Sunday, February 12, 2012

Punk Voting

Punk made this video back before the mid-terms in 2010.  It's been on my mind a lot lately, as I've been listening to so many people who believe that it's a waste of time to consider a third party candidate - or that voting for an alternative candidate will hand the presidency to the Republicans, as if we don't already have a Republican in office.  Even though it seems like nearly everyone agrees that the existing two-party system itself has been fundamentally corrupted, it's better to keep voting for Evil.  Just vote for the lesser of two evils (LOTE):  Mr. Obama.

Punk and his lentils addresses this argument directly and shows how you can feel good about your vote again.  It's ten very solid minutes, but if he gets to voting theory and psychology at about 3:30 and brings in the lentils at 7:45.

5 Comments:

Blogger Mr. Charleston said...

10 minutes!! 10 MINUTES!! Who has 10 minutes to spare for enlightenment?
We need a constitutional convention so as to start over again. Fat chance.

February 12, 2012 at 10:59 AM  
Blogger PENolan said...

Agreed.
It's going to be a long summer.

February 12, 2012 at 8:25 PM  
Blogger Cali said...

ITA, too. It is going to be a long, HOT summer.

Interestingly enough I've been thinking of this video a lot myself, lately. There is some sort of confluence in my thoughts between Black History Month (and all the turbulence and violence that it evokes,) Occupy and voting. The Civil Rights Movement and Occupy share a common warp, if not a common weft. We need a term like "Rock the Vote," except it needs to be both more evocative AND more inclusive and somehow "Tent the vote" just doesn't get me there.

February 13, 2012 at 2:07 AM  
Blogger PENolan said...

Occupy the Vote, or Occupy the Ballot come to mind.
But, yeah, there's a lot of similarities between now and 1968. Watching the fires in Greece, I remembered "Burn, Baby, Burn."

February 13, 2012 at 6:04 AM  
Blogger Cali said...

I think I heard the phrase, "Occupy the Ballot" at a live streamed GA, either OWS or OO, I'm not sure which.

I turned six in '68, so my memories of that time are a bit hazy. I remember Cronkite's death toll on the news every night and I remember the coverage of the riots-- all kinds of them, from Yippies and Hippies at the DNC and massive anti-war protests, to all sorts of Black Panther rioting and character assassinations on all sides. Of course, as a child of six I believed what Mr. Cronkite and my family said. I was taught to fear people of color, (and especially not to marry or even date one) to fear hippies, to fear change. Yet, at the same time, my Reagan Republican mother (of all people) secretly let me know that the hippies were right. Then again, we celebrated as a family when Roe v. Wade passed. It was the strangest mixed message that certain change was good, while other change was bad that you can imagine.

So now I'm a rapidly aging Occupy Hippie with a Latino soul mate and a tremendous amount of respect for the Black Panthers. Go figure.

February 13, 2012 at 8:01 AM  

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