Register
I have mentioned it before.
I have a problem with minutiae. You know, dealing with all the little details that compose and determine the important outcomes of your finite human life. I will put things off till they are overdue or past due or until I've missed out completely or until I owe late charges. For instance, I need to go to the dentist. I have a cavity, but I won't get to it until the cavity is gaping and making my head pound.
When I moved out to California I never registered to vote. I didn't have any idea what was going on in local politics and overall I was not that much of a "civic minded person." I pulled the old disenfranchised hippy routine in the 2000 election. I didn't vote. I didn't think it mattered one bit seeing as how the country is really run by big oil, pharmaceutical companies and the Military Industrial Complex. At the time I felt like the vote was mostly just a way to passify citizens into thinking that they had some say in the rule of the country. I exercised my right not to vote. I was also in a Clinton era daze whereby I thought peace and prosperity was the norm and I thought nothing could change that, not even a republican.
Boy howdy was I wrong. Well I wasn't wrong abut the oil, pharmaceutical, interlocking directorates thing. And I wasn't wrong about feeling disenfranchised, I still do just in a different way. But what I was wrong about is the importance of the democratic process and how it does give power to the people and I was also wrong in thinking that peace and prosperity is the norm.
GWB has given us all a lot to think about. I think he has shown how much one president can change the course of a country and not necessarily for the better. I know there were some pretty substantial outside forces that caused the president to act in his now characteristic "whoo hoo, bring it on, evil doers" manner. I know that Dubya thinks that his policies are the right thing to do and I know he truly thinks that God is on his side. But none of that changes the outcomes of his decisions. We have all had to live with the effects of the things that he has created or destroyed. I know I'm gonna vote this time and I'm not gonna throw my vote away on the Green Party like I did in 1996. I'm not affiliated with one of the big two parties, I consider myself an independent, but I think I'm going to vote for John Kerry. The things that I hold dear about America have trampled on by the Bush administration and the least I can do is stand up for the other guy.
But what I needed to do was register to vote again here in Travis County. That's what has just occurred in the picture above. That was also last week at First Thursday. Isn't that a cute girl who was out doing the voter registration? I encourage everyone to get out and vote and I am a disillusioned hipster no-good-nik type. If I can get my shit together enough to go to the polls so can you.
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