--"The high sounding phrase, 'the American way', will be used by interest groups, intent on profit, to cover a multitude of sins against the American and Christian traditions"
--Halford E. Luccock, Yale Divinity School, September 12, 1938.
During the remainder of 2011, voters will likely repeal Kasich's anti-middle class labor law, throw out Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, and, in early 2012, send Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker packing.
Democracy will seem to be making a comeback. Tragically, it will likely be its last gasp prior to rigor mortis.
The rightwing has always faced two inescapable dilemmas -- most people were not wealthy, and the numbers favored Democrats who supported the less wealthy, the middle class, the poor, and minorities, so that as the franchise was expanded, their ability to maintain power became more difficult; and, our democratic institutions were relatively strong, as demonstrated by the ability of a single Judge, John Sirica, to set the wheels in motion that foiled the attempted rightwing coup d'états known as Watergate.
But, they came close. Had Judge Sirica not been taken incensed by the insult to his Court of clearly not being told the truth, AND had Woodward's and Bernstein's determination had not been so dogged, AND had the Washington Post's top brass buckled to intense pressure from the Nixon White House, rightwing hooliganism may have become legal, respectable and entrenched.
Since that major setback (described exactly that way by Barry Goldwater) to the cause, the rightwing has gradually but inexorably gained control of the judicial system so that unconstitutional laws that secured their power would be enforced, and good laws that restrained their power would be declared unconstitutional.
The result: fair election laws like Arizona's overturned, the Founders were discovered to have secretly meant that corporations were people, and discriminatory voter ID laws have been enacted, and allowed to stand. If one ever cares to know why the Republican Party hated John McCain so much, and that there was nothing he could ever have done to assuage their animosity, it was because of the McCain-Feingold Campaign finance law that limited Republicans' ability to buy elections. Even more than Watergate itself, McCain-Feingold was a major setback for rightwing designs.
There is a good chance that President Obama will win the 2012 popular vote by a comfortable margin, but lose the electoral college because Republican legislatures are changing the rules about how electors are chosen. Instead of winner-take-all, the results will be tallied in each Congressional district in key states Democrats usually win, so that the major population centers, in places such as Pennsylvania, will yield few net electoral votes for the President.
When now-Justice Samuel Alito applied to the Reagan Administration for a job, he recounted as a credential his outrage in high school(!) when Baker v Carr (aka, one-person/one-vote) was decided. This is the person who will help determine whether that case is being violated by selection of electors by Congressional district, or even if Baker v Carr were correctly decided. Stare decisis, a respect for precedent means absolutely nothing to them, or haven't you noticed.
The discriminatory voter ID laws, and gerrymandering after the 2010 census with Republicans in control of many states, coupled with unlimited corporate money, will make permanent both the voter ID laws themselves, and the iron-fisted control of state legislatures they will provide.
If anyone believed 2011 was the year of the direct assault on proponents of the middle class, clean air and water, public education, and respect for first responders, and democracy itself, just wait until 2013.
Because what is most remarkable about 2011 is that the rightwing makes no apologies whatsoever for what they are doing. True, they never talked about it in the 2010 elections, but, once they took power, they have exercised that power without apologies for destroying democracy in America.
This is no joke.
It is also not hyperbole, because the safety valves for redress -- the courts and the ability to change course through elections -- will have been effectively closed.
And, once effectively closed, the noose will be tightened. Laws will be passed in the name of "protecting workers" to prohibit unions from making political contributions without the specific consent of the members (corporations will have no such equivalent protection for its shareholders). Unions will be prohibited from having dues taken out of paychecks, and public service unions will be outlawed. More fellow-travelers will be appointed to the courts.
With control of the courts, discriminatory election laws will be upheld, and the franchise will shrink. As FDR said in 1944, when Republicans in Congress wanted to prevent soldiers who were fighting World War II from voting,
"there are those who believe their chances of election are greater if only the total vote is small enough".
But, you say, It cannot happen here? It has happened here already (the South prior to the civil rights and voting rights laws were single party states without any avenue of redress), and that was changed only by external power -- the federal government.
It's happening. Look at Florida, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Wisconsin today.
And, when the federal government is similarly controlled as it will be for 2012 and beyond, there will be no outside force to undo it.
Those of despotic tendencies can seize power or win power. Once IN power, they rig the system so that they remain. It will be no different here. American national politics will become like the political systems of the South prior to the civil rights and voting rights laws.
Preventing it will require a massive shift of traditional Republican and all independent voters to the Democrats in 2012 for the sole reason of protecting their democracy and what they can get from it -- equal protection of the laws, a safety net, and opportunity.
Unless the Democrats translate the specific issue of Medicare, for example, effectively into broader themes, and people realize that Florida/Ohio/Michigan/Wisconsin today are just the tip of the iceberg as to what our nation will become.... one has reason to be afraid for the future.
