So now what?

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Tuesday June 09, 2020 · 8:31 AM PDT

2020/06/09 · 08:31

Warning: Long post.

Let me start clearly: If you are surprised by the intensity of these protests, by the insistent nature of the movement, by the anger of those involved, or by the calls for drastic action, where we are is, in part, your fault. It's my fault, too, even though I'm not surprised. And if we should get here again, it will be all of our faults -- all of us in positions of privilege, power, and authority who had the opportunity to use our resources to create change and didn't. After this point, further bloodshed by the police is blood on all of our hands. Change is an absolute requirement and it cannot wait.

Up front: I’m not a cop (though I am friends with some), and I am not black. I’m a high school teacher and this is written entirely from the perspective of a white man who has spent 20 years of his life working in communities of color which have suffered dramatically and devastatingly from military policing. The ideas herein are not mine – I’ve been listening and these are the ones that make sense to me. This list is not exhaustive and is not meant to replace or preempt any other list.

First off, anybody staking out the "we don't need policing" ground is immediately unserious. We do. Especially those of us who live and work in neighborhoods of poverty and struggle where crime is a part of daily life. The issue isn't "no more police," the issue is "how do we police in a manner that is respectful and helpful to the community being policed?"

Currently, if given a choice between rampant crime and rampant policing, I suspect those most affected would be evenly split -- modern policing isn't that much better than crime among those being policed -- especially if they are black.

What we are looking for is a police service which reflects the community policed, is responsive to its needs, and is focused on being a contributing part of the growth of the community. We have to end the dual poisons of "thin blue line" thinking and "occupying force" attitudes which currently dominate law enforcement. Our neighborhoods are not filled with animals who need to be contained, and if there is to be policing, it needs to be from those who are members of the communities they serve.

So how do we get there?

Any real answer won't lend itself to a hashtag. The real answer, as I understand it, will involve changes at the federal, state, and local levels and each of those changes need to work in concert with each other for the change we want to happen.

FEDERAL: Power of the Purse

This level is policy driven and has to do with Federal guidelines for police misconduct, federal oversight of use-of-force complaints, federal racial bias oversight, and demilitarization of the police – banning the cheap-to-free sales of military overstock to local police departments. Fortunately, the bill introduced today by the Democrats after their – let’s be honest – embarrassingly performative kneeling stunt does much of this and does it quite well. Here’s a bill summary:

STATE: Laboratory of Democracy

The State level is going to be similarly policy-driven. The states determine local jurisdictional issues, uses of the national guard, and any oversight over the federal minimum standards. The states are also the best places to institute programs that work at the local level on a larger scale. For example, Bend, Oregon has created a 4th emergency response element beyond Fire, EMT, and Police for Mental Health emergencies. Currently, when a person in mental health distress calls 911, or has 911 called about them, in most places it’s the police who respond and, oftentimes, this ends very badly. In Bend, those calls are diverted to mental health professionals. This plan is scaling up to Portland, but it wouldn’t be difficult with state resources to make this statewide in Oregon. Here’s more information:

Another place the state itself can be useful: Creating statewide standards for engagement which meet, at least, the 8-Can’t-Wait standards. Currently adoption is a patchwork of localities which means that jurisdictional boundaries and overlap can create havoc with some officers operating under different rules of engagement than others. The 8-Can’t-Wait programs aren’t the end-point for reform, they’re the beginning of it, but if implemented statewide they could quickly reduce incidents of violence from the police.

LOCAL: Force to Service

Local is the place of biggest change. Currently our police are a “force” and they are applied as such. They are coercive by training and mission. They have been trained for generations to think of themselves as the “thin blue line” between civilization and savagery – and due to the basic racist nature of American society, that has clearly been interpreted as “keeping black and brown folk in line.” The worst departments – Minneapolis, Seattle, and Bakersfield come to mind -- are the worst offenders, but even those departments that “look” better still engage in systematic racist policing and, worse, when confronted with abuses in their systems, they’ll work to mitigate the fallout, not fix the problem. LAPD is a prime example of a department in the grips of the bureaucratic majority, more concerned about bad press than bad policing.

To change policing, we need to transform our policing from a force to a service. In a service model, police aren’t imposed on a community, they are a natural part of it. An incomplete list of the changes this would require:

Officers live in the community they police.

While this is hard to, er, police, it’s a vital step in creating community bonds and ending the occupying force mentality. It’s much harder to think of people as savages when you just talked in line with them at the liquor store.
Have local community oversight:

Civilian oversight commissions as we have them now end up just putting a lot of power in the hands of some politically connected civilians and generally act as a rubber stamp – they have an adminispheric view of policing and limited contact with those being policed. Instead, let’s create civilian oversight at the precinct level – not just as a tool to reign in the police, but as a tool to foster actual communication.
Local community engagement:

This isn’t buying ice cream for kids and it’s not the occasional pick-up basketball game – those aren’t enough. Cops need to get out of their cars.
Training needs to change:

And not just de-escalation and nonviolent methods for subjugation. Those are necessary, but they aren’t even in the right direction for the changes we need to make. We need to train cops to shift their mindset entirely. I’m not sure how this looks, but I suspect that a lot of the Restorative Practice work happening in schools right now could be modified.
Disarm the vast majority of police

A shotgun in the car, no gun on the belt.

