"Our democracy does not end at the ballot box. It begins there." I have no idea where I got that dandy little proverb. One moment please while I ask Uncle Google....
I just looked and it isn't there, so I can claim this as an Aaron Original. I don't think much needs to be explained here. I have almost always voted since I was twenty-three, missing with a variety of excuses, perhaps five federal and provincial ballots in my life. I have always voted NDP, sometimes from a lack of imagination. I did take the voters' compass and the results show that I am solidly Green but I have never voted for the Green Party for just one simple reason: they are so small in number and representation that I really do not think they would ever stand a chance to form a new government and with the conservative monolith monopolizing power in this country and the left of centre parties being reluctant to work together I have become more concerned with strategic voting, in which choice, in the next federal election next year I could conceivably see myself voting Liberal. I find Justin Trudeau a lot more likable than Thomas Mulcair, just as I found the late Jack Layton enormously likable. But I still feel closer to the NDP and the Green platforms so I will know when I get to the polling station.
And this is why voting is so difficult. We never are presented with a candidate that really fulfills our wish lists. They are too right wing, too left wing, too beholden to the corporations, the banks, the military, the USA, China; they care only about the economy, they don't care about the economy, they'll tax and spend or they'll slash services and health care, or they will funnel more and more of our hard earned money into the pockets of the One Percent or they are the One Percent; they don't know what it's like to be young, old, low income, student, small business owner, immigrant...and the beat goes on.
No political party, and much less no individual candidate, is going to be all things to all people. And for this reason up to forty percent don't vote because they are disengaged, they're busy at work, or they don't know the issues (because they haven't bothered to learn what they are), or they have other priorities, but more often or not they feel already powerless, marginalized and disenfranchised, so they don't vote, they remain disengaged and nothing really changes.
Those who actually do vote and then do nothing else but grumble and bellyache till the next election are not much better, and perhaps are even worse because they have made that critical first step of democratic action and then they've gone back to their day job, their family, their online community, shopping, partying or wherever people go after they've voted, will sometimes gripe and complain bitterly on online forums, get drunk, go to bed, sleep it off and get on with their narrow sorry little lives as though nothing has happened and nothing has changed because really nothing has changed.
In Canada we are a representative democracy and most of us carry this definition to its most ridiculous extreme. We want someone to wipe our ass for us. We don't bother to make phone calls, send emails, tweets or letters to our elected representatives because we say it won't do any good, they never listen, that politicians are corrupt, greedy, dishonest, untrustworthy and that like the proverbial diaper and for the same reasons they need to be changed and often. What they really mean to say is they are too lazy, cynical and self-centred to want to do the work to help hold our elected officials accountable nor to work and organize for real, lasting and positive change.
I will give the late great Margaret Mead the last word here: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
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