Thursday, November 10, 2011
Jaded Politics
This past Tuesday (Election Day) I chose not to vote. People act like you have a duty to vote even if all the candidates suck, never got this. Anyway Democrat Mike Spano won the mayoralty of Yonkers, wasn't even that close so because she brought it up first this Italian woman at work asked if I voted and I said no so then I asked her who she voted for just to make lite conversation. She said Spano of course and so I then engaged her in a series of questions all the time being the epitome of Civility because HELP ME TO UNDERSTAND!!! I'm just curious I said why so many voted for the guy, what was the attraction? Did he say he'd lower taxes and she said he talked about Education (oh) and she added children are our future (I've never heard this before) and so I said but they all say that and she conceded the point. I said Obama talked about education among other things and she even helped me finish my sentence - "but look what we got." The Yonkers election was personal for me, all those red-light cams in the big YO were put up under the Republican and pro-life administration of Mayor Phil Amicone so my philosophy is what difference does it make, nobody really represents ME and my interests and values and me, my brother and my friend too always somehow vote for the losing candidate. The power of your vote is definitely overrated, it's a kind of Quantum Mechanics, chaos theory applied to Politics (see I have been watching The Fabric of the Cosmos over on PBS) but getting back to the woman at work it's as if pols have some sort of Svengali-like influence over people. We hate their guts and make fun during normal times but when it comes time to vote and they open up their mouth we buy into it. Help me to understand. So basically but I didn't put it in these terms exactly I said to my co-worker but we know they're basically full of Shit and we vote for them anyway. All it takes is a charming facade......Now I hate Hitler analogies as much as the next responsible blogger but around Yonkers someone painted in a Hitler mustache on Spano's face on a bunch of signs of his and the motto underneath put there by the Spano campaign themselves simply says A NEW APPROACH. Get it? you have to laugh at this stuff. Funny thing is the cops didn't even take the signs down yet, maybe it's the first crack in political correctness after all. It's all good:)
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Like sands through the hourglass so are the sheep to slaughter.
ReplyDelete"...so are the days of our lives."
ReplyDeleteMy mom used to watch that every day when I was a kid.
I don't know, I think people have a responsibility to get involved, to take a stand, to participate. Otherwise what's the point? To me that's where you forfeit the right to complain, cause you didn't even make an effort. And then when they're putting a theocracy in place and denying citizenship to non-Christians and executing gay people, you're gonna be like, oh shit! how did all this happen? But it was comin all along and you just weren't getting involved against it. (And before anyone gets hysterical, that was just a hypothetical situation I threw up there, although I have heard groups advocate both of those things quite seriously, so it could happen.)
Now the other thing here is what my husband says, and what he says is, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem, and standing by silently is tacit approval. So you can take those with as many grains of salt as you deem necessary, but he's pretty good with the Zen Master shit, sometimes it's like being married to Yoda (without the big ears and being green).
Anyway, I don't know, I think it's important for people to at least make the attempt, for their own sake.
You are preaching to the choir with that one. Thou doth protest a plenty.
ReplyDeleteHow long ya been married Saty?
19 years. We've been together for 21.
ReplyDeleteBut, you protest, I look far, far too young to be with someone for 21 years...
...of course, I was a child bride. Thus my effulgent and youthful glow even now.
:P
Yeah you don't strike me as being all that old. We have 15+ but we are not married.
ReplyDeletewhat, you're saying I'm immature or something?!?!?!
ReplyDeleteLOL
Okay, you look really old. Feel better? ;-)
ReplyDeletegreat. I'm a hag.
ReplyDelete(No. There is no winning. LOL)
Well my scenario is this, if ALL the candidates suck then why do folks act like you have a sacred duty to vote? The other thing I was posing is when you vote for someone do you really really (now tell the truth) in your heart think they're the Real Deal or maybe you're just being practical (splitting the difference between evils)? What I was getting at with the woman who voted for Spano, I wasn't putting her down but I sincerely want to understand why folks vote the way they do. People vote with such idealistic fervor and I'm just wondering why.
ReplyDeleteI think the sacred part of the duty comes long before the voting.. when you're working to get the best candidates to even be up for a vote. It's a real important thing.. how else can you take any kind of action on anything?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think for some people it does boil down to a don't waste your vote, don't split the vote thing and I am a Libra so IF you put my back to the wall I will go for the lesser of two evils. I am also one of those people who's willing to lose a battle to win a war, and of course this is all antithetical in Washington right now with all the no compromise no surrender attitude going on. But I am not so much about ideological purity in the short term as I am about what can we realistically achieve in the short AND long term. This is what's behind my recent change of political group (and it was a little traumatic! lol)
The people that vote even when the candidates suck, not exclusively but overwhelmingly, do so put of some tribalistic sort pf obligation. This is a pervasive part of our American culture and it is none to healthy. The most recent example is woth respect to this Penn State sex abuse scandal. The damn institution takes precedent over a human or any principle or vortue. Same shit happens in politics. That said, looks like Newt is the new establishment flavor of the month. What a crackup.
