Regarding the presidential election, let's multiply our votes to elect a
Democrat.
I know that Clinton will be more of the same, but a choice between bad
and really horrible is a significant choice. I have a theory that when the
generation that fought World War II goes out of power, there is going to
be a significant shift towards sanity on our planet. A guy from our
generation is just not going to be as crazy as someone who fought total
war against Hitler. Even though Clinton is handpicked to not make
waves, it will clear the way for change to come. Also, there is the Gore
factor, discussed below.
Multiplying my vote:
If I get one person to vote who wasn't going to, I have doubled my
influence. I have been going door to door registering my neighbors
(fortunately, I live in a hippy and working folks neighborhood). I
register people between services at my Unity church. I have put
displays with registration cards in all our local shops--so far, I've put
out about 700 cards, working against an Oct. 4 deadline here in Texas.
Also, I lived on The Farm in Tennessee for ten years, and I mailed out
550 fliers advocating the idea of multiplying your vote to a list of Farm
people around the country. This E-mail to the Family is more of the
same. How could you multiply your vote??????
The Gore factor:
If you don't read any other book the rest of this century, read Al Gore's
EARTH IN THE BALANCE. This is a recipe for how humanity can survive and
prosper in the 21st century. It is the first piece of post-Evil-Empire
thinking to come from anyone in the government, and it is
being read by thinking people all over the world--it has been on the best
seller list for months. He took the title from an illustration in a
brochure put out by the Bush administration that illustrated their jobs
vs. environment policy with a picture of a balance scale with six bars of
gold in one pan and the Earth in the other.
Also, did you know that Al Gore has sponsored and passed two bills, one
to scan all 20 million volumes of the Library of Congress onto electronic
media, and another, the National Data Superhighways Act, which
establishes the pipelines that will eventually give us the capability of
putting these 20 million volumes at everyone's fingertips? Get enough
of us truly educated and communicating, and we can make some
intelligent choices and enforce those choices so our children can have a
future. We can use those data superhighways to deliver video education
even to people who can't read or write--that's how we will teach them to
read and write.
Al won't be president, but it will have to make a difference, having
someone with some vision and intelligence that close to the top.
Finally, I want to recommend WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE by
William Greider (political columnist for Rollling Stone). This book tells
how decisions are really made in our society, and it uses as its prime
example the story of how the Democrats and Republicans colluded to
keep the public from finding out about the savings and loan crisis for
four years while it grew from a 10+ billion dollar problem to a 200+
billion dollar problem. He shows how there is no longer any public voice
in the big decisions of our society, and questions whether we have any
democracy left. If the Russians, et al, can junk the Communist party
and the KGB, maybe we American could hope to have a say as to
whether we get to have health care, and whether financial looters are
allowed to destroy the system that coordinates the efforts of 500 million
of us so that we all get to keep eating and living.
Actually, Greider's book is a strong argument that the elections are
primarily personality contest smokescreens to make us think we have a
choice. Let's know that and forge ahead anyway. I think there is change
coming that will sweep us beyond this level of subterfuge, and I think
that every little bit helps.
Peace and Love and Family
Tim