Election Eve Almost

I can only hope that this election will be the beginning of a political period of some hope. My partner believes that things will need to get "very bad" to the point that we have major societal upheaval and change to make things better. I find that scenario wrong, because I think the result of such a state would be more likely a dictatorial-facist state, rather than a progressive one.

Obviously it will make a huge difference if the Democrats have majority status in one or both of House or Senate. I agree with my partner that: "not as bad" as opposed to: "good" is not a long-term solution to our major problems. I also believe that the current strategies kill and destroy the lives of far too many people in the U.S. and other parts of the world.

IF the Democrats should regain some power I hope that they will begin the slow process of many issues including:

1.) Abuses of Executive Power of the Bush Administration - ending or limiting actions by Bush and his cohorts which allow for the creation of tacit laws or ignoring laws that they don't like, administrative processes which ignore precedent and the law, etc.

2.) Electoral Reform - to end the buying of elections - very important - very hard to get changed,

3.) National Health Insurance - very hard to get, but getting the talking going again at least,

4.) Moving towards if not totally ending the U.S. military presence in Iraq,

5.) Helping make future military adventures less likely to happen,

6.) Helping end the polarization of our body politic - working to bridge the gap with Evangelical Christian forces and stop the scapegoating of Gays/Lesbians and others

7.) Ending the tax give-aways to the rich and starting to build towards a more progressive tax structure in general

Thanks!