Up until the 1920’s most metropolitan cops weren’t armed and up through the 1950’s it wasn’t standard but optional in most departments. We can go back to that. I would suggest that there be a percentage of armed responders who have undergone much more rigorous training and certification than the average officer. The firearm has become a chief tool of enforcement and when something is a chief tool, it gets used. Currently, with all cops armed, we have situations where “panic storms” of officer fire occur – one officer fires – accidentally even – and the others present empty their clips in reaction to the first shot. My uncle was a cop in the 80’s in King County, the height of the crack wars. He never unholstered his weapon. I’ve spoken with many cops who have said the same. As a matter of fact, even now, only 27% of police nationwide have ever fired their weapon, but the profiles of those who do speak volumes to the changes we need to make:

Those who do fire their weapons tend to be whiter, more often male, more often ex-military, and more often hold view of power that are anathema to the policing we need.

If we disarm cops, these folks will be the first to quit and that’s not a bad thing.

Hiring changes:

Hire locally – don’t hire cops who haven’t lived in the community previously.
End drug-use eliminations – don’t just not ask, but make it okay for cops to have smoked some weed.
Require a two-year criminal justice degree minimum for beat cops and a 4-year degree for armed police.
Don’t exclude 2nd career applicants.

Currently the average age of a new recruit at LAPD is 21 years old. There are few, if any, rookies who are over 28 who aren’t ex-military. Younger people tend to be more reactive and have less people-experience which can lead them to misread situations.
Spin off Mental Health Services and Homeless services like they’ve done in Portland. A 4th emergency service that is trained specifically for mental health will be a blessing.

And here’s the kicker: All of this will cost more money, not less. It may even require more officers than we currently have. As a teacher, I know damn well what happens when public institutions which are perceived as failures are defunded. Let’s not make the same mistake again with policing.

And how do we get this done?

We need a police reform voting guide that focuses on local races that most people aren’t able to properly vet, especially on issues specific to BLM concerns. Which judges, AGs, DAs, city attorney, sheriff, police commissioners, city council members, county executives, and mayors will be the ones who promise to chaperone these changes through the system? Right now, we have no way of knowing, specifically, because there isn’t any central place to check. Especially in larger counties where there may be 35 judges up for election, aside from Bar Association ratings and the occasional newspaper endorsement, we have nothing.

But if we crowdsourced this, created a list of policy statements which, if the candidate agreed, we could give them a Police Reform Endorsed badge and then swore to follow those recommendations in the next election, we could get this done.

Maybe we should.

In Response to Those Arguing for Conditional Americanism

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Thursday July 18, 2019 · 2:17 PM PDT

2019/07/18 · 14:17

This is a copy of the cover of the U.S. Constitution.

This is something I wrote in response to what I was seeing in Facebook yesterday and today. I posted it there, but I thought it would fit here, as well:

My favorite aphorism about being an American comes from one of my least favorite Americans, President Ronald Reagan in his final speech as president:

“You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won't become a German or a Turk.' But then he added, 'Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.”

What Reagan was saying is that Americanism, unlike any other nationality, is not an historical or generational inheritance, it’s more of an adoption.

Another of my least favorite Americans, George Will, further explained that we become American not by birth or inheritance, but by the simple adoption of a set of principles. To paraphrase him, to be an American, we must simply believe in a set of premises:

the rule of law,
the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States of America,
the rewards of hard work, and
the freedom to pursue our dreams.

Once we have done this, we have become as American as anyone who’s family can trace their heritage back to the Colonist’s side of the Revolution.

I firmly believe in the truth of what Reagan said and of what Will further explained. Both men are about as far from me on the political spectrum as our politics allow, but on these points we are in full agreement.

And full agreement on these points is the basic foundation of who we are supposed to be. As long as we agree on these points, we have the foundation on which we can move forward, from which we can debate and to which we can return in order to find our way forward.

But agreement on these basic principles of Americanism has been hard to come by, not just recently, but throughout our history, because there is a subset of our citizenry who have long refused to adopt into these core American principles.

That subset is not a minority, it is our historical plurality, the Royal We of America. It is our Center Culture consisting of a swath of our multi-generational Anglo-Saxon (and Germanic) Protestant Christian Caucasians and, those who, either directly, through emotional connection, marriage, community, or through fear or aspiration identify primarily with Anglo-Saxon Christian Caucasians.

