Tag Archives: politics

The Brexit Vote is Already Terrible

Politics, Uncategorized,

I feel like Britain was sold a bad deal on leaving the EU. Should have been a multi-choice referendum, like Puerto Rico’s last status referendum in 2012.

Now everyone is getting the incorrect impression that this is a binding referendum because “the majority voted”, in spite of Scotland and Northern Ireland, two constituent countries, voting to Remain.

Binary choices like this are usually flawed when put to a public vote. People don’t know their full options beyond the single “Yes/No” question. But this is what the Conservative backbench and party base wanted, and now they’re getting it in spades.

Conservatives are coming apart, split by the vote. Labour is coming apart, split by the alleged unenthusiastic support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for the Remain campaign (and some older political scores).

The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, are coming out, in the days after the vote, as the biggest momentary beneficiaries of the pro-Remain political reaction against the vote, and are even throwing their weight behind Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP on Scottish negotiations with the EU.

Britain may be in the throes of a major political realignment, one which will have to either react against or adapt around the reality of migration and free movement of labor. Nevermind the hypocrisy of the inheritors of a historic world-colonizing power like the UK feeling gutted by the “invasion” of “migrants” so much that they’d withdraw the country from their foremost, closest major trading partner.

The DNC Platform Committee

Politics, Uncategorized

So Sanders is getting the concession he vocally wanted from the DNC. Instead of the chair picking all 15 seats on the platform writing committee, Sanders will pick 5, Clinton will pick 6 and chair DWS will pick the remaining 4.

Problem is, does anyone read the party platform after Election Day? Even John Boehner said that “no one reads the GOP platform.” They’re more likely to read the “Contract with America”. So really, what has Sanders gained? What are Sanders supporters getting?

  • DWS:
    • Rep. Elijah Cummings (Maryland)
    • Rep. Howard Berman of California
    • Rep. Barbara Lee of California
    • Bonnie Schaefer, author and executive
  • Clinton:
    • Wendy Sherman, a former top State Department official and Clinton surrogate
    • Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and longtime Clinton confidante
    • Rep. Luis Guttierez of Illinois
    • Carol Browner, a former former director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy
    • Ohio State Rep. Alicia Reece
    • Paul Booth of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.
  • Sanders:
    • James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute
    • Cornel West, a liberal author and racial justice activist
    • Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota
    • Bill McKibben, author and environmental activist
    • Deborah Parker, Native American activist

I AM SEEING NO #LGBT PEOPLE ON THIS LIST.

“Demographic Threats” and Voter ID Laws

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

QUESTION: Among Republican-governed states, Idaho, a state which is 0.6% African-American, has one of the looser Voter ID laws in the United States, requiring non-strict Photo ID.

Map of US Voter ID Laws by State, Strict vs Non-Strict, Nov 2016.svg
By Peterljr888 – Vector map from Blank US Map.svg by User:Theshibboleth.
Information from NCSL.org, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

 

Similarly:

  • North Dakota, with 1.2% African-descended population, has strict non-photo ID.
  • Montana, with 0.4%, has non-strict non-photo ID.
  • Wyoming, with 0.8%, has no Voter ID law.
  • Utah, with 1.1%, has non-strict non-photo ID.
  • Maine, with 1.2%, has none.
  • South Dakota, with 1.3%, has non-strict Photo ID.
  • New Mexico, with 2.1%, has none.
  • Iowa, with 2.9%, has none.
  • Alaska, with 3.3%, has non-strict non-photo ID.
  • West Virginia, with 3.4%, has none.
  • Colorado, with 4.0%, has non-strict non-photo ID.

Meanwhile, the Southeastern United States from Texas to Virginia is covered in Voter ID laws ranging from non-strict non-photo (like South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas) to Strict Photo ID (Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia). Similarly, among the 4 Red States in the Midwest with the highest percentage of African-American population, Voter ID laws range from strict non-photo (Ohio) to strict Photo ID (Wisconsin and Indiana).

And today, Missouri’s GOP is succeeding in getting their Voter ID to the same strict Photo ID level as Kansas and Nebraska; Kansas has 5.9%, Nebraska has 4.5% and Missouri has 11.6%.

