{"id":528,"date":"2016-11-07T14:45:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T20:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/?p=528"},"modified":"2024-08-08T17:47:13","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T23:47:13","slug":"voting-is-a-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/2016\/11\/07\/voting-is-a-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I See Voting as a Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1964 the Brazilian Armed Forces, supported by the United States under Lyndon B. Johnson, staged a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat and deposed Brazil\u2019s democratically elected president, the leftist Jo\u00e3o Goulart from the Labor Party. Through political maneuvers, the Brazilian Congress\u2014under extreme right majority\u2014eased the military takeover. Although the US Army was ready to support the Brazilian military factions aligned with its interests in case of civil war, it was avoided. Nonetheless, during the 21 years of repression that followed \u201cnearly 500 people died or disappeared, and many more were detained or tortured\u201d (Remembering Brazil’s decades of military repression, Pablo Ushoa, BBC.com 03\/31\/2014<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I was in my early teens when millions of Brazilians took to the streets in the “Diretas J\u00e1”\u2014Direct Vote Now Movement. It started in 1983 and led to an indirect election\u2014by Electoral College\u2014of Tancredo Neves in 1985, and finally democratic presidential elections in 1989. I still have goose bumps thinking about it. So much loss. So much fear. To this day many families have no idea what happened to their loved ones.<\/p>\n

When the laws that gave the Brazilian people its democratic rights back were being drawn, those in charge of that extremely important job for the country\u2019s future knew that democracy is under constant threat. To keep it, all of us, the people, must guarantee its permanence by exercising it through our vote. In Brazil all citizens between 18 and 60 years of age must vote by law.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an American citizen now, but because of my growing up in Brazil during dark times, I don\u2019t see voting as a right. For me, it\u2019s a duty I owe to all those who sacrificed, so I can have a voice, so I can choose the life I want to live, so we all have rights. Rights as trivial as choosing to wear makeup\u2014or not, as basic as choosing what food to eat and how many kids to have, some as essential as disagreeing<\/em> without risking jail, torture and death.<\/p>\n

So VOTE. Because you can; you must.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1964 the Brazilian Armed Forces, supported by the United States under Lyndon B. Johnson, staged a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat and deposed Brazil\u2019s democratically elected president, the leftist Jo\u00e3o Goulart from the Labor Party. Through political maneuvers, the Brazilian Congress\u2014under extreme right majority\u2014eased the military takeover. Although the US Army was ready to support the Brazilian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,36],"tags":[114,116,115],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-notes","category-writing","tag-election","tag-election-day","tag-presidential-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrigomes.com\/literaryexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}