America

Vote Smart: Millennials, Alternative Parties & Your Vote in Context

/ W.F. Phillips / 1 Comment

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A little over 20 years ago Gil Scott-Heron put these lyrics in a song (poem) entitled “Message to the Messengers”. It was primarily directed toward the next generation of rappers (poets) in an effort to help ensure their intentions were not lost in battles over their word choice or the methods of rebellion for change their songs seemed to endorse. It was wisdom shared from an old falling star to the new meteors on the rise. It is in this vein that I share these words with both the old falling stars (50+) and the new meteors rising (18+) in the world of politcs.

While this campaign season has been one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, bar none, for the most part this election will be no different than all the others. Without question, there is more at stake but the election process will include the same five groups that every election has had in my voting lifetime.

There will be those firmly planted in either the Democratic or Republican party because they “have always been” and/or they are heavily (in)vested. We will hear from the cynical, wisecracking savants who consider themselves “too smart” and their refusal to be “ignored or taken for granted” by either party. Breaking onto the scene will be the new voter, recently awakened to the world of politics. Some of these young folk will just be glad to be able to vote and will most likely vote for who they “think” will win. Then there will be others in this group who will wave their voter card around like a blindfolded, drunken man with a loaded gun ranting about all of the ills of politics that they can now help “fix”. And last but not least – in what could be the largest group – we have the disenfranchised. Here we find the apathetic; those locked away in prisons; those who were once locked away but are now back in society, yet unable (because of politics, mind you) to vote. Many of these folk have only seen government do something “to” them (Republican)  or “for” them (Democrat) but rarely “with” (utopian) them. From their point of view, government – led by either party – is not only limiting with regard to their ability to progress but also limited in an overall desire to deal with the systemic, societal challenges.

Look, I understand people have problems with both candidates running for President of the United States of America, I promise you, I GET it! But this is so much bigger than disdain for one personality or the other. There is so much more at stake. Our vote is the most powerful right we possess and in this election, in particular, I am worried that my “too smart” and “newly awakened” voting brothers and sisters could unwittingly place the standard bearer of a mindset in the White House that has no problem with the fact it was built by slaves.

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We can ill afford to just register new voters without informing them of the power and responsibility of their vote. We wouldn’t give a newly licensed sixteen-year-old the keys to a car and turn them loose without instruction nor should we give new voters the effective keys to the White House with the assumption they grasp the depth and importance of that right. I am not saying we should indoctrinate but am saying it is incumbent upon those of us who understand the power of the vote, and the political history of this country, to at least try to respectfully educate these new voters.

I hate to speak of Politics as a “game” but it seems to be “played” all day, everyday and as with all games, there are rules that must be learned and adhered to. Does adherence assure you will always win? Of course not. However, it can help ensure you won’t always lose. The fact is in the game of politics you can do more than just win or lose outright. It may sound ironic but you can also “win” by losing (giving something up) or “lose” by winning (refusal to give something up).

In my mind there are only six voting scenarios for every citizen in this election:

  1. Vote for Hillary Clinton
  2. Vote for Donald Trump
  3. Vote for Jill Stein
  4. Vote for Gary Johnson
  5. Vote for a write-in candidate of your choice
  6. Don’t vote

Only one of these scenarios assures Donald Trump will not be elected President of the United States. Anything other than a vote for Hillary Clinton is, in effect, a vote for Donald Trump and all votes count… especially after the Presidential election of sixteen years ago.

New voters are too young to remember the Presidential election of 2000. Al Gore and George W. Bush were where Hillary and Trump are now. The same five voting groups I mentioned earlier existed. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were embodied in Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate.

According to the 2000 Census, 111,000,000 people voted in that Presidential election; that made up about 55% of voting age population of the entire country. But the election essentially came down to the votes in one state, Florida. When the Supreme Court decided to halt the recount, George Bush was ahead by 537 votes. Florida declared Bush the winner by a 0.00048% margin. I would rather lose by 10,000,000 votes! Oh, and what about Ralph Nader, you ask? Nader got 97,488 votes in Florida and since most 3rd party candidates are to the left of mainstream Democrats, it is safe to assume the majority of those votes would have gone to Al Gore if Nader were not in the race.

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Imagine for a moment that Al Gore won the election. There would have been no Cheney, Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz, no trumped up “weapons of mass destruction” claim, no speculation of whether we were at war for legitimate reasons or simple revenge. There would have probably been more diplomacy and respect. And quite possibly, no war in Iraq.

Sometimes I think the good Lord allows history to repeat itself just to see if we were paying attention and if we learned anything.

With your vote you help to directly determine who is in power and those in power directly determine who sits on the Supreme Court, and so many other important positions.