They have long wanted Americanism to be as hereditary as Frenchness, and they have always been a major force in our society. Their loudest voices were the slavers of the 18^th and 19^th Century, the Jacksonians of the 1820s and 1830s, the Nativist America (Know-Nothing) Party of the 1840’s, the Segregationists of the post Civil War era, the Populists of the early 20^th Century, the Eugenicists who dominated our Progressive politics, the social darwinists who defined our popular thinking on race, class, and worth, the anti-immigration activists of the 1910s and 1920s, they were the anti-Communists of the 1930s, the McCarthyites of the 1950s, the Dixiecrats of the 1940s, the re-segregationists of the 1950s, and the proponents of the Southern Strategy in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s. They were the Tea Party, and now they are Trumpists.

But it’s not their loudest voices who are their most dangerous, it’s the millions who stand idly by in tacit complicity. For every firebrand, raconteur, and pedagogue they produce, there are millions of silent citizens who passively approve of their message, who argue for cooler heads to prevail and say we need to find common ground.

But as long as there is an argument for hereditary Americanness, there is no common ground possible. Unless we agree on those core principles, the ones articulated by Reagan (whether or not he believed them) and fleshed out by Will (whether or not he lives by them), we have no way forward.

We are either a nation where ideals are adopted, or a nation where national identity is inborn. We cannot be both.

These chants of “Send Her Back,” The ongoing travesty at the border, the refusal of refugees, the questioning of patriotism of those who disagree, the narrowing of the definition of American to simply include those who agree with the administration – the conditionalizing of Americanism will be the death of everything we hold dear, and the problem isn’t just those who are doing it, the problem is those who are standing idly by while it happens because they don’t want to get people upset or say something wrong.

Silence at a time like this is the least patriotic, least American thing one can do. Those principles? They demand defense.

Conditional Americanism is the enemy of our very essence, and those who promulgate it are instigating yet another direct attack on the very core of our national identity. One cannot love America while allowing its core principles to be destroyed.

When you see something, when you hear something, SAY SOMETHING.

It’s the only American thing to do.

After 8 Years of Work, My Book Is On The Shelves

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Tuesday December 11, 2018 · 9:36 AM PST

2018/12/11 · 09:36

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here, but I wanted to share some good personal news.

As some of you may have known, along with being a high school teacher, I write fiction. I started writing seriously about 9 years ago at the age of 38, filled with fantasy and guileless optimism about my skills, my stories, and my potential for success.

Life lessons abounded and it was soon clear that while I had potential, I had an enormous amount to learn.

I wrote four manuscripts over the next five years and each one showed me new things I’d done wrong and new things I could do better.

Finally, with my fifth manuscript, I secured a literary agent who then shepherded my work through the submissions process.

The book was rejected by every major publishing imprint save one, Putnam, which gave me a “revise and resubmit.”

I revised. We resubmitted, but we had little hope the book had been out on submission for nearly two years with nothing to show for it. Depressed but determined, I began re-writing my beloved Young Adult Sci-Fi manuscript as an Adult Science Fiction story to try again.

And then in September of 2016, Putnam called. They liked the revisions and they wanted the manuscript. I was elated. Dreams were happening. I was going to be published, but publishing is a glacial process.

It was a two year wait but a week ago, my book, Strange Days, was officially released.

This weekend I did something I have always wanted to do. I went to a bookstore and signed copies that I found on the shelves.

Then I went to another bookstore just to look at my book for sale. It’s still a bit unreal.

Thanks for being the community. Along with the politics and outrage, I love reading about other people’s successes here, and I am glad to finally be able to add my own.

Did the Trump White House out our top asset in Russia?

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Thursday January 26, 2017 · 12:18 PM PST

2017/01/26 · 12:18

Just a short diary to link to the articles you all really should read.

This started out yesterday as a very small side-story on TPM, but this morning Josh Marshall updated it.

Essentially, what it talks about is that the 2nd in Command at the FSB (Russian Secret Police) was arrested and charged with treason yesterday. Initially the speculation was that this might be an “olive branch” to the Trump administration because he’s the guy that’s been accused of being in charge of the DNC/RNC/Podesta hacks and the whole Russian US-election-response-team.

Initially.

That changed today:

Well, now we have reports that Sergei Mikhailov is suspected of being a US asset at the heart of Russian intelligence.

The report is from The Moscow Times, a respected English language publication. But the report appears to rely on a report in Novaya Gazeta.

From the Moscow Times ...

A top cybersecurity specialist in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was arrested on Wednesday reportedly on suspicion of leaking information to the U.S. intelligence community — a bombshell accusation that, if true, would mean Washington had a spy in the heart of Russia’s national defense infrastructure.

Here's the additional detail ...

According to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the FSB believes Sergei Mikhailov tipped off U.S. officials to information about Vladimir Fomenko and his server rental company “King Servers,” which the American cybersecurity company ThreatConnect identified last September as “an information nexus” that was used by hackers suspected of working for Russian state security in cyberattacks.

