PLZ VOTE
This November 8th is most notable for an amazingly rare lunar eclipse and the cancellation of Tuesday Night Bible Study so we can be sure to vote. Since I live in what’s affectionately called a swing state, a battleground state or a cat fight state as we have two women vying for the first time for the governor’s seat. Depending on who you talk to; my whereabouts, and my understanding of the issues is of the utmost importance regardless of my party affiliation and who I may have had the misfortune of voting for in the last election. It is crucial that everyone be fully educated and perform their civic duty and worthy of me posting a blog this week well in advance of Mid-term Tuesday elections.
Everywhere and on any occasion, I am reminded to vote. Masked Door Knockers who ask for me by name risk the ancient barking terrier wanting to be sure I know where and how to vote as I am new to the area. I am feeling very very important.
I subscribe to several newspapers and periodicals even ones I don’t always agree with so I can read & really consider how other people think and how we can best live in community. I also get op-ed pieces from the regulars, multiple emails as well as postal mailers explaining the most complex issues in very large blue and red print in case I have either a visual or cognitive impairment to overcome so I can choose wisely and check my own facts. I dare not answer the phone in Open Season for Medicare and every single senior list for all my advantages.
The other day I got a flyer addressed to me advising me that the President and his left wing liberals were confused and indoctrinating my children about biological sex and clearly responsible for transgendered youth and unsafe restrooms and unnecessary surgical procedures.
One of my neighbors updated their license plate. Candidates visit me early early on the weekends and introduce themselves so I will have better name recognition and have the opportunity to converse with them on the fine points of any conversation. They are polite and do their very best not to offend me. They try not to sound appalled that I don’t know who is running for local judge seats and who is the new kid on the block as opposed to the incumbent and where everyone goes to church. I thank them for their time and sincerity.
I take democracy very seriously and have never felt so important in wanting to show up and be counted. I am happy with all my current representatives especially the ones that seem level-headed, thoughtful, concerned about social justice and open to my letters and my phone calls.
I think attendance at legislative sessions is good and not using your office to betray the public trust is definitely a deal breaker for me. You should not take money from folks that you shouldn’t. No one should even have the illusion that they could purchase your vote. You need not be politically correct or woke; but I do want you to know some history that you read about in school or sometime thereafter. I don’t want to be the citizen to tell you when you were running for office that some folks were murdered and intimidated just because they wanted to vote.
The fact that I can and do vote has a profound effect on me personally. I like the whole cardboard booth experience and chatting up poll workers. But I also loved living in Oregon where we could all sit and vote at the kitchen table and read our notes and long voter pamphlets.
It was good having my grandkids there with me as it was having my own children stand next to me in the booth looking forward to voting at 18. Rites of passage that took independence, activities of civic pride like graduating from high school, joining the military, getting a job and a drivers license. Not just piercings, body modifications, smoking or getting a gun and staying out late without telling anyone where you’re going.
We could walk to the mail box or drop off a ballot easy peasy. No hint of risk for a single second, part of the passage to being a responsible and caring adult. So I don’t understand when people say it won’t make a difference, or it doesn’t matter if they don’t vote, but I do know everyone has their reasons.
Curiously, I don’t feel that any previous election has been stolen, nor do I worry about election fraud or dead people voting and mailing in ballots to the wrong address or not in time. It troubles me deeply that many people could have voted but were prevented from doing so. I don’t think we need an electoral college to make states stronger. I think we can now handle the popular vote. One person, one vote, and strengthen the belief that one person can and does makes a difference, every single one and that we share a common destiny and are intimately inter-connected to each other and the planet.
Nor do I feel that you must be a vested property owner or have a special or singular interest or to have a particular bit of genitalia to be eligible and smart enough to vote or to make decisions that are very important to the society as a whole.
I also think it’s very funny that if I ever run for any office and don’t win, I would want and have to make a promise that I will not blame the secretary of state or any election workers or people who intimidated my friends that evil doers determined the outcome. I know without a doubt all my friends voted for me regardless of the secret ballot business. And while I don’t know anyone that is not like me nor anyone that doesn’t agree with me or anyone other than my neighbors; I will insist that it was unfair and be mad, but not rigged. I will shake the hand of the person who won and be nice and watch them very closely and hope they do well!
I am a very big fan of universal suffrage, literacy preferably in more than one language, free public libraries, free health care, free public education through college, guaranteed universal income, and paid parental leave and paying caregivers and elder care, and no one goes hungry or unsheltered on our watch. We can afford it and can not afford to allow people to suffer within view and do nothing in contemporary civilized society.
Teachers are paid the same as legislators from the districts they live in and health care is not a privilege for the employed unionized worker that the employer shoulders alone. Viruses and broken legs and chronic illnesses are equal opportunity struggles and effect us all.
I also think that if we can securely vote online for great unknown singers on America Idol and no one challenged a single click, Ryan Seacrest can be in charge of helping us to figure this out as a nation. Zip codes matter, health care matters, public free education matters, crushing debt and housing instability matters and is not based on merit. We are all deserving of the basics!
Protecting people and the institutions that create community and safety and compassion for everyone with no exceptions may be Pollyanna but not socialist or communist or any other label you don’t like. It just makes good sense when we have more than enough. Government and elected officials, & parents can’t do everything, but they can do more and better and create forums and the political will to make living together doable when social policies create harm.
So please VOTE, work on your spelling and ask someone to read it to you if it doesn’t make sense. Watch the eclipse on election day. Be NICE, Be KIND! I do want to be your good neighbor! I really like public television and Mr. Rodgers.
Don’t believe it when you know that people are lying to you just so you will vote a certain way. Hurt people hurt others especially when they are in a very bad mood and just can’t think of anyone else in that moment to blame or harm. We can do and be better than our worst most fearful moments.
NOTES
https://www.history.com/news/swing-states-presidential-elections.
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/total-lunar-eclipse-nov8-2022/
