Adventures in Democracy
Nov. 7th, 2006 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonI'm walking down Memorial Avenue through a fog thick as soup. The skyline behind me has been erased, reduced to the barest of sketches, a rough draft that has had any discernible details scrubbed from the page. It is like trying to remember the landscape of a dream after waking. The clouds stick to the streets rolling aimlessly down the boulevards and avenues. Everything around me is gray: Amnesia gray. Apathy gray. Phantom gray. Confederate gray. A gray the envy of accoutantants. A gray worthy of the most productive offices. Ghetto gray. Headlights appear briefly, floating like candles along a river where they are quickly swallowed up again into the mist. Only the flow of the barbwired fence to my right is clear, little drops of morning dew waiting like spiders in the chainlink web.
This is the third time i've made this pilgrimage down this once no-go area of metro Atlanta. I can remember being warned, seven years ago during my first trip down here (on this very corner in fact), by the friendly neighborhood wino who insisted that this was no place for a 'white boy to be all walkin' around in'. Said wino then asked for a buck for passing this information my way. I paid my service fee with a smile and kept on walking. That was the first time I voted here in the city of Atlanta.
My most vivid memory from that experience was being propositioned by a large man in a larger winter coat. "Whatcha lookin' for?" he staged whispered his question that was, in itself, an answer. His round face peered through the tunnel of his fur lined hood. Above him hung a sign clearly stating that is was strictly prohibited for political campaigning to be held within a hundred yards of this spot.
Big man is eyeballing me for an answer though and I answer with another smile: "Democracy!"
"Nawww... ain't none of that shit here." Big man shrugs and cranes his neck down the road for any sign of Po-Po. Secure that the situation is pork free, he resumes his vigil for prospective clients.
********
From what little I can see of it the neighborhood has changed. The skeletons of condos are lined up in these once empty fields. Drywalled husks of future lofts loom out of the fog with the smug promise of gentrification. Sometime during the last six years, upper middle class white people decided they were bored of the relentless conformity of the suburbs. These born-again boomers after all knew the score. They were down. They knew the hipness of chain coffee shops and that loose fit khakis echoed the Rock'n'Roll attitude of the Stones, the Doors and the Who. They wanted back in. They wanted to be there, man! There in the cities where things were vibrant. Where there was culture, concerts and the possibility that anything could happen.
In short, they wanted to live in the car commercial of their dreams.
So they came to escape the monotony of the suburbs, not suspecting that the tedium, the blandness, the lack of anything interesting was not a condition defined by geography but rather by attitude. I look at these faux antebellum homes and pseudo-deco apartment er... I mean condo complexes. It is an invasion of the bored (bored because they are boring) on the poor.
The next time I march down here to vote i'll hardly recognize the place.
"Democracy"
"Nawww ...ain't none of that shit here"
**********
E D S Hook Elementary school has the discreet charm of a prison camp. The barbwired fences that have been arranged to form an open walled maze, the cold metal fire doors that slam behind you with the authority of a prison cell locking, the flickering flourescent lights above, the hallway designed to amplifty the cadence of footsteps. I'm following the scotch taped signs that have been magic markered with directions:VOTE with an stick figure arrow leading the way. I pause to look at a series of crayon drawings hung behind a glass case. It is the first sign of any color i've seen. Rainbow people with faces made of strawberry smiles and arms raised in a perpetual state of hallejuah. They run across a green wave of earth, around the square box houses that stand under a sherbert flavored sun.
These children, no, these artists have more vision than any man, woman or party I could possibly cast a ballot for today. Sad but true. Still, needs most as the devil drive...
I am one of, two, count 'em, two, voters assembled right now in this vast gymnasium converted into a voting center for the Fulton County Sixth district. Do you want to know what democracy in action looks like. It is a long table filled with four volunteers, three elderly and one single mom juggling a baby on her knee while hunting my name through the clipboarded pages with registered voters listed on it. I'm IDed. I'm given a little piece of paper to fill out with my name, address and signature. I'm then given a gold(?) card and directed over to the booths with a weary, but sincere, smile.
When I was a kid I remember going with my mom to vote. Well to watch her vote at least. I remember the long lines and her disappearing behind one of those tall booths with their sliding curtain that reminded me of a cross between a church confessional and a shower. Now they look like ATM machines. There's a poetry to that even if it's a ugly poem. The Diebold logo displayed promiently. The touch screen LCD lit up. I tap my finger and little red 'X's appear in an empty box by the choice.
Yeah I feel reaaaaal certain these things are on the up and up.
I go through the candidates pretty quick, pausing at the state supreme court nominees who are running only against a write-in. Then I get to the amendments. The first of which is to 'restrict the use of Emenient Domain in the state of Georgia". Now see, imagine if they worded this as 'Vote yes or no on whether you think the government should be able to seize your house and property to build a Wal-Mart because the taxes, jobs and revenue said Wal-Mart will generate can be argued to benefit the entire community". In fact instead of voting 'yes' or 'no' you should be able to vote 'Bullshit' or 'Not'.
Here's John Q Citizen looking down on whether an vaguely worded amendment should be put into law or not: "Emenient Domain ehhh... I call 'Bullshit' on that!"
Now that, that would be democracy to me!
When i'm done casting my ballot (where, thanks to the good people at Diebold, my vote has gone from the domain of politics straight to the arena of faith - 'Dear sweet Buddha even if my vote doesn't count, please o'please at least let it be counted' - which I know dear readers, is indeed a breech of the seperation of church and state). I turn in my card and get a "I'm a Georgia Voter" peach-sticker. I slap it on my chest like I was just handed a badge.
"God bless you for voting young man." The kindly old women tell me.
