Whatever happened to a fair fight?

Here’s an idea – let’s completely disassemble both the Democratic and Republican parties. And, for good measure, the Greens and the Libertarians and every other political party fighting tooth and nail for ballot access in this country. Make everyone run as an independent. Everyone gets a fair shot. Let’s level the playing field, so that we are voting for a candidate, not for a party. No more DNC or RNC. Let’s get back to the idea of “whoever gets the most votes wins,” not “whoever is left over from the nearly meaningless primaries race and has the slickest and most well-funded campaign wins because the American people who bother to vote are blinded by their allegiance to a political party.”

This is what I’m sick of – people who just as quickly as they can shit will move their zealous allegiance from one candidate to another for the sake of the Party. So, it really doesn’t matter WHO we put on the ballot, does it? There is a guy who lives near me who is so ultra-Republican, whose lawn and vehicle are completely covered in candidates’ signs, stickers and such (we all know people like this), and who I sincerely believe would vote for a poodle if one were nominated for the GOP ticket.

Many people here in the blogosphere and in my day to day life know how I am torn about whether or not to take part in the political process anymore. Some of these people, in their efforts to sway me one way or the other, try to extol the virtues of either Obama or McCain – and I know damn well that these same people would be just as fervently extolling the virtues of Romney or Clinton or (fill in the blank) or (fill in the blank) if the primaries had turned out differently than they did.

Maybe it’s because I don’t like religion or sports, but I just don’t get the whole herd mentality – and I’m afraid you dyed-in-the-wool pols seem to have it just as badly as the religious wackos and those annoying Red Sox fans that surround me up here in New England. Change the starting line-up of any baseball team, for instance, and people will still “love their team”. Why? Because they’re all wearing the same stupid looking jerseys? The ballot seems to be no different – just throw some name on there of some distinguished Senator, so long as they have an (R) or a (D) after their name.

On the barbed wire fence.

What I envision is millions of people, casting their votes for no one, in a real, palpable way. How would the talking heads deal with it? They’d be bungling their way through the election coverage: “…well, the earliest exit polls are in, and well, um… they are saying that 78% of Americans voted for, well, ahem, um, none of the above.”

HA!! I would be thrilled beyond imagining if something like that were to happen! But, sadly, it probably never will.

The two party system is so corrupt, so deeply embedded, and either side’s response to anything is so predictable. I am quite certain that the difficulty of ballot access for “third parties” is by design – even that very term is exclusionary and derogatory. Because, let’s face it, folks – the two party system is a money maker for all those pols and political hustlers, no question about it. Yeah, once in a while you have some independent or Green candidate winning smaller, local or state elections, but it meets with a little fanfare, and then, well, it’s business as usual, and the Green candidate gets a bike path put into some city grid, and then political life gets back to normal. No big deal.

I used to believe very strongly that this is where the spark takes hold and fire of change spreads – in those smaller, local elections. But I’ve slowly lost faith in that idea over the years in which I’ve been old enough to vote, and I think the reason that more than half of those able to vote and don’t aren’t showing up to the polls because they understand this idea – they feel completely downtrodden, disgusted and helpless.

Yes, I’ve said this before: my father did used to say “If you don’t vote, don’t bitch” but I am starting to say that if you put someone on the ballot TRULY worth my vote, then I’ll show up. Obama is singing a really timely tune right now, but who knows what kind of change, if any, he’ll bring?

I’ve not yet made up my mind whether or not I’m voting in November. It’s really eating at me. I realize that by not showing up at all is, essentially, helpful for McSame. Certainly, a McSame White House would be shameful – but would an Obama White House, really, be any more desirable or worthwhile?

T minus ad nauseum and counting.

So, Dubya has less than 200 days left on the job before retreating to his ranch in relative obscurity and looking over his presidential library plans (what on Earth will they circulate – Ranger Rick magazine??).

I haven’t spoken at all, really, in this forum about the upcoming elections, except for my very enthusiastic support of a NOTA option on the ballot.

Wanna know why? Because ever since the 2000 farcical election in which 5 people elected the American president, I’ve become more and more disillusioned with the whole process. I haven’t yet dropped out of voting entirely, but I’m really damned close.

It’s a shame, too – I used to be one of those annoyingly enthusiastic granolas at the polling stations at EVERY election, signing up new voters, getting signatures for various referendum petition drives, and spreading the good, pie-in-the-sky idealistic news about the right to vote, and how every vote matters. I used to get so angry at people for NOT voting. But in 2000, I traded in my Birkenstocks for a firmer middle finger – and, aside from begrudgingly voting every year, only because I haven’t yet had the heart to completely abandon my highest ideals, I’ve barely looked back since.

Yahoo! news reported today about which candidate dog and cat owners prefer. I mean, really. Who gives a shit? If this is the “depth” of MSM coverage of something as important as electing the person who’s finger is on the world’s biggest trigger, then I’m one mouse-click away from saying “fuck the whole process.”

As far as I can tell, Obama and McCain are both snake oil salesmen – Obama’s only more handsome and a better public speaker. These 2 are the best that the corrupt two-party system could summon? (Perhaps I just answered my own question.)

Someone – anyone – please give me one GOOD reason why I should vote at all this year. I eagerly await your responses.

Jesse’s got it right.

There should, most certainly, be a “none of the above” choice on any ballot, in any election, anywhere.

Dissent should be given a proper voice, a REAL and tangible one… and not just in the form of someone saying “Oh, I don’t vote because the system is corrupt, blah blah blah”. How many times have you heard that? And how many times have you heard the talking heads on TV bemoan the dismal voter turnout rates? Does it really have an impact? As my old man used to say, “If you don’t vote, don’t bitch.” Which, of course, to my sensibilities, is a little extreme – but he’s got a point. I say that if you really want your non-vote to have an impact, it has to be given the proper channel. Which, of course, in this imperialist demo-public we call the U. S. of A., that will most likely not ever happen.

Maybe we need to have another tea party, only this time we’ll dump prop barrels of oil into Boston Harbor.