#288 – Dick Bernard: 2010 Election Postmortem

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Yesterday, I checked the internet to fill in a blank in my November 4 post about the 2010 election. That blank is filled in the bold-faced section in the fourth paragraph under the photo.
Succinctly: about two-thirds as many voters went to the polls in 2010, as did in 2008; that turnout was slightly higher than the normal mid-term election turnout; only about 40% of people who could have voted actually went to the polls, whether or not they were informed about the issues or aware of the implications of their vote. (I count everybody, whether they actually vote or not, as VOTERS. Most simply don’t exercise their right and responsibility as a citizen.)
The oft quoted “American people” have spoken.
They are learning, already, what they said….
We – every one of us – is the Government we so often revile.

#274 – Dick Bernard: The State of the States, and the People Who Live in Them.

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Yesterday’s New York Times headline hit me when it showed up on my computer screen “Now in Power, G.O.P. vows cuts in State Budgets“.
Who can do anything but love trimming the fat of bloated, hated, “Government”?
It will be an interesting process as a new Minnesota G.O.P. majority in both House and Senate take meat axes to to try to eliminate a huge deficit created by assorted budget tricks the last several years of stalemate between the Democratic majority in House and Senate and G.O.P. Governor Tim Pawlenty. (Minnesota State Law requires balanced budgets, so to get around this little technicality, bookkeeping strategies, like ‘borrowing’ money from school aid to local school districts, were used in the brutal sausage making of legislating in a “veto” environment. Now, just in time for Christmas 2010, the bill comes due. Probably there will be a Democrat Governor in 2011, though when remains a question, as there will probably be a recount and a promised aggressive defense by the challenger G.O.P. The current Governor, G.O.P. and contender for Republican Presidential nomination in 2012, may well occupy the office well into the New Year, the new term.)
“Trimming fat” is an abstract thing, if one chooses not to notice the personal dimensions.
I have a personal example.
In the family constellation of my wife and I are eleven adults. The youngest is Down Syndrome, age 35, and thus not part of the work force. The other ten (including one former daughter-in-law) are all employable at the present time, and all working. So, technically, in our family there is full employment, and no unemployment.
One of the ten was laid off from a corporate job nine months ago, and went on unemployment.
He was only unemployed for a couple of months when he was offered a full-time State job for a maximum duration of a year. It paid far less than his former position, but it was a job and it had benefits, so he took the position.
What he does all day, every day, is receive and process phone calls from fellow Minnesotans who are unemployed. It is his job to redirect them to the appropriate agencies within the State of Minnesota system. The work is not fun. Neither is it in the specific trade he trained for.
Because the State job doesn’t provide adequate income, he works a part-time job, several nights a week.
Because he works during the day, he cannot do the requisite networking to find jobs in his area of expertise, and his expertise is rapidly going stale.
At the end of the twelve months, perhaps sooner if the meat ax reaches him, he will be unemployed again, struggling to find something, anything to survive.
Historically, getting a state job has been an entree into other State jobs. But that is a very unlikely scenario for this family member in this slash and burn time in our history.
There is an 11-year old boy in this scenario. Mom and Dad are divorced. Grandma does a great deal of heavy-lifting.
Oh, how easy to trim the fat of bloated government.
Oh, how easy….

