Meditations before voting
Oct. 31st, 2004 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdSome Meditations Before You Vote
by Stuart S. Light
This campaign season has been marked with a high degree of partisanship and rancor in the discourse leading up to Tuesday's presidential election. Both sides, armed with focus groups and experts, have crafted messages gilded with oversimplifications and spurious "facts."
Logic, common sense and truth scatter like dust before the powerful and well-financed marketing machines roaring across the landscape. My advice? Take time to reflect on what is truly important, and let your own intelligence and compassion guide your decisions.
Here's some food for thought before you vote:
Democrat, Republican, Green, Independent, Libertarian, left, right, center, liberal, moderate, conservative, rich, poor, gay, straight, black, white, brown, male, female, pro-life, pro-choice — we're a mixed bag, but we're all Americans.
No individual, party or ideology has cornered the market on truth or God's blessing.
Dying soldiers in all countries call for their mothers with their last breath.
Any child killed by war, poverty, abuse or neglect is one too many.
Fear is our worst enemy. Those who would scare us are not our friends.
9/11 was a tragic event. But everything did not change. The sad fact is, too much has remained the same, or gotten worse.
Killing innocents in any war dishonors those who died on 9/11
Those most distant from a conflict are always the ones shouting loudest for war.
War is almost always a tragic detour from the more difficult road of peace.
Anyone who impugns your patriotism for exercising your constitutional right to free speech is not a patriot. In a true democracy, all points of view are valued and heard.
Love is the core value of the Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths. Only love and understanding can bring the peace and security all good people of the world desire.
Every vote counts, and every vote should be counted.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1030-25.htm
by Stuart S. Light
This campaign season has been marked with a high degree of partisanship and rancor in the discourse leading up to Tuesday's presidential election. Both sides, armed with focus groups and experts, have crafted messages gilded with oversimplifications and spurious "facts."
Logic, common sense and truth scatter like dust before the powerful and well-financed marketing machines roaring across the landscape. My advice? Take time to reflect on what is truly important, and let your own intelligence and compassion guide your decisions.
Here's some food for thought before you vote:
Democrat, Republican, Green, Independent, Libertarian, left, right, center, liberal, moderate, conservative, rich, poor, gay, straight, black, white, brown, male, female, pro-life, pro-choice — we're a mixed bag, but we're all Americans.
No individual, party or ideology has cornered the market on truth or God's blessing.
Dying soldiers in all countries call for their mothers with their last breath.
Any child killed by war, poverty, abuse or neglect is one too many.
Fear is our worst enemy. Those who would scare us are not our friends.
9/11 was a tragic event. But everything did not change. The sad fact is, too much has remained the same, or gotten worse.
Killing innocents in any war dishonors those who died on 9/11
Those most distant from a conflict are always the ones shouting loudest for war.
War is almost always a tragic detour from the more difficult road of peace.
Anyone who impugns your patriotism for exercising your constitutional right to free speech is not a patriot. In a true democracy, all points of view are valued and heard.
Love is the core value of the Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths. Only love and understanding can bring the peace and security all good people of the world desire.
Every vote counts, and every vote should be counted.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1030-25.htm
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 07:13 pm (UTC)From The Los Angeles Times:
“Nationwide, at least two polls in the last week showed that newly registered voters favored Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry by double-digit margins. The Massachusetts senator holds an even greater lead, the polls found, among voters 29 and younger… The conclusion is that the new voters and younger voters favor Kerry by a large margin, but historically they don’t actually bother to vote. If they do this time, it could make a big difference.”
Your vote is essential!
GET TO THE POLLS – VOTE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND!!
AND VOTE FOR KERRY!!!!
Why? Check this out: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=facts
Send the above message to your friends, including those at other schools. Urge them to
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 07:31 pm (UTC)And let me be blunt. I don't forsee much change between a Bush and Kerry Regime. What I do see is a change in national climate, where it will be unacceptable for avowed homophobes to run for office, where apocalytic imagery may not hold so much sway.