14th GE, of spoiling their vote,

Those who are thinking of not voting at the 14th GE, or of spoiling their vote, please give this a read

Someone shared this to me. Please read and share if it resonates with you.

"For months, there has been talk especially among the younger citizens about abstaining from voting in the upcoming General Elections. I've been looking at so many articles to weigh this creature called The No-Show Paradox, in order to weigh the difference in voting and abstaining as an overall knowledge-hunting exercise.

Somebody from India wrote this about not going out to vote in elections and I must share this with all as I believe what he says here is VERY IMPORTANT especially to those of us who have been living in a world without wars:

"The problem with not voting is that it promotes anti-democratic tendencies. Even though the peace and stability of our times has given us a sense of complacency, democracy is not something that you can take for granted. It might seem to be the way of the future. But if you consider our entire human history, democracy has always been an aberration. Just think about it. Every five years, the people controlling your military and judiciary and banks and what not, agree to submit themselves to a popular mandate. And even more astonishingly, they agree to step down if they lose the mandate. The whole process amazes me always. Why the hell does the guy who has the entire military at his command, agree to surrender that power and go back to an ordinary life ? Such an idea was a stuff of legends just a couple of hundred years ago. In my country - India, at least one prime minister( Indira Gandhi ) came to a conclusion for a brief while that she was above popular mandate. And I guess that the idea of popular mandate and peaceful transfer of power is still just a fantasy for more than a third of the world's population.

Bottom line - Democracy is a miracle. A miracle that our generation played no part in creating. We have no right to weaken what we didn't create. You might despair about the quality of the candidates you are getting. But it doesn't matter. Democracy doesn't guarantee that you will be ruled by the best people. It just guarantees that the struggle for power will be fought via ballots and not bullets. That in itself is a damn huge accomplishment. Ask the millions of people who have died at the hands of the Nazis and every other tin pot dictator in the world. And the guys at the top need to be reminded about this always. They need to know that the powers they have are temporary and can be taken back by the people any time. However affable and likable they might seem during campaigns, if you don't remind them of their fallibility, power will corrupt their minds and they will soon assume that they have a divine right to rule.

Elections are the mechanism we have for reminding the rulers of the supremacy of the popular will. And every vote that is not cast takes a brick away from the strength of popular mandate. An election with low voter turnout, gives dramatically less legitimacy to the elected government. Opposing interests will no longer respect the government. They don't need to. After all getting 50% vote out of a voter turnout of 40% implies that you have the support of just 20% of the country. That is not popular mandate. Opposing interests will conclude that they have a fair chance of capturing power if they incite an armed uprising. After all the rulers can count on the support of barely 20% of the population at maximum. So every time we choose not to vote, we are strengthening the hands of fringe elements who resent the idea of democracy.

I am not exaggerating. In India for example, reducing participation in parliamentary democracy is one of the main strategies of various armed insurgent groups like Naxalites and other separatists. And if and when the insurgency prone areas like Kashmir or North-east record less than 50% voter turnout, you can immediately sense the panic in the government circles. Voter turnout is not a mere statistic. It is the lifeblood of democracy.

Our vote counts. It may or may not put the candidate I like in office. I may not even like anyone. In that case, I will just hold my nose and vote for the least evil. Our political parties are just the product of the milieu we live in. As the society matures and becomes more open and progressive, we will get better candidates. But for that to happen, we need to stay on course. We need to carry the torch of democracy forward. Staying home on election day is not the way to do it. A right that is not exercised is a right that is not valued. And a right that is not valued, will most definitely be taken away.

Picture this.. Years from now, democracy is just but a distant memory. An inevitable outcome of years of low voter turnout. Your children are living in a country where change of rule is no longer done overnight after a few handshakes, but involves years of battles and thousands of corpses. Try telling them that you didn't vote because you thought that everyone was equally bad and that your vote didn't matter. They will laugh at your face and tell you that it is obvious that every politician is corrupt to some degree. You don't need to be a genius to figure it out. But what mattered was the fact that they had enough fear in them to come and ask your permission every five years and you were naive enough to let that power slip away.."

Winfrey's full speech at the Golden Globe Awards.

In 1964, I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother’s house in Milwaukee watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for best actor at the 36th Academy Awards. She opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history: “The winner is Sidney Poitier.”

Up to the stage came the most elegant man I had ever seen. I remembered his tie was white, and of course his skin was black, and I’d never seen a black man being celebrated like that. I tried many, many, many times to explain what a moment like that means to a little girl, a kid watching from the cheap seats as my mom came through the door bone tired from cleaning other people’s houses. But all I can do is quote and say that the explanation in Sidney’s performance in “Lilies of the Field”: “Amen, amen. Amen, amen.”

In 1982, Sidney received the Cecil B. DeMille Award right here at the Golden Globes, and it is not lost on me that at this moment, there are some little girls watching as I become the first black woman to be given this same award.

It is an honor — it is an honor and it is a privilege to share the evening with all of them and also with the incredible men and women who inspired me, who challenged me, who sustained me and made my journey to this stage possible. Dennis Swanson, who took a chance on me for “AM Chicago.” Quincy Jones, who saw me on that show and said to Steven Spielberg, “Yes, she is Sofia in ‘The Color Purple.'” Gayle, who’s been the definition of what a friend is, and Stedman, who’s been my rock.

I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because we all know the press is under siege these days. But we also know it’s the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice, to tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this.

What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year we became the story. But it’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or workplace.

So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers and farmworkers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants and they’re in academia, engineering, medicine and science. They’re part of the world of tech and in politics and business. They’re our athletes in the Olympics and they’re our soldiers in the military.

And there’s someone else: Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too. In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and a mother. She was just walking home from a church service she’d attended in Abbeville, Alabama, when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP, where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case, and together they sought justice. But justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted.

Recy Taylor died 10 days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived as we all have lived — too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. And for too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared speak their truth to the power of those men.

But their time is up. Their time is up. Their time is up.

I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because we all know the press is under siege these days. But we also know it’s the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice, to tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this.

What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year we became the story. But it’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or workplace.

So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers and farmworkers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants and they’re in academia, engineering, medicine and science. They’re part of the world of tech and in politics and business. They’re our athletes in the Olympics and they’re our soldiers in the military.

And there’s someone else: Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too. In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and a mother. She was just walking home from a church service she’d attended in Abbeville, Alabama, when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP, where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case, and together they sought justice. But justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted.

Recy Taylor died 10 days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived as we all have lived — too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. And for too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared speak their truth to the power of those men.

But their time is up. Their time is up. Their time is up.