10/1/2016 Justin Arn
I have voted in every election since I turned 18 years old.
I even have a little ritual where I take the "I voted" sticker and place it on the back of my Drivers License. The collection of filthy stickers has bunched up and now looks somewhat sad, actually.
When a majority of my generation was MIA, I was at the polling booth 'rocking the vote' for Al Gore in 2000. A few years later, horrified at the missing WMDs in Iraq and a little concerned at what I saw as a growing militancy in this country, I proudly voted for John Kerry in 2004.
By 2008 my faith was waning. The financial crisis, the roots of which were systemic and the result of decisions made on both sides of the aisle, had no end in sight. Funny enough, reformers could be found on both sides as well. Ron Paul on the far right and Bernie Sanders on the far left represented the only politicians of national stature that displayed the outrage I felt about the whole system. It's funny how the two politicians I most agreed with stood at completely opposite ends of the American political spectrum.
Looking back, now it is difficult to tell the difference between 'Democrats' and 'Republicans.' The one uniting principle of the two was that they both seemed to value money above all else. I watched the Occupy Movement come and go agreeing with their platform (for the uninformed it was removing corporate money from politics, despite whatever the major news channels might have convinced you of).
When Obama was elected I felt strangely empty. It was nice to have someone in office that I liked for a change, and he said all the right things, especially at the beginning. Instead of reforming the financial industry though, he brought back all the same de-regulators who had caused the crisis in the first place. That sounded like a terrible plan to me.
By 2012, I knew something was deeply wrong. I had watched tea party republicans use obstructionist tactics for four years straight, but what bothered me more was that our foreign policy seemed to be an extension of the Bush era, not an end to it. What is more there were no real financial reforms whatsoever. The banks had gotten away Scot-free with the bilking of America and no matter how many statistics came out saying otherwise, the tent cities springing up all over America and 70 year-old cashiers in local supermarkets told me all I needed to know about the so called 'recovery.'
I realized that the unemployment numbers were manufactured by not counting millions of Americans that should be included.
In fact, the 'recovery,' a national domestic narrative going on 8 years, is complete bullshit.
I realized that the health care initiative widely derided as 'Obamacare,' amounted to a tax on the poor.
Would you like to know the easiest way to pump trillions into GDP without actually creating jobs or doing anything of real economic worth? Take 15 million Americans that previously paid $0 in health care by not having any and force them to pay thousands of dollars to insurance companies. That's quite a stimulus package, wouldn't you say?
Not to mention the trillions of quantitative easing dollars created (and still being created since those dollars earn interest) out of thin air.
I began to see that much of my news was manufactured as well. It was eye-opening to realize I had been wrong about many things that I thought myself quite educated upon. Being a history buff, I was slightly embarrassed to learn that I needed to completely revise my view of history in light of discovering 'how America goes to war,' I began to understand the illusion of patriotism and the national narrative and its purpose in American life.
I examined America's role in the world. Far from being the 'global policeman' we like to imagine ourselves, more often than not we are the 'global ruffian,' destabilizing whole regions to further the economic goals of an oligarchy far removed from the actual American public. I saw how race-relations in America are often simply a ploy used to control the population and keep the powerful in power.
Why is it that whenever America declares war on something, that thing seems to grow immeasurably rather than actually being reduced? War on Drugs? War on Terror?
Want to know how not to win the 'War on Terror?' Do absolutely everything you can to create more terrorists.
Over the last two years I watched as the national press advanced the true narrative of tragedy: Black men and womeb being killed by policeman.
Not that this doesn't happen. It does.
Not that this shouldn't change. It should.
But it won't.
Because the narrative is being advanced for a particular reason. It is meant to stimulate the Black population in America. Vote or Die. Quite a tactic wouldn't you say?
I watched how Bernie Sanders supposedly lost to Hillary Clinton. I saw votes not counted in multiple states. I saw super-delegates sway the tide. I saw the process of a political machine at work in both the press and at the polls. I saw her squeak by even with the entire democratic establishment behind her. Her victory via super-delegate endorsement was announced the night before the California primary, I voted in.
