America’s Wake-Up Call — Voting & Voters — Part III

Posted on October 21, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Election 2020, Jeff & Jill's Project, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

In Two weeks ago, we looked at the reasons people give for not voting, and in last Wednesday’s post, we looked at the demographics … who isn’t voting, and why. When we put those two together, we see why some people aren’t voting, for the system is designed to make it difficult for them. In this, the final post on voters not voting, we will look at some ways to effect change. There are actually three distinct groups of non-voters: those who are at least partly disenfranchised, for whom the system has made voting a difficult task, those who are either too lazy or apathetic to stir themselves to vote. The solutions are different for each of these groups, so we need to look at them separately. But first, a disclaimer. There is no panacea, no simple, single solution that will all of a sudden solve the problem of nearly half the eligible voters failing to vote. We must find a multitude of small steps that all contribute toward bringing us closer to the goal.

Registration

The first step in the process of voting is to register. At present, the onus for registering lies solely with the voter. Every state’s registration rules are a bit different. In 37 states, one can register online, but in the other 13, registration must be done in person. For many, this means taking time off work, and possibly difficulties finding transportation. Online registration is a great idea, but it needs to be made well-known to all, for many are not aware that it is possible, or how to begin the process.There are ways to remind people: workplaces and churches could place posters reminding people to register and listing places, such as DMV as well as the website. Schools could send home flyers reminding parents to register. And to be really proactive, districts could mail registration forms to all homes in the district. Another, even better idea is automatic registration, such as is used in countries like Canada and Germany where voter turnout rates are in the 90 percentile range. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “Eleven states and the District of Columbia have already approved automatic voter registration, and 19 states have introduced automatic registration proposals in 2018. In addition, the New Jersey Legislature passed automatic voter registration on April 12th, and the bill is awaiting Governor Phil Murphy’s signature.”

Registration may well be half the battle and some combination of the above ideas would likely have a significant impact on voter turnout.

The Disenfranchised

This group consists of people who are typically lower income or minorities, for whom just getting through the day and feeding their family is hard. State regulations have made the process of voting harder for these people by closing polling stations in their neighborhoods, shortening the hours of polling stations, and requiring a driver’s license or other state-issued identification that they may not have. The solution is simple, right? But with the repeal of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, there is no longer a requirement for federal oversight, and the states are largely free to do whatever they want, within certain boundaries. Section 5 needs desperately to be reinstated, but that will not likely happen soon, if ever. Meanwhile?

With a republican majority in Congress, it is unlikely that legislation to help make voting easier for the disenfranchised would fly, for those it would benefit are more likely to vote for a democrat. One partial solution is what happened in Pennsylvania recently, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state’s district map must be re-drawn in order to be more fair. The ruling was unsuccessfully challenged by republican lawmakers, and the map has been redrawn. While gerrymandered maps are not technically a barrier to voting, in the sense that they may cause polling stations to be farther from a person’s home or workplace and thus require greater travel time, the reality is that they can be a barrier. I would like to see the Supreme Courts in every state follow the lead of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

One thing that many of us can do is actually help people get to their polling places. There are many volunteers who spend the entire election day driving elderly people and others without transportation to and from the polling stations. A reader of this blog left me this comment when I first published this post in April 2018:

“I have a listing of homeowners and rental units in the town in which I live..and together with other “ladies” from the Resist Movement in OK, go door to door and hand out voter registration papers..we will offer to assist in filling them out, and we then offer a ride to the polling places on voting days. You’d be amazed how many do not vote because they thought they “weren’t allowed to vote” after having misdemeanor convictions!”

I just wanted to hug this lady!!! She is doing something to make the world a better place, and to her, my thumbs are all up!

Other measures that have proven helpful in getting voters to the polls include:

Early voting, which allows any qualified voter to cast a ballot during a specified period prior to the actual election day.
Absentee voting, whereby voters may request an absentee ballot and return it either by mail or in person, with or without an excuse. Presently, 27 states and the District of Columbia allow absentee voting without needing an excuse, 20 others require an excuse.
All-mail voting, where a ballot is automatically mailed to every eligible voter (no request or application is necessary). Three states, Oregon, Washington and Colorado currently use all-mail voting. Funny story about this … I periodically make comments to my girls about projects I am working on, usually unsolicited and out of the blue. As I was working on this one, I asked the girls if they were aware that 3 states actually had all-mail voting. Daughter Chris’ jaw dropped to the ground, thinking I meant “all-male” voting!

Voter Apathy

Those who are simply either too lazy, don’t care, don’t like the candidates, or believe that it is a lost cause, may be the most challenging to get to the polls. To do so will require a plethora of different things, starting with voter education, and involving large amounts of motivating and inspiring techniques. Unfortunately, these constitute the largest group, some 65% of all the non-voters. This translates into roughly 58.2 million people!

