I lived through 12 years of the Reagan/Bush presidencies. It was a formative time for me. I was going to high school during the first Reagan term. I started college elbow-to-elbow with frat boys wearing "Reagan for President" buttons in 1984. I started my first low-paying clerical job as Bush took office. I became part of the surge of local activism over the Gulf War in 1991, which brought tens of thousands of people out into the streets of Seattle.

The next time 50,000 people took over the streets of this city it was to protest a Clinton policy. I was downtown on December 1, 1999, the day Clinton flew in and out of Seattle to support the WTO; the millennial trade round was to be a centerpiece of Clinton's foreign policy.

So I have to ask all the progressives who've been urging me and others like me to vote for Gore:

Have you forgotten? NAFTA? GATT? MAI? Fast-track trade authority? The Salvage Logging Rider? Privatization of public utilities and the public airwaves? Don't ask, don't tell? The broken promise of universal access to health care? The bombing of Yugoslavia? Iraq sanctions that have killed more people than the Khmer Rouge killed in Cambodia? Welfare reform that's dumped women and children on the streets and denied them access to Medicare? A so-called "booming economy" that has allowed a few techies to bid up the housing market and the stock market, while the rest of us struggle to get by on less money and higher debt loads?

I remember. Yet, I must be the only one. Surely I'm experiencing a hallucinatory nightmare and can't wake up. I have in my hands a host of appalling statistics:

--Roe v. Wade: Roe v. Wade is dead for most women in America, who simply can't find abortion doctors or afford the procedure. (As a senator, Gore voted to deny funding for abortions for low-income women.) The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that 105 newborns were abandoned in public places in 1998, compared to 65 in 1991. Infanticide is beginning to replace abortion as a means of birth control.

--The economy: the dot-com bubble has burst; announcements of lay-offs are an everyday occurrence. Bankruptcy filings continue to grow; they rose 2% in September, a faster rate than anyone predicted. Most of those going bankrupt are people living on credit card debt. Health care costs are skyrocketing and businesses are dropping their health care plans right and left. Uninsured America is beginning to include an increasing number of middle class folks. Inflation is here: fuel prices, clothing prices, housing costs, and even food prices are up.

--Social Security and the elderly: tell me why 5.6 million men and women over the age of 55 are living in abject poverty RIGHT NOW under Clinton/Gore. More than two-thirds of that total are women.

--The environment: there's a reason why Gore is losing the western states. The evidence is right in front of our eyes. We've seen the trees disappear from our national forests. The salmon are almost gone. We can't see Mount Rainier through all the car exhaust. The weather is fucked: we have long droughts with no rain, followed by deluges that wash away our homes and roads.

--Foreign policy: how can a man who has supported mass murder in the Middle East that is fast approaching the scale of the Nazi Holocaust possibly deserve my vote? I will take the nitwit, instead, thank you. End the Iraq sanctions. Now, now, now, now! Under Clinton/Gore the U.S. has become the undisputed leader in arms exports: "The United States increased its share of the international arms trade last year, and now accounts for nearly 50% of the $53.4 billion annual market ... Much of these weapons systems were supplied to the Middle East, the world's biggest arms market." (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 10/26/00, p. 7.)

--Supreme Court justices: Gore cannot appoint a judge to the Supreme Court without the Senate's confirmation. Period. The makeup of the Senate has more impact on the selection process than the president's own leanings. And, knowing that Gore is a liar, I don't trust Gore's leanings one bit.

In truth, there is only one mildly persuasive reason why people might vote for Gore instead of Nader. And that's George Bush, Jr. I, personally, hate the man. Until this week, I didn't have such strong negative feelings about Gore or the Democrats.

But now I hate the Democrats more. Every evening this week, I've come home to a phone message left on my answering machine by a different Hollywood star reminding me that "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush." Not a single one of these messages even mentions Gore's name. There's obviously nothing that can possibly attract me to vote for Gore. Only fear could possibly motivate me to vote for him.

Fear is what motivates people to vote for dictators in third world countries. Well, to hell with fear! I'm angry, and the Democrats have made me so.

I'm ready to vote for Bush. Right now. I have no fear of him; I've lived through worse. And much of that "worse" was during the Clinton/Gore years. This election has disgusted me so deeply that I'm nearly ready to promise that I'll never vote for another Democrat in any national, state, or local race, regardless of that person's policies or character.

But, wait...there's this other guy. A vote for him is not reactive or destructive. It's constructive.

It's only a first step, however. If I vote Nader now, I make a promise to volunteer tomorrow. If I vote Green today, I give my energy to build a third party in 2001, 2002, 2003 and a viable presidential candidate in 2004. No other party can or will accept my input the way the Green party, built on a consensus model, can.

I won't throw away my vote on Gore, or on Bush.

And if Bush wins? Fine. I'll take Bush for president now--and I'll take him on, toe-to-toe, afterwards. It'll be a clean fight in the streets. And I'll never have to whine: "I can't believe I voted for this asshole."