From Hodges--A respose.

This was the orignal post.

This is the most jaded as fuck blog I have ever posted and I considered editing some of my more inflamatory statements, but decided not to. Better to let everything stand as is and hope my readers are intelligent enough to engage in debate without hurling insults... Here goes.

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I got a posting on my MySpace bulletin board last week encouraging me to go out and vote. It was a long, relatively well-written piece, much more intelligent than 90 percent of the things you usually see in your MySpace and it got it's point across of lighting a fire under the ass of young voters who might not vote. And it accomplished this with an antagonizing... I'd call it a DARE. The key sentence in the post was this: "They're calling our generation the Apathetic Generation." Basically with a war, a nuclear threat and a laundry list of other issues, "they" are saying we're too preoccupied with MySpace and our iPods and the finals of Dancing with the Stars to go out and even vote.

You know what I have to say to that? You're right! And can you fucking blame us? I assume the "they" in this posting meant the Baby Boomers. Our parents' generation who marched across campuses, rallied for a common cause and got shot at by the National Guard. They think it's a travesty that we're not more involved the way they were. Well gosh ex-hippies, could you please show me one thing all your hot and bothered marching accomplished in this nation besides a half-decade of better-than-average music? You people are the ones in charge right now and apparently, to listen to you and all your bellyaching, things are STILL fucked up. Well if they're fucked up, then it's YOUR FAULT. You were so riled up and idealistic and ready to change the world and THIS is what you came up with? Forty years later, our choices for president are an apparent imbecile and a guy who can't make up his mind which way he thinks he voted on something? Frankly, if this is the best you produced with all your passionate ire, I am not impressed.

And apparently YOU aren't impressed either because you've given up on trying to change the world in favor of just trying to make money any way you can. You ruined perfectly beautiful, perfectly pristine land in order to put up housing developments and corporate parks and billboards and WalMarts. You've got Home Depots and Targets in fifteen minute intervals and a Walgreens and Blockbuster at every major intersection. You've got the same ten damn songs playing on every radio station and nine hundred channels of Survivor clones playing twenty-four hours a day. This is the best you could come up with? You told us as kids that we had to work hard, play by the rules and go to college or else we'd never amount to anything. Well now the market is saturated with millions upon millions of us who bought into that hype which rendered most of our degrees essentially meaningless. We're qualified to fetch your coffee and put up with your shit. Fuck, I could have done that right out of highschool and saved myself a good eighty thousand dollars. You decided about twenty years ago that changing the world was no longer feasible, so you gave up and decided to simply change your own world - which basically meant saving up enough to go on a cruise every year and buy that timeshare in Florida. So you started buying property. You started building houses. You caused a supply and demand crisis that drove prices up so damn high, then started offering "interest only loans" that you've made it pretty damn near impossible for anybody in our generation's "middle class" to be able to buy a house that they have any prayer of actually paying off in their lifetime.

Guess what baby boomers, we've got a lot of our own shit to deal with just trying to survive in this world that YOU created. The world you were going to change forty years ago... well, you changed it alright. Thanks ever so much. And now you want to vilify us by saying we're apathetic? You know what, when it comes to politics, you're right, we ARE apathetic. You've shown us there's no value in getting riled up about things of that nature. For some reason, you still keep placing THE VOTE as the golden answer to all that ails this country. Somehow you've lost sight of something that was all too clear to you forty years ago: Politicians, ALL politicians are lying, scheming, dirty pigs who will promise you anything to get elected and then never deliver once they're in office. We all know that. Everybody knows that. But for some reason you choose to forget that fact every couple of years from the second week in October through the first week in November. During that time, you try to convince us that our vote actually means something, that it can actually change things. But let's not lie to ourselves. We're not voting for people who can actually change things. We're voting for talking points and sound bites.

I'll say this loud and clear so there's no mistaking what I'm saying: "Take your all powerful VOTE... and shove it up your wrinkled ex-hipped ass." How's that for apathetic?

I can hear the cries now. "People died for your rights! They died so you could have a say!"

