Moving Forward

Among my blog posts, I am pretty proud of July 2^nd, “Donald Trump is a big fat idiot.”

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/07/normal-0-donald-trump-is-big-fat-idiot.html

I am proud of it because it filled a need. I could not find the information I wanted summarized, but I was able to track down the different bits and pieces and summarize it, and I would frequent see that people had come to the page by using the same search terms that I had tried before writing.

(Frequent is a relative term. Right now the post has had 128 views, and the only one I have that has more hits probably involved a lot of mistaken searches looking for the Blackberry PDA, when I was writing about actual berries.)

So, I felt like there was a hole in the coverage, and I was able to fill it, and I felt good about that. As I looked at the issue more though, it seemed that the reason no one was bothering with it was that people who were writing about healthcare were focusing more on the moral implications. Inaccurate bits of bile being shared around social networking are a dime a dozen, but looking at people reacting appalled by healthcare being made more affordable and attainable for the population was really bothering the commentators.

I get this. I have spent so much of my time being appalled lately, if you couldn’t tell from the previous posts. I have been concerned with the issue of misinformation out there, but there is really good information out there too. We just need people who are willing to work with it. 

The most perfect symbol of this may be McCain missing a classified briefing on Benghazi, complaining about the lack of information during that time period, and being angry when asked for a comment about the scheduling error that led to it. Yes, it is embarrassing being caught like that, but in addition to the right not to comment that he cited to the reporter, I think a senator might also have some responsibility to be informed before shooting off one’s mouth.

McCain was not the only senator to miss the briefing. Seven others did (5 Republicans out of 8 and 2 Democrats out of 9 for that committed), and he may not even have known about the meeting based on a scheduling error that was referred to as the reason for not attending. However, he is the one at the press conference asking for a Watergate-style investigation. It seems imprudent, but maybe some of that is the result of the news media and the citizens not being demanding enough of their leadership.

There was an opinion piece that I really wish I had saved but I can’t find it now. The author was writing about how the coffee shops were full during Ramadan. (I believe he was writing from Egypt, but it was definitely a largely Muslim country.) Anyway, he was saying how there were many people who did not fast during Ramadan, but usually they would still avoid being conspicuously out consuming, and yet this year they were. He felt that it was a passive aggressive response to the stricter forces in government. His point was that they needed to lose the passive part. They needed to speak up. They needed to say “We are modern. We are moderate. You do not represent us.”

We can do that on both sides. I was upset that Obama renewed the Patriot Act. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t write to the White House and express my displeasure. I thought he needed to give up on trying to compromise with Congressional Republicans, but I didn’t say anything. I don’t write to our senators and the representative for our district, really, because they pretty much believe the same way I do, but I could be better on that. I can make my voice heard.

It seems reasonable to me, based on the various Tea Party losses, that the ugliness there has kind of run out of steam too, but has that been expressed? Is someone telling the rape guys that, “I agree that abortion is wrong, but by being so Draconian about it, and trying to justify that, you are minimizing rape and violence and women?” That could be worth saying.

It’s not about expecting perfect leaders, but it is expecting more of them and more of us. Dig deeper, work harder, learn more, and especially make that true about your relationships with other people.

The one thing that I will add here for the religious, and I truly believe it, is don’t be afraid to question those beliefs and look for more information there. Sometimes because we know one thing is true we make a lot of assumptions that don’t necessarily follow, and in that case your commitment to your faith actually damages it. Faith needs to be in something true to work. God is real, and He is good, so trust that.

I really don’t feel like I have said any of the things I’ve wanted to say. Maybe that’s because so many of the things that have felt important have been about the facts on specific situations, and clarifying those, but again, generally speaking, that has been done. It’s out there. You can find it. My role seems to be appealing to people’s hearts and encouraging them to use their voice. And for that, I still don’t feel like I’ve said it right.

However, I have been discovering lately that with the writing I never really know what I am doing or what the impact will be, and things still kind of work out. So enough with politics; Monday I’ll write about the new screenplay.

The Ugly American

I remember something Margaret Cho said once about racism in the South, “It’s not the hate, it’s the stupidity.” Actually, both bother me, but they cause each other to mutually flourish.

I’ve been writing more personal material than I have intended, because I have been feeling personally affected by some of these hateful items—and they are not always directed at me. Here are a few of the fun ones I have been saving from Facebook.

This was a response to something about Fox not being balanced:

“Yes, and I'm sure if I turn on MSNBC, I will be watching a channel that brings America together...good thing this is over. Im gonna get me a free cell phone and food stamps so I can pay for my blazer season tickets.”

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

Okay, yes, there is a program, started in 1984 and being re-evaluated, but that does not make it an Obama phone, and of course as we have covered the TANF program has been very effective at moving people into higher paying jobs and more stability, but we ALL KNOW there is ABUSE, with these drug-using, manicure-having, steak eaters, so let’s focus on our resentment instead.