While I personally believed … still believe … that Hillary Clinton would have been a good president, I admit that she came with some baggage, and was not a particularly ‘lovable’ candidate, did not run an inspired campaign. Thus, in 2016, it is understandable that many did not like either candidate. But how to convince these people that it is better to vote for the lesser of two evils than to simply shrug their shoulders and stay at home watching television?

I think the starting point must be in education. According to Donald Green, a political scientist at Columbia University in New York City, it is up to parents and teachers to stress just how important it is. Common sense, yes?

I don’t know the answers, but somehow we must find ways to convince these 58.2 million people that their vote counts, that they make a difference, but not sitting home on their patooties. Talk to friends who say they don’t care. Join a volunteer group that is going door-to-door talking to people. Sport a t-shirt with your favourite candidate (I still wear my Obama t-shirt!!!), put a bumper sticker on your car. Help people to better understand the issues, the candidates.

A recent quote I saw in the New York Times seems apropos:

To many African-American voters in Alabama, Cecil said, “Donald Trump is the living embodiment of the idea that voting doesn’t matter.” Trump is profoundly unfit to be a president — a congenital liar and racist who lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. And yet president he is.

This is, I think, one of the biggest hurdles, and while I disagree with the thought process, I understand it.

Conclusion

Given our current system, we will not likely achieve 90% turnout, but I think we can damn well do better than 56%, especially given that those who voted in 2016 were a majority of wealthy, white people, leaving behind a large portion of the citizens, equally important citizens, of this nation. Because of the results, we have all but lost our voice in our government. Sure, you can write and call your members of Congress, but I haven’t had a personalized response yet, and I’m never even sure if they hear, but I’m sure they don’t care. Until November 3^rd, and then they will care. We must send a message, but in order to do so, we all need to speak. Let’s help make sure more people vote this year. Let’s all do a few things within our own circle of friends, family & neighbors:

Make sure they are registered. If they aren’t offer to help with filling out forms, taking them to register if they cannot do so online.
Help them understand the issues and what each candidate stands for.
Keep talking about how very important it is that everyone get out and vote, without necessarily pushing a specific candidate.
Volunteer to drive people to the polling stations on November 3^rd.

It is up to We The People, for we cannot rely on the government to work toward increasing voter turnout. We need some new blood … let’s make it happen, folks!

America’s Wake-Up Call — Table of Contents

Discord & Dissension — Table of Contents

America’s Wake-Up Call – Voting & Voters — Part II

Posted on October 14, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Election 2020, Jeff & Jill's Project, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Last Wednesday, we began with Part I of our three-part reprisal from earlier posts in February & March. One of the biggest hurdles to free and fair elections in this country are those who don’t vote for one reason or another. It is always important, for our vote is our voice, but this year so much is riding on the election in November that we felt it was important … nay, critical … to re-post this series about why people don’t vote.

Only 67% of all eligible voters are even registered to vote. That is only two out of every three adults. In last week’s post, we looked at the reasons people gave for not voting, some of which were ludicrous, such as “forgot”, “weather”, and “too busy”. But there are some legitimate reasons that people do not vote. To understand these, I think it is important to look at some of the demographics of the non-voters.

Race

Among white voters, 73.5% of eligible voters did actually vote in 2016. But minorities were much less likely to vote, with only 69.7% of African-Americans, 59.4% of Latinos, and the lowest group being Asians at 55.3%.

Age

Not surprisingly, the percentage of eligible voters who vote increases with age:

Age 18 to 24 58.5%

Age 25 to 34 66.4%

Age 35 to 44 69.9%

Age 45 to 54 73.5%

Age 55 to 64 76.6%

Age 65 to 74 78.1%

Age 75 or older 76.6%

But, after the February 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting, the percentage of young voters voting took a significant leap in the 2018 mid-term elections.

Education

There is absolutely nothing surprising in this set of statistics:

Less than high school graduate 50.5%

High school graduate 64.1%

Some college 75.3%

Bachelor’s degree 81.2%

Advanced degree 85.8%

Income

Again, no real surprises here:

Less than $20,000 63.7%

$20,000 to $29,999 67.1%

$30,000 to $39,999 71.1%

$40,000 to $49,999 72.6%

$50,000 to $74,999 78.2%

$75,000 to $99,999 81.9%

$100,000 and over 79.6%

While this one isn’t surprising, it is disturbing, for the very people who most need fairness from our government are the least likely to vote to make a difference.

Taken together, when we look at the demographics, look at who is and who isn’t voting, is it any wonder that we currently have a government that is “Of the wealthy white people, By the wealthy white people, and For the wealthy white people”? They are the ones who vote!

