2004-03-07 - 1:18 a.m.
A Sense of Entropy: Everyone Chooses Sides
By: Jenn K
Normally I shy away from the explosive arena of politics. Personally, it’s a topic that has always held the utmost fascination for me. Socially, I find that it does nothing but promote bad blood between good people.
Yet, I can’t ignore these times we live in. Politics is the new black in this, 2004, the year of the presidential election. Bush the Second has methodically destroyed any semblance of normalcy we once enjoyed. He hasn’t done it ruthlessly like a dictator. He hasn’t done it with cunning like an autocrat. He’s done it like a toddler hell-bent on toppling that castle made of blocks. Democrat, Republican, Independent-you cannot deny this is a scary world we live in.
Everyone is laying high hopes on John Kerry. I was a Dean girl until he unceremoniously fell from grace, and the nomination campaign soon after. He motivated me to react and promote reaction instead of bitching sanctimoniously from my classroom pulpit. So the dominoes fell until we were left with a war-torn scarecrow. John Kerry. He won’t commit to an answer, but I can’t fault him for playing the game. It’s like romance, really. He’s been courting us this whole time, but is he truly in love or is it just a one-day stand? November 2, 2004 in case you were curious.
As though the voting public didn’t have enough to be concerned about, in strolls Ralph Nader. The Pinto hating Independent has stepped into the ring to prove some sort of point. Nader is a good man, of this I have no doubt, but this is neither the time nor the place. I want to gently shake him by the shoulders and admonish him for mislaid intentions. We are unquestionably naïve as a group of citizens, but only the backwoods TV-less cabin dwellers are unaware that corporations run the world. Step aside, Ralph, all we want to do is replace Halliburton with some other conglomerate in the White House.
And while Nader may no longer be politics “it” boy (a septuagenarian and still going strong), he may have a hand in vote splitting.
Even more troubling is the Democrat/ Republican split. According to various polls, this country is divided straight down the center. Bush/ Kerry. Why anyone would still vote for Bush is beyond anything I am capable of fathoming. Everyday I read the newspaper and wince. Gay marriage, the Iraq War Part Two, Gun Control, Constitutional control, mind control: every hot button our country has done its damndest to keep stifled for the past 200 years has suddenly risen to the surface.
Our solidarity and sense of pride have disappeared, fast replaced by a word normally associated with the sterility of science: polarization.
Again, I hesitate to bring my own politics out for scrutiny, but I cannot sit idly as my options for a job out of college dwindle to something located in the mall. Regardless of your party affiliation, I strongly urge you to do the same. Participate. My god, please VOTE. It’s such a brainless process that it’s insulting if you don’t.
If it continues on the current course, I do not want to inherit what this country will become.
Voting registration information: http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/pdf/documents/boe/DatesToRemember.pdf
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