Here was a particularly ugly one that caused someone to delete the entire thread after this comment was posted:

“Obama has to earn our respect, to expect respect from the people, and he sure isn't showing the the American people respect. Like not letting our soldier's Vote, cutting there medical, cutting the military budget, asking to cut there pay, saying social security is a benefit, I paid for mine and bet you did also. I earned my money and donate to my choice of charity, not for Obama to give to his choice ie. (illegals)!! Or the Arab Black Muslims ect!!”

The president never tried to take away voting rights from soldiers. He tried to stop early voting from being taken away from everyone except soldiers, which is a completely different thing. Your social security is far safer under Democrats than Republicans, who would like to free you to make your choice for your own investments with the help of those companies that broke the economy in 2008. Remember them? And Obama’s budget plan is basically what the military asked for. Maybe they should have asked for more, but are you talking about the sequestration? Because there is almost too much stupid to sort through, and I can’t deal!

Finally, one cute little joke. “Do you know how to tell an Obama supporter from a Romney supporter? Romney supporters sign the front of the check, and Obama supporters sign the back!”

You know what makes that one extra cute? The person who posted it has been benefitted by the Oregon Health Plan, the Bishops Storehouse, Disability, probably food stamps, and honestly when she did have a job she was always calling in sick. And yet, this is posted without a trace of irony.

I remember seeing someone complaining about taxes who has a severely disabled child on the Oregon Health Plan. You know how you are able to go to school and have a horse? That’s because society, via taxes, helps you with your circumstance that you think about more in terms of emotional issues, but which is in fact very expensive. Because society agrees that her life and well-being has value, and that maintaining that should not bankrupt you, taxes!

The guy who invited me to the Papa John’s thing, has had horrible health problems where a lack of health care has hampered the diagnosis and where he now has a major preexisting condition, but supports the guy who thinks .04 cents per pizza is too much to give his employees healthcare. Raise the price a nickel, and take the extra cent for yourself, so you increase profits and yet are still less evil overall. How’s that for a thought? Nope, let’s rally in support of corporate greed.

Romney thinks the people who voted for Obama did it because of the gifts; because he’s Santa Clause. We voted for Obama because we are capable of seeing a good greater than our own. Romney promised plenty of gifts, mainly tax cuts and spending cuts, and it doesn’t matter how many times they say it will help the economy. That plan has been tried. It doesn’t work.

Governement spending is the reason the United States is the one bright spot in the world economy when all of the austerity countries are continuing to suffer. Keeping that economy moving is the most important thing during a recession, and if the GDP continues to grow, the deficit is more manageable than if the economy stalls. Because there is already a deficit there (and it started under a Republican).

And yet, people will not let go of the idea of “Cut, cut, cut!” Even people who have been benefitted by those services. Even people who call themselves Christian so are supposed to be all about the charity.

So, this seems like a good time to go back to Chapter 4 of Mosiah (Book of Mormon):

16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

 17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

 18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

 21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to aimpart of the substance that ye have one to another.

22 And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

 23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.

 24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.

 25 And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are condemned; and your condemnation is just for ye covet that which ye have not received.

Bait and Switch

You would think I would have lots of material, because I was visiting with a friend and we were talking about politics for about two and a half hours (in between holding her kids upside down; kids love that), but it’s almost like I got everything out. Still, I have some sense of commitment here.

I remember seeing at least one of those masked magician specials once, back in the day, and although I never actually figured out how they did the trick before it was shown, I usually got pretty close. Sometimes it was was because there was something different, like the assistant was wearing loosely draped clothing instead of tight revealing clothing. At other times, it was just so clear that they wanted your attention in one place, then obviously something important was happening in the other.

With magic shows, there is an expectation that it is a trick, and the fun comes from not knowing how they did it. This is a mutually agreed upon bargain. The audience is there to be mystified, and if they are not, the magician is a failure (or perhaps a success as a comedian).

In non-entertainment venues, this should be more frowned upon, but it isn’t always. Let’s take a look at the work of Andrew Breitbart. It’s not that he never contributed anything valuable, necessarily, I guess, but there were big things where he lied.

He selectively edited video of Shirley Sherrod’s speech, taking a story about overcoming prejudice and turning it into a story about celebrating prejudice that could have ruined her career.

With ACORN it was worse. This was a group that was doing good things, and through deception, it was brought down. The deception was not just a sting operation, as it was initially portrayed—it was selective editing and lying to make it look like the organization was corrupt in ways that it was not.

Now, ACORN had organizational and leadership problems, and that probably made it easier for them to fall under adversity than to rise again. However, you have a group that is working to empower the poor, and they are brought down by lies that people don’t even remember are lies for the most part. The lies win over the truth because the lies had better publicity. And even though Breitbart himself is dead, the organization lives on. I don’t know that they have pulled off anything major lately—perhaps they needed their leader for that—but really, either one of those things should have taken away all of their credibility.

