On the Contrary

Right now we are watching the United States flex its power and its effect on the world community is powerful.  What you say, we are financially going down for the count.  We are bogged down in Iraq, things are looking bleak in Afghanistan, and we are broke.  What the hell are you talking about?  What I am talking about is that when we suffer the whole world suffers.

This to me is the greatest lesson about old thinking and new thinking.  Russia invades Georgia (still up in the air on who really caused this and my bet is on encouraging Neocons and belligerent Georgians. and of course Russians itching for a fight) and John McCain wants to start the Cold War.  Then the economy goes in the dumper, oil prices fall and Russia is in big trouble.  Not only Russia, but Iran and Venezuela are in big trouble.  When they were awash in cash, they could afford their belligerence and military adventurism.  Now they are all over extended.  If the world economy continues its descent, many of leaders who have bought support at the expense of democracy may just find themselves in deep do-do.  There was already unhappiness in Iraq as they invested in terrorism and nukes instead of their own people and now the cupboard is getting really bare.  Could it be that the new conventional wisdom is that we are all connected?  Could it be that economic prosperity for one, works for all?  What a concept.

This to me is the great lesson of the reality that has been out there for a while, but nobody really got it.  Power is purely economic.  Military power is really just an adjunct to economic power.  And oh how we have not taken care of our economic power.  We have failed to repair a leaky boat (no infrastructure upgrades, no real investment in our human capital in terms of education, healthcare, childcare, etc), and now we are out of gas (no real national energy policy) and a storm is brewing.  But every cloud has a silver lining.  While we were not investing in our own country, we were borrowing madly so we could buy the goods and services of the world, and when we went away, the rest of the world is also in deep do-do because they have no one to buy their stuff.  They need us and they need us bad.  And as any drug dealer can tell you when the addict really needs his fix, needing is the root of real power.

And that is the secret to rebuilding our nation and building a promise for our children’s future.  The rest of the world needs for us to rebuild ourselves and they are going to loan us money at really good interest rates.  But I have been beating that drum to death in these pages (don’t worry about the deficit, rebuild America).  My point here is that real power has very little to do with the outrageous amounts we spend on the military in today’s world.  That is what has changed and only our most progressive have recognized it.  None of them, Iran, Russia, Venezuela,  North Korea, or even China can live without us.  The only ones that can are the true nutcases who want to destroy the world (Al Qaeda and other radical extreme religious groups).  But here is the really interesting thing.  High tech weapons don’t do much to defeat them.  Its really a mission of search and destroy done primarily with low tech toys like good police work, and some limited military action.  So why are we spending fortunes (more than all other countries in the world combined) on the military and not investing in our economic future?  Maybe we could rethink that.

But the title of this little blog is titled Limits of Power.  I stole this from Andrew Bacevich’s book, “Limits of Power”.  He points out that military adventurism to expand our power are loss leaders that pay no dividends.  Military power executed in the 18th and 19th century paid large returns in both our wealth and our power.  Since then it has been a losing enterprise that is bankrupting our treasury.  But we still evaluate our power in terms of military power alone.  Now is the time to cut the cord.  Russia has no one to sell their oil to if they alienate the West and their decadent economy cannot pick up the slack.  Hugo Chavez has bought off his citizens with tons of government spending that he can no longer afford with falling oil prices.  Iran may no longer be able to afford not investing in their people so they can build a nuke.  It’s a new world out there and we did not even need to fire a shot.  Think about it.  It could you a whole new perspective on where and how we spend our money.  On the humorous side, if things start to get tense in the world, just threaten to have a depression and see if they don’t start playing ball.

Bottom line here is that George Bush and the conservative Republicans have it exactly wrong and they wasted our treasury proving it.  Now it is time to turn the page.

