  OK, Mr. Locke, urlLink you asked for it . You won the rock the vote grant, or whatever comparable award a teacher gets for promoting politics to the disillusioned youth. Now unplug, step back. You've been living in a giant fabricated reality that wants you to think it's real. It's called the American political system, and once you get out of it, you can see clearly that these confines, these shackles, these urlLink BORDERS ! are harming us. Did you think you had the sole proprietorship of losing your heart at the '92 election? I was at the Inauguration in D.C.! Only, I wasn't cheering for our boy, Clinton. No, I fell hard for Al. And like a groupie outside Bono's door, I waited 9 long years for another shot at him! Then, in November 2000, even though I was eight months pregnant, and my apartment was mostly dismantled and moved to the house, I sat awake _all_night_long_ to watch his fall from grace. urlLink Ms. Mary Anne Glendon and her fellow progress'ophobes think the California and Massachusetts marriages are "government of four people," well, the country saw a government of five people three and a half years ago. Today I passed a car with a bumper sticker that read "Election 2004: End of an error. " Like our Mr. Locke, this guy somehow escaped total disillusion.
I honor that, but I don't share it. The key reason urlLink Dean never surfaced in the float test is the same reason I supported him. He was unwilling to be urlLink Terry Mcauliffe's yes-man. Aside from Kucinich and Sharpton, I don't see another Democratic candidate that deserves my vote. There are eight months left before the election, I'm open to seeing new evidence emerge, but simply not being quite as bad as Bush is just the kind of quitter talk that convinced Al to shut up and take defeat like a man back in 2000.
Like the Bush administration's oversimplified duality of good and evil countries in the world, the dichotomous system of Republican and Democrat parties in America serves to perpetuate the status quo and distort reality. Look at national poles, and magically, everyone seems to perfectly fall at 50-50 percentiles. Elections are suddenly all a draw. Realistically, urlLink is there any way we all fall so neatly down two sides? It's all a big lie manufactured by six (next week it should be five) giant corporations to whom the status quo has been pretty good, and you're choosing to stay plugged into that lie.
Rise above it! Ally yourself with progress first, and pick a candidate second. After learning the lesson of urlLink Nader --that as long as the dual-party system exists in the US, we'll be stuck with shades of gray--I'm left to hope multiple parties pop up over my lifetime, and support that progress where I can. But more important, I'm free to look at change as a global issue that doesn't have to depend on whichever uber-patriotic wacko gets to answer the red phone next year.
As an individual, you can--and probably should--vote. But that's just one day of the year. On the other 364 days, do what you can (and I know you do, you're a teacher) to urlLink support the efforts that actually are making a difference. 
