Good Grief!!!!

You're a blockhead, Charlie Brown.
Love the cartoon, Bear.

Yeah,,don't vote, you blockhead, Charlie Brown, but remember, one of the teams playing will be put in power over your life and times.
Joe(good luck with that)Nation

Ha! That about sums it up.

maybe a tad overdramatic. I don't believe anyone's voting for king of the US, and I don't see the comic as supporting non-voting.

Remember eight years of Bush and six years of a republican congress.

I certainly do. BVT's submission transcends partisan politics... my favorite

Edit - and again, I'm not saying "don't vote". What you're reading is, "vote for this guy". Right?

Imagine what would happen if nobody voted. I mean that literally -- not a single ballot cast.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. sets up a somewhat similar premise in his novel Slapstick. In the book, set in the not-too-distant future, the United States of America has, in essence, ceased to exist. Oh,everthng is still there phsicall but the government has ceased to function due to lack of interest. Not only have people stopped going to the polls but would-be politicians have reconsidered their career choices and no one is standing for office. The story is told from the point of view of the man who identifies himself early on as the last president of the United States. He's been president for 20 or 30 years now because nobody has come along to schedule new elections. In fact, the only reason he was elected to begin with was because nobody was interested enough to run against him.

And so on.

Fascinating idea, I think.

That'd work about as well as it is now "working", Merry. Instead of a one or two term war criminal, you could have a career criminal.

I hope that everyone who doesn't think that voting matters, doesn't vote.

It tends to be. Liberal view on voting.

You don't see the cartoon as supporting non-voting, except, may I point out, that exactly what the point of the cartoon is.
You do know the story of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football, right? Every time he gives in and tries to kick the football, Lucy yanks it out of the way.

It's saying the process is futile, that change will not come, that if you try to participate in the process, you will get to fall on your ass.


'tain't so, Thack45, and the only ones who want to believe that and stay home on election day are the ones who do not want you to get in their way of winning the elections.

Who do you think that is? The GOP for one, and pathetic Greenies, Libertarians, Naderites and wacko Lefties for another.

Vote the GOP out, vote the Democrats in, Hold their feet to the fire.

Joe(till they scream)Nation

One of Vonnegut's worst books, I'll have to go back and read it again.
Hmm. No government always sounds wonderful.
I forget......
in the book, was there a private Centers for Disease Control?
Did the airlines decide they could direct all the air traffic themselves?
Did each town have enough volunteers to go out and repair the section of the nearest InterState Highway?
How did one decide which meat wagon had meat that was meat?
Was there any chance that working people and corporations had figured out amongst themselves how to have safe, clean working environments and that the following was not true: 1) the youngest workers were nine and 2) the shortest work week was 72 hours. ??

Joe(just asking. I am going to look up that title)Nation

Totally agree with you that it's one of Vonnegut's worst books. (I once started a thread on Abuzz, asking for someone to please explain to me why the title is Slapstick and why the dedication is to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy with a cartoon of the two zanies as a frontispiece illustration. Book is no more humrous or slapstick-y than anything else Vonnegut has written.) But it's not one of his worst books for the reasons you indicate. No, no, he's not touting anarchy or libertarianism. Society has totally broken down in the novel. Air traffic controlllers? There's no air traffic to control. Subsistence farming is the major means of livelihood in such places as Manhattan (where most of the plot unravels).

I'm not sure I understand this book at all but it sure ain't proposing abolition of government.

I think the great thing about the cartoon -- and the political view it mirrors -- is that it illustrates so well the widespread disillusion, frustration and despair that people now have in regard to the current two-pparty system. We are at a point where it really, really seems to make no difference any more as to which party is in power or who wins or loses an election. Politicans are seen (usually rightly) as scum. They do not represent us, the peole. It doesn't matter whether the party is Dem. or GOP.

Oh, I'll vote, as I usually do. And I'll vote for Obama only because he seems to be the lesser of two evils. But I'll be wondering, somewhere in the back of my mind, why I'm doing this. Why continue this exercise in futility? Nothing whatever of any significance is going to change. Never has, never will. It is EXACTLY like having thatfootball pulled out from under you year after year after year. I'm begining to believe that those of us who do vote often do it (1) out of forces of habit and/or (2) to salve our consciences that we're actually doing something. I doubt that we are.

Lustig (but not so merry today)Andrei

the strip to me simply reaffirms my belief that no matter who you vote for the government always wins

voting is an exercise in desperation. I will keep on voting but with the expectation that it will not do any good. Money controles government just as it always has and will do so untill the common people get enough. then the shooting will start.

Joe on this we will have to agree to disagree. It's merely an observation on what the voting process has deteriorated to. It's not a call to ignore voting, not as I see it anyway, just a comment using humor on what a sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in. quite the contrary , it should be about an awakening and voter's call to arms

It's okay to disagree with me, I'm not known for handing anybody their head.

I don't see how you can interpret it any differently than "Come on, sucker, see if voting does any good."

It's the kind of cynicism that pervades the far Left and brings us results like the debacle in Florida in 2000.

Everyday we read about some other GOP campaign designed to suppress the vote. When was the last time you read about an organized pushback? That call to arms as you called it.

How is voter education and registration doing in North Carolina?

Joe(don't mind me, I'm pissed)Nation

PS: Note to Brits, not that kind of pissed.

Now that is pure bullshit. I cannot imagine where you came up with tripe like that. Ever hear of Katherine Harris? Ever give any thought to the interference of the U.S. Supreme Court in the recount mandated by the Florida Supreme Court? You consider Harris and the Supremes to be members of the far Left?

Man, you really pulled that one out of your ass, and it smells like it, too.

My point exactly