#272 – Dick Bernard: War, and Peace

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A few days ago we finished the biennial reenactment of the Civil War – the 2010 elections. While this is a supposedly bloodless sport, the biennial result is “a house divided” where one side “wins” and the other “loses”. The aim, especially strong today, is to kill the opposing point of view, relevant though it may be.
The instant this political Civil War ended, the next one began. It’s a wonder our country survives. One wonders what our community, national and global landscape would look like if we didn’t insist on dissipating our energy and resources to fight constantly against each other, and, rather, try to work towards agreement on things.
Oh, it’s a dream.
In the election just past, one candidate for a Minnesota Congressional seat defeated the 35-year incumbent U.S. Representative who had a great record of representing the interests of the district. The challenger had no previous experience in government outside of military service. He was described as applying “a military theme to his campaign. His battered motor home was called the “war wagon”. Campaign staffers and volunteers were given military titles – commanders, captains lieutenants.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune, page A12, November 4, 2010). The district loses a representative with great seniority who effectively represented its interests. It gets a new representative with no seniority or experience who campaigned against the very things which led to his opponents many re-elections. The elder statesman was a casualty of a ‘throw ’em out’ mentality.
Destructive as it is to us, we love war, especially as a spectator sport.
(In 1860 the U.S. population was about 31 million, one-tenth of today’s. There were over 365,000 Civil War deaths in 1861-65, and 282,000 more wounded. In today’s political combat, there are no rotting corpses on assorted political battlefields, but there is residual and permanent damage to our effectiveness as a nation. The political goal is to render impotent the opposition. Back and forth we go….)
It was very good for me and many others to be able to shift gear at the end of election week, to move away from combat for awhile.
Friday night I attended a collaborative event of the Hawkinson Foundation and the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, “Building Generations Together: Creating a Culture of Peace“.
This was a tremendously inspiring event.
During the Awards section of the program, several younger people from many cultures received awards for their grassroots work on building community through working together. (Their bios and accomplishments are outlined at the aforementioned Hawkinson Foundation website).
At the end of the evening, the award winners joined in a dialogue with five elders (their profiles also at the website) in the Twin Cities Peace and Justice Community, to give their views on a number of different questions. The elders were Carol and Ken Masters, Rev Verlyn Smith, Rev. James Siefkes and Mary Lou Nelson. It was greatly refreshing to see the elders and youngers dialoguing together, while those of us in the audience, primarily elders, listened and learned.

Elder and Younger dialogue November 5, 2010


Everyone listened respectfully to the presentations and the dialogue.
I can only speak for myself: I left the evening tired but energized, with a couple of new insights, which for me made the time expended completely worthwhile.
In a few days we commemorate Armistice Day, November 11, the day “the war to end all wars”, WWI, ended in 1918.
Of course, the end of WWI didn’t end war; it just ensured a subsequent and even more awful war. That is the normal consequence of combat as a resolution to differences.
Peace may not be quite as fun as contemporary political combat, but it is certainly more productive.
Give Peace a chance.
Related post here.

#271 – Dick Bernard: Three Days After….

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Thursday afternoon I went over to the Tomb, formerly known as the local DFL (Democrat) headquarters in my town. There were several staff and volunteers working to make order out of the chaos that such places become at the end of a long and chaotic campaign.
This was a Tomb, not a Nightclub after a drunken debauch celebrating victory. Tuesday night was a bloodbath for Democrats in Minnesota and elsewhere. There were bright spots, but still today they are hard to see. Our three area legislators, whose headquarters was this building, were all defeated by newcomers to elected office. This happened despite the fact that the incumbents were veteran, even-handed and highly accomplished legislators, all given strong editorial endorsements by the state’s largest and most influential newspaper…which liberals consider to be conservative (and conservatives, liberal).
Going across the parking lot I spied an “I Voted” sticker affixed to the payment. Somehow it had a message of its own, including where I saw it – probably already run over by several cars.

Death.
I struggle to make sense out of the abundant nonsense that is this election. The people spoke, and it remains to be seen what the long-term implications of their vote will be…for them. We seem to be a society that needs to blame somebody other than ourselves for certain happenings. So, Tuesday is the President’s fault. That is a dominant narrative I hear and sense from all sides. He’s a good, visible target.
Perhaps the President didn’t do enough change quickly enough…or too quickly. If so, was it wise to pretty dramatically increase the power of the party which not only had created the disaster in the first place, but had blocked all attempts to make needed change in our national infrastructure after our near economic collapse in 2008? Somewhere in there is the very definition of national insanity.
As is true in all mid-term elections – unfortunately – perhaps 60% of those who voted two years ago voted this year. The final numbers won’t be in for some time, but it seems that past will be prelude. [UPDATE DECEMBER 1, 2010: SEE HERE. Actual turnout in 2010 was about 88,000,000 compared with about 133,000,000 in 2008: 67%.] There will be endless reasons and excuses for not voting. Few, short of emergency hospitalization, wash with me. But that’s how it is. (Check here for some interesting data from past elections.)
Another interesting piece of data I saw this morning showed that Senior Citizens – my cohort – really turned tail and railed against change…especially fear of change in their Social Security and Medicare or their own beloved medical plan or doctor. Talk about throwing somebody under the bus, or Grandma’s “death panel”: large segments of my senior citizen cohort were apparently right fine with sacrificing the future for keeping our own benefits. The kids can take care of themselves….
Fear and Loathing of others: Muslims, illegals, liberals (like me) and the like also played into the vote.
The apparent second priority of the Republicans (getting rid of President Obama in 2012 is the first) is to make as much mischief as possible with recently passed health care reform. The signals are very strong.
(Interesting about those “death panels” bandied about in this campaign season: yesterday I discovered in a box of my Dad’s important papers, an envelope on which he had written “Living Will of Henry L. Bernard executed 3-8-91“. That’s 19 years ago. He died in 1997, and that Living Will came in handy. I know. I was there.)

