Tag: #vote

What If Your Vote Mattered?

jamie

What if your vote mattered, and the money you paid in taxes was actually spent on things that mattered to YOU? Imagine if you got to vote on where that money got spent. What if you could check boxes on your tax return to determine what purposes your tax money could be spent on, and the government HAD to spend it on those things only? Yes, spend my taxes on education. No, don’t spend anything on military. Yes, feed the poor. No, tax breaks to ExxonMobil.

Well, it probably wouldn’t work because rich people would start paying just enough taxes to fuck over the rest of us…but the point is this: We don’t live in a democracy. It’s a plutocratic oligarchy. Your vote may count for WHO you elect, but what they do when they get there is decided by money. Legal bribery, really. They call it lobbying, but rich people pay cash to get the government to do what they want. The more money you have, the louder your voice and the more likely you are to get your way. 

Most of us have better things to spend our money on, because we know the puny amount we could spend wouldn’t buy us a second thought from our government. But wealthy people and corporations have deep pockets, and control the outcome of our votes. We don’t get to decide ‘pass gun control’ or ‘don’t pass gun control’. All we can do is vote red or blue and wait for nothing to happen.

Our voices have been silenced by big government and a rigged two party system that is designed to self perpetuate and grow, exploiting the masses more as it does. The rich get richer. Pandemic  Recession. War. None of it matters when you’re rich as fuck. Bank accounts keep growing. Lobbyists are hired. Votes are solicited. Laws are changed to spend more government money here or there. Never where it’s really needed by the majority of our citizens.

People who need help go without, while the rich get tax cuts. Billions go to subsidize fossil fuel corporate shareholders while our veterans are forgotten. Teachers use their own money to buy paper and pencils because schools are underfunded. Folks lose their houses because of medical bills, while Jeff Bezos blasts his ugly bald head and all his rich buddies into space. It doesn’t matter who you vote for. As long as money makes the decisions in DC, it doesn’t matter who you elect. Not in this system.

But a system that pretends to be democratic can’t last. Good intentions or not, this is not what the framers could have forseen. They were wise, not psychic. They built checks and balances, but there’s a way around everything if you’re willing to sacrifice your conscience, and well, most of the politicians we elect have none. 
So it keeps growing. Bigger. More corrupt. More money for the wealthy, less of everything for everyone else. Less happiness. Less free time to think about being unhappy. Less money. Less LIFE. Until it ultimately implodes, thanks to corruption and greed, or explodes in revolution, whichever comes first. 

There’s still time, for a ‘peaceful revolution’ at the ballot box, but since one party is going out of their way to erode our faith in elections, the other kind of revolution will quickly become the only game in town.

Your VOTE still matters. Choose wisely. Choose Independent. Choose Implosion. Demand better candidates. Demand term limits. Demand money OUT of politics Demand a VOICE in the future. Demand DEMOCRACY. Don’t buy the party lines. EITHER of them. They are both designed to polarize and divide. They are both designed to exploit. Designed to fail. 

United we Stand, Divided we Fail. ~jg

Conjurer of Bytes, Notes & Words. Seeker of Truth, Peace, & Harmony. | Jamie Gray jamiegraymusic.com

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

Lawyers, Guns & Money

jamie

This is what happens when lawyers and corporate money steer public policy, rather than the votes of The People. Corporations don’t care if you die (unless it affects their profits) and corporate bosses can almost never be prosecuted if their decisions kill you. A HUGE majority of Americans want action. All we get from our government are excuses why it can’t be done.

We need to elect INDEPENDENT candidates who are ready to overthrow the two-party, dog and pony shit show they pretend is democracy. If America were an actual democracy, we’d have fixed this after the first time school children were murdered in Sandy Hook…or long before. ~jg #vote #N0H8

Jamie Gray | Conjurer of Bytes, Notes & Words. Seeker of Truth, Peace, & Harmony. (Photo: Gray Area Productions)

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

It’s Gonna Get Worse

jamie

Holy Shit, right?!? So, I’ve been saying it for a few years now. Since around the time Trump won the 2016 election. Our democracy. Our freedoms. Our democratic way of life. They are all in jeopardy.

US Supreme Kangaroo Court

The rumored leak that the US Supreme Court is about to strike down 50 years worth of precedent-upon-precedent on abortion should strike fear in your heart. Not just fear. Terror.

Because this horror is just beginning, I’m afraid. The Republicans have accomplished nothing less than a political coup of our highest ‘impartial’ court, in order to further the extreme Right Wing’s agenda. 80% of Americans think women should have the right to choose, but here we are anyway. Experts say #LGBTQ rights and #Obamacare are next. The War on the Rest of Us has begun.

This ‘Us vs. Them’ phase that we’ve entered into is actually predictable, as the far right religious extreme that steers the Republican Party finds themselves in a battle against Satan to bring about some ‘New Jerusalem’. This is not just Red vs. Blue for them. It’s a battle for their very souls. This is about God’s Will, and what their leaders have taught them was right and true. It’s worth dying for. Or killing.

Approximately 25% of our country is trying to purge themselves of their sinful nature and guilty consciences, by forcing their religion on the rest of us for our ‘own good’. They say it’s what The Founders intended, when the First Amendment clearly says the polar opposite. They say it’s about #RightToLife, but threaten to kill women who have an abortion via the death penalty. This is a powerful cult, and they’ve found a validated soapbox, thanks to Donald Trump.

The Truth is, they fear their decline. They are staging this battle, this Holy War, because they see a growing threat from a majority that knows we need change. We can’t go on pretending that everyone is equal while clearly some of us are ‘more equal than others’. While so many of us are hungry or homeless. Billionaires cannot multiply their wealth while the masses die, in any society that will succeed without drastic change.

