VOTE OR CRY

I just saw the new PSA by Leonardo Decaprio and bunch of other A-list celebrities on voting. Besides the usual irksome nature of stars telling us what to do, it is pretty good. They tried to be unique by trying reverse psychology, the same way your parents did. It begins with the celebrities telling you to not vote if you don't care about your life. Then it goes on to say if you do care then register and vote. Here are the low points and high points.

HIGH POINTS:

Jonah Hill. He is hilarious in this. "I don't even know what the fuck Darfur is...I thought it was a t-shirt company" is just one of many different hilarious comments he makes.

Ellen Degeneres is also cute and whimsical as usual.

Halle Barry looks hot as usual

Dustin Hoffman is just a cool dude.

LOW POINTS

Why is Jennifer Aniston so condescending in this piece? When they make a mention of passing the registration link to 5 of your friends she goes on to say "God, I hope you have 5 friends"...WTF? I actively choose not to have 5 friends, saves me a lot of money during Christmas time.

Sarah Silverman. I wish this woman would disappear already. She is like the retard you have to put up with because she gets invited along with other people you want to hang out with. You're not funny. Only reason you get by your 4th grade humor is because you're woman comedian under 140lbs....a rare breed.

Leonardo's feverish desire to almost punch you if you don't register.


This PSA brings up a duality with in me. On one hand I totally get and commend these stars for doing this. Using their likeability to get the general public interested in the least liked part of society besides hobos. It is our responsibility as people to exercise our power of choice. It may not seem much, but when put in contrast with how many other countries use Gestapo measure to elect presidents...*cough dictators*cough..., it starts to become apparent that being able to have your choice matter is a very powerful thing. It truly doesn't dawn on most people what the ramifications of that little ballot paper mean in the grand scheme of things...or the total lack of it. So, in that regards, yes, voting is our duty. Paying attention to who we're putting in charge is our duty. As benign and mundane as this scrutiny over the presidential candidates may seem, it is necessary...as much as it is a business.

However, the other part of me reels from seeing elections take place in the past and yet nothing changes. It is has become a fact and a joke that amazing things will be promised and about 5% of them will be delivered. All these debates, these speeches, in the end they all amount to nothing. The same divide between the 2 parties exist and pretty much all good ideas die. Big Businesses still get their way and they just hire lobbyists to coerce the congress members to turn crimes into laws or turn the other way. Name one industry which isn't brazen in it's despicable practices. So when guys in suits promise you a utopia you can only be fooled so many times before a general malaise for politics sets in. The empathy gets passed down from generation to another. No one really believes anymore that politicians are here to serve us (few still are). It's more about taking away then giving.

How do you change so many faulty practices and deception in capitol hill when you have your own life to look after. Anyone who has a fulltime job and, even just one pet, can attest to the fact how there never seems to be enough hours in the day. Forget it if you have young kids. How do you fix the broken image of the government. I get it, you're telling us to vote, but what's the point? Universal healthcare? Terrorism? economy? Aren't these the same issues every 4 years and yet every 4 years they keep coming up again? Why? Someone must not be doing their job very well if the problems ceases to go away.

This is not all faults of politicians either. Complacency is what let's them get away with this. Americans are known for knee jerk reaction. Pretty much all of Bush's miserable failures are knee jerk reactions of intense patriotism. He marched those troops and tanks right in front of you people...he didn't surprise you when woke up the next morning. People contested this decision but look at the numbers of people against it then VS the number against it now.

But, I don't want to go off tangent so yes, the PSA is pretty cool. Most of these people are pretty to look at. If anything this is far better than the painfully obnoxious P-Diddy "Vote or die" campaign...great, I love death threats against my life. At least Dicaprio didn't follow suit and make something violent along the lines of "Vote or have your life turned into a Scorsese movie".

Go vote and have your voice heard. Will things change? Not right away. Everything this screwed up takes a glacial pace towards improvement so have hope. If you don't want to vote for either Obama or Mccain then vote independent. Just give a hoot and vote.

oh, and, if you haven't even seen what the candidates look like yet and you're only interested because you think Leonardo Dicaprio is hot then DON'T VOTE. Please, stay home.