Wednesday, 15 May 2019
I was having an online discussion with a friend today. Talking about the events in Georgia/Alabama/The Deep South with respect to Roe V Wade. Seems I had much to say.
Yeah. There’s that chart. Where not one state has 25% of the people who responded to the poll that are against abortion, as it currently exists. This chart (obviously from Data For Progress):
Here’s what’s striking about that. 75% of the 75% that supports abortion rights doesn’t vote. Ever. For any reason.
This is how the Republican Party, and the Christian Conservatives, have risen to power, politically. People simply don’t vote. They don’t get out on Tuesdays, and they don’t vote. For whatever reason. It’s inconvenient (which it very painfully is). It’s meaningless (Money makes the rules, etc.). Nothing will change (Still Democrats VS Republicans, with nothing different on the horizon). Still have no voice in the government, local, state, or national.
Whatever the reason, people don’t vote. The result? Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, and right on down the line.
And, because no one votes, no one cares about redistricting, and no one cares about Gerrymandering, and no one cares if people lose the right to vote. Because. Voting is meaningless in so very many ways.
No matter who you vote in, that $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier is going to get built. Walmart will get another tax break. So will Amazon. Apple will continue to become more and more monopolistic. Jeff Bezos will get richer. So will Bill Gates. And too many people will still end up wondering if they have enough cash left to reach the next paycheck, and wondering how many days they can live on Mac N Cheese made with water, not milk. And they’ll still drive that car that needs tires, and brakes repaired, and is like driving a death trap, ’cause they have to get to work to make the next bill payment, and that will leave nothing to get the car fixed with.
People don’t vote, because no matter how they vote, or who they vote for, it won’t change a damn thing for them in their daily lives.
And the result? Alabama. Georgia. And right on down the line.
Of course, you can’t explain this to anyone. You can’t give anyone an understanding of this. It won’t happen. It doesn’t work. It’s like trying to explain the color blue to a concrete slab.
Until something happens that changes how things are, the decay will continue, and more people will not vote, and the chaos of politics will grow. Until something happens that changes the survival mode of more and more people, those people won’t vote, because, neither party helps them.
They don’t care about abortion. They don’t care about tax cuts. They don’t care about government debt. They don’t care about women’s equality, and the lack of equal pay. They don’t care about sexual harassment.
They care about getting dinner every night this week for the kids. About making the payment on the electric bill. About having hot water for another 30 days. About being able to wear clean clothing to work. About being able to eat breakfast at all. About being able to buy new socks to replace the ones full of holes.
This is why people don’t vote. Because. NEITHER party is doing anything to change that. So, it doesn’t matter which party runs things. They still have the same situation. The same problems. The same daily grind.
The political ideals of the Democrats have no meaning to them. “You want me to vote for you? Buy me and my family dinner for the next 4 years.”
The GOP cuts taxes. Because. That talks straight to pocket books. “If they lop off 20% of my taxes, I can feed my family another 20 nights this year.”
I work at Geek Squad. We call people every day. Every day, I deal with the phone system saying, “The number you have called has been disconnected.” Because. The person couldn’t pay their phone bill. Literally. They couldn’t pay the phone bill. So the phone got disconnected.
We see people buying the $200 piece of junk laptops. Because. It. Works. It flat works. Nothing fancy. No bells. No whistles. No gaming. No music. It runs. They can write on it. They can do homework on it. They can get on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. And $200 means they only have to skip lunch for a month.
Best Buy has a new program. With some company I never heard of. A “lease to own” program. It’s almost guaranteed you will qualify for a lease to own purchase, if you can’t qualify for anything else.
One catch. Make the payments, as scheduled, and you’ll bay $2400 US for that $1000 computer.
Why would anyone do that? Because. That’s the only way they can get the computer. It’s like the humans that purchase cars on leases, knowing they have to get a new car in 36 months. They can’t afford the monthly payment for a purchase. But, that lease payment brings it down to where they can make the monthly payment.
Too bad the monthly payment never, ever ends.
These people. These people are the ones who don’t vote. Because. Nothing either party is doing, or supports, makes one damn bit of difference to them. Nothing either party stands for helps them one damn bit. So, Trump got elected, not Hillary. They still can’t make this months phone bill payment, and have to live without a phone for a while. They still can’t buy hamburger to make hamburger helper, so they get to eat hot dog wienies. With no bun. And no fixings. For lunch.
Until that changes. Until some party, some political organization, somewhere, addresses that type of problem, and makes things better for them.
They won’t ever vote. Because. It doesn’t matter. It literally doesn’t matter.
If you’re wondering how organizations like ISIS, and Hamas rise to power, this is part of how. They fed people. They set up day care centers. They provided free education, and taught people to read and write. They provided water, and toilet paper, and electricity.
Of course, those people who had nothing supported them. Because, they made life better for those people. Yes, it was a means to an end. A way to gather power, and become another party that doesn’t care about anyone but the party itself, and the party leadership.
But, they knew the truth. If you help the disenfranchised, the disenfranchised support you. Because. Thanks to you, they get to eat dinner this week.
How do things like Georgia, and Alabama happen? Because no one cares. Why does no one care? Because they have bills to pay. And mouths to feed. And families to raise. And don’t care at all about what happens in politics, and in Washington DC, or Atlanta, Georgia, or anywhere else. They have bigger problems. More important things to deal with.
My Soul's Tears 