THE DAY I GAVE UP POLITICS
I know who the bad guys are
I know that.
I read.
Don’t you think I read?
And I ask for a paper ballot
Because you know how “they” are.
And I try not to feel smug
Because you know how I am.
And I wait to be disappointed again.
To wake with my dragging feathers
& my furrowed forehead,
wake with my questions:
What don’t we vote our fiscal self-interest?
They vote theirs?
Why don’t we care?
Why do we give away power
While we’re still broke and at war?
I wrote this after the 2012 mid-term elections—and let it lie. I admit to a bleak view. But then Eurekans in the Save the Ozarks group beat back a push by SWEPCO to plant high voltage power lines across our ‘natural’ part of the state and then this morning Eureka Springs, Arkansas woke up to the hum of victory! (Check out the Arkansas’ Times Blog at this tiny URL http://tinyurl.com/p7mmj78
Yesterday 792 of us—of them, really, because although I donated and talked and supported, I live outside the city limits & only the city dwellers could cast ballots—-voted for nondiscrimination, for having no place in our city for prejudice against LGBTQ folk and for adding them to the list of groups Eureka protects. And yes, as we milled around on Spring Street after the votes were counted some angry “no” voters drove by. And yes, hate on the hoof can be scary. But the town said loudly and happily—with hoots n’ shouts that—YES, YES,YES we’re for equality—for everybody. Good goin’ Eurekans!
I know who the bad guys are
I know that.
I read.
Don’t you think I read?
And I ask for a paper ballot
Because you know how “they” are.
And I try not to feel smug
Because you know how I am.
And I wait to be disappointed again.
To wake with my dragging feathers
& my furrowed forehead,
wake with my questions:
What don’t we vote our fiscal self-interest?
They vote theirs?
Why don’t we care?
Why do we give away power
While we’re still broke and at war?
I wrote this after the 2012 mid-term elections—and let it lie. I admit to a bleak view. But then Eurekans in the Save the Ozarks group beat back a push by SWEPCO to plant high voltage power lines across our ‘natural’ part of the state and then this morning Eureka Springs, Arkansas woke up to the hum of victory! (Check out the Arkansas’ Times Blog at this tiny URL http://tinyurl.com/p7mmj78
Yesterday 792 of us—of them, really, because although I donated and talked and supported, I live outside the city limits & only the city dwellers could cast ballots—-voted for nondiscrimination, for having no place in our city for prejudice against LGBTQ folk and for adding them to the list of groups Eureka protects. And yes, as we milled around on Spring Street after the votes were counted some angry “no” voters drove by. And yes, hate on the hoof can be scary. But the town said loudly and happily—with hoots n’ shouts that—YES, YES,YES we’re for equality—for everybody. Good goin’ Eurekans!
