I haven’t posted on TMV for almost a month. I did not watch either Political Convention but I was forced to see Uncle Bill’s address since my spouse had it turned on while I was in the same room reading a book and I was too lazy to get up and go to another room. I have no interest in commenting on the pointless, diversionary, and manipulated election process that remains in the U.S.
I will note that former President Clinton can sure give a great speech and could be elected again to the Presidency against any other President or candidate of the past 20 years – except possibly a hologram of President Reagan. Too bad Uncle Bill will never admit that many of the public policies he enacted in tandem with a Republican Congress have directly led us to the dismal political and economic situation currently facing this nation.
Before Homeland Security, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the NSA, FBI and CIA, and the U.S. and Arizona Attorney Generals send in their agents to arrest me as a public warning to the dozens of people who actually commit or plan to commit voter fraud across the nation and make programming those “black-hole” electronic voting machines all the more difficult, please note that I’m just thinking about it. I realize for many members of most Christian faiths and some people in the other 2 Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Islam) believe that a mere thought can be sinful and strictly prohibited or else one will face the wrath of God on the final judgment day. However merely “entertaining” illegal, unethical or immoral thoughts do not generally constitute a “criminal offense” in most U.S. courtrooms – but many in government are working to change that.
There are many Federal and State criminal statutes against “attempted murder, attempted rape or attempted assault” but the person is always doing something else illegal or criminal. In most cases those particular crimes would have likely been committed if something or someone did not intervene. The prosecution usually has to prove “intent” or some mental state by visible actions, spoken words or objective third-party testimony.
Our laws start moving farther afield when we impose “felony murder” charges upon people who were committing a crime with one or more other people. This happens often during an armed robbery and the getaway driver is charged with felony murder when his partner stupidly kills the victim even when that was not the intent of either and even if the driver did not know his partner had a weapon. Then there are the sad cases of the many statutory “3 strikes you’re out” laws where people convicted of their third misdemeanor are then sentenced as felons with much longer prison terms. These moronic and pointlessly nasty laws do not have the punishment remotely fitting the actual acts or intentions of the people being convicted and sentenced – but at least the more people we relegate to prison the lower the unemployment rate will be.
Our police departments and prosecutors across the nation enjoy playing “entrapment” games where they provide all the set-up, equipment, money, secure locations, communication devices, and even weapons to one or more angry, stupid and/or gullible people so they almost commit a crime. (With the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun running and Mexican drug cartel escapade, things worked out rather poorly – but then the government is always immune from its own stupidity.) Entrapment works great on people planning to kill their spouses, buying or selling drugs, looking for prostitutes, or who have “terrorist” or “anti-establishment” tendencies but they have none of the skills or intelligence to actually commit the crimes without police assistance. Even though these games constitute a massive waste of public funds and a misdirection of public time, energy and manpower, they’re fun and generally make the evening news.
I was born in New York City over 50 years ago. (All the people who signed my birth certificate at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan are dead and likely could not testify to its veracity. My mother lives in Michigan near my sister but she didn’t sign the document and being originally from Italy might not be a believable witness to the event – she could have been in Hawaii or Africa at that time.) Until 2006 when I moved to Arizona, I lived principally in Ohio and Illinois with many long visits to many European countries, Canada and Colombia. So am I a “real” American?
I have voted in every Federal, State and local election since I turned 18 years of age while I was living in Toledo, Ohio – another hotbed haven for global terrorists and non-citizens. When I was away from my registered places to vote, I voted absentee due to school or foreign travels. I have a U.S. passport, an Arizona driver’s license, and an inactive Ohio Bar License. I have also been issued a special “Voter ID” card by the State of Arizona. For decades, I foolishly believed that voting for one candidate or party actually made a difference. But no more will I remain so deceived and completely deluded.
I really would like to commit some type of voter fraud now that I have announced publicly on TMV several times this year that I will not be voting in the upcoming November elections at the national or state level. Nobody seems to care if I vote or not, but dammit: trying to commit any voter fraud as a native-born U.S. Citizen will definitely get everyone’s attention. I see this as the only remaining peaceful means of protest and defiance against the corrupt status quo where elections have become mere entertainment and the American people have lost all their political power to corrupt and greedy corporate oligarchs. There is no honor or duty for any citizen to legitimize an illegitimate status quo by participating in sham elections.
