You have many jobs. You work to put food on the table and pay the rent. You work as a parent to raise your children. You work as a volunteer for whatever interest draws you in. You work to keep the lawn mowed, the snow shoveled and the car in working condition. But there is one job that sometimes gets ignored. And its the only job you have as a member of this country. Tomorrow is Election Day. And it can be easy to let your cynicism on the current state of both the country and the electoral process keep you from doing your job as a citizen. Don't let it. Even if you think the process is broken or compromised (it is)…even if you think both parties are the same (they aren't)…even if you think that your vote doesnt mean anything (millions of others say the same thing). Drag yourself to the polls and do your job. Ignore the millions of dollars in political ads full of lies and bullshit, that are produced by venal, corrupt people. They are only there to confuse you. In your hearts you know what needs to be done this time around. The Founding Fathers, even if they were not as angelic as you have been led to believe, developed a system of laws that only works if the people we elect do the job that they have sworn to do. Too many of them are ignoring those duties. And they need to be gone. The system doesnt work if Congress abdicates its responsibility to reign in an out of control executive branch. There are plenty of issues that should inflame your passions. Use that if need be, to motivate yourself. Young people…you have more power than you realize. If you vote en-masse, you control what happens..not the out-of-touch old white males that were bought and paid for long ago. They are trying to keep their power by any means necessary. Voter suppression in many states that isnt even hidden anymore. Gerrymandering that makes it hard to change the status quo. Ignoring compromised voting machines that actually change the votes you make if you aren't paying attention. Running dark money ads that lie about almost everything (and the tv and radio stations can't do anything to stop them). Don't let them win. Do your job. Get off the couch and do your job. There are people right now walking thousands of miles in desperate conditions following the shining light of America. And their suffering has been turned into a political stunt using our soldiers as props. The only way to reclaim this country is to do your jobs. All of them. Tuesday you only have one.
An old college classmate of mine, Dan McGinnity, asked me to pass along information about an event going on in Portage County this Wednesday. If you like the TV show 'Shark Tank”, you would probably enjoy this.