"T'ain't nuthin' ma'am... jes doin' my job!" I say tipping my white hat and preparing to ride out into the sunset. Outside the fog is still thick. I have just over an hour to get to work. I light up a smoke and head down Memorial.
Just another day in America. Just another adventure in democracy.
This is the third time i've made this pilgrimage down this once no-go area of metro Atlanta. I can remember being warned, seven years ago during my first trip down here (on this very corner in fact), by the friendly neighborhood wino who insisted that this was no place for a 'white boy to be all walkin' around in'. Said wino then asked for a buck for passing this information my way. I paid my service fee with a smile and kept on walking. That was the first time I voted here in the city of Atlanta.
My most vivid memory from that experience was being propositioned by a large man in a larger winter coat. "Whatcha lookin' for?" he staged whispered his question that was, in itself, an answer. His round face peered through the tunnel of his fur lined hood. Above him hung a sign clearly stating that is was strictly prohibited for political campaigning to be held within a hundred yards of this spot.
Big man is eyeballing me for an answer though and I answer with another smile: "Democracy!"
"Nawww... ain't none of that shit here." Big man shrugs and cranes his neck down the road for any sign of Po-Po. Secure that the situation is pork free, he resumes his vigil for prospective clients.
From what little I can see of it the neighborhood has changed. The skeletons of condos are lined up in these once empty fields. Drywalled husks of future lofts loom out of the fog with the smug promise of gentrification. Sometime during the last six years, upper middle class white people decided they were bored of the relentless conformity of the suburbs. These born-again boomers after all knew the score. They were down. They knew the hipness of chain coffee shops and that loose fit khakis echoed the Rock'n'Roll attitude of the Stones, the Doors and the Who. They wanted back in. They wanted to be there, man! There in the cities where things were vibrant. Where there was culture, concerts and the possibility that anything could happen.
In short, they wanted to live in the car commercial of their dreams.
So they came to escape the monotony of the suburbs, not suspecting that the tedium, the blandness, the lack of anything interesting was not a condition defined by geography but rather by attitude. I look at these faux antebellum homes and pseudo-deco apartment er... I mean condo complexes. It is an invasion of the bored (bored because they are boring) on the poor.
The next time I march down here to vote i'll hardly recognize the place.
"Democracy"
"Nawww ...ain't none of that shit here"
E D S Hook Elementary school has the discreet charm of a prison camp. The barbwired fences that have been arranged to form an open walled maze, the cold metal fire doors that slam behind you with the authority of a prison cell locking, the flickering flourescent lights above, the hallway designed to amplifty the cadence of footsteps. I'm following the scotch taped signs that have been magic markered with directions:VOTE with an stick figure arrow leading the way. I pause to look at a series of crayon drawings hung behind a glass case. It is the first sign of any color i've seen. Rainbow people with faces made of strawberry smiles and arms raised in a perpetual state of hallejuah. They run across a green wave of earth, around the square box houses that stand under a sherbert flavored sun.
These children, no, these artists have more vision than any man, woman or party I could possibly cast a ballot for today. Sad but true. Still, needs most as the devil drive...
I am one of, two, count 'em, two, voters assembled right now in this vast gymnasium converted into a voting center for the Fulton County Sixth district. Do you want to know what democracy in action looks like. It is a long table filled with four volunteers, three elderly and one single mom juggling a baby on her knee while hunting my name through the clipboarded pages with registered voters listed on it. I'm IDed. I'm given a little piece of paper to fill out with my name, address and signature. I'm then given a gold(?) card and directed over to the booths with a weary, but sincere, smile.
When I was a kid I remember going with my mom to vote. Well to watch her vote at least. I remember the long lines and her disappearing behind one of those tall booths with their sliding curtain that reminded me of a cross between a church confessional and a shower. Now they look like ATM machines. There's a poetry to that even if it's a ugly poem. The Diebold logo displayed promiently. The touch screen LCD lit up. I tap my finger and little red 'X's appear in an empty box by the choice.
Yeah I feel reaaaaal certain these things are on the up and up.
I go through the candidates pretty quick, pausing at the state supreme court nominees who are running only against a write-in. Then I get to the amendments. The first of which is to 'restrict the use of Emenient Domain in the state of Georgia". Now see, imagine if they worded this as 'Vote yes or no on whether you think the government should be able to seize your house and property to build a Wal-Mart because the taxes, jobs and revenue said Wal-Mart will generate can be argued to benefit the entire community". In fact instead of voting 'yes' or 'no' you should be able to vote 'Bullshit' or 'Not'.
Here's John Q Citizen looking down on whether an vaguely worded amendment should be put into law or not: "Emenient Domain ehhh... I call 'Bullshit' on that!"
Now that, that would be democracy to me!
When i'm done casting my ballot (where, thanks to the good people at Diebold, my vote has gone from the domain of politics straight to the arena of faith - 'Dear sweet Buddha even if my vote doesn't count, please o'please at least let it be counted' - which I know dear readers, is indeed a breech of the seperation of church and state). I turn in my card and get a "I'm a Georgia Voter" peach-sticker. I slap it on my chest like I was just handed a badge.
"God bless you for voting young man." The kindly old women tell me.
"T'ain't nuthin' ma'am... jes doin' my job!" I say tipping my white hat and preparing to ride out into the sunset. Outside the fog is still thick. I have just over an hour to get to work. I light up a smoke and head down Memorial.
Just another day in America. Just another adventure in democracy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-11-07 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-11-07 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-11-07 06:25 pm (UTC)There is something to be said for those curtained booths of our first experiences in the world of democarcy and the pen to paper vote... at least then all they knew is IF you voted... not how (or we're the paper ones numbered? Perhaps BB has always known.)
xxx