the shrewdness of apes

Being "the deciding vote": ??!! Who gives a fuck?! That's like not going shopping at the grocery store because you might not be the millionth customer and therefore streamers and confetti might not fall all around you as someone puts a lei over your neck.

How about the consolation that your one vote is at least canceling out the vote of some homophobic racist, or selfish millionaire misogynist fratboy, or rabid Christian end-of-the-world fantasist? Isn't that good enough?

I agree with Dan's point on your earlier post that a big part of this problem is the electoral college. It should be abolished, and then arguments like "voting for this person matters here but not there" would evaporate. If we are in fact one united country, as the name suggests, then the popular vote should determine the outcome of who leads us all.

jamie, if this is what you are advocating, i officially jump off the apes bandwagon after a thrilling month long run.

I think it's called the electrical college.

you go shopping to buy things, not to win things. you vote to choose a president. if your vote doens't end up choosing who the president is, then it theoretically becomes pointless (like going to the store and buying nothing but inedible food), and when your vote is one of hundreds of millions, it barely registers. and of course it matters if it's the deciding vote - you vote mostly for the off chance that yours will be the 1 vote that tips the balance, otherwise why bother? to make your voice heard? whatever. what good is canceling out the vote of some other person if the margin of victory is going to be so large that it doesn't matter? i mean "yay, i canceled out their vote and my guy won by 567,352 votes instead of 567,351"? at that point a protest/conscience vote for Nader or whoever becomes a lot more palatable.

let me just say before the lynch mob arrives that there are a lot of reasons to vote besides the presidential race (congressional races, etc.) and those reasons are mainly why i will be voting on November.

i've got to say jamie that you are really digging a hole for yourself. it is such a silly argument. i hate to bring up the whole notion of "if anyone felt the same way as you do that no one would vote" but i will. the system's only chance of working is if as many people as possible voted.

the reason republicans win is because they all fucking vote! if we could get more of the poor and the disenfranchised to vote, we might actually be able to see some really fucking change in this country.

sigh.

I agree with Dan. Your thoughts on voting are sad. Dan's right that if everyone took that stance, shit would suck even more. BUt, each vote DOES count and not just because it could potentially be a deciding vote. Your vote counts because the rep you're voting for is naturally really only going to cater to those who vote for him/her. Politicians generally don't give an F what young people think b/c young people don't vote. By choosing not to participate, you are choosing to be ignored by whoever is voted in.

I meant to say they're goign to cater to people who vote at all, not just for him/her.

And another thing! This is all such BS! I'm sick of it. Your vote counts even, if you are adding one vote to a million in favor of one candidate, b/c when you start to think it doesn't and when you fucking throw it out is when someone's going to take it away from you and you're not even going to fucking notice.

Jamie, you talk as if your own vote exists in a vacuum and other people's votes, these predetermined millions you speak of, are all set in stone separately from yours. All those millions of other people have the freedom to vote or not vote just like you do. And many of them surely have the same doubt that they're really making a difference.

Maybe what you are looking for is to live in a society with 10 or 20 or 50 evenly opposed citizens, where you can know exactly who is voting for whom and whether your vote will give you some kind of special stature by virtue of being "the one" that tips the balance. Or maybe you should go on Survivor, where the outcome of tribal council very often rests on one person's vote.

Democracy isn't about the vanity of "I am the one who decided everything." It's about participating alongside your fellow citizens, doing what you believe is right, and, depending on how things shake out, ending up on either the side that prevailed or the side that didn't. When you start getting caught up in margins of victory versus the value of your own contribution, you lose sight of that.

BAH!!!! I'M FROTHING AT THE MOUTH RIGHT NOW AND CAN'T PUT TOGETHER A COGENT REPSONSE. YOUR PESSIMISM IS HORRIFYING AND YOUR ARGUMENT IS SORELY LACKING! WHY DID YOU EVEN REGISTER TO VOTE?

i've just figured it out. jamie is like andy kaufman reading a book to an audience expecting comedy. this is jamie's idea of performance art. he drops the bait and watches all his minions go crazy. brilliant, apes, absolutely brilliant.