So let this serve as proof your vote does indeed count. So, Vote and Vote Smart! #allvotesmatters #votesmart #holdthemaccountable

 

The Residue in the Melting Pot

/ W.F. Phillips / 3 Comments

As the years pass I think what I find more frustrating than direct racism is its residue. For example, the other day I deposited a check at the bank – a national bank. It wasn’t a really large check, though I suppose that point is relative, but let’s just say it was large enough that I would not be in the best mood had I lost it. I roll up to the bank in what would be considered an “economically challenged” area and deposit the check at the ATM … in part because I didn’t have a deposit slip but (and here comes evidence of the residue) also because I didn’t feel like leaving a thumbprint or a DNA sample or whatever other ridiculousness customers are subjected to inside banks nowadays.

The beauty of this bank’s ATM is that you can just deposit the check without a deposit slip. So, “beep, boop, boop, beep, bop” code in … annnnd… enter … “We cannot accept this check at this time” … spits the check – from another FDIC regulated bank, mind you – out. What gives?! Reinsert … “BEEP! BOOP! BOOP! BEEP! BOP!” CODE IN! ENTER! Took the check but only made available about a third of the total. That news wasn’t foreign to me and I expected as much. Usually later in the day human eyes will review the transaction or actually see the check and realizing it’s not bogus, make the remaining balance available. But not this time. The receipt goes on to explain that the remainder will not be available until almost a week from now. WTH?! This wasn’t a personal check.

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So what does this have to do with racism and its residue? My friends of color may need no explanation but some (not all) of my white friends, those who are not as experienced in traversing those areas deemed, by many, to be “economically challenged” may need a bridge. In many major cities this challenged area is preceded by the word “East” and followed by the city’s name. Pardon the digression, but why is that? Anyway, here’s the connection: I immediately thought, “I bet if I had deposited the same check in another part of town I wouldn’t have to wait that long!” In an instant, the great start to my morning was altered by the residue of institutionalized racism. No other person had called me “nigger”, no other person had denied me one thing, and no other person was even around … yet I felt denied and somehow violated. Now, the exact same scenario could have occurred at the same bank chain on the “other” side of town, It could have been universal company policy but it just didn’t feel like it to me at the moment.

The problem is not whether there is or is not a difference but the perception that a difference exists. Albeit my personal problem it is still a problem that causes me to step back and recalculate my thoughts and attitudes more often than a GPS device with Stevie Wonder at the wheel. It is mentally exhaustive and even though many of us have learned to make these adjustments subconsciously on the fly, the residue still lingers.

The Threat to Democracy

/ W.F. Phillips / Leave a comment

My friends, here we are on the eve of yet another Election Day. This Election Day, like many before it, has been touted by many as “the most important Election Day …” and guess what? Each claim has been correct in accordance to the condition of these United States of America at any particular moment in time. In fact, there were some elections that turned out to be “most important” in hindsight – each Presidential election this millennium has been extremely important.

I am reminded of the well-known experiment of the frog in the boiling pot of water: If you place the frog in boiling water, it will immediately and instinctively jump out as an obvious measure of self- preservation. Place the same frog in a pot of water and turn up the heat incrementally? The frog is boiled alive in the pot.

The heat of new voter suppression tactics became noticeable with the activity surrounding the election of 2000 and each subsequent election. In 2000 Florida’s “hanging chads” made it hot! In 2004? The denial of more than 5.3 MILLION Americans who had previous felony convictions made things a little hotter. In 2008? More than 98,000 registered Georgia voters were removed from the roll of eligible voters because of a computer mismatch … making things hotter still. And here we are, the heirs to democracy – on the eve of the 2012 Presidential Election – more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs; sweating profusely, insides boiling from the fire, barely able to breathe, hoping against hope that our impressive, albeit last ditch, exercise in early voting pays off.

Below you will find a letter from O. Patrick “Pat” Scott, the youngest member of the Baltimore’s famed Goon Squad, still on his “j-o-b”, still arming the community with information explaining what we need to watch for tomorrow. It is obvious part of the letter is partisan but readers who may not agree with Pat’s choice for President should not lose sight of the greater message – the threat to democracy that voter suppression represents.

Thank you Pat,

WFP

My Friends:

Forgive me for preaching to the choir, but not many people really want to hear this.

SECURING THE VOTE for OBAMA & the DEMOCRATS

If our frame of reference is the U.S. Federal Elections of 2000 and 2004, photo ID laws, the campaign of 2012, the catastrophic flooding of the northeastern states, and the national conversion of voting machines to devices that do not provide for recounts, to say the least, then we should expect the worst next Tuesday … Vote Stealing … and not be surprised.

