Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reading Vann Newkirk’s Atlantic piece on how North Carolina’s Moral Monday “identity politics” coalition helped defeat McCrory, and then reading an alt-weekly editor’s comment underneath the article saying that McCrory was more defeated by those outside of the Moral Monday coalition who were disgusted by McCrory’s bullshit but not disgusted enough by Trump, I don’t know who to believe.

I dunno, maybe it’s a combination of BOTH? #IdentityPolitics #p2

Minority Voting in Initiatives and Refrendums

Politics, Uncategorized,

Another factoid. Out of the 21 states which have an African-American population over 10% as per the 2010 census:

  • 13 states allow only legislatively-referred initiated constitutional amendments;
  • Mississippi allows legislatively-referred, indirect, and direct initiated constitutional amendments;
  • Maryland allows legislatively-referred state statutes, or legislatively-referred initiated constitutional amendments or referendums;
  • Florida allows legislatively-referred, and direct initiated constitutional amendments;
  • Illinois allows legislatively-referred initiative statutes, or legislatively-referred and direct initiated constitutional amendments or referendums;
  • Michigan and Ohio allow legislatively-referred and indirect initiative statutes, or legislatively-referred and direct initiated constitutional amendments or referendums;
  • Arkansas and Missouri allow direct and indirect initiative statutes, as well as direct and indirect initiated constitutional amendments or referendums.
  • Similarly, out of these same 21 states, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan and New Jersey are the only states which allow recall elections, with Georgia requiring narrower grounds for recall.

I bring this up because, in light of the Colorado referendum which failed to repeal “slavery-as-punishment” from their state constitution, the relationship between people of color (especially African-Americans) and a U.S. state’s exercise of direct democracy is something which has yet to be fully analyzed.

Electoral flexibility should matter to people of color, especially when it comes to changing our laws and our officials.

Standing Rock

Politics, Uncategorized, , ,

#StandingRock is an example of a protest movement which knows what it is protecting, its tactic of protection, and how it would not be externally policed in its tone.

Standing Rock is an example of a small, manageable protest target becoming a flash point for news media.

It’s not a grand, terrifying arch-target like police brutality, mass incarceration or income inequality. The protection is centered around a piece of land, and the goal is to stop something from happening to that land.

And it is not a frustrated reaction against a grievous incident, but a proactive protection against grievous plans.

And until the directive from the Army Corps of Engineers is made flesh before President Obama leaves office, those plans remain prone to reversal.

But Standing Rock is possible and proactive. As violent and scandalous as the suppression has been (and as scandalous and glib as the denial of Standing Rock’s claims have been), Standing Rock has been small enough to attain and big enough to attract citizens and logistical support from all walks of life. Nothing more, nothing less than this specific goal.

If the Standing Rock movement survives the winter and DAPL is permanently rerouted after Trump takes office, this will be a hard-fought victory for nonviolent protest akin to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This victory will be studied for years to come.

This is where #Occupy failed, and why it didn’t survive the winter of 2011. This is what many in the #BlackLivesMatter movement can learn about, so that we can stop people from becoming hashtags.

Goals matter. Name the future that you wish to protect, what you will do to protect it, and the outcome which you will go through hell and high water to prevent.

#NoDAPL

Another Police Shooting of the Unarmed

Uncategorized,

There is an early and sudden death that awaits us.

It can come from the police, the road-raging vigilante, or the fool from down the street with a beef.

Our name will be a hashtag, and justice will not come.

We will be told that our minds and bodies are the problem. We will be told that our bodies deserve death because our culture is a problem. We will be tone-policed, gaslighted and denied legitimacy in our rage.

We’re supposed to kiss the asses of the comfortable, to not “erase the history” of the oppressor, to be grateful for basic ethical behavior.

Maybe if we disappeared from this country, if we dispersed from these shores to diaspora far afield, the insults to our intelligence will stop. Maybe the insulting injustice will stop.

To see the day when we’ll stop being the red-headed bastard child who is hated when defiant but idolized when dead. I look forward to this.

