Category Archives: Uncategorized

Why Jill Stein is Not My Choice

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I’m a Bernie Sanders primary voter, and I don’t feel that Jill Stein is a realistic candidate for president. It has nothing to do with her being a third-party candidate or being a potential “spoiler” because I don’t believe in the premise that votes only belong to two parties. This has everything to do with the optics and mechanics of Stein’s proposals, as well as with her lack of political experience as an electoral liability.

Jill Stein’s Green Party has never won a single Congressional seat since their foundation in 1992. On the Green ticket, only 7 senate candidates and 1 House candidate are running in 2016, when 34 Senate and all 435 House seats are open for election this year. The Republicans are favored to retain the majority in the House this year while the Senate majority is up for grabs. With a party list being this paltry and dry, if the Green Party leadership intended for this year to be a watershed for a left-wing exodus from the Democrats to the Greens, all seven co-chairs of the Green National Committee are sorely mistaken.

So many of Stein’s policies could pass muster with none but a number of the Democratic minority in either House. That will effectively render about 60% of her platform moot in the face of not only Republican far-right hostility but also moderate Democratic reticence. A president Jill Stein faces far worse hostility to her policies than the current officeholder has faced in 8 years, 6 of which have been lame ducks filled with deft executive self-control against reactionary legislative havoc. Stein could not, under any known or possible circumstances, institute an effective presidency in this oh-so American, oh-so counterintuitive political reality.

With the sole exception of her time as a member of the Town Meeting of Lexington, Massachusetts (2005-2011), Jill Stein does not have any degree of downballot political experience. 40 out of all 44 presidents in the history of the United States have held any combination of at least one of these seats of office prior to their election as president: Vice President, Senator, Member of the House, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Member of the President’s Cabinet. Three other presidents – Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower – had only held military leaderships prior to their presidency, and the remaining one – Washington – was a delegate to the Continental Congress and the leader of the U.S. Army during the Revolutionary War.

So where does Jill Stein fit in that expectation of experience? Similarly, where does Donald Trump fit in that expectation of experience?

By comparison, the person who she has sought to woo over to running with her as a Green Party candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has held elected office since 1981 as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, representative of Vermont’s at-large district in Congress and Senator for Vermont. Hillary Clinton, who Jill Stein has browbeat for her arguably non-progressive record, served as Senator for New York from 2001-2009 and as Secretary of State from 2009-2013. By comparison to 40 out of 44 other presidents in U.S. history, both candidates for the Democratic nomination are significantly more qualified than Jill Stein, who has never held state or federal level office, and Donald Trump, who has never held elected or appointed political or military office.

Even Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party right-wing candidate in 2016 who previously gained more popular votes than Jill Stein’s last run in 2012, is more qualified for the presidency than Jill Stein or Donald Trump by way of serving as the Republican Governor of New Mexico. Seeing how Johnson browbeat Stein and her Green Party in a third-party debate on RT America, Stein seems to largely be out of her depth when it comes to confronting a cottage industry of the most inane right-wing arguments and rebuttals directed against her policies. If I were to protest-vote without concern to political ideology, I would vote for Johnson over Stein.

Even Gayle McLaughlin, the former two-term Green Party mayor and current councilwoman of Richmond, California who has been lauded for her progressive, far-left-to-the-Democrats policies, is somewhat more qualified to run for higher state or federal office of some type, if not president, than Jill Stein. I would vote for Gayle McLaughlin over Jill Stein in any state or federal office if I were a California resident. Unfortunately, it seems that the Green Party only runs a decent ground game in California, and only in local races. Outside of California, the Green Party seems to mostly attract politically-aware but ill-tempered, non-serious malcontents as candidates. I wish the Green Party were a more serious, more self-aware rival for left-wing votes at all levels, seeing that they are the largest left-wing political party in terms of membership which is not named the “Democratic Party”.