We should expect vote stealing where:

  •  Confusion exists due to dislocation caused by the weather or by voter suppression attempts.
  •  Published poll results show competing candidates are “tied” or either is leading by an amount within the poll’s margin of error;
  •  One party “spins” that their own negative poll results actually reveal how close their candidate is to the other and therefore should be viewed as a “virtual tie”, no matter the margin.
  •  Polling organizations release “consolidated” polls that reveal almost everything is a “toss-up”. And the media amplifies this kind of message because it provides controversy, drama, or great story lines;

In a national election, a state’s Exit Polls are not covered by the national media because that state is not considered to be “in play”. For example, on Nov. 6, 2012 “TV Election Night news coverage” will cancel “exit poll data in 19 states” while House and Senate seats are still at stake. Given the circumstances above, the following states might need extreme monitoring:

  •  Toss-up states are: OH, NH, VA, WI, IA, CO and FL.
  •  Leaning states are: MI, MN, PA, OR, NV, and NC.
  •  States excluded from detailed exit poll data coverage are: AK, AR, DE, DC, GA, HI, ID, KY, LA, NE, ND, OK, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, WV, UT, and WY.

According to Bev Harris, BlackBoxVoting.org, the people have the right to know:

1. Who can vote

2. Who did vote,

3. The chain of custody, and

4. The accurate count

Thanks,

Patrick Scott

November 1, 2012

Ready. Aim. Tired!

/ W.F. Phillips / Leave a comment

Over the weekend I heard the pundits offering their opinions with regard to the impossibility of moving some type of legislation regulating gun control. Thankfully, most didn’t seem to be of the belief that some form of gun control wasn’t warranted but held to the prevailing notion that Congress is incapable of standing up to the NRA, National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbyists, arguably the most powerful lobbying group on the Hill. Before you go beating me over the head with the 2nd Amendment hear me out. The 2nd Amendment was adopted in 1791. At that time there was no Property Rights law, no police force or National Guard – at least not as we now know them to function today (some 221 years later) and there were certainly no semi-automatic weapons or assult rifles with clips that hold multiple rounds. Many will argue the 2nd Amendment’s primary concern was for individual citizens’ protection against corrupt government or tyrannical government officials. Whatever the case, it is an amendment that is birthed in fear. Whether you fear your government or your neighbor, is the answer to take up arms and shoot them?

The Washington Post reported the NRA spent $6,700,000 on the mid-term elections of 2010. Over the last twenty-plus years the NRA has spent over $75,000,000 on political campaigns. The Association’s four million members have many in their ranks who are “one issue” voters meaning they decide who they will or will not vote for based soley on where that candidate stands on one particular issue. As a former legislator, one issue voters, for me, were always maddening. These were the folk who were most likely to “cut off their nose to spite their face” and there was rarely any room for compromise.

As politically impracticable as it may appear something real must be done concerning gun control. This is not a new necessity to those of us who live or have grown up in America’s big (and sometimes not so big) cities. Growing up there were times I would lay down to sleep and hear gunfire in the distance. I would wonder what the papers would read the next morning if the media bothered to investigate at all. Unfortunately, gunfire and death in the city was not an anomaly. By the grace of God I never fell victim to gun violence though I had friends and friends of friends who either died or were irreversibly altered – mentally and/or physically by the same. I do not mean to appear “gangsta” nor as some “survivor” of a war torn inner city but I write to give voice to that reality as most “gansta’s” don’t really take time to write. But I digress. The point is gun violence has been an issue in America’s cities for decades yet the cry for “something to be done” is only heard when an “unspeakable tragedy” like what happened in Columbine and Aurora, Colorado, Virginia Tech University and yes, even in a neighborhood in Sanford County, Florida occurs. If George Zimmerman had no gun he would have kept his _ _ _ in the car.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2006 through 2007 there were 25, 423 murders by gunfire in America’s inner cities. If those numbers remained constant through today, guns would account for more than 100,000 deaths in America’s inner cities alone never mind movie theaters, schools and institutions of higher learning. The CDC goes on to mention that almost 70% of all firearm homicides are from people in 50 of the nation’s largest cities. I find it interesting it’s the CDC that keeps the murder stats. This could lead one to believe that murder is a disease … an illness … a symptom of systems gone awry. We should respond to it like a first time parent to an infant’s spiking fever. Every murder is an abomination and every life is just as precious as the next; whether the blood is shed in a movie theater’s aisle, a school’s cafeteria or the hard pavement of the city streets.

I would like to think we have grown as a human race beyond the savagery of our past but here we are … again. For what are you waiting Congressional representatives? More lives to be lost? Is the fact that fighting the NRA may cost you your seat worth the continued consequence of not fighting at all? For what are you waiting my fellow Americans? For the next victim to be related to you before you act? Just because we have the right to bear arms doesn’t mean we should. Do we not find it ironic that we have a “right” to bear arms but no “right” to healthcare to fix the damage wrought by our “right” to bear arms?! Prayers for the victims of gun violence anywhere. Prayers for the victims of dumb silence everywhere.