Let's set the record straight shall we. These people that are always referred to in this age-old guilt trip, weren't fighting for liberty. Most of the guys who fought and died in the war for independence were poor farmers and laborers who realized they could make more money fighting in the military than they could making candlesticks. The idea of liberty from Great Britain was as intangible to them as a free Iraq is for us today. This is evidenced by the fact that when the war was over and the United States of America was formed, all these brave men who fought and DIDN'T die... WEREN'T ALLOWED TO VOTE! Voting was reserved for the elite class of landowners. THEY were the ones who really wanted independence. It had nothing to do with freedom of speech or freedom of religion. It had to do with THEIR freedom to make shitloads of money without having to pay taxes on it to England. So let's not give supernatural status to the fight for liberty. The ones who fought and died of course deserve to be honored for their bravery and their sacrifice. Unfortunately, everything they fought and died for (in theory) was perverted and raped the instant the war was over by the very people who encouraged them to embrace ideas like "Patriotism".

Maybe it's different these days. Everybody has the right to vote now, but what can those votes really accomplish anymore? Either we elect this rich arrogant liar who says he'll support gay marriage. Or we elect this rich arrogant liar who says he'll abolish abortion. Does it really matter? Does anybody really believe they'll deliver on these promises? Does it really matter who takes control of Congress next week? I mean REALLY? Is the tide of the country going to turn that much? Can anybody point back to a definitive point in the last forty years where a change of power yielded some dramatic result that wasn't going to naturally occur anyway? Our country is on a direct course to somewhere. I'm not sure where that somewhere is, but it's got the momentum of over two hundred years and a pork barrel full of multi-billion-dollar corporations. It's naiveté to think a new politician is going to have the kind of power to effect any REAL change. It would be like a squirrel thinking it could change the direction of a big damn Hummer barreling down the road at eight miles a gallon. The driver of that big SUV might swerve slightly for a second just to avoid getting blood on their paintjob. Then again, they might just squash the squirrel for getting in their way. Either way, before the squirrel even begins to fade in the rearview mirror, the Hummer will have reestablished its original course.

So to a full of apathetic shit heads like myself... if you feel no compulsion to go out and vote next Tuesday, don't let them make you feel guilty. Just like all those times you never visited your grandmother's grave... she didn't notice when you didn't show up, and neither will the country. If you DO feel compelled to go out and vote, at least make a half-hearted effort to show you actually want change and VOTE OUTSIDE PARTY LINES. Vote Green. Vote Libertarian. Vote Constitutional. Vote Independent. Vote for ex-actors, porn stars, athletes and country-western singers who have decided to throw their hat into the ring. People will say you wasted your vote, but at least with a candidate like that you are somewhat assured that you won't be voting for a career politician. Most of the people running under these banners are legitimately passionate about what they preach and very likely WOULD do everything in their power to bring about real change. Though once again, if they actually did get elected, it would still be like a squirrel taking on an H3, but at least we'll have made a token effort.

If you really want to make a difference though, don't sit around waiting for politicians to do it for you. If you learn anything from the Baby Boomer generation who mocks you, it should be that putting faith in politicians only leads to... well just look around. Instead, effect change on an individual level. Help your own community. Volunteer. Teach a kid to read. Walk for breast cancer. Take a lower paying job at a company whose ideals you actually respect. Pick up litter where you see it. WALK to the quarter mile to the post office. Buy hybrid. Avoid chain stores when you can help it. Shop for quality first and price second. Don't sue somebody just because you stub your fucking toe. Real change happens slowly. It happens by one person affecting another. Then that person affects somebody else. In time, perhaps enough people will be affected by the others in their daily lives that as a group they WILL rise up and make a real change. Then again maybe not. But at least there, you have a hope.

Voting is a great idea in theory... but let's not be naïve here people.

