[Political discussion alert! Just so's ya know. ~ Fran]
Yes, there were broken windows in downtown Seattle yesterday, needless and numbskull destruction that did nothing to change anyone's mind or to further a political or ideological agenda. If anything, the anarchists only harm their agenda and hand over more power to their enemies - the champions of the 1%.
If they really wanted to achieve something, to alter how things work in our country, they should've set up card tables at every intersection in Seattle and worked to register voters. As the far right - the defenders of the 1% - have shown this year, their efforts have been to discourage voting, indeed, to interfere with it and thereby hang onto power. I would assume that if you asked those who were busy smashing windows if they were registered to vote, let alone if they ever voted, most would - with pride - say no. In America, the nauseating assumption is that we cannot change anything by voting, so we don't. But we don't stop to think that it is the 1% who DO vote and who keep their lapdogs in power.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected by slightly over half of the voters. The other part of that equation is that just over half of the eligible voters voted. That means that Reagan was elected by roughly a quarter of the people who could have voted. If you do the research, you'll find that most elections go that way. We don't have representational government; we have government by those who are willing to take the time to vote.
If you don't like the way things are going in your country, stop smashing windows and start getting votes. And for pete's sake, if you're going to smash the Nike store, maybe you shouldn't be wearing your Nikes?
We do have a crisis in this country, we should all be screaming "MAY DAY MAY DAY". Breaking glass won't fix it. That just helps glaziers. The only thing that will help this country is an active voter.
What was my point?
Oh, yeah - no, none of our windows were broken, if you were concerned! The mindless mayhem was north of us.
~ JB
Hear, hear!! Well said.
Posted by: Steve Ellis | May 02, 2012 at 02:36 PM