As a response to the nonsense posited by the Arab American Institute’s Yalla Vote in the comments of a previous post:
So go ahead. Don’t vote this year. Don’t choose from among the candidates the ones to best represent our needs, protect our civil liberties, defend our rights to full citizenship under the Constitution. But I don’t want to hear a single word of complaint for the next four years if you choose not to exercise your right to vote. Not one. single. word.
How about we hear not one. single. word. of complaint for the next four years from those who are about to vote the trash in next Tuesday to replace the garbage they voted in eight years ago?
Arab Americans were asked vote for George W. Bush in 2000 in swing states like Florida by the same people now asking that Arab Americans living in swing states vote for Obama.
How about the Arab American leadership like those from the Arab American Institute stop trying to lead.
How about Arab Americans sit this one out. How about Arab Americans not vote. That way, this time, you can have every right to complain when Obama or McCain screw everything up.
How about, instead of the call to play ping-pong between Republicans and Democrats every four years, we hear calls to spend our energies on imagining and living under genuine democracy. Ways that do not rely on “leaders” to partake in the impossibility of “representation.” Ways that encourage us to do politics every day — not once every two or four years.
Electoral politics is not politics, yet we allow it to the be beginning and the end of our democracy oligarchy. Asking that everyone participate in this system is not going to change it any. On the contrary, it only legitimizes it and renders it our only thinkable solution.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efKguI0NFek]
Related posts:
- Obama to Arab-Americans: I Want Your Vote
- Guest Post: Why Arab-Americans Should Vote
- Political Unity for Arab Americans?
- The Arab American Community on Nader
- MPI Features Important Article on Arab-Americans
Nice try, Qui Qui. I’m voting. With the Supreme Court retiring 3 judges, and my ass not planning to “abstain” from sex any time soon, I need to be sure that those judges won’t be replaced by Roe v Wade killers. In addition, I’m not letting my kid live in a country headed by McCain. But thanks for the suggestion.
Posted by rockslinga | October 29, 2008, 5:21 pmso says the girl who tried to run over a cop with her car.
Gimme a break.
Stay home and bitch and moan and blog some more. Rinse and repeat.
Posted by Anonymous | October 29, 2008, 10:30 pmI’m not voting in this election — at least not for the two collectivism-worshipers we have as presidential candidates — and for the next two years I will continue to speak out about how terrible Obama or McCain is and how we need to find and support candidates who uphold individual rights so long as either one of them doesn’t restrict my freedom of speech, since both seem to have a love affair with censorship.
I will end with Leonard Peikoff’s view on the US presidential candidates:
McCain: “a tired moron”
Obama: “a lying phony”
Biden: “an enjoyably hilarious windbag”
Palin: “an opportunist struggling to learn how to become a moron, a phony, and a windbag”
Posted by Mo | October 30, 2008, 3:18 amforgot to add: McCain wants to take away reproductive rights of women while Obama opposes four of the five Supreme Court justices who affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms.Sophisticated socialists at their finest.
Posted by Mo | October 30, 2008, 12:02 amI take it that there are no local/domestic issues that you find worthy of voting for? All you care about are the international aspects of the election?
You’re a pathetic excuse for an activist.. yes, don’t vote!! Laughably pathetic.
Posted by Anonymous | October 30, 2008, 1:18 pmthis is exactly what makes other arab americans — even fellow arab american activists — write things like this off as too stubborn in its pretentiousness, condescension, and self-righteous intellectualism to offer any pragmatic contribution to the discussion or to even acknowledge the legitimacy of specific reasons to actually vote, and to vote – dare i say – for Obama (/against McCain. McCAIN, PEOPLE! and possibly a PRESIDENT PALIN, PEOPLE! goddammit.)
Posted by Nacho | October 31, 2008, 4:08 amAsking Arab Americans not to vote is a pathetic message. “How about Arab Americans sit this one out. How about Arab Americans not vote. That way, this time, you can have every right to complain when Obama or McCain screw everything up.”?!?!?! Oh my god, how stupid can one get? Oh, don’t do anything, so you can legitimately whine? No, let me be clear. If you don’t vote, you have NO right to complain! If you don’t want to be part of American politics, don’t complain. If you don’t want to be American, don’t be American.
Now, if you REALLY want Arab Americans to have a voice, go find an independent and vote en mass for this person, and everyone will say, “Woah, JoeBlow the candidate got a whoppings 3% of the national vote? Who voted for them? Wow, the Arab Americans? Dang, we’d better listen to them and appeal to them for real, since 3% can really swing an election. Maybe they’re worthy of consideration as citizens, instead of throwaways who just complain!”
Apathy isn’t the answer, guys. If it’s broke, fix it, don’t just whine about it.
And more. “beginning and the end of our oligarchy”????!! That’s exactly what we DON’T have, we only have 2 parties. What we really need is more parties, so that no one automatically has simple majority.
I’ve never heard of QuiQui before, and I’m glad now why.
Posted by Mitch | October 31, 2008, 7:54 am“pretentiousness, condescension, and self-righteous intellectualism ” = Qui Qui to a tee, writing from the comfort of her PHD program, with no concept of life in the real world.
Posted by Anonymous | October 31, 2008, 10:26 am