Vote for Who....?

So I’m conversing with a man about voting and how serious of an effect it has on our community. He says that I am part of the reason we live in the conditions in which we do (poor housing, minimum wage jobs, not enough jobs, even crime). He goes on stating how I instigate what goes on in our neighborhoods by not participating in electing the mayors, governors, judges, and city council men/women that have our best interest at heart. I laughed when he said “our best interest at heart”. Sorry to say, but I have never voted and as long as politics remain the same I will never place a ballot. The candidates running for these offices do and say what needs to be done and said to secure that position of power. If you have no money to attend the expensive fund-raisers or sponsor their campaigns… who are you? There isn't a politician that has been elected into any office in Philadelphia that knows me or my family exists. So how any of them could be concerned about my health and wealth is hard to fathom.

It bewilders me how politicians want you to vote for actions that will never trickle down the ladder and reach the lower class. Everything promoted and promised like “safer streets” benefits the middle class and higher up. The streets of the lower class people have never been safe, and the badges of power have been passed from hand to hand for way over 100 years. The speeches given are the same and so are the results. Residents have been hearing about and awaiting a change for as long as I can remember being a child. What would I be voting for, hope? Many of those who do vote do so by learning of the candidate through television commercials. Personally, they don’t know the character, demeanor, or lifestyle of who it is they are or have voted for. During my incarceration I was told that I no longer had the right to vote because of being convicted as a felon.

“It’s the prison records that criminals believe have stripped them of one of the “sacraments of democracy, the right to vote,” an article published by the Patriot News stated in 2010 as the belief of ex-offenders. But it’s not that. It’s the injustice, the lies, the deception, and the sacrifices for power that give people like me reason to not want to vote. Where do the millions of dollars collected by politicians running for office go? Towards the 30 second television commercials that bash their competition? I’m sure some of it does fund the campaign while the rest funds the candidate or is wasted. “The price of election borders on the obscene”, are the words of David L. Cohen, Ed Rendell’s campaign manager in 1991. The price of elections are obscene is what he should have said to validate that theory. My point is this; what is the purpose of voting when your reasons for voting are never addressed, only discussed. When the need for help and support from those you voted for is never available. How do you vote for someone to make decisions about where you live when they could care less about how you live? Like almost everything else, elections are big business and the concern for the people is bogus. It is not my vote that will change things as the man I spoke with wanted me to believe. It is the votes of the government to want to change things for the better of the lower class people that need to made and tallied.