November 06, 2002 - 12:19 pm

sometimes i hate giving a shit.

44.8

44.8, goddamnit.

that's the percentage of registered california voters that actually took the time to go to the polls yesterday.

its bad enough that there are so many people that are not registered to vote, but when less than half of those bother showing up?

so some of us went out to the polls. everyone else sat at home and watched the price is right.

we have a war mongering son of a bitch who looks more like the cartoon character on the front of all the MAD magazines than a president, and people don't give a shit.

and to all of you who say that you didn't go vote because you are disgusted with the system, i have two words.

Fuck you.

you can sit there and think you're some kind of great activist and tell yourself that you are boycotting the election because you hate the political system and you are trying to make a statement.

well, guess what, you're not making a statement.

because no one running for office who wants to win is going to stop and say "wait a minute, people aren't voting, maybe they're trying to tell us something."

they don't care enough.

what they are going to say is "ha ha! suckers! all these people think they are making some sort of political statement by not coming out to the polls on election day. but we don't give a shit! as long as we get a majority of votes it doesn't matter if 3% of registered voters show up to the polls."

so if you think you are making some kind of point by not doing anything, i have news for you.

you aren't doing anything.

we are so fucking lucky to live in a country where we can vote and there are so many people that don't give a shit about that.

it pisses me off that the past year and a half has been based on being "american". what it is to be "american" and "i'm proud to be an american" blah blah blah.

what they mean is "i'm proud to be an american (as long as someone else is doing all the work and i can just stay home and play with my Bop It)."

i have an idea. how about we abolish the right to vote in the U.S. How about we do away with it like Iran did for awhile?

In 1999, 89% of Iranians went to the polls after not having had local elections for 20 years.

that's almost 90%. those iranians, they fucking realize how valuable the right to vote is.

see, the thing that just gets me seething is that if someone actually did say, "you know, 40% of people voting just isn't enough. maybe we should get rid of it," americans would be up in arms.

we'd be yapping all over the place about the possibility of loosing our right to vote.

and most of those people, 60%, don't even use that right. give me a fucking break.

if you don't vote, then you're an embarassment to americans and what america is supposed to be and mean.

because, guess what? voting is 100 times more american than apple pie.

but american's obviously prefer eating to voting. i BET apple pie sales have gone up, ooooh, i bet you they have.

i understand that some of us are still a little disillusioned with our last presidential election which was a complete farce and absolutely useless. but does that mean you should sit around and not do anything?

sorry, i'm a little irate.

honestly, i don't give a fuck who you vote for, i respect you for having done it.

you know, people were complaining about how the green, libertarian, etc. candidates took away votes from the republican and democratic candidates.

i'm sorry, "took away"? who says that they were their votes in the first place.

and you know what? maybe they did. maybe most people had no clue who Peter Camejo (california's green candidate for governor) is but the fact that over 5% of the population voted for him says something to me.

it says they're not happy. in fact, they're so unhappy that they are willing to "waste" their vote just to let people know how disillusioned they are.

and there are also those who seriously support him, but something tells me the green candidate getting 5% is a more a result of those people who looked at the names Gray Davis and Bill Simon and just couldn't choose. they couldn't, because voting is not supposed to be choosing between two shitty men.

media has been saying that (nationwide) 39% of registered voters showed up to the polls yesterday. that means 61% of voters had no say in what happened yesterday. 61%!! that's a lot of fucking people, people!

alright, i'm done.

lindsey, i feel you girl.

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