DIGG THIS

Just drop the vote and step quietly away from the vehicle.

We hope you'll join us. We are a multitude, and we have been on the increase for forty years. Forty years, and now our time is at hand.

You looked for us when you sought an object for your ill-conceived charity, but we quietly sent you away. We who will not vote, who will not gratify you with an opinion of your foolish and indistinguishable pretenders to this or that throne, we infuriated you. You called us apathetic for refusing to play the game. Refusing even to register. You said it was the only game in town.

But if we're so apathetic, why have you sought us so desperately, coveting even our style, asking our barbers if you are real, begging us to hold the mirror for you while you compose yourself? You have courted our swingers, but we have seen your anxious eyes in the rear-view of your Volvo.

You like statistics, go see if it isn't true: voter turnout has been decreasing in the established democracies since the 1960's. You're desperate for a mandate, but it's flowing away from you.

Your empire flunkies are banging at our doors, telling us we're red or blue, or striped with white bars, and we should go to our color-coded stations. Greens, now there's a hue for you. Use 'em for a side salad while you get on with dinner. Or get them to do the washing up. Greens are excellent for washing things. And you know how they just love to be included.

What's driving you nuts is, we're not even refusing. We're not saying anything. And we know you're nuts. We've seen your conventions. Also, your good wars, and your bad ones. Your Motor Voter legislation so you can register to kill twice at one convenient location.

You are a computer virus. You thrive on attention. Say no to you, and you preen because someone noticed. We say nothing.

You probably think this song is about you. Don't you?

You have immense standing armies, and they wish to march left, right, left, right. We are more than forty percent of the adults in America, fifty percent in Europe. If we would just say something, anything, left, right, left, right, you could get a stronger mandate, get these armies working efficiently, instead of going around losing wars to tiny countries. But like you say, it's hard to fight a war if we don't all stick together.

September 20, 2008

The Best of David Ker Thomson