Dan - you've got part of it right. i do enjoy a lively debate, and watching people go crazy, but i'm not completely detached from it a la Kaufman. sometimes i like playing devil's advocate even against myself. this post especially was one that i knew would rile everyone up (even though most of them probably didn't bother to read the whole article i linked to).

but i will say that that if you're really serious about enacting change in this country, that simply voting is not going to accomplish much. most politicians do no represent your best interests (if i may assume that most of you are fairly close to me politically), they represent whatever is going to keep them in office which is whatever is going to get them the most money for their re-election campaign. Kerry voted for the war in Iraq because he was scared for his political future if he didn't. those that don't operate like this (Dean, Kucinich) get cast aside as "un-electable". at this point i really wish Dean had won and i feel bad that i dismissed him after the craziness in Iowa. he wouldn't be losing on the issues to Bush - he'd be taking it to him.

i've had a ton of other stuff that i've typed and deleted here, but i guess where i wanted this to end up eventually was to say that what i mean overall is that voting is such a very minimal part of making things happen. anyone who thinks that they're changing the world simply by voting is misguided (i know none of you are saying that). there are so many other ways to improve the world and to make good things happen.

i think it's funny sometimes that the same people who ridicule me for not voting also laugh that i won't eat at McDonald's or buy Nikes or shop at Wal-Mart or when i push my anti-SUV agenda. i know that it's just a drop in the bucket and not likely to change much, but those choices actually feel real and honest. voting for the lesser of two evils does not - sometimes it makes more sense not to participate than to vote for someone i don't feel good about. in this case, Bush is abhorrent enough to justify voting against him - which i will do because that is the biggest change that needs to happen right now. i'm not pessimistic (except about the Red Sox), i'm just sick of the political garbage constantly being spewed at me while so many problems go unaddressed or are denied outright.

jamie, the reason people make fun of you for not going to mcdonald's is that you frequent other fast food corporations that don't have such great records either. they all contribute to the same bad stuff.

congratulations on not buying nike. there aren't many other choices out there. and it must be hard to avoid the zero wal-marts in new york city. bravo.

and then you give us a hard time for not reading the whole article when you tell us that you have included a relevant part. was this just an exercise in seeing whether or not we would read the article and then when we didn't, you catch us in our lack of research?

i do like the line about you playing devil's advocate with yourself.

man, i should be working.

as far as nike and it's giant umbrella goes, did you know they bought out converse back in 2003? somehow i missed this tidbit. goodbye one stars. it was fun while it lasted.

i just posted a part of the article because i figured it people were interested they would go read the whole thing. i didn't say whether i agreed with it or not, but everyone simply jumped to that conclusion. i thought it was interesting in the context of the previous debate.

as for my eating habits, i don't frequent any fast food places - on road trips i will eat at Chik-fil-a or Wendy's or whavtever, but of course they're part of the same problem. so much of that stuff is part of the same problem, and obviously i don't live up to the standard of only supporting "good" companies. but i'm trying - and my examples were simply examples, not the entire list. so spare me your condescension.

jamie,

you are correct about people jumping to conclusions but you have made that point before that voting doesn't matter and that the only reason you are going to vote is because of other races. and it seems like you are looking to make yourself feel better for not voting in years.
of course, there are other ways to make a difference, but voting is one of them and shouldn't be dismissed.

spare you the condescension? you bring it on yourself by taking the high road and pointing out how moral you are by not eating at mcdonald's or buying nike. so by extension us folks who like an occasional happy meal are much worse than you are. that isn't condescending?

and another thing, why be all high and mighty about mcdonald's when you freely admit you'll eat at other fast food places even though they are part of the same problem. this is why people attack you for your inconsistent arguments. whatever you do is moral and just, always- no matter how you rationalize it to yourself. it is funny.

i'm not saying that whatever i do is moral and just - i just said i don't live up to the standard of avoiding everything that i consider evil. i'm trying, and that is my ultimate goal, but i'm very imperfect in that regard. and i'm only talking about myself. the fact that there is a "problem" is my opinion. i know that most of you share similar opinions (you yourself, Dan, called them part of the same "bad stuff"), but i'm not accusing anyone of failing or being worse than me for not following the same path. that's entirely you reading that into what i'm saying, for whatever reason. all i'm talking about is me, once again. to me, voting is not as important as the choices i make in my day-to-day life. in my opinion, voting does little to affect change, but choices can have more power. that's all i said. i didn't say what i do is moral - it's just my reaction to the perceived problem. you're the one who is saying to me that my actions aren't good enough without even knowing the whole story. i was just using very broad examples.