“No one is looking out for the little guy, except to carefully place a foot upon his head as a boost up the ladder.”

~Jamie Gray ’22

Social justice doesn’t just happen. It is a hard won prize, awarded through protest and politics. It can happen here. It IS happening here. But the same guys that brought you the #WarOnDrugs and #WarOnTerror are not kidding around this time, and they are out to stop it from happening at all costs.

The leaders of The Right are against equality under the law. No equality for women. No equality for black and brown people. No justice for all. They believe in the Almighty Dollar, and use God-the-Whisperer to control their zombie hordes. They believe in lies, and use guns to enforce their unpopular beliefs upon others, and they have mobilized for War.

It’s time the rest of us get serious too, because if we keep saying ‘This is Fine’, we’ll soon find out it’s much worse than we can take. Worse than it is already. ~jg #Vote. #Protest. #Resist.

Jamie Gray is a writer, musician, and critic of the inane and insane.

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

Rationality

jamie

Rationality. If you look at American politics right now, you don’t see much of it. No, you mostly see two heavily armed camps, ready to flirt with disaster, risking all of our futures to achieve some set of higher principles that, if left to the other party, mean nothing short of destruction of everything we hold dear.

If you lean left, you’re being told that the evil Republicans are trying to stop the valiant Democrats from purging corporate control of our government and giving money, and the country, back to the people.

US Capitol – Washington DC

If you lean right, you’re worried the stupid Dems will spend us into doom, while taxing the rich until they can’t afford their summer homes and ski retreats.

If you’re on the far right, they’re trying to convince you that Socialism is the root of all evil, and that Satanic forces are killing babies in the womb, as they hand our God fearing Nation over to Hillary and Obama’s army of godless heathen Democrat pedophile pizza-politicians.

Now, I’m not saying I believe politicians from either party (especially the MAGA Republicans). Politicians are liars. It’s what they do. But some things they say make a grain of sense on their own, while others require a leap of faith to believe. I’m too old for leaps of faith. Especially when they require lapses of logic.

None of the MAGA Republicans claims hold up to rational thought. They are based in conspiracy theories, rumors, and full-on mistruths, lacking in facts or proof of any kind. There simply isn’t much in the way of a rational argument. For anything.

Share your fire. Feed the blaze.
#happiness #N0H8

When it’s all said and done, proof is best measured in actions and results. Rich people always do well. They do better when Republicans are in power. Since the 80s they’ve claimed the wealth will “trickle down”, while it gushed up to the millionaires…who became billionaires as millions died in the Pandemic. Meanwhile, America is deep in debt, and sitting on the edge of climate disaster and insurrection. Suffice to say, the trickle they’ve been promising for 40 years ain’t enough.

Poor people rarely win in America. Their voices, while numerous, are routinely ignored and rejected by all in power. At least when Democrats act, the average goes up. Poor gets less poor. Inequity decreases. Usually not by much, of course.

Jan 6 Insurrection| Capitol police defend The Capitol from Trump supporters in Washington DC – Jan 6 2021

We’re reaching a tipping point where debt threatens to collapse our economy as injustice and inequity are rising to unsustainable levels. The seeds of revolution are deeply sown, and change WILL come, one way or another.

Our choice is to usher it in gracefully, or let it take us by force, and at great cost. If the way we’ve handled climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic so far are any indication, we are in for a REALLY hard ride, folks. ~jg

Musician and Writer, Jamie Gray

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

Republicans: The party of fear and lies.

jamie

Once upon a time, the Republican party stood for small government, family values, low taxes and States’ rights. Not anymore.

Honest Abe would shudder at the state of the Republican Party, The Party of Lincoln.

As an independent, I’ve voted for Republicans because they were people of honor and character. These days, it’s hard to see any truth for all of the lies.

Trumpian Republicans aren’t real Republicans. They are just using the GOP, a party that had already lost its center thanks to right-to-life extremists and an obstructionist platform, to sully the American drinking trough with the foul and muddy water of propaganda and lies.

Republicans embraced the Big Lie because they are being held hostage by the Big Liar.

Instead of embracing new technologies and sustainable energy, they spread fear and lies. Green energy will cost jobs. Clean energy is too expensive. Whatever it takes to keep things how they are.

But, it turns out that everything they say is a lie. It turns out they’ve never embraced truth or science or morality. It turns out that none of that matters to them.

The only thing they live for is party loyalty, as the party desperately clings to power. Power vested in a minority of rich white male egomaniacs, who believe they are better than the rest of us. They talk about America, but not about the America of many cultures. They mean WHITE America.

Jamie Gray – Musician, Writer and Critic of The Idiocracy.

The America most of us live in is NOT the America they pursue. In their America, the strong dominate the weak. It’s every wolf for himself. Mercy and compassion are a weakness to be overcome.

They say ‘If you’re poor, you’re a failure. Probably lazy.’ The wealthy love to blame people for their predicament.

Capitol under siege by Trump loyalists on January 6 2021

It’s time to stop blaming, and start doing something about it. It’s amazing to me that we COULD fix so many of our problems, but our leaders CHOOSE NOT TO, and Republicans lead the way in the obstruction of every policy that benefits anyone except their rich, corporate overlords.

It’s pretty obvious that the Republican party needs to change in order to survive. They will probably continue down what looks like a path to their own destruction, but it’s important to note that the GOP could seize the opportunity, and do a LOT better. Maybe even become a force for positive change.

More likely, they’ll just keep changing for the worse. ~jg