I Voted - Now What?

On Tuesday we elected the officials who will determine the course of legislation for our states and our nation over the next 4 to 6 years. In that election just over 1/3 of eligible voters nation wide turned out to make their voice heard and their vote count. Shame! Before the election I heard a lot of people talking about how unhappy they are with our government. I also heard a lot of people talking about "what is the government going to do for me." It is a statistical probability that many of the people who complain about the current state of affairs in our country are the same people who are not turning out to vote. I just want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that, as a citizen of a democratic society, voting is not only your privilege but your duty. It is one way that we can stand up against corporate greed and the power and money they wield to advance their agendas. That said, this is not a post about getting out the vote. It's a post about what we do now that the vote is over, and about what we should have been doing all along rather than sitting around waiting for the government to solve our problems.

Folks we have been far too complacent in our lives. We have been far too willing to hand over the reins of control and responsibility to someone else. We need to start taking responsibility for ourselves, our neighborhoods, our villages, our towns, our counties, our states and finally our nation. In that order. We need to join together in small groups, in medium sized groups and in large movements to create the future that we want to see. We can't wait for someone at the top to do it for us.  They don't have the same goals, and to be honest you can't blame them. They don't come from the same place you do.

We can't wait for Washington politicians to solve our problems. We need to start at home and ask ourselves what can WE do to make our homes a better place?  And we need to do it.  Then we need to go beyond our own doors and look at our neighborhoods and ask ourselves, what can  we do to make them a better place, and who can we involve in the process? And we need to DO IT! If we need affordable day care, access to healthier food, better educational opportunities for our children; then we need to form coops,  community gardens and CSA's and we need to go to school board meetings and vote in our local elections for the people who will sit on those school boards. Perhaps we should even run for local office. I understand that we all work hard, but that does not absolve us of our responsibilities as members of society. If we wonder why our society is broken, we need to stop looking to the people in Washington DC and start looking at ourselves. 

The results of the recent election may be disappointing to many, and there may be many who have given up on exercising their right to vote because they just feel hopeless about the outcome and that it wont matter regardless of how they vote. To both of these groups I say, you now have a unique opportunity to show what you can do when you mobilize on a local grass roots level to bring about the vision that you have for the future of your family, your community, and your nation. As Gandhi once said, we need to be the change we want to see in the world.