#proposition 1a

[poltergeist-punk]

MAKE SURE EVERYONE FROM SEATTLE GETS TO SEE THIS!!!

THIS IS ADVOCATING FOR FUNDING SOCIAL HOUSING OFF OF TAXING THE RICH (7 figure salaries)!!! MAKE SURE TO SPREAD THIS!!!

FEB 11TH IS KING COUNTY SPECIAL ELECTION DAY!!!

sources:

Led by Director Julie Wise, King County Elections conducts accurate, secure, and accessible elections for King County's over 1.4 million reg

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[b00fspl00ge]

2012 and 2008 Elections in Retrospect

Proud day as an American.

I remember driving home from work in 2008, listening to NPR and keeping tabs on the election results as they were coming in. When I got to my apartment (a room without cable TV/internet), I turned on the radio with the crappy antennae, poured myself some Jim Beam, and randomly strummed some whimsical bullshit on the guitar to relieve some nerves while I listened intently as Senator Obama was gaining the electoral votes necessary to become President Obama.

When the “official” projection was “confirmed”, I remember feeling overwhelmed; I was in awe. I was in awe of the United States, of the democratic process, spiritually mesmerized by a sense of collective empathy. I was in tears.

Later on, I found out that Proposition 1A had passed. I was pissed. But whatever, it was just money. There was work to be done and shit to do. Fuck that high-speed cable car. I’ll probably be driving some SUV that is fueled by a mixture of my excrement and vegetable oil. Just add the sweat from the dreads of white-hippies from Berkeley for an extra 50 horsepower as a NOS-like additive. Money down the drain; but I’ve flushed shit worth money down the toilet before. Not billions of dollars worth though.

For a few months after that, there would be various images, snippets of articles, quotes, pictures of people, that ostensibly reminded me of that moment. I replayed John Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Election Night, saw various inspiring photos of American iconography and pictures of American citizens who had been waiting a lifetime, no - waiting lifetimes - for this moment. They were in tears too. In awe. What a moment. History being made.

But it wasn’t just a singular moment that was caught in the web of time and trapped. It pointed towards a future in the midst of reflection. The tears were for the future. A moment that looked towards the past, but weighed in as a fulcrum that pivots forward. Not merely change, but progress. I remember seeing so many people with those tears on their cheeks. I could see it in their glassy eyes and pursed lips. A relief. A joy. An “At Last.” Their eyes reflected the children. “Thank God, for them.” The eyes that looked after the future were now past the present. They could see it; for the kids.

“Proposition 1A, or the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century, was on the November 4, 2008 ballot in California as a legislatively-referred bond act, where it was approved.” I remembered being appalled at the time.

I heard the arguments about job creation and stimulating the economy and whatnot. I didn’t care. I still don’t. I felt it was almost a moral imperative that if we could somehow scrape together that much money for some high-tech, under-planned, ill-conceived, masturbation pipeline between NorCal and SoCal, that the money ought to go to education. I remember a few proposals for education funding getting shutdown before it even hit the ballot. I also remember voting for every school bond measure on the local ballot. I pretty much always vote for bond measures when it’s for school districts. And I don’t even have fucking kids.

Oh, and Prop 8 was buggered down.

I was a college dropout in 2008. Well, I prefer the phrase “selectively withdrawn,” or “on phenomenological sabbatical.” By 2012, I had gone back to the best public university in the world and earned that goddamn certificate of authenticity. I make less money now than I did then. Go figure. More work to be done and shit to do.

When President Obama was “officially confirmed” as projected to be re-elected, I felt happy. Not ecstatic; there was no euphoria. There was no Jim Beam. I didn’t feel like strumming the guitar, just fucking around on the internet. I have the internet now. And cable TV. I watched a livestream of the President’s victory speech. It was a’ight. It pumped me up for a bit. He’s still THAT impressive speaker. I felt a brief spark blush my spirit as my fingers swept across my MacBook Pro, my eyes furrowed and focused on the window reserved for the Incumbent President-Elect. But then I switched over to respond to some Facebook posts and watch Castle on Hulu.

It’s there, but it’s not the same; no feeling of some quantum leap that’s been made, not on the verge of some amazing life-changing/affirming/redeconstructing discovery. That spark has attenuated into a weathered ember. Hopefully it’ll catch flame before it ashes. It feels like the 2nd week on the job. Party’s over. There’s work to be done and shit to do.

I really hope Proposition 30 passes. I just find it depressing to see how Prop 30 from this election year could fail, and yet Prop 1A from 2008 had passed. (“In 2008, when voters approved the measure, the estimate for the total cost of the project was $40 billion. In 2011, the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued a new cost estimate for the entire project, saying that it will cost between $98.5 billion and $118 billion.”)

Let’s just let the public education system starve to death while we fund some superfluous dumbass high-speed railway between San Francisco and Anaheim because it’s cool and high tech. Where was the fiscal conservatism then? And yet long term infrastructure investment and support such as EDUCATION go by the wayside.

Yes. Work to be done, and shit to do.

For the kids.