The Distant Ocean

Local boy makes good argument

Here's a recap of reasons why the Democrats don't deserve your love this year, from local San Francisco chap and Nader running mate Matt Gonzalez.  Worth reading along with this explanation of his from a few months ago of why he isn't (and nobody should be) excited about Obama.

The article's title is "What do they have to do to lose your vote?", and I've found that that's a useful question.  When I'm talking to an angry Democrat—filled with righteous fury at my ignorant, foolish, idealistic, naive refusal to go along with their chosen party—I'll sometimes ask: is there anything whatsoever the Democrats could do to lose your vote?  Is there any policy so amoral, any strategy so calculating and unethical, any crime so odious that you'd feel you could no longer support them in good conscience?

If the answer is "no", you're dealing with a cultist and there's no point in continuing the conversation.  But if the answer is "yes" you can say "I feel the same way, and they already have crossed the line for me"—and then proceed to explain why, calmly and rationally.  Once you've established that you both accept the underlying principle, it's just a matter of degree.  You probably won't convince them to desert the Democrats, of course, but you may well be able to turn them from condescendingly dismissing your position to understanding and even respecting it (even if they still disagree with it).  And that's a critical first step.

[ This approach works more generally as well.  Back in 2003 I went over to talk to a young vet counter-protesting at a massive anti-war really.  He was probably expecting a shouting match, but I just talked calmly with him about why I was marching on the side I was on.  He was skeptical of my account of US support for Saddam Hussein, the US betrayals of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, the (intentional) effects of sanctions, and so on, which was fine—I agreed that he should check it out for himself rather than taking my word for it.  But then I asked him: assuming solely for the sake of argument that the things I was saying were true, would he still be as comfortable about supporting the war?  He didn't change his mind on the spot, of course, but he looked thoughtful, and when we were done talking we shook hands.  I'll never know if it had a lasting effect, but for that moment at least I think he understood that we really did have good reasons for opposing the war. ]

Another handy bumper sticker

Obama: tireless champion of the status quo

Recently I was saying to a friend that Obama's thoughtful and considered approach, which seems like a strength, is actually one of the most dangerous things about him.  Why?  Because in the end he nearly always arrives at the wrong conclusions, but the way he presents them gives them an undeserved aura of reason and respectability—thus defusing opposition, and making it just that much more unlikely that those who vote for him will oppose even his worst betrayals.  Obama may just be the perfect salesman for the status quo.

Alexander Cockburn offered some observations along the same lines:

In the crunch, almost invariably, Obama does the wrong thing and in my opinion he always will. Just count out the moments of surrender: reauthorize the Patriot Act? Aye, from Obama. The “class action fairness act”, sought by Big Business for years. Aye from Obama. Capping credit card interest rates? No-o-o from Obama. FISA? Aye from Obama. With Robert Rubin at his side, his bailout vote was as sure as that of the harlot of the credit card companies, the six-term senator from Delaware, Joe Biden.

Progressives wishfully thinking that "the best way to avoid becoming disillusioned is to not have illusions in the first place" are ignoring the fact that most Obama supporters have already swallowed all of this swill and much more, and despite some scattered and tepid grumblings they've happily moved on to whipping themselves into an even greater frenzy.  They have practically nothing but illusions, since that's all Obama has offered thus far.  I'm sure there'll be some small percentage who'll keep their eyes open if Obama wins, but all they'll see is the room emptying around them as throngs of relieved liberals surrender to that thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable, articulate, deeply reassuring voice of reason—no matter what it's peddling.

Still fighting the good fight

If you've been reading here for a while you know I do a lot of thanking lawyers, and which lawyers I thank the most.  Well, the Center for Constitutional Rights is dragging Chevron into court today, for this:

On May 28, 1999, Chevron, through its Nigerian subsidiary, participated in the murder, shooting, and subsequent torture of Nigerian villagers who were engaging in environmental protest against the oil giant. Chevron paid the Nigerian police and soldiers who conducted the attacks, ferried them to the attack zone and closely supervised them during the attack. CCR's case Bowoto v. Chevron - filed along with EarthRights International - seeks justice for the villagers who were injured and killed at Chevron's behest.

This is the same CCR that spends its time turning scumbags like George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft into defendants--a description I much prefer (I'd like "prisoners" even better, but I'll settle for the former for now).  And you can help them do it, here.

UPDATE: Amy Goodman has much more about the background to this trial on today's show, here (or see the video here).

