You Ain’t Got Squat Coming If You Don’t Vote

BY LOUIE OVERSTREET

For 37 years, dating back to my days in Alaska, I have written about the importance of voting. Thus, I am ashamed to admit how many times I have heard the excuse that “My vote doesn’t count” — mostly from people who look like me.

First, I used to tell these non-voting knuckleheads that a Civil War was fought to free us from bondage and that two amendments, the XIV and XIX, had to be added to the U.S. Constitution in order for us to vote. This argument falls on deaf ears, due to the fact we refuse to learn the lessons of history.

Next, I have tried to explain that Reconstruction only lasted for a little over a decade, and that while Samuel J. Tilden received more popular votes that R.B Hayes in the presidential election of 1876, Hayes became President when Southern Democrats voted for Hayes in the Electoral College — based on his pledge to remove federal troops from the South. This political move ushered in Jim Crow laws, resulting in over 4,000 blacks being lynched between 1877 and 1953. Yet, far too many of us still buy into the suckers’ argument, “Man my vote ain’t gonna change squat!” Fools! Yes it has and yes it will!

We have difficulty honoring our ancestors’ struggles, valuing history, or even appreciating current events. Since the Repugnants took over the federal government, it has been women and children first, and every rich man for himself. So if you didn’t take the time to vote in November 2016, then you should have taken the time to put on an old 78 rpm record by Billie Holliday and learn what she meant when she sang, “Momma may have, Poppa may have, but God bless the child that has his own.”

I got mine by voting. So those of you who choose not to vote in November 2018, don’t expect your complaining behinds to get Jack and we all know his four-letter last name.