As education loses funding, there has been a tendency to focus on only the most practical skills, to prepare people to be good laborers, but what about being good citizens? Yes, I want people to have exposure to arts and music so they can be better able to appreciate beauty and find means of personal self-expression. Yes, physical education is important so that people can be healthier. But also, civics is important. Rhetoric is important. Texas GOP notwithstanding, critical thinking skills are important. Yes, sometimes knowing more about the world and life may cause children to question their parents, but if they are good parents, that can probably be worked out amicably. And if they are demon seed children, well, they will be questioning authority regardless, so at least give them the tools to make it productive.

Maybe it’s just the nerd in me talkng, but I think facts matter. I would like to see facts used more in decision making. I even get that in a free country people can peddle lies. However, I would like to see more people quit buying them. The burst of smoke is over here because there is a trapdoor over there, and this is not a show.

Who am I and why am I doing this?

Not long ago, I was blogging like crazy, and writing like crazy in the comic book, and I was learning lots of new things. Even though I had a lot to do, it was flowing really well.

That’s all changed quite a bit. This screenplay is only going to be a quarter the length of the comic book, but it’s going much slower, so I am writing every day, but only a few lines. The books I am reading have a lot of information, but they are slow going, and keep requiring more research. And drawing is not just like riding a bike—I have lost a lot of ground.

This of course is temporary, and still consists of good experiences, but the other component to that, and it’s a big one, is that I find that I actually don’t like blogging about politics. I am passionate about politics, because it’s important and interesting, but it does not flow for me the way writing about the creative process does, or even writing about other people’s creative pursuits. 

Also, there is the human factor, where people can be really ugly about the whole thing. To be fair, most of that seems to happen from things I post on Facebook, confirming my worst fear that no one reads this blog.

So the question becomes one of why I am even bothering to blog about politics. I could start just start reviewing bands now. My last two letters to Aaron covered seven bands, and writing about that was fun. I’m going to start reviewing comic books too. There are interesting stories about this current screenplay and how it started and how it is playing out. Those are all things that will be more fun when I get to them.

I just can’t shake the feeling that the politics is important— not just politics in general, but that my writing about it is important.

There have been some encounters, but I am going to focus on a Facebook one that happened Sunday night. I was invited to a day supporting Papa Johns’ pizza, because as you know he has been very beleaguered and beset by the Affordable Care Act. I can only assume an Applebee’s event is being planned.

I remember the first time John Schnatter started complaining about it, and I was appalled then. Really? It would cost you less than .14 per pizza to insure your employees and you still don’t want to do it? And that was before I saw the pictures of the mansion.

Obviously I was going to decline, and I wasn’t even planning to comment, but with my “No”, I was prompted to write a reason, and so I wrote that the person and the pizza were both horrible. I guess I find it weird that people would rally in support of corporate greed rather than in support of low-wage workers.

As you can imagine, I there were many negative comments. I am a socialist and ill-informed and I have been drinking the government Kool-Aid and I should know better and I don’t really know what I believe and I must be one of those people that the government needs to be taken back from because I am all about the entitlements. 

Some of this seems to be because I could not answer questions quickly enough, as incorrect statements about healthcare, the debt, and Benghazi were thrown at me. Finally I decided I had better things to do, and I’m sure that was taken as a victory, but I realized I did have better things to do. I was writing to Aaron, I needed to work on my screenplay, I’m reading about the history of hip-hop, and nothing I would say would make any difference.

Except, there are two things that make me think it maybe it does make a difference, and maybe it was not all worthless. One is that although there were more negative attacking comments than positive ones, there were several likes on my original post and on my answers. It’s helpful for us when we find each other, and maybe not everyone has the words and so it feels good for them when someone else does. I can handle that.

Also, I did not know most of the people on the thread. The person who invited me, I do know, but also there was another mutual friend, and even though we were disagreeing with each other, she did eventually ask others to stop piling on, because I had a right to believe what I did. Maybe being out there as a reasonable person, I can remind people that we are not all sworn enemies, even when we disagree. That would have value too.

I have been toying with the idea of giving my credentials, in the hopes that it would make it harder for people to dismiss me. I have avoided it partly because it seems like bragging, and also because it is pointless, because for any trait I have that might make other people think it is worth listening, I have others that cancel it out. Still, here goes.

Based on two different internet tests taken at two different times, my IQ seems to be 136/138—below genius, but above average. For the PSAT, SAT, and ACT, I scored in the top one percent on the first try, so I did not do multiple attempts. I have a BA from University of Oregon in Romance Languages and History, and had about a 3.46 GPA, which would have been higher except for one term where I learned the value of studying the hard way. I read a lot of literature growing up, but mainly read non-fiction now, and get my news from a variety of sources.

I am a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). Sometimes you have bloggers who let you know they are members, but you can’t really tell how they feel about it. I believe it. I believe in prophets, and in the Holy Ghost, and in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the World.

I am a Democrat, and when I registered that way the key issue was that I didn’t think supply-side economics was at all reasonable, and nothing I have seen over the 22 years since then has changed my mind. My parents were Republican, and I was the only Democrat in my family for a long time.

I was raised in the Church, but my father stopped going when I was nine, my older brother and older sister stopped going a bit after that, and it would have been easy for me to quit too, but I couldn’t because I knew it was true.

My beliefs are my own. I think about them extensively, because I am all about the information and the over-analysis, and also about doing what’s right, where when there are things that do not seem right I need to question them and figure them out. 

I am not very corrupt, but I have known a lot of different people, and I’m a good listener, so with that and the reading, well, I know about things that might surprise you. This is my way of saying that I may be naïve in some ways, but not ridiculously so.

And yes, I do have a soft heart. I care about people. I care about the poor and the disadvantaged and the hurting. Some of that may be my nature, but also I have to say that is something that my religious beliefs encourage, and whether you are specifically LDS or some other religion, Christian or not, you will have a hard time defending being hateful on those terms.

So, that’s who I am, and that’s how I got here, on a very basic level. And you know, I feel pretty good about myself, with what I have faced and with how I turned out. I’m not perfect, but I like my path.

I get a little irritated with the condescension of those who disagree. If your only explanation for beliefs contrary to yours is a defect in the other person, frankly, you don’t seem that secure in your own beliefs. Maybe you shouldn’t be.

What's the opposite of rose-colored glasses? Chartreuse?

Sorry this is so late. It’s been a long day, but I don’t think tomorrow will be as bad.

We left off on how Fox is not only extremely popular, but also extremely misleading. There was an interesting documentary on how they did it: “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004)”

The key was repetition of information prefaced with “Some say” or “Sources say”, or I guess you could do “Some sources say”. The sources would be people in the newsroom who decided what the message was.

When you watch the clips of it being said over and over again, it shouldn’t work. Without having a source, someone on tape, some respected name giving the information, it should not work. However, there were things working to their advantage. First of all, people expected newscasters to tell the truth. Look at Walter Cronkite. Look at Woodward and Bernstein. Yes, there had been a press tradition of muckraking and yellow journalism and bias, but I don’t think anyone was prepared to expect that kind of chicanery being delivered as a straight newscast.

The other thing that is helpful is human psychology. The Illusory Truth effect was first reported in the ‘70s, and maybe it figured into the network planning. In simplest terms, the more you hear something, the more likely you are to believe. Therefore, repetition makes something sound more plausible. For more details, there is a good explanation here:

http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/09/18/the-truth-effect-and-other-pro/

Obviously, there are ways to get around this. If you know the statement is false, that should help. If you research it and find out it is false, that should help. Ultimately though, with so much information in the world, and given how easy it is to be overloaded, it is wisest to not repeatedly expose yourself to a source of bad information.

This carries over to areas beyond news. Consider the impact of spending time with someone who is verbally abusive. Everything they say makes it seem more plausible that you really are bad and worthless. Yes, you can do things to steel yourself against the attacks, but it is preferable to avoid the abuse altogether. It’s not even just garbage in, garbage out; it’s that garbage in means you have garbage on the inside, and that’s no good.

I know that last paragraph seems like a digression, but it’s an important concept. The messages we take in matter, because we matter and because others matter.

In the case of Fox, we covered some of the perils of the disconnect from reality Friday. I think the one that was most obvious was the shell-shocked state some people are feeling at Romney’s loss. They were so confident.

Actually, that is one of the more interesting aspects lately, because there were little breaks here and there, with the most notable being Megyn Kelly’s walk to the Decision Desk after they called the election for Obama while Karl Rove was still in denial. That was gripping television. (No, I was not watching it live; I viewed the clip later. I do not stay tuned to Fox. Ever.)

That walk was the most notable, but there were other little ripples in the week leading up to the election where I am not sure what they meant. Are Fox news personalities getting rebellious? Was there a certain amount of hedging, with a growing desire to not look completely stupid and out of touch? I don’t know. Rupert Murdock himself is very conservative, but he also has a certain amount of pragmatism, and if it becomes too obvious that you are consistently wrong, that can negatively affect the ratings. So I don’t know what’s going on there or how it will play out going forward, but it’s interesting.

It is not the most important thing though. I think the most important thing is the negative human emotion it has wrought. There is a lot of anger over the election and the fate of America and how awful the majority of the of electorate is, but also there is real fear. Yes, my first thought is to mock it and be frustrated with it, but then my better nature wins out, and I have sympathy for it. It doesn’t feel good to be afraid. So, I’m going to turn to another documentary, Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine (2002)”.