I don’t want to go back to Ohio to vote even though I lived there for almost 20 years and it is a key “swing” state whose voters will be among the hundreds of thousands in the U.S. who will likely determine the 2012 Presidential election. (I found out a few years ago that I was still registered there even though I registered in Arizona 6 years ago – so much for the recent stupid antics of the Ohio Attorney General in trying to suppress real but poor or minority citizens from voting. “Attorney Genital” is what many lawyers call the nasty and incompetent AGs.) However as a Phoenix, AZ voter, the vast majority of pollsters around the nation say my vote won’t really matter anyway in comparison to casting a vote in Ohio and a few other swing states.
We live in places that are so separated politically and geographically that the election winners can be readily predicted by even the dumbest of pollsters because so much of the electorate is even dumber, clueless, partisan, ill-informed and easily misled. Thus I join the 40% of Americans who generally don’t ever vote because of their sheer disinterest, narcissism, laziness, shallowness, or cynicism. I’m part of the last group of cynics – who understand – just as the late George Carlin said – the powers that be just don’t give a f**k about you so voting is a complete waste of time. If this non-voting electorate exceeds 55 to 60 percent in a future major national election, then the status quo would be officially illegitimate and ripe for a fall and replacement.
My very attractive (and eleven-years my junior) spouse is not a U.S. citizen. She is a permanent legal resident and she plans to apply for naturalization next year. She speaks Spanish and English fluently and was born in beautiful Cartagena, Colombia. She entered the U.S. with a proper Visa and all her papers. Her legal status entitles her to work, travel and do most everything a U.S. citizen may perform under what’s left of our tattered Constitution. She pays all her taxes and has never even had a traffic citation all the years she has lived in the U.S. and been my wife.
However my wife cannot vote and if she is convicted of a felony, she could be subject to deportation. She’s politically far to the left of me – a sweet and hopelessly liberal progressive who cares deeply about all human beings and the health of the planet. Over the past 3 decades I’ve supported Republicans and Democrats, given money to candidates of both parties, and my views have wandered all over the useless Matrix called the “political spectrum.” I am now way outside the box and beyond all Matrices – somewhat akin to how a Comet is related to a Solar System – If I can even be tied to the Milky Way Galaxy.
Since my spouse is forced by living with me to actually hear my weekly rants (instead of just mercifully having the choice of reading them on TMV) she has been surprised to hear my announcement that I’m not going to vote ever again – starting this November.
Our 13-year-old son was born in Chicago, Illinois. When he is confronted by my many rants, he just rolls his eyes and starts playing a video game on the same computer I write my TMV rants. From speaking with my son and hearing his opinions, I don’t think he is at all delusional about the current state of affairs. However I have strongly questioned his interest in becoming both a photo journalist and regular “written” journalist as possibly being “dead-end” careers from a financial standpoint.
But why should I criticize my son for doing what he really loves – even though it will not make money for the owners of our largest private corporations? (Is an education or a career path only valuable or worthwhile if you solely exist to make money for the 1% in society? Isn’t life too short for such a myopic worldview?) I have graduate degrees in Law and Business and that after a 25-year career in many companies, small businesses and several private legal practices, they have all led me to mostly meaningless and irregular part-time work over the past 3 years in Ariozna.
Fortunately my spouse works a full-time job that employs her bilingual skills and provides a sufficient salary so that the 3 of us can survive monthly even after taxes, healthcare premiums and 401K contributions are deducted. Being over 50 in this broken and imploding fraudulent economy, my erratic income from non-criminal activities cannot be counted upon for monthly expenses. Most of us “little people” are just disposible individuals to our oligarchy.
I would like to point out that a significant number of lunatics on the far right of our political and economic spectrums would question my “right” to vote or my spouse’s and son’s “rights” in this Nation. I was born in NYC and my son in Chicago – neither being considered “real” places in American to some other Americans because of their strong liberal and democratic tendencies. In fact, some conservative tea-partiers argue that liberals and progressives should not even be allowed to vote because they are godless evil socialists bent on destroying our nation.