I wonder if the Republican rush to stricter Voter ID laws correlates to the percentage of the African-American population under their state governance. Is our mere demographic existence as voters that much of a problem to conservative Whites that the GOP would nationally inconvenience even the White elderly, the White college students, and the White disabled at the ballot box just to spite us?

Why are we such a threat to your interests that the Voter Fraud enemy which you have chosen to curb is usually African-American and perhaps a woman? Are we Black people the ones committing all of the possible or real cases of vote fraud which can be counted on your fingers?

By curbing this fraudulent voter, do you feel safer at the ballot box? Are we the cause of your vote fears, and would it be more of a convenience for you if we left your state? Or is it really the Mexican-Americans?

What Unfavorability?

Politics, Uncategorized

Trump, an outsider, has low favorability ratings among people who do not look like himself, but he wins the presumptive GOP nomination with high turnout. Clinton, somewhat of an insider, has low favorability ratings among people who look like Trump, yet holds the lion’s share of pledged Democratic delegates with low turnout.

After #INprimary, #CruzFiorina has dropped out, and Kasich is running on E. The ball is now in the Democrats’ court to pick a presumptive nominee before the convention. And yet, even now, #BernieOrBust/ #NeverHillary letters are being posted on Twitter.

Sanders is running out of time, but the anti-Hillary faction (especially independents who go out of their way to clarify that they have no relationship with the Democratic Party) are demonizing the Democratic Party in revenge for their candidate not being given the treatment which is more favorable to him.

In other words, the Democratic Party was supposed to host a revolution which a majority of Democratic voters ended up voting against. That has not sunk in.

Voter’s Remorse Over Bernie

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

My eye is better now. I don’t feel the scratching since I woke up. Surprising.

After that utter crushing of Bernie Sanders in #NYPrimary (not even restoring the voter rolls would have gotten him a victory, AFAICT), his birthplace, I’m rethinking the movement behind him.

The “money-in-politics/anti-corruption” focus is incredibly myopic and monomaniacal. To be honest, “money-in-politics” is not my biggest focus. My focus is on civil and human rights, and clearing all possible impediments to those rights.

Right now, those impediments are coming from the 50 states which exercise more control over cities than the federal government exercises over them. State politicians are falling over themselves to stigmatize the autonomies and powers of women, LGBT people, people of color, non-religious/minority-religious people, and organized labor.

But Sanders’ focus is on moneyed interests in the federal government, not the state politicians who are spearheading these terrible experiments in the “labs of democracy” which act as little fiefdoms for the White Male Christian Supremacist orders which have controlled them since colonial times and violently fought the federal government when compelled to change their ways of governance.

Universal health care is also being heavily resisted at the state level, as are the restoration of the VRA, the closing of wasteful local military installations and the drawing-down of our military expenditures, the banning of fracking, card check for union elections, non-discrimination laws, the abolition of the death penalty, the abolition of felon disenfranchisement etc.

All of the vested interests which seek to protect the social status quo and rage against what could bring us together seem to emanate directly from the state governments and their landed gentry, while D.C. merely tries to hold them together with sweetheart deals and gentleman agreements. Oh, and the majority of the federal spending that is ballyhooed by the reactionaries representing these states goes to funding the expenditures which keep these states afloat. Hypocrisy.

While Clinton is already signaling how she will deal with recalcitrant states (in which she will likely follow Obama’s model), Sanders is not addressing what the progressive agenda should be on and in the states. Clinton will most assuredly keep much of this status quo with many allowable incremental changes around the edges, but she, by her platform, is more likely to apply those changes to matters of a civil or human rights concern through executive action than Sanders, by his platform, seems to be.

Sanders’ singular focus on “big banks” has carved out a core constituency of true believers and populists across many states, the majority of whom have not had to live under the oppression of their home state. Similarly, their focus is either on “big banks” or how “Hillary is bad because she takes money from such and such”. I don’t share that concern.

