no hope for LA

For anyone living in LA that happens to be reading this, what the fuck? How did Villaraigosa get re-elected? I used to live in Glendale and felt there was no hope left for Glendale politics but LA got them beat. I feel like one of the few that voted and now I have the liberty to bitch and complain about LA politics! Wonderful!

This past Tuesday was an election, supposed to be a primary but at the numbers of the votes showed that Villaraigosa won by 55% of the vote. Re-elected. I think everyone was just exhausted and tired after the whole Presidential election. The Presidential election was all over the place and in your face everywhere you went. Everyone was distracted by that; too distracted to realize that elections for Mayor of LA were coming up. There were barely any fliers in the mail, no commercials, no real signs of an upcoming primary election. The only reason why I knew was because I got my sample ballot. There was just no real opposition to Villaraigosa. Sure there were plenty of candidates running against him but none of them campaigned enough or got their shit together on time. Even the news was saying how they didn't expect voter turn out to be high at all. I think they mentioned something around maybe 10% turn out. I believe they said the voter turn out for President was 82%. What the fuck Los Angeles?! It's great to be involved and jazzed about the President but let's be real here. Is Obama going to fix this clusterfuck of a city? LA is a hot mess and now it's going to get worse with Villaraigosa back in power. Self-interested, rich, corporate bastards that work to exploit education, the working class, and anyone else that isn't going to pay them to take their pictures. It's ridiculous. Like all the signs around the neighborhood read: Obama may be President but he's not going to fix LA. It's true, LA needs some fixing and now look what happened. An opportunity for change and we blew it. No one turned out to vote. It was a joke. The polling place was dead. In fact there were barely any signs other than printed out arrows and an American flag that indicated that I had arrived at my polling place. Not even a sign on the sidewalk just in cased you missed the little fence opening on the side of the building to get in. Disappointing. At least measure E seems to not have passed and I'm hoping measure B also retains the No vote. I just don't trust them. I just have a bad feeling about the way the city is being and will be run. I fear it will get even worse before it can get better. Kinda like our economy of the U.S., ha! On that note, I'm gonna put my unemployed ass to bed.

reflection of the election

I was never one to vote. In high school I cast empty ballots or just didn't do them. I could give two shits who the prom queen should be or the class president. whatever. I could have voted in the 2000 election and the 2004 election but refused to register. I have issues with our voting system and the "democracy" of it all. However, this year I was just nervous. Nervous that the same person would be re-elected in a different body. I didn't like either candidate really and quite honestly did not follow the election until around September. So to save myself the guilt of having another 4 years of Bush policies, and to be able to bitch and whine about politics, I registered to vote a few days before the deadline. Now that I've voted, I don't see myself really voting again, except maybe in local elections. I was extremely disappointed with the voting system and think it's even more flawed than before.

I arrived at my polling place with my letter saying I'm registered and my voter booklet to read up on the 101 propositions that CA/LA had. I go in only to find out that I'm not on the list. Therefore, I had to fill out a provisional ballot. What a buzz kill. My first voting experience and my vote gets counted next to last? LAME. On top of that, they don't check IDs?! WHAT THE FUCK? How is that possible? So they just go by signatures? Because that's legit. I could have sent anyone in there to vote for me and they could have done it. I didn't feel satisfied or proud, I felt gypped. By the time most of the results were in and/or projected, my lone vote was probably close to being counted. Probably counted well after the results were set in stone so it really didn't matter. Will I vote in the next election? Who knows, as of now I'm leaning towards no.

On that note, I hope this Presidency works out better than the last one. Obama has a lot of promises and people have high hopes so I hope he doesn't disappoint. I'm just glad to see some diversity in the Whitehouse. Oh, and did everyone forget that Obama is half white? That he was raised by his grandparents? That he lived in Hawaii and also Indonesia where he attended school? Yeah, I think people miss those points and focus on the black. He ain't black, he's a mutt. This whole race thing is very reminiscent of the Tiger Woods craze.

I was interesting to see my peers on the street corners on the night of the election cheering and showing pride in this country. Never have I heard anyone my age give or take 5 years, chanting USA! USA! It was bizarre. Craziness. However, if the results of this election make everyone more alert and interested in politics than good for them. We need more informed, and interested people. I just hope the same people showing super US pride don't fall off the bandwagon when the glitz of Obama's inauguration wears off and he starts to be the real President. Who knows what's to come. I just hope it's better.

I'll leave you all with a couple of images of the hood on election night.