Oh there have been so many interesting tidbits in the news lately that I hardly know where to start.  So I will start with Wednesday and work backward:

• The brutal attack in New York by four white boys out to “f*ckup some Mexicans” was admirably covered by Rick Sanchez on CNN.  Rick tried to play down the political implications while condemning the attacks, but CNN only has to look in their own back yard to see Lou Dobbs spinning this hate.  When Ted Turner confronted Lou on his treatment of Hispanics, Lou responded by denying any such behavior.  Fat white men are the last to get it.  And of course it is political as the attacks don’t come from the left, but from the Republican right.  The xenophobia and fear that was used by the Republican Party to stir up their base is coming home to roast.  It is a grand old party isn’t it?
• Sarah Palin was being interviewed by Wolf Biltzer on Wednesday and he asked her point blank if she regretted trying to tie Barack Obama to an American former weatherman and her inflammatory language.  Her answer went something like this.  “I am still very concerned with his relationship with this individual (there was no relationship) but lets put all that behind us.”  Anybody see this is contradictory?  “I am still concerned, let’s put it behind us?”  The woman cannot think and talk in logical sentences.  Then there is the problem of checking peoples causal associations.  I am sure McCarthyism doesn’t even ring a bell with this ding dong.   I think the more exposure she gets and people see how she twist reality, the less most will accept her in mainstream politics.
• The Republicans are having a meeting of their Governors in Florida to see a way forward.  This is billed as a war between the pragmatists and the social conservatives.  The pragmatists see that the party has to modernize and move away from issues that are no longer registering with younger voters and most of the country.  They also recognize that the small government, no regulation approach is not keeping up with the times.  The social conservatives think we simply haven’t had enough of this stuff.  What I found interesting was that they wanted to learn from Barack Obama’s campaign and modernize, meaning learn how to use technology to get their message out.  But nowhere in this entire discussion did they discuss the elephant in the room:  The message is faulty.
• The New York Times on Tuesday ran a story about the wanning impact of the South in our elections (For South, A Waning Hold on National Elections).  I cannot think of a more welcome circumstance.  This part of the country is the center for the Republican base made up of poorly educated white people, evangelical Christians (mostly poorly educated white people), and the center of overt racism in this country.  This deep South voted more Republican than they did in 2004 and went almost 60% for John McCain.  Could you be more out of touch?  As the New York Times put it, “By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say.”  Thank god because they have almost destroyed our country.  Here is one of the milder comments from one of the fine citizens down there, “I think any time you have someone elected president of the United States with a Muslim name, whether they are white or black, there are some very unsettling things.”  It will be nice to know that the most ignorant part of our country no longer decides who we have for President.
• And last but not least relating to our economic woes were two stories the were highly interesting and show once again we can’t let go of that old conventional wisdom that the market place knows better than government.  Right now it clearly doesn’t and Detroit wants a major bailout from the government.  Actually this is bailout number two in the current crisis.  Tom Friedman put it best in his op-ed on Wednesday (How to Fix a Flat) when he said that there needs to be strings.  These companies have made bad choice after bad choice, fought raising standards on gas mileage standards, while our Japanese friends are making money.  We have say to that it’s our money and if you want to be saved, here are the conditions.  We are now part owner.  Will the Demos finally see this and put real teeth into a bailout that gives us some say about how our money is used?  I will wait to see, but you know President Moron won’t go for it.  Sixty eight days and counting
• The other economic story is after two months Treasury Secretary Paulson is finally figuring out it is about mortgage foreclosures.  So he says he is going to shift some of that $700 billion from buying mortgages to free up credit for Americans, or some form thereof.  Once again it is wrong headed an too mild to help.  It is about the mortgage crisis, but at almost every step, we have cushioned the blow to  banks and investors from the losses they have help perpetuate.  The fear is that investors, if banks renegotiate loan terms, will sue for loss of their earnings (Lawmakers Debate Loan Modification). There are complicated arguments here about who owns the loans, but my feeling is that government needs to step in a major way and make sure the pain of these devaluating home values is felt by the investors also.  How that is done is still up in the air, but it has to be done.  Once again, against conventional wisdom, in the short term the government is going to have to stop this hemorrhaging and it will not be by assuming these loans at their original value and thus preserving the banks and their investors.  Welcome to the pain felt on Main Street guys.

There was one other story, I think on Sunday, about how the carefully choreographed Republican campaign of xenophobia and hate (remember the shots of “kill him” at their rallies as they spewed disinformation or outright lies) will in fact increase the violence (see item 1 above) and intolerance among our less educated and already intolerant population.  But I will leave that to another day.  Anybody who is still a proud Republican needs to have a brain transplant.

