Elections

I know you like the elephants and the acrobats, but we really do not have time for this.

The U.S. presidential election is very far away. There’s a measurable rise in the ocean, the construction of numerous new military bases, a decision on peace or war with Iran, a push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, intense antagonization of Russia, and more than likely another month-long bombing of Gaza between now and then.

We should be engaged in intense, all-out, creative, nonviolent resistance. read more

See if you can spot the mistake in this activist email I received recently:

“In 2001, the Clinton Administration handed George Bush peace, prosperity, and record budget surpluses. Eight years later, Bush handed Barack Obama two disastrous wars and a global economic crash that destroyed over 8 million American jobs. Now that President Obama has finally brought those jobs back – in the face of vicious GOP opposition – Bush’s brother Jeb is now blaming American workers for read more

A reporter asked me what to ask candidates re military. I suggested:

In the analysis of National Priorities Project military spending is 54% of U.S. federal discretionary spending. In 2001, U.S. military spending was $397 billion, from which it soared to a peak of $720 billion in 2010, and is now at $610 billion in 2015. These figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (in constant 2011 dollars) exclude debt payments, veterans costs, and civil defense, which raise the figure read more

Presidential elections should be limited to as short a time period as possible and are generally the biggest drain and distraction going. I have two excuses for looking into Jeb Bush. One is that I’ve been collecting the evidence that Hillary cannot be a lesser evil than any living human, and campaigning for No More Bushes or Clintons. The other is that I only read Jeb Bush: Outed because I’ve long liked the author, Stephen Goldstein.

People such as Molly Ivins and James Moore gave read more

In the years I’ve been voting at Key Recreation Center on Market Street the procedure has changed as a result of popular mythology. Despite no known problem of people voting under false identity, one must now display an ID and tell the polling place attendant the name and address on it. This fixes a nonexistent problem called voter fraud.

And this week there was another change: No option to vote on a paper ballot. I was told that the Democrats had decided to save money by not having that read more

An election that won’t happen for a year and a half and is likely to pit two disastrously bad presidential candidates against each other dominates the news, but here in Charlottesville there’s a local election on June 9th worth bothering with. It’s a Democratic Primary, but you don’t have to take a loyalty oath to that party and can proceed to vote against it in the general election — but based on past experience this really is the election and if you skip it you read more

Yes, Bernie Sanders would be a far superior president to Hillary Clinton.

That requires a bit of elaboration. Something I just scraped off my shoe would be a far superior president to Hillary Clinton, but Sanders would actually be good in a whole lot of ways. He has numerous imperfections, but the contrast with Clinton is like day to night.

I’d rather have him running than not.

But please do not give him or Hillary or the wonderful Jill Stein or any other candidate a dime or a moment of your read more

Here’s what I think we need:

• No private election spending.
• Free media air time on our air waves for candidates qualified by signature gathering.
• Public financing, ballot access, and debate access for candidates qualified by signature gathering.
• No gerrymandering.
• Hand-counted paper ballots publicly counted in every polling place.
• Election day holiday.
• Limited campaign season.
• Automatic voter registration.
• Full representation for Washington, D.C., and all of the U.S. colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific.
• Voting rights regardless of criminal conviction.
• National popular vote with no electoral college.
• Mandatory voting with an option for “none of the above.”
• Abolition of the Senate.
• A larger House of Representatives.
• Direct public vote on important matters (national initiative).
• Ban on war profiteering.
• Ban on secret budgets and agencies.
• Ban on executive power use by vice presidents.

Here’s how we could get it: Declare the current system so broken that you will invest not a minute and not a dime in trying to elect anyone president of the United States. Instead, put all that effort and money into a policy-driven nonviolent activist campaign for these reforms and other urgent policy changes (peace, the environment, etc.) at the local, state, and federal levels.

A “Democracy read more

“Vote. It’s the American thing to do!” read an email I received yesterday. Actually it’s the just-about-anywhere-else thing to do. U.S. voters lead the world in staying home and not bothering.

There are three schools of thought as to why, all of which I think are largely correct.

1. They don’t make it easy. Americans, in many cases, have to work long hours in unlivable cities, go through a hassle to register to vote, wait in long lines, produce photo IDs, and get past read more

I was lucky to attend a debate among the candidates for Congress from Virginia’s Fifth District just before game 7 of the world series. This was the kind of event you can write about while drinking beer and yelling at a television with your family. In fact, I’m not sure there’s any other way you could write about it.

Here are our choices for the House of Misrepresentatives:

The incumbent Robert Hurt, a fairly typically horrendous Republican, if a bit less of a warmonger than his read more

In this local TV news interview (video), we see Virginia Fifth District Democratic nominee for Congress Lawrence Gaughan say, “We need to get back to the Constitution on the issue of war, and I will never authorize the executive to use force when there is no direct or imminent threat to our national security here on our soil.”

I’m not aware of a stronger statement from any candidate for Congress. 

Virginia’s Fifth District is currently misrepresented by Republican Robert read more