It’s no secret that there is an election on for President, although a vote in New York State is less significant because it is not a swing state. The more significant vote is for U.S. Senate, or the U.S. House of Representatives if you happen to live in a contested district. For most of us, however, there are no real elections for the House of Representatives, New York State Senate or New York State Assembly. The only candidates, or the only active candidates with real campaigns, are perpetual incumbents who have already been chosen by the insiders. And fake elections is just the way those who have been grabbing at the expense of those without power and the common future like it. While New York State does not suppress voting the way some swing states do, it does all it can to ensure that when people show up, there is no one to vote for, by keeping people off the ballot. The media cooperates by providing no attention to those challengers who manage to sneak through.
But they tripped up. With the new voting system, write-in votes have become extremely easy. And therefore, I intend to vote for myself, Lawrence D. Littlefield, for the House of Representatives, State Senate, and Assembly. Not because I think I’m that great, sadly, but because of what I think of what these ignoble assemblies have done, with the local pols fully part of it or doing nothing to stop it. Eight years ago I had to lose my job and struggle to get on the ballot to make a similar protest, but not now. If you aren’t in a place with a real election, and agree with what I said then, which you can still read here, feel free to write in my name also. It doesn’t matter where you live, because it’s just a protest. If you don’t agree, but are similarly disappointed with the perpetual incumbents, you can write in your own name, or the name of someone you wish was on the ballot. A message needs to be sent about the sell out of our future, which is now the present, so I don’t see any reason to vote for the incumbents. You’d be better off writing in Donald Duck.
So how much of an impact did I have back in 2004? Not much, it seems, because just about everything that bothered me then has become worse. More debts. More public employee pension increases for those cashing in and moving out, with cuts in wages and benefits for new hires — who then feel less obligation to the rest of us.
Back then, it was the State of New York that was the worst, but now the federal government is just as bad. Generation Greed seems to care little for those coming after, who continue to become worse and worse off. Yet it is somehow those who have grabbed the most, from Wall Street to the executive suite to today’s seniors, who seem to be making angry demands for more. And who have become better off relative to the rest during and after the Great Recession, thanks in part to their control of perpetually incumbent local politicians. I won’t bore you with a bunch of spreadsheets and endless text to show how and to what extent. If you are reading this, you have already seen all that already.
In this election my general rule will remain in effect. At the federal level, don’t vote for any Republicans on generational equity grounds. The only people voting Republican at the federal level should be those 55 and over who don’t care about their country, or about anyone 54 and younger. Don’t vote for any Democrats at the local level (though there no local elections this year), because they have favored the interests of producers of public services against less well off consumers of public services to the point of social injustice. And don’t vote for ANY incumbents of EITHER party in the New York State legislature, because both parties have sold out the future and ordinary people over and over again. With no limits and no shame. And they’ll do more, I can guarantee you that. They’ll pass on or move out and leave this place in ruins, or feel they missed out on something if they do not.
But thanks to their screw up with the new voting method, I don’t have to just leave a ballot line blank or vote for a name that didn’t even bother to campaign. I can write in instead. And I intend to take advantage of it.
Don’t be a fool. This isn’t an elective dictatorship, and you can’t change things or create hope by just voting for President, Governor or Mayor. The legislative offices matter as much or more. Aside from the evil attack ads for the limited number of contested elections, I’ve head little to nothing even about the control of Congress next year. It matters enormously whether the majority leader of the U.S. Senate is Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives is John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi. And choosing that leader, and thus the committee heads that go with go with them, is the only significant vote the local empty suit will make. Yet that isn’t what you read or hear, to the extent that you read or hear anything. The media has let us down again, but then again most of us don’t have a real choice anyway. Except that now we do, sort of. We can at least, in effect, vote no.