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Levy Rivers

A Ballot Buddy System - changing Presidential Elections - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...15lane.html

politics

shared by Levy Rivers on 16 Dec 08 - Cached
  • But here’s a bipartisan solution: an electoral vote buddy system. Red and blue states of similar size should pair up and pass state laws to apportion their electoral votes by district.It would seem counterintuitive for a Democratic legislature in New York to cede a portion of its sure 31 Democratic electoral votes, but not if it opens up some of Texas’ 34 votes for the party. Washington State could make its 11 electoral votes relevant, in tandem with Tennessee, which also has 11. In this past election, voters in Louisiana (nine electoral votes) and Mississippi (six) could have focused the candidates’ views on Hurricane Katrina rebuilding had they buddied with New Jersey, which has 15 electoral votes.
Konstantinos

Democracy versus Republic? - 0 views

We live in a republic (a group of states that are self governing under the umbrella of a centralized or federal government). The type of system we employ is a representative form of democracy (mean...

democracy republic distinction

started by Konstantinos on 30 Jul 12 no follow-up yet
thinkahol *

As Californians go to polls, activists slam corporate 'hijacking' of democracy | Raw Story - 0 views

rawstory.com/...-corporate-hijacking-democracy

californians corporate hijacking democracy ballot initiative

shared by thinkahol * on 07 Jun 10 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 07 Jun 10
     
    The free-spending role of corporations in California's electoral system has come under fire as the state prepares to vote on two referendum which opponents have condemned as a "hijacking" of democracy.
thinkahol *

Chris Hedges: Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig - 0 views

www.truthdig.com/...iny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122

Chris Hedges: Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion - Hedges' Columns Truthdig

shared by thinkahol * on 23 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 23 Nov 10
     
    There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations, remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage.
Sana ulHaq

Surge in voter registration makes election outcome more volatile - 0 views

www.newshungama.com/?p=1847

surge voter

shared by Sana ulHaq on 22 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Sana ulHaq on 22 Apr 10
     
    The number of people registering to vote has increased markedly, adding a new generation of voters to the electorate and making the outcome of the election even more volatile, according to a survey of marginal constituencies conducted by the Guardian.
thinkahol *

Ralph Nader: 'The Left Has Nowhere to Go' | CommonDreams.org - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...03-3

Ralph Nader: 'The Left Has Nowhere to Go' | CommonDreams.org

shared by thinkahol * on 05 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 05 Jan 11
     
    Ralph Nader in a CNN poll a few days before the 2008 presidential election had an estimated 3 percent of the electorate, or about 4 million people, behind his candidacy. But once the votes were counted, his support dwindled to a little over 700,000. Nader believes that many of his supporters entered the polling booth and could not bring themselves to challenge the Democrats and Barack Obama. I suspect Nader is right. And this retreat is another example of the lack of nerve we must overcome if we are going to battle back against the corporate state. A vote for Nader or Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2008 was an act of defiance. A vote for Obama and the Democrats was an act of submission. We cannot afford to be submissive anymore.
thinkahol *

Chris Hedges: Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig - 0 views

www.truthdig.com/...ake_corporations_rich_20110110

Chris Hedges: Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich - Hedges' Columns Truthdig

shared by thinkahol * on 11 Jan 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 11 Jan 11
     
    Power does not rest with the electorate. It does not reside with either of the two major political parties. It is not represented by the press. It is not arbitrated by a judiciary that protects us from predators. Power rests with corporations. And corporations gain very lucrative profits from war, even wars we have no chance of winning. All polite appeals to the formal systems of power will not end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must physically obstruct the war machine or accept a role as its accomplice. 
thinkahol *

End the Land Mine Plague - 0 views

readersupportednews.org/...5931-end-the-land-mine-plague

End the Land Mine Plague

shared by thinkahol * on 15 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 15 May 11
     
    There is all too much secrecy and too little open discussion in the political and electoral arenas. Obama's annual weapons destruction report does not tell Americans why he refuses to sign either treaty.
thinkahol *

Russ Feingold: Democrats Are 'Dancing With the Devil' - 0 views

www.readersupportednews.org/...ats-are-dancing-with-the-devil

Russ Feingold: Democrats Are 'Dancing With the Devil'

shared by thinkahol * on 18 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 18 Jun 11
     
