CFN – Elections are found in a magic box. Who gets to be supreme leader? Over this question, flags have waved, armies battled and prisons both built and destroyed. Who gets to have near direct control over our life, income and ability to support? At last, a chance to select from a vast array of those who will go down in history. Who will take our dreams? Who will impact our reality? Who has the formula?
Elections are a tough call or not such a tough call. Do the tough really get going? Sometimes we get spoiled, I suppose due to unrealistic expectations. If you were alive in the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth or a student of history or politics – you’ve lived a rich life.
I admit to being spoiled and for those who grew wide-eyed, accustomed to hearing the passions of John F. Kennedy, Pierre Trudeau, Rene Levesque, Martin Luther King, Ellen Gabriel or Tommy Douglas speaking, our hearts do not swell the same today. We don’t get goosebumps listening to the current crowd.
It’s not the fault of those who have the honour of tossing their names in the hat, for they do the right thing by stepping up. It’s not the fault of the times we live in, which is equal to any alarm that could be sounded in the past.
When I try to tease, provoke and dare non-voters to vote I offer that, I understand it takes courage to vote and perhaps they lack the courage to vote. They puff their chests, raise their eyebrows and say it isn’t courage, it’s because it doesn’t matter, or they are all the same. Now I roll my eyes. Anywhere you care to look, now or yesterday, it always matters and they’re not all the same. And it does take courage to vote. It takes courage to venture anything where you don’t know, what might happen next? That’s one of the hurdles to voting. We’re setting ourselves up for continual disappointment. We just about always know, we’re going to be disappointed by the outcome of our collective ballot box magic.
We venture forth to pop the question and ask, with the flowers of our voting desire, “Will you be the one for me? Are we meant to be together?”
Our political suitor replies, “Yes. I have never met anyone like you. You are the one for me.”
Then, there we citizens go again, down the path, our heads held high, daring to be disappointed. Yes, it takes courage to vote. When we do vote we open our hearts and everything we have to speculation. When we don’t vote, we stand by and watch. That’s the action of passive observation that the Dali Lama warns about.
Low voting turnouts are a failure on behalf of those who vote and those who run. It’s me and you who didn’t figure out how to trigger the necessity and importance of the courageous action to those, whom it matters to the most. That some things have to be done and that they have to be done this way, now – is part of reality. Talk about once bitten, twice shy – most of us voters have been bitten so many times we’ve lost count. We’re not even sure if Camelot was ever a dream.
We’ve been fooled so many times, it’s as if we never heard of The Who. We dare to dream. I didn’t know until lately that it takes courage to dream. I’m surprised because Cohen said, we were innocent when we dream. Let’s all take one small step forward. It’s a giant leap. I saw a rabbit pulled out of a hat once. It could happen again. Click your heels together when you get the chance. Look way up. When we vote we’ll be dreaming.
https://www.createspace.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Rabbits-
We vote for a dream which we may or may not get.
Not voting means that you cannot complain about the nightmares you might get.
VOTE
Well said! Voting is a leap of faith. It’s a chance for you to place your trust in someone because you hope that they and their vision can make this a better place.
You all know my politics, so I won’t endorse anyone here.
Know this. The election is never in the bag until all the votes are counted.
And my only even slightly political statement is this. Don’t vote for someone who is going to help YOU. Vote for someone who is trying to help EVERYONE.
Some also say that voting is a civic responsibility and perhaps it is.
However, in my lexicon, it is an expression of my self worth. It is an expression to send a message that I matter and that my freedom and liberty is not to be taken for granted or tampered with by deceit and hokus-pokus.
At the end of the day, the part that aggravates me most is the deceit and concocted double- talk that succeeds by treating the electorate with disdain and as if we were all mushrooms….being kept in the dark and fed chicken- poop.
We have seen enormous quantities of this in this contest especially from our right wing bretheren who have learned from the Ottawa Feds and who paid to learn from their counterpart Neo-cons in Washington.
My wish would be that people consider a simple principle as preached by Mahatma Ghandi, ” You can be a minority of one, But, the truth is the truth”
So, go out and exercise the truth to enrich your lives and to set an example to your progeny.
Roy, man never saw dinosaurs because they were extinct way before man came along.
Where I live, Leeds-Grenville, the Conservatives have held the riding provincially since 1919. That’s ninety-two freaking years straight! Talk about a safe riding for the Cons. My Golden Retriever would win if he had taken over from Runciman instead of Steve Clark. I do vote, but I know it’s a total waste of time.
@ Gertie. I suspect that a certain preacher would disagree with you.
I actually like Steve Clark.
Steve is an OK guy, I’m sure. Very affable, takes a good picture, and doesn’t have to do anything beyond that to have a job for life. My dog has the same attributes.
“as if we were all mushrooms” etc.—great analogy, mashoud. . . and excellent post overall.
Gertie…come fly with me, walk in my foot steps.
http://johntitor.com/
Gee, Gertie you don’t recall that night we had together in 2025? Remember, you, me and mashoud? We left everything behind and did that thing with the IBM5100? Course you fellows got that nasty knock on the head from General Fizz. Still – thought you would remember where you got the scars from. See you.
For Illum’s sake John. Shut up. It was tough enough getting PJR and Furtz back. Remember what to do if Jerry and Jamie have their memory triggered.
http://www.manybooks.net/titles/wellshgetext92timem11.html
Furtz, what is HG on about?
No idea, PJR. I’m in suspenders too.
The 2011 Ontario election may have been legal but it doesn’t meet the criteria for a legitimate, rational election. It didn’t meet the majority requirement of quorum. In reality, the process, outcome and players don’t have majority social consensus or approval. I don’t know where that path leads, but there it is.