Elections

It would make a tremendous difference nationally and internationally to have a real activist, progressive, populist, and democrat as mayor of our nation’s capital.  Imagine a leading opponent of war as mayor of the world center of war making.  Imagine major public initiatives to address the massive poverty and racial disparity in the headquarters of the greatest wealth machine on the planet.  Imagine the model set in Washington for school systems elsewhere read more

Read The Feminist Case Against a Woman President

Here’s audio of a debate between myself and Dan Ellsberg on whether and how to vote from Lila Garrett’s KPFK show “Connect the Dots.”

MP3

Hi. You’re beautiful. And I don’t give a damn who you’re voting for.

Seriously?

Which part?

You don’t give a damn who I’m voting for?

I swear on the Fourth Amendment.

We don’t have that amendment anymore.

You know that?

Yes.  What’s the catch?  Which hack are you hocking?

None of them.  I’m serious.

For real?  What planet are you from? Scratch that. Will you marry me and what planet are you from?

I’m not entirely sure.

Which part?

I’m read more

Dear Dan,

You and I are getting ready to tape a debate on the question of whether to vote for Obama (in “swing states”). It will air on Lila Garrett’s “Connect the Dots” show on KPFK next Monday. I’m looking forward to it, if for no other reason, because I think our public discourse lacks much serious debate between people who respect each other’s intentions. I have nothing but respect for you and believe you mean nothing but the best in advocating votes read more

The presidential election of 2004 left much to be desired.  Millions of votes were suppressed, and the evidence is overwhelming that votes were flipped by interested parties.  Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman summarize:

“The widespread use of electronic voting machines from ES&S, and of Diebold software maintained by Triad, allowed [Ohio Secretary of State Ken] Blackwell to electronically flip a 4% Kerry lead to a 2% Bush victory in the dead of election night. ES&S, Diebold read more

In April I had a chat with Congressional candidate John Douglass who had just about wrapped up his party’s nomination for Congress here in Virginia’s Fifth District.  Douglass is a retired Brigadier General, a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and a former deputy U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium.  He spent years buying weapons for the military and then years selling weapons to the military as CEO of Aerospace Industries read more

Here’s a video with highlights of Tuesday’s presidential debate:
http://youtu.be/iiPtJkK58lo

Participating were Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, Virgil Goode, and Gary Johnson.  Moderating was Larry King.  Larry was a bit unprepared, but his questions were far superior to those asked at any of the corporate funded debates thus far.  They weren’t his questions, though, as they’d been submitted through the internet and selected by http://FreeAndEqual.org read more

When I was a philosophy grad student in the ancient times at the U. of Virginia, some over-smart logician pointed out to me that voting is not rational, since a single vote is never decisive. It’s all the other stuff that’s rational: appearing to have voted, applying a sticker to your bumper, registering voters, making phone calls — because all of that stuff has the potential to spread sufficiently to make a difference in the election, or perhaps in a future election or in other read more

A writer at the Atlantic named Conor Friedersdorf recently noted the level of evil many have been brought to support:

“Tell certain liberals and progressives that you can’t bring yourself to vote for a candidate who opposes gay rights, or who doesn’t believe in Darwinian evolution, and they’ll nod along. Say that you’d never vote for a politician caught using the ‘n’-word, read more

Why would I even ask that question?  I’ve been trying (with virtually no success) to get everyone to drop the election obsession and focus on activism designed around policy changes, not personality changes.  I want those policy changes to include stripping presidents of imperial powers.  I don’t see as much difference between the two available choices as most people; I see each as a different shade of disaster.  I don’t get distressed by the thought of people read more