Right now, big banks and Fortune 500s who donated to bigoted state politicians and ALEC are having “buyer’s remorse” and successfully rallying the proletariat against these same politicians’ bigoted legislations. They’re becoming unlikely, problematic but necessary allies of the civil rights constituency in Southern states, where the civil rights movement never ended.

Right now, Fortune 500s are facing off against nasty rural politicians who seek to other and stigmatize non-normative human beings who happen to be employees of these companies. That’s what I and everyone who lives in Columbus, GA live with. I’m not concerned with big banks right now. I’m not concerned with Super PACs right now. I’m not concerned with who donated how much to what foundation, unless they’re doing something to screw with civil and human rights here or abroad.

I VOTED FOR BERNIE SANDERS, liking his progressive bonafides but hoping that he would broaden his platform and address how fundamentally, institutionally unjust we are as a country beyond mere money economics.

I was hoping that Sanders’ social media supporters, even the ones who wear their “independent” label on their sleeve, would retreat from conspiracy theories, utter crankery, poor knowledge of both the Democratic Party’s operations and our massively-unjust 1787 Constitution, massive condescension to Democrats of color, and other *ahem* BS. He hasn’t. They haven’t. And now I’m having “buyer’s remorse.” #AbolishTheStates #AbolishTheSenate #MadamPresident

A Southern State Agenda for Progressive Liberal Dems

Politics, Uncategorized,

“Congressional Republicans in the Obama era have largely been defined by their insistence on standing in front of the administration and yelling stop. Democrats call them the party of “no.” But in state legislatures, Republicans are finding both rewards and peril in being a vigorous party of “yes” when it comes to promoting conservative social issues.”

NY Times

This is what I wonder: for Democrats – progressives, liberals and everyone in between – 2018 will be a crucial moment. At the state level, Democrats have completed their transformation into the “liberal opposition”, the “Negro Party” (the latter being what the Southern GOP was described as in the 1890s), the “anti-gun party”, the “pro-abortion party”. They’re fighting different battles than what Beltway Democrats are fighting in Congress, on a different playing field.

But we’ve also become the “party of No” in states which have gerrymandered state legislature district lines. We’ve come to this point from embracing minority, disadvantaged, young, migrant, creative, urbanized and/or educated identities, and fighting fights from a minority, disadvantaged, young, migrant, creative, urbanized and/or educated position.

This means that at this level, we will have to get used to being the opposition in so much of the rurally-spread United States for a long period of time. The rural agenda and historic rural privilege (pro-gun proliferation, pro-patriarchy, pro-religious establishment, pro-austerity, pro-racial privilege) runs ship at the state level. And I don’t see a turnaround happening without either one of two things happening:

  • a hypocritical repeat of the Southern Strategy in which Democrats drive out the “non-traditional Americans” who they’ve accrued since 1968 and curry favor with the “traditional Americans”.
  • Creating new, Democratic-leaning states from existing ones, a la State of Baja Arizona, State of South Florida, State of Atlanta, State of South Louisiana, State of South Texas, etc.

I think, with the latter option, those minority positions – Afro-American and Latino, college student, LGBT, women, urbanites, creative types, service worker, types who have better representation in city government – will have greater autonomy and home rule in the South than they have in this forever-disadvantaged position against these hopelessly-rural state legislatures. Hawaii is one example, D.C. is another. Why be held in this minority position forever? If bigoted rural interests hold back whole state governments, why let them hold back those who have a more diverse agenda? Statehood for Southern New Democrats. Think about it.

For the strategists and experienced folks: those who grew up aged 20-28 during the Reagan years now constitute the average age span of officeholders in state legislatures and Congress (56-64).

this means that those who grew up as young adults in the Clinton years have yet to constitute the majority of the political class, but do constitute the nationwide average age span of the voting population (47 years old).

If this is the case, why are Clinton-era young adults putting Reagan-era young adults into office from 2010 to 2016? Maybe for lack of contemporary alternatives among their own generation?

Dr. Jill Stein

Politics, Uncategorized

If there is one candidate who I can say I won’t vote for, who is not a Republican or Democrat, it is Dr. Jill Stein.

