I Registered To Vote Today

Yes, I registered to vote today. I think today was the deadline (see the ELECTIONS AND VOTER REGISTRATION CALENDAR here: http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/2017_elections_and_voter_registration_calendar, If you want to register to go here: https://registertovote.sos.ga.gov). I’m not sure how I feel about it though because I do not have faith in the political system we have set up in this country! But I’m willing to see if I’m wrong, I’m willing to see if one vote does matter… Why have I decided to vote? Well it’s because I want to put in my vote for what I believe in: Marijuana Reform on a local level. Let me explain… 

First off I must explain that, I feel like an Anarchism type system (defined as: “a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups” via Merriam-Webster Dictionary) would be the only true “For and By the People” system of self-government, we don’t need a bunch of rich people who are not in touch with the people governing us, we should all govern ourselves. More so than any system we live in now around the world, religious or governmental, chaos and anarchy is the only truth there is… and the “people” of this world are fooling themselves into believing that what ever system of government they think they are under is REAL, when actually the truth is “The Man” does whatever “The Man” wants to do, they always have, only pretending that the People’s Will is being done! How else could someone like Trump become president if it weren’t for a broken system? Or maybe, The only other answer is that the people are the ones who are broken and the system is only showing us what is broken about society! So to test this I have decided to register to vote in my district… This will be the first time I vote, in my life. I grew up in a religion that preached anarchism via the passage from the bible that says: “Be NO part of this world“, so they all decided that voting was being part of the system they are trying to separate themselves from, and they didn’t do it. From an early age I didn’t have much faith in the governmental systems of the world around me, which lead me to questioned everything, eventually even questioned the way the church did things… Hence why I no longer have faith in any sort of religion as well!

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So, Why have I decided to vote? Well like I said, it’s because I want to put in my vote for what I believe in… Marijuana Reform on a local level. Why is this something I believe in? Well… that’s a long story but if you know me well then you will know about my Uncle Chunk. Besides myself he is someone close to me that from my own experience have seen Marijuana at least partially saved his LIFE!

I personally began smoking weed regularly around the time I turned thirty, after the occasional smoke with band mates revealed to me that it wasn’t normal to sleep only 3-5 hrs a night and live with what I thought was insomnia-triggered anxiety that raised the blood pressure in my head and gave me migraine headaches and an occasional nose bleed out of nowhere… I had gotten used to feeling that way. But when I smoked weed at practice with my buddies I suddenly felt different (besides getting creative) because I would go home and sleep a full eight hours that night. I would wake up feeling refreshed and light. I didn’t get nose bleeds anymore. And besides all that I got to get high on something that was grown out of the ground, as is, unchanged, not covered in preservative, organic, and from the earth. What other medicine do I have that’s natural? I hate taking pills, I hate their side effects, but I am forced to use them due to the governing laws of our land restricting access to a simple natural medicine that doesn’t have any detrimental side effects, this cure-all that anyone should be able to walk outside and pick from their flower garden around their house any time they want. The weed I’ve had access to has never fully helped me with depression unfortunately, I still live with that, but it did make things easier to “handle” because curbing my anxiety was a huge weight off my shoulders that was dragging me down further. I can only wonder if more access to different strains of weed, and more research about those strains, wouldn’t help me find an even better medicine for what ails me… maybe one day soon we will find out!

Only a few years ago Uncle Chunk was dying of what we were told was Sclerosis of the Liver due to his drinking. He was on hospice and we were told that there was no chance of survival, but we had no definitive date, just a “get ready for him to die SOON“. At this point though, I was smoking regularly and so I started rolling up joints for my uncle during the day while everyone else was at work. I had left my regular life of Performing and Event Planning behind temporarily to live out of my school bus parked in my dad’s driveway, where my uncle was. I was helping to care from him, as he died, during the day all week while my dad and step-mother went to work. This allowed them to keep their jobs and afford a basic living. I figured that it couldn’t hurt for him to smoke weed, it helped me so much, plus he was a smoker anyways. I felt that if he was going out, if this was his time… he might as well be high on the way out! Also, sitting on the back porch sharing a joint with my Uncle Chunk in his last days, was some of the best times of my life because Uncle Chunk was my favorite uncle growing up, he inspired me in many ways.

