The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
One commenter shared a few great suggestions in response to today’s Week in Greed.
Maura says:
...more1. To find your polling place, you can text “FIND” to 228466. It will ask for your address and then tell you your polling location.
Voting for a third party is the way I choose to voice my dissent. It’s a vote toward realignment, a recalibration, of our political system. The dominant parties are stricken with tunnel vision; their economic promises are distracting us from other critically important issues
...moreAfter you read Brian Spears’s excellent take on our current political climate and why government is actually, in fact, important, get yourself acquainted with everything you need to know about participating in this year’s election.
Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig, compiled this immensely helpful FAQ, which covers topics such as where you can vote (if you don’t already know), what you need to know if you’re planning on gambling on the election (yes, we do mean placing bets), voter fraud, and the statistical likelihood of your vote making or breaking an election if you live in a swing state. There’s also loads of charts, graphs, links to fact-checking websites, and other useful items, so that you can wake up next Tuesday as informed as possible.
...more“Valid objections all, but I’m urging you to please clap on your nasal clothespin and get ready to vote anyway, starting now. Now—before the real craziness begins, while you still have some time to inform yourself to the hilt and use your woefully miniscule power to steer the conversation in advance of the sure-to-be-incredibly-vile campaigns, rather than during them, when it will already be far too late.”
This essay in the Awl discusses the merits of participating in our representative democracy by doing the most important thing you can do, i.e.
...more“The basic point — that liberal democracy is the final form of government — is still basically right. Obviously there are alternatives out there, like the Islamic Republic of Iran or Chinese authoritarianism. But I don’t think that all that many people are persuaded these are higher forms of civilization than what exists in Europe, the United States, Japan or other developed democracies; societies that provide their citizens with a higher level of prosperity and personal freedom.”
Over at New Perspectives Quarterly, Nathan Gardels talks to Francis Fukayama twenty years after Fukayama famously announced that the end of the Cold War was tantamount to the End of History itself.
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