Finally, to pivot back to the separation of powers, so much of Jill Stein’s agenda (and Bernie’s and Hillary’s) is not accomplishable by one person or by the executive branch as a whole. About 60-80% of Stein’s platform is the remit of Congress. About 60-80% of Stein’s agenda cannot be accomplished by executive order and would be slapped down by the courts if tried through EO. Separation of powers guarantees that the Congress will always act to hold the executive to account. Even under the G.W. Bush presidency, a Republican Congress held his presidency in check on the Real I.D. Act, which scared many libertarians of the left and White-right varieties over the usurpation of state-level privilege over identification.

Why do we demand so much of the presidency that cannot be realistically accomplished by the presidency? Why have we lost so much of our cognizance regarding what power Congress has in the implementation of federal government? Is this a popularity contest over who can be the bigger strongman or strongwoman? I don’t think so many of us, especially Democrats, care about Congress and its powers anymore (to our peril), and we set ourselves up for massive disappointment when we treat one person as the leader of a political cult of personality as so many of us have done with Bernie Sanders. I believe in competent presidencies, not strong presidencies, and no matter how progressive or liberal a platform can be, it has little to no legitimacy if it is not backed by a legislative mandate. Jill Stein does not have a legislative mandate by way of her party having no members in Congress, or even a progressive majority to consider and pass her proposals.
That is how woefully inadequate Jill Stein seems to me as a candidate. This is why I backed away from Bernie Sanders after I voted for him. This is also why I’m conceding to voting for Clinton in the general, in that she has the votes, the basic experience as an officeholder that at least 40 other presidents have had prior to their elections, and the legislative mandate to carry so many of the policies that Sanders supported in his candidacy’s platform.

But whether Democrats, or progressives and liberals in any party, even care about getting a majority in both houses of Congress anymore remains to be seen.

Just thought about this:

Ethics are definitely an issue post-#DNCleak but there is no previous code of conduct that I can find to suppress perceived bias among party strategists and activists toward candidates, campaign staff and elected officials.

Rhetoric and ill intent among the top activists of the party during a nomination contest is what everyone’s rightfully angry about. But there is no prior standard for party activist behavior to measure these emails up against, so the resignation of DWS is simply a sop to both media and in-party activists after the fact. How do we measure (im)partiality?

DNC activists need an activist code of ethics/code of conduct to measure future perceptions of bias or outright (non-illegal) misconduct. Is anyone even advocating for this at #DNCinPhilly/ #DNCinPHL?

Or what about ya’ll? What do you think should go into a DNC (or any party’s) code of ethics?

Hold Fire on Donna Brazile

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Bernie supporters are already coming for #DonnaBrazile for saying that she’ll “cuss out” Sanders personally in the emails. Because of this, she’s now being called “corrupt”.

So because Donna uses curse words, Bernie supporters are mad at her? But her apology to Sanders for the “stupidity” in the #DNCleaks is not accepted?

You know who else is coming for Donna Brazile? Trump supporters on Twitter, with their “fat black woman” and “affirmative action” comments and “MOLON LABE/MAGA” in their profile.

Can’t please everyone. But it now smacks of racism, misogyny and hurt feelings over “classiness”. And the reaction against Brazile is typical of the flimsy definition of the word “corruption”.

Bernie got the scalp he explicitly wanted: that of DWS. The emails don’t show Brazile conspiring to undermine Sanders’ campaign, even in her personal mild disdain for the campaign.

Bernie people, “Basta”. This is embarrassing. We have a better DNC chair. Let’s move on.