Well we are a week into President-Elect Obama term and we have the pundits and the press beating the drum of go slow and be careful.  The conventional wisdom is that we are a center right country.  It is also a flawed concept that will spell disaster if followed.  What is most interesting to me is the idea that somehow the conservative approach to our problems still has any validity whatsoever.  I think everyone is missing the point and what Barack Obama meant by “Change we can believe in”.  It isn’t about center right or center left, or meeting someone’s ideological concepts for government.  It’s about doing things that work, regardless of the political spectrum it represents.

Our biggest problem is that this nation has been controlled by a conservative agenda that is dogmatic and rigid.   The sad thing is that the Democrats bought into it and went along when the markets were sailing.  Since the days of Ronald Reagan we have been on a path for our self-destruction.  What has really happened is that the Republican Party is truly a right wing party and the Democrats became a party of center-right to accommodate and survive.  If you compare what Democrats believed in the 60’s and 70’s with where they are today, they make today’s Democrats look like downright conservatives.  Republicans like to frame Democrats as tax and spend liberals, but Democrats today are not afraid of unleashing the market place where it will work.  They are not afraid of low taxes as long as the tax rate is fair across all segments of our society and it sustains our spending.  They are not afraid of reducing regulations where it makes sense, but some regulation is required.  As for the spending part, the guys who were more interested in balancing the books in the last 16 years were the Democrats (decreasing deficit under Clinton, and ballooning deficit under Bush).  If you look at the market place solutions to health care, education, long term energy policy, or infrastructure upgrades, it has failed miserably.  Time to wake up and smell the coffee and try something different.

But that is what our new and reinvigorate conservatives are going to fight to the death to prevent.  But what I really find interesting is that our pundits are all on yesterday’s script also.  Let’s take the question or more to the point the underlying assumption in the question, just what are you going to cut to pay for all these programs.  What is not being even considered is that for the short term the deficit is going to get bigger because if we don’t do these things, recession could become depression.  Most economists will tell that the world is going to have to go on a deficit spending path for a while to get things rolling again.  Note China has announced a giant infrastructure improvement program to boast their ailing economy.  The pundits have also bought into the idea that you can’t move too fast, that the approach that needs to be taken is center right.  But half measure won’t work and they could make things worse as people become despondent.  You have to wonder when 90% of the public thinks we are on the wrong track, and the assumption among our media is that we need to keep doing what we were doing, just not so vigorously.

We are facing tough times where basic assumptions need to be challenged and we need to try different things.  But our whole information and communications industries need to be brought on to this new way of thinking.  The first big one, of course, is for the short term we are going to grow the deficit.  The second big one is that government spending on real investments in our infrastructure is a real investment in our future.  We can’t wait on investment in alternate energy, and I am sorry so say, forget clean coal.  There isn’t any and any way you cut coal, it produces more carbon dioxide and then if you can capture it, you have to figure out what to do with it.  Forget tax rebates or other popular cash in your pocket schemes where “only you know best what to do with your money”.  If you knew what was best, we wouldn’t be in this crisis now.  We need to get over not controlling how the money is spent in our bailouts.  I’d give more money to the banks and the car industry, but then I would want a major say in how it is used.  We need to drive the train for a change because the guys we having been giving it to have the train off the tracks.

My fear is that this kind of marginal moving slightly to the left thinking is self-defeating.  We need to be in one mode:  progress.  What have been doing doesn’t work so let’s try something else.  It is not the end of the world and if it isn’t better than the old way, change again.  We have been stagnant too long and we have let the naysayers control the world.  We need to take it back.

An good friend of mine and I are having an email debate on whether a large portion of our population are ignorant or stupid.  She took me to task on my tendency of calling people who don’t agree with me stupid.  In particular in the battle against gay marriage in California I was less than kind about the people who supported that ban.  Her point was that for the majority, they are simply ignorant and if they ever are touched with the reality of the situation, say like having a gay child or a close friend who is gay, they then can understand the issues and be more tolerant.  She has a point since we all see this in our daily lives.  I know a few of my Republicans friends who have been dead set against government medical insurance change their tune when the lack or affordability of medical care touches their lives.  In a word, it’s all relative.