Finally (at least for this little essay) was the business of protecting the interests of those poor beleaguered wealthy people, and the huge corporations and banks, saved by “we the people”, who now worry they have been put at death’s door by re-regulation, etc. The peasant class rushed to the defense of the plutocrats, responding to the advertising these same plutocrats could fund without even revealing their identities. Only in America…. Last Sunday’s edition of “60 Minutes” had an unlikely witness to what we’re doing to ourselves. David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director, testified to the absolutely huge gains in wealth the wealthy have made in recent years. The segment, click here, is well worth watching.
Tomorrow, it’s three days since the American electorate took pen in hand and smote President Obama and the Democrats for not doing enough…or too much.
I come from a faith tradition that has a resurrection after three days in the tomb.
The three days are up. Time to look forward. We all have a huge mess on our hands…we all had a hand in creating it.
Related posts: click on November 2 and 3, 2010.

#270 – Dick Bernard: Yesterday, November 2, 2010.

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I write having only the sketchiest of information about yesterdays total election results. But I don’t write from inside a soundproof booth either.
Yesterday I spent 7 1/2 hours on election judge duty in a precinct ten or so miles from home. My assignment was to hand out and explain ballots, so I had eye contact with hundreds of voters from 2 p.m. till the polls closed at 8 p.m. My precinct was in a prosperous part of town, and the predominant “face” I saw was much younger than I, often with one or more little kids in tow. There were few who appeared to be anywhere near as old as I am. Except for a tiny number of “road rage” types – you can’t avoid these – the overwhelming majority were unfailingly polite and gracious – people you’d like to know. I don’t recall seeing anyone who appeared to be “down and out” in any sense of those words.
My work partner for the entire day was of the opposite political party. That is an absolute requirement for election day workers. There were ten of us in all who worked in this particular precinct yesterday. There is no way to tell who is Republican, Democrat or other in such a setting, except that you know your work partner is of another party, most always the other major party.
Invariably these are all truly “nice” people just wanting to serve and to assure the election is conducted fairly. My work partner was one of those truly nice people. So were the others.
With inevitable exceptions, the work relationship we had in my precinct likely happens in most every precinct in any community in any state.
There is little drama in voting locations on election day.
There was a very heavy voter turnout in my assigned precinct, and a very large number of on-site registrations due to the fact that there were many first time voters at the location. This was due to recent construction in the neighborhood. We didn’t have long lines. The flow was reasonable and constant. There was no down time.
At the end of the evening election workers don’t just leave and go home. We all had to stick around to help clean up, and most importantly to witness and verify that the vote count reported to the county was as it was recorded by the electronic reader which received the paper ballots.
In all, we spent well over an hour on the final tasks.
Near the end of the time we were all read the machine tally of the votes recorded in our precinct for the major races.
I can fairly say the vote in the precinct was overwhelmingly very, very conservative.
There were no ‘high fives’ or bursting into tears, or fist fights among the ten election workers.
There was a whole lot of quiet after the returns were read in that room last night.
Duties completed, we bade each other farewell and went our separate ways.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010, was indeed a fork in the national road.
It remains to be seen exactly what that means.
My clock reads 4:34 a.m. The Minneapolis paper was just delivered. Shortly I’ll see the first of endless reports and opinions….
Related post, here.

