If I supported Barack Obama, I could go to summer music festivals all summer spending $100 dollars or more on each festival.

If I supported Barack Obama, I could purchase the latest gizmos and gadgets and drift off into a world of virtual reality.

If I supported Barack Obama, I would not feel uncomfortable talking politics with that somebody special who happens to really like Obama lot. And I would not feel awkward saying, “I don’t support Obama for this and this reason. I actually support Nader.”

If I supported Barack Obama, I would not be able to go see the country, meet new people, and make history that truly advances history on a level less superficial than electing a man with a skin color other than white to the highest office in the country for the first time ever.

If I supported Barack Obama, I would be working for “the Man” this summer because Obama doesn’t need me to help him win. He has PACs, corporations, bundlers, and a Democratic Party that has been gearing up for this moment since 2006 (at least). There would be no reason for me to sacrifice my time and money.

Nader/Gonzalez, on the other hand, is just what a student or person in my generation needs to learn how to stand up for what he or she believes in. While Obama dictates the terms for change to a generation that allows him to control the agenda, an agenda determined by whether it will divide or alienate people regardless of how important it might be to make a moral argument to the general public, Nader/Gonzalez is stepping up to take the most insidious forces in America on inviting us to question authority.

I cannot sit here with the knowledge I have and not act on what I know.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. While the Obama generation fawns over hope and change, the Nader/Gonzalez supporters head out onto the streets to do the grunt work to keep this democracy taped together and to find the support necessary to renovate, rebuild, rejuvenate, and restore this ailing democratic society.

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