Voting brings out mixed emotions in me. Part of me agrees with a former professor of mine who was an anarchist, who said in class, “Don't vote, it only encourages them (corrupt politicians).” Part of me wants to vote because so many of my people died to acquire and maintain the right to vote, despite my disdain for most of the names that show up on the ballot. I force myself to vote in every election for some basic reasons. Neighborhoods that vote in significant numbers on a regular basis tend to get better service from government. The politicians for the most part only respond to campaign contributions, votes, and pressure ranging from calls and letters to civil disobedience and disruption of business as usual.

I say unequivocally, that the two major parties in this country are really two branches of the same party-the party of corporate interests. The Republicans, the grand Old Hypocrites claim to be at one time both the party of big business and the party of the Christian values voters. The former worship profit, and the latter worship a warlike tribal deity that ignores Jesus' admonition that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. I don't know about professed values, but the values I see exhibited by the Republicans are ancient ones-profit at the expense of everyone and everything and worship of money.

The Democrats who are tied to the same corporate interests pretend that they are concerned with the working class and the middle class, but their role is to defuse the discontent of the people being fleeced by the plutocrats. The Democratic Party is rightwing in a stylistic way that is different, but the rich keep getting richer at the expense of everyone else no matter which party controls the government. In essence, voting for the candidates of the property party is like trying to find a good slave master. Even if he does not beat one at the moment, he still has absolute power over his chattel's life. He can kill the slave, sell him or work him to death if his kindness turns to rage. Voting for people who do not represent one's interest is voluntary slavery. At least many of my ancestors had the good sense to run away.

When people go to the polls on Tuesday, will they be voting for candidates who represent their interests? This country is de-industrializing because of the “ruthless pursuit of profits” overseas where labor is cheap and under the gun of undemocratic governments. No great power with imperial ambitions has survived the loss of its manufacturing edge. America is the greatest debtor nation on earth with a horrendous trade balance. No empire can survive that. This country is suffering from extensive, and some would suggest, irreversible environmental damage. This country has embarked on a bankrupting, endless, losing war that is marked by profligate spending and naked robbery by war profiteers that is destroying the American Empire faster than its predecessors.

However, NBC did not allow him to participate in the nationally televised debate with Ben Cardin and Michael Steele. The Washington Post even cropped him from a picture of another televised debate and barely mentioned him in the accompanying story. The media for the most part has bought into the notion that the country should have a two- party system with no discussion allowed about alternatives. That is not democracy and it is not even good sense when the two major parties are driving the country into the ground. The major media are part of the problem not the solution.

When voters go into the booth on Tuesday, they are participating in a democratic process, flawed as it is, that may not be available much longer. The Bush Regime has led an unprecedented attack on civil liberties and human rights. His anti-democracy policies have been aided by the climate of fear he has fostered. Adolph Hitler did not seize power in a coup. People in fear in Germany voted him into office. The Democratic Party has not opposed Bush's usurpation of American rights and so the people who want democracy must look outside of the two property parties. When voters cast their paperless ballots on their easily hacked Diebold machines, they should reflect that American democracy, such as it is, will not be preserved by the two parties that have acquiesced to the destruction of the country and the civil liberties that generate hope for the future.

American voters better start thinking outside the box before the boxes of Guantanamo Prison Camp become holding cells for Americans who think their tattered and nullified constitution will still protect them. As that old hypocrite Thomas Jefferson once said,” Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”