(no subject)
A response to my rant of yesterday from a very nice young man I know made me extremely sad. You know who you are, you bad thing you. I better not find out that you didn't vote.
Anyway, his response was that not voting is a political statement. Here's my answer.
You're right that not voting can be an expression of dissatisfaction, of disgust, with the process as a whole, an expression of dissatisfaction that has been used more often than you'd think. Not voting is also an expression of complacency, my life is perfect, none of the issues that are the hot topics of the day affect me, why should I bother to vote. Not voting is also an expression of resignation, my life is horrible, none of these issues will make my life better, why should I bother to vote. Or of sheer laziness, I'm too busy and have better things to do than listen to a bunch of politicians and sort out the issues that might be affected by my vote that AREN'T high up on the list, issues that might affect me, or not, but that are certain to affect someone, somewhere, in this country. And unfortunately, it's the whole perception that 'my vote won't get me what I want or do what is right or affect me or that my vote won't really count or mean anything' that has made so many people stay home in the past, and has resulted in some of the worst political mistakes of the 20th century. Whether it's smug complacency or pouting in the corner, not voting doesn't get your voice counted. It does allow those who want to maintain their control over you to accomplish their own goals. You standing there saying 'I'm not going to vote because...' is outshouted by religious groups who rally their congregations to vote, unopposed, for issues that have nothing to do with what is right for America or even for the majority of Americans as human beings. It allows big business and special interest groups to fund campaigns that depend on 'fear or smear' to get the uninformed or the uneducated to scurry to the voting booths to vote for politicians who will, in turn, support legislation that may not be in the best interest of anyone else but big business.
To paraphrase Barnum, 'You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.' It's the reality of politics in a country where you have so many people with so many different agendas, so many issues that are possibly important only to them. And there are always going to be people on both sides of every issue. You can't please one group without displeasing the people on the other side. Get over it. And go vote.
This year, every vote is more important than in any other election year in my experience. A year when so much is riding on one election. Women's rights, gay rights, health care reform, the deficit, the environment, other nations' growing perception that Bush is a whacked-out loose cannon and that the American public is made up of a bunch of religious lunatics equally as dangerous as militant Islamic fundamentalists, civil liberties, the Supreme Court, etc., etc., ad infinitum. I'm not even going to go into the economy, Iraq and terrorism. Who's in office isn't going to make that much of a difference to those issues at this point and anyone who votes for Kerry thinking they're going to find a miracle on their doorstep the day after Election Day if he's elected is seriously deluded.
It upsets me though that you are already so jaded and put off by the whole political process. I'm entitled to feel that way, you're not.
In my lifetime, television took over the process of revolutionizing politics that had only begun with newspapers and radio, and even the movies, opening up every American household and allowing people who had previously known only their neighbors and friends and co-workers to see and hear and experience that which was 'different.' And people had to be pretty damned obtuse to totally blind themselves to the fact that differences in race or religion or sex or social or economic class or nationality didn't make the people they watched on the news or in television programming any less human, with wants and needs and fears and hopes and dreams. Slowly, at times, television forced many of us to put aside myths and misconceptions and accept reality. It put real faces on blacks and jews and hispanics and women who had to work or who wanted to work and forced us to begin to realize that it was wrong to deny to them the rights we accepted for ourselves. You'll notice I said 'begin,' because sometimes change has to be slow. Because there are people out there who are obtuse, who see change as a bad thing, who like things the way they are because their need for something, anything, that will allow them to feel superior or special is greater than their ability to empathize, even if giving equal rights takes nothing away from what they have.
You are living on the upward curve of a new age of politics and political action and you don't even realize it. Computers, and especially the internet, are probably going to be the greatest instrument for political and social change in the history of humanity. Where else can we go to talk to people who share our interests and hobbies and then find out the man or woman we've become friendly with, who we have so much in common with, is black or gay or from another country. Someone who is more than a label of color or sexuality or nationality. Where else can we share opinions and ideas and facts and dreams and have people read them and consider them seriously. Where else can our individual voices be heard by so many.