I don't believe Donald Trump is a legitimate candidate for President. In fact I don't believe he actually wants to be the President. Furthermore I don't trust Hillary Clinton in any way whatsoever. She is exactly what this country has had enough of over last 30 years. In truth we haven't had a legitimate President since Kennedy. Maybe Carter. Maybe.
The National media is coming out in droves in support of Hillary Clinton. Every major newspaper, magazine, science journal, hell even Republicans themselves are begging the population to vote Clinton. What does that tell you? They want to frame it as though we must decide between a bad choice and a worse choice.
Either/Or.
I will not be voting in this election, not because I don't like the candidates. This is a referendum on our entire 'democratic system.' Every single vote that is cast adds legitimacy to an illegitimate process.
This is not a Democracy.
Your vote does not count.
But I'll tell you what does count. My no-vote. Because every single no-vote cast calls into question the entire process of our so-called Democracy.
Everyone you hear these days uses the same tired argument that if you don't vote you have no right to complain. F*ck you. I pay taxes. I am a citizen even if an unwilling one, in a system that is so systemically corrupt, that voting in the presidential election at all, amounts to an act of complicity. And every single one of those pundits deriding thoughtful Americans like myself for not voting are propagandists and charlatans. I am voting against them. Mine is the voice of the reformer. The voice of millions of Americans frustrated with a system that is not only undemocratic, but hopelessly damaged and unjust.
This system will not change from within. Anyone who thinks so has not been paying attention to our history. What is required to effect this change, to eliminate the graft, the venality, and unjust nature of our political life is a revolution from outside the system itself. A wave of indignation that will not be swayed by the grovelling of politicians over mass media. My no-vote represents that wave and the utter disgust I have with our national political system.
I have voted in every election since I turned 18 years old.
I even have a little ritual where I take the "I voted" sticker and place it on the back of my Drivers License. The collection of filthy stickers has bunched up and now looks somewhat sad, actually.
When a majority of my generation was MIA, I was at the polling booth 'rocking the vote' for Al Gore in 2000. A few years later, horrified at the missing WMDs in Iraq and a little concerned at what I saw as a growing militancy in this country, I proudly voted for John Kerry in 2004.
By 2008 my faith was waning. The financial crisis, the roots of which were systemic and the result of decisions made on both sides of the aisle, had no end in sight. Funny enough, reformers could be found on both sides as well. Ron Paul on the far right and Bernie Sanders on the far left represented the only politicians of national stature that displayed the outrage I felt about the whole system. It's funny how the two politicians I most agreed with stood at completely opposite ends of the American political spectrum.
 |
| I voted and voted and voted |
Looking back, now it is difficult to tell the difference between 'Democrats' and 'Republicans.' The one uniting principle of the two was that they both seemed to value money above all else. I watched the Occupy Movement come and go agreeing with their platform (for the uninformed it was removing corporate money from politics, despite whatever the major news channels might have convinced you of).
When Obama was elected I felt strangely empty. It was nice to have someone in office that I liked for a change, and he said all the right things, especially at the beginning. Instead of reforming the financial industry though, he brought back all the same de-regulators who had caused the crisis in the first place. That sounded like a terrible plan to me.
By 2012, I knew something was deeply wrong. I had watched tea party republicans use obstructionist tactics for four years straight, but what bothered me more was that our foreign policy seemed to be an extension of the Bush era, not an end to it. What is more there were no real financial reforms whatsoever. The banks had gotten away Scot-free with the bilking of America and no matter how many statistics came out saying otherwise, the tent cities springing up all over America and 70 year-old cashiers in local supermarkets told me all I needed to know about the so called 'recovery.'
 |
| The highest American Value |
I realized that the unemployment numbers were manufactured by not counting millions of Americans that should be included.
