I Will Vote My Conscience - Consequences Be Damned!

Well, maybe that's a little over the top.  But here's the thing - ask yourself when will it finally be too late for you, the voter, the tax payer, the progressive, the liberal, the conservative, the whatever you want to identify as, to vote for the right person for the job no matter what the consequence might be. 

Wait, don't answer that.  Let me get this out first:

• In 1992, at the age of 21, I voted in my first ever Presidential election, for Bill Clinton.  I was not yet "politicized" and it's safe to say that most people my age, and for the most part, our parents all thought the country was hunky dory; that Clinton was the cool sax playing liberal Democrat who was going to finally get the country on a better track.  He did that on some levels, mostly in the realm of shrinking the deficit and putting a whole bunch of money back into education, after Reagan totally botched it.  However, in the end, what did he really do?  He made us all feel better about being fat, lazy, uber capitalist Americans while the famine ravaged in Africa and AIDS became infinitely worse around the world; he created NAFTA, which has done nothing but complete the already started death march of the American manufacturing sector; he bought into the lie that the Silicon Valley and all their 20-something yuppie millionaires were going to replace manufacturing and that a service-based economy was just fine for the United States.  He did a lot of other things too, which we won't get into.  No, I'm not talking about his blow job in the White House.  To each his own I guess.  Point is, we believed a lie, and we paid for it dearly in the decade to come.
  
• In 2000, after 8 pointless years of Clinton/Gore, I AGAIN voted for the Democrat, this time being Al Gore.  The difference this time was that I was indeed politicized.  I had a much deeper understanding of politics in the United States and I knew about the Green Party and other alternatives to the other wing of the vulture.  But because I did honestly feel that Gore couldn't possibly be dumb enough to allow the same ignoramus policies to come to fruition on his watch that Clinton did, I voted for him.  What happened?  The Supreme Court and the Electoral College stole the fucking election.  And don't you dare make me prove the case to you, for I can point you to thousands, literally thousands, of papers and testimonies that point to the fact that Gore was a victim of thievery.  Alas, the greater disruption was that Gore himself was spineless.  He should have, under no circumstances other than a hand recount across all the states with voting irregularities, conceded that race.  But he did.  Then came Bush, appointed by the Supreme Court with nothing close to a majority of the vote.  I could have, and really wanted to, vote for Ralph Nader.  And for the record there is not one mathematical example showing that Nader lost Gore the election in Florida or any other state.  Sure, Ralph would not have won by any stretch of the imagination, but look what happened instead!  Neither Al nor Ralph won, and the country took another massive slide in the wrong direction, another 8 year slide.  The rest is history now.  I won't bore you with the details. 
  
• In 2004, I voted ONCE AGAIN, Democratic.  I can't answer for this.  It still shames me to think that I was going to vote for such a completely tail-between-the-legs legislator like John Kerry, who lost all his gusto back when he finished his career as a Vietnam Veteran activist. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to vote Green, but again didn't.  Why?  Yeah, same old shit; it's just a vote for the Republicans.  But, again, any vote was a vote for the Republicans anyway, right?  It was a fixed election most likely, and of course with the Electoral College and the ridiculous funding mechanisms for political campaigns in this country, it made no sense, from a practical standpoint, to vote my conscience.  Hmmm.
• And finally 2008.  I DID IT AGAIN!!!!  I voted for the Democrat.  This time, I'll be honest, it was mostly because the candidate was a Black man from Chicago, who I still think is exceedingly intelligent beyond most any President in recent history.  Sure, he had some good policy proposals, but regardless of them, I felt that the public would really hold his feet to the fire, because we are just too sick of the bullshit and won't let this guy slide.  Well, I was not only wrong on that front, but the media, and the Obama Administration has completely let the American people down in their time of true wanton need.  When the economy finally busted - as it was clearly planning to do for decades - what did the Obama Administration do?  They socialized the debt and privatized the profit of the biggest car manufacturers, the worst of the banks, and the brokerage houses.  When the BP oil spill happened, what did they do?  They forced BP to pay for - and pretty much coordinate - the entire rescue plan.  As a professional environmental advocate and activist, let me just tell you that the way we handled that oil spill, and the completely rotten to the core industry BP is a part of, was fucking pathetic.  If this was any other modern industrialized country in the world, other than North Korea or Russia, heads would have been rolling over this.  Look, I could go on for days about all the completely lame ass policy proposals the Obama Administration has brought up over it's first year, but I will not waste my time on it.  Here is my statement for them: FIX IT OR GO HOME. 
  

Now, back to my question proposed in the first paragraph.  After reading my voting history and the outcomes, it is clear to me that in EVERY instance, I basically swallowed my pride and gave my vote to the Democratic Party, gambling on the concept that they will rise to the occasion. 

For me, 2012 is not just going to the beginning of the collapse of American civilization, but it will be the point at which I stop playing the game, no matter what the consequences are.  How could the outcome of voting my conscience (should that lead to voting for an alternative party/candidate) be any worse than what we have witnessed since 1992?  That's a real question, and I'd like an answer. 

I will vote for the candidate that I feel best represents the type of leadership and ideas we need to see in order to get this country back on track, or on track for the first time in history, and if that is the Democratic Party, fine.  If it's the Green Party, fine.  If it's the Tin Foil Hat-Wearing Space Aliens Please Save Us From Ourselves party, that's just fine too.  Sometime before I die or at least before the whole thing goes down in flames, I want to say that I voted for the best candidate.  And if there is not a candidate on the slate that I can stomach, so be it.  I will sit this one out.  That's right, you heard me; I will choose to not vote for President if one worth while does not step up to the plate, and unless Obama does a pretty massive about face, he will not get my re-election vote under any circumstances.  And please, all you game players out there, don't waste my time with the tired ass argument that if I don't vote I don't have a right to bitch about the outcome.  That's the biggest load of crap every perpetrated on the American people!  Everything we do in our lives every day on this Earth earns us the right to enter the discussion.  The American voting system is about as democratically minded as the system by which the mafia choose their bosses.  Arguably, the most revolutionary thing we can do as citizens is to sit it out, in large enough numbers, that it becomes blatantly clear that we the people do not support our voting system and want it fixed, so that it actually represents the wants and desires we actually have.

What say you, world?

Posted via email from chrisrobincox's posterous