One of my favorite quotes from a dear friend of mine is: "Oh, that was one of my favorite consumer memories" in regards to our day-after-thanksgiving shopping bacchanlia. Which is utter ridiculous-ness. Lesson to be learned from this is, yes you can try to support companies you consider good and avoid ones that are bad, but unless you live in a commune and grow your own hemp to weave your own clothes and soy to eat, then at some point, somehow you are going to be contributing to a problem. So I think we should cut Jamie some slack for trying. At least he tries and is conscious that his actions may be detrimental somewhere to someone/thing.

This is far more interesting than anything on late night television.

A roommate I had in Chicago once berated me for shopping at Jewel, a large supermarket, instead of the crappy corner store down the street. "I'm helping the guy who owns that store send his kids to college," he said, all morally superior.

I didn't bother to engage him, because he was a jerk and I'd learned by then that it was pointless to argue with him. (A self-styled punk rocker who ran away from home when he was 16, he chose not to believe in evolution and once said "We have more in common with plants than we do with animals," a claim he would not back off from no matter how much evidence I threw his way.)

But here's my take on the big guy vs. little guy argument: What about the cashiers and stockboys and assistant managers at Jewel? Don't they have kids to send to college, or rent to pay, or dreams to save up for? Just because that store owner happens to be an independent businessman, that doesn't make him better. How do we know he treats his employees well? He might be beating them with a stick when customers aren't around. And for all I know he was funneling money to Hamas. Just because someone is a sole proprietor, they're not necessarily more deserving of your money than a corporation.

Corporations are not universally evil. Some of them exert a positive influence on the world in subtle or even unintentional ways, and not just those that trumpet themselves as socially conscious or free-range or rainforest-loving or whatever. And a lot of people would never have had a job in their lives if there were no corporations around to employ them.

I've read Fast Food Nation, and I've seen The Corporation, and I've worked for companies that jerk around the people who work for them and make more money than they need to and engage in shady business practices. So I certainly do not have a rosy-eyed view of the corporate world. But the role of corporations in our society is a complex issue, not a black and white one.

Living in a world where everything is so interconnected, and where it's basically impossible to be completely self-sufficient (or even close), we're all bound to do things, without even knowing it, that end up having negative consequences for other people, for the environment, for the balance of good and evil or however you want to think of it. Trying to combat this in whatever way you see fit is a noble goal. As long as you're not being preachy about it, or fooling yourself into thinking that your simple refusal to buy a certain product will save the world, then I say do your thing. I think we all can cut Jamie some slack and cut all of ourselves some slack. We could also each be more actively conscientious about the choices we make. I certainly could. Whether that will ever happen, I don't know.

jim and michelle, i agree with you. i think it is fine with jamie for not going to mcdonald's. but he can't have it both ways. he brings up the point to show how stupid we are for giving him a hard time about not voting.

if he doesn't think voting is important, he should say that and stick with it. instead he registers to vote and wants us to stop hassling him about it. then he posts an article about how voting is useless. then we call him on that. then he says that he doesn't necessarily agree with all of the article but he merely put it up to see what people will say. then he contradicts himself again by saying that he agrees with the article and that voting is useless but he doesn't eat at mcdonald's thus shifting the focus of the original point he was trying to make. if you all want to applaud him for shifting the discussion, that is fine with me. i don't buy it.

Dan, I'm not applauding anyone for anything. Just trying to dispense some homegrown wisdom and inject a sense of perspective into this discussion so it doesn't devolve into a series of harsh personal attacks. I have a suggestion for you: try staring into that picture of the waterfall shaped like a puking cat for a while. It's mesmerizing. It will make you forget about the troubles of the world. It worked for me. (Also, I'm in a good mood because I think Kerry came out of the debate looking like an intelligent and capable adult, whereas Bush came off as a whiny, snippy teenager.)

