I'm an actress and author. You probably know me best as hippie momr Abby on TV's "Dharma & Greg" or Asst. US Sec.of State Karen Clarke in BBC Films' anti-war satire "In The Loop." Since 2004 I've served as voluntary National Advisory Board Chair of Progressive Democrats of America.
I've done progressive grassroots organizing, as PDA's National Chair, for six years, in whatever free time I've had.
One of the issues I’ve worked hardest on is election integrity. I know elections can be tampered with electronically. There’s fraud capacity in them thar hills.
Which is discouraging to acknowledge. Very. But there is one way to stop fraudsters from finishing the fix set up by secret donors, fueled bigotry, and astro-turf events in 2010 - and that way is TURNOUT! WE HAVE TO VOTE!
I’m an optimist; I actually believe that good government policy which leads to peace and justice can turn even the minds of depraved insiders away from cooperating with criminal fixers. I believe that our exercise of good citizenship - VOTING WITH RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE; TIRELESSLY EDUCATING ON FACTS AND ISSUES; MAKING ELECTIONS A PUBLIC CONVERSATION AND PITCHING IN ON CAMPAIGNS -- will put the nightmare years of torture, lies and war behind us. Eventually. And we, the activists, are the ones who must do the informing and educating along with voting. Our media is mindlessly addicted to the billions they receive from hawkers of conflict, disaster and illness. The only incentive to heal our social wounds is a rational recognition that without civil society, all will suffer, especially business. But in the post-trauma of war and terror, we’re not being rational. And there’s profit in chaos, for some (not small business, by the way, though that's the constituency right wing grassroots seek to defend but right-wing big donors carelessly quash.) The chaos profiteers don’t much care if the Invisible Hand culls the herd.
Enthusiasm gap? Maybe. Among people who don’t grasp the impending disaster of denying global warming; or who feel involvement threatens their comfort. (As the warning goes, when the comfortable are finally threatened there may be no-one left to speak for them.) I wonder how many ditto-heads realize the Rwandan massacre was launched by a craven radio host, or tea-partiers know Hitler was elected by popular vote? We’ve been dumbed down by corporations to ignore history. We see only the addictive glitz of the moment, whose consumption makes us forget our true selves and, in the process, self-government. We abandon it.
So we've let the levers of democracy deteriorate. On top of that, technology has compromised them. Nonetheless, on November 2 we have a clear shot at making sure that years of cheerleading for war and wastefully waging it, of ignorance and repression, slide further behind us. And we'd better make sure they recede. Because others are pushing for their comeback.
Big, bad things happen in history and our times are not immune. Martin Luther King said the sad words "too late" were written in the dust of many vanished civilizations. He said a society that spent more on weapons of destruction than programs of social uplift was approaching spiritual death. "Approaching"- because spiritual death doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an accumulated acquiescence to selfishness, complacency, ignorance (if at first innocent, eventually willful) fear and denial. We see too much of these things in America these days. Who’s to blame? Plenty to go around. Corporate personhood. Biased news-for-profit-and-power. The Supreme Court. Bad politicians (like the city council members in Bell, California who robbed the taxpayers blind for their own comfort.)
But, when elections roll around, if we don't vote, the blame rolls to us and stops there.
Enthusiasm gap? Are you kidding? November 2 is the day we finally get to rebuke the insane caterwauling of snake oil politicians hawking their hate for government while begging us to elect them to it. We rebuke money in favor of truth and tell billionaires who paid for lying ads that they wasted their money while selling their souls. November 2 is judgment day at the polls. Go. Go. Go. If you need childcare - get it. Or take your children with you. I used to - they saw and learned, just as they learned at the store how to buy groceries, or in the kitchen, how to cook and feed themselves, or at the library, how to read and use their library card, in church, how to be quiet, anywhere, how to say please and thank-you.
You don’t need reasons, do you? Global climate change. Massive human suffering due to denial about it. Our bankrupt economy - consider this: think how our Administrations like to throw around the threat of sanctions to get other governments to do what we want? Why does it not occur to us (or maybe we’re just not supposed to mention it occurs?) that America could be sanctioned? Maybe we are being sanctioned now, in an informal, undeclared financial sort of way, for squandering borrowed money on war and occupation? Yes, credit default swaps, sliced-and-diced mortgages, every manner of gambling and lack of accountability, also contributed to our downfall because in the world of money, we’ve acted like embezzlers, not reliable financial colleagues. But over and over again, we insisted on taking borrowed money and spending it on violence, not human needs.
I’m not questioning American motives entirely. I know even our horrible administrations believe in part (irrationally, selfishly) that they’re doing what’s best for others. But "others" look at America and see a country that doesn’t know what’s best for itself. A country addicted to unhealthy behavior and choices.
On November 2, we can show the world we're determined to continue cleaning up our act. If the GOP regains power in either House or Senate, watch them start squandering again - money and time on punishment and investigation, even if they have to make up Democratic crimes (Don Siegelman? Whitewater?) Vote. Get out the vote for PDA candidates and help heroic progressive Raul Grijalva, who is under attack by right-wing smears. (Rebuke 'em!)