Anonymous says: I’m not telling for whom I am voting (don’t bother guessing, you’d be wrong) — but voting gives you a license to bitch.
If you can’t be arsed to get your lazy self down to the polls, you give up your right to bitch about whomever is inaugurated on 20 January.
Go vote. No matter who for…vote.
CaseyScott123 says: “Not Voting” is my favorite.
zikzak says: It’s very unlikely that your candidate has even a passing interest in why you’re voting for them. At this point, they’re interested pretty exclusively in those who /aren’t/ voting for them, and what their reasons are.
Once you’re voting for them, you’re in the bag. Once you’ve actually cast your vote, even more so, because you just gave up the only reason they ever had to care about your opinions and concerns. It’s the greatest irony of American democracy that casting your vote for a politician effectively gives them permission to ignore you.
Anonymous says: haha, the one for mccain that just has someone saying “maverick” is the best”
FourFiveFire says: I’m voting Beeblebrox.
Antinous says: Anonymous @8,
That’s an excellent sentiment, but next time try not to use British slang and a French IP address.
IamInnocent says: #10
dear ZikZak:
well, since when anyone has to limit their political involvement to the voting day?
For example, when the US decided to go destroy Iraq to teach a lesson to the planet essentially, laying low and making absolutely no wave was, as a matter of fact, a very effective political statement which had the effect one could expect.
We are always part of the life of our countries.
simplewonder says: i like to hear my fellow citizens opinions, rather than any anchorman/pundit/journalist any day. Hope you guys listen ti mine, and leave one too
FourFiveFire says: @ #8:
I don’t wanna make waves, but George Carlin makes the funniest argument I’ve ever heard against that whole “You don’t vote, you don’t complain!” thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efKguI0NFek
I just like seeing different perspectives. Carry on!
jubz says: zikzak? hmm, i seem to remember being out in the street screaming at the top of my lungs along with hundreds of thousands (millions?) of others that the war had to be stopped at all costs. escaped getting arrested and brutalized by the nypd for voicing my opinion by the skin of my teeth. we tried, the world ignored us, we (all of us) failed. other friends weren’t so lucky.
i’m voting for cynthia mckinney.. why? because she’s unequivocally against war and killing people in service of turning a profit. i quite like ralph nader too, but having a black woman president would shake shit up that much more. even ron paul’s strangely weaselly self would have been better than these fools. we’re in the kali yuga, hopefully this turn of the wheel will soon complete itself…
romulusnr says: After hearing a NJ caller put on a thick-sounding drawl and go on about “i dont want a neeger president”, I’m inclined to agree with #1 about the false calls.
OTOH that doesn’t make it any less interesting, as I’m sure there will be “I’m voting Obammer because I love terr-orrism and I want America to die.”
Anonymous says: Best reason for not voting: I’m a felon..
Anonymous says: dthomp87: I find your statement lending credibility to the calls for McCain.
Also: it’s pretty hard to fake earnest ignorance like this
Anonymous says: Awesomeness!!!!!
zikzak says: @ jubz, iaminnocent
Exactly what I was getting at, thanks for making the connection.
Casting a vote does not constitute participation in democracy any more than having an orgasm constitutes having sex. Focusing so much on the end result is missing the entire point.
What we’re given in the US is the idea that democracy is one act, that of filling out a ballot. In fact, the ballot casting should be the rather unremarkable culmination of an extended, passionate engagement with our communities and authorities.
And in times like these, when the validity of ballot casting is heavily in doubt, our rights are dropping like flies, and our government is killing people all over the world in our names, the emphasis should be shifting even further from the idolatry of the Vote like it’s some kind of mystical ritual that makes us all free. We don’t need rituals, especially ones that don’t deliver. We need action and engagement, bad.
jubz says: i actually agree, i meant to direct my post at iaminnocent, not yourself. voting is a triviality; true change is more likely to come from direct action and civil disobedience. rituals are useful, but only when they give us true strength, peace and clarity, which i say the saccharine pleasure that a lot of people get out of voting certainly does not.
i’m kinda surprised the happily mutated overlords of boing boing have placed so much emphasis on pro obama and anti mcfailin propaganda… i said in another post that it seems now obvious obama will win, so why not turn the critical lens on him and his scummy partner biden. post disappeared shortly thereafter.
WordyGrrl says: I vote (even in small, local elections) because of my mom.
In the 70s, the Equal Rights Amendment (Google it, slackers) was up for a vote. My mom (divorced at 23 with a deadbeat ex and two kids to support), worked 18-hour days sanding fiberglass parts in a horrible factory. Yet, she found time and energy to work toward passage of the ERA.
Heck, she even got on television once, giving the benediction at an ERA rally in St Louis, MO!
But the ERA didn’t pass.
And I saw my mom get beat down personally, politically and emotionally. And that hurt like hell, seeing my own mother — a hard-working American, just trying to make ends meet and raise her kids — get beat down.
Since that time, I have voted in every single election I’ve been eligible to vote in — by absentee ballots or those iffy computerized ones. But dammit, I’ve voted.
On behalf of those who’ve been shouted down, MY vote will not be silenced. In fact, I voted early.
Takuan says: it’s very simple: McCain means no hope at all.