But here is where I take exception.  Ignorance is the state of unknowing.  Because of some anecdotal event or total lack of experience one forms an impression about something uninformed by the mass of knowledge or fact gathered about that thing.  In many cases this is reinforced by group-think.  An example is the belief that witches were the problem in Salem in the 1600s or gays can choose to be heterosexual (skipping all together the issue of whether being heterosexual is a useful trait in a world bursting at the seams with people).   In the recent election there were segments of our population that bought into the lies that Obama was a Muslim or a terrorist or a socialist or an America hater.  If they heard it enough, it was true.  But when does this border on stupidity.

Stupidity can be defined as a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience.  Einstein was purported to have said, “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”  Or said more simply, ignorance is not knowing, stupidity is knowing and doing it anyway.  One of my favorite examples is the guy, who in heavy traffic on the freeway, is weaving in out of the lanes to get ahead, and when you finally reach your off-ramp, guess who is right next to you?  One would think that stupidity results from the lack of consequences, but judging from the recent failure of the economy and conservatives inability to question their religious faith in the market place, one has to wonder as they talk about revitalizing their party by getting back to basics.

To my mind we saw an amazing amount of stupidity in this election cycle, most of it from red states.  We have had a President who really has been a good conservative in everything but spending.  He has continuously reduced taxes and, no kidding, the GAO found almost two-thirds our businesses in America (both domestic and foreign) pay no taxes.  He didn’t make government smaller, but he neutered it by removing regulations and not enforcing those he couldn’t remove.  Oh and let’s not forget that he appointed incompetent political hacks to run it so that its was totally ineffective (Heck of a job Brownie).  He let the market place run free and welcomed greed as a desirable trait.  We are now reaping the benefits and yet these same Republicans want to do the same thing, except cut government spending so we can never simulate the economy.  John McCain was heavily supported in the Red States and he offered nothing but the same.  I am sorry I have to think they are stupid.

One last thought on this subject that will raise the hackles of many.  Every wonder why the Red States seem to band in the evangelical Christian areas where faith is king? There is a direct correlation between unquestioning faith, conservatives, and stupidity.  We in American have a tendency to praise strong faith.  In times of horrible circumstances, we hold to that faith and tell everyone it got us through.  By definition, we don’t let reality inform that faith.  But do we ever think that the 9/11 hijackers had unshakeable faith in the righteousness of their actions?  Does anybody think they acted out of ignorance, or stupidity?  Faith does not always (and I would say rarely) serve us well.  I think that even in the overwhelming evidence that conservative economic principles have not served us well, or that our war in Iraq has been counter productive to our fighting global terrorism, these Red Staters hung on to their belief in John McCain and his “experience to stay the course” because they are blinded by their faith.  In this case in a belief system (this has nothing to do with God) that is no longer operative and is obviously no longer operative.  This is stupidity.

In the coming months as President Obama tries to move this country forward and toward a more progressive future, we will see stupidity raise its ugly head because the Republicans will try to thwart this at every step of the way.  They have to.  If he succeeds and we prosper, they would have to face up to the failure of their ideas and the stupidity of their actions.

Now that we are past the election, the kibitzing has began.  Just when we thought we could focus on policy issues, the noise around the edges is drowning it out.  So here are the bits and pieces of what is being aimed at us:

