Voting: What is it Good For?

     Yesterday when I was block-walking for the Democrats in north Fort Worth, I came to a house that exemplifies one of the central problems we now face. An elderly woman stood at the door, scratching the open sores on her arm. This poor woman told me in a most agitated and even heart-rending way that she didn't want to vote at all. That now she was so mad at the government and all the things it was doing or perhaps, not doing.

      She didn't go into details, but I imagine the cornucopia of pseudo-hysterical news coverage we've faced these past months had something to do with her decision. No doubt Ebola, IS, and god-only-knows-what-else were dancing in her head.

      As I was taught to be around the sometimes-agitated elderly, I was respectful and told her I understood completely (in retrospect, maybe a little too completely). Then I let her alone, but now, the next day, I wish I had had the courage to tell her that her attitude is exactly what the Republicans want. They want her and people of modest means like her to be so disgusted with government that they end up not even voting.

      But if anything is central to keeping the U.S. from its continuing slide toward plutocracy, voting is. My own belief is we should do what the Australians do. If you don't vote, you get a ticket. Voting is as much a civic duty as serving on a jury or paying our taxes. Since we already pay a fine if we shirk jury duty or dodge paying taxes, why shouldn't we pay a penalty for not voting?

      We can also make it much easier for everyone to vote. Other countries automatically register voters and declare election day a national holiday. We can do the same. Other reforms that encourage more voter participation like instant run-off and proportional representation are well worth considering.

      But we must do something. The U.S.'s low ranking in voter participation, 120^th, is inexcusable. It is a national outrage. There can be no true consent of the governed if so very few bother to vote. And, of course, by increasing the pool of voters, the rich will not so effectively be able to manipulate elections, as they are certainly and successfully doing now.

     

Stop the Pseudo-hysterics! Now!

      What has happened to us? Our forebears faced down real problems like the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism with more aplomb and true grit than we are now able to muster with hyperventilating cable news and the Internet besieging us with one pseudo-hysteria after another.

      Ebola? The annual flu season will kill many more of us than Ebola will. IS operatives sneaking across the Rio Grande endangering our very way of life? Your time would be much better spent worrying about real dangers to our way of life embodied in various privatization schemes and lack of public investment in infrastructure and education.

      Wake up, America, we're being played! The constant harping about Ebola in a country of almost 320 million when we have had a handful of cases – what is up with that?    
     And, let me say this, I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for people who play on others' fears. Many Republicans and most of Fox News, with the notable exception of Shep Smith, are guilty as charged. You want to be against everything Obama and the Democrats do? Fair enough. But this has to do with public health, and the constant politicizing and over-hyping do not help.

      The truth is we're living in an incredible time: the deficit is down, unemployment is dropping, and given the non-issue that gay marriage has become, we are more accepting and open-minded than people a generation ago would've dreamed possible.

      My advice: take an extended holiday from cable news bloviators and doomsayers. Maybe, the truly daring will even get out and have an actual, not digital, conversation with a fellow human being. One can only hope.