Soil of Good Democracy
Sojourner Truth
Birth:
1797
Death:
Nov. 26, 1883
Famed abolitionist. She fought a legal battle in 1828 to regain custody of her son. She succeeded, becoming the first black woman to win a lawsuit against a white man.
Burial:Oak Hill Cemetery Battle CreekCalhoun CountyMichigan, USA
THE VOICE OF SANITY, EXACTLY THE FIGHT IS UP TO YOU TO BRING THIS GOVT DOWN AND THAT DOES NOT MEAN 46% VOTING TURNOUT.
By Doris "Granny D" Haddock
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Wednesday 12 May 2004
Detroit, Michigan - I am on a long journey to take a good, long last look at my beautiful country and to encourage as many people as I can to take up the ballot and to brighten up the colors in our fast fading democracy. It has been a long journey for me. While I enjoy making so many new friends along the way, I would rather be back in my home in New Hampshire and walking for leisure instead of in desperate search for a few more good Americans to do the right and necessary thing.
My life has been long and grand, and I am about done with it, but I am determined to not say goodbye to all of this until I can go to my rest in the soil of a good democracy.
I know that many of you are working hard to speak the truth and speak for justice, and to bring America back to some more sensible path. But I am asking you now to do something more. This advice comes from what I have seen along the 20,000 miles I have traveled since I left home in October.
The good news I bring you from a thousand places is that Americans who have resisted voting in the past do want to vote this year. They are motivated, and even in places where they are afraid their votes will not be fairly counted, they are determined to vote anyway. And here is some more good news: you do not have to believe the polls that say the election will be close. It will not be close. The pollsters do not reach the many millions of people who do not have regular phones. Many of the people I met in housing projects, in workshops, in music clubs, have only cell phones or no phones at all to answer pollster questions. They all have strong opinions on the election and they all are preparing to vote. That is the story everywhere we have gone, from the Overtown and Little Haiti neighborhoods of Miami to the Great Lakes.
On my way here I stopped in Battle Creek to visit the grave of Sojourner Truth. There is also a statue of her with her words: "Lord I have done my duty and I have told the truth and kept nothing back."
Now, friends, it is time for us to do our duty--to tell the truth and hold nothing back. For it is not enough that people want to vote; they must have good information.
You all get so many emails and read so many good columns and articles that are sent to you--Krugman, Dowd, Cronkite, Ivins, Hightower, Palast, Friedman and the few other heroes left in our otherwise silent news media. You read them and send them to other members of our little choir.
That is not enough; You must print them out and give them to your neighbors and family members. You must run them off by the hundreds and give them out at bus and train stations until they ask you to leave. Then you must come back with more. The masses of our neighbors are not getting the truth and we cannot expect them to vote wisely unless we wise them up ourselves. No one can do this for us. No presidential campaign can do more than spread around a few slogans and accusations. The news media will not do it for us, as they are no longer in the truth business. There is only you and me. We need to do a massive voter education project, starting right now. I will have many of these little fliers on my website soon for you to print off, or you can make your own from all the material that comes your way.
Remember that many of us lefties are authority-averse and we like to make our own political decisions. Many others, however-including many of our neighbors and friends-are authority-dependent and, before changing their opinions, need to hear the truth coming from the pens and mouths of people they trust. So when Walter Cronkite writes a good piece, put his picture on it and take it around to everyone who remembers him from his days as the most trusted television newsman in America.
There are a few more things we must do.
We must meet with our awakened friends weekly--and I suggest that Tuesday would be a good evening--to go out to the malls and the streets and the fast-food restaurants to register young voters. It is a fun evening, and you will be making a bigger difference than you can imagine. Also take some of your issue fliers and you will do double duty. Don't get permission, don't set up a table, don't take a clip board if it gets you kicked out. Just go up to young workers and say you are distributing voter registration forms to the workers in the area, and ask them if they need to register to vote for president. And check out the situation regarding people with criminal convictions: many young people think they cannot vote, but they can. Many of the young people in Cabrini Green were amazed to know that their police records would not prevent them from voting. We have tremendous work to do.
There is another suggestion that I would like to share with you.
Invite your neighbors to an election night party, and do it soon. Call it a landslide party if you want to cheer up your Democrat neighbors and confuse your Republican friends. Start building toward that evening. Have them sign-up to bring food and drinks. Start sending them issue papers. Make sure everyone is registered. Make sure everyone has a ride to the polls, or has an absentee form. Help someone in a lower income neighborhood or housing project organize a landslide party, too. Have your neighbors organize some food and maybe some school and art supplies for the children in that other neighborhood. Consider having some events soon to get people involved and thinking ahead to the election. This is what I mean when I sometimes say that we must put the party back in party politics. It has become so deadly. It is literally deadly, as we see in the news how people are dying all over the world for our lack of creative leadership and justice. It must come first from our hearts, then into our neighborhoods and outward from there.