Neddy's Response

The beauty of our country is that we are allowed freedom of speech. Many people cared enough to come together and ensure that the rest of us would forever have that right. That all being said, this is one of the saddest, most disillioned blogs I have ever read. No doubt our country has problems but it always has and always will. But the thing is, we can change it if we choose to get involved. Politics for better or worse are an integral part of making that change. If you don't believe that, move to North Korea and see what a country is like where people have no say in their politics. There are so many things that polticians have done for the better of our country that I won't dignify the ignorence of this blog with a list. Instead of being whinny and angry, do some research and find out how we got civil rights, the education act, national parks and the ability for woman to vote and have equality. It's OK to be angry about today's political culture. Instead of doing nothing to change it, find a cause and person you believe in and help that voice be heard. Your daughter will be educated some day and vote because someone before you chose to get involved and the next time you hike in a national park, you too will reap the benefits of people before you that chose to be proactive in our goverment instead of believing that they were really that powerless.

Steddy Response

I thought it should be known, that I wrote that bulletin. Me, a 28 year old white male who owns an iPod, and is on MySpace. It wasn't the evil "they" that wrote that, it wasn't the ex-hippies that screwed everything up, it was me, one of us, one of the apathetic generation members.

One of the people who will be voting proudly on November 7th.

I didn’t write it to invoke guilt on those who don’t vote. I didn’t write it to preach, I wrote it so this would happen. Follow up blog entries, discussion, debate and hopefully a little bit of action. As you said in your last paragraph, “effect change on an individual level” – on an individual level this was one way to get people to take notice of what’s going on.

Unless you live under a rock - it should be painfully obvious what effect politicians can have on our country, just look at the past 6 years. Whether you support what's happened or are appalled by it, a lot has changed at the hands of these current political leaders. And for better or worse, voting is how we are allowed to show our support or anger at these decisions. You’re right: vote Green, vote Independent, vote Republican or Democrat – but there really is no excuse not to vote.

It’s true that career politicians are lately all we’ve been given, and we’re constantly faced with having to choose between the lesser of two evils. And yes things are a mess and much can be blamed on the previous generations; but if I walk into a room that stinks of shit I’m not going to just kick my feet up and hope the smell goes away and simply bitch about the people that where there before me, even if it was “THEIR FAULT.”

Hodge's Response

Do you really and truly believe that politicians are the reason women have the right to vote now? Or that they are the reason black people no longer have to ride on the back of the bus? While it's true that the final deciding vote to change the law has to be cast by an actual politician, it is NOT the politicians themselves who brought about this change. Society was changing. It was becoming obvious to all but the most ardently conservative that these changes were going to come eventually. Do you really think that, had there been differently thinking politicians in office at the time, that women would still not have the right to vote today? Of course not. It may have taken a couple years longer until more politicians (perhaps even the exact same ones) realized that there was no sense in fighting the changing tide of society. But to say that it was BECAUSE OF those politicians that the actual change came about is just laughable.

Even in regards to things that have gone on in "the last six years", it would be willful denial to think that they wouldn't have at least had the potential to go on the same way under another administration. Torture, poverty, nuclear threats, ups and downs in the economy... even the war in Iraq. I'm not completely certain Gore wouldn't have possibly come to the same decisions had he won in 2000and-if-you-say-he-did-win-selected-not-elected-I'm-absolutely-going-to-screamafter all he and his former boss were in possession of the same false information the new guy was.

(incidentally Steddy, I wasn't saying that a Baby Boomer WROTE this piece. The wording made it very clear it came from "one of our own." The specific sentence I was referring to, which set off this whole tirade was "THEY'RE calling us the Apathetic Generation." I assume you had a "they" in mind and I can only assume that it was the previous generation who was supposedly making this remark. Who else would have anything to say about us?)

As far as voting goes... perhaps I wasn't clear. Hell perhaps I said it all wrong in my attempt to get all my thoughts out on paper before the pissed off feelings dissipated. I'm not saying voting has NO PLACE in the overall scheme of things. Yes, I know we have it much better off than places like Korea (or the former Iraqi regime for that matter) where they have NO say in their government. But I also know that we should be holding ourselves to higher standards than simply saying, "Well we're better than all those dictatorships out there." But as far as I'm concerned, voting should be the LAST thing you do AFTER you've done everything you can to fix things on your own local scale, AFTER you've spoken, written and demonstrated loudly to others about your views and why they should be realities, and (and this is the key one) AFTER you embody in your own life the changes you want to see in the world . Only after you do all these things should you even THINK about expecting some elected official to do it for you. Too many people have this idea of voting as some kind of cure-all bandaid. They think they can hold their leaders to higher standards than they hold themselves. They yell and scream about how big business is ruining this country and then go shop at WalMart. They piss and moan that gay marriage will destroy the sanctity of marriage and then go watch things like The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire. They want change, so they vote, but then do don't do a damn thing about trying to bring that change about in their own lives. And THAT is my biggest gripe with the whole thing and what started off this whole bitch session.

