Josh

In my last post, I tried to avoid saying that voting for Obama was the right thing to do. I mean, it’s obvious how I feel about the guy, and how I feel about McCain, but I try not to say what’s right for everyone when it might not be. However, I’ve been talking a lot with co-workers, some friends too, I’ve been reading a lot, I watched last night’s debate, and in general, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of our country and where we are heading versus where we could be heading.

The New Yorker published an article endorsing Obama. I think that this was probably a huge factor in me being more open about my current political opinions the past couple of days. Some people might even say that I’ve been a bit outspoken recently. But getting back to this article…

Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?

We’re in debt trillions of dollars, we’re fighting two wars, people are losing their houses, jobs are being lost at a staggering rate (600,000+ so far this year alone), the price of gas and energy is skyrocketing (even though the price of gas in my area has gone down significantly the past two weeks), millions are without health insurance. There are way too many issues and I can’t recall a single one that isn’t important.

It’s insane to me that people are going to vote for someone who is qualified (Obama), and in a lot of cases more so than the other candidate (McCain), because he’s black. We have come way too far for this to matter anymore. Donna Brazile does a way better job of saying it than I ever can. But the sad truth is that people still think that the color of someone’s skin plays a role in what kind of person they are, or what kind of leader they will be. Maybe skin color does play a part in it, but who’s fault is that? People who play into stereotypes?

I wouldn’t normally write two political posts in a row but a lot of things have been pissing me off lately and fuck it, I’m going to write.

People who don’t really care about voting, people who don’t vote at all, people who refuse to look at the issues or where candidates stand on the issues…these people piss me the fuck off. People who say that their vote doesn’t count piss me off. Want to know why it doesn’t count? Motherfucker, it’s because you didn’t fucking vote. Of course it doesn’t count!

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. - Robert Maynard Hutchins

Saying things like “I just ask my parents who they are voting for and then vote for them” or “I don’t like any of the candidates so I’m just not going to vote” is a cop-out, is bullshit, and is probably one of the dumbest things that anyone can ever say. Ever. How can things change if people sit idly by, hoping that someone else will do all the hard work?

We have all the tools necessary to make this election the one that will bring change when we most need it. We cannot afford, and neither can the rest of the world, another four years of the same Bush policies and in a lot of cases, policies which are worse. Do we really want to reverse all of the progress we have made in the past few decades? Do we really want to risk that? There is a lot at stake here. It’s not about Democrat or Republican anymore…this about our quality of life. Now is not the time to care about which political party the candidates are from. Now is not the time to care about what the candidates skin color is.

It’s not longer about any of that. Our future is at stake here and we (all of us) have the power and are bound by duty, if not for our fellow Americans or fellow humans, but for our families and our friends both past, present, and yet to come, to do something about this…to do anything.

The future is not a gift: it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present. - Robert F. Kennedy

There is not one person in our country who does not have a stake in this election. No matter who wins, we’re all going to be a part of the same outcome. We can’t avoid it. Those that are silent not only silence themselves but diminish the impact, and voice, of those who do something. Apathy, I think, is probably the most disgusting characteristic. It’s the reason politicians have the sort of power that they do. It’s the reason they are more influenced by lobbyists and special interest groups.

Tagged as apathy, economics, elecion 08, hope, politics, vote + Categorized as Rants