All of the above statistics are understandable when put into context. There are a number of things that have led to the disenfranchisement of lower income and minority voters. Consider gerrymandering, redistricting states so that most minorities are grouped into as few as districts as possible so as to be given a much weaker voice than their white counterparts. I have shared this graphic before, but it is still the clearest, most understandable explanation of how gerrymandering can change the outcome of an election:And then there are the various efforts by many states to make it more difficult for lower income and minorities to vote, such as shortening the hours that polls are open, and closing polling places in poorer or predominantly minority areas. Twenty states do not allow a person convicted of a felony to vote while serving a sentence or while on probation. Two states, Florida and Virginia, permanently disallow convicted felons voting privileges.

In some cases, voter I.D. may be difficult to obtain. Consider these cases:

A 96-year-old woman in Tennessee was denied a voter-ID card despite presenting four forms of identification, including her birth certificate. A World War II veteran was turned away in Ohio because his Department of Veterans Affairs photo ID didn’t include his address. Andrea Anthony, a 37-year-old black woman from Wisconsin who had voted in every major election since she was 18, couldn’t vote in 2016 because she had lost her driver’s license a few days before. – New York Times, 10 March 2018

In 1965, Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed into law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, perhaps the single most important piece of legislation to come from the Civil Rights movement. It eliminated certain barriers to voting, such as literacy testing and other requirements that denied many blacks the right to vote. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act precluded certain states and districts that had a history of disenfranchising blacks, from implementing any change affecting voting without receiving pre-approval from the U.S. Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for D.C. But in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 5 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. Chief Justice John Roberts said, essentially, that times had changed and the Court believed racial discrimination was no longer the problem it was in the 1960s. I wonder if he would still say that today? Almost immediately on the heels of this ruling, Texas announced new voter identification laws and redistricting maps. Other states in the South followed suit.

Referring back to last Wednesday’s post, we looked at some of the reasons people gave for not voting. When we look at the 6% who said they did not vote due to ‘registration problems’, or the 2.7% who claimed ‘inconvenient polling place’, or the 2.6% who said they had ‘transportation problems’, perhaps we can understand those reasons. Consider the single mom who is not allowed to take time off work, so she goes to vote after work. The polling station in her neighborhood closed last year, so she now has to take a bus to her new polling place 45 minutes away from where she works. Meanwhile, her children are home alone with nobody to cook their supper, or supervise them. What would you do?

It is obvious that there are some people who do not vote with good reason. We need to find solutions to the barriers for minorities and others who are truly disenfranchised. We also need to find ways to inspire and motivate those who make excuses not to vote, to convince them that their vote is crucial. And we need to make voting more accessible to all. In Part III, we will take a look at some things that may contribute to increasing the numbers of people who vote. There is no single panacea, but I believe there are a number of things that can be done at the federal and state levels, as well as by people like me and you, people who care about our country. Stay tuned …

America’s Wake-Up Call — Table of Contents

Discord & Dissension — Table of Contents

Heading into a Major Election Year…Without a Functioning Election Commission

Posted on August 18, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Re-blogs

Just when you think things can’t get much worse … we now find out that the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency tasked with ensuring that election laws are properly enforced in order to guarantee a fair and honest {cough, cough} election, is not able to do its job. Blogging friend Brendan has written a rather chilling post on a topic we should all be aware of. Yet another strike against our democratic processes. Thank you, Brendan, for this enlightening post, for I was unaware of this, as I’m sure some others were!

Blind Injustice

I am not one for hyperbole, but the 2020 Presidential election is extremely important. In addition to many local- and state-level races, the election will determine who will control Congress for the next two years, and who will occupy the White House for the next four years.

Heading into such consequential elections, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) would be a helpful tool in making sure that candidates for the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, Presidency, and Vice Presidency were not running afoul of federal campaign finance law.[1]

There’s one problem though—the FEC is not in a position to enforce federal campaign finance law heading into this. Why? Because the FEC needs at least four commissioners (out of six that could be in place) in order to enforce federal campaign finance law, and right now, the FEC is at…three commissioners. It was an issue noted the previous…

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The Week’s Best Cartoons 7/11

Posted on July 13, 2020 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, education, Election 2018, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs

I’m currently working on a two, possibly three-part series that isn’t quite ready for market yet, so meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy last week’s political cartoons. As always, TokyoSand has found some of the very best ones for us! Thank you, TS!

Political⚡Charge

Every week, I enjoy searching for editorial cartoons responding to the news and sharing them with you on Saturdays. This week, there are some recurring themes plus some new ones.

Do let me know which ones resonate the most with you in the comments!

Trump Orders Schools to Re-Open

Supreme Court Decisions

COVID

ByAndy Marlette, *Pensacola News Journal*

Election 2020

View original post 78 more words

And So It Begins …

Posted on April 8, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

I said in a recent post that the U.S. government needs to be getting off their collective asses and making sure that mail-in voting is available to every voter in every state. I questioned what, if anything, was being done toward that goal. Well guess what? You won’t be surprised to know that the Idiot-in-Chief has spoken out against this very thing!

“Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”

BULLSHIT.

The reason it ‘doesn’t work out well for republicans’ is that the only reason they win at the polls is because minority and poor voters are kept away from the polls by such disenfranchising measures as early poll closings, closing of polls in poor and minority neighborhoods, restrictive voter ID laws and other tricks of the trade. If every eligible voter is allowed to cast a vote on November 3^rd, Trump will go down in flames, as he should.

Listen to what he said at his Tuesday circus act …

“Mail ballots, they cheat, people cheat. Mail ballots are very dangerous thing for this country because they’re cheaters. They go and collect them. They’re fraudulent in many cases. The mail ballots are corrupt, in my opinion. You get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room signing ballots all over the place.”

If this jackass is allowed to have his way, we are doomed. Another four years of Donald Trump will relegate this nation to being called a “once democratic-republic turned autocracy”. If you don’t vote in November, my guess is that you will never get the chance to vote again.

Let’s take a look at some facts, instead of listening to an un-educated moron, shall we?

Multiple studies over the years have confirmed that there is no widespread voter fraud in this country. Additionally, Democratic and Republican state officials routinely oversee elections where millions of people vote-by-mail without systematic problems. An expansive study in 2017 from the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning think tank, found that the rate of voter fraud in the United States was somewhere between 0.00004% and 0.0009%.Voting-by-mail has become increasingly popular in US federal elections, and nearly a quarter of all voters cast mail ballots in 2016, according to the Election Assistance Commission. This year, the solid Republican state of Utah will conduct all-mail elections, which undercuts Trump’s claims.

In fact, the most recent example of absentee ballot fraud involved republican operatives in North Carolina who rigged an election for the House of Representatives in 2018. And … Trump cast an absentee ballot last month in the Florida Republican primary, per local reports. Asked about this contradiction, Trump said it was okay “because I’m allowed to” vote by mail. Say WHAT??? So, if he’s allowed to, why not the rest of us???

In Wisconsin yesterday, thousands of voters were not able to vote because of republican game-playing. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers had tried to postpone the states primaries and a large number of local elections, as most other states have done, but the state legislature, then the state Supreme Court, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the action. Worse yet, mail-in ballots were not sent to voters in time, and the U.S. Supreme Court blocked an action that would have allowed voters who had not yet received their mail-in ballots extra time. Only 5 polling places were open instead of the usual 180, and the people who did risk their lives to do their civic duty waited for hours in long lines. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned that their ruling …

“… will result in massive disenfranchisement. Either they will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety, or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own.”

How many people in Wisconsin were kept from voting by republicans afraid of losing an election? Thousands at least. Is this what we want to see happen on a national scale in November? It may well be what the republicans want, but it damn sure is not what the majority of people in this nation desire. It is not what the Founding Fathers intended in 1787 when they wrote that document called the U.S. Constitution, which has largely been shredded, trampled and burned over the last three years.

Folks, there are just under 7 months, exactly 209 days left until we are to go to the polls to elect a new president. We must elect a new president, for the current one belongs on the ash heap in the annals of history. And yet … if our elected representatives don’t get off their collective patooties and ensure that every eligible voter in every state has the ability to cast a vote by mail … we are doomed. Time for phone calls, emails, letters to the editor in your local paper. I know, you’re tired of it all and so am I, but this is too important to ignore. The futures of your children and grandchildren depend on this.

Voting is a privilege that not everybody in the world has. Appreciate it, please, don’t throw it away.

Discord & Dissension – Part IV (c) – Voting & Voters

Posted on February 2, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Jeff & Jill's Project, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

In Friday’s post, we looked at the reasons people give for not voting, and in Saturday’s post, we looked at the demographics … who isn’t voting, and why. When we put those two together, we see why some people aren’t voting, for the system is designed to make it difficult for them. In this, the final post of the week on voters not voting, we will look at some ways to effect change. There are actually two distinct groups of non-voters: those who are at least partly disenfranchised, for whom the system has made voting a difficult task, and those who are either too lazy or apathetic to stir themselves to vote. The solutions are different for each of these groups, so we need to look at them separately. But first, a disclaimer. There is no panacea, no simple, single solution that will all of a sudden solve the problem of nearly half the eligible voters failing to vote. We must find a multitude of small steps that all contribute toward bringing us closer to the goal.

Registration

Registration may well be half the battle and some combination of the above ideas would likely have a significant impact on voter turnout.

The Disenfranchised

With a republican majority in Congress, it is unlikely that legislation to help make voting easier for the disenfranchised would fly, for those it would benefit are more likely to vote democrat. One partial solution is what happened in Pennsylvania recently, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state’s district map must be re-drawn in order to be more fair. The ruling was unsuccessfully challenged by republican lawmakers, and the map has been redrawn. While gerrymandered maps are not technically a barrier to voting, in the sense that they may cause polling stations to be farther from a person’s home or workplace and thus require greater travel time, the reality is that they can be a barrier. I would like to see the Supreme Courts in every state follow the lead of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

I just wanted to hug this lady!!! She is doing something to make the world a better place, and to her, my thumbs are all up!