#269 – Dick Bernard: The Aftermath of the 2010 Election

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I’m writing this post on Monday night, November 1. I will click “publish” when I return from being an Election Judge sometime on Tuesday night, November 2. Except for the last sentence, this post was written before the polls opened anywhere in the U.S., or a single vote was officially counted.
Late this afternoon I was at a local supermarket and ran into a retired friend who was, like me, purchasing some incidental groceries. He’s a great guy, well respected. Indeed, at one point in his life he actively explored running for elected office, but changed his mind: it’s just too brutal. We chatted seriously about what is ahead tomorrow. Would anger or common sense prevail? Would fear drive the majority of the ballots cast, or hope? He and I know as much or as little as anyone else. We’re worried.
(As I completed the previous sentence, the phone rang and our good friend, Annelee, was on the line. She grew up in Hitler’s Germany and was talking about a very recent speech she’d given to a group of about 90 lawyers. She asks for questions in writing, so people feel free to ask more uncomfortable questions. One she dealt with was “what are the similarities between Hitler and Obama?” “None whatsoever” she responded, and went into detail. At the end of the q&a session, she said she got a standing ovation, and particularly strong compliments from a state legislator and a retired military general, both in the audience. The exchange and response was both troubling and hopeful: amongst the scarcely concealed hate in the anonymous question there was much thoughtfulness in the room. Which will prevail tomorrow?)
Whatever happens tomorrow, there will be endless analysis of what it all means. I’ve expressed my opinion often over the last 30 days (see the end of the October 31 post for all the links). Mine is just a single opinion. Mostly, honestly, I feel like I’m talking to myself, even though most of these blog posts are carried by a respected Twin Cities on-line newspaper, the Daily Planet…. You’ll probably see this one there, too, in a couple of days.
Leaving ideology aside, what troubles me most at this stage in our history is the almost absolute unwillingness of any faction on any side of any issue to truly enter into dialogue with others of differing beliefs and attempt to come to some kind of reasoned resolution to problems.
There was a day when negotiation could be done, including in the national and state legislatures. That day is not now. “Stand your ground” seems to be the political mantra; “that’ll force them [the other] to move to our side”.
Unfortunately, what is true is that the ‘truth’ espoused by one fragment or another is ‘truth’ only to that faction. If by some miracle they can get into power, and move their agenda, and even get judges in place to affirm their ‘truth’ – their position will ultimately fail because it reflects only their fragment of the body politic.
We seem to have become a nation of fragments. A healthy whole is the sum of many parts; we have many parts, but the whole is difficult to impossible to see.
When victory is said to determined by divide and conquer strategies, and by disempowering the losers, we have been conquered by ourselves.
I’ll be tired when I get back from the polling place tonight, so I’ll go to bed, and probably not go to any party. I’ll read about this election Wednesday morning.
We shall see.
Tuesday, 8 a.m. a good column in today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune, here.
10:30 p.m.: back from a very long day as election judge. Over and out.

#268 – Dick Bernard: On BEING the Change YOU Can Believe In.