This is asking a lot of a party and party leaders who have not even tried to get the American people to realize that the reviled "Obamacare" is the rightwing Heritage Foundation's plan.
Follow Paul Abrams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pabrams2001
He also posited that Obama will be harder to beat in 2012 than the Republicans think he will if they do succeed.
Now I'm wondering, since I plain don't know.
That says it all. It was Democratic Party leaders that pushed Obamacare *through*; and it was Democratic Party leaders that failed to challenge (or later, reform) the filibuster so that something more progressive could be enacted. They clearly no longer represent the interests of the Party's nominal constituency. Until we ban private sponsorship of politicians and adopt equal, public funding for all candidates; until we ban legalized bribery and adopt stringent conflict-of-interest rules for public officials; until we break up the uniformly pro-corporate news media conglomerates and replace them with a more diverse, independent, ethical press; and until we adopt a voting system that lets us vote for third-party challengers without spoiling the election; we will continue to be governed by politicians who represent their big contributors, their future employers, and the corporations that control the news. Democrats may still be the lesser of evils for now, but if we don't achieve those fundamental reforms, they will continue moving to the right and continue offering the bottom 90% little more than lip service.
It is illegal for states not to allow people to vote Independent. Is that going to change? That's all for now.
Maybe that's why I'm trapped in this Senior Retirement Village. It's like being in a small scale model of what's happening in the world.
Especially this one. clover bought it in a "package" deal. They didn't even want it. So, they're letting it go. It was the most beautiful, premier, crime free area to live in. Since Clover Properties took it over, it's become a cross between a camp and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" How I wish I could find someone to see this.
You can not move or get evicted unless you don't pay your rent. The rent goes up more than COL, and you know there's been NO COLA for 2 yrs. This is like tor_torure. In fact, it is, bug , mold, mildew, criminally insane infected he11.
Major Frank Burns, 4077 M.A.S.H.
Sort of like what has been going on for the last 200 years.
It's starting to look like Nero fiddling.
As FDR said in 1944, when Republicans in Congress wanted to prevent soldiers who were fighting World War II from voting,
Clinton did this in both of his winning elections.
It doesn't matter the party they both only look out for themselves, they do not have the counrties best interest. And the article is so slanted to one side it would be funny if people didn't take it serious. Politics SUCK no matter what side you cheer for.
The only solution is to remove the Republican Party which refuses prosperity for Americans. Such a self-serving political party deserves to be buried in the Nov. 2012 Elections.
The Nov. 2012 Elections is the last opportunity for the Mad-As-Hell voters to take back the America outlined in the Constitution.
The concern among libs about the potential for an electoral vote redistribution in PA is touching. I wonder where they were when Democrats tried to do the same thing in Colorado?
He's still going to lose...
On the other hand, the scaremongering the Republicans do are based on fantasies--Obamacare, that they call 'socialist' to scare people, is the rightwing Republican Heritage Foundation plan from the mid 1990s.
And you people wonder why you keep losing elections...
It already has in Canada, where the GOP-proxy Conservative Party (and at the provincial level, the GOP-proxy BC Liberals, known as LINOs - Liberals In Name Only) have managed to get away with all kinds of abuses of power, and a lockdown on the same. Harper has politicized the formerly neutral position of Governor-General (after abusing and bullying the previous one), himself was found in Contempt of Parliament and should not have been allowed to run for a seat again, but did so and now has a majority (which means more-then-presidential power, with a tame House, with only 39.6% of the popular vote), a lapdog press eager to pitch his remaking of Canada in the Conservatives' own deranged image, with new legislation incoming he's doing away with public funding for political parties (meaning the extirpation of the fledgling Green Party, and a struggle for survival by the New Democrats and Liberals, who hopefully will have the sense to merge), and the appointment to the top diplomatic position abroad, Canadian High Commissioner in London (rivalled only by the position of US Ambassador to the US), to a former Premier most people in his home jurisdiction should be in jail for fraud, collusion, influence peddling, destruction of evidence, court tampering and lots more.
Dirty tricks are an entrenched part of politicking in this country now, from ringers at events and on call-in talkshows, outright statistical lies and wild claims, physical intimidation, ballot-box grabbing (google "Guelph" and "vote mob") and tire-slashing, illegal pamphleteering (the Solicitor-General of British Columbia was elected in a campaign which included non-accounted-for/certified pamphlets making libellious claims against his opponent; he was absolved of any wrongdoing and was allowed to keep his seat, including for a while at least his position - which is that ot top cop in that province). Politics has taken a genuinely ugly turn in Canada, and it's uglier by the minute; but you won't read that in the newspapers, nope no sirree; you have to read about it in alternative zines and in blogspace, because the media are part of The Machine, and happily so, pretending to a moral authority it does not deserve.
Because
thinking is hard