Donna Brazile

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Donna Brazile should stay as long-term chair, IMO. Her resume without ever having held elected office:

  • Lobbied heavily to get MLK Day recognized as a federal holiday
  • Volunteered for Carter-Mondale in 1976 and 1980 as a teenager
  • first African-American woman to manage a major party presidential campaign (Al Gore, 2000)
  • Served as Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute (2001-2009)
  • Previously interimed as chair between Kaine and Wasserman-Schultz in 2011
  • DNC Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation since 2009
  • Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
  • Adjunct Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Georgetown University
  • Second African-American to serve in a chairship capacity since the late Ron Brown (1989-1993)
  • Brought up the issue of George H.W. Bush’s alleged extramarital affair which got her fired from Dukakis’ campaign in 1988, but which was later used by Bill Clinton (irony?) against the elder Bush in 1992.
  • Was instrumental in penalizing Florida and Michigan’s Democratic parties for moving their primaries against DNC rules in 2008.
  • Member of the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Recovery Authority under Governor Blanco (2005-2009)
  • Says what she feels: “Look, I’m a woman, so I like Hillary. I’m black; I like Obama. But I’m also grumpy, so I like John McCain.” (2008)
  • Arguably the most powerful woman in the DNC for years.
  • NOT A POLITICIAN. HELLO?!

Police Abolition?

For the love of all that is just, don’t look at the comments. It’s a Fox News video.

I wouldn’t go as far as abolishing the police, but we should consider more non-armed LEOs.

In fact, non-armed officers already exist. They’re known as Community Service Officers, or CSO. CSO are non-sworn civilians who, besides filing reports, are dispatched largely for cases which don’t involve known direct suspect information. They are not deputized to arrest suspects, do not carry handcuffs, and do not carry weapons belts.

CSO typically number in the single digits in the police departments which employ CSO. I think they should be increased in number.

Do we have any CSOs here in Columbus’ Police Department?

Idiotic Assumptions About Crime in Poor Black Communities

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There is something wrong with the premise behind the statement “Black lives don’t matter to #BlackLivesMatter” and (mis)using FBI stats to back it up, as the always-ill-informed Milo Yiannopoulos has done.

It assumes that African-Americans are not doing anything to reduce violent offenses in predominately African-American urban areas, despite the evidence to the contrary that Yiannopoulos simply ignores.

The “solutions” to “Black-on-black crime” put forward by those most extremely critical of the anti-police brutality protests are usually embarrassingly parochial, petty and emphasizing upon a moral policing of African-Americans which would never reasonably happen to White Americans.

The “solutions” are usually harder militarization of the inner-city police, harder prosecution of the Drug War, re-introducing religious control into the public school system and civil government, encouraging corporal violence against children, shaming single parents, and powerless obeisance to the force of arms.

None of these will bring back the manufacturing jobs. None of these will address our mental health crisis. None of these will fix our collapsing infrastructure. None of these will empower us with democratic power. None of these will address how, as an ethnicity descended from slaves, we ended up here in the wrong way. None of these will fix our education system’s lack of scale. None of these will address how we feel trapped in our own cities in the underclass.

They’re just crap solutions. Meaningless, nostalgic platitudes to violently-flawed bygones. Hypocritical des to a hypocritical culture which masks its violent stench as it condemns Black people for our terrors.

And what’s worse is that the same people who propose these “solutions” do not institutionally benefit from these solutions either! They screw over other White people!

Sad!

Liquid/Delegative Democracy in Practice

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Reading up on delegative democracy aka liquid democracy. It’s essentially selecting someone to vote on your behalf in referendums, but where your selected proxy voter can also transfer their delegated votes to another proxy voter, and so on, while you can also take your vote back, override your proxy voter, and review your proxy voter’s voting record.

This is meant to essentially replace legislatures and make voting in referendums easier, quicker and more affordable.

To break down #LiquidDemocracy:

Imagine having a vote on a ballot measure, a referendum. Unlike many, you may not have the time to do research on the proposed law or vote on it.

So what can you do?

In #DelegativeDemocracy or Liquid Democracy, you can select someone – say, a friend who is more knowledgeable about the proposed law on the ballot – to cast your vote on your behalf. You might trust this person – Person A – to have more knowledge and be more responsible with your vote than you are. Person A is your proxy voter.

But what if Person A who you select knows someone else – Person B – who has even more knowledge about the proposed law and has publicly announced that they’ve cast their vote along the same lines as Person A? In Liquid Democracy, Person A can select Person B as their proxy voter, and can delegate Person B to cast your vote, Person A’s vote and the votes of others who’ve delegated their votes to that person.