When I saw her debate Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on RT America in 2012, I was really disappointed by her diction and delivery. She played overly nice (and did it poorly), he played “attack the socialist” (and did it glibly and viciously, like many of the libertarians and “fiscal conservatives” in my life). I couldn’t tell if she was serious, or if she was high. She wouldn’t defend herself, and she wouldn’t defend her party.

She’s been a fuck-up of a candidate for the Green Party, just like Cynthia McKinney was in 2008; McKinney now plays “American conspiracy theorist-in-residence” for Iran’s Press TV.

Why not select someone who has actually won an office of local leadership? Gayle McLaughlin, Green former mayor of Richmond, CA? No? Not someone with actual chops in leadership? You’re not fucking serious, Green Party.

The biggest sign that I’ve tuned out of presidential politics is that I’m becoming so much more involved in helping build a local candidate’s campaign. Over time, I degenerated in some way because I felt that I didn’t have that much of a relationship with the Bernie campaign. I’ve come to see presidential politics as not only out of my hands, but infuriating in their inanity. I’m learning more about our local candidates. I’ve known for a while that nothing will get done if I don’t get involved and do something.

At the same time, I do not want to be complacent. I know full well that our state government is ran by people who see themselves as the least connected with the federal government or any metropolitan familiarity, utterly possessive of a government which reflects their culture, and maddeningly dismissive of our history and our lackings in basic protections. To change this status quo, a fundamental shift in representation should redirect control of the state away from rural areas and toward urban areas. The day that I give up on this is the day I redirect my goal, utterly and totally, toward relocating to California.

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

I’m having jitters about voting bragging rights. I confess: I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, my first time voting in a presidential election. I remember writing in Nader, as a protest against the two-party system, but I felt at the time that Obama, with his story and his meteoric rise to the top of a presidential coalition, was inevitable at some point.

Now, in liberal circles, it’s a bragging right to say that you voted for Obama in both primary and general elections both in 2008 and 2012. I didn’t buy the hype in 08 enough to vote for him, and I don’t remember voting in the Democratic primary that year,

Now, because of how impressed by him I have become over the years, I sorta wish I did buy that hype in 2008. But at least I voted for him in 2012, the same year I met Fenika Miller and created the Houston County Democratic Party website as a personal project.

Now we’re talking about that inevitability with Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Sanders is the primary challenger for the nomination. But that has been undercut by voter turmoil and a lower Democratic base turnout for both Clinton and Sanders.

It was easier for me to go for Bernie Sanders when he announced his candidacy, but this cycle has soured so much for me. I just saw two Facebook friends break up hard over this rivalry the other day.

In my feed, on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve seen pro-Sanders people wax conspiracist and cranky in a right-wing way against Clinton, I’ve seen pro-Clinton people wax anti-socialist and paternalistic in a right-wing way against Sanders. And I say “in a right-wing way” because this all sounds like shit you read on FreeRepublic or Breitbart. Like, STOP IT PEOPLE. STOP BEING ASSHOLES. Gods.

You know what? I’d vote for Obama again. Third freaking term. But he’s graying at the speed of light. Argh. I don’t know about bragging rights, saying that you’d voted for one who you knew was the “right one”. I don’t know if that makes you a better person. I don’t know if that makes you psychic. But I know that I’m not voting to keep Republicans in check. I know that I’m not voting to prevent anything from happening. I’m not going to vote my fears, or for strategy or tactics.

I’m going to vote for the things I want, the ideas I want to see become flesh. They can come from either candidate, but they must have a liberal Congress to make them happen. I implore you, all my friends: don’t vote your fears, your strategy or your tactics. Fear is the worst choice. They tear you apart, just as they’ve hit me at points this election cycle. Vote for the change you wish to see in the next four years. Press your candidates on these issues.

Vote for more liberals and progressives in office, people who will vote for the Equality Act, an amendment to overturn Citizens United, an increased minimum wage, a Right to Vote Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, decriminalization of marijuana, for renewable energy, for expanding Medicare to all people, and so on. Vote for people who will bring those laws into the state and local level, too. Vote for those solutions. Vote for constitutional change. Vote for equality. Vote for hope. #YesWeCan