COASTAL POST
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October, 2002
Vote? Yes!
by Frank Scott
When Iraq agreed to allow weapons inspectors back in , it briefly spoiled the bloody plans of the American government’s serial killers. But ridiculous reasons to disregard Iraqi attempts at reason are being created every day. Before we hear that Saddam plans to molest our children at day care centers, spread pancake syrup on our highways and put chewing gum in all our cash registers, we need to consider that in just a month, we will be asked to participate in what has become the most hypocritical process of electoral democracy ever devised.
While we are being mentally molested in preparation for more slaughter in the middle east, highly paid professionals will insist that we must vote for their employer parasites. As usual, the great majority will totally disregard them and stay away from the polls. This shows citizen sophistication in rejecting the hypocrisy of a voting system that has little to do with democracy, and much to do with the maintenance of minority financial power.
But despite the mostly dreadful array of major party candidates for sale in the political mall, there are reasons for voters to participate, and not only to select lesser evils . Voters will be able to choose alternatives more often than is usually the case, and a larger vote for those candidates, this time around, may have a greater affect than ever before. Given a government in which a minority pinhead presides over a congress selected by a smaller electorate than any democracy should tolerate, a vote for regime change is desperately needed .
People need to demand alternatives to a status quo which is bringing us closer to disasters that no major developed country will be able to avoid. That was, or should have been the lesson of 911. Instead, we have embarked on a journey to more disaster, and aside from some individuals - mostly conservative - the major party has chosen to unite its factions in saluting the flag, pledging allegiance to god, and marching towards more murder and destruction.
What’s a nation to do? Take heart from the fact that thousands of citizens have demonstrated, petitioned, written and phoned their representatives to speak out against war, even while these representatives have been cowering in fear of being seen as un-patriotic if they are anti-war. Those Americans who feel isolated and fear they are alone in their hopes for peaceful change ought to look at the behavior of their fellows and take heart. If people from places which often suffer worse material deprivation than many of us can imagine, places like Venezuela, Argentina and Zimbabwe, can rise up and demand change, shouldn’t the people of the richest nation in the world be able to at least do the same?
Despite the Saddam Hussein myth , our regime’s propaganda hasn’t swayed most of the world. It understands that the most dangerous rogue nation is “USrael”, that North American behemoth , with its biblical bully in the middle east. While Iraq is depicted as a serious threat, it is unfeared by its arab neighbors, is economically crippled, militarily weak and has no nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Israel threatens the entire region with its nukes, regularly gives the finger to the UN, brutally occupies sovereign territory, and nothing is done about its behavior. And while mainstream pundits and political nitwits stand at attention for the president and his policy, growing numbers of citizens not only oppose this increasingly manic behavior, but show it in public demonstrations. Do they have any real choice on election day?
Unfortunately, only a few candidates of the major party outspokenly stand for peace, and even they can only be relied on for single issue support. Most who want choice for American women when it comes to abortion, also oppose choice for Palestinian women, when it comes to having a country, or sending their kids to school, or freely walking the streets of their occupied homeland. Still, that handful may deserve support, if only as lesser evils. But more important, the vote for alternative candidates may never have been as important in sending a message to the powers that be, and their cowed supporters.
The choices are growing in number, as small parties, often locked out of the national process, are greatly involved in local , congressional and even state races. And the protest vote can be denied its impact only if it isn’t cast in the numbers it deserves. The Green party is growing, running 362 candidates in 39 states this year. It has already elected 146 office holders and it is the only party raising a major critique of things as they are, and not simply focusing on personalities. Nowhere does it offer a better alternative choice than in California, the nation’s most populous and diverse state, with the nation’s most dreadful major party gubernatorial candidates.
An incompetent governor whose main talent is collecting funds is opposed by another incompetent whose main talent is having been born with those funds. But the Green ‘s candidate, Peter Camejo, possesses intelligence and wit beyond these plodding cash machines , which will assure that he gets little coverage from mass media. Still, the alert, concerned public can cast a vote for reason and against the status quo by selecting Camejo in November, along with other worthy Greens.
We may be killing people in greater numbers than usual by the time we get a chance to vote, but we cannot allow our temporary rulers to use war to mask the reality of a failing economy, a threatened people and an endangered global environment . We are a rogue nation that must be brought under control by its own people, before an outside force of international unity is made necessary to control us. It is up to Americans to do something about our rogue nation, before others have to. They can start by voting in November, for peace, and against war .
Copyright (c) 2002 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.
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frank scott
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email: frank at marin.cc.ca.us
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