Anytime I talk about not voting, people go all crazy on me, like their heads are going to rupture. And that’s fine. I gotta respect the cognitive dissonance. Brains sometimes need to splatter. I recognize that my thoughts in this area go against the prevailing story-system of how things work in our little American movie.

Being the person with the unpopular view, the burden - as always - falls on me to present my case in a sophisticated & thought-provoking manner. People who blithely accept mainstream views never have to justify them. Why should they? Noone ever expects (or should expect) a person who believes in the magical-mystery-power of voting to defend their viewpoint with any other argument than:

“Well, that’s just the way it is. It’s the way I learned that things work in kindergarten, and since they say it so much on the news, it must be true. And anyway, we live in a democracy silly! Haven’t you ever heard of it? It’s the most beautiful form of government there ever was! Sigh… Here’s a link to the word democracy on dictionary.com. SEE?? Isn’t it pretty and sparkly?”

I’m sorry, I got so caught up in all the shameless voter-baiting that I nearly forgot the point I set out to make in the first place. What I really want to talk about is suspension of disbelief, not voting. The term refers to when you’re watching a movie and you temporarily ignore the fact that it’s completely unrealistic or that there are enormous plot holes, horrible acting & shitty special effects. After all, you’re just trying to have a good time and enjoy the movie - since you paid $9.00 for it.

This is exactly how I feel about the movie that is American life nowadays. But my suspension of disbelief has been forcibly shattered. I unwittingly now find myself acting out the role of the guy near you at the movies who won’t stop snickering with disdain at the poorly written dialogue and astronomically bad special effects.

I guess it really happened back when Bush “won” the election the first time around. I really hated that part of the movie because it made me remember that I wasn’t really a superhero, and that I was only at the movies after all, and in an uncomfortable chair with a sticky floor and a weird musty smell and a fat guy hogging the armrest next to me. Before then, I wouldn’t say that I had any particular faith in our government, but I trusted that the plotline made basic sense and the writers weren’t going to continually resort to using deus ex machina in place of offering logically consistent climaxes. It’s just that, with everything that’s happened since then, I’ve had a really hard time finding my way back into believing in the American movie… or rather not disbelieving in it.

Luckily, I somewhere along the line got a ticket to an advance-screening of this much cooler movie about an irrepressible band of heroes, stuck in a world they didn’t create. This movie stars me and some of my friends and some people I’ve never met except on the internet, or in movies, books or music. In this movie, we dig and we learn; we discuss and butt heads; we conjecture and question motives. We’re like detectives and archaeologists, sifting through the restless layers of what is said, and what is not said, of what is done and what is left undone. Its a little like being Indiana Jones, a reckless daredevil with a gun in your hand and a song in your heart, ready at a moment’s notice to leap across the yawning chasms separating us from our quarry. Every day is an adventure and all we want is for people to come share in the fun.

If you’ve never done so before, imagine your life as this type of adventure movie. Just for a second. Imagine yourself grabbing the jewel encrusted idol, and then running like hell. Imagine your whip curling around a tree branch, and swinging to safety as the boulder crashes behind you. Imagine kicking a Nazi thug square in the face, stealing his biplane and flying off over the horizon with the treasure. It’s really quite a spectacular feeling, if I do say so myself. And it’s one that I wouldn’t trade for all the votes in all the “free” elections in Afghanistan, Iraq & Florida combined.

So, vote or don’t vote. I don’t care; it’s your movie, you paid the $9.00. Myself, I plan on sneaking in next time.