Exciting Times!

My whole political life, meaning from the time I reluctantly acquiesced to try to find out what was behind politics, which I was almost certain was just the adult version of the popular kids hoarding all that's best in life, until now, I've listened to those in the political racket drone on about how it is costly and a logistical nightmare to vote for ideas rather than people. At least that's all they have to offer when voting for ideas is presented as a solution for crooked politicians and how they disappoint us every four years. First of all, consider the source.

It's like in grade 7 when everybody was wearing either Nike shoes or work boots sloppily untied. Yes! This was the fashion. For girls too!

 

The rattier, looser, and noisier the better. I remember one of the popular kids, I think his name was Graham Searle, who had all the best clothes and the coolest bike and could do a wheelie for 10 blocks on it came trip-trapping into class so that all the kids could see and hear his fashionable work boots and the teacher said, "Searle, pick up your feet or I will have them amputated!" I can't remember that teacher's name for the life of me, which says something, but like her, I just didn't get this fashion. I mean, sure, Graham Searle could do an extended wheelie on his BMX motocross bike with 5 spoke star wheels while wearing these clod-hoppers but what if he had to run, fight, play street hockey, move quickly? Kinda like the half pulled down pants of today worn by a lot of basketball fans. The two just don't go together. And I looked into purchasing a pair despite my opposition. The price! Work boots were, and still are, expensive! Kids, (or their parents), had to pay good money for this inconvenience.

It's been about 40 years since then and now that I have found out what really IS behind this thing they call politics, it IS the popular kids hoarding all that's supposedly best in life and they too have to pay good money for the inconvenience.

I never did wear fashionably trashy work boots. I couldn't even afford the more sensible Nike runners. So I took my fair share of crap about my no-name footwear and it was just one of the many things that instilled within me a healthy mistrust of the "cool crowd." They say a lot of stupid things that just are not true. It seemed like you either had to practice reason and common sense on the outskirts of the cool crowd or you were a wealthy, stupid member of it, for the most part. But then there were the leaders. The people who made the asinine decisions to ride the expensive bikes, wear expensive work boots, buy the giant and expensive binders, and carry them in the expensive leather Adidas bags. Maybe they weren't asinine at all. Maybe these were smart kids whose families sold the bikes or had stock in Greb, Kodiak, Trapper and Adidas. And some day they might be the same people who decide that our country should sell our oil to the U.S. for 30 bucks a barrel less than the oil we inexplicably import from them.

I am going to pause now and do a search for Graham Searle. Ah ha! There he is! Member of parliament for Hamilton Wentworth. (not really) (I'd ask you all to suspend your disbelief here in homage to all the silly things YOU did to fit in when you were in grade 7)

We all did it didn't we? We went along with trends. Believed, or acted like we believed that the cool things were better. We all still do it. And one example is this whopper of a lie about voting for ideas being unfeasible. If I had said in grade 7 that I don't want to do what Graham Searle and the cool kids do any more, no matter how unassailable a case I might have made, the argument would have been made that thinking for ourselves was unfeasible. (hmmm... maybe he's in a band called Graham Searle and the Cool Kids)

South Korea not only showed us recently how to get rid of a lousy president, they are now showing us how to vote for an idea. And it isn't expensive or a logistical nightmare. Do you suppose this could be done for ALL the major issues our elected representatives promise to look into during election campaigns then promptly forget about for 4 years? The issues that ALL people are most concerned about? This issues that are no mystery to anyone yet seem to receive minimal attention if any? I believe it could be done and it would make the vote worthwhile again.

I feel sorry for the people like Bernie Sanders talking about the very ideas, one after another, that the American public are most concerned about and would LOVE to vote on: fair minimum wage; wages that keep up with the cost of living; environmental protection; affordable health care and education; the widening gap between rich and poor and the disappearing middle class; proper use of tax money; the running count of verbal trumpery (lies) from the current administration and Robert Reich talking about how the largest voter block is non-voters and trying to whip up support for the midterm elections so that the current administration, which doesn't care a fiddle or a fig about any of these issues, can be VOTED out. The reason I feel sorry for them is although I love both of these guys and you gotta pull for them and their fierce loyalty to the vote, the very symbol of democracy, I am not quite as optimistic. Nor do I believe the people of the U.S. (or Canada) are.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in both the vote and democracy. But years and years of voting for people... highly flawed people, has sterilized it. Made the vote all but impotent. Disagree? Well, let's look at what the vote hath wrought, shall we? In 2000 Bush didn't win over Gore. We know it was voter fraud in the state of Florida governed by none other than Jeb Bush, his brother that caused the decision to go from the people (who elected Gore by more than half a million votes) to the highly unbiased (FUCKING COUGH) supreme court. 4 judges placed there by Republican Ronald Reagan and one old fart (Clarence Thomas) placed there by George Bush the elder voted in favour of the Republican presidential candidate. Quelle surprise! Two Bill Clinton appointees, a Dick Nixon/Gerald Ford appointee (Republican) and actually another judge appointed by the original George Bush voted against his son. But they still couldn't carry the vote. Interesting tidbit about that: the more important vote was actually the expected 7-2 (that is, 7 Republican conservatives vs the only two Democrat liberals)

This is the kind of fuckery that happens when we vote for people and we expect them to be above corruption. Folks, the method of voting is so antiquated and easy to mess with I'd say it is even less reliable than the average politician. It hurts me to say it but you almost can't blame them for cheating! So all you need to do once you fake your way in is stack congress (the house and senate) where they make all the laws and then don't forget to stack the supreme court (the final word on the laws made in congress and of course the highest law of all - the Constitution). Then you set about passing law after law that are bad for the average person and good for the rich supporters of the Republican party. Who knows how many years it'll take before all the chicanery of that administration is discovered?