After about six months of helping to care for Chunk though some personal conflicts between family members, brought on by the stress of a dying loved one, meant I was told to leave… So I went on a walk-about to NOLA with my dog Frank The Dancing Dog and my buddy Freak and his ex-gf’s dog, hitchhiking thru a few states in Feb-March 2014. I left unsure what would happen to my Uncle Chunk. It’s no secret, I’m not telling you anything he wouldn’t be happy to talk to anyone about if you want to hear the experience from his vantage point. And when I got back from NOLA I expected him to be gone… yet I found him not only alive and up walking around, and aware of his surroundings again! He had continued to smoke weed in my absence (which was only “allowed” at the time by my dad because of the affect it seemed to have helping him). I can’t ever really say that weed was what got him through it all, but he will tell you it sure helped! and he continues to drink and smoke to this day… There’s more to my uncle’s story, which may come up in a future blog, but for now all I have to say is that my city-born hillbilly-raise horn-dog of an uncle who’s crossed the River Styx and came back, is now doing well with his own apartment and with a little help from me is able to care for himself.. he even wipes his own butt now.

There are hundreds of people out there with similar stories surrounding the use of weed as a medicine. In fact I invite you to watch the public speaker section of the recent vote that has begun the decriminalization of Marijuana in Atlanta, GA. (go here: http://atlantacityga.iqm2.com/Citizens/SplitView.aspx?Mode=Video&MeetingID=2042) where all sorts of people stood up to introduce who they were as members of the community and to voice their opinion that Marijuana should be legalized! In fact someone I knew, Erin Lknd who has recently been working with the PeachtreeNORML organization to educate the public about marijuana reform, makes an appearance at about 2 hrs 13 mins in the video. What this showed me was that me and my uncle and a few others I know aren’t the only ones! There are actual doctors and lawyers and other leaders of the community, who not only smoke weed but are speaking out publicly about it to enact change and ask our representatives to actually represent what we as citizens want and need!

As I mentioned earlier, I do not believe in the political system, including the inauspicious voter system! Remember back when they had to do “re-counts”, and now we got hackers from Russia, or fake news and propaganda, and of course there’s the ever present “Man” trying to keep us down any way they see fit… or whatever. When it comes down to it there is basically so many groups of people who want to be in control of the masses in some way or another, and they don’t care what they have to do, and they don’t have anyone to answer to… until the people they are trying to control WAKE UP and realize they are loosing access to basic needs because of the law of the land or some ominous religious whim of those in privileged positions. And, Until we all realize that Everyone is allowing the system of the world of “control” and “comfort” to dictate how we must live our lives… Oh you think you aren’t being controlled? Well then prove me wrong. Cause if everyone out there went out and spoke up for what they wanted, Would we get it? We can only know if we try… and if we don’t get what we want and need, well then we can stand up and say that we know our representatives are not speaking on our behalf, not representing us! Then what? Who knows… but let’s get to that when it’s time… You have to Speak Your Mind first and see what changes…

So, that’s what I’m going to do… first step, I registered to vote, the “deadline” is today! I followed the rules, and signed up for my “right” to vote. I will see if the system is broken or if the people are broken. I believe it’s the system, but if it’s the people then we will know! And we can start to make changes with force if necessary cause Freedom is for everyone!! Whether they know they can be free or not… And when it comes time to vote for something I believe in, I will do so… I will speak up and participate, because I don’t agree with the way things are, and I want things changed! Of course it’s not as clear cut as that in the real world of tricky polemic and evil civil servants… but I just want to see what happens, find out if one vote can count? Do we even have choices to represent us? Will I even have the chance to speak my mind on what I believe in and know it will have an impact? I’m not sure… So that’s why I wrote this blog. These are my words, this is me standing up and saying I don’t like things the way they are! I do not live a life of the status quo as many of you know, so I feel my demographic should be represented in some way. And even if my vote doesn’t count, these words here in my blog do count, cause if it inspires someone else to speak up, to spread the inspiration to speak up for what we want and what we believe in, and to find any sort of way to help other around us to wake up and see that just because the “Man” has the money and guns, doesn’t mean he has the power. The powerless are many and together can take the power back.

But maybe, We won’t even have to take it that far, maybe we could all just speak our mind about what we want thru cooperating with the established voting system and we will have our voices heard and have representatives that represent us because they know what we want!? We’ll only know if we do it! So, I’m casting my vote for Marijuana legalization, and when something else comes up that I have an opinion about I will voice it then too, how about you? When you see a need to change, be the change! Register to vote here: https://registertovote.sos.ga.gov

Here are screen captures of the process, so you can see how easy it was: