Tag Archives: politics

Phone banking w/ Muscogee Democratic Coordinated Campaign today brought all the emotions up for me. Frustration, anger, excitement, hilarity.

Best hits: talking to an older woman who felt that “we have to pray for whoever gets in the chair so that they’ll help the poor”, talking to an African woman who angrily lambasted the Democratic Party’s response to voter suppression and the minimum wage as “lousy”, and talking to an older Tea Party supporter from Atlanta area who fears Obama bringing in the “illegals”/not standing up to Islam/not supporting the Pipeline out west/being a socialist unlike the past Democrats/dividing the races after Ferguson/not being a real Christian.

That last call took 45 minutes. I rebutted each and every single one of her points, but it ended amicably (I was running out of time). She was *really* fearful of a lot of things. I would’ve went longer.

The Big Tent Sucks

Politics, Rants, To Export, , , , , ,

Watching last month’s general election in Sweden, I was once again treated to the non-majoritarian nature of proportionally-representative election systems like Sweden (although the Feminist Initiative barely missed the 4%). It is not as zero-sum as ours: a total of 8 parties are now represented in the Swedish parliament (Riksdag), encompassing a range of variably-compact ideologies in a variety of portfolios.

I favor proportional representation due to its ability to better reflect the political diversity of the voting population, as well as its ability to let candidates be more honest and thorough about their ideologies.

In this year’s election, the Social Democrats gained the largest vote share and is tasked with forming a coalition that can back the next prime minister and cabinet; possible partners include the Left Party and the Green Party. On the opposite end, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats gained more seats from the free-market parties of the outgoing Alliance coalition, such as the Moderate Party, Liberal People’s Party, Christian Democrats and Centre Party.

In the United States, potential candidates and their supporters at the federal level would be grouped into just two parties – Democratic and Republican, Blue and Red, Liberal and Conservative, etc.

I contend that the sheer forcing of multiple ideologies together under two roofs is stifling. It forces all of the partisans who may not be predisposed to a whole-hog ideology to adopt such an ideology for the benefit of an unwieldy party unity. As a result, reasonable-minded people may find themselves trapped in an unpopular party because of the words, policies and actions of fellow partisans.

If you need to switch to another party, it shouldn’t have to make the news as some sort of epiphany or “I’ve seen the light” moment, whether it is the Charlie Crists, Lincoln Chafees, Gary Johnsons or Cynthia McKinneys of American politics. The candidate or voter shouldn’t have to feel like some sort of “traitor” for switching or creating new parties.

That’s why I support the Single Transferable Vote. I support having more options in Congress and state legislatures, including more equal representation for the six most-popular parties in the United States: Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Working Families, and Constitution.

I could see Rand Paul as an LP senator, Bernie Sanders as a WFP senator, at least a quarter of the House Republican caucus being Constitution Party members (including the likes of people like Louie Gohmert), a quarter of the same caucus being LP members (including some of the Tea Party-backed members like Justin Amash), most of the Congressional Progressive Caucus being members of the WFP or Greens, and so on, while center-right or center-left candidates would stick with more uniform, less-problematic Republican or Democratic parties.

Maybe after all the libertarians and socio-conservatives left for their own parties, the GOP would revert back to its image as the “Party of Lincoln”, or even to the pro-civil rights stance of the Radical Republicans of the Reconstruction era, or even to the likes of Eisenhower. I could imagine people like Rob Portman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen remaining in this incarnation of the GOP.

Maybe after the progressives of the CPC left to join the Working Families Party and Greens, the Democrats would get much more pushback against their acquiescence to pro-MRI policies. Centrists like Dianne Feinstein, Kay Hagan and Harry Reid would still likely remain in this incarnation of the Democratic Party.

Maybe after the far-right Republican Study Group joins the Constitution Party, that party would be marginalized in their socially-far-right politics by the other parties in Congress through a sort of cordon sanitaire.

Any of these possibilities would perhaps prevent people from associating “fright-wing” politics with a plurality of the voting population, and allow voters to make a better distinction between the candidates for whom they would vote, as well as the issues on which they would campaign.

I just want more diversity of party labels to choose from, not this frustrating, debilitating duopoly in which we’ve been stuck for so long. And to have more diverse party choices in our politics, we need to dispense with the idea that anyone has to win a majority to be part of the political process.

We just need to win 4%.

The hatred for “political correctness” is as inane and useless as the concept itself.

No matter whether the complaints about “political correctness” come from RuPaul, Phyllis Schlafley, or other culture warriors who want to “preserve” what they were raised with, one thing I can be sure of is that anyone who cries persecution by “political correctness” is almost always the less-culturally-imaginative, more-arrogant party.

So #RuPaul, the more you cry “PC”, the less I think of you as a competent individual who can think of a detour away from pissing on some viewers, just because a word you use is part of “how you were raised”.

Just for the record, I think that one way to bolster support for our vets is by making Veterans ID cards which can make it easier for them to access vet-tailored services, both public and private. In light of how the DVA has faltered, it should fall on all levels of government to work smarter for support of military vets.

My stance on #StandYourGround, in reply to an insulting comment under 13WMAZ.com’s story:

I have lived most of my life without needing or using a gun. I have lived with the expectation that 1) the police are supposed to give the proper reaction to a criminal act and 2) disrupting the conditions which lead to violent cultures lessens the need for both police and handguns.