Other measures that have proven helpful in getting voters to the polls include:

Early voting, which allows any qualified voter to cast a ballot during a specified period prior to the actual election day.
Absentee voting, whereby voters may request an absentee ballot and return it either by mail or in person, with or without an excuse. Presently, 27 states and the District of Columbia allow absentee voting without needing an excuse, 20 others require an excuse.
All-mail voting, where a ballot is automatically mailed to every eligible voter (no request or application is necessary). Three states, Oregon, Washington and Colorado currently use all-mail voting. Funny story about this … I periodically make comments to my girls about projects I am working on, usually unsolicited and out of the blue. As I was working on this one, I asked the girls if they were aware that 3 states actually had all-mail voting. Daughter Chris’ jaw dropped to the ground, thinking I meant “all-male” voting!

Voter Apathy

A recent quote I saw in the New York Times seems apropos:

This is, I think, one of the biggest hurdles, and while I disagree with the thought process, I understand it.

Conclusion

Make sure they are registered. If they aren’t offer to help with filling out forms, taking them to register if they cannot do so online.
Help them understand the issues and what each candidate stands for.
Keep talking about how very important it is that everyone get out and vote, without necessarily pushing a specific candidate.
Volunteer to drive people to the polling stations on November 3^rd.

It is up to We The People, for we cannot rely on the government to work toward increasing voter turnout. We need some new blood … let’s make it happen, folks!

This concludes this week’s segment in three parts of Discord & Dissension. Jeff has been on vacation the last two weeks, but he is back home now and working diligently on Part V of our project that will be published on Friday … so stay tuned! Your comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Discord & Dissension – Part IV (b) – Voting & Voters

Posted on February 1, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Jeff & Jill's Project, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Only 67% of all eligible voters are even registered to vote. That is only two out of every three adults. In yesterday’s post, we looked at the reasons people gave for not voting, some of which were ludicrous, such as “forgot”, “weather”, and “too busy”. But there are some legitimate reasons that people do not vote. To understand these, I think it is important to look at some of the demographics of the non-voters.

Race

Age

Not surprisingly, the percentage of eligible voters who vote increases with age:

Age 18 to 24 58.5%

Age 25 to 34 66.4%

Age 35 to 44 69.9%

Age 45 to 54 73.5%

Age 55 to 64 76.6%

Age 65 to 74 78.1%

Age 75 or older 76.6%

But, after the February 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting, the percentage of young voters voting took a significant leap in the 2018 mid-term elections.

Education

There is absolutely nothing surprising in this set of statistics:

Less than high school graduate 50.5%

High school graduate 64.1%

Some college 75.3%

Bachelor’s degree 81.2%

Advanced degree 85.8%

Income

Again, no real surprises here:

Less than $20,000 63.7%

$20,000 to $29,999 67.1%

$30,000 to $39,999 71.1%

$40,000 to $49,999 72.6%

$50,000 to $74,999 78.2%

$75,000 to $99,999 81.9%

$100,000 and over 79.6%

While this one isn’t surprising, it is disturbing, for the very people who most need fairness from our government are the least likely to vote to make a difference.

In some cases, voter I.D. may be difficult to obtain. Consider these cases:

In 1965, Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed into law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, perhaps the single most important piece of legislation to come from the Civil Rights movement. It eliminated certain barriers to voting, such as literacy testing and other requirements that denied many blacks the right to vote. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act precluded certain states and districts that had a history of disenfranchising blacks, from implementing any change affecting voting without receiving pre-approval from the U.S. Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for D.C. But in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 5 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. Chief Justice John Roberts said, essentially, that times had changed and the Court believed racial discrimination was no longer the problem it was in the 1960s. Almost immediately on the heels of this ruling, Texas announced new voter identification laws and redistricting maps. Other states in the South followed suit.

Referring back to yesterday’s post, we looked at some of the reasons people gave for not voting. When we look at the 6% who said they did not vote due to ‘registration problems’, or the 2.7% who claimed ‘inconvenient polling place’, or the 2.6% who said they had ‘transportation problems’, perhaps we can understand those reasons. Consider the single mom who is not allowed to take time off work, so she goes to vote after work. The polling station in her neighborhood closed last year, so she now has to take a bus to her new polling place 45 minutes away from where she works. Meanwhile, her children are home alone with nobody to cook their supper, or supervise them. What would you do?

2nd Amendment Run Amok

Posted on January 19, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

You’ve most likely heard about the big gun rally planned at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond on Monday, but perhaps you don’t know all the who, why, and what-for of it.

