Election Blues

Reposted from OrthodoxAnarchist.com: Okay, I confess. I didn't vote in this election. I missed the deadline to file for an absentee ballot. I can provide a number of excuses, but I suppose that's all they are: Excuses. I was sick. I was super busy with school and trying to sort out my volunteer work. It was the chagim and the country was shut down for 2/3rds of September, which meant few opportunities to send outgoing mail and faxes. But I guess I was just too lazy or it wasn't important enough to me, especially after I learned that absentee ballots aren't even counted before a winner is declared. Hell, Bush was declared winner before even the votes at the polls were all counted. Three states haven't even handed their results in yet and Kerry's conceded.

I suppose I felt less guilty about this once I learned that no one I know actually received their absentee ballot here, and they all had to fill out federal write-in ballots at the embassy. I went to the embassy to do the same. They told me I couldn't unless I'd filed for an absentee ballot. So I didn't vote.

I did work on the election though. I helped organize Operation Bubbe, sending hundreds of volunteers down to Florida, which, as AK noted, apparently wasn't enough. But I did my part nonetheless. Didn't I?

Truth be told, I'd also been playing with the idea of "not voting" as an intentional statement, as avowed by quite a number of anarchists and non-statists before me. To vote, the position goes, is to give legitimacy to the state and further, to sanction all the horrific things which follow once the lever's been drawn. I'm not so sure how comfortable I am with giving sanction to any actions of the US government at this point. I can not recall the last time the US government did something I was happy about, something I agreed with, or something I liked. So, why give sanction to it? To get Bush out of office? I never believed we would anyway. I figured he'd either steal it again or use a terror attack to declare himself emperor. And this brings me to my greater point in all this, which is about having faith in the democratic process.

An Election Night chat:

shleve: michael barone just did a lengthy analysis of ohio...seems he thinks it'll break for bush

mobius: the urban centers haven't come in yet. and considering the amount of fraud which has taken place there, of course it'll break for bush. they rigged it.

shleve: have faith in democracy, dan

mobius: oh please. democracy in america is an illusion.

shleve: as opposed to where?

mobius: it exists only to placate the masses by giving them the impression that they have control when the reality is that they are naught but subservient to the whims of the wealthy elite.

I know it sounds harsh. And I struggle with my faith in American democracy as much as I struggle with my faith in the god of Israel. But when elections like this and the one before it transpire, Job I am not.

I mean, we can start with the proprietor of Ohio's electronic voting machines (which have been repeatedly hacked) promising to deliver Bush the election, if you'd like. But let's move on, shall we, to more imminent voter fraud: Ohio ballots chucked for not being on thick enough paper. Republican committees calling and mailing Democrats to tell them that Election Day is November 4. Republicans making false challenges to the eligibility of Democratic voters and The Supreme Court upholding their "right" to do so. Fake letters being sent to black voters allegedly from the NAACP telling them that if they have unpaid parking tickets or outstanding child support payments they wouldn't be permitted to vote. Democratic voter registrations being thrown in the trash by a Republican agency hired to register voters. Millions of eligible voters purged from voter rolls. People posing as election officials coming to retrieve absentee ballots from the elderly. Voting machines which change people's votes to Bush after they hit 'enter.' And the punchline? Ashcroft's Justice Department is seeking to be the sole entity permitted to bring forth any lawsuits in these cases! This is what democracy looks like?

Here's The IHT reporting on election monitoring:

The global implications of the U.S. election are undeniable, but international monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures being used in the extremely close contest fell short in many ways of the best global practices.

The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system.

Nytche! The electoral system is more reliable in third world countries than it is in the country imposing electoral democracies on the rest of the world! The irony sure as shit ain't lost on me.

What am I suppose to have faith in precisely? The ability of Republicans to lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top? The ability of Americans to cognitively reach coherent conclusions as to what the best choices for themselves are when they've been stoked with fear and hatred of an enemy other and fed the patently false contention that if they vote for Kerry they put their lives in jeopardy? You're taking about a country where fake wrestling and watching people drive in circles are the leading forms of entertainment!