Marshall goes on to explain what this might mean, and his explanation is much better than anything I could come up with, so:

But this immediately poses the question: if Mikhailov was a US asset, how was he compromised? Did the information put out by US intelligence somehow lead to his exposure? Without putting too fine a point on it, a number of close advisors to President Trump are being scrutinized for ties to Russia. Some of them participated in the intelligence briefings the President receives.

Do we have a very big problem?

And then, an hour or so ago, the same speculation shows up in Newsweek. This story seems to be growing legs — not that that means much in the Trump era — but of all the stories that could become “The Big One,” this is the one that scares me the most.

Love.

xajaxsingerx

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Friday July 08, 2016 · 10:53 AM PDT

2016/07/08 · 10:53

One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I don't know if anybody wants my thoughts on the events in Dallas last night, or on the last in the endless series of shootings of unarmed black men by authorities, but here they are:

First: Violence is not a tool for progress. Violence is a tool that is of sole benefit to the power structure. It is a tool that those in power can use with impunity, and when wielded by those without power, it grants the power-structure the only rationale it needs for continued oppression.

Second: This country is still over 60% white and we white people have a special ability because of that: We get to be seen as individuals.

Nobody has to remind us that when a white person kills people that that person is unbalanced and wrong, not a representative sample of our race. When a white person is the victim of a newsworthy crime, the majority of this country doesn't need to have their name repeated endlessly in order to humanize them, in order for us to empathize.

There's a reason we know Eric Garner's name. Tamir Rice, the seemingly endless list of household names that make up the BLM roster of the fallen. That reason is because the majority of this country has difficulty humanizing black people without being forced to think of them as individuals. The names aren’t just repeated for their sakes.

The names are repeated for ours.

Third: When 9 people were gunned down because of their race last June, no major newspaper warned of a coming race war. No nationally recognized politician called for armed reaction. There are scores of blacks harassed and killed for their race every year. Many fewer white people suffer that same reality. But because us white people have trouble seeing blacks as individuals, when a black person commits a horrendous and despicable crime against good people who were just trying to do their jobs, many of us have trouble seeing it as an individual act -- instead it becomes a massive, pervasive threat.

This is so very wrong.

The answer to all of this isn't more fear or hatred. It's not locked doors, separation, mistrust and more guns. It's block parties. It's integration. It's striking up conversations in line at the store. It's talking at the bus stop. It's being the helper. It's acting on the often-hollow words about us all being Americans, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Here's my pledge: I will live an integrated life. I will see individuals and us, not me and them. I will approach the world at large with love.

I love you all.

It's Time to Tell The Truth

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Monday June 13, 2016 · 3:24 PM PDT

2016/06/13 · 15:24

This is it. I’ve had enough, and I cannot sit by any longer knowing the truth and not saying anything.

We need to blow the lid off this — expose it far and wide. It’s big, and it goes deep. Fox Broadcasting is involved.

So is Alex Jones.

They’re all in on it.

I’ve known this for a while, and was willing to go along with the joke, but it’s no longer funny. It’s now downright dangerous to let it continue.

You need to know the truth:

This is not what Donald Trump Looks Like:

This is:

What Donald Trump looks like under the orange and the toupee.

DONALD TRUMP ISN’T DONALD TRUMP AT ALL, SHEEPLE!

Donald Trump is a Performance Art Piece. He is actually Matt Groening and it’s all a way to celebrate the upcoming 30th Year anniversary of his show, The Simpsons.

Proof you say? There’s plenty of proof if you open your eyes.

You need to look no further than today:

In a speech about the massacre in Orlando, he ends a sentence with the word, biggly.

Yes, biggly.

As in an action having the quality of bigness. An action that has been embiggened.

Embiggened.

xajaxsingerx

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Wednesday June 08, 2016 · 2:51 PM PDT

2016/06/08 · 14:51

This started as my stock comment responding to #BernieorBust and #NeverHillary posts on Facebook, but then I posted in Crashing Vor’s thing today as a comment, and then thought about it some more.

Now it’s a another fucking open letter. Here goes:

Dear Sir/Madame:

Losing elections sucks. It sucks in the primaries and it sucks in the general. There is literally no time or place where it feels good to have put your all in for a candidate only to find out that you were in the minority (even though you KNOW you're in the right and they're just not seeing it).
That being said, we all have to make a choice when we're in that position. If it's a primary election, we can choose to mitigate the damage to what we believe is right, or we can choose to walk away, or we can choose to try and make people pay for disagreeing with us. In a general election, we can walk away or we can become an active part of the opposition.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't begrudge any pissed off Sanders (or O'Malley or even Webb) supporters their anger and pain. I’d accept that you need to take your time, lick your wounds, come around slowly.