Why?

You mean, apart from the fact that a handful of gun nuts care more about their right to own an arsenal than they care about their own children? Well, pull up a chair, my friends. After the 2018 elections when both chambers of the Virginia legislature flipped from a republican majority to a democratic one, one of the priorities was to pass some meaningful gun legislation. Now, it wasn’t as if they were banning assault weapons, or taking away people’s guns. The proposed legislation has only three parts:

Two things should be noted … First, 80% of the people in this country support gun regulations such as these, and Second, these are only common-sense measures … nothing that requires gun owners to give up their currently-owned guns, nothing that stops people from buying guns … simple, common-sense measures that might actually save a few lives.

But …

A group calling themselves ‘Virginia Citizen’s Defense League’, a misnomer if ever I’ve heard one, has taken umbrage. And thus, they are planning a rally at the State Capitol that has attracted the riff-raff and gun-toting scum in and outside of the state. The rally has drawn the attention of militia groups from as far away as Nevada and Oklahoma, including those tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

Others vowing to attend include individuals associated with the Light Foot Militia, some of whom were banned from Charlottesville after the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, which ended in the death of a counterprotester. Richard B. Spencer, a prominent white nationalist who is among 24 defendants in a lawsuit over the rally in Charlottesville, also said he might attend.

So far, Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam has declared a ‘state of emergency’ and banned guns from the capitol building and grounds, and the FBI has arrested three neo-Nazis linked to the ‘Base’, a group that aims to create a white ethnostate. Chatter picked up on Facebook and in chat rooms by the FBI indicates that various extremist organizations are calling Monday’s rally the “boogaloo.” In the lexicon of white supremacists, that is an event that will accelerate the race war they have anticipated for decades.

These people, folks, do NOT represent the population of the United States. They are an extreme minority, and yet …

“They are fanning the flames for this event. They want chaos.”

The three bills will almost certainly pass the legislature, and Governor Northam has already promised to sign them into law, and yet these gun-loving people (and I use the term ‘people’ loosely here) are determined to bring chaos into the capitol. If I had to guess, I would guess there will be violence and there will be injuries, if not deaths.

Let me quote for you the text, word for word, of that 2^nd Amendment they so love …

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Twenty-seven words. Nowhere does it say that every household should have the right to own a gun. Nowhere does it say that people have the right to own high-powered, automatic weapons that can mow down hundreds within minutes. Nowhere does it say that people have a right to keep an arsenal in their garages. The framers’ language was vague, but their intent was not. Their intent was not for John Doe to have the right to carry a gun into the grocery store and start shooting, nor for a family in the suburbs to keep a loaded pistol in their home. People have so broadly interpreted this that any law that has the word “firearm” in it automatically riles the gun-lovers. If I were given the task of making revisions to update the Constitution, the 2^nd Amendment and the electoral college would be on the chopping block.

Now, to add insult to injury, the fool that sits in the Oval Office felt a need to ring in on the subject. Now, as president, he might have used his office to call for calm, to call for the rally to be canceled, or to urge people to keep the protest peaceful, right? But noooooo … he tweeted …

“Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!”

This from the so-called “president” of a nation of 330 million people. Keep your eye on Virginia tomorrow, my friends, because this may well be a harbinger of things to come.

The Monsters Under My Bed

Posted on January 9, 2020 by jilldennison under cartoons, Election 2018, Election 2020, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Some nights, of late, there are monsters under my bed, just like when I was a child. Some nights, the nightmares are vivid and I wake up thinking that I am screaming, but not a peep is coming out of my dry throat. Given the things I write about, the things we all live with day-to-day, I suppose it’s no wonder.

Who knew a tweet …

Could cause such a stir? Here’s how it started …

U.S. Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona, a republican, posted this tweet

The image purports to show President Barack Obama shaking hands with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran.

Trouble is, other than the obvious, that a) the photo was photoshopped – Obama never met Rouhani in person, and b) Rouhani is still in power, still the president of Iran. The purpose? Well, as best as anyone can figure, Mr. Gosar was, as many republicans have been scrambling to do over the past several days, attempting to find some justification or purpose for Trump ordering the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s second-highest ranking government official. The name of the game is “blame Obama”.

But Mr. Gosar’s response, when it was pointed out that this was obviously a fake picture, is what I find interesting. His response was basically of the “yeah, so what?” sort …I guess that makes me a dimwit, eh?

Y’know, folks, Trump & Co, the Republican Party as a whole, have an unnatural hatred of President Obama and seemingly everything he stood for, but it has gone many steps too far. Obama was a hundred times the man Trump is, and a thousand times better president than Trump. It’s time for the republicans in power to start doing their jobs and stop finding ways to prove how much they hated having an African-American president, for that is what it really all boils down to.

