People who care about the world and what we're doing to it are getting buckets of advice this year on who to vote for in the November presidential election, generally from the perspective of "You should vote for X candidate because he'll be better for the environment." I’d like to offer you a different way of thinking about this issue. You see, even though I have an earnest desire to save the world, and am a member of several green groups, I don’t plan to vote in this November’s national elections – but not for any of the usual reasons people don't vote. I think it just might be worth your time to learn what my UNusual reasons are, whatever choice you end up making in a couple months.

I assume that I don’t need to spend much time here telling you why I won’t be voting for George W. Bush. G.W.B. has demonstrated again and again in his past that his values are corporate values, and his presidential campaign has made it quite clear that his allegiance to Big Business hasn’t weakened. Let’s face it – other than name recognition, that’s just about the only reason he’s a “credible” (Read: “He’s been able to raise a lot of corporate money.”) candidate for president. He certainly doesn’t have much of a record of accomplishment, either in his private or his public life, to campaign on.

I’m going to spend even fewer words explaining my reasons for not voting for Al Gore. It’s as simple as this: Gore talks sustainability out of one corner of his mouth and economic growth out of the other. You can’t have both, and the last eight years of Clinton-Gore have more than adequately demonstrated which will be Gore’s highest priority if elected.

This should come as no surprise to any of us. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will field a candidate for president who hasn’t been vetted by the corporate power structure, because both parties want to actually WIN the election (to the winners go the spoils, after all) and they’re convinced they need corporate money to do that. Need I say more?

Am I claiming that it makes no difference whether Gore or Bush becomes president? Absolutely not. As far as I’m concerned it makes a great deal of difference, and the difference it makes is this: A Gore presidency would be WORSE for the world.

How can that be? Because people who aren’t paying much attention, or who don’t understand just how close to the edge of the precipice we are (if we haven’t already gone over), might be fooled into thinking the situation is well-in-hand if Gore becomes president. They might be lulled into thinking that “the environment” is being “protected,” so all is well and they can go right on living “the American Dream” (Read: “Nightmare.”).

Yes, that’s right, I proclaim it from the (metaphorical) mountaintop – I’d rather see Bush win this election than Gore. If that will help to convince people once and for all that we need to quit waiting for our “leaders” to stop the destruction of the world, then I’m rooting for Bush.

Of course, Gore is not the only candidate campaigning for the votes of people with an earnest desire to save the world. Most prominent among the others are Ralph Nader of the Green Party and John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party. Contrary to the wisdom of the punditocracy, I don’t think a vote for either of these folks is wasted because they aren't “credible” candidates (Read: “They’re too far ‘out there’ to raise much corporate money.”). No, I think a vote for either of these fellows is wasted because the people aren’t ready for their policies, which means they won’t get elected and they couldn’t accomplish what they advocate even if they somehow, miraculously, did.

However, as you may already know, other arguments are made in favor of voting for Nader or Hagelin. Many of their supporters point out that, even if they don’t have a chance of winning, and even if they couldn’t accomplish much if they did somehow win, voting for one or the other will “send a message.” They say it will send a message to the rest of America about the kind of change that we want to see happen here, and the kind of world we’re after.

All of which I find undeniably true, and that’s why I’ve been struggling with this perspective for some time now, trying to find a way to articulate clearly why I still won’t bring myself to vote for either of them. Yes, voting for Hagelin or Nader DOES send a message that you’re sick of corporations running this country, and that you’re sick of streams that aren’t safe for swimming and air that chokes your lungs. It sends a message that you’re sick of our fossil fuel-dependent economy polluting the air and contributing to global warming, and that you’re sick of corporations selling us biotech food without even telling us about it. In short, voting for Hagelin or Nader sends a message that you’re sick of a lot of things I’M sick of, too.

Unfortunately, those aren’t the only messages your vote would send. The primary and most fundamental message a vote for Nader or Hagelin would send is that YOU BELIEVE THESE THINGS YOU’RE SICK OF CAN TRULY BE MADE BETTER BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PASSING LAWS AND WRITING REGULATIONS TO FORCE CHANGE TO HAPPEN. Which is no problem – if you believe that, vote to your heart's content. The thing is, it doesn’t matter whether or not you ACTUALLY believe it. When you vote, and therefore participate in the creation of the next government of the United States, this is the message you send whether you want to or not.  It’s implicit in the voting act itself. This is the line I refuse to cross. I won’t cross it because I don’t believe that, and I don’t believe it because the evidence seems to me to support the opposite conclusion.

