So I'm sitting here sort of waiting to see what the outcome of the midterm elections is going to be. It sort of looks like the Democrats might take the House and the Senate. So I imagine all my liberal friends showing up today and being in a celebratory mood and all that. It's funny, but I just feel hollow about the whole thing. To be honest, the fact that I even have to watch the news to find out what's going to happen after all that's gone down in the last six years is revolting.
I have this friend who will remain nameless (Juwhan) who recently became a citizen of the US. He has lived here for a great deal of his life and recently had his citizenship switched from South Korean to American. When I asked him if he wanted to come with me to the polls, he said he wasn't going to vote. I was taken aback. I asked him why he wasn't voting and he said it was because he didn't give a shit. When I appealed to him as a friend, he replied that if I forced him to go to the polls he would vote republican just to piss me off. I decided to let him off the hook.
This situation offended the hell out of me. It made me so angry that i seethed for the entire day. In a country where the rights of the individual are the basis for pretty much everything we do (theoretically), why am I offended when that individual chooses to not give a damn?
Maybe this is a reflection of my concern over the community i keep. When you think about the population of the United States, it is no surprise that a lot of people dont vote. You know, there are bound to be low-lifes like gangsters and prostitutes who don't care what happens because they're already outlaws and societal rejects. I like to think that i stear clear of this demographic, however. I like to think of my friends as this group of socially conscious, if rather cynical, altruists. The fact that one of them won't walk into the damned polling place to check some boxes in order to sway the government of the country is absurd. This is not what Pericles had in mind. What's next, people driving their cars without touching the steering wheel?
When pressed, Juwhan responds that he "doesn't believe in the system." Now, for a second, I feel some sort of kinship here because I don't believe in the system either. As I have stated on numerous occasions, I don't think Capitalist Democracy is an effective way of running a country in this age. Sure, when we had vast swaths of land that was not inhabited at all, there was some logic in letting personal wealth be our motivating force and allowing the people who stand to gain influence the system of government. After all, land was pretty close to free and land equals wealth. Unfortunately, there is no place in America where you can just build a house and call the land around it yours. Thus we need to protect those who do not have land, or who have less of it for that matter.
Isn't protection what this is all about after all? I mean government. Isn't that why we, as a race, stopped fighting directly with each other and submit to the control of government? I mean, if we are going to leave a lot of people unprotected, don't those unprotected people have the right, no, the responsibility, to destroy those who have created their oppression (strong words but when the rich get wealthy by making the poor work in shitty situations despite their own lack of need, there is no other way to refer to it)? Let's look at it this way: if I break into the home of someone who has more than me and I take it away, the police come and lock me up. If the wealthier person abuses those who work for him, the police don't do shit. Maybe, if the oppressed manage to get legal representation, they can sue the oppressor and reduce the amount of financial gain, but really, there is always the argument that the worker didn't HAVE to submit to the conditions of the employer in order to make his living. What happens when the wealthy organize? What happens when the workers organize? The bottom line is that the wealthy can hold out longer than the poor without income. Government must not only protect an individual's right to make money, it must protect the poor from starvation, from lack of health care, and frankly, in a country a rich as ours, from working too hard. It could certainly be argued that our government does none of these. It does not only benefit the poor to be protected in this way, it benefits the rich in the form of decreased social unrest. In short, it keeps me from breaking into your house to steal your fancy shit. You already know this. I digress.
It turns out there is an even sadder truth behind all this. The oppression of the poor can account for the low voter turn out among the undereducated. This is a function of the division that capitalism allows to be placed between the worlds of the rich and poor. So long as the rich don't have to educate their children in the same schools as the poor, there is no motivation (negative motivation, in fact) to see to the quality of the education of the poor. This quickly gets into the territory of urban planning but I'll try to hold back. This is, remarkably, not my point.
My point is that Juwhan is not undereducated. He went to fine schools, public and private, throughout his upbringing. He graduated from the University of Virginia. There is something else at work here. There is an emerging class in America who do not vote because they are generally discontent with the way the system is operating but are comfortable enough that there is not margin in taking to the streets in protest. As long as we/ they can come home and drink a few beers and play video games, the nagging discontent will be held at bay and the discomfort of a failing social paradigm can be mitigated to the point that one can consider the daily struggle comfortable. In short, we have gone from a country that struggled toward an egalitarian ideal to a country that struggles only to maintain a position of complacency and consequently, of ignorance. The problem is that people are dying for us to not give a shit. Whether you believe in karma or not, this is not a grant but a loan.
When we become so lazy as a culture that we can no longer hold a position of power on the world stage (really, how long do you think a culture who would rather eat a cheeseburger from mcdonalds than expend a little energy to create actual food can maintain dominance over the much more zealous cultures of the world?) we must be prepared for the repercussions of the abuses of decency we are currently carrying out. When someone has done you wrong while in power, your own rise to power almost certainly spells disaster for your oppressor. We can expect no different. Rather than arrogantly believing that our position was granted by God, or that we will buck all trends to the contrary throughout world history, we should use our current power to try to move forward in the way that people and nations treat each other and the world we live in. This doesn't include recklessly using up resources so that we can maintain a life of using pacifiers to quell that sinking feeling that everything is NOT alright in our world.
What will it take to get us up off our asses? I vote for the draft. If it were not just the sons of the poor dying for our oil, but the sons of congressmen and oil barons and bankers, we might see more clearly the cost of autocentric development. People are dying for our drive to work. Funny, I would have thought a young man or woman's blood would be worth more than $2.09/Gal.
It looks like the Congress and Senate will both go to the Democrats. This is a small step in the right direction. Just don't, as my grandmother used to say, break your arm trying to pat yourself on the back.