(Yes, I know some people consider Moore more of a polemicist than a documentarian, and I get that, but he’s not exactly claiming to be unbiased.)

If you haven’t seen it, Moore goes over America’s love of guns and history of violence, and yet while there are certainly less violent countries with less guns, there are also countries with non-gun violence, and our neighbor Canada has lots of guns, but not as much violence, and he was trying to explore the difference.

Yes, he also stopped to mock some things, and it is more emotional than academic, but his takeway was that there were two primary differences between us and Canada, that could relate to why we are more likely to shoot each other even though they have more guns per capita.

One is that the Canadians have a system where society cares for each other. Much of this is through the healthcare system, though I imagine other social services apply as well. The other was in the news. Our news focuses on crime and violence more than theirs.

I’m not sure that this is intentionally evil. A lot of the decisions are made on getting ratings. At the same time, there might be other things going on that are for more newsworthy. Sometimes I see previews for a story of something that seems quite shocking, and I have to watch, and it happened in Ohio. It has no relation locally to us, but they successfully got me to watch.

Even if that was not initially intentional, and that emphasis on violent crime to the repeated message from the Republicans that people who vote for Obama are moochers, living off of hardworking Republicans, because they are choosing Santa Clause over hard work, and yes, that is a scary world. It is also not true.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/the-gop-is-the-food-stamp-party/

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/10/100-wrong-about-47.html

You know why a lot of voter suppression efforts focused on eliminating early voting? Because these people who were so likely to vote for Obama have jobs. They like the early voting because they don’t have to miss work.

As it is, the divide and conquer strategy has a time-honored legacy, and even though it did not work to give Romney the election, and it’s hold on Congress is slipping as many Tea Party candidates fell, but it is still working to make people miserable. And in their misery they say things that are stupid and hateful, and it is easy to think of the people as stupid and hateful, but it is not all that they are, and once I start seeing that as the only thing that matters about them, then it is easy for me to become stupid and hateful too. So, I’m trying to not do that.

Fox is the mainstream media

I was watching a clip from Rachel Maddow recently. She was talking about a guy who was in Romney’s press junket, and he had a prominent birther site, though they were going with different rumors now, because you have to be pretty die-hard, or Donald Trump, to still think the president was born in Kenya.

Anyway, one thing that she said that was interesting was that the birther thing was probably very comforting if you hate Obama—don’t worry; he’s not really the president. In the same way, I think the bad information on the polls must have been very comforting.

Okay, I recently mentioned that I have seen a few firestorms on my Facebook page, which is rare, but for my sister Maria it happens all the time. One of the recent ones, and really, for her it was pretty tactful, was she asked if all of the Romney victory parties scheduled for the weekend before the election weren’t being a bit premature. That really drew a bitter response; how dare she!

(The thing is, even when she is really being a jerk, she usually has a point, and this time was no exception.)

So, that must have been very comforting for Romney supporters, and maybe it’s good that they got their celebrating in before it would have been ridiculous. That’s when they should have had the Boston Bay firework show.

The problem with it is, of course, that then there is all the weeping and gnashing of teeth later, and it hurts more because there was so much confidence going in. It was confidence without cause.

Polling is an imperfect science, but it wasn’t just Nate Silver who was showing a clear advantage to Obama. Even with questions about the popular vote, even polls that could not show Obama getting 270 still showed him with a big lead over Romney.

There were still people listening to bad sources. The polls are skewed. They are oversampling democrats. Actually, they ended up breaking down about as expected, and if undersampling was an issue, it was more likely to go the other way. Lots of younger voters use only cell phones, therefore are not getting polled and they are more likely to vote liberal.

(My household does not help, because we screen our calls and refuse to be polled. Whether that is a more common trait among Republicans or Democrats I don’t know, but it would be very difficult to determien by a telephone poll.)

I have referred to the study that shows that watching Fox makes you less informed, which is worth pondering, but it also makes you feel like you are informed, and you are in fact the only one who really knows, because all of those misguided others are being fooled by the mainstream media.

Guess what! You cannot be more mainstream than Fox. They have a successful network, both in terms of ratings and revenue. Of our local channels two are Fox affiliates and honestly I think the CBS affiliate works with Fox for the local news as well. Even the stations that are not officially affiliated with Fox are influenced by them because of the ratings power. They’re on top.

Here’s what happens when you fall for them. You believe that you are being deliberately lied to about Benghazi, you know the president is going to throw people under the bus, and then when he accepts responsibility you don’t see leadership; you see trickery. You may even be embarrassed in a national debate. And you don’t know about the many pro-America demonstrations that happened, which were touching, and were good news.

You think that the president not meeting with Netanyahu is a horrible insult, when in fact he does need to be kept in check, his own government is frustrated with him, and other Israeli officials have reiterated how supportive Obama has been of Israel.

