Voting

Today, November 2, 2010, I am writing this from the Urbana, Illinois Free Library...a great place I discovered while here visiting my daughter. This is the college town of the University of Illinois with lots of thinking going on....some good; some not so good. And, downstairs today at the library, people are walking in to vote as this is a polling place, and this is the day for that. For the first time in my adult life, I am not casting a ballot. My father, who was quite active in the Democratic Party all his life would surely roll over in his grave if he knew. Around our big Irish family dining room table each night growing up, the topic of conversation would often turn to politics....usually what the Democrats were doing right vs. what the Republicans were doing wrong. I was highly influenced by this on-going dialogue, and usually vote just to the left of center. But not this year. This year I have come to view Politics like I view many other traditional institutions these days, as businesses with big money interests. We used to joke that "the boys with the most toys, win." Today, the party with the most money contributions, wins. I have lost any trust I once had in a process that does not, in my opinion, use values, honesty and reasonableness in what they represent. I don't know what the rally in Washington with John Steward accomplished, but minimally, if it pointed to how far we have come in lacking any fair-play and decency in our dialogue of differences, then it perhaps did some good. We are very far from what I think our forefathers wanted for this country to become great; they knew we had to have moral choices, American values and a way to discuss our differences with civility. When we get back to these kinds of choices, I will go to the polls again.