A Few Thoughts before Tuesday

Just a final reminder before tomorrow of what's on the line in this historic election.

There is much more at stake on Tuesday than simply a new guy at the top of the org chart.

The next President of the United States will inherit over 6.25 trillion dollars in public debt and a faulty economy that could slip into a depression. He faces a rising unemployment rate—currently at 6.1% nationally, or over 9.5 million jobless workers. He must address a growing gap between rich and poor and unite a country increasingly polarized along class lines. Will he take the side of the workers who keep the country running, or will he continue to capitulate to corporate interests as the current administration has done for the past eight years? Will the next round of tax cuts benefit you or big businesses? The choice is largely up to us.

President 44 will also have to deal with two unwinnable wars in the Middle East that have cost the country well over 500 billion dollars; the lives of more than 4,700 civilian deaths in Iraq alone. To put this in perspective, that's about one September 11th per week for four years straight. Will we elect a leader who sings 'bomb bomb Iran' or one who will give diplomacy an honest chance?

It's likely that at least one Supreme Court justice will retire within the next four years. As you may know, judges for the Supreme Court are appointed by the president and are not accountable to the people. A Democratic president will most likely appoint a liberal or moderate judge, while—if recent history is any indication—a Republican will seek to appoint a reactionary right-wing justice who is dangerously out of touch with contemporary public attitudes. Several cases are set to come before the Court in the next presidential term, ranging from abortion rights to free-speech issues to torture. These cases could affect the course of the country for decades to come. It behooves us to consider carefully where that course will take us.

In California, we have a chance to strike down legislation whose sole purpose is to restrict the rights of a specific group of people—a group of people every bit as human and deserving of equal legal protection as any other in the country. I am, of course, talking about Proposition 8. Regardless of our individual opinions on homosexuality, as Americans we ought to be appalled, if not outraged, that someone would want to take away as basic a civil liberty as marriage. It shouldn't matter whether it affects us personally. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, 'It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others. Or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.'

America's image among the rest of the world has been severely tarnished in the past decade. Will we lie down and accept another administration that defines patriotism as how many flag pins we wear and how loudly we parrot the official party line? Will we continue to be governed by the politics of fear and ignorance, or will we wipe the patina free by recognizing once more that 'America' is, more than anything else, a state of mind, a definite concept of what 'freedom' really means? (Thanks, Naomi Wolf!)

The choice, now more than ever, is up to us. So let's take our country back before it's too late. Let's vote for leadership based on hope and compassion, not fear and hatred. Let's refuse to be passive observers and show the world what America is really about. Let's make it happen. On Tuesday, and on every day thereafter.