My Own Little Teabag Event

I conducted my own little teabagger event. A rebellion of sorts. I shredded my ballot. I'm not voting on the tax measures. Too many lies from both sides, is my reason. But just one reason.

I am a registered Independent. The Two Parties are destroying our country.

I wish the Democrats could understand the need for fiscal restraint and for individual freedom. I wish the public employee unions would recognize that their employees get better benefits and retirement than most Oregonians and give a little.

I know there are ranting raging Republican public employee retiree's, because I've met some of them, out there cat trapping.

I remember one man in particular who'd like everyone to suffer, except don't touch his public employee retirement account or benefits because he earned that. He has no sympathy for private sector employees who lost their retirement accounts to the Enron debacle or the crash thereafter due to greed from bankers and Wall streeters and legislative, at the federal level, blind eyes and winks to the Wall streeters and bankers indiscretions.

It was somehow their fault, he reasoned, and sided with the execs at Enron. That was the last time I encountered this man, when helping him and his wife again, for which they forgot to invoke their Republican Christian belief in fair play and pay me.

This too is common with the Republican screamers I encounter: screwing me! If you're so into personal responsibility, I've tried to argue, and Christian values, then why didn't you fix your pets in the first place and now that you didn't fix them, why not invoke your value system and pay me a fair wage to trap them and take them to be fixed, instead of....SCREWING ME! That's been my futile argument, after listening to their outrageous right wing rants until I want to vomit, while helping them.

I hate both parties and the legions who exhibit dead brain blind allegiance to their parties.

The democrats have an affinity for social programs but they do not become creative with those social programs, or even see to it that they are run humanely or efficiently. The Oregon DHS is notorious for its negligence in child protection. If it was ever looked into seriously, Oregon would be notorious for its abuse of mental patients, like I was abused. For this, I hold Democrats responsible.

On the other hand, my father was a hypocritical child molesting right winging Christian Republican, the Rush Limbaugh variety, so I can't, because of the horrors this brought to my life, consider voting Republican. I've met too many just like him.

So I'm dropping from the game. Call me unAmerican. I'm not. I love America. I hate both parties running the country. At least they negate each other.

I know good people in both parties. I know more good people in the Democratic party, however, because for some reason people registered as Democrats seem to be more involved in bettering their own communities, in all sorts of ways. Perhaps this is the nature of Democrats who seem community oriented, as opposed to Republicans who may see themselves as individuals more. I don't know. I'm far more comfortable around a group of Democrats I think. In a group of Republicans, I would be worried about saying something wrong, not being good enough, working hard enough, making enough, or revealing my inglorious past, that sort of thing. Maybe I'm getting into stereotypes now.

But I'm not voting for either party or their policies. The tax measures will pass or they will fail without my ballot making a mark either way. The candidates have public images created for them, run in brilliant campaigns and ads, that cost more than it would cost to fix every cat in America. And the ads are lies, charades. I won't play this game anymore.

If the measures fail, and social services are cut as a result, and I break my leg and have to have a neighbor set it, so be it. If I end up homeless, so be it. If I have to bury myself in a field when in my last moments alive, so be it.

If I'm run over by some super rich guy racing for the border because the measure passes, so be it. I'll wave goodbye as I die. Hahahaha. If even more jobs are lost, and looting becomes the norm to survive, so be it.

Nothing can really deeply affect me anymore. I don't have anything to lose, really. I've lived homeless and I can do so again. I've scrounged for food and I can do so again. I've endured the deaths of countless friends, humans and animal, and if I lose more, so be it. I've lived without power, without a car, without Internet, without a roof, without friends or family or a support system at all, and while these things are nice, they are luxury items. If I lose any of these things mentioned again, so be it.

I can't win in this capitalistic world. I can't. I'm a bad capitalist. I admit it. Don't care. I'm getting up there in years. There's no hope for me to be built into a factory ordered capitalist of the Republican or Democratic molds. Don't bother trying.

Go find some angry young people and divert their outrage into becoming your little soldiers! But not me. I'm old and skeptical and just want to sleep with my cats. Don't even send me a ballot anymore. Really. It's a waste.

I love Oregon. I love America. I love the way the fog hovers over the fields in the early morning when I can see the mountains far away, above the fog, dark, like stern benevolent guardians. I love crisp clear winter nights, when the air is sharp and crackles to the touch and the stars shine glorious above. Sometimes the woods call to me, when I'm out driving on some cat mission. My eyes are drawn into the forest, the mystery and beauty layered deep and soft. It's all I can do, to not stop, leave my car and run into the arms of the forest. The mountains call to me, too. Can't you hear? And the rivers.

But the cackling of politics only gives me headaches and makes me more and more yearn to run away.