With just a week to go before American voters go into the voting booth to scratch their heads and try to make an informed choice among flawed candidates, the campaign from hell is running head-on into the storm from hell.
If anything, the “Frankenstorm” provides the perfect backdrop to a campaign filled with the howling winds of bloated, empty rhetoric — a season where truth is washed away by a storm surge of propaganda-controlled hyperbole and drenched with the controlling rainfall of special-interest cash.
At no point in recent history have Americans faced more dismal choices in the voting booth: A failed incumbent President who ran four years ago as an agent of change and who now represents the status quo of government run amok and a new, self-professed agent of change — if one can believe a hedge-fund multimillionaire can change anything that affects ordinary folks.
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama don’t have any answers but we gotta pick one of them. Same for the lackluster choices for the House and Senate.
The battle for Congress is just as depressing: Two sets of cookie-cutter candidates controlled by polarizing political parties who long-ago abandoned any pretense of putting aside petty differences and working together for a common goal of solving America’s many problems.
So, cynics wonder, why vote?
Because you must, dummy.
As the fictional Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren‘s Pulitzer-prize winning novel, “All the King’s Men,” told the Southern hicks: “If you don’t vote, you don’t matter.”
We may have to look at that screen, control our impulse to spew the semi-digested remains of breakfast all over that fancy electronic voting machine, and make a choice that pains us but it is our duty in a Democratic Republic to help make that choice.
Then, on November 7, we start looking for ways to change the system so that the next time we walk up to the voting booth we have a real choice that doesn’t involve regurgitation.
How? That’s a good question. As a career newspaperman who took a sabbatical at one point and entered the dark side of politics, I’m not sure. The folks who help put Capitol Hill Blue together day in and day out aren’t sure. Hell folks, we do this for a living and we aren’t any closer to the answers than the couch potato who lets the propaganda artists on Fox News, MSNBC or whatever wash over him or her with mind-numbing monotony.
Along with outsourcing our manufacturing and innovation overseas, it sometimes seems like we also shipped our ability to think and reason over the pond as well. This campaign season — more than any one in recent memory — produced no leaders, no real thinkers, not one candidate worthy of serving the people in the halls of Congress or at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
So we’re got to go back to basics, back to square one, back to our roots and find leaders worthy of support. Those leaders will not come from false “grassroots” operations like The Tea Party, which is a front for billionaire right-wingers hell-bent on control. They will not come from the checkbooks of George Soros, Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers.
They will come from American men and women in the trenches.
First, let’s hold our noses and elect one or the other false agents of change on the ballot.
Then get drunk if you want. Or, if like some of us you put the bottle away, go to a support-group meeting.
Then roll up your sleeves and start looking for ways to take this country back.
How? Not sure yet, but we’re refocusing our efforts to look for ways.
9 thoughts on “On Nov. 6, vote for the loser of your choice, then get to work on making change happen”
As long as the corporate moneyed interests control this country and the Republican and Democratic parties, it doesn’t matter whether a person votes Obama, Romney or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Nothing will change and this country will sink deeper into the depths it already finds itself.
I’ll still give it to the President.
Jerry, I’ve known and read Doug’s statements for years and he has shared his background in D.C. with us. He never patted himself on the back for his work but shared much of what he found that was wrong.
I wanted very much to work with the CHB members with a desire to describe exactly what we felt was wrong and how to improve the situation. Doug started a group for change and improvement and it fell apart. Bloggers tend to have great and brave theories for change but in the world of the internet they do not catch on. It is rare to find any group who can collaborate on changes. The Huffington Post has managed to do it but it is closed off to new members and trying to input new ideas is more trouble than it is worth. We all get brilliant on Monday and by Wednesday, it becomes old theories.
At this time, when we are between two parties and two different men who want to be leaders, maybe this election next Tuesday will clear the air for more positive positions.