And computers do give us a voice. When I was your age, the only voice I had was my vote, once every four years. Nobody wanted my opinion, no one wanted to know what I thought, I was just a number. If my family, my friends, my neighbors, had different opinions, there was no one I could talk to about it, no one I could question and compare thoughts with. Now there is. And we can make our voices heard, not just with our votes. All the time. I can type up an e-mail based on my beliefs and send it off to the politicians who represent me. I can join political action groups that represent my beliefs on any number of issues, groups that didn't exist or that I might never have heard of only a decade ago. Snail mail carrying requests for information, snail mail carrying information back, often too late to make a difference. Information I can access now in only a few moments. I can get both sides of every issue and then I can decide, based on my own beliefs and opinions. And then I can make my voice heard on any issue I want to. And the internet makes sure that my voice isn't ignored, simply because I can join my voice to hundreds, sometimes tens of thousands of voices who believe the same way I do on any number of issues.
I think we both hope to see a day when all of it comes together, because it will, sooner or later. No more electoral college. The popular vote. Instead of a Town Hall meeting, a National Hall meeting. We sit in front of our television screens, or our computer screens, and we watch and we listen to all sides of an issue. And then we talk about it for a week or so, compare notes and beliefs and pull others into the discussion and try to help each other understand why we believe one way or another. And then, when we've had time to consider, we vote. Us.
But we'll always need politicians to take care of the details, none of us have the time to live and work and spend time with our families and our friends and still take care of every detail of government. Maybe we won't even have one President, maybe we'll decide we need two, or even three, each one with different strengths, to make decisions that can't wait. But we will always need them. We just need to keep a close eye on them.
Maybe we will have times when one particular issue divides us, where we can find no middle ground. And maybe those of us who are on the losing side of the vote will be pissed, will hope for the day when they can say to their friends on the other side, 'we told you so.' Because even friends disagree. But we'll hear each others voices, and that's what counts.
So don't give up on the process. You're the generation that's going to change things, show the rest of us how easy it is. But only if you continue to make your voice heard. There's already acknowledgement that the Electoral College is out of date, not needed anymore, a holdover from another time. Just because the system doesn't work right now, doesn't mean it can't if we tinker with it a bit. Don't get discouraged, don't let your friends get discouraged. Get involved instead. Make your voice heard every day, even if the only person who hears it is one other person.
Anyway, his response was that not voting is a political statement. Here's my answer.
You're right that not voting can be an expression of dissatisfaction, of disgust, with the process as a whole, an expression of dissatisfaction that has been used more often than you'd think. Not voting is also an expression of complacency, my life is perfect, none of the issues that are the hot topics of the day affect me, why should I bother to vote. Not voting is also an expression of resignation, my life is horrible, none of these issues will make my life better, why should I bother to vote. Or of sheer laziness, I'm too busy and have better things to do than listen to a bunch of politicians and sort out the issues that might be affected by my vote that AREN'T high up on the list, issues that might affect me, or not, but that are certain to affect someone, somewhere, in this country. And unfortunately, it's the whole perception that 'my vote won't get me what I want or do what is right or affect me or that my vote won't really count or mean anything' that has made so many people stay home in the past, and has resulted in some of the worst political mistakes of the 20th century. Whether it's smug complacency or pouting in the corner, not voting doesn't get your voice counted. It does allow those who want to maintain their control over you to accomplish their own goals. You standing there saying 'I'm not going to vote because...' is outshouted by religious groups who rally their congregations to vote, unopposed, for issues that have nothing to do with what is right for America or even for the majority of Americans as human beings. It allows big business and special interest groups to fund campaigns that depend on 'fear or smear' to get the uninformed or the uneducated to scurry to the voting booths to vote for politicians who will, in turn, support legislation that may not be in the best interest of anyone else but big business.
To paraphrase Barnum, 'You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.' It's the reality of politics in a country where you have so many people with so many different agendas, so many issues that are possibly important only to them. And there are always going to be people on both sides of every issue. You can't please one group without displeasing the people on the other side. Get over it. And go vote.
