You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction?: some post-election ramblings

“I’ve been seeking P.F. Sloan, but no one knows where he has gone.”- Jimmy Webb

P.F. Sloan was a great songwriter of the 1960s who, in addition to being an original member of the Grass Roots wrote “Eve of Destruction” for Barry McGuire. It is that song I keep coming back to today. I’ve been thinking about how relevant it still is today, quite a feat for a tune as overtly specific as that one. The reason for this is the state of the broken political system for the past 40 years or so.

I’m not angry about the election results. I’m not saddened. In fact, a small part of me is happy. Happy that justice was served and the sellout do-nothing Democrats I happily voted for two years ago were removed from office. I’m even happier that Pelosi is no longer Speaker of the House, although I wish it had come as a result of her defeat and not a nationwide Republican victory. I wish Reid had went down too. Maybe then the Democrats would stop watering down Obama’s plans. But a bigger part of me sees that the Republicans are just as bad and the entire system is broken.

Just look at the Ohio gubernatorial race for instance. In a democracy, nobody should ever have to make the choice between the lesser of two evils. Ted Strickland has screwed this state up for four years, lost 400,000 jobs, and cut funding for libraries statewide (yet still had the effrontery to call himself the “education candidate”). John Kasich, a former Lehman Brothers employee, is the ultimate Wall Street insider. What kind of choice is that? I actively advocated voting out all incumbents, so maybe I’m partially to blame for Kasich’s win, but I don’t think so.

You see, there were four choices on the ballot: Strickland, Kasich, a Libertarian, and a Green Party candidate. I chose the Libertarian and I believe that all Ohioans know deep down that either of the latter two candidates would have been a better choice than the major parties. I have been told by numerous people that they also would have went with the Libertarian, but didn’t want to waste their vote. My reply was this (and I hereby grant Nader, Kucinich, Ron Paul, or any other independent or independent-minded potential Presidential candidates the right to use it): “If enough people waste their vote, maybe we’ll see a change in this country.”

The fact is that, as Woody said, “this land is your land, this land is my land.” You and I are intelligent people. We know that the Democrats and Republicans both suck, but we are told by the mass media and the government that they are the only two feasible options. Don’t buy into in 2012. Vote your heart, not what the media dictates. Waste your vote and save the country.