everyone vote tomorrow

I've never made a political blog posting before, but here goes: everyone vote tomorrow. I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but I'm not sure how successful I'm gonna be.

For most of my life (indication #1 that I'm going to be unsuccessful in keeping this short), I've been pretty apathetic politically; I just shied away from it. But then our current president came into office by God knows how close of a call, and I realized that there was a reason why people always said every single vote counts: because every single vote counts. Ask yourself this, do you want this man to be making decisions for you and your friends and family? That article was from eight years ago, and now it's come back - thanks to the internet - and a lot of people are acting like it's the first time they've seen it. Well I said this eight years ago and actually had people defend him... now I'm saying it again, and I hope more people will agree with me this time around: no one who uses the term "gook" will ever, ever be fit to be my president.

On the positive side of things, there is some evidence that the terrible time we've been put through as a country may be on the wane, we make the right choices. Although I'm still very jaded about politics, as I'm sure many, if not most, of you are, I personally believe change has really become unstoppable now. There are no guarantees that every promise will be delivered when the person to affect that change takes office, but let's give our hope a fighting chance. Isn't that the least we can do - vote with some measure of hopefulness? After all, that's the essence of what we're doing when we exercise our fundamental rights as citizens. There's a reason our Constitutional law is rich with cases detailing the battles to protect our right to vote: that reason is staring at you in the mirror.

My brother sent me a link today to this song. Even more inspiring to me than the video, though, was reading his process. It's a lesson about how artists can exercise true power by reaching beyond themselves and connecting with their audiences in pursuit of a common goal. The music industry - and even the so-called communities we often find ourselves in as independent artists - too often reward shallowness and self-centeredness. It's inspiring to see artists who have been successful give back by also using their influence for the greater good.

So please... get off your ass and vote. Not just tomorrow but whenever you have the opportunity to, because every single vote counts, and you better believe that includes yours.