Published in the Colorado Daily 10/25/91

REVOLVING DOOR by Evan Ravitz

Depressed? Get out and pull for democracy

Brilliant editing on page 11 of the Oct 18-20 Colorado Daily. The juxtaposition of the ad for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill featuring Lincoln: "Abraham Lincoln saved our Union while he endured mental illness" (he was depressive) with the article "Slavery Thrives": "there are more slaves now than ever before" really makes one think:

Who wouldn't be depressed being President while human bondage was destroying the country? And isn't Honest Abe rolling in his grave now with slavery thriving 125 years later? Even if it's economic more than legal slavery.

I feel anyone aware of US events is now depressed or in denial. The Thomas H-earings dramatize a country divided male against female, black against white, and especially, the rulers against the ruled.

As the stock market soars to record highs, banks and farms are failing faster than anytime since The Depression. This happened before- in 1929. As world population soars, the Bushmaster plots a "policy" of drilling, mining and cutting out the remaining resources of the country and using our position as the #1 military power on the planet to "control" (enslave?) the world

None of this can last. There is comic relief in seeing our new Justice as The Daily's Dr. Rock portrayed him, Long Dong Silver "rocking back and forth, like someone on the back ward in the state mental hospital." With folks like Orrin The Hatchet Man, Alan The Simpson and Arlen the Specter of Death co-starring, all versus Anita Hill, like a beautiful but damaged Mother Earth herself. What a show! Good symbolism!

World change is accelerating. Yet our government is either paralyzed or lurching toward Ollie North's Rex 84 plan for suspending the Constitution, instituting martial law, and establishing concentration camps for dissenters. This plan was revealed during the Iran-Contra hearings, but hushed up by Senator Inouye for "National Security" reasons.

We need a government that can change with the times. We need a "government of the people, by the people and for the people" that Lincoln spoke of. Not of, by and for just the rich and powerful. We need citizen democracy, the means of which is at hand- regular voting on the issues- the tool for which is the telephone.

That's why we started the Voting by Phone Foundation two years ago, right here in Boulder, first reported in the Daily.

We planned to have on the City ballot this November an initiative to legalize phone voting, but a lawyer helping us gratis didn't come through.

There are other lawyers and elections. We have 70 volunteers ready to pass petitions, enough for a City initiative. If we had 700, we could instead do a State initiative, which would be better for several reasons.

Students in Colorado, please help us start a network of volunteers all over the state to do this. Our new brochure tells all. If you're depressed it might make you manic! Not as funny as the Hearings. But real. Call 444-3596 for a free copy. Watch for it real soon on campus. With the picture of Lincoln on the cover.

Evan Ravitz is a Boulder resident and an advocate of Voting by Phone.