Don’t worry about a lovefest. If Obama is not stopped by fraud and force, the barbed wire blender he is about to step into will ensure he will not be around for a second term. There is even a possibility America won’t be around. The Bush kleptocracy has rotted everything from the inside so that naught but veneer remains. This is not making the patient well, this is going to be bringing back from the dead.
sammich says: tak @ 25 – but surely the USA is like coral – the individual cells that survive will reorganize to form a new organism… ?
Takuan says: if America is a reef, it’s been dynamite fished, chain dragged, poison flushed, overrun by crown-of-thorns, bleached and nuclear tested. Will it still be America if the average experience is poverty? The rest of the planet will be dealing with recession at least and blaming the USA for it. The Cheney mafia has three months to start a crippling war. Or rather expand the crippling war.
Anonymous says: You HAVE to do both.
You have to be involved in politics — write letters, volunteer — be an activist. It’s the only chance you have to be vocal about the stuff that matters.
BUT
You also have to go pull the lever, black in the circle, touch the screen — whatever it is that actually counts your VOTE.
Don’t get me wrong — I don’t have a lot of faith that it will get counted correctly — consider me disillusioned with hanging chads, the absolute clusterfuck that is voting machine, etc.,e tc., etc.
But it’s all we have for now. Making a lot of noise is good…but you have to back it up.
IamInnocent says: @jubz
I thought that this was addressed to me.
Your implication and courage are most commendable.
You should know though that the World never forgot you, that it was dead set against that foolish enterprise. The betrayal of every American ideal came from inside.
@zikzak
I consider that voting is of the outmost importance: on election day there is a contract that is sealed between the population and the winner and this contract is the most solid basis that we have for any action in between elections, although not the only one.
@fourfivefire (and many others)
As much as I appreciate a comedic relief moment, I would never model my thinking process on what George Carlin says literally. In this bit you may have noticed that he says that the US is exclusively filled, if I may summarize, with degenerated dumb asses. Don’t you think that he was trying to provoke the people into action by slapping them in the face?
zikzak says: @28 iaminnocent,
You say that our votes are “the most solid basis that we have for any action in between elections”, and I think a lot of people agree with that. But that’s the attitude that has brought us the current status quo: Politicians pander, exaggerate and lie during election season to get votes, and then once in office they heave a sigh of relief and proceed to ignore the public until just before the next election.
They know that once they’re elected, they’re safe. Because they know that the only democratic activity we take halfway seriously is the vote, and they have tried and true tricks and techniques for manipulating that particular activity.
Now, if politicians ignored everyone and went about their work independently, it might be possible to put some friendly looking hopechange guy in there and have him do his thing unmolested. But they don’t ignore everyone, only the voters. Corporate lobbyists visit our elected officials on the daily. They don’t let up just because the election is over. They keep up the pressure, and for that they are rewarded with policies friendly to them.
We, the people get the shaft, because we thought that we were done. We though democracy could take care of itself from here on out.
The moral is this: vote or don’t vote. Whatever. But for god’s sake don’t stop there. If the president steps out of line, don’t just grumble and think “he’ll get what’s coming to him in a few years” or worse “at least he’s not the other guy”. Use all the other tools of democracy to shut that fucker down NOW. Some of these tools include: free speech, public demonstration, civil disobedience, boycotts, economic disruption, strikes, blockades, public art, even symbolic vandalism. And many more!
You don’t actually lose any power by the act of voting, but you lose all your power if you buy into the concept that voting is the most important role you can play in government. And if you try to convince others of that concept, you destroy their power too.
Takuan says: another reason why organized religion saps human progress.
dalesd says: @#8 Anonymous
You say I give up my right to complain. I say [channeling Carlin] Fuck you, I’ll complain all I want. I’m not going to take any moral responsibility for whoever gets elected.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H. L. Mencken
I know what I want, and it won’t be found in a voting boot. I’m staying away from the polls. Instead I’ll do something meaningful: reread the Declaration of Independence. http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm
Mark Frauenfelder
Cory Doctorow
David Pescovitz
Xeni Jardin
Rob Beschizza
Jason Weisberger, Publisher
Ken Snider, Sysadmin
That’s all neat and everything, but I think that its filled with mainly Obama supporters that are calling in stating that they are in support of McCain so that they can say hateful and racist things in an attempt to get McCain supporters to seem senile. Many of the McCain statements are blatantly illegitimate and completely ridicules. I would be surprised if this wasn’t the case considering that 85% of the people that would end up on that website are people supporting Obama that don’t have jobs and just sit on their ass collecting welfare browsing the internet over their neighbors hijacked wireless internet connection.
Oh and I’m voting for Obama because I like to run around Naked in public burning the American Flag while singing the tune of the Taliban Anthem
dthomp87,
Can you post a link to an audio file of the Taliban anthem, please. Also, the Flickr set of your naked, flag-burning pictures.
This is awesome. Very cool idea.
I’m voting for Obama to protect our freedoms (not restrict them) and to move the economy in the right direction in the US and improve our image and policies on the world stage.
Why are you voting?
MAguyhere,
I can’t really allow that link this time anymore than I could allow it the last two times. You can Suggest A Link at the top of the page if you like.
Well I was going to say I was voting to restore the constitution, the American dream and our standing in the world. But now I am just voting to make poster #1 cry.
“All content published on this site is public domain.”
Can’t wait to hear these all remixed!
my fav: gabrielm says:
The Man*
*correct href