Mr. Gosar has flown onto my radar a time or two before. For one, he is a member of the ignoble House Freedom Caucus – a misnomer if ever there was one. And for another, as a recipient of donations from the NRA. He has engaged in conspiracy theories ala Alex Jones about such things as the fatal Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and has also supported Iowa Representative Steve King, who was removed from his congressional committees for his blatantly racist public remarks. He has accused both the FBI and the Department of Justice of treason and has referred to Native Americans as “wards of the federal government”. He claims that the 2^nd Amendment is the single most important amendment set forth by the Bill of Rights, even more important than the 1^st Amendment, freedom of speech, press & religion. He has signed the Koch Brothers pledge promising to vote against any legislation to combat global warming. In September 2018, prior to the 2018 elections, six of Gosar’s nine siblings actively supported his democratic opponent, David Brill, saying their brother had become an extremist. And the list goes on … this is the face of our republicans in Congress today, my friends. This is the sort of garbage that has been lured out from under the rocks in the past decade. Thirty years ago, such a sample of pond scum would not have gotten even 1% of the vote.

Arizona … do not send this dolt back to Washington in November! You dishonour the name of your favourite son, the late, great John McCain when you send your trash to Congress!

Tie his hands … please!!!

The House of Representatives is expected to vote today on a resolution to force the president to halt any military action against Iran unless Congress authorizes it. Nothing quite like closing the barn door after the cow’s already out, eh?

The measure would require that Trump cease all action against Iran unless Congress votes in advance to approve it, effectively tying his hands in the escalation of tensions between Trump and Iran. We all see the handwriting on the wall, yes? The House, with a democratic majority, will approve it and send it to the Senate where either it will languish along with a few hundred other House-passed bills, or rapidly be voted down. There is a ray of hope, albeit a slim ray, because yesterday, two Republicans signaled they were inclined to support it. Just need two more … any takers? Doubtful, as most congressional republicans are still praising Trump for assassinating Iran’s highest ranking general.

In her statement yesterday, Nancy Pelosi said …

“Members of Congress have serious, urgent concerns about the administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward. Our concerns were not addressed by the president’s insufficient War Powers Act notification and by the administration’s briefing today.”

The divide in Congress is representative of the divide in this nation … and it is a lethal divide. Make no mistake … that old saying, “United we stand, Divided we fall” is apt. We certainly cannot continue as we are … that much is clear. There is a disconnect among the people of this nation, and it extends well beyond political parties. Donald Trump and his minions are using that disconnect to widen the gap, to make this nation so dysfunctional that it is an easy prey. Frankly, I am sick to the death of the “us vs them” mentality.

Thought-Provoking Words

Posted on December 27, 2019 by jilldennison under education, Election 2018, Election 2020, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Until just a couple of weeks ago, I had not, that I can recall, heard of Umair Haque. Then, our friend David sent me a piece by him that I found to be thoughtful and thought-provoking, so I did a bit of research on the man. Umair is a London-based consultant, and author of at least three books¹. I read several articles by him, in addition to the one David sent, until Medium, where he publishes, told me I had reached my limit of free articles. While I do not necessarily agree with all he says … after much pondering, I mostly agree. I have highlighted in red the parts that really made me sit up and take note. Please read the following and give it some thought. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

Umair Haque

Here’s a tiny observation. Forgive me. You might not like it.

I’ve seen many countries collapse. Pakistan. Afghanistan. The Soviet Union. Turkey. Iran. Sri Lanka. Egypt. Some, first-hand. Some from afar, through the eyes of friends and colleagues.

But I’ve never seen a country collapse as fast, as severely, and as hard as America is.

America’s collapsing at an unprecedented rate. Light-speed. Terminal velocity. Turbo-charged implosion. I don’t think a country has collapsed as fast as America — maybe not in all of history. Especially not a rich and powerful one. Rome took centuries. The Soviet Union’s took decades, and it’s still rolling on. Maybe only small countries which had never really built strong institutions, barely-democracies, have I seen crash this fast, hard, and badly — but that’s the point. American collapse is something unique in modern history.

Of course, that’s a subjective judgment — we don’t have an objective speedometer for the collapse of societies. But that is what this essay will be about. To show you, a little bit, what leads me to the idea that America’s crashing and burning at light speed. I want to take a moment to share what I see, by pinning down precisely what I mean by collapse.

First, of course, there is political collapse. From democracy to autocracy, kleptocracy, and authoritarianism. America’s political institutions simply don’t function anymore. It’s [sic] democracy doesn’t represent the 70% of people who want functioning healthcare, gun control, education, safety nets — but only the 25–30% of immovable extremists who apparently want to live in the Handmaid’s Tale meets 1984 by way of Mein Kampf. Its rule of law has devolved to mass trials and mass disappearances and mothers being separated from their kids at the border. It’s critical systems of governance are so broken that 5000 people died from negligence after…a storm.