2011 - Canadian election scandal. Thousands of "robocalls" were made to voters (who weren't going to vote for Stephen Harper) giving them incorrect addresses for voting. One dude named Michael Sona got 9 months in prison and Canada got 4 more years of our worst PM ever. Who, by the way, swore up and down that no member of the Conservative party had anything to do with the robocalls. Not even a year later the worst trade deal in Canadian history was signed against the wishes of the country. All you need to read of this article, I'll put right here: “We know this is really, really unpopular, but we’re doing it anyway.” The Harper government. Dude, where's my democracy?

Sounds a little like Otis Moss doesn't it? You know who I'm talking about. Anybody not heard Oprah? Another very optimistic person. She told the story of Otis Moss who walked 18 miles and was told wrong place, wrong place and you're too late respectively at the three polls where he attempted to vote.

 

Speaking of Oprah and the vote, this clip is what her speech reminded me of when I heard it. While I watched the movie "Selma" I was struck by the nagging thought of what all of the people who have suffered and DIED for the vote would think about what has become of it.

Not only is the vote a simple process to cheat on, the way votes are counted and weighted is the exact opposite. I don't claim to understand it, but if you look at the Democratic leadership vote between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, clearly the wrong person won because of a purposely complicated voting process and the "super candidate" whatever that is. Why are things in politics complicated on purpose? To confuse people so that they can't oppose the result. You want a magnum opus of fabrication and falsification, just look at the federal budget of any year you choose. This is what the people we "elect" spend a great deal of their time doing. Misleading us. All you need to read in THIS article is the following: "In New Hampshire, where Sanders won the vote by a gaping margin (60% to 38%) and set a record for the largest number of votes ever, the screen read “16 Sanders, 16 Clinton”."

I will go so far as to say Sanders didn't win because he would have SMOKED Trump. 2016 Trump even got 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary. But he "won." Russian collaboration or not, this is not the guy people want as their president and he is not doing what the people want. He is the poster boy for why we SHOULDN'T vote for people!

Let's say the Democrats go on a huge winning streak. Let's say they draft a bill to impeach. Then it passes in the House. It probably won't pass in the Senate because it will still be loaded with Republicans. Even if ALL the Democrats win their contested seats, Republicans will still be needed to vote against their president in the Senate where a 2/3 majority is necessary to impeach. But let's go crazy and say this actually happens. Then what? Who is president? Does ANYBODY know? You would think Mike Pence but if Trump and the Republican party are found guilty of collusion with Russians to fix the 2016 election, then Pence isn't really the vice president. Though, in every other case mentioned people have managed to settle for the wrong leader for four years. Will it happen again?

What if impeachment fails and Trump's taxes are subpoenaed? Then it will be a vote in the Supreme Court as to whether this is constitutional or not. Can a sitting president be charged with any crime? We know that judge Beer Bong, who will likely be the swing vote, thinks absolutely not. In an environment of explosive hyper partisan politics, this could be the spark to the wick. I'm not the only person who thinks so. Read this article by Stephen Marche. He mentions in it a Rasmussen Reports poll that contains a frightening statistic: 31% of American voters polled predict another civil war within the next 5 years. And it isn't expected to be the oppressed rising up against their oppressors. We've seen how the Democrats just sit back and take the now absolutely overt and brazen sodomizing of American democracy. Experts on revolutions were interviewed and they all see environments reminiscent of civil conflict in other places where a racially dominant group revolted due to a perceived diminishment of status. White Republicans are getting angry and the leadership is not discouraging it.

What the article is saying is if Trump is not impeached, it won't be Democrats on the warpath. If Trump IS impeached or found guilty of a crime he definitely committed, the racist right, who seem bolder by the day, might just lose control. What I'm saying is these votes being drummed up by politicians and celebrities, like usual, don't seem to have any positive side. They don't seem to be the wonderful things they are being described as. On one hand you could vote and get the usual disappointment that comes from your candidate losing (or the election being rigged). On the other hand, you might get the result hoped for and be happy in your vote for a short period of time only to find that it has resulted in a worse situation than before. Again, par for the course.

The days in which people could depend on the vote to maintain democracies are gone. The vote needs to have some positive possibilities in order for people to get excited about it. Again, those days are gone. The longer we keep clinging desperately to the vote to deliver us from evil, the longer we are distracted from the true way out of it. The system needs to change. Voting for people is no longer necessary and it no longer works. Democracy must evolve. I hope it doesn't have to evolve violently, but if it does, these may be the times for that to occur.

Exciting times!

I just had to add this: