::::::::
Everybody is all broken up over losing Kucinich, Ron Paul, & Edwards from the race. But I don't get it. Wasn't Edwards the candidate with the four hundred dollar hair cuts? Edwards ran on the plight of poor people but what does someone who spends four hundred dollars on a hair cut know/care about poor folk? Wasn't that just a campaign slogan? Because as senator his actions speak louder than his campaign slogans. For instance, when it came to re-writing our bankruptcy laws John didn't favor the poor or even the middle-class, he sided with his Wall St. financiers.
John's biggest mistake though was in labeling everyone other than himself as poor because people like his father who get up every morning & go to work in a mill or somewhere do not consider themselves to be poor. And so if your platform is only for the poor, who is going to vote for you? Poor folk don't vote, especially in primaries. John could've just as easily brought up how all of our candidates are bought off by large corporations that don't care about the poor or anyone other than their share-holders for that matter. He could've brought up the need for publicly funded elections & why that is so crucial to our democracy but he might have offended his Wall St. financers. (And his handlers convinced him that it wasn't much of an issue.)
You see I too was once like you. I played by their rules. I was told that the rules of engagement were to rally the poor because after all who has it worse off than they do? (But that's like standing outside of a bird-cage telling the bird to free itself, after you've clipped it's wings.) The problem that I kept running into is once you've organized the poor, you just have a bunch of poor people who have no more power than before. You can play by the rules even further & march on Washington, say like a million man/mom march, but the powers that be know that you have to go home, eventually.
And so what have you accomplished? If you take a look at all forms of protest (from voting to riots) a real hard look, you will see they have all been watered down to the point that we are simply chasing our tails. But if the march on Washington example didn't convince you than think about our unions. They use to be strong & able to make demands & get better wages & better working conditions for their members & the whole country. But try complaining to your union now- if you've got one! Tell them about an unsafe working condition & they'll tell you that you're lucky to have a job. (I'm not making this up either, my union rep actually said that to me.)
Let me put it another way, Edwards like all of our candidates wakes up each morning in their mansions, they hop into their limos, SUVs, & motorcades. Their chauffers drive past trailor-parks, apartment buildings, condos to get them to the airport where they hop into their private jets & are flowin to a thousand dollar a plate dinner. Where they will tell us what we need to do: recycle, conserve & what they expect of us (ask not what your country/government can do for you, but what you can do for your government.) And how they'll raise milage standards in twenty something a-rather. Then once they are elected & in office their big corporate donors (Big Oil, Wall St., etc.) say "jump" & their only response is "how high".
My point is this, they have changed the rules: voting, our votes, third-parties, etc. have been hijacked by privilege & special interest. What I propose is that we adapt, we don't give up, or say o'well. We fight that much harder! And so I started www.votestrike.com because whichever political party that you belong to- they have failed you. It is time to end the two-party system & the third-party myth.
To adapt & still be able to work towards my goals I had to realize that it was no longer just the poor who were suffering under this system without any representation. But the middle-class also had a whole range of issues that went unresolved every four years. From mortgages, failing public-schools, debt, depressed wages, pedophiles, illegal immigration, high taxes, uncertainty over Social Security, rising tuition, day-care, HMOs, crumbling infrastructure, unsafe imports & food supply, inflation, the list just goes on & on. So at my site we are actively & agressively going after the very votes & voters that this system relies upon. Our campaign is focused on teachers, nurses & police officers. Voters that can't easily be ignored, three of the largest unions left in the country & the very people who chose professions specifically to help other people & can see first hand on a daily basis how our system fails.
I hope that it is not too late, that we can put aside our differences for the health of the nation. Because it is not polyanna or utopian to want representative government or safe neiborhoods or decent jobs. We can't solve all of our problems but we could manage them alot better if we had a federal government that worked for us instead of against us.
So I'll ask you once again, don't give up, don't throw in the towel. Get up off the mat, this fight ain't over yet. You are invited to a frank discussion on this nations problems & how best to solve them at: www.votestrike.com Thanks for your time & keep your head up.
It doesn't matter if you're a republican, democrat or independent, the problems facing this nation affect all of us.
