Things Overheard While Voting...

Things I overheard this morning while voting:

"I love that Sarah Palin. She believes everything I do. I'm so lucky."

"I'm just voting the way God told me to vote."

"I saw on the TV this morning, there were long lines in Detroit already, before the polls even opened."
"Really? What color were they?"
"It was Detroit, what color do you THINK they were?"
"Jeez, are you sure it wasn't the welfare line?"

Wow. Me, I just stood in line with my lips zipped until I could get out of there. The kids are off school for 'voting day' so we were tag-team voting.

I got home and told Michael. He was still in the shower.

Sticking his wet head out, he exclaimed, "Are you making this up?"

Right.

Like I could make this stuff up!? Like I have to?

Go vote.

Who knows what you're going to overhear!?

 

One Vote

I have been on a total news media lockdown all weekend. I spent all of last week (and the week before) glued to the news stations, watching election/economy coverage. And feeling sick. And just when I thought I couldn't feel any sicker... oh wait, yep. It gets worse.

Finally, I decided I just couldn't take it anymore, and turned off the TV. My final straw was the woman at the McCain rally, the one who called Obama an "Arab" (that implied, unspoken "dirty" just before it makes me wince, every time). They played it on the local news. On CNN. On MSNBC. On Fox. They played it...and played it...and played it.

And every single time I wanted to crawl under the covers. How embarrassing. What a sick and twisted thing the underbelly of America has become. Our shadow is huge, and yes, I wanted to ignore it, turn away, not see such a horrible, ugly thing on display for the entire world.

Thank God there are people out there willing to look at it, willing to face it, willing to hear it even aimed at themselves, and still move forward, turned toward the light of change.

Me, I like to hide. There are so many things I would rather not know. It feels overwhelming to acknowledge, and looks insurmountable on its face. I get overcome with a feeling of complete helplessness, powerlessness. What can I possibly do about it!?

But then our voter registrations came in the mail. We'd reapplied for them through the mail after we moved, and it had been several weeks. I was worried. What if we didn't get them in time? And there's always that creeping feeling/voice at the back of my head... maybe there really is a conspiracy to keep voters from the polls?

But now that I have this little piece of paper in my hand, I know that there is one thing I can do. It's a small thing, but it's a very important thing, perhaps the most important thing.

I can speak up. I can stand up and be counted and let my voice be heard. It's just one voice for change, but as Mahatma Ghandi once said: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

So I will take my little card and go to the little local high school, and I'll vote. And from my rural community, I'll watch our impending global collapse and the possibility of change from my television - a strange window to the rest of the world - and I'll read my Internet news, connected to a global community...

But I'll be thinking of the words of Mohandas Ghandi:

Men should do their actual living and working in communities small enough to permit of genuine self-government and the assumption of personal responsibilities, federated into larger units in such a way that the temptation to abuse great power should not arise.

Dead Fascist Horses

Not to beat a dead horse to death or anything, but... (well I guess you can't beat a dead horse to death, can you? It already being dead and all... unlike the nipping pony in the Verizon wireless commercial, who apparently has a taste for dog houses...)

What the hell is wrong with New England? Are they planning to break off and form a fascist state or what? First Maryland with its "Vaccinate Or Go to Jail" policy, and now New Jersey's "Preschoolers Must Have Flu Shots" mandate? What's next, Big Brother?

Not to pick on New England or anything. Really, all of America seems to be either passionately embracing or just laissez-faire accepting all the tenets of fascism that currently exist in our country without any more than a casual, indifferent shrug. Even those outraged by the personal freedoms and liberties being taken away from Americans at every turn feel pretty powerless to stop it.

Not to beat another dead horse... but those foul Star Wars movies have stuck like Exxon on a duck in my brain, and all I can think of is Amidala's line in Star Wars episode-something-or-other: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

Do you think I'm crazy? An alarmist? Sometimes I feel a little like Mel Gibson spinning Conspiracy Theories but while I learned what I did within the public education system in spite of itself, my tenth grade history teacher, Mr. Tymrak, would be appalled if I simply herded myself along like the rest of the sheeple in the pen.

Here are the basic tenets of fascism:

* The truth is revealed once and only once.
* Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn't represent the voice of the people, which is that of the sublime leader.
* Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.
* Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.
* The national identity is provided by the nation's enemies.
* Argument is tantamount to treason.
* Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear. Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of "the people" in the grand opera that is the state.

Is it just me, or does this sound eerily familiar?

We're fiddling.

Rome's burning.

No one cares.

Pass me a heaping helping of Oprah's Favorite Things and a double dose of Reality TV so I can ignore the terrible reality right in front of me, would you?