THE WITHDRAWAL METHOD
Gen X, Apathy, Voter's Block
By Greg Olear
November 30, 2004
The following is a monologue from an indie film:
Thing is, the media's trying to hold up this whole one-party/two-faction system by telling you that George Bush got this mandate with 54% of the vote. And, you know, that just doesn't take into account the whole population of the country.Now the fun part: guess which indie film. Maybe the new one from Michael Moore? Or the dude who made Outfoxed? Something Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are involved with, perhaps? Or the John Sayles flick nobody saw?
They say that 50.3% -- in the media they say that 50.3% of the eligible population participated in the election, but I think the figure's a hell of a lot lower than that. I mean you got to consider prisoners -- we got more people incarcerated in this country than any other country in Western history -- uh, non-citizens, the under-aged, the over-aged, people too old to get to the polls, people out in rural areas, people who don't have addresses.
I mean, to be conservative, the figure's more like 35%, so Bush got 54% of 35%, so what's that, 18%? Maybe 18% of the people in this country support him -- that's nothing. That's nothing. That's not a mandate.
I mean the people in Nazi Germany, in Nazi Germany in 1932, the Nazis had maybe 34, 38%. And, uh, somebody like Pinochet, who's already out of there, back in Chile, that guy's got maybe 34, 43% of the vote. I mean, 18% is nothing.
It just seems like one day it's gonna dawn on everybody that this large, non-voting majority's been winning every election for the past three decades. And the people who win these elections are gonna be too ashamed, or better yet, too afraid, to take power at all.
Nah. It's from Richard Linklater's Gen X masterpiece Slacker, released in 1991, written in 1989, and reflecting on George Bush père's 1988 victory over Massachusetts "liberal" Michael Dukakis.
The more things change, dot dot dot.
You wonder about the horde of Americans who did not vote on November 2. Were they really indifferent, ignorant, uninformed, or was their act of inaction a subtle form of protest? Might this have been what Douglas Coupland, whose Generation X also appeared in 1991, calls "voter's block" ("The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the current political system by simply not voting."). Were they silently raging against Linklater's "one-party/two-faction system"?
As the Texan filmmaker decreed (and R.E.M. seconded), "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy."
But he said that in '91. The solution now, alas, lies neither in withdrawal, nor Canadian emigration, nor outright revolution (although abolition of the Electoral College would be nice). The only way to right the leaky ship that is the U.S. of A. is to pay attention, now more than ever, as unpleasant as it may be, and continue to fight the good fight.
The time to watch from the sidelines is over. There's no room for slackers in this brave new world.
—Greg Olear
Editor, LARGEREGO
November 30, 2004
Editor, LARGEREGO
November 30, 2004
"We are a nation in danger." |