The Symbolic Vote

In a few days there will be the big USA election and it will be too close to call. In fact, I think this looks to be the next 2000. Remember? When the popular vote was overruled and the elected President was not elected? It was an historic moment, a turmoil that served to amend the constitution and assure that “the will of the people” (you know, that “we the people” thing?) was, in fact, taken into consideration, and not electoral votes and certainly not ruling out votes to favor X candidate. Nothing happened. Well, 9-11 happened and most of the people decided to turn the page into one where you fear an invisible threat. Change a legitimate call for democracy for fear once again. Nice.

Don’t worry, we won’t face another 2000 case this time, although there will be calls of fraud and most of them will be right on the money (like when JKF did it back then). However, the close-election will have a “clear enough” mandate, and it all seems to indicate that USA will go back to the “America-Fuck-Yeah-GOP” that has ruled this nation to the point that the supposed opposition (Democrats), never seem to have the balls to really oppose them. The scary scenario of a Romney President (and a next of kin Ryan) seems to be forcing the supposed “liberals” (you know, the ones who defend people and not companies, Super-Pacs, religion and the minority of the powerful and rich in this country) to run and shout for another term of the failed president of Barack Obama, who after four years of trying to dazzle an opposition that aimed to fuck his administration to win an election (even if that meant fucking YOU), now is trying to go back to the “hope” gear. He is now saying he will do the same thing he said he was going to do in 2008, like getting rid of the Bush tax-cuts, doing an immigration reform, and taking care of teachers and students. He now seems to be a fake-version of the candidate that inspired a nation in 2008. Who will believe him now? Nobody. That’s why his campaign is not based on promising anything but on going “forward”. “We can’t go back to the policies that got us into this mess”, that’s the whole motto, while defending a resume that does not stand by itself. So some people are allowed to go to Cuba, but the embargo remains. So there is Obamacare, which still favors private insurance company and falls short of what he promised. So he said he likes gay marriage, while not moving a finger to actually make it legal like it is in other countries (wasn’t the US the one supposed to be one step forward in terms of democracy, freedom, and equality of rights?). So he got us out of Iraq, and then intervened in Pakistan, in Libya, and why they fuck are we still in Afghanistan if we got Osama? Oh! Guantanamo Bay? Fine, thank you.

But the fear of a far-right president like whoever the hell the GOP nominated (Romney is not even as scary as the hall of clowns that ran for the primaries) is making some people place some liquid dodo in their underpants, people who are willing to look the other way with all the atrocities committed under this administration so long as “it is not worse”. And that has been part of that “forward” campaign: “Hey! I fucked up! But it could be worse!” “The lesser of two evils” is the motto for these scared people.

These two candidates seem too much alike, and that’s the reason why it is so close. Look at the debate of international affairs and you will get my point, they are one and the same. If you want a real change, it is time to vote for those who do not even get the chance to appear on a national debate. Check their ideas, see how they would actually change the wrong path we are taking and how they would make the rest of the word safer too, compare, and make an informed decision. That’s how democracy should be. It should be about you making an informed election for someone you actually think can change the way things are going or to back up the one who has done a good job. In that sense, a vote for any other candidate would be more legitimate in terms of wanting a “change”, given what Romney represents (in that part Obama is right, is going back to the same shit that got us into this mess, and perhaps even worse). After all, you don’t vote to win, you vote responding to an ideological belief that, because it is utopic, will never happen, but that’s the gist of it. In that sense, people should be voting in mass for any other candidate that is not Romney or Obama.

However, I fear this two-party system is way too deep in the American social conscience. It’s either/or, black and white, you know, like kids, good versus evil. So if one failed, we have to choose the other and so forth. If doesn’t matter if that candidate is a fucked-up wishy-washy who has not proposed a single idea, except for those who will fuck most of all along with Big Bird (I hope that with Big Bird you are now clear I was talking about Romney). Of course, we don’t have money for education but we need to invest more and more in bombs. How is this possible? How is it that it is this close? Well, because there is no more “hope Obama”. He has been on what is a disaster of a campaign defending his weak record. How the fuck the unemployed will vote for him in Iowa? In Ohio? How is he supposed to make them believe that they should bet on his policies while they are still suffering the results of an economic plan that goes back to the eighties and that they are now the ones paying the bill? If you think about that, it is no surprise that is it so close and that maybe we will have a President Romney (even when they will remain to pay the bill with him). For those without a job the whole slogan of “he is a business man who did it in his state” (by doing what he is saying he will not do as president) is good enough to forget that what he is really proposing is what started the economic crisis. If people have to “sacrifice” because of the economic crisis, like they love to say while not cutting a dime for their expensive lives, how is the economy supposed to be back on track? Capitalism 101: people need money to consume and buy shit, so the economy keeps moving. If they are unemployed while we still send millions to a few ones and the military, it will not get better, it will get worse. THAT’s HOW IT ALL STARTED. Yes, Obama has not been good handling this problem, but he was not the one who created this mess, and Mitt’s policies mean a return to that!

I truly believe that democracy should work in terms of defending your vote. It should be an exercise to support your ideals symbolized on a leader, and not just settling for the “lesser of two evils”. In that sense, people should be voting in masses for any other candidate, but those don’t even get to present their ideas. The system is way too corrupted and going farther and farther from the idea of democracy and what it should be. That is the reason why I wanted to write this one urging not to vote for any of these two clowns: one a failure, the other a soon-to-be nightmare for the average Americans and the rest of the world. We need a vote like it should be; a symbolic vote. However, it is way too close, and the system way too anti-democratic. Above that, there have been reports of the GOP denying voting rights for minorities (like in 2000) to “ensure a Romney victory”, presidents of companies in swing states forcing their employees to vote for Romney or they might get fired just because they don’t want to pay a fair share of their taxes, news about Romney’s son selling suspicious electoral machines in states like Ohio to let this one pass. That is a USA even farther from liberty and democracy than it is right now with this “lesser of two evils” shit. That is a USA that scares me even more than one with another Obama term. It has come to that moment where I do think we need to pass-by this time in history for a real reformation and vote for “the lesser of two evils”, not because Obama deserves it, but because America don’t deserve a president elected thanks to hate, to misinformation, to cheat and manipulation. At the same time one needs to vote against Romney because it is way too clear that a President Romney will be a disaster for the USA, for their people, and for the people around the world, especially Latin America, which he seems to be salivating for.

So the symbolic vote needs to be turned to Obama: a vote AGAINST Romney and their followers. Yes I know, democracy is going to hell, but…