A DUSTYBEAR POST SPECIAL SERIES: VOTING/Pt I

FACT: 
California has the 2nd lowest smoking rate in the country, behind Utah.

So, if you live in California, chances are...you don't smoke. Chances are ALSO good that you don't even know anyone else who smokes. That's a FACT.

FACT#2: 
Americans HATE Cancer.

Yup. We do not like Cancer. 
Cancer is a bad thing.

SO, when California decided to put on their state ballot an initiative (CA Prop 29) that would add $1 to the cost of a pack of cigarettes...the proceeds of which would go exclusively to cancer research. Well, DUH?

Slam dunk, right?

Yeh...and a few short weeks before the election, the voters in California were overswhelmingly for that idea. Not even close. Over 2/3 of Californians supported the idea of a tax on cigarettes to fund Cancer research. In March 2012, they did. Yup yup.

BUT...not so fast, bad breath voters...

Then the tobacco industry began an advertising campaign. A blitzkreig if you will. They spent roughly $50m on trying to defeat the proposition. Yup. 

ALMOST $$$ FIFTY MILLION BUCKAROOS $$$.

Then on June 22, 2012, Californians...who only 6 weeks before were without question adamantly in favor of the measure 
VOTED IT DOWN.

DOWN. AS IN DOWN IN FLAMES. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERrooooooooooooo.

Down. Pfffffffft.

(Read the San Francisco Chronicle story about the defeat) 

The point and the issue here is not whether or not anyone agrees or not with the tenets of 
CA PROP 29.

Nope. That is now almost irrelevant.

They was FOR it...B 4 they was agin it. 
(Where have I heard that before).

However, what is the point and the real issue here is this.

The votes of the electorate...
were bought & paid for...and there is no nice or easy way to say this.

They liked the idea. Oh yes they did.
But then...
big tobacco spent $50m on commercials, 
and subsequently the voters turned against it. If that fact alone doesn't tell you that American's principles, their values, 

and their votes are for sale, 
then nothing will, but even if it doesn't? 
Doesn't change the facts.

A majority of California voters, 
non-smokers mind you - overwhelmingly, 
 voted against prop 29, because of $$$ spent in opposition to the prop by a special interest group. Which had a perfect right to do so, but again. That ain't the point.

They voted for tobacco and for an increased risk of cancer because of $$$.

Then there is Wisconsin, where the Walker voters clearly voted against their own best interests to keep an ethnically-questioned governor in office who has proven he is against the middle class & for
big-money interests like his buddies David & Charles Koch (Koch Industries) & Karl Rove. 
Now Mitt Romney as well.

Again, the democrat in the race, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, raised $3.9m and Walker raised over $40m and most of that came from outside WI. Principally from the aforementioned Kochs & Karl Rove's AFP & Crossroad GPS astro-turf groups.

Two more examples of the downside ramifications of Citizens United. But, while I may rail against and decry the actions of unscrupulous politicians to be sure, what 
to me is even more troubling...is how easily the average American voter out here can be manipulated and bought. Whose votes can be bought. WHY? HOW? How did we get to this?

That is the bigger story and the most troubling aspect of both races...
and I do not think it bodes well for either

The 2014 mid-term elections or
the 2016 Presidential elections,
OR 
the future of the country as a whole.

If your vote can be changed by a barrage of negative (& frequently fact-challenged) ads/commercials? Alone? That's IT?

Ads & commercials that pander, are filled with vague factoids and innuendo, tell the electorate what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear?

THAT'S IT? 

Then we as a country are in even worse trouble than I have previously thought. But just those two races alone last night shows quite clearly, 
that what is happening is...too many Americans are voting based on feelings and false information, not on facts and the truth.

Sad day. Sad day...
That is not what America has ever been throughout our history.

Yes there have always been smarmy and ethically-challenged politicians like Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Rick Scott, John Kasich, Paul LePage, Mitch Daniels, et al., or equally dangerous ideologically questionable pols like Todd Aiken, Richard Mourdock, Sharon Angell, Michelle Bachmann...and others...and there have always been low-information, apathetic and dis-engaged people in the electorate as well.

Nothing new there on either front.

But in this age of instant communications and mass media and immense resources to provide the average voter with far more information at the click of a mouse than at any previous juncture in our country's history, 
and yet? 

