Bob Koehler's new column on the Portland Election Summit: Ballot and Soul

[Amaryllis]

Ballot and Soul
Democracy needs a revolution every generation

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

October 6, 2005

If I want to generate a little fear-based insomnia, all I have to do is remind myself just before bedtime that the 2006 elections are barely a year away. Suddenly I’m awash in cold sweat and my heart starts pounding like a steam piston.

No, please, somebody stop the clock. It’s too soon. We can’t hold the elections until we get our right to vote back.

If you are one of those people who has opened up the can of worms known as the 2004 election and stared appalled at the irregularities writhing around the count in Ohio and New Mexico and Pennsylvania and other swing states — where dirty tricks and outright disenfranchisement (spurious voter challenges, too few voting machines) were blatant in inner-city and other Democratic strongholds and where electronic, no-paper-trail voting yielded results at odds with exit polls in statistically near-impossible percentages — you know what I’m talking about. Our elections, and therefore our democracy, are not safe, and not enough people know or care yet that this is so.

The only antidote to this insomnia is to connect with other stunned, appalled souls, realize you aren’t alone, and begin groping communally for a way to take a stand. And as you do this, a remarkable thing happens. Fighting for fair elections becomes not so much a desperate, stopgap chore as an act of citizenship of the highest order.

For the rest of the article:
http://www.commonwonders.com/

[AtLiberty]

1. Does anyone know how to e-mail Bob?

The [email protected] link doesn't work for me...

Thanks --

[Land Shark]

3. his email is BKoehler at the domain name of tribune.com

[Land Shark]

2. More on why ballots like souls: a basis for equality and nondiscrimination

When "designing" elections, If only we were standing behind the Rawlsian "veil of ignorance"! This would mean that no one knew whether their own party would be the incumbent or challenger, the Democratic or the Republican, and then we could have a fair election processes because no one would want the short end of the stick.

Instead, most everyone partisan is trying to game the system at least a tiny bit, one party much more than the other.

But, as Koehler quotes Paul Lehto below, your right to vote, is an indefeasible, irrevocable and unalienable right under the Declaration of Independence (as actually understood by all successful movements since then from abolition to suffragettes to MLKs "I Have a Dream Speech") and the ballot bears a remarkable similarity to the notion of our soul: We each have only one, it can't be taken away, every one's is equal to everyone else's even the President's, and to attempt to deny anyone the vote does a violence analogous to denying another's humanity or soul.

Reaching up for this idea of the equality of each ballot making us all equal in the voting booth provides the metaphor for equality elsewhere. Reaching up in each generation allows democracy to be re-energized and restored, and allows for what Jefferson thought necessary: a revolution in each generation that restores democracy, like a spring flood.

This very equality of One present in both souls and ballots is the heart of both the greatness and the continuing revolutionary relevance of pursuing and maintaining real democracy.

Many soldiers have believed with varying degrees of doubt or certainty that they died for democracy. But, when you choose to LIVE and WORK in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, one can both honor those soldiers lives and be SURE of the target of one's own sacrifice.

This ability to serve is an honor and a privilege, and is indeed most powerful when we all reach for this higher ground, together.

[eridani]

4. He was really fantastic at the Portland convention

Kicked and nominated.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. this deserves a serious...

KICK!

[kster]

6. kick..nt

[Land Shark]

7. Koehler's website is www .commonwonders.com