Vote! by gimleteye

Tomorrow, vote. (Miami-Dade County's important local elections are scheduled for Tuesday, August 26.)

Last night reminded me, why. HBO broadcast the final episode in the HBO miniseries, Generation Kill; a discomforting vision of American treasure squandered in Iraq. It is not your standard 'war is hell' collage of battlefield heroics. For most of the six hours, the enemy is invisible or only shown through night vision technology as a disorganized hornet's nest.

Instead, the series is about the character of men under ultimate stress: not knowing who the enemy is and what, exactly, the mission is. But knowing of tomorrow's elections, I was thinking of something else: the character of American voters.

This connection is never made, except in the offhand reference and comments about trouble at home. For all soldiers, the only call is the call to duty; ordinary Americans are never called to the same standard of action.

What have we done to break what feels to be a frozen, hardened status quo in our legislatures; from the local county commission to our state capitol, to Congress and the White House? When we talk about change, what is the change we are fighting for?

Democracy cannot survive as a passive exercise, with Americans standing at the edge of a field of battle and watching guided missiles explode distantly and anonymously the way policies are imposed that have very little to do with our own prosperity, safety and security.

The first step is to consider how poorly served we have been by unreformable majorities-- like the county commission. Vote tomorrow and to ask every one of your friends, families and acquaintances to do the same.