No political party or candidate or government can do it for us. It is our democracy, but we must live it if we are to have it.
In spreading around the reprints of good newspaper articles, simply assume that voters want good information about the issues, and give it to them without feeling that you are being partisan.
I am as non-partisan as I can manage in a time when the truth itself is partisan. I am for any candidate or party who will uphold the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, who would never use lies to lead us into war, who will use our common resources for the benefit of our children and all of our people, and who will keep our homeland secure by protecting its mountains, streams, lakes, forests, and air, and who will make the United States of America a proper and respected symbol and an advocate for justice, freedom and peace in the world. How could anyone say that my specifications are anything but American, and that they should describe any candidate offered by any serious and reputable political party? If my specifications are partisan today, shame on any who made them so.
We must not think we are being partisan when we speak and share the truth with our fellow citizens, and when we help them register to vote. We will do so where we please as citizens, and let no corporation tell us that their aisles or sidewalks are not free speech zones where our Constitution somehow does not apply. The Articles of our Constitution trump their articles of incorporation. Let us take back our rights as citizens to create public space where we choose. The corporations cannot invite us to come as customers but not as citizens, for we are citizens first.
And choose we must, and choose to act now--this week, next week. We Cannot live in peace and justice, love and prosperity if we sit reading email and shaking our heads in dismay. We must rise to our great positions as the men and women of the community, who organize, who see things, who speak the truth, who lay shame on those who would ruin our communities and our lives. It is time we stopped waiting for government to bring love and justice into our communities and we began doing the work that needs to be done. The sooner we do this, the sooner the elections will go our way, because organizing is organizing, and it has a progressive result.
Millions of people like you and I are now connecting with all the organizations that are working toward November. This is the evolution of a new kind of politics--a human-scaled politics--and it must extend long past the election and change the way we live. It must be the rise of human beings against institutions that have become useless or oppressive. It must be an awakening to the beauty and freedom of life itself. So we shall reinvent the parties. We shall reinvent the news media with our flyering and speaking and emails, we reinvent the economy-making it local, healthy and sustainable. And in doing so, the corrupted press, the big box stores, and the old and unrepresentative political systems can and will roll under the soil as our new shoots emerge.
What you are doing here with Instant Runoff Voting is a part of that necessary revolution. I encourage you to make it work here, and then spread it to other communities from here.
I wish it were in place for this election!
In that regard, let me urge those who think Mr. Nader is a better candidate than Mr. Kerry not let their high opinions of their own political correctness cause the deaths of thousands of people in the world over the next four years and the loss of our civil liberties, which would be the real result of such selfish narcissism. According to Bruce Ackerman's wonderful editorial in the New York Times last week, Mr. Nader can avoid risking this outcome if he will name the same Electoral College electors as Mr. Kerry. Votes will register for Mr. Nader, but they will apply to Mr. Kerry if Mr. Nader has insufficient votes to win. It is a way Mr. Nader can, in this way, create a sort of Instant Runoff Voting system by a clever use of the system.
If he will not do this, I cannot vote for him, in good conscience. For I do not want to face the survivor of some family whose members were tortured and killed by our forces a few years from now and say, yes, I could have stopped it, but I was too selfish: I wanted the satisfaction of voting for the better candidate, and that satisfaction was more important to me than the lives of your children and your spouse. I cannot do that and call myself a progressive or even an American. I cannot become the kind of ideologue who lets other people die for my precious beliefs.
Yes, we have to be practical if we are to improve the real world. We All have work to do to get to November and to move into the years ahead. Let us make it joyful and selfless work.
On the night of November 2nd we will go to bed, and the next day the World will have gone one of two very different ways. I will be home in New Hampshire. And if it goes right, I will feel like resting. And I haven't felt like I could rest for a long while.
I hope my journey has resulted in some ideas that will be useful to you. I know you are dedicated to this better world we see ahead. It is not beyond our grasp.
Finally, let me say what many of you sense: the Iraq War is over as of this week, as the fiction of the invasion's moral premise is now so completely disrobed. There is nothing for the US to do now but come home, and that will begin soon. Further, we are seeing the self-destruction of the big-lie Bush war machine. The soul-searching that will now begin in America will be an important time for all of us--a teachable moment if we progressives are up to it.
If we are to push forward a vision for a better society and a real democracy, we have good soil to 'til now. But it is going to be work-joyful but hard. Expect a landslide but do not stop a second in assuring it. And think past the election to the work of organizing a fair and beautiful world. Nothing happens without organizing and work, and we are fortunate that our work is so satisfying and joyful.
Thank you.