Not this time. These aren’t normal circumstances.

Firstly, the candidate that won the primary is truly not that far off in POLICY from the candidate who lost. There are differences in matters of degree, but not in intent. Much of what I've seen in diaries about Never Clinton is about her as a person. OK. You don't like her. That's fine. I wasn't a huge fan of Bill Clnton -- as a matter of fact, I pretty much hated him as a person, but I voted for him twice because he was so much better than Bush or Dole. You think Clinton is untrustworthy. You think she's corrupt. You think she's a “$shill” or a "Hildebeast."

OK.

I'm not going to argue perceptions with you. I won't be able to convince you and you won't change my perception -- mainly because a year ago, I pretty much agreed with you, but not anymore. I’ve reevaluated my own assumptions, biases, and sources of information and found that I had room to grow. Now I like her and that's likely not going to change again.

Some people have real and valid issues with her foreign policy. Honestly, I do to and I don’t plan on giving her a pass on bullshit hawkishness once she’s elected, but I’m also not going to hold her work as SoS against her too much because as an employee, much like as a spouse, we are often not in charge of the agenda or which side we take on it. What she did as Senator, though, is hers and hers alone — and for the most part, she did pretty damn well. And even if you think she’s an Eisenhower in disguise (she’s not), or no better than her husband (she is — by a long shot), and you have articles and votes to point to that prove it, hold your fire until you’ve read the whole way through.

There’s a second point:
the candidate that she will be facing in the general is not normal. He is a fascist in the truest sense of the word. We jokingly call him Il Douche, but it's not really a joke. Donald Trump argues for a personality-led corporatist regime that curbs civil liberties and elevates nation above the individual using violence and strength as a political virtue. That is definitional fascism.

Right now we all have an opportunity to be one of the people who piles on in the vote against fascism in this country, and choosing not to because you are upset with the way the primary went down is a choice you can make, but it isn't likely to leave you feeling good when you tell your grandchildren about it.
Finally, there's this:

I'm a middle-aged white college-educated property owner. I would likely survive a Trump presidency with minimal damage save for the destruction of my ability to retire someday if he actually tries to give American debt-holders a haircut. Some of you are women and/or people of color, but many of you are just like me and we’ll likely be ok.

But my daughter (and your children) will have to live with a president whose reversal of American policy on Climate Change could doom them and whose additions to the supreme court choices could limit or eliminate environmental, social, labor, and privacy protections for the next thirty years. My students (I have taught high school for nearly twenty years in Watts, South Pomona, and MacArthur Park here in LA) will fare even worse. They are universally black, brown, and poor. They will be devastated by the destruction of the social safety net, by the willingness of a Trump presidency to turn a blind eye to the suffering of our people, and by the stated anti-immigrant policies that are the only real policies that Trump has espoused. In short, people like you and me? We could not vote, vote Green, vote Lib, or vote for Trump and be ok.

But if we were to do so, we would be doing it at the expense of everything we purport to care about. I'm not a selfish dick, so I won’t even consider it no matter how much I would love to see a social democracy take root in this country. Make your own choices, of course, but do understand that petulance in the face of fascism is not something you're going to want to defend to your children, and the more you post about your willingness to destroy the system in the face of fascism rather than join in the fight against it, the more damage you do.

Thank you for your time.

This $#!@ing Debate (Updated to say that the fact that it was all a joke is even F&#!ing worse)

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Thursday May 26, 2016 · 8:59 AM PDT

2016/05/26 · 08:59

EDIT: Evidently, between the time I started this and finished it, Trump has admitted to punking Bernie Sanders. There will be no debate.

My frustration still stands, though because somehow, Senator Sanders and his not-ready-for-prime-time campaign decided that this would have been a good idea.

It was pure idiocy and gave Trump a news cycle win he didn’t need.

A truly stupid move by Sanders’ Campaign.

For the most part, I’ve tried hard not to say anything about Senator Sanders in anger. If you review my comment history, you’ll see that I’ve worked hard to support my chosen candidate and save for a few comments right around the period when I shifted my support from Sanders to Clinton, I’ve tried hard to be respectful of the Senator, his supporters, and his campaign.

This Fucking Debate is making it hard to stay respectful, not of his supporters — regardless of my feelings about the Senator, I respect your choice — but of the Senator and his campaign.

First things first. There’s no guarantee it will happen. Cooler heads and all that. But if it does, it’s the most ridiculously dumb, short-sighted, stupid, arrogant, display of hubris I have literally ever seen from a candidate in my party.

Beyond that, the optics are awful for all of us. For the first time in history, the nominee for one party is ignoring the front runner and debating the 2nd-place finisher of the other party.

And before you say, “Hillary broke her promise to debate in California, so Sanders has every right to do this,” no. He does not. Front runners refusing to debate their opponents is a time-honored practice. Trump did it, Obama did it, and Clinton is doing it.

