Nominate Rush Holt - protect our vote!

MoveOn.org is asking for nominations for Congresspeople who are deserving of a MoveOn endorsement. I can think of no one more deserving than Congressman Rush Holt. He was the first to stand up and create a bill that protects the most important right people in this country have - the right to vote. Electronic voting presents an unprecedented opportunity for a few people to rig a nationwide vote. Please click the image at right to download America's Vote At Risk to understand why Rush Holt's bill is so very important. Then go to MoveOn's nomination page and suggest that MoveOn members support Rush Holt. Please also visit Rush Holt's campaign site and Holt's Count Every Vote site to learn more about this Congressman and what is at stake.

If we get this wrong, we may be permanently giving away the option to ever get this right. Please do all you can to spread the word about the dangers of electronic voting and the need for effective checks and balances to ensure the machines count every vote the way the voter intended. Thank you for your activism.

Someone sent me an aptly titled post today: The day the United States died. Bobby Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel just after midnight on the 5th, and died 36 years ago tomorrow. He’s still the only candidate who when I hear him, brings tears to my eyes. He grew a lot in the wake of his brother’s assassination. Between that and his experiences as Attorney General, Bobby had become radicalized and was one of the most outspoken critics of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower so warned us about. He spoke out against greed and began to understand why the poor in the world saw communism as a viable option – one he never supported, but one he came to understand.

During the California primary, people actually lined up at the polls, physically standing and waiting in line, to vote for this man. That’s never happened before or since. He was an original, and every year about this time I feel his loss immensely and just wanted to share that. He believed we had a compassionate country. Today, I wonder.

As Teddy said at his funeral,

“My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. Rather, he should be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”

Please join with me in holding a thought for Bobby, for his eleven children who were suddenly left without a father today, and for Ted who lost his two closest brothers. No one should have to endure what that family has had to endure.