Thursday, September 6, 2007
Do you smell something?
I love this quote from Chuck D (formerly of hip-hop group Public Enemy), taken from an interview in Mother Jones Magazine:Of course voting is useful. But then again, I don't put a big glow to it. Voting is about as essential as washing yourself. It's something you're supposed to do. Now, you can't go around bragging, expecting to get props because you voted. That's stupid. You don't see people running around trying to get props because they washed up. "I washed today! I took a shower today!"But if you don't vote, you can't go around if something goes wrong saying, "Aw man, stuff just stinks!" Well yeah, something stinks because you ain't smelled yourself. You supposed to take a shower, dude, or you gon' stink! The hip-hop nation is supposed to vote, because if they don't, something's gonna stink: The draft gets voted in, cats get pulled off to war, the average person is gonna get shot up.
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2 comments:
1. Ed has been known to brag when he washes himself, and the rest of us to be genuinely delighted and proud of him. 2. I think that the voting system, as it stands today, is a real sham. For instance, do either of the candidates with a chance of winning represent your views? Does either of them have any interest in living in a state in which the government cannot just arbitrarily detail people without trial?Now, don't get me wrong...This time around, I'm going to abandon my beliefs and vote, since it's really kind of life-or-death and I don't know what else to do. But generally, I think you're just making a crappy system seem credible by voting. That is, if only 10% of people voted, it seems to me that nobody would be able to claim that the system works, and that reforms might be made. I guess that the reforms would be made by people representing the richest and most vile 10%, so maybe that's not such a good idea either... but it really bothers me that such an obviously flawed system is held in such high esteem by seemingly everyone. And this was even before recent developments like the proper counting of votes being shut down because it's taking too long, and the introduction of electronic voting machines (with software holes big enough to fly the Nowicki family through) controlled exclusively by the big business that designed them.I dunno. That stuff that's going to stink, it seems to me, is going to stink anyway. No?
I suppose that if Ed washes himself, this IS actually something to brag about.Yeah, I can totally relate to what you are saying. I guess for me, though, the thing is that I see voting as a right that has been fought for and that I refuse to be taken away from me. When I think about people who will walk miles or wait in line for hours and hours just to be able to mark an X on a little piece of paper, or when I think about situations like this, and compare this voting experience to the easy and privileged experience I have, I have to wonder, why is the right to vote here (even though for most of us it's so easy to do) so casually disregarded?Elections are in themselves a sham. That is the nature of the election. The elections this weekend in Afghanistan will be a sham, as will the elections next year in Iraq, as will this election in November. But I refuse to let that deter me from walking my butt a few short blocks to sign my name and that's it. If I don't take advantage of that privilege, I won't be able to live with the thought of people who walk so far, wait so long, and even risk being shot at for this simple right.I have a lot of privilege and I'm trying to figure out ways to use it so it's not wasted.
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