vote

maybe its because we have been trapped under republican rule for the last six years, but i feel so voter discouraged. over 3 million votes were cast out in the last 2004 presidential election or as the U.S. census bureau reports in a 2004 footnote "3.4 million votes." over 3 mil! now, that just seems freakishly absurd to be living in the most powerful nation in the world and have our voting system be so archaic or rigged that over 3 million of peoples voices are discounted. especially in such close elections with critical states like Ohio having 153, 237 ballots disposed (numerically higher figure than the Bush's victory margin).

its bad enough that bush "won" the florida election, wouldn't sign the Kyoto agreement, sent us to war unilaterally on false pretenses, uses overseas prisoner camps which utilize methods of torture on image bearers, but its that the agony continues! its midterm elections and it feels webbed as if either way the system is so flawed with absentee ballots not even counted, spoiled ballots, provisional ballots rejected, voters barred from voting, only 28 states even requiring paper records of votes, and yet its voter season and desperation calls for showing up at the measly system we have in place just to try to gain leverage in a politically cloudy season because it is people who pay the price from having a conservative majority in the executive, legislative, and judicial branch of our country. i feel like there has got to be an end to this republican controlled majority and yet, it wouldn't surprise me if yet again there was another election “mishap” and the House and Senate will remain overpowered by conservatives.

the depressing thing is feeling politically "stuck." our political climate is not only stagnant in a hawkish rut; the rut is growing and evading more and more morals under the guise of religion. it is appalling and disturbing that the conservative current is so pervasive that bush somehow won a second time with unprecedented numbers of uncounted votes, the patriot act has been renewed, that our government has defended its actions of eavesdropping on personal communications like we live in some communist country, that we are still at war despite new internal evidence disproving any threat of weapons of mass destruction, that no child left behind is relieving funding from organizations actually trying not to leave children behind while it is hiding behind bureaucratic red tape achieving little to quench low income children’s education and living circumstances and actually putting children more at risk, that Katrina victims are still left homeless scattered throughout the country like refugees and the hurricane aftermath is a disaster while we are spending money funding a war overseas for what?

while i read about elections in congo and feel like we are not so different and that our "democracy" is a joke. i know i cannot be so overly pessimistic. in the last 4 years 26 more states require paper voting records to have a more accurate count. social activists are constantly working, protesting this very morning at metro's, trying in time when it is so easy to get lost in the political fog of depression that i know there is always hope, no matter how dim it feels. as the good book says...

"that is why we live by believing and not by seeing"

2 cor. 5:7 (nlt)