In short, Liquid Democracy is a third way of passing laws, alongside representative democracy and direct democracy. It blends the two and moves us away from both the cost of direct democracy and the isolation of representative democracy.

The issue I have is this:

  • can this function without dependency upon the Internet to facilitate the voting process?
  • Also, what are the means by which this process can account for disadvantaged groups in a population or suspect classes whose rights may be targeted by referendum?
  • This may rid us of the need for gerrymandering and of competitive elections, but what will it do for minorities?

Protests in Oakland Block Interstate Highway Traffic

Pretty bold, unsafe, but bold. Good that cars stopped for the protesters. Lots of angry opinions against blocking interstate traffic for commercial reasons. I hope emergency and emergency-motivated vehicles were accommodated by the protesters.

But playing devil’s advocate: isn’t this part of the art of protest? To disrupt the normal flow of the day and call attention to something that is broken in the city? To non-violently inflict an economic impact upon a broken infrastructure?

We don’t live in the era of bus boycotts anymore. Nonviolent, economically-targeted protests have more impact when they affect and disrupt economic venues. We live in the era of sit-ins, die-ins, occupations and the blocking of traffic. This is just as much a tactic which will not win friends, but will non-violently jar our normalcy.

I don’t understand the wishes of Facebook users to inflict bodily harm on protesters with their cars. Seriously, it’s not worth it. It says more about you than about the protesters.

My First #BlackLivesMatter Protest

I can also say that I’ve now participated in a #BlackLivesMatter protest.

It’s one thing to see it on video. It’s another thing to be there in person –

to see Black people from all backgrounds carrying children, wearing dashikis and suspenders, holding up their fists and open palms in fulsome protest under the gray, heavily-cloudy sky;

to see smiling onlookers wave and thumbs-up as you walk the pavement screaming #HandsUpDontShoot up and down the road;

to vocally worry about what’s going to happen to you when you cross the asphalt Rubicon in the face of assembled LEO cars;

to see colleagues of yours arrested by heavily-armored LEOs amidst flashing blue and red lights;

to see the genuine pain and anguish coupled with retellings of Black civilian survival tactics on the streets of Everytown, USA;

to see Euro-Americans walk with us and be in the midst of civil disobedience for Black lives;

to speak with your stutter from the top of your head on the history of the country and what is at stake –

all under the shadow and binoculars and unmarked vehicles of the militarized police force of Columbus, GA.

Get as much video and photo as possible.

Dallas Revenge

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I had said earlier that there was going to be a Timothy McVeigh-Terry Nichols type of reaction when LEOs shoot the “wrong type of people”.

I did not expect a retaliation of this magnitude, not over LEO murders of African-Americans, not in #Dallas. The shooter in the video, who is now dead, looks like he had training to shoot at remote targets from around corners. Snipers.

With his accomplices, he was able to kill 5 officers and wound 5 others. They could have killed many, untold numbers of civilian protesters after they were frightened by the shooting, but they didn’t. Just picking off the LEOs.

This wasn’t an ordinary clapback against police brutality. This was planned, the channeling of emotion from abject despondency to stone-cold revenge. The shooters wanted to make a seething nick in the skin of that institution.

“The end is coming”, he said in the garage. Apocalyptic. No one expected this. I thought there wasn’t going to be this sort of channeling. Just more protests, more arrests, more burning of buildings.

But this. THIS. Stone-cold, planned revenge. A selective propaganda of the deed.

Interestingly enough, I read that McVeigh and Nichols were trained and stationed here at Fort Benning in the late 80s. Maybe military training? I’m as mesmerized by what happened in Dallas as I am disgusted and despondent over ALL of the unjustified deaths of the last 96 hours.

NOTE 12/28/2017: This is NOT a justification for revenge killings of police, nor of anyone at all. Stop the killings.