Don't Be Stupid

I'm tired.

I'm tired of ideologues who insist on absolutely no compromise when it comes to our President. They either have no idea how the world works, or they are so high and mighty/holier than thou, they could care less about reality. They are no better than Grover Norquist tax pledge signing Republicans. And I'm tired of hearing from fellow Democrats or liberals or progressives, PUMAs or whatever they want to call themselves, saying that they're soooo discouraged by President Obama that they're going to show him come November by staying home or refusing to vote for the President. Yeah, that'll show 'em.

They'd rather cut their ideological noses off their idiotic faces and let Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney win the election, than cast a vote for someone who's apparently been such a disappointment in their eyes. You know, because under a Republican president, we would have repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell; because under a Republican president, we would have managed to pass the start of a universal health care system that previous presidents have tried and failed to enact over the last hundred years; because under a Republican president, we would have gotten a law in place protecting pay discrimination toward women in the workplace; because under a Republican president, we would still be in our 29 straight month of private sector job growth after shedding over 800,000 jobs a month by the end of the previous administration.

I could go on, but you get my point. Despite certain disappointments in an ideological fantasy world some of us would love to live in, the fact of the matter is that President Obama has been more successful in pushing a center/left agenda than any previous Democratic president.

I had been thinking about this for a while now and lo and behold, my co-blogger Jennifer, was on the same page and hit the nail on the head with a Facebook update today.

It's been a long time since I've invited people to unfriend me. But if you're a Democrat who would even consider not voting in the Presidential election because you're disappointed in Obama, then you're a disappointment to me and I don't want your energy around here. So, you can unfriend me. It's called time-management.

Unfortunately, someone didn't think her statement through and commented:

Don't forget the importance of listening to opposing/different opinions to avoid being in a self-reinforcing bubble.

Jennifer's response:

I reject the suggestion that I don't listen to opposing/different opinions. I reject the implication that I am in a bubble. Believe me, I hear/read opposing views as much or MORE than I hear agreement. What I clearly stated above is my refusal to make time in my life for people who won't vote for him because of a single issue. I didn't say they have to agree with him on everything. I didn't say that they have to agree with me. I said that anyone who won't vote for him because of an issue, or who would encourage others not to vote because of a single issue, are not worth my time. It has NOTHING to do with disagreement. It has to do with being so fucking stupid as to not vote at all. I really dislike the LEAP from me saying not voting is unacceptable to me saying disagreement is unacceptable. I mean I REALLY dislike that leap. So don't fucking go there with me. 

I have more respect for Republicans who actually believe Romney would be a better choice than I do for Democrats who DON'T FUCKING VOTE! It's about the vote, not the disagreement. GOT IT?! 

And furthermore, just because I don't agree with much of the dissent and disappointment and frustration does not mean I am oblivious, to it, naive to it, in denial of it. Guess what? I can actually disagree with people, too. Just because I am more supportive of Obama doesn't mean I haven't given a great deal of thought and research to each issue. Just because I disagree with the disappointed left doesn't mean I have blocked their reasoning from my life. Just because I filter how much I discuss it does not mean I filter their perspective. I just choose not to waste my time trying to convince Democrats the value of FUCKING VOTING! 

The leap you made is equivalent to people who say gay marriage will lead to man on dog sex. It's ridiculous and unfounded and fucking insulting.

I think Jennifer was insulted.

Let's not forget that a Romney presidency would pretty much destroy the Supreme Court as we know it. Currently, we have eight justices split evenly on the scales of justice with a ninth who straddles the balance point. A spine-shuddering thought like a President Romney might tilt the Supreme Court balance to the ultra-conservative side for the next forty years. Do we really want to add to a Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas style court?

Think about that before you decide to stay home on Election Day to make your fruitless point.

Our Voting Reality

I just came across a Facebook post linking to a Glenn Greenwald article titled, "Vote Obama – if you want a centrist Republican for US president." Knowing Greenwald's work, I declined to read the Guardian article. But I did rebut my Facebook friend who'd commented on his post with, "I've been saying this all along."

My response:  "Sure, you can say that. But if you DON'T vote Obama, you'll have an extreme right wing conservative Republican to take his place. And you'll have no one to thank but yourself."

The reality is that, whether we like it or not, we participate in a two party system.

I picked up a book that everyone should read, but unfortunately it's out of print. Still, look for it on Amazon or a used book store... maybe even the public library. It's called "Why I Am A Democrat" written by Ted Sorensen. The same Ted Sorensen who was President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and speechwriter. And the main reason why I responded to my friend the way I did, was eloquently written by Sorensen just 11 pages into his book, published in 1996, at the height of the Newt Gingrich controlled House of Representatives. Substitute a name here and there, and it could have been written yesterday. I'm including it here because no amount of paraphrasing can do it justice. (Emphasis mine.)

...I have always deemed it an obligation of citizenship to cast a vote for that better major party candidate, however deeply disappointed I may have been for some of his positions or actions and however skeptical I may have been about any likely improvement.

I understand why many people find voting the lesser of two evils objectionable. But it is necessary to remind ourselves that voting for a third-ticket candidate with no reasonable prospects of victory can only help the "more evil" of the two major candidates become President.

Nor are the two presidential candidates ever equally "evil" - or equally "good." Any voter who reads or listens with care can discern important differences in how they would behave in moments of crisis and in whom each would appoint to high office, important differences in how each would lead and would react to the failures and frustrations of leadership. In some election years, these differences may seem small and the choice unappealing. But a choice must be made.

Moreover, Independent candidates - with or without temporary tailor-made third parties - who say they are "above" politics or who substitute personal piety and pleasing platitudes for hard decisions on controversial political issues are usually either naive or hypocritical and would almost certainly be doomed to failure in the Oval Office. Deadlocks and delays in Washington and the inadequate response to knotty problems like the decline in family economic security are not simply the result of failed personalities, waiting to be reminded by personal strength and charm. I do not want to be "rescued" from politics by a white knight unable or unwilling to balance a ticket, make a deal, form a coalition, compromise a policy, trade a favor, and displease a lot of people. Politics, with all its need for reform, is still the fiber with which democracy is woven, the grease that enables the wheels of government to turn, the cement that binds a diverse and disparate country. Most members of Congress will not long listen to a President who constitutionally lacks the legal authority to lead without them and politically lacks the practical tools to lead with them.

If an independent or third party candidate - or, worse yet, several of them - did in fact win enough states to block an electoral vote majority, for either major party nominee, the President would be chosen by the House of Representatives on a one state, one vote basis, a surefire route o an undemocratic, bitterly divided process that would leave the winner with a faint mandate and a fragmented nation.

There is still another option for disaffected voters: stay home on election day in order to send a message of protest. But that "message" is not distinguishable from those sent by 100 million others, most of whom are not protesting or disgusted or disillusioned, but simply too busy or lazy, too ill informed or unconcerned, too tired or far from home, to go to the polls. Disappointed protesters failing to vote, only help the candidate whom they would most protest, while increasing within their own party the proportionate influence of those who disappointed them.

So with respect to all the Greenwalds and the Hamshers, et al, the choices are not the same. Listen and read what President Obama is talking about. Listen and read what the prospective Republican nominees are currently talking about. How can you say they're both the same?

Can we please stop with that "both sides are the same" meme? Look at any of the Republican candidates and ask yourself if any of them would have repealed DADT, passed health care legislation, ended the Iraq War, passed consumer finance reform, and the myriad of other things that have been accomplished under President Obama's watch. It's a no-brainer, folks.

Sorry. Oops.

Rick Perry: "Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support."



Boy, that's a lot of "Constitutional Amendment" talk from someone who doesn't know what the 26th Amendment is. And that Election Day in 2012 is November 6th, not the 12th. At least he got the month right. Cream of the crop, these GOP nominees, huh?

The Political Bubble's 1%

I just realized that I'm part of the one percent. No, not the 1% that Occupy Wall Street is protesting against. I don't have old money or new money. I make a good living but I'm not wealthy. I don't work on Wall Street and I'm not a bank CEO. I'm talking about the 1% of Americans that are in tune with the country's politics on a day to day basis. The one percent in the political bubble.

I write on this blog as often as I can, some weeks more than others. But over the past few weeks my output has been lower than usual (lower than I'd like) because I've had to take on extra work to save some money for a new roof on my house. So some days I'm off to work and out of the house by 6:30am and don't get home until midnight, which means my usual blogging/reading/cable TV watching time is greatly diminished if not completely absent. And I have to tell you, I feel much less anxious and angry. It's kind of nice to not need to have an opinion or a reaction to Mitt Romney's latest flip flop or Herman Cain's idiotic arrogance or Rick Perry on medical marijuana. But still I knew about it. I tried to keep informed even though I wasn't laser focused on it for hours a day. I was an outlier, but I still considered myself one of the very few that knew what was going on

But I fear the problem we have as a nation, and I used to be part of the problem, is that 99% of us really don't care enough. 99% of the population won't see Rick Perry's strange performance. 99% of Americans don't know who Herman Cain is. 99% of Americans can guess on any of Mitt Romney's policy positions and get it right because he's held all of them. 99% didn't watch the last Republican debate, but on that one, really, can you blame them?

Of course, my 99% to 1% ratio is an exaggeration but you get the larger point. In a representative democracy, when 59% of registered voters didn't bother to make their voices heard in the 2010 midterm elections, it's not representational. The result was the Tea Party takeover in the House of Representatives. 41% voter turnout in 2010 means that 96 million people made decisions for 307 million of us. That needs to change.

Unfortunately, too many are blissfully ignorant when it comes to all things politics and wait until there are two candidates left to choose from before they'll flip a lever or mark an 'x' every four years. Then they go back home and wait until the next presidential election. Meanwhile, they don't hear about voter suppression, gerrymandering, the political scandal du jour, or any of the myriad of stories that happen with their own representatives in their own districts. They don't understand that in today's global economy, what happens in Greece affects us financially as a country. The 2008 presidential election had a bigger turnout than any in history, and still it was only 65% of registered voters. 146 million people - less than half the population.

Until we as a whole become more informed, and I'm talking about real information, basic stuff like Ronald Reagan really did raise taxes or President Obama really is an American born citizen, or even that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and did not have weapons of mass destruction, we are only destined for more of the same.

And on that note, I'll try to make a better attempt to keep up with events as they happen. But it's not a promise - daddy needs a new roof.

Keep the Speaker!

Posted by JHW22