    MINNEAPOLIS -- Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) took direct aim at a key part of the Democrats' 2012 electoral strategy during his keynote address at Netroots Nation here Thursday evening.
Michael Hughes

Ahmadinejad can't hide Lyin' Eyes - but does it really matter? - 0 views

www.examiner.com/...yes--but-does-it-really-matter

iran elections Ahmadinejad mousavi

shared by Michael Hughes on 23 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Michael Hughes on 23 Jun 09
     
    Although incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have benefitted from corruption in his supposed electoral rout of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, there is no guarantee that Mousavi would have won, a concept that has not taken root. And even if Mousavi did win, who cares? Reason being, it wouldn't make much difference to the United States.
thinkahol *

Ralph Nader Is Tired of Running for President | Common Dreams - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...04-4

Ralph Nader Is Tired of Running for President | Common Dreams

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Jul 11
     
    The most important moral and intellectual voices within a disintegrating society are slowly discredited when their nonviolent protests and calls for justice cannot alter intransigent and corrupt systems of power. The repeated acts of peaceful civil disobedience, efforts at electoral and political reform and the fight to protect the rule of law are dismissed as useless by an embittered, dispossessed and betrayed public. The demagogues and hatemongers, the purveyors of violence, easily seduce enraged and bewildered masses in the final stages of collapse with false promises of vengeance, new glory and moral renewal. And in the spiral downward the good among us are reviled as naive and ineffectual fools.
thinkahol *

Lesser-Evil Math Doesn't Compute: Freedom Plaza Has the Same Name as Tahrir Square | Tr... - 0 views

www.truth-out.org/...1309097120

Lesser-Evil Math Doesn't Compute: Freedom Plaza Has the Same Name as Tahrir Square | Truthout

shared by thinkahol * on 27 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 27 Jun 11
     
    In an electoral system corrupted by money, media, and parties, the US people are offered a choice every four years between two hideously awful candidates for an office that increasingly resembles an imperial throne. And increasingly the primary motivation of voters is to oppose the candidate they believe is the greater evil.
thinkahol *

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Lawrence Lessig, Republic, Lost: A Declaration for Independence... - 0 views

fdlbooksalon.com/...a-declaration-for-independence

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Lawrence Lessig Republic Lost: A Declaration for Independence |

shared by thinkahol * on 18 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 18 Oct 11
     
    If, as Lessig conclusively demonstrates, Congress is indifferent to the will of the people and to democratic debate - because it has been captured by monied interests to whose interests it exclusively attends - then the people lose the ability to affect what government does in any realm. It doesn't make much difference which problem you believe is most pressing: this is the dynamic that lies at the heart of it. Inaction on climate issues is due to the power of polluters and energy companies; the power of the private health insurance industry blocks fundamental health-care reform; endless war and civil liberties abuses are sustained by the power of the surveillance and National Security State industries; and a failure to achieve real Wall Street reform is due to the fact that, as Sen. Dick Durbin amazingly acknowledged about the institution in which he serves, "the banks frankly own the place." Without finding an effective way to address that overarching problem, the only recourse for citizens becomes either passive acceptance of their powerlessness (i.e., apathy and withdrawal) or disruption and unrest fomented outside of the electoral system (the driving ethos of OccupyWallStreet).
Arabica Robusta

Populism and the enchanted world of 'moderate politics' | openDemocracy - 1 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...0%98moderate-politics%E2%80%99

