AnnRKeyintheUSA said:
I must ask you- how does voting change things? You voted, nothing's changed!
i'm registered in VA, i voted, and George Allen lost and Jim Webb won. the senate went into the hands of the Democrats. that's a big deal.
so they cave on an Iraq vote. we can be disappointed, but this is quite different than saying that nothing has changed. the process is slow, but more power in the hands of the Democrats will start to change things.
and if you don't participatpe, you've lost your right to complain. they're counting on you not to vote, so they can mobilize the sheep who will vote how they want them to, so they can increase their power.
and there's a lot more to voting than selecting members of congress or the president. there are countless laws and local and state offices that can make quite a noticeable difference in the quality of life.
note this passage from a TIME magazine article on Bloomberg and Schwarenagger:
[q]They're also doing big things. Specifically, they're doing big things that Washington has failed to do. In a time of federal policy paralysis, when partisanship-on-crack has made compromise almost impossible, when President George W. Bush's political adviser is a household name but his domestic policy adviser was unknown even in Washington until he was arrested for shoplifting, cities and states are filling the void. Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger happen to be the best examples of this phenomenon as well as the best known. Bloomberg is 65; the Last Action Hero is turning 60; they've got better things to do than bicker and posture. "These are two exceptional and forceful guys who don't need the job at all; they had pretty damn good lives before they got into politics," says their mutual friend Warren Buffett. "They're in office to get things done. And they're doing that a lot better than anyone in D.C."
Look at global warming. Washington rejected the Kyoto Protocol, but more than 500 U.S. mayors have pledged to meet its emissions-reduction standards, none more aggressively than Bloomberg. His PlaNYC calls for a 30% cut in greenhouse gases by 2030. It will quadruple the city's bike lanes, convert the city's taxis to hybrids and impose a controversial congestion fee for driving into Manhattan. And Schwarzenegger signed the U.S.'s first cap on greenhouse gases, including unprecedented fuel-efficiency standards for California cars. (He's already tricked out two of his five Hummers, one to run on biofuel and another on hydrogen.) The feds have done nothing on fuel efficiency in two decades, but 11 states will follow California's lead if Bush grants a waiver. After signing a climate deal with Ontario — on the same day as his stem-cell deal — he said he had a message for Detroit: "Get off your butt!" He had a similar message for Washington. "Eventually, the Federal Government is going to get on board," he said. "If not, we're going to sue."
But they're tackling not just the climate. Bloomberg is leading a national crackdown on illegal guns, along with America's biggest affordable-housing program. He also enacted America's most draconian smoking ban and the first big-city trans-fat ban. And he's so concerned about Washington's neglect of the working poor that he's raised $50 million in private money, including some of his own millions, to fund a pilot workfare program. Meanwhile, after the Bush Administration rebuffed California's appeals for help repairing the precarious levees that protect Sacramento, Schwarzenegger pushed through $42 billion worth of bonds to start rebuilding the state's infrastructure. He's also pushing a universal health-insurance plan and hopes to negotiate a deal with Democrats this summer. "All the great ideas are coming from state and local governments," Schwarzenegger told Time. "We're not going to wait for Big Daddy to take care of us."
[...]
So they're not exactly playing politics as usual. But their model of crossing party lines to act where Washington won't is increasingly common. As D.C. politics has become more of a zero-sum partisan game, mayors and Governors in both parties have taken on predatory lending, obesity, energy, health care and even immigration. "It's innovation by necessity," says Stephen Goldsmith, a former Republican mayor of Indianapolis who oversees Harvard's Innovations in American Government awards. This year hardly any federal programs applied. "Very unusual," Goldsmith says.[/q]
there's more to voting than just sending people to Washington DC. and you can bet that if Al Gore had won, or Kerry had won, things would be different than they are today.