The anniversary of John McCain's salvation

Yesterday was the 41st anniversary of the day John McCain's bomber was shot down.  Now, I imagine he sees that as one of the worst days of his life, but that's taking the short view.  I'm sure when he gets to Heaven, Jesus will tell him it was actually the best day of his life: the day he was prevented from murdering any more Vietnamese.  At which point McCain will probably go ballistic and tell Jesus to go to Hell.  There'll be an awkward moment, but then they'll both burst into laughter—because Jesus can't go to Hell, right?  Even though his dad created it.  And if McCain takes time to reflect, I'm sure he'll see that Jesus has a point.  Which isn't surprising, because c'mon, it's Jesus.

Of course, if the Norse had it right it'll be a whole different story.

Some people are completely insane

Here's John,Miami,Florida sharing his deep insights into Alan Greenspan's true agenda, in the comments to that LA Times blog posting:

I knew that Greenspan was a socialist from about three years ago. He jumped off the bus just before it crashed into the wall. He knew what he was doing and should be castigated for his complicity to discredit capitalism and try to establish credibilty to 'other" alternative economic systems. He is a disease in our system of asset allocation and has deliberately sabotaged our monetary system in order to undermine our republic.

My god, he's right.  Now I see socialist Greenspan's diabolical plan.  And following John,Miami,Florida's deep and subtle logic, I also now understand that George Bush is really a fifth column pacifist—as evidenced by his killing of hundreds of thousands of people in vicious attacks on two different countries.  Clearly these were nothing more than underhanded attempts to discredit the use of military force so thoroughly that nobody would ever wage war again.

It's especially impressive that John,Miami,Florida managed to ferret this out three years ago, as he informs us, since it means he saw right through Greenspan's 2005 statement that "private regulation generally is far better at constraining excessive risk-taking than is government regulation."  Obviously just a smokescreen to cover an insidious, Marx-hugging, capitalism-destroying socialist agenda!

I can hardly wait to hear John,Miami,Florida's proof of the Pope's militant atheism.

[ The best part: John from Miami is not only allowed to vote (just like me), but since he lives in Florida his presidential vote actually counts (unlike me).  When will people learn?  Democracy doesn't work! ]

Palace guard revolt

You know things have gotten serious when even the LA Times is willing to take a chunk out of Alan Greenspan's haunch:

More important -- and, again, missing entirely from Greenspan's explanation of the roots of the crisis -- why did the Fed maintain such a wildly easy-money policy from 2002 to 2004, when the central bank’s benchmark short-term interest rate was no higher than 2.25% the entire period (and was below 1.75% for most of that time)?

Without cheap money, the credit-market bubble could never have reached the epic size that it did.

Greenspan must know this. Admitting it, however, apparently still is a bridge too far for him.

It's nice to see this in print, even if it is just in the LA Times blog.  Even so, "a bridge too far" is a serious understatement; Greenspan has continued to defend his subservient eagerness to prop up the economy artificially under Bush, leading directly to the housing bubble, and will no doubt still be doing so even as they're closing his casket lid:

"You raised rates in 2004. But only after you held interest rates at historically low level for three years, while the bubble, the housing bubble was forming," Stahl points out. "And that you had 13 rate cuts in that period of time."

"It was our job to unfreeze the American banking system if we wanted the economy to function. This required that we keep rates modestly low," Greenspan explains.

But some of the Fed governors who worked with Greenspan at the time are now saying that they think interest rates were too low for too long.

"I think they were mistaken," Greenspan says.

Yes, who could predict that if you (personally) held interest rates at historic lows for years at a time people would stop saving, load up on credit card debt, and buy houses they couldn't afford (and that that would lead to a meltdown in the housing market)?  Especially after it stopped being a matter of predicting it and merely required observing it?  Not Alan Greenspan, apparently.

In fact, in perhaps the most mind-bogglingly reflexive display of cognitive dissonance I've ever seen, Greenspan was pimping ARMs back in 2004:

Indeed, recent research within the Federal Reserve suggests that many homeowners might have saved tens of thousands of dollars had they held adjustable-rate mortgages rather than fixed-rate mortgages during the past decade ...

Understand this very clearly: this is Alan Greenspan saying in 2004 that if people had gotten ARMs in the 90's, they would have saved tens of thousands of dollars.  Why yes, that's true.  And why is that?  Because of Alan Greenspan's manipulation of the interest rate.  And on this basis he was encouraging people to go out and get ARMs in 2004, with the bubble well on its way, knowing that he had just held interest rates down artificially for years, so they had nowhere to go but up—and therefore also knowing that he would almost certainly be raising them again in the not-too-distant future.  This is like encouraging people to drive a car whose axles you've almost finished sawing through, because hey, it's been driving just fine up until now!