politics theory populism

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • I essentially question the epistemological flaws surrounding the uses of the notion: when is it safe to call a politician, a political party or movement ‘populist’?
  • The stakes are high because to label someone as ‘populist’ is to imply that s/he is somehow a potential or real enemy of representative democracy. My critic refers to the ‘pernicious effects’ of populism which underlines the notion’s very negative connotation. Let me here reply to Catherine Fieschi’s major criticisms.
  • Cas Mudde, one of the major specialists on the subject, concedes that populism is a ‘thin-centred ideology’.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • According to Michael Freeden’s ‘morphological analysis’, an ideology has its own ‘ineliminable’ core of values exercising control, with logically and culturally adjacent concepts that are further connected to peripheral concepts.
  • To point out that populism does not have the depth and sophistication of a political ideology is in no way an attempt to suggest that this is a ‘wishy-washy’ notion, even less to ‘to discourage analysts’, let alone ‘to bamboozle democrats’ as Catherine Fieschi alleges. No, it simply means testing the epistemological merits of the notion in order to reveal its heuristic limits.
  • In the 1930s, millions marched behind the banners of Fascism and Communism. Today, no one would die for a populist cause. Populism is no ideology simply because it offers no positive worldview. It is just a means to an end, a device to appeal to the masses.
  • Think for a moment: aren’t those amorphous policies of ‘mainstream’ parties responsible for their rising unpopularity and their decreasing credibility? Why should political scientists uncritically use the media clichés about ‘reasonable moderates’ opposing ‘undemocratic radicals/populists’?
  • It is a fact that populists thrive on ‘wounded’ democracies. But ‘wounded’ democracies are imperfectly run polities, where economic inequalities are dire, and where the elites have often broken their promises. Thus let’s not forget who provoked the ‘democratic fracture’ in the first place. Why do some political scientists seem oblivious to the fact that the ‘moderates’ who let down their electorates are mainly responsible for their own demise?
  • Again, the task of the political scientist should not be to condone or condemn this state of affairs, but to try to understand why people feel so disenfranchised. Consequently, the researcher should tackle and discuss the policies which make those populations suffer. Unfortunately, this is not something which most political scientists seem in the least concerned about. ‘Not to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand’ said Spinoza. Before looking down on the disoriented and angry voters who fall for the demagogues or dismissing all ‘radicals’ as undisputed ‘populists’, it would indeed be worth pausing for a moment to understand how those agents feel and to ask what they want. Political scientists should also wonder why more and more ‘moderate’ voters no longer believe in the enchanted world of ‘moderate politics’.
Arabica Robusta

Keane Bhatt, "Noam Chomsky on Hopes and Prospects for Activism: 'We Can Achieve a Lot'" - 1 views

mrzine.monthlyreview.org/...bhatt221110.html

politics activism chomsky social movements

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • I think he would take it for granted that elites are basically Marxist -- they believe in class analysis, they believe in class struggle, and in a really business-run society like the United States, the business elites are deeply committed to class struggle and are engaged in it all the time.  And they understand.  They're instinctive Marxists; they don't have to read it.
  • In fact, Malaysia also came out of the Asian crisis.  It was imposing capital controls.  Now the economists were all saying it's a disaster.  But they did quite well.  Same with Argentina, the former poster child for the IMF, leading to a serious crisis.  It then disregarded all the warnings and doctrines and the economy did very well, contrary to predictions.
  • using the multidimensional poverty index, there were 645 million poor, or 55 percent of India's population -- more than in the poorest 26 African countries combined. 
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • there is sometimes dramatic conflict between the developmentalists, like left president Correa, and the indigenous communities affected by mining and dams.  Also, Evo Morales, despite being hugely popular, recently had to deal with a very big general strike in Potosí.  What do you make of these dynamics?  What are the hopes and prospects in Latin America regarding raising living standards, the paths of industrialization, environmental considerations, the role of social movements, and avoiding state coercion?
  • I don't know of any simple general answer to your question of how this will all turn out.  The problems are often not simple.  A great deal is at stake, not just for the people of the countries.  Resource extraction impacts a global environment that is increasingly at severe risk.
  • You said, "It's quite striking that we and other western countries can't reach, can't even approach, can't even dream about the level of democracy they had in Haiti.  That's pretty shocking.  Here's one of the poorest countries in the world.  The population that organized to win that election is among the most repressed and impoverished in the world; they managed to organize enough to enter the electoral arena without any resources and elect their own candidate."  Praising Bolivia at the same time, you asked, "Is it believable that we can't do the same? . . . We can take lessons from them.  Anything they've done we can do a thousand times more easily."
  • Arabica Robusta on 27 Nov 10
     
    The founding fathers were very concerned about the danger of democracy and spoke quite openly about the need to construct the democratic institutions so that threat would be contained.  That's why the Senate has so much more power than the House, to mention just one example.
Levy Rivers

