Apathy kills.

Standing at the checkout of a neighborhood store, I caught the end of McCain’s speech on foreign policy playing on the TV above to hear the Republican party’s offering for next decider-in-chief grin smugly and confidently claim:

“I will never surrender in Iraq. And we are winning.”

As he rang me up, the store owner - who I see nearly every morning, know to be Iraqi and have discussed with him the death of both his wife and son as a result of the U.S. bombings of that region during the first Gulf War - literally froze in mid sentence when McCain’s words grumbled from the speakers above. I watched his expression wash from stunned disbelief to sadness to rage. I understand enough Arabic to know his sharp chain of comments on the sexual prowess of McCain’s mother were intended as far from romantic.

“How much longer they’re going to keep believing these men? How many more to kill…?” he trailed off after a long silence, both of us knowing that the answers could be ones neither us wanted to hear.

To all who have ever said to me that they “choose” not to vote in our presidential elections because they either feel they have no impact on who wins…or that it just doesn’t matter who wins: you’re wrong. It matters more than any of us who get to complain about the price of gas to fill our Minis, throw out leftover steak & spoiled milk, pay $10 to see Iron Man or have openly criticized the American government and lived to tell about it can ever even pretend to know.

Apathy and inaction - like the kind shown by those who don’t vote - express a decision, the decision to let someone else decide for you. We as Americans have to vote in the next and every presidential election, because its only Americans who can vote on which man/woman our country keeps believing.

Check out McCain’s speech, including his disturbingly Dubyaesque retorts to protesters from the crowd, here: