HUZZAH! HUZAAH! 'Tis surely a momentous occasion and cause for celebration throughout the land!Yesterday we demonstrated that "yes we can" get enough Americans to acquire a sufficient grasp on their sanity and actually dare (once again) to elect an honest, moral and highly intelligent (and potentially competent, we hope) candidate to be our next president.
Great; there is a Santa Claus(e) after all! And Santa done whooped dat ol' nasty-ass boogieman's sorrysaggy butt into oblivion...
A particularly vituperative take on all of this came from ThirdStone founding father, Admiral Pluto Krozabeeep. In a crankily terse statement issued by his office this morning he said: "Take that, Republican miscreants! And don't think we won't be watching you - you can all go and wear those goddam cheap orange and blue plaid sport coats from Wallymart. We won't be fooled. Or maybe you'll change the name of the your party - ask Rove if that might work; really! Fat Chance! Go ahead and try to continue your self-serving agendae in whatever idiot disguise you so choose. But guess what boys; whatever you try now, IT WON'T FUCKING WORK!! We're onto you.
For evermore, we'll still know who you are and, we will no longer be tolerating any of your dangerous and dreadful shenanigans. Have you no fucking shame whatsoever? Don't you see what you've done to the rest of us these past few years??!! And how you've brought the entire fucking world to the brink of doom and damnation?? And, most tellingly of all; just how little you actually give a damn? We'd love to give you all a conscience 'transplant' if it would help but, according to the limits of current science, it wouldn't work; in order to function compassionately and mindfully, a conscience requires both a heart AND a head working synergistically. So watch out, godless troglodytes.... we'll kick your asses from here to kingdom come! Twice!"
Personally, were I to dial down his vitriol a smidge, I'd have to pretty much agree with the goofy admiral's take on things. Yesterday was unprecedented history made right before our eyes. A paradigm shift of the highest order. Perhaps even the advent of the "omega-point" that could seed a long overdue shift of the collective consciousness. Okay, so that's probably asking a bit too much (and Locke's gonna feed me my head for breakfast for sayin' that). But in any case, we've just jointly witnessed and achieved a shift of a tectonic magnitude. Bully to that, I say!
Okay, we done good - a potent new mandate's done been writ. We've further 'decrappinated' the chambers of our Congress. SO WHAT'S NEXT?
Yeah, that's the REALLY BIG question now, ain't it? It's okay to give ourselves a coupla days of giddy euphoria. We really have accomplished something of critical and life-reaffirming importance. Now, not to put a damper on the party but.... let us 'rewind' to the midterm elections of 2006. Seems we all agreed that we'd turned a corner; we'd issued a loud and proud mandate-manifesto then when we swept Congress clear of a bunch more of those pesky Republicrats, right?
But then what happened? Um, yeah... We blithely assumed we'd done our job and that our Congress would then do its', in accordance with our wishes. And yet, that wasn't quite what happened now was it?
So, this time folks, we truly can't afford to let that happen again. Never have so many of us spoken so loudly and proudly of our country's desperate and immediate need for significant change. Because of our efforts, we appear to finally now have a helmsman with 'the stuff" it'll take to get us there. We've given him a legislature he can work synergistically with. Things are definitely looking up. Aren't they???
Yes. They are. That's a guarded "yes" however. Remember, any "change" we're to achieve, is still well into the future. And that means that our work as citizens is not over. So let's pat ourselves on the back and drink our celebratory toasts to a job well 'started" but then remember that it is also one we cannot consider 'done'.
Now then, let's get back to work; the election was the easy part. Now, we need to ride herd on the team we hired. And ride 'em hard. And watch their every move. And communicate frequently and lucidly with our representatives and our new President. We've got some genuine momentum here and, the processes of government being what they are, will require that we keep that momentum building. (And that we dial up our bullshit filters to "stun")
Our pathological cultural ADHD/short-attention-span tendencies aside, we've gotta learn to focus. And to stay focused. And not just to one day find ourselves uttering "oh shit; they've blown it. Guess we'll have to wait for the next election and "reissue" our mandate.
Uh-uh. It doesn't work that way. Or at least, not any more. If (to paraphrase somebody or other here), we're to see the change, we gotta BE the change ourselves.
(and thus ends the polemical screed-screech portion of today's post. Well... maybe).
As duly noted above, we all have our work cut out for us in facilitating the change our country sorely needs. I have a pet target of my own that I want to see accomplished before the next presidential election.
SO, WHILE WE'RE AT IT: LET'S GO PURPLE (NO MORE RED & BLUE, WHAT SAY YOU???)
Okay, so we're all agreed that we're on a new course here. Let's move on. Over time, numerous pundits have bemoaned the inherent imbalances, inequities and liabilities of our "two party" system though none, so far as I can find, has ever proposed a realistic analgesic for this dire pain. While I heartily agree that it's a problem, I also think there may be a way to mitigate a good deal of the dysfunction said system creates. "And what is that Mr. Smartypantsbigmouth?" I hear many of you asking. It's actually quite simple. In fact, it's an issue of "color".
