Overcoming the onslaught of last minute desperate attempts to get our attention in this election is something of a challenge.
Likely, there is counsel which may help us sort the wheat from the chaff. I rely on these basic premises:
+Be aware in these waning days of the election, particularly for those who are lagging behind, the tone will pick up more volume and less reason.
+It is too late to reply or discredit much of what gets thrown against the wall and the other candidate at this late hour.
+If you are still undecided, then like those experiences when facing a final exam, it really is time to start closing the books and focusing on the test question: Who do I trust to be my President?
+Beware of last minute pressure, recorded calls (robocalls), emails espousing the need for you to stand up for one or another favorite but inflammatory causes. There is much more at stake than just being sure one or another social issue is met by your candidate.
+In order to assist your decision making, maybe you need to volunteer to help "get out the vote." You don't have to take sides, just assist in encouraging folk to vote on or before November 4. What you do, do quickly. The window is closing.
+Avoid emotional tirades with anyone. If they bait you, don't take the bait. This is a moment to impose reason and sanity. We have enough of the other already rearing its ugly head.
+Follow the polling data, not as means for making a decision, but an indicator of how the country is leaning. You may decide to go against that. I have lost more votes in my life for having been on the "other side" than I have won. It's humbling, but it guarantees that you were trying to be a thoughtful voter.
+Personally, I oppose yard signs and bumper stickers, much as I do folk who wear, but don't take seriously, religious symbols. If you need to do it, that's up to you. I prefer maintaining a sense of balance and isolation from being branded by such.
+Finally, on November 4, prepare yourself to learn something more about this democratic institution. Be prepared to hold your local officials accountable. Don't assume that the "good guy" will win just because you are for him. If there is chicanery afoot, be ready to challenge it. Celebrate the outcome, assuming it is authentic. If it isn't then once again, as in 2000, we are all in trouble.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Exercise Your Right: VOTE!
Have you ever been on a limb that felt as if it wouldn't hold you? Have you ever been in the water, when you weren't sure you wouldn't go under and not come up? Have your ever been on a trail and didn't know whether you could find your way back?
Well, that might just be what it is like going into the voting booth this time around. Omigod! We are really up against it. Some of us feel very good about the choice we have made and have, in fact, already voted. Others continue to struggle. I am a fairly quick study. With sufficient information, I am able to make decision without huge delay. Some, however, and I respect that, take longer to sort through the issues and dynamics.
Some of us waited eight years for a difference. It never came. Some of us hoped for conscience and good judgment to prevail. We have been though
a series of cabinet officers in defense, state, attorney general, the list seems endless. None has given us new and reasonable hope that our democracy can be revived or that our moral standing in the world can once again be respected. With every month, the catastrophe of our national condition has deteriorated further.
The opportunity is before us now. If you are waiting for lightning to strike, I suggest you wait no longer. So, come on, decide, move, do it and vote!
Even waiting to the last day is not going to produce a bargain decision in which you get two for one or 50% off. It is time to act out your citizenship. Waiting for the best deal will not give you any benefit, since the results of the election will not be played out on November 4, but over the next four years. So, suck it up, go for it and vote! No October surprise, no last minute machinations will likely make any difference at all.
Well, that might just be what it is like going into the voting booth this time around. Omigod! We are really up against it. Some of us feel very good about the choice we have made and have, in fact, already voted. Others continue to struggle. I am a fairly quick study. With sufficient information, I am able to make decision without huge delay. Some, however, and I respect that, take longer to sort through the issues and dynamics.
Some of us waited eight years for a difference. It never came. Some of us hoped for conscience and good judgment to prevail. We have been though
a series of cabinet officers in defense, state, attorney general, the list seems endless. None has given us new and reasonable hope that our democracy can be revived or that our moral standing in the world can once again be respected. With every month, the catastrophe of our national condition has deteriorated further.
The opportunity is before us now. If you are waiting for lightning to strike, I suggest you wait no longer. So, come on, decide, move, do it and vote!
Even waiting to the last day is not going to produce a bargain decision in which you get two for one or 50% off. It is time to act out your citizenship. Waiting for the best deal will not give you any benefit, since the results of the election will not be played out on November 4, but over the next four years. So, suck it up, go for it and vote! No October surprise, no last minute machinations will likely make any difference at all.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Ponderings on the Election
It's getting closer. Thank God and the rising and setting of the sun. In just days we will finally see the moment when the curtain falls and the election is over. Assuming there is no tie or contest in the outcome.
Frankly, my intuition is moving toward the victory of one candidate. I am of the opinion, with the help of trends in polling, that the victory will go to the Democrats. It may be time. For those of you who do not share that view, I don't apologize, I just am reporting what I am reading, seeing and hearing. You may not like my conclusion, but then, I didn't particularly enjoy the outcomes of the previous two elections.
