Prayer for Us

Pronoia Therapy

Prayer Warriors Standing By

Listen to Rob's Expanded Audio Horoscopes, updated weekly.

To all of you Nader voters who responded with passionate outrage at my decision to vote for Gore, I say thank you!

I especially want to express my gratitude to those of you who disagree with me but who have been kind and respectful in expressing your vehement opposition.

I admit it is harder for me to feel appreciation for those of you who have called me chickenshit, cowardly, fascist and a host of other curses. But I'm working on it. (I haven't had this much hatred slung at me since my time in Durham, North Carolina in the mid-1970s, when white Southern guys in passing cars were fond of throwing bottles at me and shouting "Hippie Commie faggot!" as I walked down the street.)

Now I'd like to express a few thoughts in response to your outpouring.

1. I am a member of the Green Party, I pledge my passionate creativity to build it as a viable third party, and I deeply respect anyone who has busted his or her ass working in behalf of the Green Party's beautiful values. Though I'm going with Gore for president, I'm voting for Medea Benjamin, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senator, and Justo Moscoso, Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives, in my home state of California.

2. I want to have my cake and eat it too: Let's both elect Gore and ensure that the Green Party amasses over five percent of the national vote, thereby qualifying it for Federal funding. If you share my good greed and live in a state where the race between Bush and Gore is still up for grabs, please consider voting for Gore in exchange for a Gore supporter in a Gore- assured state voting for Nader. Go here for details: www.nadertrader.org; also, www.commondreams.org

3. If you want to know the truth, even the Green Party is a long way from being my perfect political body. Where, oh where, is the political party that lobbies on behalf of my Tantric Pagan Sufi Qabalist Hedonist Jungian Macho-Feminist Pronoiac agenda? It doesn't exist!

If I voted my pure conscience, if I acted solely on the basis of what my soul longs for and believes in, I would write in the name of Starhawk, the Wiccan high priestess, for president. Or perhaps Hakim Bey, the spiritual anarchist who calls himself a poetic terrorist. I regret to say that Ralph Nader is just about as far from their head space as Al Gore is.

Does Ralph ever splurge in three-hour tantric love-making sessions in which he utters fervent prayers of blessing to his friends and foes alike and vows to do all he can to restore the worship of the Goddess? And will he pledge to represent these values and this way of life in the White House? Will he institute even one item on MY political wish list, like my desires to stop the global genocide of the imagination or to have childbirth be broadcast live in prime time TV every night or to fight for a consitutional amendment that guarantees all Americans will be rewarded financially in direct proportion to how much beauty they create?

I doubt it very much. And these are just a few of my values that Ralph does not support. Which is why a vote for him, like a vote for Gore, is a big compromise for me.

But more than that: If I voted my soul and my conscience, I wouldn't vote at all! Because to me the world that the politicians have made is a Hell Realm in which all the questions asked are the wrong ones; in which all the issues are formulated in ways that have nothing to do with the reality I live in and love. For me, even voting itself is a galling, gut-wrenching compromise that is a violation of my deepest spiritual values. It ratifies a Nightmare I don't believe in.

4. If you're one of those furious venom-spewing Nader voters who has accused me of crimes against humanity, please meditate on the possibility that behavior like this harms the very values you espouse. Consider, too, that it tends to reinforce the theory -- articulated by staunch leftist writers like Todd Gitlin and Eric Alterman -- that the Nader revolution ain't going anywhere because it won't or doesn't know how to reach out to people who have slightly different agendas -- like African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, mainstream environmentalists and gays and feminists, and labor union members.

Finally, if you are going to call me a fascist chickenshit, please also use those names for the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the wonderfully feisty lefty columnist Molly Ivins, and Senator Paul Wellstone, the sole Commie pinko in the Senate, all of whom are also advocating a vote for Gore.

5. In my opinion, we have the best chance to build our revolution if we do it from the ground up in a thousand different small ways, and don't get confused into thinking we can have any effect on the top down. Let's work to translate Nader's compassionate, intelligent values into the way we deal with everyone we meet day by day, even as we kick the asses of the ruling class in our city halls, our state governments, and our local corporations, school boards, and labor unions.

With love,
Rob