Sirius XM radio host Joe Madison on Day 38 of Hunger Strike for Voting rights.

This is an extraordinary story I just heard about, Sirius XM radio host Joe Madison is on a hunger strike until either the Freedom to Vote Act or the John Lewis Voting rights act is signed into law.  He is currently on Day 38 of his fast.

“Just as food is essential for the existence of life, voting is essential for the existence of democracy," 

I’ve always been inspired by stories of people who who do things that requires extraordinary will for the cause of justice. The courage and will power it takes is something I cannot always fathom.  I read once  about Ghandi talking about it. The word he used was Satyagraha 

Gandhi described it as follows:

Its root meaning is holding on to truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself

Like all of you I was exhausted by the Trump presidency but reading about this reminds me it is time to get off my ass. If this man can go 38 days without food  to save our Democracy I can get off my rear, make a few phone calls and start canvassing.  After all it’s Democracy at stake!