And for the record, I lived as a civilian in #WarnerRobins with my mother from 1992 to 2013. Even when we lived in a troubled low-income neighborhood for part of that time (Oldtown), we never had a gun in the house. I didn’t end up getting trapped in what so many other families found themselves, so I never needed a gun for self-defense.

What separates me from those who ended up going to jail for gun-related or drug-related crimes, the type that is supposed to be addressed by this expansion of gun laws?

They didn’t have a support network to draw upon during their turbulent years, they were easily drawn into violent cultures, they weren’t engaged in their youth, they were in poverty-driven homes.

This is a perfect breeding ground for petty violence in defense of self, of “honor”, of one’s gang, or of one’s trade in drugs. I saw the cycle with my own eyes while a teenager, and I’m sick of the cycle. Why aren’t we addressing the instability and poverty in our neighborhoods? SYG only reacts with fire when we should be healing our neighborhoods, our schools. SYG, in the longer run, makes no sense, and only adds more guns to the violence and instability.

So I see no part of my comment as being “stupid”. I’m 27, I lived without needing to defend myself with a gun in the house or pocket, and I managed to make it out OK in the heart of Georgia. Your anger at me is unjustified. I say “Yes” to “Fix Our Neighborhoods”. I say “Yes” to “#RaiseTheWage”. I say “Yes” to “Two-Year National Service”. I say “Yes” to “Affordable Healthcare”. I say “Yes” to “Decriminalization of Marijuana”. I say “Yes” to “#BanTheBox”. I say “Yes” to breaking the cycle of violence and poverty. I say “No” to “Stand Your Ground” and the further weaponization of our neighborhoods.

On one common objection against #RaiseTheWage: Actually, I don’t mind higher prices for your services or products. I may not be able to access your services or products most of the time, but when I do, I expect to be paying for the experience of making and presenting the product as is. That includes the experience of those who made it and their need for full compensation for their labor. That includes a wage that they can live on. You don’t have to be Wal-Mart. You don’t have to be China. You can aim for better quality, for your products as well as your labor.

From a comment I made to Anne:

“If we LGBTs and Allies go, we’re excusing and abetting “business as usual”. If we stay home and boycott, Russia will still go ahead with “business as usual”. Either way LGBT Russians are screwed in some way. Plus, with far-right assholes from churches, think tanks and political parties abroad (including here in the US) who have confederated themselves (or twisted themselves and each other in angry anti-liberal knots) in “pro-family” material and rhetorical defense of the Russian, Ugandan and other anti-LGBT bills, how does one counter this industry and its bitter product? The only thing I can see as effective is forming an “underground railroad” for LGBT Russians and Eastern Europeans.”

I’m not arguing against a civilian boycott of the games. If moralistic and symbolic, it will at least keep people aware of what is going on. But don’t count on it to be effective beyond that, or in the short term. #lgbt #russia #sochi #olympics #ЛГБТ #России

So Obama’s former campaign is relaunching (again) as Organizing for Action. And they’re specifically launching as a 501(c)4 “social welfare” group and public policy advocacy, meaning that the new OFA can lobby and participate in campaigns, as long as the OFA focuses on social welfare. Of course, that’s where the money is: 501(c)4 orgs spend more on political ads than Super PACS. But most 501(c)4 orgs operate “in conjunction” with either parallel 527 committees or parallel (Super) PACS in order to either expressly advocate for candidates or spend money on getting out the vote. So I don’t think OFA will stay one organization for long, and an OFA Voter Fund will probably be created under 527 org rules in the future.

Health Security

Uncategorized, , ,

Idea: market “single-payer healthcare” as “health security” or “health defense”.

For some reason, things sound more tantalizing to American ears when “-security” is appended to the end of a word. I’ve heard “energy security” (or energy independence) used, I’ve heard “environmental security” used, so why not “health security”? All it would communicate is the fact that the health of our citizens is not only the priority of any civil society, but also a priority of national security, stability and sovereignty.

It would also communicate that without federal intervention through the efficiency of a single-payer system, we will continue to see the chaos and irregular conduct of healthcare and health insurance by various brackets or classifications of humanity.

So I hope that this term – “health security” or “health defense” -comes into use in the future on the part of advocates for healthcare reform in this country.

Andrew Breitbart is Dead

Uncategorized,

In regards to Breitbart, I only regard him as a curious and perplexing person in his life. I don’t consider him to be a cause of the current political climate.

History renders us all as inheritors of past events and ideologies, and Breitbart inherited both the Cold War and conservative perceptions of the so-called “New Left”.

He spent the last part of his life trying to fight, embarrass and disempower all perceived leftists, by whatever means necessary, and many people, some of whom had little knowledge of a right-left dichotomy, were either ostracized or screwed over in the process.

All I can say is that Breitbart helped set a template for the future of American politics without ever having taken political office. I’m a bit envious of his stridency and ability to angrily, but successfully, deflect criticism and attack his enemies, which were many. He exuded a tough-pundit style, he was unapologetic about anything he did or said, and I think a lot can be learned from this most visible aspect.

I think what I learned from him is to never say “sorry”. Never apologize. Never “consider” other people. If people are your lessers and inferiors (or deserve to be), say so. If people are “moochers” and “leeches”, say so. If people deserve to die or be exterminated, say so. Never apologize. If you do, the terrorists win. Never apologize.

NOTE 12/30/17: He was also a racist asshole.