The way I see it, massive centralized government is one of the biggest contributors to the global crisis we face here, and I can’t see any way it can be made into an agent for genuine positive change. Electing more “enlightened” people wouldn't change things at a deep level because the problem is systemic, not atomistic. In other words, the government isn’t mucked up because lousy individual politicians are in office.  Lousy individual politicians are in office because the SYSTEM is inherently mucked up. Replacing the worst of the politicians might well improve things some in the short run, but that path offers no hope for fundamental change, in my opinion. Here’s why:

There are (at least) two flaws in our federal government that simply cannot be repaired. First, it’s far too large to function as government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” There are 270 million or so citizens of the United States now, and 435 congresspeople in the House of Representatives. Dividing that out, each congressperson is allegedly “representing” over 600,000 people. Is it any wonder people feel out of touch with the government? As if that wasn’t lopsided enough, try dividing us up by 100 senators, or do the real easy math for ONE president.

Because our elected representatives aren’t physically capable of ACTUALLY representing all of us, they end up representing the small number of folks who manage to gain access to them. And who are the folks who gain the most of this limited access? They are the rich and the powerful, or their lobbyists, of course. That doesn’t come as any surprise to you, does it?

Which brings us to the second inherent flaw. When power becomes massively centralized, it is, by definition, concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people. In the case of our alleged “representative democracy,” the small number of elected representatives makes it ever so easy for the rich and powerful to buy the kind of government they want through campaign contributions. There’s really no way to get around this. We could try to change the campaign finance laws, but even if we convince our bought representatives to vote against the interests of their buyers, the buyers would just find ways around the new laws like they found ways around the old ones. Campaign finance reform addresses symptoms, not causes, so it ultimately is incapable of making things better at a fundamental level.

As long as power is centralized on a large scale, it’s inevitably going to be out of touch with the needs and desires of the masses. This is true both because of its size and because a very small number of people end up making decisions which have enormous impacts on very large numbers of people. If we really want to save the world, we have to stop giving away our power to both Big Business AND Big Government. The more evenly power is distributed among the people, the happier we all will be and the greater our chances for saving the world will be.

What it ultimately comes down to for me is my conviction that hierarchical government (in which power is exercised by the few even if they’re nominally elected by the many) is an obstacle to be removed, not a tool to be used. Removed over time, mind you, as the need for a counterweight to the power of Big Business diminishes, but removed all the same. I don’t want to see Big Government disappear overnight, but I also don’t want to do anything that will make it bigger and stronger now and, consequently, a more difficult obstacle to remove in the future.

My hope for the future doesn’t lie in a revolution that takes the power at the tip of the hierarchical pyramid out of the hands of the “bad guys” and puts it into the hands of the “good guys” (as if it’s ever that clear cut). No, my hope lies in a revolution that frees me (and lots of other folks) from the pyramid entirely. As I see it, voting in national elections can only strengthen the pyramid, and that I will not do.

I would oppose massive centralized government even if other people who see the world pretty much like I do were in control simply because of the concentration of power itself. Such a government might well be able to pass laws mandating the kind of change I’d like to see, but until the people are ready for these changes no law can make them happen. When the people are ready – IF they ever are, no laws will be necessary to make the changes happen.

How do we get people ready? We TEACH them into readiness, that’s how. People who can’t imagine there are ways to live that don’t destroy the world won’t be stopped from destroying it by any number of laws and regulations. People whose minds have been opened to happier, healthier and sustainable ways to live, on the other hand, won’t be stopped from changing their own lives in ways that just might save the world.

Some readers of an earlier version of this essay misunderstood my message to be "You should NEVER vote, under ANY circumstances, in ANY election - PERIOD." This is not what I'm saying at all, as I am by no means an all-or-nothing person (although I used to be before I understood there's no one right way to live). In this essay I've addressed specifically some of our "choices" in the current presidential election, and I've challenged the widespread conviction among "greenies" that we should focus on using the hierarchical federal government as a way to push the change we want to see. I am quite willing to concede that circumstances may exist at some time or in some places in which voting in a national election is better than not voting. I don't say "never," although I don't feel those conditions exist where I live right now.

It also seems to me that the closer a governmental body is to the people (and, therefore, the more truly representative it is capable of being), the more sense it makes to vote in its elections – generally speaking, of course.

The truth is that it doesn't much matter to me whether you decide to vote or sit out the November national elections after reading these words. The reason it doesn't much matter to me is that I didn't come here to convince you not to vote. No, I came here to convince you that we would be fools to count on – and WAIT FOR – our "leaders" to save the world, because they never will. Even if they really wanted to, they couldn't, because they aren't capable of saving the world. Saving the world is up to US, the people of the world, and no one else. If the world is saved, it'll be because WE saved it. If you understand this crucial point and still find some reason to head down to the polling station on November 7th, then please, by all means, vote to your heart's content.

Whichever choice you make, please keep in mind that, as always and forever, saving the world comes down to changing the minds of the people, one at a time. The sooner we focus our energies there and stop squandering them on trying to force people to change, the more likely it is we’ll actually save it.