Please pardon me.  I cannot type anymore, with my head exploding and whatnot.

So I'm glad to see the press showing a little willingness to criticize their former idol.  But if there were any justice in the world, Greenspan's name would be required to be written as Alan "Father of Catastrophic Economic Meltdown" Greenspan henceforth at all times and in all media.

Giving FAIR the FAIR treatment

I love FAIR, but I've always had to laugh when they claim to be non-partisan (even though I understand the motivation behind it).  If they weren't offering criticism from a progressive viewpoint I wouldn't pay attention to them at all; it's not like the world needs another AIM.

But unfortunately for me they're not just progressives, but part of the overwhelmingly large class of chastened-by-Bush, sorry-we-strayed-from-the-reservation progressives.  Why do I say that?  Because I've watched in dismay as they've made huge changes in their coverage over the past three presidential elections.  Here are rough counts of FAIR's articles about Ralph Nader vs. the Democratic candidates over the past eight years (based on their archives):

2000: 7 articles on Nader, 4 articles on Gore
2004: 0 articles on Nader, 6 articles on Kerry, 3 articles on Dean
2008: 0 articles on Nader, 9 articles on Obama, 2 articles on Edwards

So in 2000 there was a continual stream of Nader stories from FAIR, but in 2004 and again in 2008 I waited in vain for them to mention him at all.   It's not like Nader suddenly became so much less noteworthy after 2000, of course, especially given his awesome power to decide that election; no, I think FAIR just didn't want to take a chance on contributing to a Democratic loss again.  They've still been willing to dabble at the leftmost edge of the approved Democratic spectrum with stories about Dean, Edwards, and Kucinich, but once the primaries have ended they've dutifully snapped into line.  And this time around in particular: their backing of Obama in this election is just as obvious to a regular reader as their support for Nader was in 2000.

That's why I found it more than a little ironic to receive a FAIR advisory this week titled "More Than a Two-Person Race," lamenting the lack of coverage of third-party candidates—since it's the first substantive mention I've seen of Nader or other third party candidates this election cycle.  Up until now, and just as with 2004, you'd have been hard-pressed to tell that 2008 was anything other than a two-person race if you just read FAIR's articles and alerts.

I'm sure FAIR will find plenty to criticize if Obama is elected and does exactly what he's threatened to do.  And who knows—maybe another round of centrist Democratic policies will have the same effect on them that eight years of sifting through Clinton's sewage did.  But at that point it'll be too late.  Why must progressives learn the same lessons over and over again?

UPDATE: Was there just less to talk about with regard to Nader in 2004?  No, actually there were extremely important issues, like the poll-designed Democratic strategy of smearing Nader as a Republican-funded pawn (ignoring the fact that Kerry received orders of magnitude more donations from Republicans than Nader did), or the harassing lawsuits the Democrats used (with the help of a Republican law firm) to keep Nader off of state ballots.  I was so disappointed to watch FAIR let this horrendous crap go by without a peep that I cut my yearly donation to them in half.  In my opinion, 2004 was a low point for FAIR—just as it was for so many progressives.

NOonan, NOstradamus. Coincidence? I think not.

The Wall Street Journal decided to give Peggy Noonan's credibility a boost by reprinting this column of hers from 2003, which was picked up on the main page of Google News.  It's so forward-looking, so analytically deft, so eerily prescient that I felt compelled to share it with you:

We are about to startle and reorder the world. We are going to win this thing, and in the winning of it we are going to reinspire civilized people across the globe. We're going to give the world a lift.

This is what the American victory in Iraq is going to mean:

It is going to mean, first, that something good happened. This sounds small but is huge. The West has been depressed since Sept. 11, 2001. It has been torn, riven. It has been a difficult time. The coming victory is going to be the biggest good thing that has happened in the world, the West and the United States since the twin towers fell. ...

The American president has, meanwhile, demonstrated to the entire world that he is neither a bombastic naïf nor a reckless cowboy but, in fact, another kind of American stereotype: the steely-eyed rocket man. Don't tread on him. It is good for the world that it see him as he is. ...

A victory in Iraq is about to enhance America's stature in the world. America deserves it. Because of all the powerful countries in the world, it is the most trustworthy, reliable and constructive.