We have more ignorant voting in this country now than we have ever had in previous elections. Why for Gods sake?

Less than 1% of Americans support elections financially or with their efforts. Thus, we get what we deserve in terms of the candidates we end up choosing from and the legislators we wind up electing to represent us and hoping they will? Perhaps. 

But maybe it's not just for that reason alone.

We have been slowly and systematically drawn to the idea that no government is good. Irregardless of how idiotic and irrational
that idea might be.

(Do I need to remind anyone of the devastating consequences of repealing protective legislation [Glass-Steagall]

which had been enforced by the government for decades that had prevented what subsequently happened after the repeal? Which cost millions of Americans their homes, jobs, cars, 401K's, life savings, pensions, etc., and is still doing so?

Have you hugged your banker today?

Yeh. We definitely need more of that 
happy horseshit).

Drawn to it by the special interests, the big $$$ people who want (and are pushing for) an ignorant and dis-engaged electorate cause it's easier to manipulate the uneducated and the apathetic. No question about that. 

History illuminates that over and over.

& by lying through their forked tongues and fanged teeth...and by trying to, in the words of Scott Walker 'divide & conquer', they are slowly but surely convincing enough voters of that idea to sway elections at the ultimate expense of those same voters...and everyone else.

LET'S BE CLEAR! 

These cretins do not want small or no government, any more than Hitler or Stalin did. They want Government all right. 
Their government. Their government 
which rules over everyone in a totalitarian way. 
Please do not think that that is an overstatement. 
I only wish it were.

We see this already (if people will only look) in Michigan and Virginia to name but two states where we really don't have democracy anymore. Legislating and ruling by fiat. That's dictatorship, not democracy...& which makes me want to cry. The rampant ignorance is stunning.

The Republicans idea of 'every man for him/her self' and let everyone fend for themselves is not what our founding fathers believed. They believed in individual liberty to be sure, but also a sense of community. They were not without fault, but they had heart. This new crop of Republicans lack even the smallest of humanity components.

Sad day indeed.

Ultimately the question to be posed is:

When you are heading to the polls, 
STOP. 

LOOK IN THE MIRROR. 

WHO OR WHAT are you voting for? WHY?

& how will YOUR vote affect the lives of both yourself, your friends and family, and the country.

That is not Pollyanna-ish. That is critical if this country is going to survive. Individual liberty is massively important, But so is community.

If you got the one without the other, 
We as a country are doomed.

Sooner or later, the protests over the last 18 months or so will grow.

Anarchy is possible.

And then what?

DOOMED?

Post Citizens United, perhaps we already are.

BECAUSE IF YOU THINK FOR ONE MINUTE THAT THE 30 STATES THAT ARE MOVING TO LEGISLATE VOTER SUPPRESSION ARE DOING SO BECAUSE THEY LOVE OUR DEMOCRATIC PROCESS?

Moving against women, minorities, unions, voters, gays...whose next? Christians? Don't laugh. Stranger things have happened. That has happened...when the majority began to take what they have for granted and let apathy begin to rule. Unfortunately, apathy has many friends in low places..although the term 'friends' 
may be a bit of a stretch.

BUT IF YOU THINK THEY ARE JUST 
OH SO PRO-AMERICA?

Boy are YOU deluded. They are doing it to CONSOLIDATE POWER FOR THEMSELVES. PERIOD.

POWER. $$$. GREED. 
 That is the God they are serving.

Sad day. Sad day. But they can't accomplish any of this without the cooperation of the rest of us.

& the ultimate irony is they don't even like the people they are using to get their way. 

Do you think for one minute that Karl Rove or the Koch Brothers cares a rats ass about you? 
Gimme a break.

They will use you and me and everyone else until they get what they want and then you and I and all of us are and will be disposable. Into the trashcan/dumpster like the rest of the fools in history who got too lazy and apathetic to fight for their rights and where are any of THEM now? The same place we will be if we don't wake up and fight for what is ours.

Will YOU...SELL-OUT...AMERICA...TODAY? 
They (just another 4-letter word) 
hope you will...& too many of us 
already are and already have.

But, it's still not too late. Maybe. 

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  COPYRIGHT 2013 Dustybear
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED