If you have voted already, you don’t have to read this. If you haven’t, weren’t planning to, or have doubts as to whether you should, please follow me. For the first time in five elections, I am not mailing my ballot in. I am walking to the polling place around the block from my house. I am going to stand in line. In my hands will be a cup of Fellini’s dark roast coffee with cream and sugar, a banana, a copy of Edna Lewis’s “In Pursuit of Flavor”, and my ballot guide with my selections checked off.
I am going to dress comfortably, wear comfortable shoes, and be as excited at the polling place as an 18-year-old in front of Best Buy at 3:30 am, waiting for iPhone version 5. If there are people waiting in line, I am going to smile at them, and engage in conversation if we can. And maybe, hopefully, we will laugh together. And if the line is way too long, I’m going to double that energy.
This election, this time around, I want not only to feel my vote, I want to enjoy my voting. I want to express love for my ballot. Before you think I’ve gone off the deep end, note that I’m just as cynical over this election as I have been during previous elections. Maybe now more so after being over the Moon for Barack Obama in 2008.
But I am sober now. I have had my faith shaken by state and national politics so much that you could fill me with salt. But that cynicism is not going to stop me from voting to re-elect Obama and Biden. On balance, with the NDAA and drone aircraft warfare aside, President Obama has done plenty for health care, women, gay people, the elderly, immigrants, alternative energy and the economy to deserve re-election. And I want them to come back and do more. Let’s not forget Obama put Justices Elena Kagan and Sandra Sotomayor on the Supreme Court bench, and could replace possible retiring justices like Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the future.
A lot is at stake in this election. We’re not just testing our resolve in deciding what our government will be in the next four years. It’s about deciding whether or not we will be governed by a government at all. Yes, special interests have overwhelmed Washington to the edge beyond gridlock, and we are stuck. But there are far, far worse things that could happen.
First and foremost, think about your vagina. I don’t know about you, but my vagina does not have an anti-ballistic missile system locked and loaded to repel and attack baby-making sperm from a rape. Nor do I believe pregnancy from rape is intended by God. I do believe, unlike some people running for Senate, that statutory rape and incest can cause pregnancy. I think we can safely say here at Planet Waves we don’t want congress crowded by even more sex-fearing, fact-challenged morons taking up air space at Capitol Hill, or want to allow their form of stupid to be perpetrated on the country.
Then there’s the Supreme Court. Presidents and congresspeople come and go every four years. Senators in six. But Supreme Court Justices are for life. Is there another Clarence Thomas waiting in the wings? Or an Antonin Scalia? The agenda of the American right wing has not decreased because Democrats are in the White House and the Senate. It has accelerated, becoming, in short, rabid. They are determined to take down not only Roe v. Wade but also Griswold v. Connecticut, challenging the very notion of women’s right to contraception.
Following the tsunami that triggered Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, some members of my family mused that before any country builds another nuclear power plant along a highly active tectonic plate, neighboring countries and continents should have a say over whether or not that plant should even be built.
Since the United States still has such a large-scale effect on the rest of the world, what about the rest of the world being allowed to vote for our President and Congress? Naive? — Yes. But with the deterioration of our public school system under thirty years of conservative education policies accompanied by, at best, a complacent media, confidence that American voters are well-informed to make the best choice is rightfully diminishing. This is not an election where we determine who we can have a beer with.
Campaign 2012 has been one hard fought race-baiting, mud-slinging, lie-throwing slug fest. With Citizen’s United allowing corporations to foot the bill for their candidate, it is quite transparent whose agenda is being pushed, and pushed hard.
Our choice on Tuesday is not about taking our country either across the line toward a new beginning or stepping back to where it was four years ago. Our choice is about keeping our country and the planet from going backwards by decades, maybe even a century. Our choice is about how long we give our world a chance to heal — if that’s still even possible. And no, both parties are NOT the same. Our choice is to determine whether we continue having a democracy, as flawed as it is, or an out and out corporatocracy, where our choices won’t matter.
This election for me is not about trying to unseat Bush-Cheney in 2004 — a noble but disappointing effort. It’s not about trying to close the door on the eight disastrous years of Republicans and neoconservatives in power by electing an iconic figure who embodied the very nature of change we desired — however fleeting that was. This election for me is not about fear or hate, because there is no fear or hate in me left. It’s about LOVING this opportunity to vote, embracing the ballot pamphlet I have in my hand, and even the flawed election process we’ve got. For me, it’s about appreciating my community and the country we are attempting to co-create, as well as the world in which we live with billions of others.
This is a pivotal moment and election regardless of a Mercury station on Election Day or the end of the Mayan calendar on the winter solstice. This is no time to be cynical or fearful of loss or change. It is time to fill yourself up with your own love. Love your ballot. Read your ballot initiatives thoroughly. Read them aloud to each other and learn them. Read them in iambic pentameter if you have to, for fun. Just learn them. And love every step you take as you walk to your polling place. Our love and our vote really do mean something in this world because they really do have an effect. Believe it.
****just confirmed: it is still legal to register to vote in maine on election day. just be sure to bring ID and a utility bill or two as proof of residence.
divacarla —
i *think* maine restored same-day voter reg in maine last year; did i miss another repeal? oy…..
What a great article, Fe!
On my way out to love on my vote in Hope, Maine. Town office, paper ballots, and a bake sale to benefit the Hope Historical Society. Until this year was even more lovey-dovey with same day voter registration. Now Mainers have to register a week ahead. Anti-progress. I’ll be tuning in to Planetwaves.fm coverage tonight!
I should be quite clear. i understand by the Becket story: stepping out of party/church/any politics into what is sound and needful. No longer feel that martyrdom is a necessary ingredient either (surely we have evolved and can choose differently).
Or Thomas Becket. That is the great hope always. The great chance. No matter who is elected.
love!
Ha ha! There’s hope then if perhaps Mr Romney is like Salt, if you’ve seen that film too.
Fe – yes, that’s it in a nutshell! Our Secretary of State, a Republican naturally, is also a co-chair of the Mitt Romney campaign in AZ. How conflicted is that? There are no voting problems here, and he has spoken, for Pete’s sake! Ballot issues and voter registration cards with the wrong date in Spanish? Not a problem, it’s a simple mistake. Happens all the time, doncha know?
Compared to Washington, this is a much more politicized state. I haven’t found a political office yet (outside of judges, I think) that is non-partisan. Up north, most city, county, and a few state offices are officially non-partisan, which ostensibly means they are independent of party politics. Yeah, right, but the good side is that the parties dare not step in or they’ll get smacked down by the voters.
The county sheriff here was killed in a crash some weeks ago: he had been drinking, and was going “hunting and fishing” to burn off some steam after his mother’s death. “H&F” turns out to be a Mormon euphemism for drinking out of the public eye and the church’s. He rolled his pickup at 60 mph on a forest road with no seat belt. He was running for a fourth term as sheriff, but since the rules allow the party he belonged to to pick his successor, guess what? We got an even more conservative candidate hand-picked by the county Republican party to run in his place. Anyone choosing to oppose the ‘new’ candidate has to do so by write-in ballot only, giving the erstwhile incumbent the advantage of being the only one actually printed on the ballot.
Rigged? You bet. The original candidate was a hard-working and scrupulously honest man, no question (ignoring the alcohol ‘thing’ for now). He was running unopposed, if that tells you anything. I know his widow too, but I never met him. In many ways, a real honest-to-Deity sheriff: cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and soft spoken to a fare thee well. His replacement? Not nearly so much…
Brendan:
Thank you for your vote. Keep at it, my brother.
To an outsider, AZ state government looks alot like the corruption in that great Orson Welles film “Touch of Evil”. Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio have to go.
Fe (and Pam) – That’s why Mitt never went full birther: he’s actually a secret crypto-Communist replacement for the real Mitt Romney, who actually disappeared from the hospital in France in 1968. Mao knew! I know this is really what happened because I just thought it up, therefore it must be true.
I voted two weeks ago, and I loved my ballot too! I certainly won’t swing any race I voted for in even an insignificant way, but I did vote, and that’s what counts. However, I also voted to help turn Arizona a shade of purple, because when one lives in a red state, purple comes before blue on the chromatic scale of politics.
Best wishes tomorrow, everyone, and may Mercury play the trickster only, giving pause to those who would suppress the vote.
Pam:
Figures. Is it an election between tw2o candidates and two parties, or the US versus China?
You mean to say there may actually be a Manchurian Candidate?
Fe did you see the world wide polls that vote Mr Obama back for a second term – average 81% for him and only China who would vote Mr Romney 52 to 48.
“Since the United States still has such a large-scale effect on the rest of the world, what about the rest of the world being allowed to vote for our President and Congress?” Good point, Fe. Had thought about that myself. Yes, wonderful piece. Am keeping my fingers crossed for all you guys over there!
Hey my love MsMystela, and kisses to the Lovely Be:
I think I am going glam to the polling place. I don’t know, something blue and shiny. With sunglasses. And if there’s a good line, will take a pic and post it up on Daily Kos.
Eric – are we going to have a “have you voted?” thread up for tomorrow?
You could fill me with salt too Fe (love that line!), but that sure beats being filled with fear or hate. I like your idea of filling up with Love best though. Pretty darn sure things will (eventually) work out the way we will be choosing tomorrow, but whatever happens it will be the start of a new era for most of us. We have been shaken awake.
Much of what I’ve heard from Republicans reminds me of when I was a teenager in the 50’s. Don’t want to be a teenager again and don’t want to go back to the 50’s again. Seriously. Talk about going to hell in a handbasket, that would be the best way to do it. Will follow your lead and be happy when I go to the polls tomorrow. We poor (Democrats especially) only have one day to vote and one way to vote, unless we will be out of town on Election Day. I’d love to be able to vote on changing that stupid rule tomorrow, but I will take what I can get for the sake of expediency now. I’m ready, as we all are, to get on with it. Change is coming, one way or the other. Thanks for filling my sails with wind once again Miss Fe.
be
Awesome, Fe.