community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
November 3rd
by Fred Pohlmann
Monday, Oct. 18, 2004 at 1:27 PM
pohlmann@ihwy.com (email address validated)
What will you say to yourself on November 3rd?
You wake, perhaps to sunshine, perhaps to rain. You slide into your robe and head to the kitchen for morning coffee or tea. Your newspaper’s bold headline greets you: “Bush For 4 More.” And then it hits you. You didn’t vote. You struggle to grasp the significance of what will unfold in the next four years. You know that your civil liberties will be curtailed even more in the name of the war on terrorism. A “preventative” invasion of another country is not only possible, but likely. You foresee a spike in the world’s frustration at our retaining such an arrogant foreign policy team. You worry about the increasing influence of religious fundamentalism in our government. You fear an escalation in the assault on the environment. You feel sorry for the next generation for its burden of debt. And it hits you again and again. You didn’t vote. You get up from your chair to dress for work. Your feet seem somehow heavier, your walk slower. For four years it has been so easy to blame the Bush administration for so much that is wrong. But now you have only yourself to blame. You did not vote.
Voting is hardly the answer
by Ken
Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004 at 7:36 PM
While I myself plan to vote in this election, I hardly understand these types of guilt trips from regular people and celebrities alike that try saying you basically suck if you do not vote. Personally, I think voting is the absolute minimum anyone can do and if it is all you do, then you are not all that concerned. Before I get all the typical excuses, I come from and still am living in a working class neighborhood, where i have had many minimum wage jobs and now clean apartments to pay my student loans, so I'm certainly no privileged person that has all this free time to do whatever i want. Yet I and many others still find time to do whatever we can to bring serious social change to this country, especially in times like these. So, I say to anyone that simply thinks they have some higher ground to guilt others over voting, I say that voting is the least you can do. If you want change, you must come out and make change happen. With all the fraud and voting problems in this country, not to mention the electoral college, I would say that now your vote may not even be honestly counted or matter!! So go out, protest, canvass, do whatever actions you can to make this country what you want. I say if all you do is vote, then you are the one doing a lousy job of participating in the politics of our country.
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