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Quite frequently we have an 11-year old house guest – we’re his kid-sitter for, usually, a few hours.
He’s a nice kid. Invariably, though, at some early point in his visit he’ll make the declaration, “I’m bored“, with the direct implication that it is our responsibility to un-bore him.
I don’t take the bait. Life is too short to have to entertain a kid who’s apparently learned that he has no responsibility to entertain himself.
I think of this young person in context with the election upcoming in two days.
Even though President Barack Obama is not on any ballot, anywhere, it seems that he was made to assume, on election in 2008, the sole responsibility for accomplishing the “Change” 67,000,000 people elected him to achieve. His was by far the largest vote total for any President in United States history. (John McCain: 58,000,000)
The people who despise Obama for having the audacity to win the 2008 election are one thing. They are their own special breed.
It is harder to be understanding of the masses of people with infinite (and differing) priorities who, it seems, expected Obama to not only win the election, but to then do all of the heavy lifting required to accomplish even small increments of change in the last 21 months. This includes assorted Congresspersons and Senators and activists who first climbed on, then deserted, the bandwagon. If they lose, they will blame Obama, when it is they, themselves, who should share the blame, along with their oft-ill informed constituents.
Change is difficult. I’m old enough to have experienced – numerous times – the difficulties of change. But not changing is far, far more costly. And I don’t mean giving a new group not even half a chance to attempt to re-direct our nation from what was a self-destructive course.
But we seem to want change to happen instantly, painlessly, without any effort or discipline on our own part.
We want what we want. Period. That’s the lesson I think I’ve seen this election cycle. We’ll see on Wednesday,November 3, how this all plays out.
A week or so ago I saw President Obama in Minneapolis. As it happened, he appeared across the street, literally, from the University of Minnesota football stadium, where, at the exact same time, Minnesota was playing Penn State. While preparing to enter the Fieldhouse, I heard at least one roar of the crowd, which meant that Minnesota had done something good on the field a block away.
I don’t follow sports much, but I did ask a University Student when the new outdoor stadium had been built, and when the recently fired coach Tim Brewster had come to the University of Minnesota. Groundbreaking was 2006, occupancy 2009; Brewster hired in 2007.
A few days earlier Brewster had been fired as University head coach – he apparently hadn’t brought “change you can believe in” to the University. And on this day I saw the President, the Golden Gophers lost again, in their new stadium, now named for a bank, which was to bring pride back to the University of Minnesota again..
Change they could believe in didn’t happen right away. “Outa here, Brewster.”
Yesterday, the Golden Gophers were shellacked, this time by Ohio State, again at home.
At some point along the way there will be a new head football coach, and everyone will be saying we’ve found the man for the job. We’re back.
They said the same with Tim Brewster, too.
Will we ever learn?
Our “I’m bored” kid will hopefully learn early on that he is the primary cause in the matter of his own non-boredom.
So must we come to grips with our cause in the matter of our own success. Deserting Obama when he’s barely had an opportunity to begin needed Change is not a way to success.
Will the adult version of “I’m bored” prevail on Tuesday? We’ll see.
NOTE: There are many previous posts on Election 2010, at Sep 29 & 30, and Oct 5, 15, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29 and 30.
Retrospective from late 2008:

#267 – Dick Bernard: A troubling juncture for our country.

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I am overwhelmed with political information – it has to be like being overrun by a tsunami (without minimizing the latest tragedy in Indonesia). The instinct is not to master or control the incoming data, but how to survive it.
I won’t run and hide, but after the election, my guess is that I will go to the e-inbox, pick “select all”, then click “delete” and start over. Literally thousands of e-mails will bite the dust (oh, I have them all backed up, just in case…but it’s like most paper stuff I have around here. They will probably never be re-looked at. A post-election project.)
But there is something very, very troubling to me as we lurch towards the culmination of what is probably the most important election in our history: willful ignorance.
It is abundantly documented in valid surveys from very credible sources: massive numbers of people are clueless about basic facts about real things that are very important, but believe the untruths anyway. I see this over and over and over again.
Somebody forwards an item which easily and quickly can be debunked. They obviously believe it, otherwise they wouldn’t forward it in the first place.
Vicious stuff appears in the e-mailbox – it’s easy to distribute these days.
Surveys show an astonishing percentage of people have an upside down view of what is real. They do not have a clue about the simplest of political, economic or other facts.
When challenged with something supported by fact, they’ll say things like “I’ll believe what I want to believe”.
I could send along the data, but I know that it won’t be read. People have shut down, mired in their own reality, probably trusting their closest friends or, worse, sole sources of information, which may be deliberately conveying untruths, or have similarly been duped by some invisible figures hundreds of generations up their e-mail chain.
I’m already over 300 words in this blog post and it is already too long for a letter to the editor, as letters to the editor are limited to, often, 150-250 words. One can’t even develop a thought in that length of letter – one has to spew sound bites that are interesting or provocative…and besides present a particular point of view. Common letter to the editors reflect the poles, not the middle.
A common limit for outside submissions for newspaper columns is 600, perhaps 700 words, unless you own the paper or the editor wants you to write a piece. I try to keep my blog posts under 600 words.
Facebook and Twitter? A sentence or two max….
Many of us will vote based on our fantasy on Tuesday.
Many of us will not vote at all because it’s too complicated, or, or, or….
One can only hope that after the barrage of advertising lies, some semblance of good, balanced government will come out the other end.
At this moment, I’m not very hopeful.
I sent in my ballot yesterday. It was preceded by a lot of hard work, trying to figure out the person behind the names, and the consequences of voting for him or her.
Please do the same.
Preceding posts on the topic of Election 2010: September 29, 30; October 5, 15, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29. (Just click on the date in the calendar in the right hand column, or you can simply place the cursor there, and read the title of the post.)
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#265 – Dick Bernard: What's at stake next Tuesday