And then, well, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Because, none of this would matter if the election wouldn't have been so close to begin with. How in God's name could Bush and Kerry have been neck n' neck?

Pollsters had focused on terrorism, Iraq and the economy as key issues in the run-up to yesterday's election and those were, of course, big factors in Bush's 3 million-vote margin.

However, "moral values" was the single top issue cited by voters, and social and religious issues such as gay marriage, gun ownership, and abortion loomed large, according to exit polls by television networks posted on websites today.

Bush voters said they valued his clarity, leadership and religious faith — while Kerry scored much higher with those who placed a premium on intelligence, compassion and being an agent of change.

Lying to the nation to go to war, overseeing the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi civillians, overseeing the deaths of over 1,000 American soldiers and the wounding and dismemberment of thousands more, permitting the use of torture and other abuses, and robbing American taxpayers with no-bid reconstruction contracts for your own company — these are moral values? It's staggeringly stupefying! Rather, to these people, morality is determined by whether or not you allow homosexual couples to enjoy the same rights as heterosexual ones, whether you let women determine what they can do with their own bodies, and whether or not you are permitted to own a fully-automatic assault rifle, which, G-d willing, you should never even need — particularly if you trust your government to defend you (which you must if you voted for these assholes)!

If these are your vaules, why are you fighting a war on terrorism? Why are you against the Taliban? These are the people you want in power! They'll stone queers to death in the streets, put your women in burqas, and give you all the ammunition you could hope for! They'll never take "under G-d" out of the Pledge of Allegiance, you'll have your prayer in schools, it's everything you could ever hope for! What? Is it the Jesus thing? They believe in Jesus, read the Qu'ran!

Even Rushkoff is now arguing that we need to stoop to catering to religiopaths in order to manifest a just society. God, and you wonder why I'm sick to my stomach?

Ariela was offended by my remarks, "Dear America, you make me sick." I originally intended to write, "Dear America, 52% of you make me sick." But really, I'm just sick of the process. I'm sick of the nature of the discourse. I'm sick of the focus on non-issues. I'm sick of the game America is playing. And I'm sick of the fact that Americans aren't sick enough of these things as well.

Thomas Jefferson, where are you when we need you? You valued liberty and freedom, justice and truth for all people. You believed in the power of people over the power of wealth. And you believed in G-d with great conviction. Why can't we all be more like you? Why can't we have an America that was created in your image? Why must we suffer four more years of this monster, Bush?

So yeah, my faith in democracy? It's faltering. My faith in America? It's nearly absent. Because liars and cheaters can quite literally get away with murder. After four years of corruption, you'd expect something would stick to these bastards, but the degree of accountability levied by their opponents seems entirely outweighed by the corruption of a justice system and a press that are indebted to the very institutions which they are employed to pursue. Where are the checks and balances? When you control all three branches of government and the press, they no longer exist. For me, the amount of complicity and apathy towards this fact is simply unbearable. Now that the revolution has been marginalized (the Left a dead horse) and the center sits on the fence, which is the seat of inaction, the Right is might and a new day dawns tomorrow, which sadly looks quite a bit like yesterday.

I fear for America's future, insomuch as I fear for our world. And while this seems really like a heaping load of pessimism and negativity, I am still hopeful that we will recover from this lapse of reason soon enough, and that perhaps four more years of Bush and all the horrors that attend it will snap these people out of their blindness and show them that this is simply not what democracy looks like. Conversely I say pray for an impeachable offense. It may be our only hope.

Either way, I don't know if I can handle four more years of Bush's America. I just may have to make aliyah. At least this country's small enough that you may actually be able to make a real (rather than cosmetic) difference. Because showing placards to one another in the streets or spending a night in jail for sticking up for my "inalienable" rights simply doesn't do it for me anymore.

God bless America. Lest we forget, it's only a ride.