Opinion: Ed Hamell On Voting
Ed Hamell, Of Hamell On Trial, On Voting
There’s a lot of reasons why you wouldn’t want to vote, that’s for sure. Hard to be “hopeful” these days. An interesting story (and not a particularly inspiring one as far as reasons to vote, although I’m getting to that, honest): I played an outdoor festival in Wisconsin keeping my subversive politics and potty mouth in check because it was an all ages affair , and I was approached afterwards by four elderly woman who enjoyed the set and wanted to know if my CDs contained music that was more overtly political.
“Why yes”, I said, “I gotta song for Ann Coulter that’ll knock your garters off”. Anyway they were wearing “Grannies Against Military Madness” buttons, and had recently had an interview with Castro. They asked him, “Do you think Cuba will ever be a Democracy?” and he responded, “Like your country where the two richest men run against each other?” Amazing what one might run into in Wisconsin.
So you don’t vote so we can keep our “freedom”, or because somebody died in a war somewhere. Sorry to upset anyone, but they probably died so a bunch of white guys could get richer. You vote because it’s your civic duty. You vote because you need to give back to society. The real soldiers are the doctors, the firemen, the people in the food kitchens, the truly compassionate religious workers, the disaster volunteers, the people that give of their time generously and with no reward other than spiritual, you’re voting for them, because we’re voting for each other. It’s literally the very least you can do. (sidenote: Jury duty is surprisingly humbling too. Even for a cynic like me. The system’s mad desire, against all odds, to see justice served is pretty great.)
(Ed Hamell plays in the folk-punk group Hamell On Trial. His recent double live album and DVD, Rant And Roll, was recently released by Righteous Babe Records )
