Becuase Everything Else Sucks

We Saw A Million Nevadans, And We Rocked Them All

By Manila Ryce
Published Friday, July 4th, 2008, 1:52 am
Filed under: Society/Culture: Law/Order, Entertainment, Society/Culture, US Politics

In the state of Nevada, we needed 5,746 signatures to get Nader on the ballot for the general election. We got over 12,000 just in case. Many are bound to be bogus, and the Democrats will no doubt challenge us since Nevada is a “battleground state”. Still, it feels good to be done right at the deadline with our personal goal of 12,000 signatures met.

gas-prices.jpg

On the final day of petitioning to get Nader on the ballot in Nevada, I was actually booted from the Sahara West Library for informing a self-described Democrat that she subscribed to fascism.

Before the Nader/Gonzalez campaign came to Nevada, only Obama and McCain were allowed on the ballot in the general election. You can’t even write-in a candidate, so any voter who didn’t want to choose either one of the two corporate candidates was essentially denied their right to vote. I explained this to some lady exiting the library and she simply said it was fine with her if independents were disenfranchised. All that mattered was that we get a Democrat in the White House, democracy be damned.

Thinking that perhaps she misunderstood, I explained again that by signing my petition she was not endorsing Ralph Nader, but simply allowing him to be on the ballot so that people would have the right to vote for him if they chose to do so. Whether or not she agreed with their choice was irrelevant. She still refused to sign, insisting that choice for all Americans should be limited to just the two candidates she found acceptable. I told her that that was not democracy, but fascism. She shrugged her shoulders and we both walked away, disgusted with each other.

Not too long after the interaction, a security guard and library manager exercised a bit of fascism of their own. Apparently, the manager had received a call from the woman who was offended that I had called her a fascist. I gave the manager a brief civics lesson, recapped our conversation, and explained that my tone was calm and matter-of-factual with the woman, but she still insisted that I had to leave for “harassing” guests. I was surprised that a library manager would try to pull this shit on public property, but I eventually did leave since we were on a deadline and needed to spend time gathering signatures rather than challenging the library’s decision.

So after banging my head against a wall for several minutes, I walked a couple miles to a less-shaded grocery store parking lot to fill my quota for the day and work on my skin cancer. Both came along fairly well.

I’m sharing this story because most people don’t realize the obstacles that small campaigns face at every turn. Petitioners are told to “fuck off” and “go to hell” by complete strangers all day. Add 115 degree heat and the divisive name of “Ralph Nader” to the equation and you’ve got one grueling job that only someone with a tremendous amount of passion and dedication could do every single day. My utmost respect goes out to everyone who’s decided to stay through the entire roadtrip, but a special bit of recognition is needed for my small family of Vegas petitioners (Team Tanq) and the thankless work we did to get Ralph on the ballot in Nevada. We conquered that fucking state.

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9 Responses to “We Saw A Million Nevadans, And We Rocked Them All”

  1. The leg work it always tough, and it in America it’s also cruel. When I canvassed for Cynthia McKinney in Georgia I was called every name under the sun, only by white people, as I was the only white guy on the team. As I approached doorsteps they had a smile on their face, when I told them who I worked for they would back away and say “Oh, we’re not interested in that”.

    People shouted at me from cars “She’s a racist”, “How much you gettin paid to do this” etc.

    Weather like that should be illegal, and to think we’re only making it hotter!

    John Geraghty
    07/4/08 at 5:44 am

  2. Great job out there fighting for democracy! We do appreciate your work.
    God bless the constitution and what it stands for.
    It stands for us. Will we stand for it?

    Nando
    07/4/08 at 8:18 am

  3. America lives the farce of ‘democracy,’ has for quite some time. Meanwhile, the ‘neocon’ façists have taken control of the country limiting ‘freedom and democracy’ of the nation’s citizens to that comparable to the deluded sovereign sheeple caught up in believing the rhetoric of Nazi Germany’s façist ‘police-state’ before the fall of Hitler.
    [empeach!]

    Nader has never been more needed; he must be put on the ballot of every state in the Union. Must if there’s going to be any semblance of Democracy in the forthcoming Presidential Election. Hurray for Nader, hurray for ‘we the people.’

    Hot to Petition! Help Ralph Nader Get on the Ballot

    camelien
    07/4/08 at 9:00 am

  4. you are the man for REAL.

    evmonk
    07/4/08 at 1:46 pm

  5. We love you, Manilla!

    We miss you, too…

    ..couldn’t have done it without you.

    Really. You gave more than your all and we ALL noticed.

    Naderette team cheerleader,
    Merrick

    Merrick
    07/5/08 at 1:17 am

  6. There’s a word for women like that. People like that, in fact.

    Cunts.

    More power to you for intellectually destroying her so soundly. Unfortunately, individuals like her don’t have the dignity or decency to recognize when they’ve been bested.

    So they resort to thug-like, FASCIST tactics.

    Peace Czar
    07/5/08 at 9:12 am

  7. I have a lot of respect for the work you did in Nevada. As important as ballot-access is debate-access. There is a website now for the Google / YouTube debate that will be held on September 18:

    www.neworleansdebate.org

    Unfortunately, for Nader to be included, he will have to be at 10% in national polls. That’s not impossible, but it’s not a threshold he should be required to meet before getting into the debate. This is better than the requirement for the debates sponsored by the two-party-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates (15%); but a more reasonable requirement would be just having a mathematical chance of being elected (i.e., being on enough ballots to have a chance at 270 electoral votes); polling 5% would even be reasonable, I think. I’m encouraging everyone I can reach to go to the debate website and click on “Contact Us” and to urge them to change the candidate eligibility rules.

    pp
    07/6/08 at 1:05 am

  8. Guess what?

    YOU ARE NOT THE BIGGEST PILIPINO!!!!!!!

    However, if you joined back up with team TANQ in montucky, you could live up to your name.

    For now, you are smallest fry of all the fries at McDonald’s.

    Love,
    Team TANQ

    Jenn Halbleib
    07/8/08 at 8:28 pm

  9. Well hello Jenn (though judging by the “Pilipino” pronunciation, the above statement had to have been heavily influenced by Junue). It’s good to see we’ve moved beyond the skin cancer state and on to the liver cancer one. I will meet with you fuckers in the near future. Whether it’s in Montucky or Colorado still remains to be seen. You do not know when Manila will come again. In the evening, or at midnight, at cockcrow, or at dawn, so always keep a beer unopened and bowl untorched.

    Manila Ryce
    07/8/08 at 9:32 pm

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