We've got the power. Now, let's use it
We have the power. Do we recognize it? Will we use it, and wisely?
As we head into Primary Election Day, we voters have another incredible opportunity. The saying is, “You can't fight city hall.” But that saying really no longer is true, if it ever was.
Lots of people are fighting like never before, Lots of people are making their voices heard like never before. And lots of people are listening and responding to those voices like never before. Think about it.
In the past few years, we've seen the birth and rise into a real political force of the Tea Party. Its members are shaping debates on spending, deficits and other challenges in the halls of Congress and in many other government headquarters. Certainly, Tea Party members and other social conservatives are shaping, altering and driving the Republican presidential race. Suburbanites who believe in the party's tenets likely will affect other races down the ballot tomorrow too.
Consider the Occupy Movement. Those participating in that ongoing demonstration have gotten all of us talking and have shaped the debate too. Without them, we might think “99” is just the name of a spy on the old TV show, “Get Smart.” Seriously, those who occupied Wall Street and America's Main Streets have generated a conversation about wealth and class in America as we strive to recover from the Great Recession.
People do seem to have more power than ever before to quickly bring change in America thanks, in very large part, to the creation and growth of social media.
Consider the uproar and change that enveloped the Susan G. Komen Foundation after its leaders pulled the funding they had been supplying to Planned Parenthood. Within minutes of word getting out about that, the move was sweeping across Facebook and Twitter, in texts and emails, and across phone lines. Within days, an executive had resigned and the decision had been reversed.
Likewise, consider the uproar from the Catholic Church and its many other hospitals, universities and other subsidiaries when President Obama and his administration announced that all employers would be required to pay for birth control for their employees. Another social and mainstream media uproar ensued. Again, within days, Obama was forced to respond and offered up a compromise.
The point here is, plainly, we've got the power. And we have one of our best and most important opportunities to exercise it tomorrow by taking it to the polls.
Read up in these pages, at dailyherald.com, or at any of the other many sources about the candidates, their views and backgrounds. Do your homework on questions of spending, saving and rebuilding in our communities. Then, go vote Tuesday. The power? It's all ours. Let's use it.