Coleen's Blog - Archived Entry

Before embarking for Portland to register voters, I feared that approaching strangers with enthusiasm and an open-heart would take a courage I did not have. Thank goodness my Driving Votes cohorts and I received training from Corinne, Head Organizer for Oregon’s ACORN chapter. Corinne has the most glorious mix of activist experience, revolutionary spirit, and humbleness. She trained us matter-of-factly, answered our questions patiently, covered strategies and legalities, role-played with us in the ACORN parking lot and sent us into the streets with stacks of voter registration cards.

We drove to Portland’s Saturday Market in matching yellow Driving Votes t-shirts. The sun was bright, the air warm. As I stood next to the elephant ear stand, I froze. The reality of Driving Votes’ purpose was suddenly at-hand, and I was a shy girl, rooted in one spot, swallowing hard.

I did take the leap and reveled in the opportunity to talk with dozens of people I would otherwise never have met. I was delighted at how kind people are. Most people met my eyes and some even smiled. Northwest folks are indeed friendlier when the sun graces us and I am so grateful for its help in ushering me into the world of voter registration. I was not as outrageously successful as my cohorts and was dog-tired by the end of the second day, but I am more hopeful than ever! People are disenfranchised for a reason and ordinary citizens have the opportunity to reach out and change that.

I shared with my mother Corinne’s most striking quote: “I realized that, to change the world, I didn’t have to turn everyone into a vegan anarchist.” My mother remarked that this seemed to parallel my own political growth. When I told my dad I was registering voters, he asked: “Did you register yourself?” I’ve never been apolitical but rather vocal about my distaste for a jerry-rigged system that gives you a choice between tweedledum and tweedledumber. I wasn’t always disenfranchised though. Two months after I turned 18, I voted for Clinton and celebrated his victory. A few years later I interned full-time in D.C. at the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor. Clinton had appointed Karen Nausbaum, a union activist passionate about women’s rights in the workplace. My supervisor, Diane Crothers, was a former member of the New York Redstockings (a 70’s radical feminist group) and worked as a lawyer representing domestic violence survivors. I was blessed to work on issues such as non-traditional childcare, low-wage workers’ rights, the Fair Pay Act, AIDS education in the workplace and helped develop a list of feminist policy initiatives that Karen presented to Clinton in the Rose Garden. In addition to this work, I had the opportunity to participate with 250,000 other feminists in the National Organization of Women’s march on the capital. I was happy and hopeful. After I had returned to college to finish out my senior year, Clinton showed his true colors. He signed the Welfare to Work legislation (Nausbaum quit after this), supported NAFTA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and proved he was in the pocket of big business. I finished school and moved out West, hoping to find like-minded lefties like myself and vowed not to be fooled by liberal leaders like Clinton again.

For many years, I was uninspired by our government and possessed no wish to be active in it. I strove to imagine a better world and to bring this vision forth through my actions, writing and relationships. Now, witnessing the US left blossoming into coalitions with a common enemy to unite us, I see that what Corinne was talking about. We can make a difference by banding together with others that have a different set of values as long as we have shared goals. The ironic combination of Bush’s fundamentalist regime and my talented friends has inspired me to involve myself more deeply in changing the direction of our country. We at Driving Votes know that Bush Jr. is a small man with good friends and the winds of fancy are fleeting. We are exercising the rights our country’s founders handed us by publicly voicing our dissent and registering voters.

I want Bush out and prosecuted. I want Kerry to appoint only pro-women Supreme Court justices. I want the liberal coalitions formed this election season, the season America sees the light of sanity, to join me in creating revolutionary change. I want big business monopolies and oligarchies to hit the road and for all people to live comfortable and free. Think we can pull it off? Getting on the streets and asking others to think about and enact change has given me the hope to say: Yes!

Two months after I turn thirty, I will vote for Kerry and celebrate his victory. I feel passionately however that our capitalist patriarchy, by its very structure, blots out democracy and must die or we all will. Democrat leaders are loyal to this system and chip away the ideals we entrust them with, pandering to corporate puppeteers. I do not accept that the two-party system is the best we can do. I believe that we can make it our common goal to create a better system. For those who want a united front against Bush, telling others to wait until after the election to vociferously demand civil rights for queers or protection of reproductive choice I say: join me at the draft table on November 3rd. Let’s put everything we know and everything we feel into a synergy with more potential than “anybody but Bush.” Until then, I’ll meet you on the street.