Some nut-jobs may argue that my spouse is probably secretly working for a Colombian drug cartel and she is just using her beauty, intelligence and charms for nefarious purposes. She’s very confusing and suspicious to some people because of her dark skin but “white European” facial features. Her hair can be straight or curly depending upon the humidity outside and how she blow-dries her hair after she showers – definitely signs she’s up to no good.
The more I see state legislatures act and some angry Americans speak, I sometimes think that about half the nation would like to disenfranchise the other half because they are enemies of the state, criminals, and/or they disagree with them politically. I predict that if President Obama is re-elected, the far right will throw a fit and cause much social and political unrest over the next 4 years. Our current Congress that serves their corporate and oligarchic masters will be re-elected with only minor changes in personnel. For the next 4 years the U.S. will remain a mess and be essentially ungovernable. Electing Mitt Romney will not change this trajectory since he will also be at war with the same right-wing lunatics and pseudo fascists who can – even as a minority – stop anything from getting through Congress.
A few weeks ago my wife engaged me in some sweet pillow talk when both my thinking organs were non-functional but happy. She asked that if I were not going to vote, why I couldn’t vote for her candidates instead. If I was no longer interested in legitimizing the broken status quo, she would be more than happy to participate – a sort of a test run for the time when she would have obtained her citizenship in a few years. (She even used the correct “subjunctive” verb form – all the more obvious to some that she – and I – could never be “real” Americans.)
Spouses often influence the thoughts and actions of each other. So when would taking out the garbage move from a voluntary to a coerced action? Generally speaking, all communications between legally married spouses are still considered “confidential” and inadmissible in criminal proceedings against either spouse, so what’s the harm or illegality of one spouse voting for the other? (What if we were a gay couple legally married in one state but living in a state that prohibits such marriages? What would be considered confidential spousal communications?) If my wife convinced me to vote for her candidates while on a trip to Canada because she water-boarded me – would that be illegal (or just fine) according to the U.S. Justice Department?
I am merely throwing out this big question (and a few others) to all the zealous voter purists and anti-immigrant wingnuts around the country. It would be nice to get a legal opinion on this potential act. It’s not that Attorney General Eric Holder is very busy prosecuting any of the hundreds of criminals on Wall Street and elsewhere who were responsible for so many egregiously criminal business and financial actions over the past 6 to 10 years. He and his staff could easily pen a short memo on this subject before the elections. (Could U.S. citizens vote absentee from Guantanamo? Could I call President Putin of Russia to get his recommendations on the upcoming U.S. election? Should I base my vote on the candidate with the most TV commercials in his favor and the most negative ads against his opponent – so as to approve Citizens United? The Justice Department and Homeland Security could have a field day extrapolating the possibilities.)
The Obama Administration has given our corrupt plutocracy and kleptocracy a full license to keep doing the same crimes against most of humanity so long as the campaign contributions keep rolling in to both political parties. We have created a nation where all power and wealth rest in the most sociopathic and psychopathic among us. Too many officials and employees of our security state now consider most citizens to be criminals or terrorists so any type of repression is possible if they complain about their masters. It is therefore my civic duty as a thinking U.S. citizen to oppose the current system by all peaceful means possible.
I would appreciate the entertainment value of seeing at least a half dozen federal and state agents holding me down as I leave my home on November 6th in order to prevent me from committing a yet-to-defined new type of “voter fraud.” I’m announcing to the world (and I’m sure every Federal Spy Agency is able to record and read what I post on TMV and what I say on my cell phone) so there’s no mystery of my nefarious intentions on bringing down the U.S. Government by secretly voting for my non-citizen spouse’s preferred candidates instead of staying home.
I await my fate calmly and resolutely.
Submitted on September 10, 2012 from Phoenix, AZ by Marc Pascal.
N.B. Some TMV readers might suggest that my posts would be much shorter if I posted more frequently instead of waiting like a constipated asshole and letting all the s**t explode out so infrequently. My simple response: It’s just more fun this way.