• Barack Obama appoints Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and John Boehner is shocked, shocked, shocked. The House Republican leader from Ohio was less than kind. He called Emanuel’s appointment an “ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”  John’s idea of the center is a little left of the far right. What is entertaining about this is that any time the Democrats have played nice with the Republicans, the Republicans have stabbed the Democrats in the back.  Here is a flash bulletin John:  It has been playing this game your way that has gotten us into the mess we are in.  Sit down and shut up.  We will let you know when we care about what you think.
• On the same topic, Rachel Maddow is concerned that these are all Clinton people and how is this going to be new politics.  On this one Rachel is showing her naivativity.  Even if the Democrats want to play nice, does she really think the Republicans, most of which are right of Attila the Hun, will play nice?  What Barrack did was show them that he wants to move in a new direction, but he has no illusions about Republican cooperation.  If it takes hardball to turn this ship around, he has the right people to do it.
• Some of us down here in the south forty-eight are having a hard time understanding how Ted Stevens, a convicted felon, can get re-elected.  Actually it is quite simple.  Pundits like to say Ted is a much loved Senator in Alaska.  The reality is Ted has been bringing home the bacon in terms of federal pork in a major way for many years.  Isn’t it interesting that these small government, cut the waste, no taxes Republicans want to cut everybody else’s pork, but theirs is sacrosanct?
• Apparently at John McCain’s concession speech, Sahara had a speech all ready to go, but cooler heads prevailed and prevented her from stealing the lime light.  I would of loved to have heard that speech.  After John McCain’s gracious speech conceding the election, we would have had a red meat, divide and conquer speech that the base would have eaten up.  Well for once they cut her off and it was America first.  Thanks John.
• Even more entertaining is that the conservative brain trust has headed out to the hills in Virginia to regroup and decide the new direction of the conservative movement.  If you read my blog yesterday you know that in my mind, their basic philosophy has been shown to be bankrupt.  They have been successful by selling this snake oil to the rural, less educated, the religious right, and of course the wealthy who were the only ones who benefited from this nonsense.  So are they going to decide that the Palin red meat to the base thing, anti-thinking approach is what they need more of?  Will it be rallying around the fundamental Christians so they can ignore them after they get in power?  Or could they rethink their whole philosophy?  Oh that would be way too hard. Maybe they can come up with a strategy to block anything the Democrats try to do and then blame the Democrats for not moving the country forward.  Oh, I forgot.  That is what they have been doing.
• I was truly touched by those crying in the crowd in Chicago as Barack Obama won the Presidency, even Jessie Jackson.  Jessie Jackson has been a fixture in the black movement longer than I can remember and this must have been an emotional moment.  But I couldn’t help thinking, was he crying because it wasn’t him up there on the stage?  I know that is mean, but over the years Jessie has been somewhat of a black/minority ambulance chaser, so I am never sure what is genuine and what is for the cameras.
• George Bush, to his credit, instructed his staff to fully support the transition, with no stupid stunts like what the Clinton staffers did when they moved in.  I would admire him for that but the one thing that is consistent about George Bush is that what he says has little to do with what he does.  In the meantime his boys are rewriting regulations to make life so much simpler for business.  You know, little things like allowing coal companies to rape the environment with little or no regulation.  Did I mention the opening of extremely sensitive Utah land to drilling?  Drill Baby, Drill.  Apparently the failure of regulation in the banking community has no transference to the lack of regulation in degrading the environment.  You got to hand it to them, they are consistent.

So another week and those that are still in power never fail to entertain.  If we weren’t facing real trouble all this might be really funny.

I have been listening to conservatives talk about their losing the election and they really don’t get it yet.  Let’s put all this in the nutshell:  Conservatives believe in small government, little or no regulation, market place solutions for all problems, and low taxes on the wealthy and trickle down economics.  They still think these are operative and that George Bush and the present crop of conservatives were just bad conservatives.  So in that narrative the Republicans were just dealt a bad hand and this election is the result, but they will be back.  But the narrative is fatally flawed.  Small government is not really an option anymore when the problems that face us are monumental.  The new term should be smart government that leads us toward our future.  Little or no regulation is simply not an option after we have seen what unregulated greed did on Wall Street.  Once again the new term should be smart regulations, that protects us, but are not stifling. The market place has not built our infrastructure, gotten us off of oil, and free market medicine is in shambles.  Low taxes and trickle down economics in general have created the largest deficit in our history since Reagan began this failed policy.  In the last eight years the gap between rich and poor is as great as it was before the fall in 1929 and the middle class is shrinking.  In other words, their philosophy doesn’t work except for the wealthy few.  The free ride is over.

