The chickens will come home to roost...

How is it that we allow the same states to create a mockery of our democracy over and over again? As Republicans continue to alienate Hispanic voters in Florida and throughout the country, the number of Hispanic voters in Florida and other border states in the Southwest continues to grow. So what is the Republicans’ response? Not to actually change their policy and perspective, and try to reach out to Hispanic voters, but instead to simply change voting laws to make it more difficult for minorities and impoverished people to vote.

This is what is happening right now in Florida. Not only have they changed their voting laws to make voting difficult for people, but they’re literally removing voters from their rolls (even though they have no justification for doing). The state has been ordered by the Justice Department to stop this practice until they’ve had time to review, but the Florida Secretary of State has defied the Justice Department order and vowed to continue the purge of voters.

Florida officials in support of the purge continue to espouse the idea that their voter purge is important to curb voter fraud in their state. However, as we’ve seen in numerous past elections, the voter fraud always seems to be coming by way of voter disenfranchisement, rather than ineligible voters squeaking through. I mean, as I’ve talked about in a previous post, our voting turnout is only at about 60%; I don’t think there is a whole lot of worry about people who are not eligible to vote doing so when we can’t even get people who ARE eligible to vote to do.

This is all a tactic at disenfranchising ELIGIBLE minority voters, often immigrants, who may not fully understand voting laws, and are easily tricked into thinking they’re not eligible. Another tactic is requiring expensive identification, which poor voters are wont to pay for, when they have obviously chosen not to shell out for it already because they can’t afford it. Strategists have also found another way to keep voters from coming out - and this is truly devious – basically by misinforming them about when, where, and how they can vote. During the Wisconsin recall elections, robo calls were sent out to voters telling them (misinforming them) that if they had already voted for recall, they did not need to come out to vote in the recall election. That is an outright lie, and THAT is voter fraud.

What does all of this tell us about where our country is going? In a weird direction. As the old, wealthy, white voters continue to die off, Republicans are unfortunately going to become more and more desperate for ways to continue to be politically viable. And instead of evolving their views and adapting to a changing society, they are going to turn to deception, trickery, and voter suppression to keep the people they have been discriminating against for years (and continue to do so) from voting. A sad, sad state.

P.S. I don’t mean to demonize the Republican Party; there are rational Republicans out there, but they seem to be the minority these days, and are being pushed out of the party as heretics and liberals.

Senseless...

I know everyone in the media is talking about it – and I think that is a good thing – but I just had to comment on this as well. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin is tragic. It isn’t just tragic because of the fact that the police have yet to arrest George Zimmerman, the known shooter. Please note that I didn’t say charge, I said arrest. I don’t know the facts, none of us do, but the fact that they haven’t even arrested this man for killing an unarmed boy is outrageous. But the fact that Mr. Zimmerman has not been arrested is more of a statement to a culture of violence, fear, vigilantism, and gun worship than anything else.
The Florida “Stand Your Ground” law essentially allows a person to attack someone (overruling previous supreme court rulings, which declared you should try to flee first) if he or she “reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony." This is pretty ambiguous language (deliberately), and essentially gives anyone carte blanche to murder anyone in the area, as long as they can show that they were scared for their life. It seems odd that Mr. Zimmerman, larger, older, and carrying a weapon, would be scared of a young man walking through the neighborhood, who showed absolutely no intent on hurting or killing him. Trayvon Martin was responsible for nothing more than WWB (walking while black) in a neighborhood that Mr. Zimmerman felt that he shouldn’t have been in. And now Trayvon Martin is dead, and George Zimmerman walks free (in a new neighborhood – he’s since moved).
After the incident, it was reported that George Zimmerman was the “neighborhood watch captain”. This was a volunteer position, for which no official selections or elections were held – so basically the guy took it upon himself to be the “captain”. The guy is a vigilante. And why was the made possible. Because we now live in a society based upon fear. Fear of terrorism, fear of illegal immigrants, and fear of a young black man walking in a gated community. We’re told that we should be scared of these things. And Florida tells you that you not only should be afraid of them, but if you feel threatened by them, you have the right to act upon your suspicions and kill them.
Gun obsession and violence in this country is out of control (well highlighted by Michael Moore’s film, Bowling for Columbine). People keep guns in their homes, their cars, the desks at work, behind the bar, behind the counter at work, on their person, and anywhere else you can think of. Why do we have all of these guns all around us? Are we in constant danger of being killed? Reality and statistics will tell us no; violent crime has actually been steadily declining in this country for the past 40 years.
So why do we have so many guns floating around, and why are we so scared? There are several reasons why, but the most potent reasons are that the NRA wants to promote gun ownership (regardless of the consequences or type of gun), the companies that manufacture guns want to sell more guns, and the media wants something to sensationalize. It is time to ban handguns in this country. Handguns are made to kill people, and that is exactly what they’re doing. People are not only being empowered, but being encouraged to use them. “Taking back the streets” does not mean killing everyone. It means building a real community, so that neighbors know one another and watch out for one another, not kill one another. Let’s hope that the senseless death of Trayvon Martin will at least start a dialogue about the culture of fear and the stupidity of laws such as Florida’s (and several other states’) “Stand Your Ground”.

Forget about it...

The other day, after the Florida primary, I heard possibly the greatest political metaphor I've ever heard, in reference to Newt Gingrich's reasoning behind staying the Republican primary race.
Chuck Todd, Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, was talking about why Newt Gingrich, and for that matter Rick Santorum, were staying in the race, despite the fact that their changes of winning the Republican primary are essentially nil, and diminishing (the reason I don't bring Ron Paul into this - and neither did Todd - is because he never had a shot at winning the nomination anyway).
Todd used Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as the metaphor. He said that both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (and Herman Cain, and Michelle Bachmann, and Rick Perry) had seen that golden goblet (poll numbers rising, winning straw polls, excelling in debates), and could almost grab it, but then they watched their chances slip away. It was so difficult for them to then turn their back on it (well, it's so difficult for Newt, specifically, to turn his back on it), because they had almost tasted it, almost had it in their grasp. While in the movie, Henry Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery) pulls Indy back from edge of the abyss, telling him to forget the goblet, no one as of yet has been able to have the same effect on Gringrich. Even as a lefty, I think that Gingrich should get out of the race for the good of his own party. His purpose for staying in the race now is nebulous, because as saave a political mind as Newt Gingrich has, he has to know that his primary campaign is over.
I just thought of another movie metaphor that illustrates the same thing. Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in Field of Dreams, is speaking to an old ball player that never got a chance to bat in the majors. "Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within... y-you came this close. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they'd consider it a tragedy." That is what Newt is feeling right now.