Living Liberal in East Texas- Voting

So I voted today.

Walked into our tiny precinct for the primary run-off election and there were the two tables- one marked Republican and one marked Democrat.

The lady at the Republican table asked me how I was voting and I pointed to the Democrat table lady.

There was an instantaneous air of shock in the room. "Really?" the three elderly ladies (honestly not older than me) looked at me with heads cocked to one side, like they were trying to get me into focus. I spun around as gracefully as my pear-shape allows but think I pulled it off pretty well thanks to my colorful sari skirt and hippie-braided rainbow hair, finishing off with a flourish of arms in the air.

"Are you sure? You know there's only one thing on that ballot- there are LOTS of things to vote for on the Republican ballot."

I said, "I can vote Republican even if I'm a Democrat?"

"Sure! You can vote however you like!" *sweet smile*

Wait a second. "How many Democrats have voted here today?"

The lady at the D table hesitated and said, "Well...none. I don't usually do this (her badge said she's really one of our municipal judges) and they told me I wouldn't have to do anything but sit in the chair all day- I don't even know what to do."

I really, really wanted to vote against that idiotic dangerous old bat Mary Lou "Obama was a gay prostitute to pay for his drugs" Bruhner as head of the state school board. Really. It would've meant me voting R today. Just today. The ladies at the R table beckoned- smiling, waving that ballot with her name on it...

NOT TODAY.

I made the lady at the D table learn how to check someone in, saying, "Ya'll must've been expecting me- when I first moved here 20-plus years ago, they didn't even have a person in that chair- it was a potted plant." *Nervous laughter*

I took my voting machine code from the young man who was probably fulfilling some sort of community service civics thing- high school age, MAYBE college age. This was, I'm positive, the most excitement he'd seen all day.

So I voted Democrat and in the Athens paper when they list the election totals by party there will show TWO STINKING DEMOCRATS VOTED IN BROWNSBORO---including Ward, who is voting later today. It shall not show that Brownsboro TX voted 100% Red. Shall. Not.

I told the lady at the D table that my husband would be in, and to remember how to check him in. I told them all that in two years our son will be voting Democrat, too.

On my way out the door, I took one more spin and said, "Yep! We're taking over!" and the laughter stopped.

The young man smiled, winked and gave me a quick, secretive thumbs-up.

Can't blame him, really. He's stuck there till 7pm with three actual dinosaurs.

Change is comin', darlin'. One crazy old rainbow-haired hippie at a time.

The Lesser of Two Weevils

"Voting for the lesser of 2 evils is still voting for evil".

I'm not a Republican anymore.

My family is still mostly Republican, at least my parents are, and I think my brother. My elder children swing conservative with a very obvious leaning towards social liberalism- like libertarians but with a conscience and heart.

Alec is still a work in progress- HIS work and HIS progress, not our indoctrination.

The men I voted for in my youth were clearly Republican candidates, but not a one of them could get on the GOP ballot today for so much as dog catcher. They'd all be labeled "Too Damn Liberal".

That's how far to the Right everything has pitched. Regardless of all the squawking about the "liberal agenda" in the media, the government, society...anything even close to Center now is seen as "Far Left Extremism".

Specifically, anything that calls for any sort of compromise.

So I can't get behind the GOP anymore.

Conversely, there are issues that I can't get behind our current President on. I understand that every damn thing he's attempted to do has been obstructed by the Right- the Right has made it very clear that their one main top most important goal is to make Obama a one term president. I understand that the key to working in DC is compromise (even though the Right has completely forgotten that). But there are things that he's said and done that should never have been said or done, especially by a Democratic president.

Citizens United has been integral in the Taming of America- the hogtying and trussing up of the citizens and the now-legal purchase of our government by the guys and gals on Wall St. has pretty much made the whole shebang a pointless exercise.

So why do it?

Why vote?

After all, if you're playing the game, part of the system, you're part of the problem not part of the solution.

The entire house of cards needs to come down and be re-shuffled once the jokers are taken out.

It 'could' happen if a 3rd party candidate actually won.

That ain't gonna happen. It SHOULD happen, and it COULD happen, but most Americans are too wore out from working themselves to literal death just to keep out of the poorhouse or too scared from staring at their liberal/fundamental/black/white/gun freak/treehugging neighbors waiting for them to do something dangerously traitorously unpatriotic so they can...what? Shoot 'em? Report 'em? Shun 'em at the grocery store?

I'm voting.

I'm voting because women before me fought, were jailed and beaten and mocked and shamed for the right to vote and I won't disrespect them.

Doesn't mean my vote will count against all the corporate money making the real decisions, that the outcome hasn't already been cast- but I'll vote all the same.

Because I'm not voting and going home and forgetting everything else.

I'm voting because I'm an American and it's my duty and my privilege to do so.

But the ballot is just part of it. Our system is broken and needs fixing, and that needs to be addressed through peaceful protest, through boycott, through physically showing up in masses to express displeasure at how OUR dollars are being spent, how OUR elected officials are voting against our interests.

Anyone who says, "That will never work" isn't paying attention to the rest of the world where it IS working...right now.

Masses of people who are tired, and sick, and generally fed up are standing up and yelling, "We're mad as hell and we're NOT going to take it anymore!"

Europe. Mexico. Middle East. Japan. Iceland. Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

So I'm voting not to abdicate responsibility for the way things are.

I'm voting as a gesture to what it is supposed to stand for...and then working like hell to get us back there.