I don't categorize people who disagree with me as evil or wrong or vengeful or "un-American." I believe and presently enjoy the assumption that America is STILL a democracy. That means each of us gets our turn. When that is no longer possible, democracy has become a myth. Disturbing as it is to see and hear of KKK and other hate groups attempting to spill poison in the reservoir of our democracy, most of us are thoughtful, incisive and reasonable in our approaches. Our disagreements may reach louder and louder decibels, but, at length, the friends and compatriots with whom I talk, end up being civil with one another. It isn't easy, particularly in our time when issues run either very hot or very cold... there is little in between and no lukewarm.
To get through all of this is not to decide that it is unimportant. It is to decide to be honest, to be disciplined. It is to choose to read and be exposed to something other than the routine sources that reinforce one's perspective. Much of what I have heard in the past week over the car radio, while in East Texas, alarms me. With little exception the airwaves were full of disinformation and hype. There was no pretense made toward fairness or balance. It was as if there were a huge dome over that geographic section preventing any other message from penetrating it. Rush Limbaugh was on at least four to six stations, both AM and FM; there were other lesser known right wing radio show hosts, plying their wares. When you tried moving from one station to other, with the seek button, most of what you found was shyster preachers trying to separate people from their money, automobile advertisements or swap shops. Not much in there for people who like to spend some time on the road having some kind of intellectual stimulation. I gave up Rush years ago. Anyone who has all the answers and all I have to do is be a "ditto head," turns me off immediately. I am, I confess, a free thinker. If that makes me a liberal too, then I guess I am.
What I would like to see before I vote for the very last time, is that this country is living out of its ideals and not its myths. Like religion, democracy is easily swayed and influenced by those who know more about the Bible or the Constitution than anybody else. Ironically, "sound and fury" do not equal comprehension and communication.
No person going into the White House today will be free of the agonizing anxiety all of us are experiencing in our very frail political and national climate. That is sobering. So think long, study earnestly, decide with some sense of recognizing what is at stake. None of us will be 100%, absolutely, unequivocally correct. We are still frail human vessels who do the best we can with the information we have. Integrity still matters.
Go into the polls, if you already haven't, and decide. When you walk hold up your head, not in defiance, but in the conviction that you still have the right to express yourself. Hope that in four years, the same opportunity will be available.
Frankly, my intuition is moving toward the victory of one candidate. I am of the opinion, with the help of trends in polling, that the victory will go to the Democrats. It may be time. For those of you who do not share that view, I don't apologize, I just am reporting what I am reading, seeing and hearing. You may not like my conclusion, but then, I didn't particularly enjoy the outcomes of the previous two elections.
I don't categorize people who disagree with me as evil or wrong or vengeful or "un-American." I believe and presently enjoy the assumption that America is STILL a democracy. That means each of us gets our turn. When that is no longer possible, democracy has become a myth. Disturbing as it is to see and hear of KKK and other hate groups attempting to spill poison in the reservoir of our democracy, most of us are thoughtful, incisive and reasonable in our approaches. Our disagreements may reach louder and louder decibels, but, at length, the friends and compatriots with whom I talk, end up being civil with one another. It isn't easy, particularly in our time when issues run either very hot or very cold... there is little in between and no lukewarm.
To get through all of this is not to decide that it is unimportant. It is to decide to be honest, to be disciplined. It is to choose to read and be exposed to something other than the routine sources that reinforce one's perspective. Much of what I have heard in the past week over the car radio, while in East Texas, alarms me. With little exception the airwaves were full of disinformation and hype. There was no pretense made toward fairness or balance. It was as if there were a huge dome over that geographic section preventing any other message from penetrating it. Rush Limbaugh was on at least four to six stations, both AM and FM; there were other lesser known right wing radio show hosts, plying their wares. When you tried moving from one station to other, with the seek button, most of what you found was shyster preachers trying to separate people from their money, automobile advertisements or swap shops. Not much in there for people who like to spend some time on the road having some kind of intellectual stimulation. I gave up Rush years ago. Anyone who has all the answers and all I have to do is be a "ditto head," turns me off immediately. I am, I confess, a free thinker. If that makes me a liberal too, then I guess I am.
What I would like to see before I vote for the very last time, is that this country is living out of its ideals and not its myths. Like religion, democracy is easily swayed and influenced by those who know more about the Bible or the Constitution than anybody else. Ironically, "sound and fury" do not equal comprehension and communication.
No person going into the White House today will be free of the agonizing anxiety all of us are experiencing in our very frail political and national climate. That is sobering. So think long, study earnestly, decide with some sense of recognizing what is at stake. None of us will be 100%, absolutely, unequivocally correct. We are still frail human vessels who do the best we can with the information we have. Integrity still matters.
Go into the polls, if you already haven't, and decide. When you walk hold up your head, not in defiance, but in the conviction that you still have the right to express yourself. Hope that in four years, the same opportunity will be available.
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