in this election the impact of the Citizens United v. FEC decision that came down in January. It has made it so that money equals free speech even more than it used to, if that was possible, and it has turned the elections into a Wild West for corporations terrain where they can trod secretly and mask their operations in quasi-benevolent operations or outright front groups that wish to defeat and elect candidates to preserve certain interests. A few even suggest this decision means corporations could now become political parties.
Democrats and Republicans have been going at each other. Yet, what is tremendously obvious if you digest the latest Gallup or Rasmussen polls is that both parties' voters are fed up with both parties. Nearly half of respondents in these polls are going with the intention of keeping the other out because they are afraid. Thus, it is hard to imagine the electoral process producing any sort of good outcome when most voters are plain scared.
The man whose campaign corporate media single-handedly destroyed in 2004, Howard Dean, came out for ranked choice voting. John Nichols wrote about it in The Nation. The idea seems reasonable enough and sane, which I hear a significant number of Americans want policies or agenda items to be if they are going to support them. The process, if instituted, would dramatically change our winner-take-all electoral system so we could actually vote for who we wanted without feeling guilty of causing some outcome we think might usher in a catastrophe.
If this happened, Robert Parry and Stephen Zunes and other writers like them could give it up. Progressives wouldn't have to read or write another word about what they don't like about Ralph Nader and people who voted Ralph Nader. The people might get one step closer to admitting that the success of the Tea Party in this election, who are really now as Bill Maher said on Friday "useful idiots of corporations," is because the Democrats are political eunuchs. The corporate dollars they need to win elections prevent them from taking stances against other politicians financed by corporations who take bold stands and engage in great theatrics and manage to get supposedly reasonable Democrats to concede to petulant demands.
I am not afraid of saying Americans should exercise their right to vote whomever is
on the ballot tomorrow and I hope many more Americans than usual send a message
by voting neither when they can. Let politicians feel a shakeup now perhaps similar to the
shakeup Jeb Bush appears to think is possible. Let it happen before the 2012
Election and let progressives seize the opening to take one more step toward turning this country around.
I'm working
the polls and have a location to report to early in the morning. I'll have plenty
of time to refine my thoughts on this and revise this post tomorrow evening. I'll come back and see if I was off-the-mark or if other Americans are feeling heavily skeptical this electoral season.
The ones who rule have got us beat. They get the wealth while we put in the work. We may not be as taxed, but government money doesn't fund what the people need anymore anyway. So, it has gotten harder to justify taxes and argue increasing taxes would make it possible for government to do good. Whose to say that money wouldn't just go right into bailouts for more corporations who would just hold on to the money and not ever let a single dollar trickle down?
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