Link Here
Birth:
1797
Death:
Nov. 26, 1883
Famed abolitionist. She fought a legal battle in 1828 to regain custody of her son. She succeeded, becoming the first black woman to win a lawsuit against a white man.
Burial:Oak Hill Cemetery Battle CreekCalhoun CountyMichigan, USA
THE VOICE OF SANITY, EXACTLY THE FIGHT IS UP TO YOU TO BRING THIS GOVT DOWN AND THAT DOES NOT MEAN 46% VOTING TURNOUT.
By Doris "Granny D" Haddock
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Wednesday 12 May 2004
Detroit, Michigan - I am on a long journey to take a good, long last look at my beautiful country and to encourage as many people as I can to take up the ballot and to brighten up the colors in our fast fading democracy. It has been a long journey for me. While I enjoy making so many new friends along the way, I would rather be back in my home in New Hampshire and walking for leisure instead of in desperate search for a few more good Americans to do the right and necessary thing.
My life has been long and grand, and I am about done with it, but I am determined to not say goodbye to all of this until I can go to my rest in the soil of a good democracy.
I know that many of you are working hard to speak the truth and speak for justice, and to bring America back to some more sensible path. But I am asking you now to do something more. This advice comes from what I have seen along the 20,000 miles I have traveled since I left home in October.
The good news I bring you from a thousand places is that Americans who have resisted voting in the past do want to vote this year. They are motivated, and even in places where they are afraid their votes will not be fairly counted, they are determined to vote anyway. And here is some more good news: you do not have to believe the polls that say the election will be close. It will not be close. The pollsters do not reach the many millions of people who do not have regular phones. Many of the people I met in housing projects, in workshops, in music clubs, have only cell phones or no phones at all to answer pollster questions. They all have strong opinions on the election and they all are preparing to vote. That is the story everywhere we have gone, from the Overtown and Little Haiti neighborhoods of Miami to the Great Lakes.
On my way here I stopped in Battle Creek to visit the grave of Sojourner Truth. There is also a statue of her with her words: "Lord I have done my duty and I have told the truth and kept nothing back."
Now, friends, it is time for us to do our duty--to tell the truth and hold nothing back. For it is not enough that people want to vote; they must have good information.
You all get so many emails and read so many good columns and articles that are sent to you--Krugman, Dowd, Cronkite, Ivins, Hightower, Palast, Friedman and the few other heroes left in our otherwise silent news media. You read them and send them to other members of our little choir.
That is not enough; You must print them out and give them to your neighbors and family members. You must run them off by the hundreds and give them out at bus and train stations until they ask you to leave. Then you must come back with more. The masses of our neighbors are not getting the truth and we cannot expect them to vote wisely unless we wise them up ourselves. No one can do this for us. No presidential campaign can do more than spread around a few slogans and accusations. The news media will not do it for us, as they are no longer in the truth business. There is only you and me. We need to do a massive voter education project, starting right now. I will have many of these little fliers on my website soon for you to print off, or you can make your own from all the material that comes your way.
Remember that many of us lefties are authority-averse and we like to make our own political decisions. Many others, however-including many of our neighbors and friends-are authority-dependent and, before changing their opinions, need to hear the truth coming from the pens and mouths of people they trust. So when Walter Cronkite writes a good piece, put his picture on it and take it around to everyone who remembers him from his days as the most trusted television newsman in America.
There are a few more things we must do.
We must meet with our awakened friends weekly--and I suggest that Tuesday would be a good evening--to go out to the malls and the streets and the fast-food restaurants to register young voters. It is a fun evening, and you will be making a bigger difference than you can imagine. Also take some of your issue fliers and you will do double duty. Don't get permission, don't set up a table, don't take a clip board if it gets you kicked out. Just go up to young workers and say you are distributing voter registration forms to the workers in the area, and ask them if they need to register to vote for president. And check out the situation regarding people with criminal convictions: many young people think they cannot vote, but they can. Many of the young people in Cabrini Green were amazed to know that their police records would not prevent them from voting. We have tremendous work to do.
There is another suggestion that I would like to share with you.
Invite your neighbors to an election night party, and do it soon. Call it a landslide party if you want to cheer up your Democrat neighbors and confuse your Republican friends. Start building toward that evening. Have them sign-up to bring food and drinks. Start sending them issue papers. Make sure everyone is registered. Make sure everyone has a ride to the polls, or has an absentee form. Help someone in a lower income neighborhood or housing project organize a landslide party, too. Have your neighbors organize some food and maybe some school and art supplies for the children in that other neighborhood. Consider having some events soon to get people involved and thinking ahead to the election. This is what I mean when I sometimes say that we must put the party back in party politics. It has become so deadly. It is literally deadly, as we see in the news how people are dying all over the world for our lack of creative leadership and justice. It must come first from our hearts, then into our neighborhoods and outward from there.
