Why I Vote

Why I Vote

I've been asked several times by people of all ages, stripes, and colors why on earth I continue to vote in elections that are rigged and will not reflect the will of the people. My answer is always the same: I will not let these evil, manipulative bastards that are in control kill my hope because once that is gone, they own me. I continue to believe elections can only be stolen if they are close. Don't let this one be close. Get out and vote if you haven't already. Bring a friend to the polls. Make turnout so overwhelming that the will of the people cannot be subverted again.


Sometimes the hardest thing is to admit our own complicity in a bad thing. I see this administration as the result of mass apathy and voter indifference. It's no different than having a swarm of creepy, crawling vermin moving into your house because you don't care enough about it to engage in periodic pest control. These pathetic excuses for human beings, these warmongering cretins who care nothing about human life, are in charge because most of us let them get in and stay there.


I can understand that after 911, most of us were stunned into submission to whomever promised to make the pain go away. These evil Bushco bastards manipulated fear, shock, and very likely even set up the whole thing--or at the very least, allowed it to happen on purpose, for one thing only: to enrich and empower themselves. They care nothing about us. They care only about themselves.


Yes, there was a period of time in this country when we deserved representatives who were as selfish and indifferent as we were. Life seemed like one, big, never-ending party...until Bushco came to town and took over the dance halls, saloons, and our hearts and souls. Did we fight back? Did we question their right to do this? Did we even fucking object?


America is one of the most medicated countries in the world. We either take prescribed drugs that numb us to all feeling, or we buy them off the street or from the liquor stores to numb our pain at being used, abused, manipulated and lied to by these thugs. Many of the repugs have ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Do you think it is an accident, a minor coincidence that all these drugs to numb us started appearing just as they were beginning their takeover of our country?


As the professionals often tell those who are trying to break free from addictions and other destructive behavior: you have to want to get better. It has to come from inside you. That's why you need to get out the vote tomorrow. It's the first step toward getting better.

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Image from Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

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Why I Vote

Bush Has No Clothes

I've always had a friendly yet frustrating relationship with a member of my extended family who has been a life-long Republican. The only time she deviated from a straight ticket punching the Republican candidates in her long voting life was her vote against Nixon. She called him "creepy," which at the time, was the strongest language a lady of her culture and breeding could use in public and around children like myself.

But that same lady, now a dignified matriarch in her 90's, uses language far more descriptive when describing the current GOP. "These are not Republicans," she tells me. "These are damned thugs, piece of shit thieves and liars."

Her crumbling started with the out of control spending to reward corporate donors that she defined as "Halliburton bridges to nowhere." Every piece of pork in the budget was a gift to some big business abuser and she grumbled out loud that the small businesses the GOP once swore to protect were being taken out by Walmarts and other big box donors to the GOP. "This is NOT my Republican party," she complained every time another small business went under because it couldn't compete with its corporate-sponsored rivals.

She was also uncomfortable with the huge tax break given to the rich. As a wealthy woman this is significant because she always complained about how much she had to pay in taxes. But she also was angry that people like me had so much deducted from my paychecks. "I can afford the extra hit. People who are supporting families on your kind of salary cannot. That isn't right."

But what started the downward slide for her was Katrina. She believes in America, what it represents to the rest of the world, the whole concept of a Democracy, a country where all people are created equally, even if it doesn't always work out that way in real life. She believes in the idea that hard work is rewarded and we take care of our own. Katrina put a lie to all that. It exposed Bushco as an entity who could have done something but did not. The final straw was Bush playing guitar at a GOP fundraiser while bodies remained unclaimed in the devastation of New Orleans, especially the often played tragic sight of that poor woman who sat dead in a wheelchair outside the superdome for days. If anything began the dismantling of the Bushco compassionate conservatism myth, it was that dead woman in a wheelchair. "He's out there raising millions of dollars and there are people dying just a few miles away from his neglect."

By the time she understood that she's been lied to about the reasons for invading Iraq, the cover-up and protection of pedophiles, and especially the swiftboating of veterans who actually served by those who did not, she was already seeing a naked emperor every time Bush showed up in the news. But it took Cheney saying how great things were going in Iraq...as the news scroll beneath him showed over 60 Americans killed in Iraq so far this month, for her to say the words she hadn't spoken since the 1960's: "I'm voting for the Democrats." There was no joy in her voice. Just acceptance of something that had to be done for the sake of a greater good.

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This design available on t-shirts, stickers, magnets and many other products at Ursine LogicChanging hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

Bush Has No Clothes