Category: Rants a.k.a. Commentary || By

A word, if you don't mind, about supposed voter apathy.

I vote every single time they'll let me, for judges, school board and borough council, and in primaries and general elections.

I'm not looking for a pat on the back, it's just the way I was taught. My mom's parents voted in every election, I think because they didn't take it for granted.

When grandma was born, women weren't allowed to vote. And in tiny coal-mining towns like the one where pap grew up, the company bosses used to try and threaten the miners into voting for the "right candidate."

Ever try to threaten a guy who spends daily spends 12 hours underground with a shovel? You just make him mad. "F--- you, I'll vote for whoever I want to," he says.

And yet we're told that one party currently has an "enthusiasm" gap, while overall turnout in next month's election is unlikely to top 40 percent. What changed since grandma and pap's day?

. . .

Well, grandma and pap didn't grow up with cable TV news, where idiots spend 24 hours a day talking about trivial crap --- "Oooh, Jerry Brown's in trouble after he was caught on tape calling his opponent a 'whore'" or "We've got video of Christine O'Donnell admitting to witchcraft!"

Plenty of time they have to cover nonsense, but they hardly ever tell you where the candidates stand on the issues --- in my opinion, there's lots of stuff about Christine O'Donnell that's way scarier than witchcraft.

So, instead of getting factual information from our news media (which is, you know, supposedly its job), we get bombarded with TV commercials that say things like, "Joe Sestak wants new job-robbing taxes that will cripple our economy!"

. . .

C'mon, whether you like Joe Sestak or not, do you really think he wants to "cripple the economy"? That's just plain stupid.

But as a result of this non-stop circus of electronic political noise --- clowns to the left, jokers to the right --- many people say, "Well, I don't like politics because all of the candidates seem like crooks, and I don't know anything about the issues.

You need to look harder for information, but it's out there. The League of Women Voters produces excellent unbiased voters' guides, and the Allegheny, Westmoreland and state bar associations provide nonpartisan endorsements for candidates in judicial races.

. . .

I know lots of us have a sense the game is rigged. The problem is the Glenn Beck crowd has been told it's liberals/unions/feminists/teachers/minorities/foreigners/gays who've rigged it ... in other words, people who don't really hold any significant power.

They don't seem to realize it's the corporations with the big bucks (Google "Koch brothers" and read about those two slimeballs, if you can stand it) who have the money, and thus the power, and do whatever the hell they want, and who are trying to rig the game.

For that, I again blame the media.

. . .

As a result of tax policies designed to benefit the super-rich, wealth is concentrated in the hands of the top 1 percent of Americans at a rate not seen since the 1900s.

Do you hear about that in the so-called "liberal" media? Probably not, but they recap "Dancing With the Stars" and cover every one of Sarah Palin's tweets as if they're news.

I keep thinking of a line from The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy about "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first ones against the wall when the revolution comes." That describes cable TV news anchors in my mind.

. . .

"But," I hear you say, "my vote doesn't matter." Ask Al Gore about that. He lost Florida --- and the presidency --- by 537 votes. That's eight votes in each of Florida's 67 counties that could have decided a national election.

For that matter, ask McKeesport Mayor Jim Brewster. He lost the 1999 mayoral primary by seven votes city-wide.

Seven people could have selected the mayor. Eight people in each of those counties could have picked the President of the United States.

And hey: The voting booth is the one place where the wealthy fat-cats can't touch you. They couldn't in grandpap's day, and they can't now.

. . .

The only bright spot I see is that younger Americans pay almost no attention to conventional talk radio, TV and newspapers. Audiences for those three sources are getting progressively older. Younger Americans are getting their information from political blogs, The Daily Show and other alternative outlets, and many of them are very well informed.

But because their parents and grandparents don't vote, many of them haven't caught the voting habit. And some of them voted in 2008, but because Barack Obama didn't give them a magic pony and a new bicycle, they're pouting.

They need a not-so-gentle kick-in-the-ass this year to go vote.

Well, the line forms to the right, everyone, and I've got my ass-kickin' brogans on: Go the f--- out and vote, you whiners.

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