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MY LAST ELECTION
REFLECTIONS ON DISENFRANCHISEMENT IN 2002
 By Alicia Banks

"...a New Democrat is no different from an Old Republican."
Mumia Abu-Jamal
June 1993
"Clinton guillotines Guinier"
Live From Death Row

"Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to."
Mumia Abu-Jamal
"Politics"
Death Blossoms

I am very proud of every person who voted last Tuesday, even if we all did so in vain.  I know that millions of voters, of all races and classes, were denied a chance to vote. They were deliberately sabotaged by incompetence, error, and evil nationwide.

And, unlike in 2000, when the exact same voter abuses were exposed en masse, in 2002 all national news agencies decided to simply ignore these travesties. Millions of us are reading about voter outrage and municipal lawsuits in our local papers. But, this news will appear nowhere else....

“News” has become synonymous with “omissions/lies”. Rather than expose or rectify  national voter abuses, media have chosen to blatantly censor and ignore them. Collective silences are fatal consent.

With very few exceptions, I am disgusted by the entire national fiasco of Election 2002. But, I am disgusted with elections for the very last time. Like my rasta warrior brothers chant: “I will no longer play the twisted games of politricks in a wicked shitsym...”

I will no longer defend “losers” who do not challenge opposing “winners”. I will never accept narrow victory margins that are created by broad voter abuses. Elections have become synonymous with disenfranchisement in selective places, primarily those populated by urban voters with diverse populations.

Now better than ever before, I can understand those wiser citizens who refuse to bother to vote at all, although I can never make that same choice. But, I will no longer allow myself to be deluded into believing that my voting is anything more than an honorary ritual. I now regard my civic action as a symbolic tribute to my ancestors who fought and died for the former privilege of voting.

In the future, my visiting a poll will be akin to visiting a gravesite.  I will vote to celebrate the memory of what once was, knowing that I will never revive it, no matter how much I cherish and revere it.

I will now vote to exercise a right that has been nullified by injurious laws and sophisticated antics. Those of us who are not felons or absent are equally discounted. Our votes are nullified by sabotage and design. From pollsters who curiously run out of ballots to Supreme Courts who brazenly sanction such gross ineptitude without redress, my vote is increasingly meaningless and worthless in an increasingly corrupt and ruthless political system.

My ancestors never dreamt that the constitutional amendment they coveted would be erased by political fiascoes, institutionalized hatred, and methodical madness. I will continue to vote only in honor of their eternal warrior spirits, which are indeed as restless as my own...

Democracy is a

fallacy in a world ruled by racism and elitism. From the insanity of electoral colleges to the inexcusable ineptitude of chaotic polls, voting has become a horrid joke. I vote merely to exercise a hard won right, not to sincerely fashion any real social change. I will no longer participate emotionally or mentally in such tragic comedies of errors. I will participate only physically, without genuine expectations, fueled only by passion for the historical act of voting, not its present outcomes.

Elections have become frustrating fantasies in world where New World Order nightmares become more real each day...

Dear God: Please bless us all and have mercy on our shockingly evil world...
 

 

 

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