But 2nd Place finishers agreeing to debate the general election opponent? Never in history. And whether or not Senator Sanders intends it to, it looks very much like both he and Trump are saying, “Let the men handle it.”

I do not think that sexism is an overt or conscious motivation here, but as a male in his 40’s, if I see it, so will many others.

But even more important than the optics, this debate is a fucking terrible idea for Sanders and by proxy, for everybody who cares about defeating Trump in the fall.

This debate wasn’t arranged by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to grant a dying campaign its dream.

This debate is going to be in the real world and it will have real consequences. The guy playing Trump is really him, the live TV will really be live, and the aftermath will be consequential and difficult for all of us.

For Trump, there's all sorts of reasons to do this. Free air time, high ratings, and opportunities to both appeal to loose Sanders' supporters while also going after Clinton who will not be there to defend herself.

Senator Sanders, of course, is also interested in the free air time. He also likely truly believes that this will be the opportunity to show everybody that he is the best candidate to face Trump in the general.

He’s completely fucking wrong because this debate will not be about ideas. It will not be about issues. It won’t even be about him.

This debate will be about Secretary Clinton.

Trump has no need to debate Senator Sanders on his merits. There’s no margin in it. Sanders is unlikely to be his general election opponent. The only reason to bother with him at all is that he’s a nagging pain for Clinton.

Business and Politics 101: Do what you can to support the ones who are making life difficult for your opponent.

There are only a few ways it plays out:

Trump Goes After Secretary Clinton:

If this happens, then Senator Sanders is going to be in a difficult position. He will either have to ignore the attacks, agree with the attacks, or fight the attacks.

He agrees with the attacks: he stars in Trump's campaign ads in the general.
He fights the attacks: he's going to be in the awkward position of defending his primary opponent who he has vowed to defeat because she will do less well against Trump. This will cut into his campaign message and diminish his ability to make it a debate about the issues that he, assumedly, wants to have.
He ignores the attacks: This would be his most likely move. When Trump attacks Clinton, Sanders does not engage on it -- says something to the effect of "She's not here. Let's talk about us." This will lead to a whole bunch of "answer the question, Senator," moments from the moderator and from Trump and, in the end create worse optics for everybody -- he won't/can't defend Clinton and he won't/can't talk about the issues.

But lets say that Trump actually goes after Sanders. Here’s a fact: He won’t go after him on policies, he’ll go after him on abstractions.

Trump Goes After Sanders:

Trump plays dirty: gives him a nickname — GrumpyBernie? LooneyBernie? CommmieBernie? Brings up the stuff he wrote when he was in his 30’s and 40’s, brings up Castro and Chavez, brings up the breadlines, calls him a commie. If Senator Sanders argues back about any of it, it’s just going to be met with eye-rolls. Or he goes after Jane Sanders’ Burlington College tenure as a way to show that he can’t be trusted with other people’s money.
Trump goes after socialism: Sanders spends his entire time on the defensive trying to explain the difference between democratic socialism, socialism, communism, and totalitarianism in front of a Trump friendly crowd. Trump responds with imagery about Castro’s Cuba and Soviet Russia where Sanders went on his honeymoon.

But the more likely thing that happens is that Trump plays for Sanders’ voters by attacking the system.

Trump Attacks the System:

So what does Sanders do with this? He can either defend the system, agree with Trump, or Change The Subject.

He agrees with Trump: This is, to me, the most likely thing. They co-validate because they’re both outsiders. This has the net effect of making Trump a stronger choice for Sanders supporters who view themselves as outsiders. It has the net effect of harming democrats as a whole, Sanders as an individual (because he’s siding with Trump), and increases Trump’s chances for victory in the fall.
He defends the system: This would be a very difficult choice for Senator Sanders as he’s built his campaign around the corruption in the system for the last few months. Defending it now would hurt his credibility.
He Changes the Subject: How?

But what if Sanders goes on the attack? What if he gets under Trump’s skin at the outset, pisses him off, forces errors?

He won’t. Trump has shown himself to be threatened and vulnerable to smart women and men who might stand in his way. Senator Sanders is neither. He is not a threat to Trump and will not be able to bother him.

There is no way that Sanders does anything but lose in this debate. The only question is how much damage he does to the party and the front-runner in the process.

Why Only Two? Reasons for a Two Party System (and what to do about it if we don't like it).

xajaxsingerx

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 23, 2016 · 10:37 AM PDT

2016/05/23 · 10:37

Lots of discussion about independent runs these days, whether it would be a good idea or not. People are frustrated. People don’ t feel represented by the Democratic Party (or the Republican Party for that matter).

It’s not unheard of. It happens often enough. Just in the last 100 or so years, we’ve had strong independent runs in 1912 (TR as Bull Moose and Eugene Debs as Socialist), 1948 (Dixiecrat), 1968 (Wallace), 1980 (Anderson), 1992 (Perot), 1996 (Perot), 2000 (Nader).

