Over the decades, the editors of Axis of Logic, along with many of you, have observed the government and corporate media blaming the American public for the failed democracy in our nation.  One of the ways they have accomplished this has been to place the blame on over 50% of nonvoting Americans for what they call "voter apathy".  We, on the other hand, view "voter apathy" as a people's revolt against the system - perhaps a passive-aggressive revolt, but nontheless a revolt - an important distinction.

It is our position as an editorial board that one of the most effective ways of confronting the U.S. government and it's service to Global Corporate Empire is to boycott the 2004 elections - not by failing to vote, but by choosing not to vote by refusing to vote.  Our position is grounded in the assumption that it is simply dead-wrong to lend validity to a system that thwarts democracy, while claiming to uphold it. We refused to be sucked into the government's corporate-funded game of pitting one American against another in arguments about which presidential candidate is "the lesser of two evils".  We refuse to participate in a faux-election process that sucks the money and energy out of the American people with a pretext of open elections but disallows any real choice.

The many issues and questions that arise out of our "Boycott the Vote" position toward real revolution in government have been discussed and will continue to be discussed in future articles in our section: The 2004 Elections. At the same time, we welcome debate on this important issue and admire Dr. Gerry Lower for the well-thought analysis that follows. - LMB

One of the beautiful features of Einstein's approach to systematic thought is that the big and little of things must fit together. The way we look at atoms has to jive with the way we look at the cosmos. We can't have two unrelated and inconsistent ways of looking at the same thing. Bohr's insightful model of the atom ended up being a tiny solar system. The big of things and the little of things must be related in thought.

Most worthy editorialists and columnists are currently at work at the little end of things, with real people and the real problems that come their way from above. They work at the tangible level where things really count the most. They speak for the People.

I have always worked at the big end of things, with the larger ideas that (given Einstein's wisdom) ought properly embrace the little end of things. The only larger ideas I have ever found in political philosophy that embrace both the People and God (both the little and the big of things) are Jefferson's Deist ideas which place God in the People. When I look from the big end of things toward the little end of things (the most important end - because all big things come from little things), I see Beth Henry and Mike Tront and John Spritzler loud and clear. These are people of the true cloth.

To be honest with you, I have paid very little attention to the Democratic candidates who would challenge George W. Bush. Dean creeped me out right up front for being a "physician." Any physician who allows others to tell him whom he can treat and how he can treat them is not a physician at all but an overpaid medical technician in service to bean counters and lawyers and policy wonks (who also control the average physicians enormous salary and his comfort and security). I live in an area where highly educated physicians overtly maintain a level of social unawareness typically found in untutored teenagers. I have always believed that knowledge gives one power. These healers accept that money gives one power and prestige and, in order to acquire and keep it, they have become a "community" of gutless medical wonders, fearful of even acknowledging the possibility of shortcomings in capitalism's exclusionary medicine.

But, Dean is just a sample of the rest. None of the Democratic players have impressed me with their knowledge of America's current situation in the world. They uniformly see our problems through capitalism's "here and now" eyes, as if the political pendulum will eventually swing leftward and American can return to its happy gridlocked past wherein decisions are not made by the people but by the interplay of liberal and conservative capitalists (the socialist side of the traditional American dialectic being dead since World War II). They uniformly fail to see the historical significance of the situation, the fact that Jeffersonian Democracy has been killed dead with the appointment of a born-again Old Testament fundamentalist to the Oval Office (and the destruction of the wall between church and state). They uniformly fail to see the evolutionary significance of the situation, the fact that the three major branches of western religion are now in fear-based control of western culture, all embracing the notion of fulfilling religious prophecy.

In other words, none of the politicians willing to challenge Bush have an adequate grasp of larger realities and are, therefore, unable to challenge Bush on adequate ground. The real issues, the destruction of Democracy by religious capitalism and its fueling of a global apocalypse, remain untouched. This is as it needs to be. Our only hope for a global democracy and world peace requires the self-termination of religious capitalism, an "end of time" for vengeance, self-righteousness and supernaturalism in the global political arena.

For this to happen, Americans will have to remain largely blind to what they are actually doing - so as to fulfill religious prophecy and inadvertently re-open the doors to common sense, Deism and Democracy. We are all embedded in a larger cultural evolutionary program taking us where we need to go whether we want to go there or not. Whether we cheer for Bush or for Kerry, the end result will be quite the same. Any return to human values and Democracy will require eliminating the influence of fundamentalist religion and crony capitalism (as something of an evolutionary necessity).

In that regard, I am not even sure that we will be having any meaningful elections come November. The Bush administration is clearly desperate and has little choice but to promote Bush's only "strength" among the people, i.e., his role as our "war president." How far this administration has and will go to nourish that end is simply disgusting to contemplate. There is no way that this self-righteous administration will ever accept defeat at the polls. They have learned that they can do literally anything they see as necessary, because their loyal conservative supporters (rock solid at 49%) have already established their committed ability to live in the faith-based world of religious conjecture. One weakness of the Bush administration is its overall predictability (even in the face of their short run strength, i.e., unpredictability). These people will do whatever is required to remain in power. After all, they are doing the work of their Old Testament Roman god, the god whom Mark Twain saw being invoked by both sides during America's Civil War.

