History Eve

In a few hours, I will go to the polls and vote either for or against the people who have screwed up the time. Neither candidate promised to fix that.  But I will vote for the better choice of the two candidates who are either going to win or lose. In 2000, I had a friend, a political science professor, who taught at a big school in Florida.  He campaigned for a third party candidate telling people that there was little difference between Bush and Gore.  They were both corporate tools, he said.  He was an authority on the subject.  He alone probably cost Gore the election.  So I tell our friends and anyone else who will listen.

I heard a Romney campaign piece yesterday.  The choice, he said, is between four more years of the same thing or for change.  That sort of logic would earn him a failing grade in a freshman English class.  Still, he gets to say it to a cheering public and adoring audience.  Fifty percent of the country believes in that sort of logic.  They cling to it.  For those of you who are confused by logic, the next four years will be different from the last four years no matter who wins the election.  If you still don't get it, here is a list.  See if you can figure out which category this falls into.  Better yet, see if you can tell which candidate used logical fallacy as a campaign platform more often than the other.  That should keep you fairly busy.

But it is true what my friend professed in 2000.  Business rules government, not the other way around. Romney is proud of this, Obama not so much.  If you think businesses need less, not more, regulating, vote for Romney.  Think about the dry cleaner who is dumping carcinogens into the drinking water.  Think about the auto mechanic who just fixed parts of your car that were not broken.  Read your telephone bill.

I live in a neighborhood that is beyond my means.  Romney/Ryan signs are everywhere.  I know how the rich are going to vote, but there are not that many of them, really.  Fewer all the time.  But I will give it to them--they are geniuses.  They have been able to convince a whole bunch of poor people that they will be better off if they vote their way, too.  They do it with expensive cars and tall spines and flawless hair and perfect clothes and bleached, orthodontic smiles.  Well--except for Donald Trump whose hair is really just a trademark.  And his spine is not all that straight, but his suits hide that mostly. And he doesn't really smile, does he?  But you know what I mean.

My studio is in an African-American neighborhood.  I see the signs and know who they are going to vote for, too.  Sorry.  There are more of them, but they are not really swaying the poor white vote.  Not even Colin Powell.

In the end, though, I guess I'm voting for what I perceive to be my own good.  Which candidate will make less misery for me than the other?   The question that all of us face, I guess, is "What does misery mean to me?"  When we vote, we are simply trying to avoid that.  And it just isn't the same for everyone.

Tomorrow I will probably be talking about election fraud, for I think that this will be the most fraudulent election in history.  They've made it possible, those people, by fucking with the election rules.  They fuck with election rules and they fuck with the time.

At least, it seems, they've quit fooling around with the speed limits so much.