- Episode One:
- Fantasy: Alice Meets Humpty Dumpty Rove.
- Episode Four:
- Fantasy: Alice Meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
- Episode Fourteen:
- Fantasy: Alice Sees Humpty Dumpty Rove Again.
- Fact Sheet: What Alice Didn't Know about King Bush's Record on the Environment.
- Fact Sheet: What Alice Didn't Know about the Health Effects of Pollution.
- What you and Alice can do...
- Information about how to change things
Revised, Second Edition 2006
Foreword by Syndicated Columnist John Nichols
What you and Alice can do...
- 1.Vote.
- Vote Early. Don't follow the directions of the late Mayor Richard Daley who is reputed to have said, "Vote. Vote early and often." But if you can vote early by absentee ballot it will
- (a) make sure you vote even if you are in bed sick on election day,
- (b) free you up to work in the campaign making get-out-the-vote calls or taking other actions on election day,
- (c) make sure you do not have a last minute problem with the voter lists on election day and
- (d) insure that your ballot is counted even if the new electronic machines don't work properly.
- 2.Write letters to the editor and call in to the talk shows.
- Write to the daily newspapers, but especially write to the county weeklies. Political junkies read the letters in the dailies but everyone tends to read the letters in the weeklies. The letters most likely to be printed are short, include a reference to something that's been in the news recently and provide some factual data, especially that showing how the situation affects you or your loved ones or community. You must include your full name (both printed and a signature) and your address and telephone number. Many newspapers, however, prefer to receive letters via e-mail. You can use the information in the Fact Sheets in this book and any numbers from the episodes.
- 3. Call your local campaign headquarters and volunteer NOW.
- Even an hour a week checking voter rolls will help.
Find a task you enjoy doing, recruit your friends to make
a team and have fun.
4. Make sure all of your friends are registered to vote.
- Create telephone trees to check on them on election day. I once lost a college election by one vote, and my roommate and best friends had forgotten to vote.
- 5. Contact your friends in other states, especially the swing states.
- Send them copies of your letters to the editor. Send them excerpts from this book and encourage them to buy a copy.
- 6. Don't waste time arguing with people whose minds are already firmly made up.
- Spend your time getting people who support you to the polls.
- 7. Don't waste your time convincing people who are already convinced.
- Make sure you ask them for something -- to volunteer with you, to go to a fund raising event with you, to send money directly to the campaign, or to write a letter to the editor. Not only will this make a contribution, it will insure that they will remember to vote. Check back to see that they followed through.
- 8. Don't bad mouth your Democratic candidates.
- The alternative is to re-elect a Republican Congress that will rubber stamp the President's decisions and appointments and avoid oversight. To those who think it doesn't make any difference, re-read the fact sheets. I used to work in the Federal bureaucracy, and it makes an enormous difference who is appointed as Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries of agencies. The next Congress will vote on some crucial issues, and the Senate will confirm judges, probably including a Supreme Court Judge.YOUR VOTE MATTERS.
© 2006 by Peggy Wireman Cartoons by Kevin Wyeth -
The Author grants limited license to reproduce portions of the text from this website for the purpose of disseminating information, provided the following provisions are met: (1) No one may reproduce this text for the purpose of financial gain without first receiving permission from the copyright holder; (2) full credit must be attributed to the author on each reproduced portion (i.e. - © 2006 by Peggy Wireman).
Compassionate King Bush weeps as the poor oysters fall through the safety net.
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About the Author, Peggy Wireman, Ph.D.
Dr. Wireman can be contacted at pwireman@aliceinbushland.com |
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