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I vote absentee as I’m an election judge next Tuesday.
This morning I was looking at my absentee ballot for November 2. There are 109 candidates for 42 positions. It is a daunting, impossible task to know everything about everyone. A group of us are collaborating to find out who might know something about some of the more obscure races in our area, like for city council. One can’t research everything. But being as well informed as possible IS everything. Few take the time to be informed, and it is a danger to our democracy.
There are candidate names that ‘play’ better than others: they are short, have warmth to them, like the name of somebodies nice little boy or little girl. In our area, if they have a Scandinavian sounding name, they have a head start on candidates with suspicious names, like obviously foreign names that are hard to pronounce. One prominent politician, with a Norwegian maiden name, was married to somebody who had a Middle Eastern sounding name. When she ran for office, she dropped the Middle East married name like a hot potato. It didn’t change her, but for the lazy voter the name was important.
She’s running again, as a Norwegian.
When I send in my ballot, probably today, I’ll have a pretty good notion of who I voted for – and what they stand for.
I hope I’m typical.
The people that have the greatest and most selfish interest in the outcome next Tuesday will be looking for Power and Control.
These power brokers – prime players in this and all major elections – are only interested in the top of the ticket people: President, Governor, Congress and Senate, State Legislature. Get the proper people in place – I’ll vote for four candidates in those races – and you can effectively control the national and state policy agenda.
I happen to have an incumbent Congresswoman who could care less about her own district, but will be hard to beat – she is extremely well-funded and a darling of the national radical right wing. She is fervently anti-anything Obama. Some people like that. Some people will vote for her because she’s cute, or mouthy…some people like that, too.
Going by the ads, our three candidates for Governor are really a half-dozen people: you wouldn’t recognize the person as he is viewed by the oppositions ads. Political ads these days are more intended to disrupt and confuse than to enlighten. Everybody hates them, but they work, and “pigs will fly” before the industry that is political campaign advertising is called to heel. There’s a lot of money to be made by the media in advertising.
What is at issue in this election is very simple, and well worth noting by anybody who casts a vote based on simple emotion, or chooses to vote ‘holding their nose’, or not to vote at all.
In my opinion, the only positions that matter in next Tuesday’s election are the people who will end up as the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States. And the Governors. Control these offices and you can control the agenda. (Yes, the Presidency is crucial too, but that is not in play this year.) The bewildered Freshmen and women who win office will be manipulated and controlled by hand-picked staff advisers in DC. They will learn rapidly that their only value was to have been elected to serve the interests of those more powerful than they.
There has never been as clear a distinction between the Democrat and Republican ‘sides’ of the aisle as there is in this years election.
We choose one of two directions next Tuesday: to go back to the olden days of the early 2000s; or we choose to slog ahead, making necessary changes so that we can survive, and more importantly that our children and grandchildren can survive. I choose working towards positive change, rather than a repeat of the disastrous years of 2001-2009.
Your choice.
Vote, and vote informed, next Tuesday.
Related item here.

#264 – Dick Bernard: One Week to Go. My opinion.

