20141104.0617

Yes, I will be voting today.

No, I am not at the polling place...yet. It does not open until 7, and it is raining; I figure I'll have a cup of coffee before I try to get over to vote. And since I am sitting down anyway...

I will not be making the same mistake as happened last year around this time. This time, at least, I am not helping so much to perpetuate practices of governance with which I disagree and which I find in many cases to be reprehensible. If they continue, it will be above and despite my specific and explicit objection.

I remember comments from some four years ago, and I am not happy with how things happened. They have worked against me and not always with much intermediation; my layoff was occasioned in no small part by the contraction of funding available to the least advantaged college students to be found. The bastards have voted against me, and this time, I will be returning the favor.

I will therefore be voting today. I will very much be voting today. While it may not "matter" that I do, for I share some of the doubts of my colleagues that things will change for the better rather than remain in the willfully ignorant rut into which they have fallen, and I know that my tacit complicity in atrocity will continue maugre my head because I continue to participate in systems that perpetuate oppression and reinforce the social stratification that facilitates it, it is at least something I can do to try to make things a little bit better.

And, again, when things falter and fail, I will at least have the small and petty satisfaction of being able to say with all honesty "I told you so."