It was quiet at my polling place tonight. No, city council elections aren’t all that sexy, but we Americans need to start exercising that voting muscle before it atrophies completely.
According to Naomi Wolf (The End of America) and some other non-crazy students of society, it’s entirely possible that our rights are being chipped away, so this is no time to stop using them.
Our founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, gave us the electoral college and a diluted democracy. It works pretty well when citizens do their duty and vote. When they don’t, a few people can exert disproportionate power over our national destiny.
Relatively few votes were coerced (by Fox News) in 2000 and (by post 9/11 fear mongering) in 2004 and even stolen (mostly from black Americans through what might be called voter profiling). These crimes were magnified through our (probably flawed) electoral process to change the results of an election and, yes, even the course of history.
Today members of our government are defying our Constitution and the Geneva Convention and Naomi Wolf (among others) says they’re starting to act like a fascist dictatorship. And Americans don’t vote. By shirking our civic responsibility we are tacitly allowing our democracy to be hijacked.
Through the institution of the electoral college, the founders were trying to protect their own aristocratic asses from the whims of the “riff raff” (aka the people). It’s ironic, but it turns out that the riff raff are the only ones who can save us now.
With respect, Riff Raff: get out and vote.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
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Sources
- "...How to Make AYP Work...", American Educator Magazine
- "America's Final Mission in Iraq," Chaim Kaufmann, The Boston Globe, 2/11/2007
- "Despite Challenges, N.H. Primary Thrives" The Boston Globe
- "Hypermilers Squeeze Every Drop Out of a GasTank," by Chris Williams, The Boston Globe, 6/3/2007
- "King of the Hypermilers," by Dennis Gaffney, Mother Jones, Jan-Feb 2007
- "What do pants and the space shuttle have in common?" Hiawatha Bray, The Boston Globe, 11/13/2006
- Brown Alumni Monthly: "The New Atomic Scientists" Sept./Oct. 2006
- Here & Now Story : "Schoolyard Game Banned" 10/20/2006
- Hot Air (blog): full text of David Mackett's comments
- Mass. Driver's Manual, Chapter 4 (Signs)
- Netflix: West Wing Season 7, 2005 (including "King Corn")
- WBUR Boston
- Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies
1 comment:
though i feel like a third grader, i must confess i am giggling at your use of "aristocratic asses." (sometimes i love me some curse words.) i'm guessing no, but was there a donkey reference intended there? heh, heh...
i don't know if i can link in your comments, but have you seen this??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6X-xtVask
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