Don’t Vote!

Posted by Fe Bongolan

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A friendly message in time for both Halloween and the November 4th mid term election day! Have a happy and safe Samhain and may you only be treated, never tricked!! – FB Post by The Young Turks.

A friendly message in time for both Halloween and the November 4th mid term election day! Have a happy and safe Samhain and may you only be treated, never tricked!! – FB

Posted in Welcome on | 6 comments
Fe Bongolan

About Fe Bongolan

Planet Waves writer Fe Bongolan lives in Oakland, California. Her column, "Fe-911," has been featured on Planet Waves since 2008. As an actor and dramaturge, Fe is a core member of Cultural Odyssey's "The Medea Project -- Theater for Incarcerated Women," producing work that empowers the voices of all women in trouble, from ex-offenders, women with HIV-AIDS, to young girls and women at risk. A Planet Waves fan from almost the beginning of Eric's astrology career, Fe is a public sector employee who describes herself as a "mystical public servant." When it comes to art, culture and politics, she loves reading between the lines.

6 thoughts on “Don’t Vote!

  1. Eric Francis

    I think this is simplistic. It’s not a political philosophy, either. I would say that at best it’s reactionary. The government that planned the 9/11 incident was not the elected government. That was the problem. It was the shadow government, which is a huge entity and which an elected leader, Dwight Eisenhower, warned us about.

    I think that one could reasonably propose that withdrawing energy from the governmental system could help, but it would have to be a lot more than not voting — tax resistance would be essential to any kind of plan like that, and a conscious reinvestment of that money and energy.

    Here is one of Eisenhower’s warnings. This is what gave us 9/11, and many other of the worst historic developments of our lifetimes.

    This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

    In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

    We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

  2. John Burik

    While I can appreciate the idea of not voting as a symbolic vote for “none of the above,” in realistic terms it’s a default “yes” to things as they are.

    1. Fe BongolanFelirene Bongolan Post author

      John:

      Agreed, and the point of this satire by The Young Turks is to skewer the jadedness of those who don’t either recognize the urgency of this midterm or who do but somehow don’t think their vote will matter. That has been programmed in us by a complicit media who recognize and further exploit that way of thinking.

      The intimidation, the poll skewing, and the pundits who give this election to the Republicans eight months out from November are all complicit in suppressing the vote. Given that young people, people of color and Millennials are voting, and normally skew Democratic, this effort by the Republicans, who have become the gun-toting, racist and race-baiting, vagina fearing, God-flogging party of morons is how they’re doing voter suppression for this midterm.

      It’s an outgrowth of the other faux revolution and “birth” of the Tea Party Movement which gave us the 2010 midterms and the government shutdowns of the last three years. We can’t afford that voter apathy either way. Too many lives, including that of the planet, are at stake.

  3. April

    This midterm as I filled in my vote-by-mail ballot in the state of Oregon I made a conscious effort to notice any fear that came up as I weighed my decisions. Am I thinking of voting for a candidate just because I am afraid the top opponent might win? Am I thinking of supporting a poorly thought out plan that solves the wrong problems just because I’m afraid of voting on the same side as those who make arguments on the issue that make my skin crawl? In the end I made every vote knowing that fear was not the driving force behind it.

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