What if they call an Election and No One Votes?

This coming Tuesday, November 8, is an election day in almost all the states (I think one or two may not have an annual election cycle).  In a few states, Kentucky and Mississippi, Governors are elected and in a few others there are also state legislative elections (NJ and VA).  In Pennsylvania there are statewide judicial elections and in Ohio and some states there are statewide referendums on the ballot. (Ohio voters will pass judgment on the right wing Republican effort to curtail public employees’ collective bargaining rights; and Mississippi voters will act on a “personhood” amendment which is a backdoor way to repeal Roe v Wade.)

In most states this election cycle is local - in Pennsylvania county and municipal officials are elected.  Not all municipal officials; only about half because the other half are elected in the odd year after the Presidential election thus creating a four year cycle of elections and primaries.  Eight elections in four years evidently weary the American electorate.  The media both print and video pays little attention to local elections.  The PA media pays more attention to the allegations against Herman Cain than to the state candidates.  And the citizens pay even less attention than the media.

Americans have fought wars to establish their right to vote  and govern themselves but  those  wars  were  235  and 150 years ago; they no longer resonate with people as more than history.  In the nations of Africa and Asia, where independence from colonial rulers occurred in the last fifty years, we witness incredible percentages of people voting whenever they are allowed to whether in national elections or local elections. There seems to be a correlation between  voting and the proximity to when you weren’t allowed to vote. 

Elections have consequences.  The 2010 national and state elections ushered in a right wing crew of elected officials determined to impose their conservative moral values on everyone and undo decades of progressive legislation.  In addition in many states there have been legislative attempts to retain right wing power by suppressing the vote and reducing the size of the electorate; making registration more difficult, abolishing early voting and using nonexistent voter fraud to justify photo id laws that will reduce the likelihood that poor people, students and elderly folks will vote. 

There was for many years a bipartisan belief that voting was a good thing and that the more people took an interest and voted the stronger the democracy would be.  Al Smith, a conservative Democrat coined the phrase “the only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy”.  Now election laws and reapportionment of legislative districts (in the name of equality of representation) are being manipulated to reduce democratic participation.  It is not enough that our system of government is being sold to the highest bidders, and that Congress is becoming a millionaires club, but to ensure that the oligarchy continues to rein their minions seek to hamper and harass those who would vote for change.

In Pennsylvania’s Delaware County, where I reside, each of the forty-nine municipalities is electing their local legislative officials: boroughs have council members and townships have commissioners (except for two townships that have council members).  Over half those positions are uncontested with only one party presenting candidates.   The local school districts are also involved in the Nov. 8 election again with over half the seats uncontested also due to a PA law that allows candidates for school director to run and win both primaries thus effectively being unopposed in the general election.  The county commissioner races, in my county called County Council, are contested by the two parties but almost all the counties are really one party strongholds (some Democratic and some Republican) and the contests are really just the minority party “showing the flag” (in most counties there is a guaranteed minority party winner).  Little wonder that few people pay attention and vote since studies show that even at the national level where our turnout is among the lowest of industrialized democratic nations the levels increase when the election is between two parties or two candidates of clearly differing positions on issues.

I live in the borough of Folcroft where the Republican council has passed a local income tax and put the borough taxpayers 3/4 of a million dollars in debt.   Will that be enough to get more than 1/3 of the voters to even come to the polls?  My school district, Southeast Delco, has seen program cutbacks, property tax increases and some poor performance by some schools.  Will that be enough to get voters to the polls? 

Elections have consequences.  Failure to pay attention to local campaigns and candidates and staying home on election day puts the result in the hands of a small minority of people - often those most influenced by political party organizations and/or special interest groups.  Everyone pays taxes and lives under municipal ordinances not just those who vote.

Exercising rights is also how we retain rights.  If more and more citizens forgo the right to vote they may find someday that they have lost that right under mountains of laws and procedures that make voting near impossible. Maybe someday only the 1% that own the country will be voting and the 99% will not only be economically disenfranchised but electorally as well.