You made the analogy of, "if I walk into a room that stinks of shit I'm not going to just kick my feet up and hope the smell goes away." Well personally, if I walk into a room that smells like shit, I'm not going to wait for a COMMITTEE to decide whether or not they have the people available to come clean it up. I'm going to grab myself a shovel and start cleaning the room MYSELF.

So I guess that is more the point I'm trying to get at. Go out and vote, fine. But don't rely on those elected officials to actually change anything. Change doesn't come about because of politicians. It comes about because of people riled up and pissed off enough to incite rebellion and let the politicians (as well as the corporations who REALLY control the politicians) know they mean business.

MY RESPONSE

Wow--just wow.

First off--let me say that I read your blog yesterday and was so thrown by it that I had to leave my office. While I--like Jennifer already stated--get the anger of where you’re coming from and your right to say it--what I am amazed at is the defeatist tone and blind venom toward seemingly anyone who has held a public office. (I am going to be upfront about the fact that my family has been involved with politics for years. Just so you know where I'm coming from.) I'm also the one who passed on the link to Steve and Neddy. That being said--

I think you really misread the point that Jen was trying to make when she mentioned the various social changes that have happened in the last generation. She wasn't imply that these things happened just because we passed policy but that the 'wrinkled ex-hippy' generation did have beliefs and did cause social change at a grassroots level --the type of change you are totally advocating to be made but also the same social changes that you claim they never accomplished..

But what I don't understand is this hatred toward every person who has ever set foot in Washington as an elected official. Somehow the public has gotten 'West Wing' and 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' confused with reality and expect some type of perfect political process that is just not real.

The truth is politics is a messy and complicated business. If you have ever spoken with an elected official you would quickly learn how much of law making is about compromise. It’s about balancing the needs of one group against another, one cause against another, one goal against another. Picture the number of times per day that you do something that you normally wouldn't in order to get someone to help you down the line with what you really want to get done. That's basically how politics work. Something for something. And that you can’t make everyone happy.

Now am I saying there is no misuse of power and influence? That corporations and lobbyists don’t get in the way of the process at points? Of course not-that would be very naive. But it’s just as naive imagining all politicians twisting their mustaches as they think of new ways to screw us over. It’s not true or fair.

If we're going to get to the real root of the current political problem then it's time to look in the mirror. More people know the names of the actors on 'Lost' than they do their own senators, their fantasy football stats over their representatives’ voting records and people wonder how we have a redneck for a president? It’s because the electorate isn’t bothering to education themselves at all politically. That to have the best qualified person for the job then you might have to actually know what their qualifications are.

Politics only work when people get informed and involved. And most people don’t choose to do that—they choose to complain about bad candidates or the lack of progress on ‘their’ issues or not even vote at all. None of these choices are apart of the solution—they’re a part of the problem.

I have never understood how people can take such a huge responsibility as a democracy so lightly. Somehow people have confused voting with ordering fast food—they want it fast cheap and easy—which is not what elections or lawmaking are about. That process is not about-nor should it be—instant results. If it was then the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War both would have ended very differently. That when our government does have a knee-jerk reaction we end up in situations like Iraq; where there is no proof that WMD ever existed or that Saddam Hussein was even connected to Osama Bin Laden.

The truth is that the system does work. That voting—the who’s and what’s you choose—do matter. While it may not be the fastest turn around, change does eventually come and if you want to help facilitate it then get involved. If you really believe in something—a cause, a candidate, an issue—then it’s your responsibility to use your voice and get heard by your neighbors, your community and your politicians.

But just sitting still and doing nothing is not an option.