Voting Booths Open Today

I voted in the national election this morning (and no, I don´t live in Florida).  In fact, I spent most of the morning voting.  Here´s how I did it: First, I built a fire in the woodstove.  Then I tossed our dirty towels into the laundry room sink and filled it with cold water.  I added a little detergent and washed them using an old-fashioned mental plunger.  Then I drained the sink, filled it back up with more cold water, and rinsed the towels, again using the plunger.  Finally, after running them through the hand-wringer, I set them out to dry on a large wooden rack in front of the woodstove.

Next I put some water on the stove.  While I waited for it to boil, I ground some organic, free-trade beans in the hand-grinder and put them into the French press coffee maker.  Once I added the boiling water, I stirred it up and waited about five minutes for it to brew.  Then I had my coffee, some whole grain bread with soy butter, and a bowl of granola with soy milk for breakfast before heading upstairs to write.  A little bit later, I´ll go back down and fry some potatoes in olive oil, onions, mushrooms, and garlic on the stove for lunch.

How, you may wonder, is this voting?

In choosing wood over oil, I voted for renewable energy over non-renewable.  While certainly we need to respect the trees and to take great care in our use of wood, to use efficient burning methods and efficient stoves and to carefully and consciously husband our resources, wood is, if we take sufficient care, sustainable and renewable.  Oil is not. 
In choosing wood over oil, I also voted for peace rather than war and for life rather than death – for kindness and compassion rather than mass murder.  The Twentieth Century saw mankind use up in those hundred years almost half of the oil that it took millions of years to create, and the days of cheap energy are about to come to an end.  The price of a barrel of oil has almost doubled since 2001.  The people who stole the last election know this – that´s why so many of the horrific events of the last four years have taken place.  After a brutal, aggressive, and unprovoked invasion, the United States military now occupies the formerly sovereign state of Iraq, which holds most of the world´s remaining oil reserves.  The ìtroops” that we are urged to ìsupport” (many of whom are National Guardsmen who, when they signed on, thought they´d be cleaning up hurricane damage in Florida) murder hundreds of Iraqi civilians, including women and children, every week to make sure that ìwe” control access to that oil.  After all, as Bush the First said in 1992, ìthe American way of life is not negotiable,” and the lifeblood of that way of life is oil.  The US government tells us that it established the Homeland Security Department to keep us safe from ìterrorists;” what they don´t tell us is that, in a very few years, the ìterrorists” they´ll be protecting us from may very well be the jobless, the freezing, and the starving of this very country – that the ìterrorists” may very well be you and me.

Also, in choosing wood over oil, I voted for simple, human-powered technology over complicated, hydrocarbon-powered technology.  What, after all, is a woodstove?  Both our woodstoves are simply cast iron boxes I can open and close that are connected to chimneys.  It´s not a terribly complicated system: load them up with wood, light the fire and close the door.  I can take care of it by myself.  I know how it works and how to fix any problems that might arise.  I don´t have to depend on – and, when necessary, purchase – the knowledge and expertise of anyone else.  How different from our oil furnace, which just this year has required such knowledge and expertise to the tune of over $700! 

My decision to wash our towels the way I did, as well as my decision to use a hand grinder for the coffee and a French press to brew it, represents even more voting.  I chose not to use our washing machine, an electric grinder, or a Mr. Coffee machine.  Like my decision to use our woodstove, this decision is a vote for people-powered technology.  The plunger is a very simple thing – a wooden stick with a metal cone designed to create suction on one end.  When the sink is full of clothes and soapy water, the plunger works in the same way as the agitator in a powered washing machine.  It moves the clothes around and forces the detergent through the clothes, thus pushing out the dirt.  The main difference, of course, is that I am supplying the energy to run things myself.  I´m not depending upon our national power grid to supply that energy for me, to grind my beans and brew my coffee, and I´m thus not paying for that power – nor am I thus supporting the government that indirectly provides me with that power.  In choosing self-power over electrical power, I take responsibility for my own energy supply and in so doing cast my vote for independence and for personal freedom.  The same thing, of course, applies to my decision – my vote – to dry these towels in front of the fire rather than throw them into the electric dryer and to use that fire to boil water for my coffee rather than use our electric stove.

Even the things I chose to eat and drink today – organic, free-trade coffee; soy milk and butter; potatoes fried in olive oil – represent a conscious political decision.  Organic coffee has not required oil-based insecticides; free-trade coffee provides a fairer deal for its growers; and neither soy products, olive oil, nor potatoes require the domination and cruel wholesale slaughter of sensitive, caring, life-loving animals.  
          
The government and its pet media (not to mention the massive, compulsory child indoctrination gulag that they deceitfully and disingenuously call ìthe public schools”) tell us that we can only vote for our national leadership once every four years.  They tell us that only those over 18 can vote, that we have to register with the State and then march down to the polls on the appointed day, sign in under supervision, and pull the lever for one of the candidates listed.  But that, like almost everything they tell us, is a lie.  Each one of us votes every single day – every hour, every minute – with each small, seemingly insignificant choice that we make.  Shall I vote for ugliness and crassness by wearing a dirty t-shirt in public, or shall I vote for beauty and elegance by wearing, if not good clothes, at least clean ones?  Shall I vote for kindness and compassion by eating potatoes or shall I vote for cruelty and domination by eating bacon?  Shall I vote for deep thought, for logic and intelligence, by reading a book, or shall I vote for shallow thought, for emotion and stupidity, by watching television?  It´s the accumulation of these individual choices by every individual in the country that will determine our policies, not some political election.  It´s these choices, the ones we all make every minute of the day, that will determine our future – that will determine what kind of people we are, and what kind of people we will become.

So vote today.  The booths are open.  Vote early, and vote often.  And think – think long and hard about the meaning and implications of each vote –  before you cast those ballots.