5 Nov. 2011

The Right to Live ... the Pursuit of Happiness

The radical right wing Tea Party Republicans who claim to be motivated by a desire to see less government at all levels have just passed another of their moral imposition laws: HR 358 the self-styled Protect Life Act.  The proposed law would prohibit women from buying health insurance plans through the new Health Care Act if those plans cover abortion procedures even when women use their own money, not government funds, to pay for the premiums.  It would also allow hospitals to deny abortion procedures to women who face life threatening conditions.  I find it incomprehensible that these so called less government folks would support government prohibiting people from buying a type of insurance.  The underpinning of their argument against the Health Care Act is that it requires people to have insurance.  Well if you can prohibit people from buying a type of insurance you can require them to have a type of insurance.   I also find it truly cruel to deny women a procedure at a hospital that a doctor thinks is necessary to save their life. Evidently the Protect Life Act is about protecting only the life of the unborn fetus not the life of the mother.

Abortion is one of those moral issues that divides the body politic along religious lines.  It is probably the most divisive issue to face our nation since slavery tore us apart one hundred fifty years ago.  By the early decades of the twentieth century many states had outlawed abortion procedures.  Like prohibition of liquor it didn’t mean that no abortions occurred.  Women found a way to have abortions in back alleys and on kitchen tables performed by unlicensed and untrained individuals who used coat hangers instead of surgical instruments. When in the 1960's movements for civil rights for blacks and increased opportunities for young people and equality for women spread throughout the nation there became a campaign to make abortion a procedure that women could have done safely by trained doctors.  Some states, such as New York replaced their abortion ban with an allowance of abortion whenever a women and their doctor wanted to perform one (this was denominated abortion on demand)

The Supreme Court of the United States eventually ruled that the ninth amendment to the Constitution contained within its meanings a right to privacy which then through the fourteenth amendment was applicable to state governments as well.  With this decision, Roe v. Wade, abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy became legal in this country.  A reaction to this ruling then occurred and grew in intensity as many Roman Catholics; and, eventually orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Protestants found strong religious objection to allowing abortions which they considered murder since they considered that life began at conception. Women saw the anti abortion movement as an effort to restrict their control of their own bodies and reproductive choices.

With abortion legalized by the Supreme Court, opponents sought ways to restrict it.  The question of minors’ rights to abortions was raised.  Self styled Pro-Life forces argued that minors should need parental consent.  Pro-Choicers argued that most minors who sought abortions were often those who couldn’t talk to their parents either out of fear, abuse or shame; and they offered alternative ways for consent to be given, e.g. a judge.  So Pro Life forces countered with parental notification which would require parents to be notified when their daughter was going to have an abortion in cases where someone else gave consent or no consent was required.

There were efforts to restrict abortion procedures to the first trimester and many states adopted these.  With the election of the anti-spending, anti-deficit, less gov’t is good Tea Party radical Republicans in 2010 dozens of new types of restrictions have been proposed.  In one state by regulation of facilities they have successfully closed the only three abortion procedure providers in the state. In other states there has been renewed efforts to require parental consent, mandate pre abortion procedure waiting periods, require women to view videos of abortions before they undergo the procedure and now this draconian and truly offensive federal proposal that says you can’t have insurance that pays for abortion even if you pay for the insurance - so much for rights or capitalism.

The newest plan to ban abortion procedures is the so called Personhood Amendment.  In Mississippi in this Nov. election it is on the ballot. It would amend theat state’s constitution to wit: “the term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”.  Effectively such an amendment could bar not only abortions but day after pills, and possibly even other methods of contraception. Five other states are considering such amendments and waiting for the Mississippi referendum (the amendment is expected to pass there).

Moral issues that divide people along religious lines should not be the basis of governmental legislation.  The role of government should be to enable everyone to practice their own religious beliefs and live by their own moral codes as long as they don’t impose them on anyone else or do damage to anyone else.  To say that the future life of an unborn fetus is more sacrosanct that the life of the mother is not the province of government.  To decide when a health procedure is needed to save life should not be the role of government -- interestingly these same radical Republican types make much of what they incorrectly call death panels and insist that the Affordable Health Care Act would allow government to decide who could live or die.

It is difficult if not impossible to compromise on moral issues.  In the years I have spent in public and political life I have seen little support from elected officials for compromise proposals on the matter of abortion.  When pro-choicers offer alternatives to abortion ideas such as increased funding for adoptions, more education and support for contraception the pro-life folks say no.  They fail to understand that allowing the government to bar any abortions under any circumstances means that government can require abortions.   They fail to comprehend that respect for life must also include helping children as they struggle through infancy and adolescence - as they seek education and later a job. 