Probably if you wanted to be less harsh, you could say that there is an element of truth in some of these ideas, but they are not a religion that must be dogmatically followed, which is the primary failure of the conservatives.  Smart government and smart regulation is a recognition that government and regulation can become oppressive, but if used effectively, can become a tool for progress.  Now that is an idea that is alien to the conservative mind.  What happened on Tuesday was to turn the page on this conservative philosophy.  Most Americans rejected the slash and burn election tactics of the conservatives that delved into hate mongering, fear, and appeals to anti-intellectualism.  These tactics may have a limited utility in the future except for the crowd they appealed to which was rural, uneducated, fundamental religious groups, and intolerant.  If you look at the electoral map you get a real glimpse of where our more ignorant and dogmatic citizens live. In general they are not economic hotbeds of our country. That’s why I think the belief that Sarah Palin has a future is misguided.  The future says we have to come together and get pragmatic.  This base is uneducated, dogmatic, intolerant, and will forever hold this country back.  Continuing to appeal to this base will only marginalize the Republican Party.

I have heard pundits who have opined that Barack needs to walk carefully down the middle to bring both sides together.  Least I remind you that the Republican definition of bipartisanship during the Bush years was my way or the highway.  What is left in Congress are these same people who have no history of compromise, only obstructionism.  I would advise Barack (he doesn’t need my advice) to decide what is best for the country and then cut no deals.  There will be no easy path and halfway measures won’t get us there. The people have given him a mandate because we are all very afraid of what our country was becoming under Republican leadership and we want policies that work, not adherence to a any dogma, conservative or progressive, if it doesn’t work.

You know I couldn’t help wondering Tuesday night if Republicans were watching that momentous outpouring of togetherness, the dancing in the streets, and the absolute joy on so many people’s faces and wished they could join in.  Or did they recoil in revulsion and say, “who are those people?”  Well that sea of multicultural people who want a better life is who we are and conservatives have nothing to offer them anymore. This election wasn’t the result of the economic collapse, it was the result of a bankruptcy of ideas from conservatives. And judging from the Republican base, it only appeals to the very rich who benefit from their selfishness, the less educated, and religious fundamentalists who want to impose their religion on the rest of us.  This is an ever shrinking base and what we saw on Tuesday was a repudiation of the politics of this base.

If the Republican Party, which is sadly reflected by the crowd that was gathered in Arizona election eve, white, mostly older, and wealthy, doesn’t get this message then like the Bull Moose Party, the Republican party will sink into oblivion.  It is sad to think that the party that brought us Abraham Lincoln could have sunk so low and be so out of touch with what is happening in America.  It sad to think that the people who still buy into their politics of division are the old and afraid.  What a sad ending, but they have taken us nowhere.

I think my first inkling was when Obama won Pennsylvania.  But when Ohio went for Obama, I knew it was over.  The long Republican nightmare was over.  But so much more than that, America really moved forward.  As Barack said, this really is a country where your dreams can come true.  I was so proud of America and it really was a win for all of America and had an amazing effect of bringing us all together.  I cried just like so many standing in those crowds in Chicago.  It was such a beautiful moment and reinvigorated our belief in our Constitution and our democratic ideals.

John McCain gave a very gracious concession speech, and it was nice to see John McCain, John McCain again.  But the crowd he spoke to was representative of what is wrong with the Republican Party, a sea of white faces who stilled seethed some hatred toward the Democrats.  I think when John McCain gets to step back and really look at his campaign, he will see the ugliness and hate that it seeded and deeply regret it.  Compare that with the hundreds of thousands throughout the country, white, black, yellow, brown, that were dancing in the streets and it told you all you need to know about the differences in the parties.

Here in California, all I can say is that I am deeply embarrassed for its citizens.  When the California Supreme Court threw out the ban against gay marriage as inherently unequal, many gays got married and lo and behold the family structure did not crumble.  Barely anyone noticed.  Now Californians have put into their Constitution a clause that discriminates against a segment of our population and I am deeply ashamed.  They let religious zealots and ignorant and fearful people rule.  It was so out of step with what happened on the national level and it is a disgrace for California.  I will commit myself to doing what I can to overturning this step back into the darkness.

So in most of America, it really is a new day.  Now maybe now we can stop the character assassinations and really focus on the pros and cons of the issues and our way forward.  We can still expect Republican obstructionism every step of the way, but I believe that America has spoken.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.  IT IS A NEW DAY IN AMERICA.

Now if we can just undo the injustice Californians did to gays.

