WE MUST USE OUR VOTES LIKE SWORDS & SHEILDS

A Commentary by Lloyd C. Daniel

In November, across the United States, an important set of elections take place.  This nation’s economy, for working class and poor people, is doing worst than at any time in most people’s memory.  For millions of people, the damage done to our wallets and purses by 8 years of unregulated corporate greed, under the Cheney/Bush junta, is still a day-to-day reality. For millions of families, their money circumstance is somewhere between short, shorter and too short.  “Life is…

“So let not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late.”  In this environment,

generally speaking, it’s to our advantage to do as much as we can for ourselves and our loved ones in every venue of life.  The more we do for ourselves and work together, the less we have to rely solely upon a system that doesn’t, to put it lightly, have our best interest at heart.

While we vote for those leaders who do the best they can to work on behalf of our interests and vote against those politicians and crooks who work for themselves and serve as mouthpieces for the super-rich, unapologetic and un-indicted criminals who use our tax dollars in ways that directly damage our national community’s overall quality of life.

Strong, articulate and brave elected officials are few and far between.  But when they do appear, it’s our job to recognize them as such, support them and vote for them.

We must use our votes like swords and shields to slow the wave of those in office, and those who seek office who want to implement cruel plans that would further undercut our ability to make a way through the bombed-out economic landscape that they created.

To be candid, the choice of candidates is generally pretty pitiful.  But that’s a problem that will require long range solutions.  In the meantime, we must use our vote as a long sharp sword and a thick shield to further our interests and defend ourselves from those who openly align with racist extremists, and with gigantic oil companies, greedy bankers and other opportunists who stole from and wrecked our national economy and who continue to reap billions from illegal wars in Latin America and overseas.

In the past, many people who voted for mainstream, corporate Democrats, often, felt that they were voting  for “the lesser of two evils”.  But now with the steady rise of so may extra-ignorant, ultra-right wing Republicans like Trump and Tea Party people, both cultivated by their neo-fascist cheerleader FOX NEWS, it is necessary to use our votes as armor against those who would return to the Cheney/Bush agenda including: reckless corporate deregulation, placing Social Security in the hands of Wall Street and wasteful and illegal pre-emptive wars of aggression, wars which have torn apart the lives of millions of innocent civilians in other countries and millions of  Americans on  battlefields and in homes in every region of this country.  In November, this time, we must be prepared to vote against

“the eviler of two lessers”.

About 30 years ago, during a conversation with, the legendary pastor and leader, Rev. Wallace Hartsfield, he told me a story about him fishing down in Florida.  At first I thought he was just telling me about how he spent his vacation.  Soon, I realized he was offering up a parable.  Near the end of the story, he focused on the worm that he was using to bait his hook.  He said that the worm, between his fingers, sensing its impending demise, began to frantically wiggle.  At that point Dr. Hartsfield stopped and asked me if

I understood the message.  I told him that I wasn’t sure.   So he said,

“Lloyd, when faced with eminent disaster, even a worm will wiggle!

Our people gotta WIGGLE!”

In November let’s pull out our swords and shields, as we WIGGLE, RESIST and VOTE!