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Letters from Readers |
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[ March/April
2004 ]
I was raised in Alaska with a step-father
who was a city councilman, borough assemblyman, mayor pro-tem and a Republican
gubernatorial candidate. A few blocks away, my birth father was hosting
Jimmy Carter in his home. I was well steeped in the political world by
the time I was a young adult. As a result of observing the machinations
of the system, I became fairly detached from politics, until the last
presidential election.
I am writing this letter to share a point of view that I recently acquired from my mother, who also spent many years surrounded by the system. I consider her to be very wise. She is someone who votes her conscience, win or lose. Voting strategically buys into the system with which most of us find fault. Voting from fear – to get someone out of office – is not focusing on what you want to create or on something that is positive. Where can that intention go but to a result that is of the same resonance? If you vote from your heart for a person of integrity, however, your ultimate results will have integrity, even if it doesn't immediately go the way you think it should go. The path to the desired result may not be clear if the candidate does not become elected, but have faith that integrity bequeaths integrity, and strategy (when fear-based) only breeds more of the same. Einstein's famous quote, “You cannot solve the problem with the same mind that created it," can be applied here. I invite us all to step out of the paradigm that is creating the results we have been getting and that have polarized us with "win or lose" decision making. I believe that if the solutions do not work for all of humanity, then we haven't shifted our thinking enough to stretch to the point of a common good that serves the whole. This is why I am whole-heartedly voting for Dennis Kucinich, winner of the Gandhi peace award, with the intention that the vote, whether the candidate wins this time or not, is a vote in the direction of truth. Please read about him at www.Kucinich.us and see if this strikes a chord in YOUR heart! Kristin Domela |
