“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!” they say.
You legitimately want people to vote? We keep hearing it but it never changes: Give them something real to vote for. But I did vote, so OPEN THE GATES—just a little bit though; I have a raging headache from all the meaningless, contradictory polls and negative campaign ads run to impugn the congressman’s then-fifteen-year-old daughter for playing Spin the Bottle in his basement twenty-seven years ago…
What I have to say, in brief, about politics and politicians and elections has been said over and again since the advent of centralized government. For all the evolution across centuries of civil (and not-so-civil) experimentation, little has changed in the machinations and motivations of the citizenry’s elected representatives. They are all, without exception, corrupt or complicit in the greater corruption of the entire spectacle. They are all, without exception, duplicitous puppets who speak from both sides of their mouths, serving the same moneyed masters and advancing cynical social agendas in the incestuous game of wealth and power and influence. They all, without exception, foment fear and disseminate lies to keep the masses distracted with false outrage and infighting, ensuring thoughts don’t turn seditious and the torches and pitchforks aren’t turned against the true designers of the collective misery. Even that photogenic, down-to-earth politician who “understands what it’s like to be in your shoes” and has espoused your pet cause is just another shill, and he/she will torpedo any meaningful legislation if it might result in half a negative percentage point in the 23-month run-up to the next election (or hurt his/her chances of being hired by the same industry he/she was elected to oversee).
The system is broken, having been rigged and slanted and contorted by and for the very people it was meant to regulate. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You assholes were supposed to keep those assholes in check.
And yet, when asked if I’ve voted, I can’t help but say “Fuck yes.” What the hell is wrong with me?
P.S. Don’t misinterpret this as a call-to-arms from a kook in a tricorn hat or a stinky hippie in a drum circle. You and I, equipped with empathy and rational thinking, are surrounded by morons. Let the people govern and we’ll wind up firing our government-issued (but unregistered) assault rifles from the comfort of our EZ chairs at everything that seems remotely gay or Muslim while welfare-provided McDonald’s McFeedTubes™ pump quasi-nutrition directly into our gullets. These handouts are okay, though, because they’re funded solely by the work of Mexicans we’ve deported to an undisclosed offshore location to mine nonrenewable energy sources, tax-sheltered profits to not-not-Halliburton. (Isn’t the new VP for International Affairs your former Senator?)
Spew Forth Your Blather