Other Noonan predictions from 2003: Hummer sales will spike in five years thanks to a bustling economy and Iraqi oil imports that drive gas prices under a dollar a gallon; the "steely-eyed rocket man" will be swept to a third term after Americans, their hearts bursting with love and pride, repeal the 22nd Amendment; and resurgent interest in Beanie Babies will make millionaires out of everyone who hoarded them in the 90's.

But I've saved the best for last:

[America] has a lot to be proud of. (Being America it will soon be beating itself up again, but it should take some time over the next few weeks to feel the healthy pride it's earned.)

Yes, we just never stop beating ourselves up here, do we?  And if the world sees us as a bunch of endlessly self-aggrandizing triumphalists in a country with a hyperinflated national ego, well, maybe they just aren't reading enough Peggy Noonan.

(Is it just another coincidence that you can't spell Noonan without Onan?  I think not.)

Quick, someone tell John McCain

He'll want to hear about this:

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. His firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states.

Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.

I await a statement from McCain that YPM's actions not only undermine the fabric of democracy but the cohesion of the electron-nucleus bond itself, quite possibly leading to the disintegration of space and time.  Which would really hit the economy.  And the subsequent threats by his irate supporters to firebomb the houses of YPM employees, of course (which it would be wrong for anyone to condemn, since McCain followers wear those hats that say "World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq" and they clearly aren't anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they're great citizens).

I wonder: is the fabric of democracy plaid?  And do the stripes of the fabric of democracy make us look fat?

Actions have consequences

In comments to that last posting, Steve Burns points out this wonderful bit of news:

An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month. ...

Kettenring said that a senior ACORN staffer in Cleveland, after appearing on television this week, got an e-mail that said she "is going to have her life ended."

A female staffer in Providence, R.I., got a threatening call from someone who said words to the effect of "We know you get off work at 9," then uttered racial epithets, he said. ...

Since McCain's remarks, ACORN's 87 offices across the country have received hundreds of hostile e-mails, many of them containing racial slurs, Kettenring said. "We believe that these are specifically McCain supporters" sending the messages, he said.

Some things I wanted to say, but left out of yesterday's posting: that I consider McCain's incitement in this case to be not just shameful but obscene.  It's as though just the sight of that brass ring in the distance has had the same effect on McCain that another ring had on someone else, and it reinforces something I've been thinking about lately: that the adage about power corrupting leaves out the pursuit of power, which can do nearly as much damage.

Something else I left out of yesterday's posting was a donation link for ACORN.  I'll definitely be sending them some money now, and I hope you'll consider doing the same (and I hope that will be the reaction of thousands of people around the country).  You might also consider contacting McCain's campaign to let them know what you think of his willingness to say anything at all, no matter how vicious, unfounded, and dangerous, in his desperate attempt to gather more power to himself.

I'm mad about ACORN

I'm mad about ACORN.

I'm mad that an organization dedicated to helping the most powerless people in society (the same people Jesus was always prattling on about) is being attacked by some of the most powerful people in society (the same people who always prattle on about Jesus).  And that a group that works on the ground day after day, doing the critical yet tedious work of community organizing, is being excoriated for it rather than praised.

I'm mad that privileged whites are trying to undermine an organization that registered 1.3 million of the underprivileged, 60-70% of whom were non-white—because they expect those people to vote for the wrong candidates.

I'm hopping mad that in his grasping pursuit of power, mummified pissbag John McCain claimed that ACORN's extraordinary effort to expand the exercise of the democratic franchise is actually "perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." **

And I'm mad that of the press accounts I've read and watched, almost none of them report the crucial facts that it was ACORN itself that caught almost all of the instances of fraud, that the employees in question were fired, and that ACORN is often required by state laws to turn in all registration cards—valid or not.  Or that if they do report this critical information they handle it like the Associated Press did, burying it in a suitably-guarded quote in paragraph 30 of a 31-paragraph article:

"There are certainly problems and I don't think anyone disagrees on that," said Wang of Common Cause. "But it doesn't get reported that ACORN finds these registrations errors themselves. They flag them as being no good, but they have to turn them in anyway."

If you need the full set of rebuttals to counter the robotic droning of the conservatives of your acquaintance, it's here.  The critical points:

• Most states require every card collected to be turned in whether it is a valid application or not.
• ACORN calls each card collected up to three times to ascertain the information on it is legitimate and complete.
• All suspicious cards are flagged, set aside, and delivered to the board of elections under a cover sheet that describes the problems.
• Almost all the cards submitted to the boards of elections that have been noted as “possibly fraudulent” were caught by ACORN’s quality control procedures first.
• ACORN has zero tolerance for fraud and fires employees caught by our quality control systems immediately.