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Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the U.S. Senate, has confirmed that the GOPs major objective is to make President Obama a one-term President. So, if the GOP prevails next week, the gridlock of the first two years of the Obama administration will only intensify. The GOP leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have received huge political contributions from big recipients of the Fall 2008 TARP money.
Karl Rove and his ilk view political campaigns as War, as mortal combat, with voters as soldiers and media and words and images as deadly weapons used to kill opponents. “Sniper fire” attack ads funded by contributors to Super Pacs who do not need to identify themselves will fill the media the next seven days in targeted races nationwide. The overwhelming majority of this money will go in behalf of Republican candidates or against Democrats. It will be a very nasty week compared against an already nasty season. It applies to state (such as Governors) as well as national candidates.
The ultimate paradox, to me, is that the Middle Class – those who vote and pay the taxes – has been successfully recruited to kill itself: a sort of class suicide.
Voters still rule in this country. In my opinion, informed voting is our most important civic duty. Next Tuesday, November 2, most everybody in the United States will vote. (I include as “voters” those who can but won’t show up at the polls; those who vote with little or no knowledge of who or what they are voting for, and those who do not consider the short and long term implications of their vote for any office.)
So be it. It’s a free country. All I have is my opinion. I will vote Democrat on Tuesday, November 2, with no hesitation whatsoever. November 3 we’ll have an idea what we’re in for in the next two years – what fork in the national road we’ve decided to take.
*
We’re leaving a ‘fast and loose’ first decade of the 21st Century. Luckily we survived it somewhat intact. From 2001-2009 we could imagine that the good times were a-rollin’. It was party time. War and Prosperity were purchased on our National Credit Card; tax cuts were enacted that we didn’t need and couldn’t afford. All of this has truly left us with a national ‘hangover’ which first manifested itself, officially, in mid-September, 2008, when the big banking world nearly crashed and burned. (The first to be rehabilitated (TARP) from that huge crisis were the biggest bankers themselves. This happened at the request, and at the end, of the Bush era, before a new President was even elected.)
We’ve been in the painful stage of recovery the last two years and regardless of who wins next Tuesday, the economic struggle is far from over. This is hard medicine to take, but it is essential if we are to leave a country and world worth leaving to our grandkids. We need adults in charge as we continue – people who recognize actions have consequences. We can’t go back to those ‘good old days’.
*
The Democrats have been the majority party in the House, Senate and White House for less than two years, and have done a great deal to begin the process of reform which is so desperately needed in so many areas. They deserve more time.
The Republicans controlled the House and Senate from 1995-2007; controlled the White House, House and Senate from 2001-2007; and controlled the White House from 2001-2009. (Here’s the data: Congress and Presidency001). It was during the many years of the long Republican watch that we nearly lost everything. It makes little sense to me that we seek to go back to that style again, but we might.
The most dangerous period in American History since the Great Depression, happened in 2008 and early 2009.
It has been a difficult two years since.
Those who pray for big Republican gains in this election should consider carefully what they pray for. If they win, this time they will not have the Presidency as an ally.
*
Among the many issues facing Congress is the issue of the tax “cut” much bandied about: should it go to everyone, or to the bottom 98% of the people in this country? First, the debate is not about a tax “cut” at all. Rather it is whether to continue a tax cut that ends by Law at the end of this year. If agreement is not reached, in 2011 no one will have the tax cut enacted ten years ago; if agreement is reached that everyone should have the tax cut continue, the economic implications for the long term will be horrible. Either we save money for the wealthiest among us (continue their tax cut), or we continue the recovery: this is the choice.
If the Republicans regain control, not only will our national legislative house be a divided one, but the new house members will in large part be people with no experience and no seniority in the rough and tumble environment of Washington DC. It is one thing to campaign promise to beat back “Washington”; entirely another thing to have an impact, even within your own party.
We are at a watershed moment: either we will re-attempt the false prosperity of the early 2000s; or endure the discomfort that comes with change and recovery – never a rapid or easy process under the best of circumstances.
Americans are not a patient people nor are we accustomed to discipline. But we have no choice but patience and self-control in the next few years. The problem is not someone else; it is each one of us.
I will proudly and confidently vote Democrat next Tuesday. I see more thoughtful and reasoned approaches to government at all levels and more attention to the concerns of the common people – the Middle Class – from the Democrats, than I see from the Republican Party which has very openly become the party of Corporate Influence and Wealth.
When you vote, and I hope you do, vote with with full awareness of the implications of your vote.
WE, not THEM, are the government we will see in 2011 and 2012. It is OUR country we are making or breaking.
Related posts accessible here, and here.