Also, you believe in the apology tour.

There’s a lot more, but finally you believe that Romney is going to win, and get all smug about it, and then because you have this false view of the world, it looks a lot worse, where it is not just a disappointing political outcome but the beginning of the long slide of America in to the maw of Hell itself as atheist pagan welfare queens who have a dozen each of abortions and kids use their free phones to make fun of you losers with jobs while not ever saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

But, if you think that, I have good news for you. You are misinformed. Now don't you feel better?

There are some things money can’t buy

With my apologies to Mastercard, the election results are fascinating based on how ineffectively the money spent was. Now some of that may be that you have some groups taking a large share of the funds raised to cover “expenses”. It will be interesting to see if Karl Rove has any credibility left, or employability.

However, I think the bigger problem was with the message. One hindsight analysis going around today was that a top Romney bundler said "We had no message and we gave it to the worst communicator in the world." This is not true. Romney is not that bad a communicator, and there was a definite message. However, the message is demented, and Romney is not crazy or passionate enough to sell it.

That’s to his credit, and I think it’s how he got as far as he did—not being obviously crazy like a Cain or a Gingrich. (I’ve decided Hunstman’s problem was that he openly claimed to believe in science too early.)

I don’t think there is a messenger who can sell their message to enough people to win an election, and this is because of the hands behind the party. What they want is actually awful, so they lie and mislead, and it falls apart.

Yesterday we talked about how minimum wage in the Pacific Territories gets into the national GOP platform, and it’s because someone influential has a vested interest in that. All right, I was disappointed with Rolling Stone’s music journalism, but their political stuff is pretty good, and this was a fascinating one:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/right-wing-billionaires-behind-mitt-romney-20120524

Everyone hears about the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, but there’s more, and they all have things that they want, and they tend to be good at getting them, and the Republican machinery tells you that this is what the economy needs. That is a lie.

Tax cuts don’t create jobs, but they do increase the concentration of wealth at the top. The government can create jobs. Government spending does have a greater than 1:1 ratio in terms of effects on the economy. Stimulus has been helpful. I don’t have time to get into all of that, but here are two links.

http://healthcareforamericanow.org/2012/11/02/gop-suppresses-crs-report/

http://www.nationalmemo.com/global-index-praises-us-as-sole-bright-spot-in-sluggish-world-economy/

Still, this is what the big donors want, and they’re not going to change what they want, so they do two things. One is that they lie. They lie lot, with an audacity that is hard to believe, but more on Fox news tomorrow.

The other is to focus on “moral” issues, because this has historically been an effective way of getting people to vote against their own self-interests. (I referred to Thomas Frank’s “The Wrecking Crew” yesterday, but I would be remiss if I did not recommend his excellent “What’s the Matter with Kansas.”)

There is a lot of evidence that the big money doesn’t really care about moral issues, but that they keep up with this strategy because it is supposed to work. That seems to be changing, and it should have been obvious that it was changing a few months ago.

Now, part of why it may not have been obvious will go back to the Fox news thing, but I think there is another factor here, in that they are already doing pretty well. Adelson, for example, has billions already, has access to McConnell and Boehner among others, he can afford to lose or win big. There’s no real advantage to getting a moderate Republican in office over a moderate Democrat. An extreme Republican who is beholden to him? Now that would be hitting the jackpot. And people who have billions are willing to spend millions to do it.

It is a beautiful thing that this is not working now, and I will put aside my idealism and caring for the Earth and its inhabitants for a moment and say that Rove did a good job of accomplishing his evil goals. It’s really impressive that you were able to pull it off for so long.

So, back to caring, including caring about Republican people—not the billionaires who control it, but the regular people, you have no motivation to continue this losing strategy. Afraid that the government will tax your money once you start making some? The party elite are gaming the system so you will never get some. Leave them behind, and build something new. Something that honors the values that you have, but looks at them honestly, and looks honestly for solutions to the real issues that are out there.

To do so, you will need to broaden your data sources. More on that tomorrow.

How a plank enters a platform

Party platforms are interesting things anyway. There are tediously long and boring documents out of which a few things will be publicized. Then people will only be reading the excerpts and the gists, and you can’t blame them, because they are awful.

In theory, though, what you have is a statement of values. This is what we consider to be important, and how we are going to make it work. It also may include a fair amount of sniping, like this leadin to support for mandatory prison sentences for a long list of crimes:

“Liberals do not understand this simple axiom: criminals behind bars cannot harm the general public.”

Anyway, I wouldn’t even have bothered trying to read the stupid thing if it wasn’t for a web article I read on the oddest items in the platform—you know, things like being completely against imposition of sharia law in the United States, and examining a possible return to the gold standard. Those weren’t what caught my eye. What got me was a reference to minimum wage in the Marianas Islands:

“The Pacific territories should have flexibility to determine the minimum wage, which has seriously restricted progress in the private sector.”