No political party or candidate or government can do it for us. It is our democracy, but we must live it if we are to have it.
In spreading around the reprints of good newspaper articles, simply assume that voters want good information about the issues, and give it to them without feeling that you are being partisan.
I am as non-partisan as I can manage in a time when the truth itself is partisan. I am for any candidate or party who will uphold the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, who would never use lies to lead us into war, who will use our common resources for the benefit of our children and all of our people, and who will keep our homeland secure by protecting its mountains, streams, lakes, forests, and air, and who will make the United States of America a proper and respected symbol and an advocate for justice, freedom and peace in the world. How could anyone say that my specifications are anything but American, and that they should describe any candidate offered by any serious and reputable political party? If my specifications are partisan today, shame on any who made them so.
We must not think we are being partisan when we speak and share the truth with our fellow citizens, and when we help them register to vote. We will do so where we please as citizens, and let no corporation tell us that their aisles or sidewalks are not free speech zones where our Constitution somehow does not apply. The Articles of our Constitution trump their articles of incorporation. Let us take back our rights as citizens to create public space where we choose. The corporations cannot invite us to come as customers but not as citizens, for we are citizens first.
And choose we must, and choose to act now--this week, next week. We Cannot live in peace and justice, love and prosperity if we sit reading email and shaking our heads in dismay. We must rise to our great positions as the men and women of the community, who organize, who see things, who speak the truth, who lay shame on those who would ruin our communities and our lives. It is time we stopped waiting for government to bring love and justice into our communities and we began doing the work that needs to be done. The sooner we do this, the sooner the elections will go our way, because organizing is organizing, and it has a progressive result.
Millions of people like you and I are now connecting with all the organizations that are working toward November. This is the evolution of a new kind of politics--a human-scaled politics--and it must extend long past the election and change the way we live. It must be the rise of human beings against institutions that have become useless or oppressive. It must be an awakening to the beauty and freedom of life itself. So we shall reinvent the parties. We shall reinvent the news media with our flyering and speaking and emails, we reinvent the economy-making it local, healthy and sustainable. And in doing so, the corrupted press, the big box stores, and the old and unrepresentative political systems can and will roll under the soil as our new shoots emerge.
What you are doing here with Instant Runoff Voting is a part of that necessary revolution. I encourage you to make it work here, and then spread it to other communities from here.
I wish it were in place for this election!
In that regard, let me urge those who think Mr. Nader is a better candidate than Mr. Kerry not let their high opinions of their own political correctness cause the deaths of thousands of people in the world over the next four years and the loss of our civil liberties, which would be the real result of such selfish narcissism. According to Bruce Ackerman's wonderful editorial in the New York Times last week, Mr. Nader can avoid risking this outcome if he will name the same Electoral College electors as Mr. Kerry. Votes will register for Mr. Nader, but they will apply to Mr. Kerry if Mr. Nader has insufficient votes to win. It is a way Mr. Nader can, in this way, create a sort of Instant Runoff Voting system by a clever use of the system.
If he will not do this, I cannot vote for him, in good conscience. For I do not want to face the survivor of some family whose members were tortured and killed by our forces a few years from now and say, yes, I could have stopped it, but I was too selfish: I wanted the satisfaction of voting for the better candidate, and that satisfaction was more important to me than the lives of your children and your spouse. I cannot do that and call myself a progressive or even an American. I cannot become the kind of ideologue who lets other people die for my precious beliefs.
Yes, we have to be practical if we are to improve the real world. We All have work to do to get to November and to move into the years ahead. Let us make it joyful and selfless work.
On the night of November 2nd we will go to bed, and the next day the World will have gone one of two very different ways. I will be home in New Hampshire. And if it goes right, I will feel like resting. And I haven't felt like I could rest for a long while.
I hope my journey has resulted in some ideas that will be useful to you. I know you are dedicated to this better world we see ahead. It is not beyond our grasp.
Finally, let me say what many of you sense: the Iraq War is over as of this week, as the fiction of the invasion's moral premise is now so completely disrobed. There is nothing for the US to do now but come home, and that will begin soon. Further, we are seeing the self-destruction of the big-lie Bush war machine. The soul-searching that will now begin in America will be an important time for all of us--a teachable moment if we progressives are up to it.
If we are to push forward a vision for a better society and a real democracy, we have good soil to 'til now. But it is going to be work-joyful but hard. Expect a landslide but do not stop a second in assuring it. And think past the election to the work of organizing a fair and beautiful world. Nothing happens without organizing and work, and we are fortunate that our work is so satisfying and joyful.
Thank you.
Link Here
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:17 AM
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