Well, tomorrow our future is in the hands of old white people in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Florida.  Does that bother anybody besides me?  The Founders created the Electoral College as a compromise between the election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote.  It is not serving us well today as many voters are really disenfranchised.  Do you live in a Red or Blue state that is not up for grabs and are missing all the action?  If you are a Republican in California or a Democrat in Tennessee, your vote for President really doesn’t count because all of the electoral votes that will elect the President are already spoken for.  Except for the local elections and Propositions, you might as well not vote.  Remember back in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but Bush got the Electoral College vote (thanks Florida), or in 2004 when it all hinged on Ohio?  If we didn’t have the Electoral College, we might have a different and prosperous nation today.

But it gets worse.  Sanford Levinson (a conservative by the way) points out in his book, “Our Undemocratic Constitution” that by allowing each state to have 2 Senators, we are disenfranchising many of our citizens.  Do you support Wyoming having the same number of votes on national issues as California, which has roughly seventy times the population?  Think of it another way, every vote in Wyoming counts 70 times a vote in California counts.  What we have done is give small population states, usually overly conservative, undue say on our legislative path.  No wonder most of us would like to jettison the Red States.

The Senate is also the home of the filibuster rule which gives the minority even more power.  With a requirement for 60 votes to pass any legislation, 41 Senators can block any possible progress.  We have seen it used more frequently in the last two years than in any other similar period in our history.  In effect about 11% of the population that elects these Senators is controlling our ability to move forward.  And of course these Senators come from Red states.  If you wonder why it takes forever for change to take place in our Congress, wonder no more.

In a very timely editorial in the New York Times on Sunday, “How Much Does Your Vote Count?” by Sarah K. Cowan, Stephen Doyle, and Drew Heffron, they pointed out that there is also a problem in the House of Representatives:

“But there is a second, less obvious distortion to the “one person, one vote” principle. Seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned according to the number of residents in a given state, not the number of eligible voters. And many residents — children, noncitizens and, in many states, prisoners and felons — do not have the right to vote.  In House races, 10 eligible voters in California, a state with many residents who cannot vote, represent 16 people in the voting booth. In New York and New Jersey, 10 enfranchised residents stand for themselves and five others. (And given that only 60 percent of eligible voters turn out at the polls, the actual figures are even starker.)”

Bottom line here is that in our elections, the majority view is not represented.  Some would say that this was what the Founders intended to remove the decision making apparatus of the government from the uninformed rabble.  And it has worked so far.  But I don’t think it is going to pass muster this time if Barack Obama wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College vote as the old white people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida deny the majority in the country once again.  Last time in 2000 Al Gore conceded for the best of the country.  I think he won that election and conceding was a great mistake.  But this time, with the stakes so high, the difference between the two parties so great, and so many young people and minorities supporting Barack Obama, they will not tolerate this injustice by the Party of Fat Old White People.  It could be very tough going in this country if this happens, and if it does, many will loose faith in the system as a whole.  This will not bode well for bringing the people together to solve our problems.

I was listening to an interview with some early voters and it went something like this:

HE:  So who did you vote for?
SHE:  I would prefer not to say.
HE:  Well what do you think of Barack Obama.
SHE:  Oh there is something about him that makes me uncomfortable.
HE:  Exactly what is that?
SHE:  Oh I really don’t want to say.

And during this whole conversation I was thinking she thinks he is a Muslim or is opposed to a black president and there ought to be some test to be a voter to prove you are rational.  Later the same day I read a story about a half-way house for the mentally handicapped that the Republicans had lodged a complaint against because most of the people there voted for “the black man” for the alleged reason that the operator of the home had influenced them.  Now my brain was operating at high speed.  Maybe there should be some test for citizenship to prove you can make a rational choice.  Of course I never think Republicans make rational choices, but they have a right to their beliefs don’t they?  I was thinking maybe having a GED and successfully passed civics.  I mean, after all we make new citizens pass a test before they become citizens and can vote.  What could possibly be wrong with that?

