Last night, Senate Republicans filibustered yet another jobs bill, a bill that would have kept 400,000 teachers and first responders on the job … funded by a mere half penny per dollar tax on millionaires and billionaires.
Public opinion no longer matters: Not the 75% who favor the jobs bill, not the 72% who want infrastructure investment, nor the 60% who support aid for the unemployed, nor the 59% who want an extended payroll tax holiday (due to expire resulting in an across-the-board tax increase for all wage earners), nor the 79% who favor raising taxes on those earning over $1 million (h/t to Shaw).
Public opinion no longer matters because the GOP is suppressing the vote in key states, such as Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maine, Florida, and Texas. In Ohio alone, a new voter suppression bill will disenfranchise 600,000 students, 25% of all African Americans, and 18% of seniors. In the state of Maine, legislators have passed two bills that will disenfranchise 11% of total voters - concentrated in Democratic districts. And Mike
Here are a few vital statistics to raise your shackles (source):
Incidence of individual voter fraud is negligible. In Ohio, a statewide survey of county election officials found four instances of ineligible persons voting or attempting to vote in 2002 and 2004 out of 9,078,728 votes cast - a rate of 0.00004%.
Most of the established democracies with which we usually compare the United States - such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, and Denmark - do not require photo ID as a condition to vote.
The United States ranks 139th out of 172 democracies in voter participation.Yes, Virginia, there is a Republican war against the middle class - and a Republican war against your right to vote. Once Republicans put their voter suppression legislation in place, they will have unchallenged power to ram their filthy agenda down our throats, like it or not. And if they succeed, Amerika will no longer be a democracy after 2012.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteFits right in with my "geriatric republic" theory. Public opinion doesn't matter for one additional reason: if the Right simply maintains its plan of enforcing failure in the economy and social programs, that same "public opinion" will turn irrecoverably sour and the fascists will win by default. Simple: generate chaos and wait until everyone howls for order -- then give it to them with an iron fist and cancel all further elections. I think we will either see that result outright, or some cloaked and ostensibly "kinder, gentler" version of it.
Dino,
ReplyDeleteI was hoping our slide into dementia would take longer, but events seem to be overtaking us quicker than I thought - witness the vote suppression effort. More ink and less camouflage with hopes this prediction turns out dead wrong.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteIt might be worth setting forth why the voter fraud issue is a smokescreen for suppressing Democratic votes. Although there are a number of ways fraud could occur (via absentee ballot, in person at a precinct, etc.) it’s also logical to suppose that it’s easy to get caught, and the consequences in some states aren’t exactly a slap on the wrist. Such penalties will certainly have the desired deterrent effect. It’s important to lots of voters that Barack Obama or the Republican candidate win in 2012, but not so important that many of them would willingly put themselves in peril of a fine and a jail sentence just to give their candidate one or two extra votes. The only reasonable avenue to pursue, for those who insist on worrying about fraud, is to make the penalties for it more stringent; there’s no legitimate need to make it extremely difficult to vote in the first place.
It is, of course, grimly hilarious that the same people who are infinitely worried about three or four invalid votes in an entire state are perfectly willing to prevent the casting of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE VOTES.
Dino,
ReplyDeleteI too noticed the 4 to 100,000 discrepancy screaming off the page. Yet, I keep asking myself: What makes this GOP drive different from historical vote rigging schemes? We have seen isolated examples before: Tammany Hall, gerrymandering, caging, absentee ballot rigging, but nothing on this scale, nothing so brazen, out in the open, and in our faces – without even a whisper of public outrage.
An hour after I posted the above, my daily Salon.com notice showed up in my email box with this story:
’W’ enters my wife’s schoolboard race by David Sirota who writes:
“ Six months ago, when my wife, Emily, decided to run for a school board seat here in Southeast Denver, I was (perhaps naively) expecting what we used to get from the most local of local races for such part-time, unpaid positions: lots of door knocking, a few yard signs, maybe a barbecue or two — all the wholesome activities that were once staples of local political Americana … Yet, as summer turned to fall, it’s become clear that this local race — like so many local races across the country — has turned into another arena for corporate muscle-flexing and elite political rainmaking.”
Sirota recounts a campaign appearance from former President George W. Bush that turned an erstwhile local election into a plebiscite lead by big money interests. For what purpose? Consider the GOP agenda against teachers and their unions in Wisconsin and New Jersey. And just in case the election - with outsized infusions of outside cash - did not favor the GOP, there was this ominous message from Denver Mayor Michael Hancock who said:
“If there was ever an argument for mayoral control, it was watching the board of education operate,” he said … “I don’t believe the current board of education and its level and tone of conversation reflects the values of our city.”
Notice the hidden card up their sleeve: If the local election does not turn out according to plan, there is always the preemptive Executive Takeover option.
In other words: Democracy for me but not for thee which is tantamount to no democracy at all. What a sham!!
But of course the average American is totally unaware and more concerned with the fabricated dangers and hyperbolic hysteria the relentless Right endlessly provides, so I would rather be risking futility and a worn out keyboard than to stand by and watch it all go to hell.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course you don't go to Valhalla unless you go down fighting. I always ask myself, WWOD or what would Odin do - and I usually reach for my crossbow and horned helmet. . .
I had a bit of a shouting match with a racist (who didn't know that he is one, until I told him he is) that, unfortunately, is what happens in most "conversations" with such people. They are either completetly self-centered pricks, willfully ignorant stooges or simply liars--some overlap exists.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. has not had a genuine, functional democracy since whenever. We used to have a "representative" democracy but that, too, disappeared some years back.
democommie
Oh our democracy is still representative all right, but some get represented more than others. The preferred interests are usually the wealthy, but often the religious, as we saw with Prohibition. I think we now have a new power class: the ignorant and the angry, but they're helped and often actually created for the purpose by our friends the plutocrats -- or "job creators" as they're now being called.
ReplyDeleteThe cynical might suggest that this economy was sabotaged for the very purpose of holding us hostage -- 'vote for us and we'll give you your jobs back' but of course, I'm not a cynic.