ReplyDeleteNewt is an asshole.
ReplyDeleteIf you held a gun to my head and said I had to choose between the current group I'd go with Romney, but only because I'd be comparing him to the rest of them. I think of the group he'd be the most willing to be reasonable, the most willing to compromise and to work for a result rather than some kind of ideological hard-line. But that's only relatively speaking. Hell, if you put Satan himself up there he'd stand a good chance with me against the rest of these lunatics.
This whole idea of a necessity to work together in Washington is in some respects a farce. Work together for what? To fleece the American people? Ron Paul has a very good record of working with coalitions in Washington and yet he remains ideologically and philosophically consistent. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times. Anyone other than him and you're looking at more war, more debt, more inflation, more cronyism, etc.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet my life on that. Tis why I will not compromise my vote.
"Newt is an asshole."
ReplyDelete..yes, but a legend in his own mind...
I'm kind of naturally a collaborator on things, in whatever area it might be: work, relationships. Even in trivial stuff that only involves me, like for example planning out the garden, I will go through whole arguments on both sides before I come to any action point. So for me I don't think there's any situation in which I'm unwilling to compromise at least a little bit.
ReplyDeleteLike for example, fully socialized medicine has always been a priority for me (over the last 25+ years). But I am willing to take a step in what I perceive to be the right direction even though it's not nearly what I consider the goal.
There are certain non-negotiables in things for me-any vehicle I buy HAS to be a flat nonmetallic white and if it doesn't come in that color, it's a dealbreaker, I don't want it. But in terms of big stuff and ideologies, I think it's more important to get what you can and keep working in the right direction rather than to hold out for some sort of purity that results in no forward action.
Forward action for me would be ending the wars and bringing all the troops home, ending the Federal Reserve or at the veryeast having competing currency, ending all foreign aid, restoring the rule of law and disavowing the assassination of Americans, torture, etc., restoring state's rights, et al.
ReplyDeleteIt is not my belief that any of the other GOP candidates will move in that direction and certainly the performances of them in last night's CBS debate is a testament to that. Hell, they aren't even paying lip service to them. Newt says we should kill Iranian scientists to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. They are all a bunch of fucking war mongers. Fitting considering the biggest propnents never served.
Now I did say you'd have to point a gun to my head if you wanted me to make a choice amongst this peanut gallery of jokers.
ReplyDeleteBut I do believe that losing a battle here and there is just collateral damage, to be expected. You don't stop working towards winning the war.
If Newt's an asshole he is clearly the most articulate one.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the way he "articulated" that we should take out Iranian nuclear scientists among other clandestine secret operations was something wasn't it?
ReplyDeleteNot to endorse what Newt said but I guess Ron Paul just doesn't give a shit what's going on out there internationally.
ReplyDeleteAnd what's "going on internationally" is a matter of debate (or at least it ought to be).
ReplyDeleteYeah just who we need as president in these critical times a guy in a shell.
ReplyDeleteYeah he's in a shell alright.
ReplyDelete[rolling eyes]
Case you didn't know, the man sits on the Foreign Affairs committee.
Which is kind of a paradox since he doesn't even believe in Foreign Affairs, as a president wouldn't feel to have a foreign policy is important. Let Iran get the Bomb so long as we legalize pot and have our other little libertarian enjoyments.
ReplyDeleteBut then I have to ask, who made us the boss of the world that we can decide who can and can't have which weapons?
ReplyDeleteWhat would we do in their position? "Oh, no, you can't have that, we won't allow it."
How does the US somehow have the right to determine what other countries can and cannot do?
Exactly Saty. I don't know if you've actually thought through what you are saying Z but what you are saying sounds like the MSM and GOP establishment talking points. Our foreign policy would be far better received arojnd the world if we spent more time trading and understanding instead of bombing, dividing, and conquering. Since or foreign affairs have have been dominated by the latter for the past half century, you tell me why some other country wouldn't want a nuke (assuming the propaganda against Iran is legit to begin with and if it is, what threat would it really pose to the US?)
ReplyDeletethat Ahmadinejad is unstable?
ReplyDelete