Chris Hedges, who I admire tremendously, posted an article here last week advocating not voting or voting for a third party. I strongly disagree and here are some thoughts on the subject.

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An article by Chris Hedges, who I admire tremendously, was published here last week It advocated not voting or voting for a third party.  I strongly disagree and here are some thoughts on the subject. 

Watching a honeybee gather nectar from a volunteer patch of flowering wandering jew in the garden this morning I was unfortunately reminded of my latest encounter with our local celebrity racist, described here.

Yesterday I pulled into the neighborhood convenience store for ice and m&m's.   I was then confronted again by the local rolling, racist anti-Obama road show.   However this time he wasn't showcasing his anti-Obama racist pick-up.   He was grotesquely motoring around in his anti-Obama racist Lincoln Continental.

A brand new white, shiny Lincoln with a placard in the right rear window that read, "Obama is not a piece of sh*t, He's the whole turd."   What poetry, this guy is a real Whitman, Sandberg or a "really foul wind that blows from the ar*e of a syphilitic Klansman*."    

This pathetic excuse for a thoughtful hominid has previously informed me that he is an educated attorney of significant means and that ""there are blacks and there are n-words,   Obama is a n-word."   He also went on to inform me that there are many wealthy, educated attorneys and others like him that think Obama is a "n-word."   Unfortunately, I know he is right about this.   What has become sadly and frighteningly obvious is that a significant number of Republicans think he is also right about Obama.

It is entirely unacceptable to imagine a party that has, is and will be pandering to folks like my racist neighbor win this election.   

Progressives and Liberals not voting this time around, in my opinion, is tantamount to aiding and abetting the revival of the segregated, racist, abusive, misogynistic, brutal, ignorant past.   

President Obama and his administration are far from perfect.   But, I strongly feel that a Liberal not voting or voting for a third party this time is an act of self-loathing.   To promote Liberals and Progressives not voting now is to advocate the creation of a party of social and political eunuchs.   

Any Liberal, Progressive whose political and social consciousness has been quickened by Christ, Gandhi, Dr. King, the Buddha, Gloria Steinem, Woody Guthrie, Ralph Nadar or Ceasar Chavez and abstains from voting is a selfish soul stumbling around in their own brain.   This election cycle is a Liberal, Progressive's dream.   It is the political, cultural distillation of the Civil Rights Movement, the Suffragette Movement, the Chicano Rights Movement, the Labor Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Gay Rights movement, the Women's Rights Movement, the United Farm Workers Movement and the Native American Movement against the mindset that made it necessary to organize in the first place.     

To not vote this time around is a sop to Jerry Falwell, Richard Nixon, Pat Robertson, George W. Bush, Adolf Hitler, The Klu Klux Klan, Robert McNamara, Henry Frick, Joseph McCarthy, Colonel John Chivington, Bedford Forrest, Tomas de Torquemada, Orval Faubus, Bull Connor, John Hagee, Glenn Beck, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and all the other bigots, war mongers, liars or murderers past and present.   

To resoundingly defeat this disgusting, reactionary, anti-everything we say we stand for party can be the beginning of something that starts to look like what we claim we want the world to look like --us, all of us.   

I will never believe we are powerless.   Throwing away a vote is an act of masturbatory defeat -- a willful acceptance and validation of permanent victim-hood.     

Vote, then demand President Obama be what he said he was.   Demand he be courageous.   Demand he be accountable.   Demand.   

I understand the academic, emotional and philosophical underpinnings of the call not to vote.   However, to understand the ugly realities of not voting one must rub elbows with Racists, Misogynists, Homophobes -- Haters.   They are all around us.   This election cycle has shown that they don't just live in the shadows, they live next door.    

My racist neighbor called me "Obama" once thinking I would naturally take offence.   I responded that I was proud to be compared to the President.   Frankly, I'm not yet sure I should be proud of this.   

Vote and let's insist Barack Obama become someone we can be proud of.   

I love ya Chris, but I think you're dead wrong on this one.  

*Franklin Cincinnatus 

Authors Website: https://www.facebook.com/Bocaditos-472595719462409/

Authors Bio:

Kevin is an Artist, Writer, Carpenter and Gallerist in Texas.