This year, every vote is more important than in any other election year in my experience. A year when so much is riding on one election. Women's rights, gay rights, health care reform, the deficit, the environment, other nations' growing perception that Bush is a whacked-out loose cannon and that the American public is made up of a bunch of religious lunatics equally as dangerous as militant Islamic fundamentalists, civil liberties, the Supreme Court, etc., etc., ad infinitum. I'm not even going to go into the economy, Iraq and terrorism. Who's in office isn't going to make that much of a difference to those issues at this point and anyone who votes for Kerry thinking they're going to find a miracle on their doorstep the day after Election Day if he's elected is seriously deluded.
It upsets me though that you are already so jaded and put off by the whole political process. I'm entitled to feel that way, you're not.
In my lifetime, television took over the process of revolutionizing politics that had only begun with newspapers and radio, and even the movies, opening up every American household and allowing people who had previously known only their neighbors and friends and co-workers to see and hear and experience that which was 'different.' And people had to be pretty damned obtuse to totally blind themselves to the fact that differences in race or religion or sex or social or economic class or nationality didn't make the people they watched on the news or in television programming any less human, with wants and needs and fears and hopes and dreams. Slowly, at times, television forced many of us to put aside myths and misconceptions and accept reality. It put real faces on blacks and jews and hispanics and women who had to work or who wanted to work and forced us to begin to realize that it was wrong to deny to them the rights we accepted for ourselves. You'll notice I said 'begin,' because sometimes change has to be slow. Because there are people out there who are obtuse, who see change as a bad thing, who like things the way they are because their need for something, anything, that will allow them to feel superior or special is greater than their ability to empathize, even if giving equal rights takes nothing away from what they have.
You are living on the upward curve of a new age of politics and political action and you don't even realize it. Computers, and especially the internet, are probably going to be the greatest instrument for political and social change in the history of humanity. Where else can we go to talk to people who share our interests and hobbies and then find out the man or woman we've become friendly with, who we have so much in common with, is black or gay or from another country. Someone who is more than a label of color or sexuality or nationality. Where else can we share opinions and ideas and facts and dreams and have people read them and consider them seriously. Where else can our individual voices be heard by so many.
And computers do give us a voice. When I was your age, the only voice I had was my vote, once every four years. Nobody wanted my opinion, no one wanted to know what I thought, I was just a number. If my family, my friends, my neighbors, had different opinions, there was no one I could talk to about it, no one I could question and compare thoughts with. Now there is. And we can make our voices heard, not just with our votes. All the time. I can type up an e-mail based on my beliefs and send it off to the politicians who represent me. I can join political action groups that represent my beliefs on any number of issues, groups that didn't exist or that I might never have heard of only a decade ago. Snail mail carrying requests for information, snail mail carrying information back, often too late to make a difference. Information I can access now in only a few moments. I can get both sides of every issue and then I can decide, based on my own beliefs and opinions. And then I can make my voice heard on any issue I want to. And the internet makes sure that my voice isn't ignored, simply because I can join my voice to hundreds, sometimes tens of thousands of voices who believe the same way I do on any number of issues.
I think we both hope to see a day when all of it comes together, because it will, sooner or later. No more electoral college. The popular vote. Instead of a Town Hall meeting, a National Hall meeting. We sit in front of our television screens, or our computer screens, and we watch and we listen to all sides of an issue. And then we talk about it for a week or so, compare notes and beliefs and pull others into the discussion and try to help each other understand why we believe one way or another. And then, when we've had time to consider, we vote. Us.
But we'll always need politicians to take care of the details, none of us have the time to live and work and spend time with our families and our friends and still take care of every detail of government. Maybe we won't even have one President, maybe we'll decide we need two, or even three, each one with different strengths, to make decisions that can't wait. But we will always need them. We just need to keep a close eye on them.
Maybe we will have times when one particular issue divides us, where we can find no middle ground. And maybe those of us who are on the losing side of the vote will be pissed, will hope for the day when they can say to their friends on the other side, 'we told you so.' Because even friends disagree. But we'll hear each others voices, and that's what counts.
So don't give up on the process. You're the generation that's going to change things, show the rest of us how easy it is. But only if you continue to make your voice heard. There's already acknowledgement that the Electoral College is out of date, not needed anymore, a holdover from another time. Just because the system doesn't work right now, doesn't mean it can't if we tinker with it a bit. Don't get discouraged, don't let your friends get discouraged. Get involved instead. Make your voice heard every day, even if the only person who hears it is one other person.