To show you how obscure it is, the article I was reading referred to them as the Marinara Islands. I don’t think the writer got it wrong—I think auto-correct changed it and he didn’t notice, because it seems like such a minor thing compared to taxes, healthcare, and abortion.

It struck me because of a book I had read a few years ago, “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule” by Thomas Frank. And really, the Northern Mariana Islands are a small part of that book, but I remembered.

So here’s what you need to know. It is a US Territory, so one might expect it to be similar to the United States, and certainly products made there can be labeled “Made in USA”, but they are not subject to the same regulations. This means the regulations to insure product quality, but it especially means protection and treatment of the workers.

Also, many of the workers aren’t really US citizens. They’re from nearby countries, especially China, working as immigrants. They are lied to about what their situation will be, and sometimes what location they will be going to. In general if you are rich-and well-connected you do all right, otherwise it is poverty and abuse and a lot of sex trafficking. However, when people tried to start reform there, it was fought based on how it would limit the ability of the Chinese workers to be exposed to Christianity.

That particular scam is actually old news, having come back to bite Ralph Reed during a 2006 campaign, that I think even then was overshadowed by the other Jack Abramoff scandals.

So how did this obscure issue make it into the 2012 GOP Platform? Well, obviously someone who is a big party donor is making money off of the low wages there, and wants to continue to do so. Really, it’s totally a great plan. You can exploit cheap Chinese labor while still using the Made in the USA label. Why should you mess that up by treating workers fairly, and paying enough so they can support themselves without having a prostitution side job? Oh, did I mention the forced abortions?

We can’t talk about the problems in democracy without talking about the role of big money, and that is especially true of the Republican side. So the next thing we’ll talk about is money.

How this election has been going for me

I may have mentioned this before, but while I post a lot of links to political stories on Facebook, I don’t tend to do political status updates, and I don’t generally contradict other people’s posts, no matter how stupid or offensive they are. I feel that it is rude, though if someone is doing it to one of my friends I will jump in, because then it is against rudeness.

I have mentioned that philosophy on Facebook often, but this had not stopped people from commenting a lot, with mixed results. One conversation that I thought was going to get really ugly ended up being really civilized, and a different one ended up in one friend deleting me (possibly because he could not delete the other participants whom he was already not friends with, but there was no explanation).

Those two incidents were rare. I think part of this is that I don’t post really inflammatory items. I write stuff that I think lays out an issue well, or that is unlikely to be known, and if it tends to be more liberal in nature, at some point that should quit shocking people. My sisters will use words like “hate” and “vomit” in their updates, but that’s not my style.

I mention this because I find that I have been violating my own rules these past few days. Some of it is just that I see wrong or biased information, and it is easy to correct, and I do that. In one case it was well-received, kind of, and in another it was less well-received, but still civil. (She gloated over having already voted for Romney, but I wasn’t trying to influence her vote, and then she didn’t seem to know what the point was.)

Today I have done it twice. One was to put the following link in a thread started about how the president is just resting and playing basketball, and wasn’t there a little something called Sandy:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83042.html

The other one was a response to a “joke”, supposedly posted by Tim Tebow, but it’s not. It says it’s a parody account, but I if he is truly going for parody, he’s not very good at it. Anyway, the tweet said “I’m predicting Obama will take an early lead tomorrow…Until all the Republicans get off work.”

The poster said about this “I can’t stop laughing. This just makes me feel HAPPY inside! That’s FUNNY stuff right there.”

Leaving out comments by other posters, which varied, here is how it went.

“Yes, there are few things more humorous than deciding that the people who disagree with you must do so because they're lazy moochers.”

“Oh stop getting all offended & see the humor!!!”

“My point is that it is offensive humor that reflects harmful stereotypes that allow people to feel smug about being jerks.”

“Gina, did you just call me a jerk?!?”

“I call that attitude that fake Tim Tebow's tweet is promoting jerky. I have not known you to be that way, but if you find this so great that you have to capitalize "happy"and "funny", that's the sort of thing that makes me comment when I usually ignore all the posts that I disagree with.””

“I just choose to see the humor. I truly hope you don't think I'm intolerant or judgmental of people's opinions that differ from my own. I choose to associate with someone based on the kind of person he/she is rather than political, religious or other beliefs.”

Maybe I’m wrong here, but to me this is too much like that picture of the White House rose garden being turned into a watermelon patch. Come on! It’s just a joke, and they really do like watermelons.

So, I’m just getting a bit sick of people, and losing my traditional equanimity over it. But it wraps up tonight, and then the plan is to go over how Republicans can be better. Because the people who vote that way aren’t evil—I know that. But they’re supporting a lot of evil, and not for very good reasons.

We'll start in the Marianas Islands.

