Vote!!!

Vote! Please, please, please vote!

Vote your conscience, vote your wallet, vote your heart. Vote for what will matter to you most in the coming years: your social security, your personal safety, the lives of those your love. Vote for the Gold Star Mothers so that there will be no more Gold Star Mothers. Vote against violence, aggression, hatred and bigotry. Vote for what you believe in, what will serve you and your community.

Vote for health care, clean air and water, nutritious food, better education, good resources, your grandchildren (born and yet to be born) who are too young to get to the polls and vote on their own.

No excuses, no lesser of two evils, no party line. If weather is a problem, vote absentee, but vote. Don't vote what your minister or husband or lover or boss advises. Look at the issues on your own. Really listen to the attack ads on television and figure out who is doing the attacking and why. Look at the faces of those asking to be reelected and ask if you would want them in your home for dinner or coffee. Would your trust them to baby sit? To fix your car? To balance your checkbook?

Listen to what the candidates say in your town hall, on your television, on the Sunday Morning talk shows. Does any candidate who answers a direct question with "I don't recall..." deserve to have that job? When appearing on TV to answer questions, is any politician who says "I haven't read/seen/heard the article/report/book" really doing his or her job? Would you hire them?

Look at the faces of those asking to be sent to Washington and ask if you think they're smart enough, honest enough, independent enough to work for you over the coming years. You are the boss. This is your country. Washington is supposed to be doing your bidding, not the bidding of the corporations and Wall Street and K Street. Not even Main Street. The folks who get elected in two weeks are supposed to be working for those who live on your street, USA.

Voting is not a luxury. It's not even a privilege, at this point. It's an obligation you have to the future -- yourself, your children, your grandchildren and their grandchildren.