Dan, don't bitch at Jamie for 'flip-flopping', he's just trying to figure out where he stands on this whole voting thingy. We should all be constantly debating ourselves, I loved the comment earlier about playing devil's advocate w/ yourself (plus, it sounds kinky). It's the stagnant, narrow-minded, single-view people who are sending this planet to hell in a handbasket. Not that I even believe in hell, it's all BS.

"If you have not by nature a critical mind,
your staying here is useless."
- G.I. Gurdjieff

you used the word flip-flopping, not me. all i'm saying is that he deflects the issue from him saying that voting is most likely useless so why bother to dan is a jerk for talking about mcdonald's. okay.

and furthermore claire,

jamie's position on voting has been clear for years- it doesn't matter.

now that he's registered, he still seems to be saying it doesn't matter. how is he playing devil's advocate with himself on this issue? he has a belief for years that falls right in line with what he is still saying. that is perfectly acceptable to me if he is willing to hear his friends yell at him all the time. since he registered, i guess he's sick of hearing that argument that he should register.

i would completely respect him on this whole issue if he just stated why voting is a waste of time to him and why he isn't going to vote for president this year or any year and that he is just going to try to win the lottery like that article says he has more of a chance of doing than being the decisive vote in an election.

i appreciate those of you jumping in on my behalf to whatever degree. it's nice if not entirely warranted. i think the main reason this whole thing has cropped up stems from my own confusion about the whole process. Dan is correct: i have for a long time though that voting was a pointless exercise given the conditions and choices of most elections. to some degree, i still feel that way - there are very few candidates that i feel connected on many major issues which is really frustrating. but i have begun to see the world in a much more shades-of-gray way over the years, and am trying to accept that i'm probably never going to have much influence over the way things happen on a large scale. voting can seem like such a small inconsequential action that makes little impact except on the self-satisfaction of those voting, and that troubles me. but sometimes, maybe that's enough of a reason to do it, to participate in the process flaws and all. i don't know.

but i am tired of the constant carping i hear about it, which was why i started in with the whole "action speak louder than ballots" stuff. i honestly believe that, but as Jim correctly pointed out, corporations are not universally evil - i work for a great (albeit non-profit) company - and without them we certainly wouldn't have all the things that we take for granted in our lives (like blogs!). but i think the system at large too often marginalizes workers, discourages them from unionizing and fighting for their fair share and is all too willing to ignore problems (pollution, safety, shady accounting) in the name of profit margin. and that's really frustrating too. it can be very hard to know which companies to support and which to shun, and as Jim points out again, you're bound to support things you hate however inadvertantly because you just can't know the whole backstory behind everything you eat or buy. but to the extent that those things are knowable, i feel like that knowledge needs to be applied. admittedly it's not much, but if it helps make the world a less evil place, then i can erase a little bit of that frustration that would otherwise be contributing to the ulcer i'll no doubt be developing down the road.

well put, jamie. if all of this arguing has led to the point of you writing such a clear, concise, excellent statement of beliefs, it is all worth it, right?

and for the record, i also agree with you and jim that not all corporations are evil. i just would like to see a little more government regulation which isn't going to happen since they are all in bed together.

A friend of mine in Baltimore recently sent around a mass e-mail about the terrible state of things, which garnered this response from a guy I don't know:

"Despicable as he was, Mao had a point when he said 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' It strikes me that even for those who believe all mainstream American politicians are a thousand miles from where they should be, it is time to take a single step and vote for John Kerry. After that, they can worry about the next step."

That is a much more concise and persuasive statement of what I was trying to get across in several of the comments I made last week. The next step is where we come in. If we really want things to change, we should commit to getting involved in some influential way, even if it's a small way. At this gay employee event at work that I covered for my job, the director of GLAAD encouraged the audience to consider themselves activists, however they wanted to define that word. Like Jamie has said, simply voting doesn't make enough of a difference. And like I think I said, individual corporate boycotts don't necessarily get the job done either. I say we all challenge ourselves to figure out ways to make more of an impact.