I'm from the UK. I'm a citizen of the UK, which means a citizen of the world and, in 2008, it seemed that the leadership of the free world was heading Republican again, I came to this site and listened and learned and joined in the discussions where it seemed sensible (and sometimes when it wasn't - language is a weird thing - I learned most how differently we use it on both sides of the Atlantic) - and I did everything I reasonably could to support Barack Obama's election - no funding, but sending videos to all my friends to raise their popularity, sending minor news items to major news outlets, sending snippets from small blogs (which sometimes became big blogs later) to the already-big blogs, arguing with bloggers who could see reason...
and Obama won.
Now we need your help. This is your mission should you choose to accept it:
So... We're having an election. We have a sordid, obsolete, disaster of an electoral system that frequently lets in monstrously powerful governments on a tiny minority of the vote, but the last two weeks have seen a change and it's possible that we might - just might - make a breakthrough where the most progressive of the 3 main parties* - the Liberal Democrats - will win enough votes, if not enough seats, to give it a moral right to have a hand in the government (note, our system is entirely different to yours, but that's for a different diary)
We may even win, though I doubt it. The most likely event is that neither of the main two parties gains a majority with which to govern - the ultra-right Tories (who are pretending to be the new Democrats - David Cameron clearly thinks of himself as the new Obama, which would be funny if it weren't so sad. Most of his policies could have been written by Rove and Cheney) and the slightly-less-right-wing Labour party - the old socialists who were dragged ever right-wards by Blair.
This is called a 'hung' parliament by those who hate it and a 'balanced' parliament by those of us who are working hard to make it happen. And part of the reason we are working hard, is that a key plank of Lib-Dem policy is the introduction of proportional representation - whereby this could never happen again - and whereby there would no longer be any such thing as a 'wasted vote'. This would transform UK politics, I think for the better. Something has to.
I have to say I thought it was impossible until the first TV debate when Nick Clegg had a chance to speak unimpeded for one third of the 90 minute 3-way debate and was heard by a great many people who loathe the main two parties and were desperate for a change.
Murdoch's SKY news - our local equivalent of FOX - hosted the second debate and, predictably, used every trick in the Rovian playbook to make Clegg look bad, from cutting away every time he spoke, while lingering lovingly on Cameron's face, to an illegal question by the adjudicator, to a poll taken while Clegg was giving his astonishing, eloquent closing address which (surprise) showed Cameron squeaking ahead in the idiotic question of who had 'won'.
But still, the game has changed and one of the key agents of change is a facebook group set up by the man who managed to get Rage Against the Machine to number one instead of Simon Cowell's manufactured pulp. We have 147,000 members in just over a week, which may not sound much, but is huge for UK politics. It may become the MoveOn of the UK - certainly there's a groundswell of enthusiasm that nobody has seen before.
BUT - we only have 10 days before the election.
So - if you're willing to help, one thing that would be immensely useful is if you could click on this this YouTube video - and send it to anyone and everyone you know. If it goes viral, it'll make an impact on the MSM, and then on people who don't even know what YouTube is (which is a scary amount of the people I'm meeting on doorsteps - a lot of whom have 'decided not to vote because it doesn't make a difference'.
So - go to it. If you can. If you have time. If you're prepared to help us reach democracy.
*The Greens are the most progressive party, but they don't stand an earthly chance of winning more than two seats. One would be the first, at least in Westminster