Ok, I'm 21, from a red state (Georgia) and I have just had it up to here with this bullshit about corporatists, socialists, betrayal, left, right, center, blue dog, yellow dog, red dog, whatever.
Ok, I was born a month before Dukakis/Bentsen was trounced by Bush/Quayle. I was four when Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote after 12 years of Republicans in the White House. I was in Kindergarten when the Republican Revolution swept 40 years worth of Democrats out of power. I was in third grade when Congress impeached Bill Clinton. I was 12 when the 2000 Election happened. I was 16 when Bush unbelievably got re-elected. I was 18 when I first voted in the 2006 Midterms. And I walked in to my twentieth birthday casting my first Presidential vote for Barack Obama.
Some of you are wondering why I stated most of this above. Because I wanted to highlight how in my whole period of being alive on this earth, our political scene is one hell of a roller coaster ride. As a precocious nine year old, I really didn't get into politics until I heard that President Clinton was almost thrown out of office for lying about getting a hummer in the Oval Office. Now, its easy to spot how I got interested in this, since it was when I learned what a hummer was. Oh how much fun we had with that in elementary school. This led me to be concerned about politics and be a bystander of it. I aced every social studies class and history class I had in Middle and High School. It led me to being a political science major with a prelaw concentration. Nerdy, I know. In my last three years in college of reading stuff like the Federalist Papers , de Tocqueville, John Locke, U.S. History, Comparative Political Systems, Political Polling statistics and all of it, I have learned one thing.........
WE NEVER GET ANYTHING WE WANT!!!!!!
FUCK IT!!!!!! Let these guys in. Let them dictate our policy. Let them, so we can be right. Yes, its ok to be right. I love being right. I wish I could have been right about Bush losing, or how Obama would solve all of our problems in one day, or how America took the World Cup. But it doesn't matter if we don't win.
Those loons above know where this country is going. They know. We can't be divided when they are this close at being our nations policymakers.
You know, I would love to primary Obama. I would love for him to go further left by doing that. But according to history, giving him a primary cripples him, and us. The only choice would be a Republican, who is the anti-thesis to everything we want and believe in.
I would love to go third party. Ralph Nader had some great ideas. But our system doesn't allow a third party candidate to win. And what if he did win in 2000. He wouldn't win 50%. He would now have two parties out there to get him, though I believe a contingent of Democrats , Jim Jeffords, and Lincoln Chaffee would have sided with him on some issues. He wouldn't compromise and have that evil bipartisanship bullshit hanging around. He would always be right, and with being right, this country rewards correctness, right?
Right?
I hear the disaffected. I hear you. What you want, I definitely want. I would love single payer health care. I want don't ask don't tell gone, I want gay marriage to be legal, I want mandatory gym class for every child and healthier food to be served to them. I want sex ed to actually be taught and people not afraid of talking about the consequences and the pleasures of it. I love the truth to be told to everyone in the media. I want all wars to end. I want our troops safe. I want their wife and kids or husband and kids or partner and kids to be together again. I want us to value science and let people be ok with whether they believe in God or not. I want Israel and Palestine to stop fighting. I want us to stop living in fear of each other. I want all of that. Seeing how none of that has happened when you want it so badly to happen is disappointing. Its nauseating, its frustrating. But how do we get there? Can anybody truly tell me how not voting, which would lead to Republicans make this nation more progressive? How will this really help our cause out. I'm still waiting for the explanation of how 12 years of a Republican congress made Bill Clinton more liberal or how eight years of George Bush made us a better nation for progression.
Sitting on my ass won't change a goddamn thing either. The Republicans are smart. We must admit that. They have made people be ashamed of being "liberal." We have let them use fear to make them afraid of anything new. For years, they have worked locally, working trying to get into school boards and health boards and city councils and PTA meetings. They started small. And many of us laughed, because many thought that Roosevelt's New Deal was so revolutionary, that it would never be challenged. Now, we have them deciding that every confederate general was a hero, that Susan B. Anthony is not important, but Phyllis Shaffley is. That the founders believed in creationism and were Christians not deists.
We have been aiming big for so long and always come up short. Primaries are still going on this summer. My state has theirs this July 20th.(Thanks dle2GA for the correction.) You still have a choice. Its your choice. Its not President Obama's or President Clinton's or Senator Lincoln's or whoever. Its yours. You are the voter. Exercise it, don't give up. We can't give up when the stakes are so high.
UPDATE: This may be naive. I am naive. I admit it. But seeing how it has been in the past, I believe it can change. We know whats right and if we don't fight to change it, then what? I am not here to force anybody to do anything. It is your choice whether or not to vote this year. I can only encourage you to do so. I just hope that the ones that do not vote know what they are doing.