Now we’re talking about a 2016. So here’s the question:

With all these independent runs, why have none been successful? The most successful one here was TR in 1912, a former president, immensely popular, and he only managed to get 27% of the vote and 88 electors.

Why can’t we seem to get an independent, third party alternative, off the ground?

Well… you know all that talk about how the system is rigged? Here’s where it actually is rigged.

But not how people tend to think.

There was no nefarious plot to limit access to national elections, it’s just that a party system -— and a two-party system specifically — are the accidental byproduct of our constitutional government.

Why Independent Runs Fail:

We have a directly elected national executive office, which makes us nearly unique among industrial western republics. We also have a federal system that is unique in the powers that are reserved by the states — specifically the power to run elections.

What this means is that in order to mount a successful independent run, an individual would have to:

Get on the ballot in fifty different states under fifty different sets of election laws.
Develop a campaign infrastructure in fifty different states all of which have differing reporting requirements
Create a national system for adhering to campaign finance laws that also allow for fifty state variations in tax laws.
Raise money without institutional support.

In effect, the only people who’ve ever been able to mount more than a regional, single-issue, challenge as a third party have all had one thing in common: Extraordinary wealth.

Middle-Class folk and working stiffs cannot make an independent run. Never have been able to, and under our current system, we never will.

A Third (Or Fourth, Or Fifth) Party

But what about a third party? If we developed a third (or fourth, or fifth) party, we would have the infrastructure necessary to meet all 4 difficulties outlined above.

Short answer: Yes, if the third (or fourth or fifth) party were able to:

1. Garner enough long-term support to maintain a campaign infrastructure in non-campaign years.

2. Consistently raise money even when there was no presidential election or big name candidate.

3. Maintain a campaign presence in every state that ensures local laws regarding elections, ballot-placement, and fundraising are respected.

So let’s say we get it done: A third party for all the homeless democrats and left-leaning independents. The Working-Person’s Green Party. We get the flood of volunteers, the massive fundraising we need, we get to hire our permanent staff, and we develop the sustainable structures we need to compete in election after election.

Yay Us!

But here’s the second problem, which is the one that precludes not only independent runs, but successful third party bids.

It’s the Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution which reads, in part:

“The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.”

Our elector system requires that the victor in a presidential election must earn a clear majority of electors (currently the well-known 270) or the election is thrown to the House of Representatives who will vote, one vote per state, for the president from the top three vote getters.

Currently there are more states with republican dominated slates than ones without. Even so, the third party would be highly unlikely to win this Congressional Presidency — they aren’t likely to be terribly well represented in the house.

So what do we do?

There are four options, so far as I can see:

1. Amend the constitution to do away with the electoral college. This has been proposed multiple times, but small states reject it because it reduces their clout.

2. Amend the constitution to Federalize our Presidential Elections. This has been discussed, but is generally thought to be unwinnable because it reduces states rights.

3. Support the effort to create a national majority of electors that are representative of their states actual voting wishes — proportional representation of electors. There is a measure that has been passed by multiple states, but will not go into effect until states with electors equal to the magical 270 pass it.

or, my favorite:

4. Do what we’ve always done: Coalitions.

People point to European (and Canadian, and Israeli) parliaments which seem to have a vast number of party options. They do, but after the voting is done, the elected members of the plurality party form coalitions with the smaller parties in order to secure a majority. Each party negotiates, and in the end the governing coalition’s positions are altered to reflect he desires of the smaller parties.

The only difference between that and what we are currently doing is that we do our jostling and negotiating during the primaries. By the time we’ve nominated a candidate, we have (hopefully) incorporated the requirements of the minority voices into the overall platform and our final candidate moves to adopt the issues of importance to his/her minority party members.

This is exactly what seems to be happening. The process isn’t complete yet, but it’s already begun.

The system is working, and it will continue to work if those who want to be heard shout loudly and stick with the party.

If they leave, they will remain voices in the wilderness.

If you want to change the system, see the list above for the ways in which that would be possible.

And, please, don’t mistake disagreement for apostasy.

Poll

251 votes Show Results

Which do you support

251 votes Vote Now!

Which do you support

Amending the Constitution and doing away with the electoral college

43 votes

Federalizing national elections

17 votes

interstate agreement to proportionalize the electoral college

21 votes

Just what we're doing

40 votes

A & B

53 votes

A & B & C

33 votes

D until we can do A, B, or C

44 votes

A Moment Away from Pie Fights...

xajaxsingerx

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 09, 2016 · 9:53 AM PDT

2016/05/09 · 09:53

Let’s take a step back.

We all care deeply about issues, regardless of which candidate we support (or which candidate we say we cannot support).

So, let’s put down the pies for a moment and try to see some of what we still have in common.

