We Need a Record Turnout, Colltalers

Climate change, immigration and asylum rights, healthcare, women’s choice, racial and sexual rights, gun control, wage and labor reform, voting rights, plus your own picks. By now, most Americans should have this down. Now let’s go voting them on Tuesday.
Before anything, billions around the world believe we’ll do the right thing. Sharing values of solidarity, independence of mind, and compassion, they’ll stand with us when we say no. And the suddenly global-relevant U.S. midterm elections can deliver just that.
The diminished importance implied on the title has nothing on the reality of these massive election, though. All 435 House seats are technically up for grabs, along 35 of the 100 Senate seats, 39 governorships, and an onslaught of measures and initiatives – pot expanding legalization, freedom of religion, and animal rights, among them – to be decided by federal, state or local communities.
Not everyone will agree with the above list of ‘issues for distracted voters,’ but they’re still among the most immediate. And unlike other times, let’s vote on ideas and on individuals, too; words count, but only people can be held accountable for invoking them.
Also, it’s no wonder that a record-breaking election in the U.S., of any kind, could have a global impact. In fact, people are already holding their breath in some places: for the results, and also for the toxic air. They need us to recommit to the Paris Agreement.
The world expects us to re-embrace universal principles of immigration and the inalienable rights for asylum from hardship. Which is largely caused by our own attacking forces, and sent by those who, make no mistake, will vote too on Nov. 6. Not on anything remotely related to our list, though. As in the past, they’ll show up, because they’re minority. And us, the majority, usually don’t.
The universality of these American elections is that it can point to a new direction to improve the world. They may disable the gears leading us to intolerance, and put on focus billions of people. Most of whom will never even have a path to such a change.
The old saying, those who send us to war for profit are not fit to lead, may not even exist. But it’s certainly been quoted in as many tongues as the soldiers killed by serving them. The military mind only invokes History when it has survived it. No aggrandizing combat rhyme, though, has the resonance, heard from time immemorial and always uttered by the majority of, we want peace.
We could go down on that list, finding commonality with each cause pulsating within different cultures and places.

And let’s say it again: those are issues to vote on these ballots. Not on ballots of the Madagascar presidential election, for instance, no offense.
There’s no option for impeaching the president, by the way. Or voting for Supreme Court Justices, or the cabinet, either. That’s because the great con of leadership by corruption is to lure us with charades. If or when they call us out, it’s for fighting the ‘other.’
Now that it seems clear that this vote does have consequences beyond the U.S. borders, and considering the multilingual readership of this Newsletter, let’s ask the world to hold on for a moment. Let’s go over some specifics, and make sure all Americans are also clear of what they want and need to do. That is, again, let’s repeat it over, assuming with all our heart that we will show up to vote.
This is an open vote for an organization that’s failing at its most basic definition: to defend democratic values and, at this point, the U.S. Constitution. And yes, the Democratic Party is the only party around, warts and all; the GOP is now a cult, following its leader, and if someone is not seeing this, is either for invested interest on not seeing it, or for being unaware that they need help.
But we simply can’t ignore the stark reality facing American voters today, and Democrats, not Republicans, are the ones signing up to change it. Try finding any issue on that list that’s less important than a new hostile front in Latin America, for one. Or fighting Iran over our dishonest partners. (Didn’t know it? It’s by design: they do their ‘best’ work hidden from us.) Not this time, though.
Note that the fight for some of those rights are not even being led by Democrats, but by teenagers and a bunch of young candidates. Fresh voices, not ‘independents,’ or greens, much less the ‘undecided’ at this time, are showing us the way; let’s not play around.
Also, yes, there are many other matters, but a mandate will only be built out of a resounding voting count. Only a record-breaking turnout will grant powers of change, or rather, subpoena, to bring this administration to fully accountability. Yes, let’s end ICE, appeal the Citizens United, and protect the 14th Amendment. Let’s prevent ‘Robbers Corp.’ of owning shares on our Constitution.
Above all, let’s restore hope to the world. Wrongs can and will be righted, bad leaders may be kicked out of office; there’s no place for hate or corporate interests as far as the human experience is concerned. A regime that wants to crush Yemenis, Palestinians, Syrians, Venezuelans, Iranians, Cubans or Nigerians, will never have our support. We won’t stand for any regime that kills people.
Let’s rejoin the world to reverse climate changes that can wipe us all; let’s reaffirm our stand for racial and class equality, for the individual sovereignty of choosing how one wants to live this life. Let’s retake the honorable narrative of the American people.
Today, the U.K. remembers Guy Fawkes’ arrest, 413 years ago. His eerie effigy’s been adopted by the Anonymous hack group, and other resistance forces. Perhaps fittingly, history was less kind to his motives than to the myth he created. But let’s party tonight.
So here’s a final point on perspective: in 2016, Trump got elected by losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College. Now, that popular vote needs to beat the record. Can we do it? It’s one picture to track estimates and stats, and another, to choose by content. What will really make the difference is not just to win, but vote out all authoritarians, supremacists, corporate hacks, sycophants, hypocrites, and spineless candidates. Let us fry them all on a record turnout and make ourselves a better November. WC

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