BANISH THE ELECTORAL PRESIDENTIAL VOTING SCHEME.
(AND DO IT NOW!)
Red states. Blue states. Bah, humbug. Turn 'em all purple. Let's face it; they are anyway. The absurd and depraved notion that any one state is entirely 'for' any one candidate is an insult and a travesty. "We the People" are just that. Our Constitution empowered us all to each have our own vote in selecting our top leader. Sort of. Or at least it did until this demented scheme got plugged in to gum up the works.
At the time it did, there was perhaps some reasonable justification for doing so, mainly that the technological limitations and the complex logistics involved of compiling all our votes across great distances in a timely fashion truly was a dodgy and unwieldly policy.
But fast-forward to present times and we find that it now manifests as a complete mockery of our constitution's original intent while rendering us all essentially impotent.
Sure, our two major parties love it; it keeps any and all other possible parties from being part of the process in any significant way. Dog forbid some smart-alecky independent-minded citizens might actually have some good ideas of how to run our government by breaking away from those two ailing ideological streams of often questionable motivation. How could THAT be good for our precious country. Oh wait...that actually MIGHT be... okay, you see where this is going, don't you?
Aside from the important direct benefit of allowing other political schema to blossom and perhaps thrive and contribute something actually useful, there are other, even more important and compelling reasons to eradicate this ugly and truculent beast.
Like, letting our composite, in-toto popular vote actually determine who should be our leader. I've never heard one good reason why, since we now have the means to count ALL votes, the electoral college is still deemed to be a sounder, more rational idea. It's simply NOT!!! C'mon folks, I double-dare you: Why shouldn't the simple aggregate voice of ALL our country's voters be allowed to select our president?
Of course it should. So now we're forced to look at the reasons this diabolical strategy is still foisted upon us. Any 'good' ones out there? None that I can find... So why do we continue to allow it then? Seems we've more than enough reason to discontinue this inane practice.
First of all, it disenfranchises and demoralizes us. We're told that we should all be sure to get out and vote and then, in the same breath, reminded that our vote doesn't really count. By doing so, we assure ourselves of lower voter turnouts, voter apathy and ambivalence and for many of us, it creates discomfort and frustration when it 'paints' us the color of the state we live in. This is deeply sick and twisted. Aside from all of that, it simply offends the Hell out of me.
Do I need to remind anyone that this electoral system dementia is the sole reason we have had to suffer two terms of "Bush-Terrorism", economic collapse and human suffering? In 2000, "throwing" a whole state's electors to one (the wrong) side (with, of course, the errant complicity of our own Supreme Court), was enough to steal and seal the election for the unelected candidate. In 2004, the probable 'real' result of the popular vote would've swept Bush aside like so many fetid dustbunnies.
Don't we care? Is this evenly remotely sane or prudent? Should we continue to allow this to happen? Does the bear shit in the woods?
I'll grant you, I'll not likely be finding much support from the leaders of EITHER political party for this idea. Nor will the overly self-important po-mo media find favor with it... they have far too much fun "playing" incessantly with their infernal "color maps" and then spinning the story every which way every few minutes.
Again, there's no sound reason for it and absolutely NO benefit to our country for it. Let's make sure that its abolition occurs before 2012
adapted from Wikipedia:
The United States is the last remaining example of a country having an indirectly elected executive president, with an electoral college made up of electors representing the 50 states and one federal district. Each state has a number of electors equivalent to its total Congressional representation (in both houses), with the non-state District of Columbia receiving three electors and other non-state territories having no electors. The electors generally cast their votes according to the winner of the popular vote in their respective states, but are not required by law to do so.
These 'renegade' electors are referred to as "faithless electors". Some states do require its electors to cast their vote in accordance with the majority of the popular vote. However, in 26 states, it is legal for these to vote for other than the candidate that received the majority of the state's votes. Now THAT's kinda interestin', ain't it??
So now we see that, not only does our vote actually count even LESS than previously believed but, it doesn't necessarily go to our candidate of choice!!
I'm sure any one of us could cite other reasons to dismantle the electoral college. Please add them as 'comments' to this post. We need to compose a bullet-proof argument to stop this monster dead in its tracks before it can be allowed to do us further harm.
And as we move forward from today, our great day of triumph, let's all remember to maintain our vigilance in the coming weeks and months. And to all promise each other that we'll make ourselves heard to those we've placed in charge. If we are ever to evolve into a true democracy, we need to take steps right now to correct our previously wayward and bumpy path. It's not good enough to merely call ourselves a democracy. We all have to do our part to learn to actually function as one by letting our elected 'hired-hands' in on the fact that there's a new boss in town who's gonna be keepin' a sharp eye on their shenanigans and that new boss's name ain't spelled O-B-A-M-A; it's spelled U-S.
(special thanks to Admiral Pluto Krozabeeep for providing us with his astoundingly ornery and petulant rantings yet again. And, of course, to all of you for voting us into the new "promised land". Let's hope it can keep its promises this time. Dog speed)
