Don't Count Your Candidates Before They're Elected

If you think the progressive candidates are about to easily route the neoconservative congress, then you don’t know your recent history. This is a battle and it will not be won until every vote has been fairly counted. Oh, sure, there is a general moral repulsion to the scandals, civil rights violations and lack of integrity of the neoconservatives. For that reason some analysts are predicting a tidal wave of anger that is ready to sweep the rascals out. But don’t count on it.

It is in the last few days and even hours of the campaign where the right wing excels. They are not about to rollover and give up. Instead they are massing a counterattack that will stagger the imagination. Slanderous advertisements, late-night phone calls and misleading public statements are just the tip of the iceberg. USA Today has a nice article about a possible Religious Right backlash because of the ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court that gay people have the same rights as straight people (who knew?). In the article several people predict a groundswell of support for the far right in the last days of the election cycle.

The political far right will rattle white middleclass voters with tales of Hispanic migrant workers, Black criminals, and gay predators, not to mention menacing Middle-Eastern terrorists. They will wring out every drop of fear and anger they can. If you aren’t familiar with the word xenophobia, look it up. Get used to it. Start dropping it into conversations. The far right will panic the heard into rushing the polls using race baiting or any other dirty trick. Watch the unbelievable right wing “Get out the Vote” (GOTV) effort of the last days of the campaign, and be humbled with the most effective campaign money can buy.

And they will not be satisfied with that. Just like Nixon, who won by the largest voting landslide in history and yet resorted to dirty tricks to ensure his victory, the far right will keep up the assault right through Election Day. If you’ve seen films like Unprecedented or American Blackout, then you are familiar with some of the dirty tricks of the recent past.

What can I do?

Here are my top three ideas for the last days of the campaign.

1. Volunteer for Get out the Vote efforts on behalf of progressive candidates. Call your county Democratic office to volunteer.


2. Go to Video the Vote and register as a volunteer. You can coordinate with thousands of other volunteers to videotape and report any voting irregularities.


3. Take a vacation day from work on Election Day and volunteer to take people to the polls.

Here’s the Score. Now You Pick the Winner

The rules of politics are very different than the rules in other parts of life. For example, unless we’re paying close attention, the score doesn’t matter. A Congressman with a very poor voting record can win an election…unless we pay attention.

How did your Senators and Representatives score on the issues of Human Rights and Civil Liberties? You can click here to find out. Then, on November 7th, make the score count. Vote to decide who is going to lose and who is going to win.

Where have all the hippies gone?

“So, where is the outrage? I mean, why aren’t people taking to the streets over this stuff?” I know exactly how he feels. My new acquaintance and I sit on the veranda of a fine southern Bed & Breakfast in Asheville, NC looking down the hillside and over the fall colors. But even this cool, tranquil setting isn’t sufficient to help us shake what is bothering us.

Here’s a short list of what is on our minds as we sip red wine and talk into the night: NSA warrantless spying; a war for which the justification was “weapons of mass destruction,” which turned out to be untrue; North Korea actually having weapons of mass destruction but American not having any political capital left to spend; the Global War on Terror; torture; abandoning the Geneva Convention; the Military Commissions Act of 2006; arbitrarily declaring people to be Enemy Combatants; etc. We both agree that we can’t let someone else’s rights be taken away without destroying our own rights.

My friend and I sit here wondering where the protests are. This man, who is a couple of years older than me declares, “If this would have happened in the ‘60’s or early ‘70’s, the hippies would be in the streets with protest signs. Where are the protesters now?” I look at him, and I look at myself, a couple of reasonably successful corporate dudes, wondering when someone else was going to take to the streets. But what about us? Here we are, in the lap of luxury at a beautiful B&B, and wondering where the hippies have gone. Maybe they’ve gone to where we are, getting comfortable in our mid-life.

OK, I write my little blog, I volunteer for a couple of non-profits, but it hardly seems like enough. I want to run through the streets and pump my fist in the air and tell the world that I’m pissed off…really pissed off. I want to bring the presidential elections forward to today. I want to vote democrat or independent or ABRA (anyone but Republicans again).

I want to carry a protest sign that is clever enough to make the 6 PM news, and to be syndicated to other news channels and to be incorporated into the commercials for the 6 PM news. I want to tell the world that I am NOT for them…the war-mongering neo-cons. I am, in fact, squarely against them. That doesn’t make me pro-terrorism. That makes me a patriot.

So, I’ll keep giving to Amnesty International, the ACLU and progressive candidates who believe in human rights and civil liberties. And I’ll keep manning phone banks and knocking on doors and sending emails. And yes, I’ll keep writing this blog. Sometimes, I feel like the voice in the wilderness. But sometimes, when I know you are reading and giving and calling and knocking…sometimes I don’t’ feel so all alone. Sometimes, when you are with me, I feel like, well, a hippie.

It’s Only a Number – Take 655,000

I’m sorry to tell you that, I must print a retraction. In my last blog post I claimed that there were “greater than 100,000” civilian deaths in Iraq. It turns out I was completely wrong. While I was technically correct that the civilian death toll in Iraq is greater than 100,000, I had actually used a very old number, which turns out to be too low. It seems that, according to The Lancet, a British medical journal, the actual death toll among civilians in Iraq is more than 655,000. And that is just the toll since George Bush infamously stood beneath a banner declaring “mission accomplished.” Now I have to wonder out loud, what exactly was that mission? You can find information about the podcast of the Lancet here.

It’s Only a Number

There are some moments in life that you will always remember. For older generations it might have been the day Perl Harbor was bombed, or the day Kennedy was shot. For the younger generation, everyone knows where they were on September 11, 2001.

I’d like you to think of a question, to which the answer may seem obvious, but I’d like to ask it anyway. Here it is…

Why is it you will always remember September 11, 2001?

Well, obviously it was for the wanton destruction of human life. According to Wikipedia, in the three attacks on September 11th, 2001, “There were 2,973 fatalities: 246 on the four planes…2,602 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon.” That number is horrible. Think about it. 2,973 men, women and children snuffed out by violence.

As a matter of coincidence, the number of people who died in Iraq just eclipsed the number of people killed on 9-11. According to http://www.icasualties.org, as of October 6, 2006, there have been 2,973 deaths of Coalition forces in Iraq, including 2,737 US soldiers, 119 UK soldiers and 117 other Coalition troops. If you add in the more than 200 deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan, then this “War on Terror” has been more terrible in the cost of human lives than was the attack on September 11th. Of course, these numbers do not count the number of dead Iraqis, which some estimate to be greater than 100,000.

So, kill 3000 Americans at once, and we’ll always remember. But kill them one at a time in an illegitimate war over “weapons of mass destruction” and we say nothing – no rage, no outcries, just more of the same.

So, today as you go about your business, feel the rage just a little bit. Then on November 7th, go to the polls and take action. It’s time to let someone know that killing Americans is outrageous, no matter which political ideology is behind it.