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: Post-Debate Thoughts, or Lack Th... - 0 views

www.fivethirtyeight.com/...-thoughts-or-lack-thereof.html

debate 2 mccain obama reputation

shared by Levy Rivers on 08 Oct 08 - No Cached
  • McCain needed to keep the Republican brand at arm's-length. He had largely managed to do that until the Lehman Brothers collapse scared the Hell out of Main Street and reminded everyone of the failures of the status quo. McCain needed to empathize on the economy; his "fundamentals" comment made that very difficult. He needed to find some way to position himself in opposition to Senator Obama on the bailout, but he had boxed himself in with his gambit about suspending his campaign. McCain lost tonight, but the reasons for his failure stem from long before this evening.
  • What was with McCain's failure to shake Obama's hand after the debate? It was quite awkward although I appreciate Barack Obama not breaking step through it
Levy Rivers

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: The Persistent Myth of the Bradl... - 0 views

www.fivethirtyeight.com/...nt-myth-of-bradley-effect.html

bradley effect fivethirtyeight obama

shared by Levy Rivers on 07 Oct 08 - Cached
  • A fairly typical example comes in the form of a blind quote from a Democratic strategist this morning at The Politico:A huge challenge for Obama, insiders say, is simply determining how much skin color will matter in November. Race is nearly impossible to poll – no one ever says “I’m a racist” – and no campaign wants it revealed they are even asking questions on the issue.
  • As we have described here before, polling numbers from the primaries suggested no presence of a Bradley Effect. On the contrary, it was Barack Obama -- not Hillary Clinton -- who somewhat outperformed his polls on Election Day.
  • This effect appears to be most substantial in states with larger black populations; I have suggested before that it might stem from a sort of reverse Bradley Effect in which black voters were reluctant to disclose to a (presumed) white interviewer that they were about to vote for a black candidate.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The good news for Barack Obama is that, among the Northeastern states, only New Hampshire appears to be competitive -- and Obama would gladly trade a Bradley Effect in New Hampshire for a reverse Bradley Effect in a state like North Carolina. (Pennsylvania, it should be noted, is also defined by the Census Bureau as being in the Northeast, but in terms of political demography, it shares far more in common with the Midwest).
Skeptical Debunker

Analysis: Republicans setting filibuster record - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/..._filibuster_gone_awry_analysis

Republican filibuster records

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Opposition Republicans are using the delaying tactic at a record-setting pace. "The numbers are astonishing in this Congress," says Jim Riddlesperger, political science professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. The filibuster, using seemingly endless debate to block legislative action, has become entrenched like a dandelion tap root in the midst of the shrill partisanship gripping Washington. But the filibuster is nothing new. Its use dates to the mists of Senate history, but until the civil rights era, it was rarely used.
  • As a matter of political philosophy, the concept of the filibuster arises from a deep-seated, historic concern among Americans that the minority not be steamrolled by the majority. It is a brake and protective device rooted in the same U.S. political sensibility that gave each state two senators regardless of population. The same impulse gave Americans the Electoral College in presidential contests — a structure from earliest U.S. history designed to give smaller population states greater influence in choosing the nation's leader. Given recent use of the filibuster by minority Republicans and the party's success in snarling the legislative process in this Congress, Democrats say the minority has gone way beyond just protecting its interests. The frequency of filibusters — plus threats to use them — are measured by the number of times the upper chamber votes on cloture. Such votes test the majority's ability to hold together 60 members to break a filibuster. In the 110th Congress of 2007-2008, with Republicans in the minority, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the current session of Congress — the 111th — for all of 2009 and the first two months of 2010 the number already exceeds 40. The most the filibuster has been used when Democrats were in the minority was 58 times in the 106th Congress of 1999-2000.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10
     
    Having railed against the Democratic minorities' use of ANY filibuster in the last several Congressional sessions when Republicans were in the majority, the Republicans now hypocritically are taking the use of the filibuster to new heights. Forgotten are their own strident and indignant demands that the "people" deserved the Senate allowing an "up or down vote". And that they would (and did) use a "nuclear option" or reconciliation if necessary to make that happen. The filibuster - tool of obstruction in the U.S. Senate - is alternately blamed and praised for wilting President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda. Some even say it's made the nation ungovernable.
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