The role of government should be to enhance the life of all; we as a society must care about how life is lived, and that pursuit of happiness that our Declaration of Independence linked to the rights to life and liberty. Today is the 125^th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty by then President Grover Cleveland. That statue has come to symbolize the right to liberty to pursue a full, productive and prosperous life not just to be born.

28 October, 2011

"Occupy" America - The 99% Movement

A mass protest movement has grown up almost overnight as thousands of frustrated and angry middle class Americans take to the streets in peaceful protest about the economic conditions in America.  Beginning with a protest against the Wall Street tycoons whose greed and frankly criminal activities led to the Great Recession and to the mass unemployment endemic in the country today it has spread to Occupy demonstrations in hundreds of cities, state capitals and county seats.  First populated by young people, as with almost all protest demonstrations, they were quickly joined by middle aged middle class citizens, teachers, firefighters, blue collar workers, laborers and soccer moms. 

The movement has been portrayed as a liberal progressive movement countering the right wing Tea Party.  Ironically the initial stimuli of the Tea Party movement was the big business bailouts from DC and the Occupy movement is angry about those as well and the lack of accountability of the corporate heads who still make huge bonuses and manipulate futures and positions for their own financial benefit.

The Occupy movement, aka the 99% movement, is fueled by the frustration of many who have sat on the sidelines and watched as their freedoms have begun to erode.  There are those who feel that personal liberty is more important than just being able to bring a gun into a bar.  There are those who believe that health care should be a right in this great nation and that the health care industry should not be dominated by big insurance corporations.  There are those who have earned their graduate degrees only to find that the economy has no jobs for them and they are saddled with huge student loans that offer them a future without the means to own a home and raise a family. There are those who see their children in ever enlarging public school classes because those with the money to afford private school want to cut back public education.  There are those who have lost their job and doubt whether they can find another of equal worth before they reach retirement age and now they see radical right wing Tea Party Republicans threatening whether they will have Social Security or Medicare when they retire.  They watch as these tea party radicals blame the ills of America on entitlements (something you are entitled to because you paid into it) instead of the corporate greed of those who dominate the right wing Republican party through their massive campaign contributions.

1% of Americans today seem to own more of the nation’s wealth than the other 99% collectively. There’s just something that seems wrong about that to most Americans.  Most don’t begrudge those who have it’s just they feel cheated out of their dream of having.  They are the real “silent majority”.  The Americans who don’t always vote because either they see no difference between the candidates and the parties or they don’t see how voting benefits them.  When the middle class was the vast majority of our people the upper classes supported programs to aid the poor for two reasons 1) it assuaged their consciences and 2) if they could keep the middle class worried about the poor coming and taking what they had then the middle would ignore what the top did.

The tactics of the very rich in America haven’t changed since the days of the Gilded Age (1880-1900).  It is simple: economic, ethnic and racial divide and conquer.  Class warfare was invented by these super rich.  The poor against the middle; whites against blacks in the south to protect the economic power of the bourbons; office workers against laborers to protect the power of the corporate moguls.  Keep non-union workers at the throats of union workers even though many non-unionized workers benefit from laws passed in response to union efforts.

Now the right wing Tea Party folks led by Rep. Eric Cantor attack the Occupiers; call them mobs.  Claim they are fighting other Americans and that political officials shouldn’t encourage them. You see it was all right for the right wing to demonstrate and call themselves Tea Partiers after the first great American demonstration in 1773.  It was okay for those people to protest to take their America back.  And it was fine when Republican elected officials hailed and praised the Tea Party marchers.  But if liberal progressives (and their elected officials have been silent compared to the right) march; if Franklin Roosevelt’s “forgotten man” teams up with the “silent majority” well to the right wing that’s another matter - because that threatens their attempt to stampede Americans, using the weapon of fear, into a decade of reaction that will undermine the entire American social fabric of freedom and personal liberty built up so painfully over the past century. 

Occupy America must spread and continue - march to the polls all of next year - overcome every tactic  used to suppress voter turnout and throw the right wing Tea Party radical Republicans into the harbor with their tea.  Take back America for the 99%.

