Who Votes For These People?

November is looming like the Spectre of Fucking Death right now. Not that I go out of my way to watch a lot of "live" television, but it's already become quite obnoxious. The political ads are as scathing, underhanded and covered in muck and mire as ever. But as I age, and my views become more forward-thinking (I will avoid "liberal" and "conservative" here-- although I definitely lean left, it's only because the right is so far in their direction that to be in the middle would mean having a portrait of Reagan over my fireplace), I am baffled at the type of shit people in twenty-first century America can get away with saying. Take Todd Akin, for instance. If you haven't heard about his latest verbal abomination, I'll wait.

http://dailycurrant.com/2012/08/26/todd-akin-claims-breastmilk-cures-homosexuality/

Do these people listen to themselves speak? Or are they too busy trying not to choke on their own verbal diarrhea that they don't realize that there's stupid shit coming out of their mouths? It is absolutely unacceptable for a person in a first world country, in the twenty-first century, to feel okay to believe this shit and not be in need of psychiatric help, let alone hold a political office and be in the running for another! Why don't we just start stoning and burning people at the stake for being witches while we're at it?

It would be easy to attack Akin and his comments. But this raises a much larger question--

WHO VOTES FOR THESE PEOPLE?

It is a strong conviction of mine not to vote. I've heard all the arguments. "If you don't vote, you're part of the problem." "They win if you don't vote!" "It's your duty as an American to vote."

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

These politicians, no matter what their background, no matter what their platforms, their beliefs, their stances, their party affiliation-- are all figureheads and lickspittle for corporations. They are not looking after anyone's interests but the people who allow them to grow richer and keep fucking over everyone else. Your vote simply does not matter anymore, if it ever did. It makes a difference, sure, between Democrat and Republican-- but the shit that the rich fucks want to do will ultimately get through in some shape or form. It's like choosing a method of being raped (kind of funny to put it that way, given Akin's earlier idiocy)-- either the nice, kind of creepy guy who hangs out around the schoolyard and takes you out for Ice Cream and invites you over for video games a few times before it turns horrific, or the guy in the van who violently grabs the first kid to say yes, he would love some candy.

So what's the appeal, people? Do you feel that not voting would be wrong? I maintain that it is as much my right to abstain as it is for you to cast that empty ballot. And NOT voting, as a self-educated person in this age seems the least harmful action to me. Why encourage these fucks to continue doing what they do? The system is obviously and fundamentally broken. It simply cannot be fixed from within. It's no conspiracy. It's no left-wing propaganda. Look at what's transpired these past twenty or so years and see the murder these people are getting away with. Even if you ignore the money scandals, the banks destroying the housing market, Congress legalizing Insider Trading for themselves, the economy being stuck squarely at the bottom of some Chinese-made latrine-- you still have people running for public office who believe rape needs to be called anything other than rape, that a woman's uterus has anti-rape protection and her milk can "cure" homosexuality, evolution is a lie, and that magic underpants purchased from the church are a necessary expense, just to name a few.

And you may ask, "well what about you, then? What do you think would be a good solution?"

I wish I knew. But continuing to participate in a corrupt, exclusively two-party system (and don't get me started on voting for a third party, either. That's more of a waste than just staying home on election day) isn't going to solve anything. I don't have any great ideas that don't involve telling people how to live, and that is not the person I want to be. I don't know what's best for people. But voting for people who answer to corporate fucking twats and profess that they know what's best for me, for you, for America and the world-- that isn't for the best, is it? We can do better, as a culture, as a society, as a species, than this joke Democracy has turned into. These people don't want what's best for the individual. They want what they think is best. They want their agenda pushed, their religion taught, and anything other than their own way of thinking turned out and derided as nonsense, when they're the ones talking nonsense about invisible sky bullies who say how some people's way of life is a sin (ironically, on the news this evening ,they were talking about how Republicans spend far more money at strip clubs during their convention than Democrats) according to their ancient mythology. It's unconscionable, and truly, truly immoral. It's fucking nonsense, and as long as people keep voting, you're doing exactly what they want. They want their two-party system. They want everything black and white, clean cut, in nice little packages for us to consume in malnutritious bites, shallow rhetoric and empty promises.

Who profits? Because it sure as fuck isn't the people the politicians are supposedly sworn to represent. And as long as the broken system is in place, not a single person will be able to go inside without playing the same game and swallowing the same pills that the people currently in power already have. Politics leaves an indelible mark on anyone who enters the field. There's too much invested in the current system by far too many people for a few people or one person to make any fucking difference. Either you fall victim to playing the game and drinking the Kool-aid, or you find yourself entangled in a spider web of red tape that ties your hands from doing anything worthwhile.

I know most of you reading this will disagree that abstaining isn't a viable course of action, but do me a favor, come November: just think about not going that day. Do something else. Do something for yourself, for your friends and your family, instead of wasting your time in a High School gymnasium being waited on by idiot poll workers. Just think about it, for me, before casting that vote. And maybe, just maybe, try to come up with a better idea than I have.

-Swift