” YOU MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER …”

“ …But I’m not the only one.“ (John Lennon)

As the 2016 US presidential election approaches, and as I hold in my hand my California voter’s mail-in ballot ready to be filled in, I somehow feel compelled to let others in my community know how one citizen feels about his country and what one citizen may still hope for.

For some time I’ve thought of myself as a political progressive, i.e. human rights; human dignity; government transparency; a decent living wage for all; equal opportunity for, and equal treatment of, everyone without bias or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, political beliefs, age, skin color or sexual orientation; a woman’s right to decide the uses of her body; the use of war only in cases of imminent national threat; a military budget restricted in favor of monies used for social benefits and infrastructure repairs/improvements – all – are touchstones for me, as is the belief that government has a responsibility to ensure/enforce those rights and government has a responsibility to enact laws for the “common good.”

Though our constitution does not mandate only two major political parties, for generations this has been our tradition. It is as fundamental, or as subject to change, as any tradition. Other countries have many parties and often their governments consist of proportionally divided parliaments in which smaller political entities have a proportional voice.

Years ago I became convinced that both our political parties were thoroughly corrupted by campaign contributions and the massive governmental influence of moneyed interests.

Except for 2008, the last major party presidential candidate I voted – and worked – for was George McGovern. On election day 1972 I trudged up the hills of Studio City, CA to help get out the vote as I heard over my portable radio the massive electoral victory of Richard Nixon. I joined marches in the street to encourage support for Nixon’s impeachment.

In 1970 I traveled to Washington, D.C. To join a march opposing the war in Vietnam. In 2007, my wife and I traveled to Washington, D.C. To join a march opposing the war in Iraq.

My 2008 vote was for Barack Obama, support I soon came deeply to regret as he broke nearly every one of his campaign promises and instead enhanced spying on Americans; murdered American and other citizens via drone strike; deprived prisoners of trial and of habeus corpus; continued prisoner torture via transportation to foreign US-controlled “black sites”; demonized and imprisoned whistleblowers; attempted to hide prisoner torture from disclosure and threatened to imprison journalists.

I had the pleasure of introducing Eugene McCarthy to a small local support group and worked for him in voter registration. The honorable way to conduct voter registration for a candidate is to go into an area known to be favorable to him/her, register as many as possible and turn in to headquarters all registrations. The dishonorable way to conduct voter registration is to discourage those from registering who appear to oppose your candidate and/or to throw away unfavorable registrations before submitting them to the appropriate authority – illegal but not infrequently done. (Though registrants are supposed to be given a receipt naming the registrar, sometimes, it is known, this is not done and, in any case, not many registrants will remember who’s at fault when their ballots don’t come in the mail).

For John Anderson I took card table and folding chair to the sidewalk opposite the Hollywood Bowl or in front of a book store on Hollywood Boulevard five days/nights a week to secure signatures to put his name on the California ballot. I take some pride in the photo on my wall getting his handshake for having secured more signatures (3,037) than anyone else in the state.

When my wife and I moved to Santa Barbara in 1996 I approached the local Green Party and volunteered to do table work for Ralph Nader. Bob Hansen took me to downtown State Street and showed me a good place to set up. A few days later a city attorney told me to get the hell out of there and set up someplace else or be prosecuted.

Eventually I became a county Green Party council member, its treasurer and editor of its newsletter, “The Green Scene.” To this day one of my greatest sources of pride is the four-page editorial I wrote in 2002, “Fiddling While Earth Burns.” It contains almost all the citations and examples used by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth,” except of course later statistics he referred to. Perhaps remarkably, this editorial quoted the former Vice-President giving the most prescient evaluation ever made of all attempts to deal with climate change: “The minimum that is scientifically necessary [to combat global warming] far exceeds the maximum that is politically feasible.”

When in 2004 the Green Party decided not to support Ralph Nader and not to compete in “swing states,” I left. Then and now I intend only to join those who will fight for the most honorable candidate regardless of the opposition.

In my view, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was the only major party presidential candidate in recent times who has addressed the most severe problems of our current government and society.

One of the most fundamental branches of religion was initiated and promoted by the dynamic, charismatic leader/prophet/preacher Jesus Christ. He was immensely successful in appealing to an abused, oppressed people, but promised them what he could never deliver: “The first will be last and the last will be first.” And he promised them what no human or entity could deliver: Life after Death.

Critics of Senator Sanders attacked him along similar lines, that he promised what he couldn’t deliver. But had he been nominated and elected president along with congressional help, there would exist the only – if difficult to attain – hope of policy changes and governmental/societal restructuring that would make the United States the democracy we now – inaccurately – call it, instead of the wealth-dominated oligarchy it actually is.

On the 2016 election ballot I hold in my hand, I will fill in the oval next to the name of presidential candidate Jill Stein.

Though I missed her Santa Barbara appearance – at my age, only threat of death will get me out for a 9:30 a.m. event – I saw her lengthy interview on CSPAN and could not be more proud of her forthright manner and national/international views.

Recent polls have shown that voters 18-34 years old are increasingly turning away from both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I hope that young people here will not be bullied or intimidated to support the “lesser evil.” I hope they will stand up against bigotry, hatred, incompetence and ignorance on the one hand and against perennial lying, government cover up, a war-mongering spirit, subservience to money, Wall Street and big business on the other.

“No legacy is so rich as honesty,” wrote William Shakespeare.

My dream is that we all do our best to fulfill this truth. My dream is that we give those who come after us a legacy not of shrugs, sighs, and shame-filled excuses but of prideful spirit and integrity.

William Smithers
Santa Barbara