The American polity doesn’t resemble the French or German one — in fact, it looks very much like the Pakistani polity, the Saudi, or maybe the Soviet polity. It is completely and utterly dysfunctional, to a degree that is unimaginable among its rich peers. And all that took perhaps a decade or two.

Then there is cultural collapse — from a culture of thought, reason, and accomplishment, to one of superstition, violence, and extremism . Kids shoot one another in schools regularly. People die for a lack of basic medicines like insulin — and the average American appears not to know that insulin doesn’t cost $1000 a month, but pennies, even in the world’s poorest countries. Why is that? It is because the are misinformed and kept ignorant by a media that feeds them a diet of Ancient Aliens and Paranormal Files. Hence, what should be a functioning culture is now rife with dark age style superstition.

Vaccinate my kids? No way! Never mind that humanity only eradicated smallpox in 1977. But vaccination is the least of America’s descent into superstition: then there is conspiracy theory, “truth” movements, a kind of hypocritical religious fundamentalism that’s quite happy to let kids shoot each other, bigotry, supremacism. And among the professional classes who look down on that, there is a culture of overwork and abuse and greed and cruelty — followed by lowest-common-denominator consumerism as a salve for the wounds of its emptiness. All these things rising are a function of a culture that fails to educate, inform, connect, or bond people together anymore.

A culture’s role is to help people makes sense of the world, as Marcel Mauss once argued — but American culture appears only to drive people into a kind of madness, either a frenzy of violence, a paralytic resignation, or a blind rage of fear and ignorance now. How fast did that happen? Well, it didn’t seem to do that so much even a decade ago, did it?

Then there is social collapse — from a modern society of broad-based prosperity, to something more like a dystopian caste society, where each stratum bitterly resents the next, and tries to pull it down, no one lifting anyone else up. The structure of American society is not that of a healthy society any longer. A once prosperous middle class has imploded into a new poor — while a tiny number of rich grew ultra rich. American society now resembles something more like Latin America in its darker times, Egypt, or Pakistan, perhaps. But even that understates the issue, because in America, trust imploded. People don’t trust institutions. They don’t trust society. They don’t trust their neighbours. Social bonds have completely imploded — predatory capitalism’s dream of a disintegrated society of atomized human commodities has finally come true.

As a result, of social bonds imploding, norms and rules no longer appear to work at all in America. Kids shooting each other? Ah, that’s terrible — but what can you do? Shrug. Every day brings a fresh scandal — this TV star is a supremacist, that celebrity is a bigot, that politician is a wife-beater ,and so on. How far have norms of decency shattered? There is an open pedophile and rapist running for public office.² I don’t think that has happened anywhere in the modern world, ever, so far as I know. Not even in Pakistan, Iran, or Rwanda. And it would have been unimaginable even in the America of the 2000s.

Then there is economic collapse — from modernity’s rising living standards to a new kind of poverty. America has pioneered a new kind of impoverishment — precarity, living at the knife’s edge, in constant anxiety and panic and trauma. The average person has less than $500 in emergency savings. His or her income has been stagnant for decades — and even that economic “number” vastly understates the issue, because while their parents had jobs with benefits, pensions, retirements, protections, they have none of those things. Meanwhile, the price of the basics of life — healthcare, education, finance, food, housing — has exploded, skyrocketed, gone supernova.

How much? So much so that just the hospital bill for having a child costs half of median income. Who can afford to live a decent life in a society like that? Not even in Pakistan, Iran, or Afghanistan does having a child cost so much. Not even in severely broken countries do relatively well off people face so constantly the plight of living every day right at the razor’s edge — there, they have, at least, informal safety nets, family support systems, communities to shield them, and public goods to protect them. But Americans have none of these — because predatory capitalism has reduced them to prey.

For all these reasons, the average American has no optimism left in the future. He doesn’t believe that his children will live a better life. He is right, sadly. And that is because America is now collapsing at terminal velocity — faster than any society in history, as far as I can tell.

And I think that while Americans have a sense things are breaking down around them, they don’t really understand — because they aren’t often told — that a) this is the real thing, genuine collapse b) it is happening not slower or better than elsewhere, but in fact far faster, worse and harder, and c) because it is happening so fast, there is added to the constant stress of predatory capitalism, the heart-stopping turmoil of all these kinds of collapse, political, cultural, social, and economic.

Terminal velocity. So what happens when a society hits the ground? Usually, like anything, it shatters, breaks, and explodes.

Umair
June 2018

¹The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business (2011); Betterness: Economics for Humans (2011); Why Are Europeans (So Much) Happier Than Americans? (2019)

²The pedophile and rapist running for office was Nathan Larson, who in 2018 was running for election to Congress from the 10th congressional district of Virginia, an election he lost by a landslide. Larson served 14 months in prison for the felony of threatening President George W. Bush’s life.

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

Category Archives: Election 2018