Voting is becoming, as you put it, an exercise in personal expression.
Perhaps it is like street artists, and nominal, or neo-anarchists in their
attempts at expressing angst, and alienation via "graffiti". Perhaps it is a
modern expression of cave art when we were more familiar with other animals
and their angst, alienation; wants and needs. Oh my, perhaps I've I am
enlightened. Perhaps, I've touched the motherload. Perhaps I've invoked
Jeeezuz. And perhaps I've smoked some salmon, or at very least some sacred
and tasty mackerel.
Perhaps it is like Douglass Adam's dolphins who predicted doom of our race,
and planet in his wonderfully black humor. I don't know. (Perhaps I'm
channeling Douglass Adams right now.)
Not knocking the expression or even the value of same by the way. For these
street artists were valued much in my sighted days and are to this very day
though only abstractly and, certainly not viscerally as their expression is
not viscerally expressed for the blind like me. Yet, I applaud from afar
the effort, from cave drawings to the present these are valuable
expressions, my personal angst to the side. They really are and I'm not
being sarcastic in the least here.
Though while I swim about in my little pool here clambering for just another
tasty bite of Mackerel whilst eyeing Miss Flippy, a rather attractive
dolphin of the sexual sort, if I must say whilst I Digress...
I'm troubled though and am still going to vote for Hilarity while holding my
nose big time. I just will do so unless an earthquake or Republican assassin
takes me down.
And I also flipped about doing so many almost magical tricks whilst in
captivity just to score a bite of mackerel let alone even again a glimpse
let alone an escapade with Ms. Flippy....
I've voted for iconoclasts and others before to no avail.
Shit I even voted in protest for Ross Perot though I knew he was a wingnutt,
but at least it was a sort of mass vote for "none of the above".
And I flipped about in the mass aquarium though I knew it wasn't even a
thimble of the ocean and smiled and clacked about just to get another bite
of fish let alone again, once again another ....Oh my was I fixed on Ms.
Flippy. To be honest as you humans say, "She gave me a woody and more."
Though we Dolphins call our "woodies" "flippies" and to each his or her own.
I don't say my way is the right way by the way.
It was just my way of expression.
I understand those, right, left and almost indifferent for their angst at
what we've got to this day.
I've seen that stuff all of my life and agree basically though I express
myself differently from time to time with some on this list.
Right now, whether right or wrong, I'm thinking about my kid and potential
grandkids and next generations. I am thinking about giving them some
"breathing room" to survive let alone flourish.
Now, I am thinking about swimming far out to sea, you know leaving this
prison paradise full of free fish and good, but not loving sex and all that,
let alone cable TV. I really like Steven Colbert, The Simpson's and for some
strange reason Meagan Kelly of Fox TV. I'd be sad to let all of that go in
Armageddon or some sort of mass extinction and such.
Again, I could be and probably am most assuredly wrong in this mess fan
action given past experiences and folly experimenting with democracy and the
human condition.
That is my cynical side speaking. And, indeed we've all experienced the
angst of that side of our common human and collective experience.
For when I was young and free I fucked every pretty thing that plied the
ocean waves and I loved it and she or (what is the plural she?) loved it too
or at least I think so. That is what they all said in dolphin language which
only "Flipper fans" have even heard and which no human actually understands.
But, it is a big deal, let me tell you.
Now, let me state or try to state and try to resurrect my spiritual, or
transcendent or, whatever one wishes to call it side of my experience and
being. I like to call it the optimistic side or calling back to my youth the
idealistic side of the human experience.
Let me say, or try to say that I think....No scratch that....I hope that our
next generation can be better than us and that time is not too late.
Oh, I've read the news of and from Armageddon central and from scientist
too!! In fact I've read many articles about the devastation of the planet
since the early 1970's s about the planetary destruction and since have read
many more about the rapid extinction of life here which are disturbing to
say the least. In fact they scare the living shit out of me for if true, or
if not changed then , well then, or rather, clearing my throat....Or...What
the fuck can I say or ask here?
Man, o man or man or fish-like man, ergo, dolphin's like me let me say,
"What was the original subject? Sorry I was smoking some sea grass and was
distracted for a moment..." Man or fish or dolphin...Hmmm...That wassome
realy good grass, man, exhaling deeply...
think about it yawl, maybe denial is a good thing at least for piece of
mind?
Oh, as Joseph Conrad wrote in "The heartier of Darkness", "The horror, the
horror."
Frankly, I am starting to think that we are in a sort of ecological end
times given again the fact that almost 50 percent or more of species have
become or are on the verge of extinction since 1970.
That is quite scary indeed. Indeed it is so scary that may try to either
confront the beast (fight syndrome) or to fly away (flight syndrome). Bot
are parts of human construction. Bouth are built in to nurture and nature.
Both are what we are.
Still, getting kinda high on the atmosphere here and all of this profound
thinking I must say before departing this scene like the goodly Douglass
Adams wrote, "Thanks for all the fish."
Your ever dolphin friend.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2016 4:06 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Just Voted
I suppose that in this day and age, voting has become merely an exercise in
personal expression. It's a pretty sad state of affairs, but who am I to
criticize? I voted for presidential candidates who have no chance of winning
either. I omitted voting for some judges who were endorsed by every existing
party in Nassau County since it seemed to me that if all the parties
endorsed them, they stood for nothing at all. I voted for a congresswoman I
hate because the Republican candidate would have been even worse.
Actdually, I put a lot of thought into each vote I cast and as I did so, I
felt like the whole thing was an exercise in futility.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2016 3:20 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Just Voted
I just voted. I was really considering voting for Jeff Mackler for
president, but in the end I stuck with Alyson Kennedy and Osborne Hart.
I really don't like Alyson's party's position on Israel now, but I voted for
her anyway and I will have to admit that it had something to do with the
fact that I could not remember how to spell Jeff Mackler's vice presidential
running mate's name. For those of you who are so enamored by liberals you
may be happy to know that I voted for Charlotte Pritt for governor and went
down the ballot voting for anyone else who was running as a Mountain Party
candidate. The Mountain amounts to being the Green Party in West Virginia. I
would not have voted for them if I had thought they had any chance of being
elected and, in fact, I did vote against Charlotte Pritt back in the 1990's
when she ran for governor as a Democrat. It's just that I wanted to register
a protest against the Republicrats and there was nothing else to do it with
other than the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. Writing in
candidates is a lot of trouble and a slow process, so I just went with the
Mountain Party. Far down the ballot, though, I did write in another name and
he was actually a democrat. It seems that a Democrat named Eric Wells filed
for the position of county clerk. There was some legal chicanery that kept
him off the ballot that is too complex for me to go into here and the only
candidate on the ballot for that position was a Republican. So I wrote his
name in just to protest his being ruled off the ballot. All in all, I think
I can congratulate myself for having stuck with my lifelong record of having
never voted for a candidate who won.
