And something to ponder: the creeping authoritarianism we currently decry began not with the “War on Terror,” but with the “War on Drugs.”

In the immortal words of Judge Dredd, “I am the law!”

More importantly, I realized that by being this one, lonely, pathetic guy, standing in the cold and the rain, under a damn tree, with my signs and buttons and clipboard, people would start to understand that there is something happening. That the Webb campaign and the ideals of the Democratic party mean enough to someone like me to spend five hours simply standing there, ready to talk if you want. It was a way to tell people in the area that these ideals were worth working for, and therefore worth looking at more closely.

Stan Goff was also out in the rain, in North Carolina, and also miserable. He was doing his own independent thing, but still promoting Democrats. He was not quite so positive:

White folks vote their color hard out here, where fashionalbe clothes and shiny mortgaged gas-guzzlers conceal a primitive ignorance and hostile, defensive insecurity even among the mostly college-educated Research Triangle Park denizens. After a full day there, I was confirmed in my belief that late capitalist culture stupifies in ways that cut us off from 90% of the deeper experiences that are unique to humanity, and leaves us trapped in the psychic Potemkin village of a hellishly vapid consumerism. (We refer to this as… “freedom.”)

[snip]

The first impresson I have to note is that the Democratic Party as an institution is a corporate-and-Wall-Street-funded behemoth of rank opportunism. They used the growing opposition to Bush’s energy war in Iraq as a battering ram, but in the process of making this breach will probably sacrifice the interests of women, African Americans, and immigrants to glide the winds of white xenophobia and thuggish patriachy that swirl over the post-Nixon Republican South.

This is not to say the two disagree on the fundamentals (you’d have to ask them). I just enjoyed the contrast.

But then again, I just accepted and will begin next Monday my first job out of law school. And I began training for a marathon. And I’m moving this week.

But you can always watch it alone without my largely uninformed commentary.

$14.40, at the very least, at this moment in time.

That was how much I paid to vote today.

I was traveling for the past few days for job interviews. During that time, my absentee ballot finally arrived in my Queens apartment. I didn’t return until last night, a Sunday. Apparently, the Atlantic County (NJ) Board of Elections won’t count absentee ballots that arrive later than election day. So I was forced to use overnight mail this morning to insure my ballot would arrive on time.

I was saddened to vote for Menendez. I am a pretty strict 3rd party man. But now that there is a chance for a Democratic majority in the Senate, I had to tow the line. Here’s what I want to see happen with a Democratic majority:

Investigations.
Subpoenas.
Impeachments.