DON’T GO BACK TO THE COUCH

This is the unedited version of a letter to the editor in the Your Voice section of the Hickory Daily Record on 11/8/2008 entitled "Election over, citizen activism still needed" -- by Harry Hipps

The election is over at last. Signs are leaving yards and the phone is thankfully quiet. So what now? Oh the politicians and their staffs will be working as usual, but what about you? Are you going to your couch and just hoping the new officials are going to do better? Our challenges haven’t gone away and this is no time for complacency.

The financial problems are huge and the national debt has increased tremendously in a short period. The world is armed and dangerous and Bin Laden and his crew probably aren’t much sweeter today than they were yesterday. Gas has dropped almost two dollars a gallon and the large gas guzzlers look awfully pretty on that lot; however, unless I miss my guess, no new crude oil has appeared in the ground and it’s a matter of time before price spikes return again. I’m not a pessimist by nature but these are challenging times.

Despite the promises of our new crop of political leaders, we need public awareness and action more than ever. The purpose of elections is to choose governance. The horse race aspect of elections creates interest and excitement but it is the day by day actions of government that is the real work of democracy. We can’t only speak every four years at the ballot box and stick our heads in the sand the rest of the time.

Read history and current events. Monitor your representative’s voting record. Write, call or email them on issues of concern. Write commentaries in papers and on blogs. Let the leadership know we are informed and we want results. Yes, everyone is busy and it seems a day slips away too fast. But our laws, our money, our system of justice, our freedoms, and so many facets of our lives are touched by government and we can’t afford to ignore it.

With the internet and communications the possibilities for citizen involvement is now greater than ever. Power is going to be exercised and if we are truly going to be a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” that doesn’t just mean your neighbor, your boss, or your friends – it means YOU.