2004-11-06 - 10:29 a.m.

How to fix this:
1. Turn off your TV. Remove the plug from the wall and then turn it around so the screen faces the wall. Repeat for any other TV's in your house.
2. Remove any talk radio show stations from your presets. Those guys talk to get a reaction, not because they have anything worth hearing to say.
3. Go online and look up your local and state representatives. Find out where they stand on gay marriage, abortion, religion in schools, whatever ails you.
4. Send said rep's letters. Monthly, weekly, daily, since you aren't watching TV you have time now. Be polite the first few letters, but tell the truth. Tell them how gay marriage doesn't diminish you, how in fact it would make you a better more fulfilled citzen. Tell them when you lose your job, when your taxes go UP, tell them.
5. Read. Books, Newspapers, Online. Once a week read something from the other party. Each "side" has brilliant writers convincing their readers of their rightousness.
6. Stop thinking the other side is made of ignorance. Sadly, education will not "fix" the problem. Ideology won't either.
7. In many states liberal is libel. Eastern wealthy, edicated snobby, media elite liberals. Take a moment to thik of all the things we have in NJ or wherever you are that isn't available in parts of the US. Sex toys. Relatvily cheap gas. The choice not to go to starbucks or walmart. Like-minded friends and neighbors to converse with.
8. Get involved in politics. Why not? It's your town, city, neighborhood, state and country too. You can run, and you might win, And then think of all the good you can do. Think of all the younger voters who would throng the polls for someone their own age, who might otherwise not even bother to take note. Power is there for the taking, they have just convinced us that it's too hard, too expensive, too boring.
Well, the country will be uber-boring and expensive and difficult when it turns into a religious state governed by old white men.
9. Send $1 to Barack Obama, or at least go look him up. Read his keynote speech from the DNC. Be lifted momentarily with hope.
10. Be activly a-religious. If you are pagan, be active. If you are christian, be activly christian against whatever you're against (preferablly state and church integration!) Show the people in charge a. that there are relgiions other then evangelical christianity in the US or b. that not all christians want a goverment mandate of whom, how, and why they must worship. Promote privacy of worship.

-bsg-

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