So I said to my self, “what is the requirement to vote today” and decided to do a Goggle search.  When I did I hit upon a very enlightening site that gave a history of the rules restricting voting qualifications.  I am going to give you a shortened version here, but I suggest you click on the link and read them yourself.  Today in America, the states set the rules for voter eligibility, but the Supreme Court has played a major role.  Basically the present rules say that you need to be a citizen, 18 years or older, have lived in the state you vote for about 30 days, and in some states may require photo identification.  Registration for voting is simply a process to get on a list to say you meet those qualifications so you can vote (and to build jury pools).  Some criminals can vote if they have served their sentence, others are stigmatized for life. It just depends on the state. There are no other requirements.  So how did we get to where we are today?  Here is a cut and paste from infoplease.com:

• 1790 Only white male adult property-owners have the right to vote.
• 1810 Last religious prerequisite for voting is eliminated.
• 1850 Property ownership and tax requirements eliminated by 1850. Almost all adult white males could vote.
• 1855 Connecticut adopts the nation’s first literacy test for voting. Massachusetts follows suit in 1857. The tests were implemented to discriminate against Irish-Catholic immigrants.
• 1870 The 15th Amendment is passed. It gives former slaves the right to vote and protects the voting rights of adult male citizens of any race.
• 1889 Florida adopts a poll tax. Ten other southern states will implement poll taxes.
• 1890 Mississippi adopts a literacy test to keep African Americans from voting. Numerous other states—not just in the south—also establish literacy tests. However, the tests also exclude many whites from voting. To get around this, states add grandfather clauses that allow those who could vote before 1870, or their descendants, to vote regardless of literacy or tax qualifications.
• 1913 The 17th Amendment calls for members of the U.S. Senate to be elected directly by the people instead of State Legislatures.
• 1915 Oklahoma was the last state to append a grandfather clause to its literacy requirement (1910). In Guinn v. United States the Supreme Court rules that the clause is in conflict with the 15th Amendment, thereby outlawing literacy tests for federal elections.
• 1920 The 19th Amendment guarantees women’s suffrage.
• 1924 Indian Citizenship Act grants all Native Americans the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote in federal elections.
• 1944 The Supreme Court outlaws “white primaries” in Smith v. Allwright (Texas). In Texas, and other states, primaries were conducted by private associations, which, by definition, could exclude whomever they chose. The Court declares the nomination process to be a public process bound by the terms of 15th Amendment.
• 1957 The first law to implement the 15th amendment, the Civil Rights Act, is passed. The Act set up the Civil Rights Commission—among its duties is to investigate voter discrimination.
• 1960 In Gomillion v. Lightfoot (Alabama) the Court outlaws “gerrymandering.”
• 1961 The 23rd Amendment allows voters of the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections.
• 1964 The 24th Amendment bans the poll tax as a requirement for voting in federal elections.
• 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., mounts a voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, to draw national attention to African-American voting rights.
• 1965 The Voting Rights Act protects the rights of minority voters and eliminates voting barriers such as the literacy test. The Act is expanded and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
• 1966 The Supreme Court, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, eliminates the poll tax as a qualification for voting in any election. A poll tax was still in use in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.
• 1966 The Court upholds the Voting Rights Act in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.
• 1970 Literacy requirements are banned for five years by the 1970 renewal of the Voting Rights Act. At the time, eighteen states still have a literacy requirement in place. In Oregon v. Mitchell, the Court upholds the ban on literacy tests, which is made permanent in 1975. Judge Hugo Black, writing the court’s opinion, cited the “long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race” as the reason for their decision.
• 1971 The 26th amendment sets the minimum voting age at 18.
• 1972 In Dunn v. Blumstein, the Supreme Court declares that lengthy residence requirements for voting in state and local elections is unconstitutional and suggests that 30 days is an ample period.
• 1995 The Federal “Motor Voter Law” takes effect, making it easier to register to vote.
• 2003 Federal Voting Standards and Procedures Act requires states to streamline registration, voting, and other election procedures.

So there you have it and what you find is that there have been attempts to exclude one group or another throughout our history.  So I thought back to the mentally handicapped man who voted for the “black man” and realize that his voice had a right to be heard.  What we do in this country effects him and his has a right to have say in what that is.  He is a citizen of our country and however misinformed or misguided I might think he is, he has a right to feel how he feels.  And I or no one else should try to disenfranchise him or any one else from their right to vote by requiring some sort of test which is really an attempt to control the outcome.