The Vox Populi is Far Too Quiet

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English: Ballot Box showing preferential voting

English: Ballot Box showing preferential voting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I spent the last couple of months working on the board of education elections here in Buffalo. More disappointing than the results, was the absolutely pitiful turnout. Somewhere in the vicinity of two percent of all eligible voters even bothered to cast a ballot that day. That is one in fifty people in this city willing to take five minutes out of their day to help decide the fate of Buffalo schools. I cannot help but think of what I was saying to people as they left the polls Tuesday “thank you for getting out and exercising that little bit of power we all have.” Continue reading →

Article 21

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(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

It is a sad truth that almost everyone on this planet lives without most of the rights in the Declaration. This is especially true of the rights laid out in Article 21. A right which we, as a Americans take so for granted as to barely exercise it is denied outright in many countries to particular groups and in a disturbingly large minority, to all citizens. In countries where universal suffrage is set down by law, barriers to voting have been put in place in the name of prudence or to “fight voter fraud.” These barriers always affect those with the least power to begin with, taking away what little they had. Unfortunately, of late, our own nation has become one of those countries.

It is even worse when you look at opportunities for the poor to take part in public office. The poorest members of our Congress still are wealthier, in real terms, than most Americans. Sure some of them are in debt up to their eyeballs, but that is because they come from economic backgrounds where it does not hurt to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Indeed as the linked article points out, some of them have the capacity to unload rental property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, something well beyond the capability of the rest of us. Some might believe this is a call for public financing of elections, but you would not know that to watch our main stream media.

“Democracy is the worst kind of government, except for all the others.” A little  wisdom from Winston Churchill. Democracy, when done right, when truly representative of the people, with some appropriate checks against mob rule, is the most just form of government. It gives even the poorest of us a chance to shape our own destiny. Anything that hinders that is an invitation to tyranny, something this nation, one founded on the fight against tyranny, gets closer to with every voter ID law and with each day we go without public financing of elections.

Reserving My Right To Change My Mind

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Holy Smokes!!! It has been far too long since last I posted. Sorry guys, like the John Lennon song says “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Life has been happening all around me, mostly very good things, but it has kept me busy. As things get into a nice groove I shall get back to my minimum one post a day. Frankly I would not have posted tonight, but I’ve read too much to stay silent.

A few months ago I posted that I was going to vote for our incumbent President and the reasons why. The reasons are still there, the presumptive GOP nominee is only marginally better than the madmen he bested, I really do not want him to be the President. That said, I no longer want our current Chief Executive in office. He is nowhere near our worst President, even in, especially in, my life time, but he is at best another place holder that allows the economic elites to manipulate events to the detriment of the rest of us.

He has beat the drum of deregulation, that insane policy that brought us to our current economic woes, as loudly as any Republican. His window dressing economic progressiveness is limited to the “Buffett Rule” a rule that would merely maintain a status quo of the more or less flat tax we already have.  He has assigned the very people who have broken our trust to guard that trust. All of that pales in comparison to his worst crime.

Yes, it is a crime what has been done to Bradley Manning. This young man has suffered being held in solitary confinement for ten months, without trial. He has had President Obama state that he has broken the law, declaring his guilt before he has been given a chance to defend himself in court. The administration has allowed for a provision in the NDAA codifying indefinite detention. They bombed a foreign nation without provocation. This President has behaved, on the national security front, in exactly the same ways his predecessor had, with nary a sound from those that condemned GW Bush for his policies.

Has this President done good things? Certainly, and I am grateful for them. As a queer I am grateful for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I am grateful for his refusing to defend DOMA. That said, I cannot in good conscience support a man who is so willingly a tool of the military industrial complex and who is willing to shred those rights that we have, in the past, rightfully held up as the reason that despite our flaws we are a shining example to the rest of the world. It is for this reason I will be voting for Jill Stein in November.

Maybe the President is the lesser of two evils, but I refuse to vote like that anymore. I will vote my conscience and sleep well. I won’t condemn anyone so afraid of a Romney Presidency that they decide to vote for President Obama, but as you do so, as you contemplate your voting habits and political life over the next several months, ask yourself if this man shares your values, and please, even if you give him your electoral support, at least ask yourself if he deserves your moral support.

Why I’m Voting For President Obama

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It has been nothing if not an interesting three years. In 2009, progressives and Democrats, two often but not always overlapping groups, were excited about a man most of us knew almost nothing about.  We elected him in no small part due to his overwhelmingly positive message and his general refusal to play the mean spirited games that both mainstream parties of our nation are usually guilty of.

In the time since then he has been harried by political opponents lacking in any coherent or legitimate concerns. He has compromised to the point of near abandonment of his base and still they pillory him (metaphorically speaking, of course, though I am sure they would love to do so literally.) Many of his allies, myself included, have been disappointed in these compromises.

Some of our disappointment has been short sighted, he did after all run as a centrist candidate. Some of it has been spot on.  While I am glad DADT was repealed, it took too long considering he had the support of the most powerful figures in our military and of the general public. He let his SoHHS take a legitimate, safe contraceptive off the shelves for purely political reasons. Regulation on the financial industry has been too slow and until Warren Buffet, one of the few members of that industry capable of long term thinking, spoke up he did not speak out about the disparity in our tax codes.

That said we, as progressives have had wins. He did pursue and oversee the repeal of DADT. He told his AG to not defend the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act. We did get the Consumer Protection Bureau and while we did not get the leader for it we wanted, its very existence is a huge win. He has not been awful for progressive causes, just not the leader he could be on them. Ultimately though, that is not why I am voting for him.

I am voting for him because the most moderate of the Republican hopefuls is so far to the right that he makes Ronald Reagan look like Jimmy Carter. I am voting for him, and likely volunteering on his campaign, because the rest of that group would gladly tear apart this country to destroy anything different or “less” than them. I am voting for him because while he has bowed to corporate interests on multiple occasions during his Presidency, all of the Republican candidates would gleefully hand the shortsighted leaders of plutocracy the keys to the kingdom. Yes I am voting for him because he is the lesser of all evils.

I will not tell my fellow Greens to not vote for their party. You should always vote your conscience and that is never wrong no matter what anyone says about splitting votes. That said, I hope they do consider the last paragraph when they make their decision. I also hope they consider our energy might better be spent winning our local races so we become more familiar to the public.

This is likely to be a contentious race, no matter how close it is. There are people on the far right that, while not as numerous as they would like to think, are very motivated. They are people who view anyone not like them,  wealthy, straight, Christian (of a certain stripe of course), and/or white as an infestation that needs to be flushed out of  ”their” country. Almost all of the candidates vying for the Republican nomination have proven most willing to pander to that group and more than a few are unapologetic members of it. I intend to do my part making sure they do not gain the levers of power needed to victimize the rest of us.