You Say You Want A Revolution? (We All Want To Change The World)

In the presidential election of 2000 Al Gore collected more votes than George Bush, but Bush won the election. And life went on.

In the popular vote Gore tallied 48.38% of the total votes nationwide and Bush tallied 47.87%, but U.S. Presidential elections aren't decided by counting the votes at the ballot box. Presidential elections are decided by earning electoral votes. The electoral college process is designed to ensure that each of the 50 states reserves their full voice in a national election, with each state having the number of votes that represents its proportional size of the national population. California had about 10% of the national population at the last census, so California owns 10% of the total electoral votes. In this way California is limited in its ability to affect the national election. If 75% of California's voters show up at the polls and all vote for Gore, that's a lot of popular votes in Gore's column, but he doesn't get more electoral votes because of it.

In 2000, with every state decided except for Florida, Gore had 266 electoral votes and Bush had 246. 270 were needed to win the election, so Florida's 25 electoral votes would decide the contest. At the end of the day, no one knew who had won. The first count showed Bush had won by only 2,000 votes. A recount the next day narrowed his lead to only 500 votes. Florida, at Gore's request, started a third count of the votes, this time inspecting ballots by hand and not mechanically. Gore's team argued that George Bush's brother, Jeb, the Governor of Florida had influenced the election by not allowing over 58,000 Floridian's to vote, most of them blacks and latinos who would favor Democrats. Ultimately the election wasn't decided until more than a month later, and it was decided when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the recount process to be stopped and the election results to be certified in Bush's favor.

And life went on.

It's an amazing thing that life went on. We were choosing who would be the most influential person on the planet for the next 4 years, the new leader of the free world. Americans woke up that morning of December 12th to read their papers over their morning coffee and find out how this decision had been decided by the courts, not the voters, and each of them got dressed and went to work, just like any other day. In most other parts of the world there would have been wide-spread rioting, demonstrations, and possibly revolution.

In December, 2007, Presidential elections were held in Kenya. The incumbent, Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU) was running against Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). As results came in during the day, it was clear that there was a huge shift of power under way. Out of 190 Ministers of Parliment defending their seats only 71 were re-elected. The ODM ended up winning 115 seats in Parliment out of 207, and the PNU only won 43. As it became clear that the results were going against him, Kibaki ordered the media to stop reporting election results. 2 days later the election commission declared Kibaki the winner by about 2% of the total votes and he was sworn in immediately. Odinga protested that the results were obviously fraudulent and all hell broke loose. Life did not go on.

Kenya, like much of Africa, is still very tribal. Kibaki was Kikuyu and Odinga was Luo. While the Luo are one of the more populous tribes in Kenya, the Kikuyu have traditionally been the more priviliged group. Odinga called on his Luo supporters to protest the results and they did; Not by signing petitions or holding a candle-light vigil in front of the Presidential mansion, but by rioting and taking out their aggressions on their Kikuyu neighbors with their pangas (machetes). All across Kenya from the agricultural regions in the West to the large cities of Nairobi and Mombasa violent rioting was carried out. Bands of panga-wielding men wandered the alleyways of Nairobi's slum neighborhoods attacking Kikuyu when they found them, dragging them out of matatu taxis and chasing them through the streets. Homes and businesses were burned. A church in Western Kenya sheltering 200 Kikuyu was set on fire, killing 35 inside. In the end, over 800 people were killed and over 600,000 were displaced in the month of violence.

But here in America in December of 2000 life went on. Why did the people of America not rise up in anger? Why did the tribal Democrats not strike out at the tribal Republicans? Why didn't a tide of angry people descend on Florida and sieze the ballots from the state elections office? What does it take to incite the apathetic people of America to rise up against their government?

Maybe nothing will ever incite the American people to such passion, and that's dangerous. This country was founded in revolution against the British monarchy. George Washington and the other founding fathers of our nation were officers in the British army and sworn to their king. When they decided to declare independence from Britain, they knew that their actions were treason. If they failed in their efforts they would have been hung as traitors and ended up not even a minor footnote in some British history text. It takes amazing courage to stand up against your country, a courage that America lacks today.

Our founding fathers understood that the government should serve the people, and that the people should be able to change a government that doesn't represent them. The Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. States can form militias and individuals can protect themselves. Our representative government was formed in a way that the people could peaceably overturn an unpopular government by election, but allowed for the populace to wrest it away by more forcible means if necessary. Sadly, Americans have lost their will to exercise this power.

I am not advocating violence. I don't call on the people of America to rise up and throw the bum out of the White House by violence. I, too, have sat idly by. I knew that the Florida election results were probably rigged (by both sides) and I did nothing about it. I felt (and still feel) that our invasion of Iraq was lawless, foolish, and would cause irreparable harm to the United States, and I went to work the next day. I didn't feel that my one voice would make any difference, so I did nothing.

Peaceful change of government is something that we take for granted here in America, and it's a wonderful thing. In 60 years of independent rule the 53 nations of Africa have only had a peaceful change of government by election a handful of times. Coup, corruption and violent dictatorship are the rule, even today. I don't wish that on our nation.

Protest is organic, not manufactured. One voice alone, standing on a soap box in the middle of the street will go unnoticed, but if everyone with a grievance goes out alone into the street, they might find themselves surrounded by the supporting voices of all the others who feel the same. We don't need to wait for the first Tuesday in November every fourth year to add our one voice to the din at the ballot box. Americans owe it to their country to make their voice heard whenever there is something worth saying.

Just because Americans have lost the will to rise up in arms against their government doesn't mean that we shouldn't rise up at all. Make your voice heard.