What a Waste! II

Trey Smith

There’s been a lot of angry posturing from Americans who think of themselves as progressive about how the purported political center in this country has been moving inexorably to the right, yet it’s these very people who are directly responsible for the shift. If you vote for a candidate whose farther right than you would prefer, well, then you’re shifting the political “center” to the right. Republicans aren’t responsible for the increasingly conservative face of the democratic party. Democrats are responsible for it. Democrats keep racing to the polls like lemmings being chased by the boogeyman.

“This is not the election to vote for real change” runs the democratic refrain. We’re in a crisis! We must do whatever it takes to ensure that the republicans don’t get in office even if that means voting for a democrat whose policies we don’t really like and which are only marginally distinguishable from those of the republican candidate. That “margin” is important, we’re reminded again and again. That little difference is going to make all the difference.
~ from On Wasting Your Vote by M. G. Piety ~

I cast my first vote (for Independent John B. Anderson, I might add) in 1980. Here we are 9 presidential elections later and the refrain from BOTH corporate parties is the same. Thirty-two years ago I was told that "now is not the time" to vote for real change. No, THAT time will come sometime in the nebulous future.

Let me tell you, THAT time has never come. Every four years THAT time moves to four in the future. When those four years elapse, THAT time is moved again. It's like the greyhounds who chase the mechanical rabbit around the race track. No matter how fast they run, they are unable to catch the rabbit!!

I ain't chasing rabbits anymore.