And finally: I'm mad that every asinine, manufactured, ideologically-motivated conservative attack becomes the conversation du jour in this country, but real issues can't get a hearing at all.

** "Greatest frauds in voter history"?  Sure sounds like another one of those infinitely-renewable ideological superlatives to me.

I now officially hate John McCain

Every time McCain mentioned Joe the Strummer during the debate I kept looking at Obama and asking, then begging, please, please, please don't take the bait.  He held out for a while, but then he finally succumbed.  And when he looked right at the camera and addressed this ginned-up nudnik, I thought: oh god, no, now we'll be hearing about this for days.

If the entire country must be obsessively focused on a plumber, why couldn't it be this guy?  (Surprisingly good, if you haven't seen it.)

UPDATE: In comments, strasmangelo jones makes a solid case for another plumber:

As a "white ethnic" he's undoubtedly in the coveted Reagan Democrat/Clinton Republican demographic, he's served his country for years fighting cartoon evildoers, and he instinctively understands that the only way to make America safe is to repeatedly stomp on your enemies while burning their crops and wildlife with fireballs. The perfect average American!

Debate review

I'd like to say it was excruciating, really I would, but honestly it was the least worst of the three. Assuming Obama wins, it will be such a pleasure (and a relief) to listen to an articulate, intelligent, thoughtful person preside over the continued degradation of this country and the destruction of the planet for the next four years.

(I remember hearing Bill Clinton for the first time after a few years of Bush, and it was like breathing fresh air again; if we must be ruled by heartless, cynical, mass-murdering assholes, it's at least merciful when it's not physically painful to listen to them speak.)

The only mild surprise for me: Obama saying he opposes the Colombia Free Trade Agreement because of the murders of trade unionists there. It's so rare to hear a Democrat take a correct, principled stand on any issue that even something that should be so mundane seems wildly courageous.  Other than that, though, it was boilerplate all the way.

My personal favorite part of the debate: Bob Schieffer asking about the pressing global emergency of "climate control." Yes—what will we as a nation do to reach agreement on the optimum temperature setting for the air conditioner?

Those superlatives just keep on renewing

No sooner do I post about the seemingly infinite supply of top Al Qaeda commanders than the military kills yet another one:

American soldiers killed the alleged No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, a Moroccan who trained in Afghanistan, recruited foreign fighters and ran operations in northern Iraq where Sunni insurgents remain a potent threat, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The man, who the military said was known as Abu Qaswarah, died Oct. 5 during a raid on a building in the northern city of Mosul that served as a major "command and control location" for the region. Four other insurgents were killed in the operation, the U.S. said.

80% down—20% more to go!

The real lesson of the Bill Ayers foofaraw

For me, anyway: that Ayers—who was literally a bomb-throwing leftist radical, determined to bring down the imperialist power structure in the United States—is now, uh, running fundraisers for the Democratic Party.

Fight the power!

So I guess I'll end up voting for Chelsea Clinton in 2032, based on her stirring vow to offer a partial private school tuition tax credit for families making anywhere from $35,000 to $38,000 a year.

Change I can believe in...

...isn't happening here, of course, and isn't going to anytime soon.  But it is happening right now in yet another Latin America nation:

Ecuador's new constitution was approved with 64% voting "yes" on Sept. 28. "No" won 28% of the votes, 7% were invalid, and 0.7% left blank, according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

The results of the referendum reflect the high expectations for change that the majority of Ecuadorians are feeling, and which they have ratified with their votes in the last four elections. This desire for a profound transformation also extends to the immigrants that have left for the United States and Europe, who have been hit by the economic crisis. People voted for a more participative democracy and for the ability to intercede actively in political life.

The constitution combines a series of progressive traits that overcome some of Ecuador's current inequalities, discrimination, and injustices, such as the following: the balanced living concept (sumak kawsay), which implies living in harmony with oneself, society, and nature; nature's right to assure "the maintenance and regeneration of its vital cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes"; national diversity and collective rights; the right to water and the prohibition of its privatization; food sovereignty and the permanent right to secure food sources; the right to communication, and access to public, private, and community media.

Thank goodness we have countries in this hemisphere that can show us what democracy looks like.  And who knows?  If we pay close enough attention, maybe we can have it here some day too.

And I thought apartheid was dead

A horrifying story:

Meanwhile, white rioters set fire to a home owned by a black family, after having set fire to two houses the previous night.  ...