20 October 2011

Free Trade 1911 Good Idea / Free Trade 2011 Not So Good

One hundred years ago Democrats and Progressives were strongly behind Free Trade.  America produced more goods and foodstuffs than it consumed and the economy was strengthened by being able to sell goods to overseas markets with few restrictions.  Conversely consumers benefited when goods not made here were imported and did not face high protective tariffs so that retail prices could be relatively cheap.  Big Business which controlled the Republican party and had long championed high protective tariffs so it would not have to compete with foreign goods began to see the benefit of expansion of manufacturing and selling overseas - that also meant increased hiring.  So there became a bipartisan consensus to lower tariffs and seek access to overseas trade.

After WWII this became the ingrained American policy and led to the US sponsoring GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) a UN affiliated operation that sought to reduce tariffs imposed by countries on imported goods and relax non-tariff trade barriers, such as regulations that restricted employment and raised manufacturing costs.  Eventually the US persuaded the west to replace GATT with the World Trade Organization that would not only provide a forum for negotiating freer trade among nations but would regulate it and enforce the regulations.

By the time of the Clinton administration free trade had become gospel among both US political parties - Democrats for reasons of historic positioning(the basis of which most had forgotten) and Republicans because Big Business liked a global economy.  So the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed which essentially sought to make US-Canada-Mexico one continental economy. 

But at the same time in the 1990's it became evident that companies were moving their factories out of the US into not only Mexico and Canada but into third world nations.  The labor was cheaper, there were few environmental or worker safety regulations and cheaper health care costs if any associated with employment.  As America began to produce less and used fewer workers to do so it began to dawn on liberals that free trade, unless it was fair trade, was not a good thing for our country.

The Bush-Cheney crowd in order to further the need of big business and the military industrial complex to invest overseas decided to tie trade agreements with national security.  So they negotiated agreements with “allies”.  The most significant being South Korea which is a nation tied to the United States since the 1949 war.  They also negotiated with Columbia, claiming it would help that government in its struggle with the narco-rebels and Panama which is adjacent to Columbia and now includes the former Canal Zone.  The Obama administration in its misguided attempt to reform rather than replace the Bush foreign policy renegotiated the agreements getting some cosmetic changes that appeared to acknowledge American concerns about workers rights and wages and safety and assuring that goods not be produced using environmentally deficient methods.  

Like all else in the federal government trade agreements are political.  The Republicans now favor all of them because their business masters do and the Democrats now oppose them because they are inherently anti-organized labor and anti- environment.  So Obama endorses his version of the agreements and since the Republicans want them badly he makes a deal with the Republicans in Congress - he’ll submit the trade agreements for approval, which only the President can do, and the Republicans in Congress will block his jobs proposal. Not exactly an LBJ type deal. It’s what we used to call simply a dumb move. The Republicans get their business pals their trade agreements and the Democrats get the workers and the middle class nothing.

The 99% Movement, aka the Occupy Movement, has sprung up due to the frustration of the middle class with the corporate mogul’s control of all facets of our system economic and political.  With big money in control of the Republican party and with the Democratic President paying only lip service to liberal pro middle class programs where do the unemployed, the poor, the middle class young people strangled with debt, the homeowners with mortgages larger than their properties are now worth, and the seniors facing rising health care costs look for leadership, help and hope.   

Whenever our nation has faced a social division - a split among our people based on race or geography that threatened to dissolve the ties that bind this union their arose leaders to whom all elements of our society could look to.  Not at first, because initially except for George Washington these leaders were seen as polarizing political figures.  But after their election Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Eisenhower and Reagan struck a chord that unified rather than divided. Let us hope and pray that out of the 2012 election such a unifying force emerges and the vast majority of Americans, the 99% (not the1% with all the wealth), reject racial, religious and radical extremism and get this country back on the right track to progress.

As for free trade agreements which the President should withdraw and Congress should reject our countries policy should be to seek trade agreements with trading partners that life the life style of our partners workers and improve their economy not deals that lower the lifestyles of our people and hurt our economy.  In 1911 I would have supported Wilson and Roosevelt and Free Trade but now in 2011 we must insist on Fair Trade.

12 Oct. 2011