We’re getting close to presidential election time, and many people are anxiously trying to find out what they’ll watch on TV while they skip bothering to vote. I hardly blame them. Neither major party candidate is seriously proposing to address our campaign-funding system of legalized bribery, the rapidly expanding wealth gap between the few at the top and the rest of us, the bloated military budget three times the size of all our supposed enemies’ combined, our deteriorating public schools, ghettoization, sprawl, health care, poverty, labor rights, or corporate welfare.
If you live in Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, where the races between Bush and Gore are close, it might be possible to argue that voting for the only trustworthy candidate with convincing plans to improve the country (Ralph Nader) would be a wasted vote. In fact, there are very good reasons why you should vote for Gore and not Bush.
If you live in one of the 43 states where the winner can be safely predicted, a vote for either Bush or Gore is a wasted vote. It’s a signal to Washington that everything is hunkey dory. It sends a message that we like having no voice in the formation of our laws, we don’t want tire companies regulated even if it kills us, we prefer to work longer hours for declining wages and go deeper into debt as long as a few CEOs can earn an extra billion or two, we want government agencies defunded until they fail and then privatized until they are unaccountable.
Vote for Nader and send a message that we are not going to give up our government without a fight. A vote for Ralph will provide the Green Party with funding next time around and clout during the next four years. It should provide you with a better night’s sleep than watching television would.
But it’s not enough. Go to http://www.votenader.org and find out what else you can do to help.
And print out this poster, make copies, and paste it around your town.