Fending This Off

(Image from a London School of Economics article about Maine’s adoption of ranked choice voting)

This morning I got up to hear the pound sterling fell dramatically again after the Bank of England (our central bank) declared Friday will be the end of its emergency measures.

In my mind’s eye, I saw the BoE as the adults in the room, trying to minimize the damage being done by a band of children running amok. I saw them realizing that as long as they keep doing that, the children are protected from consequences for their actions, so they wreak more and more damage. Asking the children to stop hasn’t worked. The next option is to stand back, leave the damage unmitigated and let consequences happen.

Half asleep, it was a vivid image of grown-ups at their wits end, surrounded by wild children screaming, running and bashing everything within reach.

Maybe later in the day I will have a more mature perspective on what’s happening to the UK, but even now that I’m fully awake, that initial mental picture seems close to the mark.

Here in the UK, we are in a world of hurt. We have fallen far in just over a decade, accelerating in the past few years. In nearly every significant measure, we are close to or at the bottom of the world’s so-called leading nations. It will probably get worse before it gets better. The people who made this happen over the past dozen years are still in power and somebody cut the cable on the hand brake.

We are an example of what happens when too many people don’t think hard enough about how they vote.

If you are in the USA, you are going into the most pivotal midterm national election I can remember. You may even be in a state where early voting has already begun.

Please vote wisely. Think before you vote. You have a political party that is joined at the hip (and joined through major donors) with the one that is doing this to Britons.

You can choose an American version of going where the UK is going, or you can fend this off.

Now I need to print my American postal ballot, which is meant for legal sized paper we don’t have here. Last time I had to get a print shop to do it, but I think I have found an easier solution. I’ll fill it out with care and send it in by courier service because air mail sometimes takes two months now. However much trouble it takes to cast my vote, I always do. There is no such thing as an election where I need not bother. The last time I voted in the USA, my favored candidate for one position lost by 30 votes. Just 30!

Fend this off, this monstrous sundering of ordinary people’s lives that is happening where I live. Use your vote to fend it off where you are. Please.