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We (the people) are the World

by Jeffrey Lin on October 2nd, 2008   Comments [2]

Every four years, the American people (this doesn't include all of you, sorry!) get to choose a new chief executive for their country. As we've seen in the past few weeks with an American economic meltdown that turned global, our country's tentacles reach everywhere; whether by divine intervention or by design, the president of the United States also happens to be the president of the world. While we haven't reached the utopia of one person = one vote for top banana of our planet, let's just assume that decisions made at the very top have consequences at the bottom. Now, who gets to sit at the top and who executes which decisions made at the top sound like Government 101 in theory, but is far more insidious in practice. You'd have to ask those people who have contributed over $684,000,000 so far during this presidential election, or maybe the lobbyists who have spent over $21,400,000,000 in the last 10 years if they have the answers to those questions.

Regardless, we'll be voting for a president next month whose power isn't concentrated in or limited to their administration or even their own country but rather, is spread out across global spheres of money and influence. As relatively poor "lobbyists", the typical American voter must wield the only tool available, the power to vote. The choices we make at the ballot box determine, on a macro-level, the general sweep of our country's politics and actions, and on a micro-level, everything from our homes, jobs, health care and bank acounts to our choices at the supermarket or gas station.

Consider this: of the 6,700,000,000 people on Earth, approximately 303,000,000 live in America. Of those, approximately 221,200,000 are eligible to vote (73%) and in 2004, 174,800,000 were registered (57%) and in the end, approximately 122,300,000 voted (40%). That means your vote actually counts for 2.5 of your fellow Americans, or if you want to take the planetarian view, approximately 54.5 of your fellow Earthlings. That's huge. So please do yourselves (and the planet) a favor and make sure you are registered to vote if you are eligible, absorb and digest as much information as you can, and check in on this website daily to see the messaging and communications taking place during these most interesting times. Make an intelligent and informed decision on November 4.

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