What are these issues we care about and, more importantly, what are we each doing in non-election years to push our agendas forward.

I’d like to take a poll — not a multiple choice thing, but one where we answer some basic questions about our issues, our priorities, and our personal actions to push our agendas forward.

Maybe when we have an opportunity to see what motivates us, we’ll be able to re-find the common ground that used to unite us. I see people say around here that we have more in common than we have in difference — let’s see if it’s true.

Here are the questions:

1. What are your top three agenda priorities.

2. What, when not in election mode, do you do in support of your priorities

3. What charities do you donate to (either with time or money), and why?

4. Who are you supporting in the primary and why are they your preferred choice (without saying anything negative about the other candidate)

Some ground rules to keep this from turning into a pie fight.

1. No slamming of candidates, priorities, or charities — this isn’t about changing minds, it’s about sharing information.

2. Positive replies to comments only, please. Offer support, ask reasonable questions, or don’t say anything at all.

I’ll go first:

1. What are my top three agenda priorities:

Climate Change
Educational Inequality
The Centralization of Capital

2. When not in election mode, what do I do in support of my priorities:

Live in a small footprint — electric car, solar panels, urban living, locavore.
Teach by choice in the toughest neighborhood in Los Angeles
I do not bank with any big-five bank, choosing credit unions instead.

3. What charities do I support and why?

Planned Parenthood — I believe they do more good for more people in this country than almost any other charity.
Homebody Industries — I think their model of love-before-judgment help is something we can all learn from.
California League of Conservation Voters — I’m a strong believer in leveraging power through lobbying.

4. Who Am I Supporting in the Primary and Why?

I will be voting for Secretary Clinton on June 7th. I am deeply impressed with her record on social issues and I am a strong believer in her ability to make progress in the face of stiff opposition. I think she’s incredibly smart, highly capable, deeply knowledgeable, and able to get things done. I agree with her stance on the minimum wage, debt-free college, and her policies to reign in “quarterly capitalism.”

Any Takers?

Guess What We Have to Look Forward To!

xajaxsingerx

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday May 03, 2016 · 1:12 PM PDT

2016/05/03 · 13:12

TERRE HAUTE, IN - MAY 01: Guests wait in line before Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses a rally at the Indiana Theater on May 1, 2016 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Trump is campaigning in Indiana ahead of the state's primary election on May 3. (Photo by Charles Ledford/Getty Images) — CHARLES LEDFORD VIA GETTY IMAGES

Earlier today, there was a diary which asked whether people’s issues with Secretary Clinton were based, in-part, in sexism here in the democratic party and places left.

I don’t know about that (though I have my suspicions), but I do know that in places Right, gender is front-and-center in the attacks headed her way.

If we ever needed a reminder that this election from the Right will likely not play out in the issues arena, but rather in the messy intestinal politics of personal prejudice, we need look no further than the merchandise tables of your local Trump rally.

While the Trump campaign has not “officially endorsed” any of this merchandise, he’s already given it his tacit public approval, chuckling at the “Trump That B**ch” bumper sticker when it was shown to him.

Regardless of who we support, those of us who are interested in progress will need to have our “I call bullshit misogyny” game on point as we gear up for a general election, because we need call it out loud whenever and wherever we see it.

Even if we don’t like Clinton as a candidate, I don’t think any of us want to see her defeated, especially if her defeat can be read as a victory for the cro-magnon wing of the human experience.

Ridesharing and Redlining: Uber, Lyft, Race and Class

xajaxsingerx

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday May 27, 2014 · 4:13 PM PDT

2014/05/27 · 16:13

Edit: Firstly, I apologize for not getting involved in the comments -- y'all overwhelmed me. I'm working my way through them, though.

Secondly, thanks to the Uber and Lyft drivers who have messaged me offering to come get me in Watts -- I am sure there are many drivers who will. My issue is with a corporate policy that seems to allow drivers to choose not to.

Ridesharing and the new "Sharing Economy" are growing increasingly popular in Los Angeles and that's a problem. When we talk about a sharing economy, it turns out that we only want to share with people who don't make us feel uncomfortable.

A question I've had since the emergence of ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft was recently answered when I asked a driver whether they redlined. He didn't understand the question -- he didn't know what redlining was -- so I asked him if he'd take a fare to Watts at night. He looked at me like I was crazy.

He wouldn't.

One driver, not a pattern. Then the redlining question became an issue in Dallas, which fed my concern. I work in Watts and I've never seen a pink mustache anywhere south of the 10 freeway and East of Crenshaw, but that might be just me. I visited both companies websites to learn more about how they operate, but neither one gives a clear answer to the simple question:

"If my pick-up location or my destination is in an area which, by reputation, is considered dangeorus or poor, can Lyft or Uber drivers refuse to serve me?"

It turns out, I learned today, that the answer is a definitive "YES."

The disturbing details follow beyond the jump.

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