In fact, the 'recovery,' a national domestic narrative going on 8 years, is complete bullshit.
I realized that the health care initiative widely derided as 'Obamacare,' amounted to a tax on the poor.
Would you like to know the easiest way to pump trillions into GDP without actually creating jobs or doing anything of real economic worth? Take 15 million Americans that previously paid $0 in health care by not having any and force them to pay thousands of dollars to insurance companies. That's quite a stimulus package, wouldn't you say?
Not to mention the trillions of quantitative easing dollars created (and still being created since those dollars earn interest) out of thin air.
I began to see that much of my news was manufactured as well. It was eye-opening to realize I had been wrong about many things that I thought myself quite educated upon. Being a history buff, I was slightly embarrassed to learn that I needed to completely revise my view of history in light of discovering 'how America goes to war,' I began to understand the illusion of patriotism and the national narrative and its purpose in American life.
I examined America's role in the world. Far from being the 'global policeman' we like to imagine ourselves, more often than not we are the 'global ruffian,' destabilizing whole regions to further the economic goals of an oligarchy far removed from the actual American public. I saw how race-relations in America are often simply a ploy used to control the population and keep the powerful in power.
Why is it that whenever America declares war on something, that thing seems to grow immeasurably rather than actually being reduced? War on Drugs? War on Terror?
Want to know how not to win the 'War on Terror?' Do absolutely everything you can to create more terrorists.
 |
| Winning the 'War on Terror,' one victim at a time. |
Over the last two years I watched as the national press advanced the true narrative of tragedy: Black men and womeb being killed by policeman.
Not that this doesn't happen. It does.
Not that this shouldn't change. It should.
But it won't.
Because the narrative is being advanced for a particular reason. It is meant to stimulate the Black population in America. Vote or Die. Quite a tactic wouldn't you say?
I watched how Bernie Sanders supposedly lost to Hillary Clinton. I saw votes not counted in multiple states. I saw super-delegates sway the tide. I saw the process of a political machine at work in both the press and at the polls. I saw her squeak by even with the entire democratic establishment behind her. Her victory via super-delegate endorsement was announced the night before the California primary, I voted in.
I don't believe Donald Trump is a legitimate candidate for President. In fact I don't believe he actually wants to be the President. Furthermore I don't trust Hillary Clinton in any way whatsoever. She is exactly what this country has had enough of over last 30 years. In truth we haven't had a legitimate President since Kennedy. Maybe Carter. Maybe.
The National media is coming out in droves in support of Hillary Clinton. Every major newspaper, magazine, science journal, hell even Republicans themselves are begging the population to vote Clinton. What does that tell you? They want to frame it as though we must decide between a bad choice and a worse choice.
Either/Or.
This is flawed thinking from a flawed media.
I will not be voting in this election, not because I don't like the candidates. This is a referendum on our entire 'democratic system.' Every single vote that is cast adds legitimacy to an illegitimate process.
This is not a Democracy.
Your vote does not count.
But I'll tell you what does count. My no-vote. Because every single no-vote cast calls into question the entire process of our so-called Democracy.
Everyone you hear these days uses the same tired argument that if you don't vote you have no right to complain. F*ck you. I pay taxes. I am a citizen even if an unwilling one, in a system that is so systemically corrupt, that voting in the presidential election at all, amounts to an act of complicity. And every single one of those pundits deriding thoughtful Americans like myself for not voting are propagandists and charlatans. I am voting against them. Mine is the voice of the reformer. The voice of millions of Americans frustrated with a system that is not only undemocratic, but hopelessly damaged and unjust.
This system will not change from within. Anyone who thinks so has not been paying attention to our history. What is required to effect this change, to eliminate the graft, the venality, and unjust nature of our political life is a revolution from outside the system itself. A wave of indignation that will not be swayed by the grovelling of politicians over mass media. My no-vote represents that wave and the utter disgust I have with our national political system.
1 comment:
Interesting Logic you've chosen to defend Laziness.
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