go vote

I tried finding a good list of reasons to vote. I couldn’t find a good complete list without coming across at least lame stereotypical reasons like “It’s your right to vote” or “Let your voice be heard.” Frankly, if you want your voice heard there are much better ways of going about that. So, I’ve tried to make up my own list. And no promises that I don’t have my own lame stereotypical reasons to vote. Here’s a few reasons to go vote:

1. Democracy works when its citizens participate.
I.e. Democracy – noun: government by the people.

2. The issues involved probably affect you directly.
I.e. education, war, health care, etc.

3. Voting affects your neighbor.
I.e. immigration laws, capital punishment, equal rights laws, welfare, etc.

4. It does affect the outcome. Every vote counts.
I.e. Richard Nixon, not John F. Kennedy, would have become President of the U.S. in 1960 if one person from each voting place had voted differently. Or, Bush only won by 537 votes in Florida in 2000.

5. There are many reason not to vote - don’t let those discourage you from still voting.

6. It’s not just about the president. There are other important positions and issues to vote on in each election.

midwest love: presidents of the midwest

Let’s take a look at the Midwest. There have been eleven presidents that were either born or have had a political career in the Midwest. And it wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President, that there was a Midwest presence.

Here is a brief synapses of the eleven that have become president.

Abraham Lincoln, originally from Kentucky, was born in 1809. Lincoln’s family moved from Kentucky to Indiana, and eventually to Illinois in 1830. Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives. Lincoln was elected president in 1860.

In 1868 Ulysses S. Grant was elected President. Grant was born in 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Grant’s family lived in Galena, IL before Grant went off to serve in the Civil War.

Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Delaware, OH, in 1822. Hayes was elected president in 1876 following Grant in office. Hayes practiced law in Cincinnati, served in the Civil War. After the war, Hayes was nominated as Governor of Ohio and served from 1868-72 and 1876-77 before becoming president.

James Garfield was born in 1831 in Moreland Hills, OH and was elected president in 1880 after Hayes. Garfield was assassinated six months into office. Garfield is the only president to serve as a clergy (which only lasted the course of two years) and would eventually be elected as an Ohio state senator before serving in the Civil War.

In 1833 in North Bend, Ohio, Benjamin Harrison was born. Harrison would move to Indianapolis to become a state politician. Harrison would also serve in the Civil War. Before Harrison’s presidency he served in the Indiana State Supreme Court, and served in the Senate from 1880 until he was elected president in 1888.

William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, elected in 1896. McKinley, born in 1843 in Niles, Ohio, served as governor of Ohio from 1892 to 1896. McKinley was also a captain in the civil war.

William Taft was born in 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio. An interesting fact about Taft was that he was a Unitarian all his life. Taft’s political career includes being appointed the Governor-General of the Philippines, Secretary of War. In 1908 Taft was elected president after serving under Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency.

Warren G. Harding, the last president to be born from Ohio, was born in the city of Blooming Grove. Harding was part of the Ohio State Senate and US Senate before being elected as president in 1920.

Herbert Hoover was born in 1874 in West Branch, Iowa. Hoover served as a mining engineer and consultant for almost twenty years. Hoover was Secretary of Commerce for Roosevelt and Harding. Hoover was elected president in 1928.

Gerald Ford served as president from 1974 to 1977 after Nixon had resigned. Ford, originally from Omaha, Nebraska was born in 1913. Ford in his childhood would move to Oak Park, IL, and eventually to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ford went to college at the University of Michigan and played football there. Ford served in WW II. He would go on to be in the House of Representatives in Michigan. Ford also worked on the Warren Commission. Ford became vice president under the election of Nixon in 1972.

The last president from the Midwest is Ronald Reagan. Born in 1911 in Tampico, Illinois, he would soon become famous by his radio and film career. From 1967 - 1975 Reagan was governor of California. Reagan served two terms as president, first elected in 1980 and again in 1984.

leviticus, politics, and the year of jubilee

Redistributive change. It’s the latest charge from McCain against Barack Obama. It’s a claim that in this capitalist country when Obama referred to such ‘redistribution’ about the civil rights era that it was therefore taken out of context and he is called a socialist, Marxist, and a communist. It’s not a new tactic for the McCain campaign, since they have done their best to slander Obama since he became the presidential candidate for the Democrats, but it does bring an interesting subject to hand - redistribution.

Redistribution is a hard thing to think about as a white person in the U.S. Mainly, it is hard because white people today didn’t put people into slavery or almost obliterate an entire race, the tribes and people of the First Nations. It’s a thing of the past. Yet, there are still marks of slavery and genocide of tribes today. And those marks are continued because of systemic racism. Even if we were not a part of it, whites today continue to benefit from it.

Besides it being hard to think about, it is just plain hard to comprehend undertaking such a task. What kind of redistribution would it be? Would it be income redistribution or property redistribution, or both? Who would get it? And, how would you figure out who would get it? How much land or money would each individual or family get? If land is redistributed wouldn’t that then be taking land away from some people and money away from others? It just doesn’t seem a like a possibility in today’s world. No wonder these options have never really been explored in seriousness. No vast amount of people would give up their money or give back land that once belonged to someone else.

In all this though, let’s consider the year of jubilee. It’s out of Leviticus in the Bible. It was a radical idea in Biblical times and it is a radical idea today. Some of the key aspects of the jubilee year were that slaves were to be set free, everyone is to return to their own property (i.e. people who had been driven by poverty to sell it), and a Sabbath for the soil. It’s a call to love our neighbor, the earth, and God. It gives hope to the poor, freedom to the enslaved, and rest for the earth.

Whatever either candidate meant or said or did, God is calling us to a higher call to love the earth, love our neighbor, and love God.

an alternative: sustaining

The economy has seemed to hit the bottom around the world and seemingly keeps plummeting. It seems to be the biggest issue on everyone’s mind and that is clear as the election is right around the corner. The economy is always the biggest determiner in electing a president though. So, what about the rest of it? Specifically, I am thinking about alternative energies. About a year to six months ago when gas prices were much higher than they are today people all of a sudden wanted to find an alternative or better ways to use energy; whether that was in cars, businesses, or even towns. With that came the awareness of eating organic, not using plastic bags, etcetera. Once again though, these ideas have been thrown to the wayside as a mere fad. The greater good has been taken over once again by the greater me. I’m not saying do not look out for yourself. But on the other hand we are really talking about serious issues of sustainability.

The issue of energy independence keeps coming up. The U.S. uses a lot of oil. I mean a lot of oil. This issue is beyond drilling off-shore and in Alaska. It isn’t just about finding alternatives. Although in some cases it is. The alternatives can be as simple as creating automobiles that use less gasoline, more mpg, or practical cars that don’t even use gasoline. Unless the U.S. completely changes its mode of transportation we will always be in some way dependent on cars in some form or another. What else? How about wind and solar power. Yes, they are expensive for one individual or family, but when money is pooled together say in taxes it can be used for towns, states, and the country for wind and solar.

The only problem is that the market isn’t ready for it. With the economy down, the last thing on people’s mind is finding alternatives, when just fixing the crisis is at the forefront. But we cannot forget about sustainability in the midst of crisis. Living in a community that is more sustainable in fact in the long run will be stronger and more prepared for crisis after crisis.