Four years ago today there was no doubt as to who I was planning to vote for. I was wrapped up in the hype of "Hope" and "Change," thinking that this President would be different. I have grown and learned a lot over the last four years, and while some things have gotten better, there is much that remains the same. I do realize that change doesn't happen over night and there is a lot of compromise that comes with being the leader of the United States. That said, there are still many things that has made me greatly upset and left me not knowing who I will vote for this time around. I have boiled it all down to three analogies, one for each option. 1) Giving a starving person an empty plate and telling them Bon Appetit! 2) The person who consistently and randomly comes up to me and kicks me in the balls. 3) Having to eat an infected shit sandwich that will either kill me, or on the very slimmest of chances, make me stronger. So lets go through these options...
Giving a starving person an empty plate and telling them Bon Appetit!
This option correlates with my desire to go with my heart and conscience, but it is an empty vote (or an empty plate), which is voting for Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. Over the last four or five years I have agreed with the Green Party platform and felt that this is what is truly good for America, but unfortunately the masses rarely hear about what they have to offer, or believe it is unrealistic. While many of the solutions they offer would be difficult to implement, I do not think that it is impossible.
One reason that voting for Stein is a viable option though, is the fact that I live in Hawaii, a very "blue" state, that by the time I get to vote the election may be over anyways. So why not vote for her, I would feel good about myself but did it really even matter? Though, Hawaii may surprise people and could go to Romney, with all the old white idiots out here and a huge Mormon population (2nd largest per capita in the nation). Furthermore, there are a number of problems, some polls are saying that Romney could win the popular vote, while Obama wins the electoral vote. Some polls say that Obama's going to trounce Romney across the board. Either way the problem lies within the deficiency's of the electoral college, which I am not a huge fan of, so perhaps I should play it safe and vote for Obama, which leads me to my second problematic analogy.
The person who consistently and randomly comes up to me and kicks me in the balls.
The past four years have been exactly like the analogy, I'll be walking around, feeling great about the world, then WHAM, kicked in the balls again by that damn kid on the escalator, "I hope his pants get caught and a bloodbath ensues!" Sure, Obama has done great things, but he has also done some pretty shitty stuff too, his staunch support of NDAA, drone attacks, attacks on internet privacy, no single payer system within his healthcare plan, we're still in Afghanistan, I could really go on and on, but I think you get the gist... And I am sick and fucking tired of getting kicked in the balls. Furthermore, on many economic fronts, Obama really isn't that far off from Romney, I know many of you will say, "NO THAT'S NOT TRUE." Really? The only difference is Romney is Capitalism on steroids... But all this leads me to my final analogy, possibly voting for Mitt Romney...
Having to eat an infected shit sandwich that will either kill me, or on the very slimmest of chances, make me stronger.
Yes, I said it, and yes, I just threw up a little in my mouth as well. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Perhaps I've been reading way too much Karl Marx, for my Marxism class, but the thought keeps popping in my mind. If Mitt Romney is Capitalism on steroids, and I believe he really would make things in this country much worse than it already is, perhaps we should give all these wingnuts and racists exactly what their asking for, truly free market individualistic unbridled capitalism. If Romney becomes elected, perhaps the conditions of possibility for a revolution can come about. I'm not talking about Marxism, Communism, Socialism, I'm talking about real change, something new, a shift in consciousness, but it only seems possible that things will get better, only if they get a lot worse. Would or could this actually happen, probably not, but their is the slightest of chances that instead of eating an infected shit sandwich, the American spirit could get really sick and come back with a much stronger immune system, but more times than not, it will kill us. I know I know, I'm being dramatic, but this is what goes through my head...
We will see, but as of now, I am still undecided...