At the same time, it is clearly in bin Laden's interest to see Bush re-elected (or re-appointed). One significant al-Qaida attack on U.S. turf between now and elections would likely do the job. Add to that the several national wild cards (Israel, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea) and the several tribal wild cards (Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis) and we have a highly unpredictable mess in which a shot from any corner could catalyze political chaos and violence, all of which would nourish Bush's chances for re-election. Even if these wild card nations and tribes are able to control themselves over the next seven months, they remain quite vulnerable to a little behind-the-scenes manipulation by Bush administration loyalists.

Given the low probability that the Bush administration will refrain from criminal approaches to re-empowering America's "war president," hope for the upcoming elections may turn out to be hopeless. But, just what happens if Kerry were somehow able to defeat Bush? He would inherit a god-awful religious mess from which it is, by now, virtually impossible to hope for a dignified escape. Kerry would bring very little into government that would win over bin Laden and radical Islam. He would bring very little into government that would much alter capitalistic dominion, especially in the face of a pissed off conservative electorate (that would have learned nothing except that, as in Spain, they were voted out of power). The sad truth is that Kerry just doesn't get it, does he? Clearly, he gets it nowhere nearly as well as Axis of Logic columnists get it.

Beth and Mike and John are so justifiably disgusted with the state of affairs in America that they are ready to sacrifice their right to vote in protest. I am very sympathetic with that stance and the statement it would make. But sympathy is the complementary opposite of apathy, neither of which accomplish very much in the real world. What we are looking for, insofar as we value the values of Jefferson's Democracy and nascent Christianity, is empathy (the active, knowledge-based, compassionate approach to caring).

In that light, we already know that about half of the American electorate, seeing that their vote makes little difference anyway (we get a capitalist either way), has chosen to sacrifice their right to vote for decades. From Jeffersonian perspectives, that can be construed as being almost sinful. In this, no one needs to worry about retribution. I freely and sinfully admit that in 1980 I voted for 'porky pig' because I was convinced that one had to sacrifice all common sense logic in order to remain Republican. I wasn't even Republican, then or now, agreeing with Jefferson that political party loyalty is the "ultimate degradation" of the free mind.

While I would love to flip the "No vote" bird to the Bush administration for finally ruining everything I cared for in America (our families, our family farms, our family ranches, our rural communities and our Land, our human values, our human knowledge and our human rights), I would rather do that in a more literal and less figurative way. In the meantime, the most certain way to eliminate the Bush administration (and all that it stands for) is found in America's young adults and in the disenfranchised poor, the people who do not vote because they see no point in it under what amounts to absolutist, religious capitalistic dominion.

America's disenfranchised electorate, if they had any hope at all, would easily be able to forever tip the scales away from religious capitalistic dominion and toward the empowerment of the people. Perhaps knowing that the Bush administration is about to utterly discredit religion and capitalism away as viable approaches to global political philosophy would be stimulating. That obstacle to human rights and freedom is self-terminating and, in turn, door-opening. Perhaps knowing that the job at hand is figuring out how to pick up the pieces when Bush is done would be stimulating. For the first time in two centuries, we will likely stand a chance to rethink things, from the bottom up and from the top down.

Meaningful evolutionary change is always two sided in time. We must have both the will to change and we must see the necessity in that change. We must have negative things in our past pushing us forward and we must have positive things in our future pulling us forward. We need to know a little history and we need to have a little vision. Luther broke away from Roman religion out of free will because he saw the necessity in it. Jefferson rewrote western theology out of free will (actually he wanted Priestly to do it) because he saw the necessity in it.

We must rebuild Democracy out of free will because we see the necessity in it. How convenient for the people that the largest obstacles to a global Democracy and world peace are religiously self-terminating. "Ours is not to stop apocalypse, ours is to survive it." It happens to be part of the larger evolutionary program in which we are currently embedded, a program aimed at global human self-comprehension and maturation, at the expense of the despotic cultural program that got us from tribal to national to global human organization.

Come on people. For the first time in human history, we have an opportunity to participate in the evolutionary emergence of an entirely new human life form on this earth. We have an opportunity to hear, for the first time ever, the voice of humankind. We have an opportunity to help create a human organization with infinite capacity to do good on this planet as part of an infinite capacity to embrace Jefferson's God on the human inside.

© Copyright 2004 by AxisofLogic.com

Dr. Lower lives in the shadow of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. His book, "Jefferson's Eyes," establishes a new paradigm for comprehending American history. No longer can we look at our history as a fiscal success story. We must look at our history as a departure from original values (www.jeffersonseyes.com). He can be reached at tisland@blackhills.com.