Instead of knocking Doug’s words, how about writing something of your own to direct many of us in a new way to operate our government? Many of us are always open to new ideas and ideals.
I want a government I can trust to represent all of us without eliminating minorities based on some religion or other. Trying to return to the days of white colonial Christian straight men is ridiculous. The joy of issuing freedoms to all of us should not be slandered as some plan for Satan. If Satan terrorizes anyone, then you have the freedom to live under those conditions but why the necessity of legislation?
Well, we all know who Doug Thompson is/was. Formerly a government insider turned rebel as a result of his disgust of not just himself, but of the process. So, what is it that he is advocating?
Not to vote is not an option in his thinking. He readily acknowledges that whomever you vote for it will be a vote not for a solution but for the perpetuation of the status quo. But, that is not quite completely true.
If you follow DT’s path there really is only one logical vote that will accelerate his vision for a total revamp of the political system – Romney! It is under the control of the GOP that only a true political revolution can possibly take place in the country. A DT future can only occur if, at a minimum, complete party control by the GOP exists for at least 8, 12 if not 16 years or more. The American Republic is no longer being served by a system that vasilates back and forth every few years or so between Dem or GOP control. Money has corrupted the vision in a profound and fundamental way that no signer of the DoI or the Constitution would ever have imagined.
When do people take action? When they see the value or they are fed up! The answer is really to turn the complete direction of the nation over to one party or another. But, which party? Which party will advance policies that will accelerate the political, social and economic environment to the point where the revolution can take place? The GOP! They are the party of turning back the clock socially. They are the party which seeks to create the widest economic gaps. They are they party that has largest financial interest in the “G(g)od” quotient. They are truly and without doubt the party that has the largest stockpile of financial reserves and anti-thetical policies to 21st century democratic principles which, going forward, will ultimately be forced to rely upon and yield to global forces that are completely in opposition.
So, in this election the answer to the beginning of the future that DT has been advocating here at CHB for all these years is to turn control over to the party that has the most extreme vision for America, and keep giving them that control over and over again. The deeper the divide the greater the chance for real reform. As longer as the waters continue to be muddied and there is this constant tug-of-war the prospect for reform will die on the vine.
You had a chance to work for and be an advocate for real change. I’ve been reading and participating on this site for the past five years.
Although your commentary and opinion pieces suggested a strong anti-establishment, libertarian bent, you took a special interest in ridiculing and showing a general disdain for Ron Paul and his “cult-like” following.
And then, when it was too late and the damage was already done, after years of following the mainstream media’s lead in marginalizing and ridiculing any one that supported Paul, you decided it was time to ‘fess up and announce that you actually voted for him in 2008 and support many of his positions.
You could have used the last four years advancing the ideals you purport to support in the only candidate that even comes close.
You ask us to roll up our sleeves and work for change.
You first…
Griff, we’ve had this discussion many times before and you know my opinion on Ron Paul. In my opinion, he’s not the answer: Never was, never will be.
Yes, he has some positions that I support, particularly when it comes to the USA Patriot Act. I voted for him as a protest vote because I knew he couldn’t win. He’s not the leader this country needs.
I’m not naive enough to believe that one man serving one term will solve all our problems. The problems we have as a country and a society will take years to reverse. He was a step in the right direction.
These two choices we have represent a continuation of the status quo. Any monkey wrench in that machinery can only be a good thing.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Indeed.
Wow! You can put your thoughts into words better than anyone around here. I was thinking this morning what I would do had I been running against the President of the United States in the middle of a giant and deadly storm.
I would swallow my pride, and show up where the President intends to be today and offer my help. What a chance to get his feet wet and show compassion for the American People. But could we ever expect Romney to step down into the position of President instead of his place on the white mountain of his faith? The church looks at Romney as royalty and in no possible way would he get wet under the threat of Sandy.
I love sharing the name of Sandy. I was named after a brand of Scotch whiskey and loaned it to the government. Bottoms up!
Comments are closed.