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October 31, 2004Red, White, and Blue FluFollowing is a press release that is being disseminated to media outlets. It's from my husband, the Rev. Dr. Randolph W. B. Becker. He is calling for a rally on Thursday and nationwide strike on Friday if we don't have the election results by midnight on Thursday. I agree with him that who gets elected is secondary to how the election goes. Otherwise, it's all over. We need to make them realize this is not a game. Democracy was never meant to be, will never be, and needn't be perfect. If we demand perfection, we do it at our own peril because we put our choice in the hands of the lawyers. The selection fiasco of 2000 should have taught us at least that. Please spread the word. October 31, 2004 PARK FOREST (Illinois) MINISTER CALLS FOR THURSDAY RALLY OF VOTER WITNESS - The Rev. Dr. Randolph W.B. Becker, minister to the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Park Forest (Illinois), called for Thursday, November 4, to be a day of Voter Witness. "By noon Thursday, our nation deserves a fair, complete accounting of the election," Becker said, "and we voters should come together in witness to this. We need to be assured that this election will be decided in the voting booth not in the courts, nor the legislatures, nor political committees." The Rev. Becker has called for a noon rally in downtown Park Forest on Thursday, November 4, to "either celebrate that a fair, open election has occurred and been decided, or to serve notice to the system that they have tried our collective patience." Similar actions by voters nationally "could spread the word that people are fed up with manipulation and inefficiency of our electoral process." "If I have to go to bed Thursday night not knowing the outcome of my vote," Becker added, "I think I will wake up Friday morning sick: sick and tired of a system which, in the world's most technologically advanced country, cannot deliver fair, open, timely election results. And when I am sick, I call in sick! I encourage others who may also feel sick about all of this to follow my lead." He called for Friday, November 5, to be a day of "Red, White, and Blue Flu" if the election remained undecided by midnight on Thursday. "Nationally, we need to say that the everyday work of our nation must to stop until the extraordinary business of this election is finished. On Friday, if we do not know the path we have democratically chosen for the future, we should be in the streets demanding results, not in the work place as if nothing has happened." One of the strategies of electoral manipulation, Becker noted, is to stretch the decision-making process out across time, until ordinary people, in their exhaustion over the process, no longer notice the details. "Without pressure from the electorate to reach a timely conclusion, the process can be stretched to serve the desires of covert political agendas beyond the notice of most people." "The greatest threat to the American experiment is not the choice of this candidate or that candidate," Becker said, "but the perception that an individual's vote is not important in the overall systems. In a nation where billions of monetary transactions can be recorded and accounted accurately and quickly everyday, it would be more than tragic if the most valuable asset of our democracy, our votes, were not treated with the same efficiency. The future of our democracy is balanced on that essential valuing of our votes . . . and we must demand that attention to their value." The Rev. Becker's comments came in his sermon to the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Park Forest, Illinois on Sunday, October 31. Contact Information: Unitarian Universalist Community Church Comments
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