The riots initially erupted around midnight on Wednesday on the day before Easter, when a black resident drove his car through a predominantly white neighborhood, allegedly playing loud music in what white residents called a deliberate provocation. ...

The driver denied entering the neighborhood as a provocation, telling reporters he drove "slowly and carefully" to pick up his daughter from her fiance's home.

A group of white residents then proceeded to assault the driver, sparking large-scale riots that lasted well into Saturday.

A Black MP and Acre resident said Saturday that representatives of the black community were set to publicly renounce the acts of the man who drove into a white neighborhood on Easter, "even if he didn't intend to disrespect the whites," in efforts to end the clashes. The MP added that the man should have thought of other ways to get home other than driving through a white neighborhood.

The actual story is here.  But this version makes things much clearer, doesn't it?

UPDATE: With extremely low expectations (which were realized), I recently watched Morgan Spurlock's Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?  In one of the ironies of the film, and to his great surprise, the only time Spurlock was under any threat was when he was verbally and physically assaulted by Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.  This despite the fact that (or: Despite this fact,) the film treats the Israeli-Palestinian issue with a false balance that strongly favors the Israeli point of view.

My personal favorite part is where Spurlock looks from Sderot across the wall into Gaza, declaring it "scary".  I was in Gaza while the Israelis were pounding the West Bank, and I can tell you that the scariest part about it was the fear that I'd end up with a bladder infection from the number of people who kept calling us over us to their stores or houses and offering us tea.

The real democracy

Two things last week reminded me what a sad joke it is to believe we live in a democracy in terms of presidential politics.  First, McCain "conceded" Michigan to Obama—effectively nullifying the presidential votes of all his roughly 2 million Michigan supporters in one fell swoop.  I wonder what it feels like to have your presidential vote go from crucial to meaningless in one news cycle?

But it's not fair to blame McCain for that aspect of it.  He was just bowing to the ineluctable reality of the Electoral College, which says that if a solid majority of the people in your state prefer a different candidate than you do, you may as well not bother casting a presidential vote.  Of course that's just one of the electoral college's many sins against democracy; my personal favorite is the fact that the vote of any yahoo in Idaho (or Wyoming, or Rhode Island, or...) carries more weight than my trivial California vote.  Not that it really matters to me, since my vote is already nullified by the zombie-like masses of habitual Democratic voters who dominate the state.  But a "democracy" in which some people's votes effectively count several times as much as others'?  A break, please, I beg you.

[Side frustration: liberals and progressives who seem incapable of internalizing the fact that depending on where they live, the electoral college may free them to vote for the candidate they genuinely prefer.]

And the second thing: this interview with George Farah, the founder of Open Debates, in which he details just how the two major parties collude in manipulating the presidential debates in order to maintain their collective grip on power.  Well worth a read (or viewing) for wonderful anecdotes like this:

[In 1996,] when Ross Perot ran again, he was polling exactly the amount he was polling prior to the debates in 1992; he was polling at nine percent. He had $36 million in taxpayer funds. And yet, he was excluded. Why? Because behind closed doors, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole struck a deal.

Bill Clinton agreed to exclude Perot as long as Bob Dole agreed that there would be only two debates instead of three debates, that they would abolish follow-up questions, and that they would schedule those debates opposite the World Series. Bill Clinton was winning by about twenty points in the polls, and he didn’t want anyone watching these debates or any difficult questions challenging his authority.

And that’s exactly what happened. Perot was excluded, despite $35 million in taxpayer funds. The debates were held opposite the World Series, resulting in the lowest viewership ever. No follow-up questions. Only two debates. And the American people had no idea, because the Commission on Presidential Debates secretly implemented the contract and took all the flak.

Most of what Farah had to say wasn't news to me (just as I'm sure it isn't news to many of you), but it's a reminder of how much effort goes into subverting genuine democracy at the presidential level in this country.

So I'll be voting on November 4th just as I do in every election—but not because of the inconsequential presidential race.  No, as always I'll be spending the vast majority of my election-related time researching the ballot propositions, where my vote genuinely counts (especially the city propositions, which regularly pass or fail on margins of a few hundred votes and which have a direct impact on my daily life).  I always find it ironic that so many more people come out for presidential elections, when those are exactly the elections where their votes count the least.  In the US, the real democracy is local.

F-18s are strafing my house

And will be for the next three days, and it makes me so very, very angry.  If you missed the reason why the first time around back on July 4th, it's here.