How Will You Vote?

Let your heart be open....let your heart decide.

Been spending so much time talking about the Voice to Parliament for our First Nation citizens in Australia. This has been done in person, on the phone doing call out for the Yes campaign, and the never-ending back and forth on Facebook.

First off, no one is going to find the answer or the truth in their social media feeds. The algorithm is going to feed you information that aligns with your bias.

The sadness wells up in me when I see people like Paul Kelly or Cathy Freeman post something from their hearts and people ripping them apart for either using their fame to express an opinion or saying they have been paid.

Then there are the voices of First Nation elders who will be voting “NO” and the voices of First Nation elders who will vote “YES”. If you get involved in a discussion about the referendum, someone is going to post a link to one of these videos.

This is all good information, and we need to listen and learn. To make an educated vote, it is vital to hear all sides of the debate.

I still hear my heart beating. It is telling me something.

I get tired of listening to the people who distrust the government, the ones who claim the Uluru Statement from The Heart has hidden pages, and others who claim this is all part of a New World Order and something is going to be taken away from all of us if we vote “YES”.

In my humble opinion, many of these people are cooked. Some are just misinformed. The government may not meet all of your ideals, but to say they are operating from the basis of ‘evil’ is simply nonsense.
And if you believe that, why do you accept their services without complaint in so many day-to-day ways?

My job during this campaign has been to educate people on where the facts are.

People can argue about the sources of their information until they turn blue in the face and when you question them or ask for links to their information they seem to fade away from the conversation online. Or they simply go onto some personal verbal attack that this is all virtue signaling or some other such nonsense.

I still hear my heart beating.

Giving a shit is hard work. Rolling in the shit is a waste of energy.

I have lived on this land for close to 40 years and have been an Australian citizen for near on 30 years.

Moving here from New York was not about leaving America for any political reason. It was about family and a change at the age of 27. Looking at the land of my birth, I understand that this turned out to be one of the best decisions in my life.

We have our problems here like any nation. What I do see here is that this nation has so much good in the heart and soul of the population.

I call Australia home now.

Sadness wells up in my soul when I wonder how can I continue to call someplace HOME if something as simple and heartfelt as The Uluru Statement and The Voice is not held with great care in the arms of the nation.

The Americanisation, for lack of a better word, of the politics and news coverage of something that should just be a stepping stone to Treaty has made this messy and very uncomfortable.

My heart is beating, and I can feel the rhythm.

The proposal for an Indigenous Voice to parliament is not going to solve all the issues that confront First Nation citizens in Australia.

We all know that.

What a YES result will show is that the citizens of this country have a bloody heart.

They understand that this is an acknowledgment of the original owners of this land and that their heart, soul, and law are a vitally important part of this land now called Australia. The culture of these original people can teach us so much.

My heart is beating like a drum.

There are so many voices.

There are as many voices as there are souls on this big ass island.

You can listen to them all. Listening is good.

But please read The Uluru Statement one more time.

Read it with your heart.

Listen to your heart.

Vote With Your Heart.