#WalterScott #JoeMcKnight

More-Connected Southern Cities

Uncategorized, ,

Atlanta has a lot in common with the “coastal elite”. So do Charlotte, and New Orleans, and Nashville, and Birmingham, and the big four metro areas of East Texas. Even Jackson, Mississippi is a small pocket of liberal politics.

But many of these cities are also well-connected to interstate highways, international airports and/or mass transit systems. They’re connected in ways that smaller cities like Columbus, Macon, Corpus Cristi, Huntsville, Mobile, Pensacola, Charleston, and Little Rock are not.

One thing that is on my wishlist for Georgia is an interstate highway that goes through Columbus to Macon to Augusta, so that Macon will be almost as well-connected to second-tier cities as Atlanta. It would also benefit third-tier cities like Milledgeville, Sandersville and Roberta.

The second issue I hope to see resolved is the dearth of under-100k cities in the area between Augusta, Macon, Albany, Valdosta and Savannah. Tifton and Valdosta only have 1 interstate running through their cities, and on either side there is a multitude of very small towns until you get to Savannah or the Alabama border (with the exception of Albany). I think Tifton or Valdosta are a good place to have another East-West interstate, running from Savannah through either of these cities to a major city in either Alabama or Florida. It would be good for the farming communities of southern Georgia and southern Alabama.

The Need for Liquid Democracy

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

So let’s talk about democracy as a tool of “small-r” republican governance, and what it is in 2016.

Right now, democracy is a zero-sum game. The two models of democratic exercise we use – representative and direct – are limited in their scalability.

Representative democracy is cheap but hierarchical, in which we select a very small class of people – legislators – to vote on the bills that regular folk don’t have the time to properly process.

Direct democracy is broad but expensive, in which every eligible voter is encouraged to vote, whether or not one is fully informed about a bill or has had a chance to properly process the legislation.

So I think that we need to talk about a third type of democracy, a democracy which takes from the strengths of both representative and direct democracy. One that I have read about is known as “delegative democracy”, also known as “liquid democracy”.

A liquid democracy would look like this: a referendum in which you – Voter 1 – can designate someone else – Voter 2 – to cast a vote for the referendum on your behalf, and Voter 2 can also designate someone else – Voter 3 – to cast the votes which have been assigned to Voter 2 to be cast. A person can accumulate multiple votes from many people to be cast on their behalf, but every individual can take their vote back to vote by oneself for the referendum.

It’s proxy voting on steroids, and it’s being used and advocated by several branches of the Pirate Party movement in Europe for their in-party decision making process. I think it is a third way of decision making that we should hear about more in the years to come.

I think it would also be adaptable to multiple levels of democratic governance, from the national to the municipal. And, even better, I think it would allow for public referendums to be held every day, almost as frequently as in a representative legislature.

If you’re studying political science, this is something to look into.

OK, so as pointed out to me by Robbin Shipp, there have been at least 7 DNC chairs who also concurrently served as elected officials:

  • Calvin Brice (1889 – 1892), also U.S. Senator from Ohio (1891-1897)
  • James Kimbrough Jones (1896–1904), also U.S. Senator from Arkansas (1885-1903)
  • Henry Jackson (1960-1961), also U.S. Senator from Washington (1953-1983)
  • Fred Harris (1969-1970), also U.S. Senator from Oklahoma (1964-1973)
  • Chris Dodd (1995-1997), also U.S. Senator from Connecticut (1981-2011)
  • Tim Kaine (2009-2011), also Governor of Virginia (2006-2010)
  • Debbie Wasserman Schultz (2011-2016), also Representative from Florida (2005-present)

Here are also some of the RNC’s chairs-cum-electeds:

  • Bob Dole (1971-1973), also U.S. Senator from Kansas (1969-1996)
  • Jim Gilmore (2001), also Governor of Virginia (1998-2002)
  • Mel Martínez (2006-2007), also U.S. Senator from Florida (2005-2009)