Dangling Dorges

Reader, I want you to vote this year.

I think you should vote for Obama, personally, but really I just want you to get out and vote.

I think you should take an active part in your government.

Even if your vote really doesn't count. I'm really not even sure how it works. But there is a system, and we're a part of that system.

I know you think of yourself as a fringer. But the fact that there's a fringer demographic means that you're not really a fringer. I mean, I guess it's cool to only wear tennis shoes from yard sales, but.

I think you should participate solely because you'll be more interesting to talk to when I'm drinking.

When you tell me you didn't vote I kinda just roll my eyes. It's because you were lazy that you didn't vote. It's not because your vote didn't count, or that there wasn't any real choice, or that you can see the puppet masters, or that you wanted to make a stand against the machine. It was because you were too lazy.

It's not that I'm convinced that a vote makes a difference, really I'm pretty sure it doesn't. But, I am convinced that a vote isn't just a person qualifying what they believe in, but also in what they do not.

I will be standing in that voting booth, shoulders squared and toes pointed outward, silently protesting the things that make me angry.

That woman on the news standing in line for Chik Fil A saying "I don't believe in gay marriage. At All." ? When I vote regarding my beliefs, that's me responding with a "Fuck you, you stupid cunt," and I feel good all over.

When Clint Eastwood talks to a chair for twenty minutes? My vote is saying "That was absurd, old man."

When I'm standing in that booth, I'm humming the theme song from Roe v. Wade.

I wish I could cue some light drumming in the background as you read this, with a flag billowing around to amp the fervor up a little, but I can't do that yet.

I want to excite you about the won practice we have as American Citizens that is drenched in blood.

I'm not here to give you any Freedom isn't Free or Power of Pride bullshit. I just want you to plant your flag in the ground and stand by it.

I know it's easy to be a cynic, to look at the whole convention with contempt. Afterall, at the end of the day, you are a smear of statistics; a wedge of society to sell things to.

But don't you want to pick which wedge?