Problems with cynicism

I saw this story a while back that I think illustrates a lot of the current political problems:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/food-stamps-kroger-grocery_n_1911355.html

One big problem is the judgment that goes on, and we will get to that, but for now I want to focus on a quote by the woman in question, and the lead in to the quote:

“However much the campaign issues might resonate in her personal life, Nerger said she doesn't have cable and hasn't been following politics or the presidential election. Still, she doesn't think much of either Obama or his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

‘They’re all gonna kill us," she said. "Most of the people that we have to choose from -- Obama with his spending and his health care reform, and then Mitt Romney, he just wants to let poor people die, so either way we're doomed. So I don’t see any point in voting.’"

Actually, there is another issue in there about poor information, though having cable would not necessarily help, but still, really, person on food stamps waiting for a kidney transplant whose husband is self-employed, you don’t see a point in voting? You don’t think one candidate’s policies might be more helpful in your situation than another?

Third party candidates love to tell you that there’s no difference between the two main parties, and that is a lie. Yes, the Democrats have become a lot more conservative, and if the Republicans had stayed in place, there would be little difference between the two. But have you really paid attention to what the Neocons have become? (If you haven’t, I’ll be writing more on that too.)

It is more common for me to encounter condescension and misunderstanding from the Right, where they are confident that their cause is just, and they don’t understand how I have been hoodwinked, or how I can be liberal in good conscience, and that’s one set of problems, and it is disturbing. It is also disturbing how many have just thrown up their hands and decided that it doesn’t matter.

For example, I know there are people who are frustrated that President Obama has not said more about the environment. Honestly, I think that is strategically smart, since he would probably lose more people than he would gain. However, based on his actions, and Romney’s words, there is a clear difference:

http://www.nationalmemo.com/reminder-no-one-has-done-more-to-fight-climate-change-than-president-obama/

Obama has been working to bring the troops home; Romney has called that tragic. Oddly, Republicans have criticized Obama’s spending, but having troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has been very expensive, and that started under Bush. No difference?

It has been firmly established that corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy do not necessary improve the economy, although they do increase income inequality. Romney is still for going that route, and promises those tax cuts will improve the economy. Obama’s tax plan is more rational. Also, it is really hypocritical for the Republicans to criticize Democrats for being fiscally irresponsible when Clinton ran a surplus and Bush squandered it by cutting taxes and starting wars.

Romney has talked about wanting to privatize FEMA. The FEMA director under Bush criticized Obama for responding too quickly to Sandy. Let’s pretend your home was destroyed under Sandy and there was another big storm on the way. Would you really rather be under President Romney than President Obama?

And if your answer to any of the Romney weaknesses is that he doesn’t really mean what he says, that is not a good defense.

I guess the point that I really want to make here is that I am not just choosing between the lesser of two evils. It doesn’t mean that I agree with everything Obama does, or that he is perfect. Frankly, I think I would have given up on getting Republican compromise a lot sooner. I understand why he felt the need, I sympathize with the principle, but it was just never going to happen. They wanted him to fail, and he managed pretty well despite that.

(Jonathan Chait has a good piece on that: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/barack-obama-is-a-great-president-yes-great.html)

Also, I wish he had not renewed the Patriot Act, and I have been thinking about that—what to do when you disagree, because that is going to be important for both sides, and there will be more on that too.

What I am saying is that this bad economy started under Bush, and we have been making slow, steady progress out of it, and we could have made even more progress with a non-obstructionist GOP element in Congress. I don’t want us to go back to Bush policies, and with Romney’s Bush advisers, and with his campaign contributors, that’s what’s going to happen.

If I have to choose between all of the Bush tax cuts expiring, or none of them, I will gladly pay more in taxes. That will do more to help the budget issues than anything Romney has.

The Affordable Care Act has helped a lot of people already, and will help more as it becomes fully implemented over the next two years, and sure, Romney might find it hard to repeal it, but I don’t want him to even be in there trying. I would like my sister to have health insurance. A man whose wife has had multiple sclerosis and cancer should not think that emergency rooms are a good alternative to health care, but the fact that he can say that shows you a lot about how his mind works.

These are just a few examples, but I could go on. Women’s rights? Huge difference. Diplomatic ability? Huge difference. That is what I am saying in general: there is a huge difference between the candidates, and it does matter.

And you know what else matters? Your vote. I saw some polling that of people who are not planning to vote, they lean about 75% more towards Obama. Now, I think Obama is going to win anyway, and I think he will win both the popular and the electoral vote. However, winning by that much larger a margin sends that much more of a message. There are some really bad planks in the GOP platform, and Romney may be finished after this, but the platform won’t go away unless it is sent away.

Chances are that if you believe global warming is a myth and women who use birth control are sluts and that the Bush tax cuts just have not had enough time to work, you are voting for Romney anyway—maybe with mixed feelings because he is a cult member, but still doing it. But if you think that it doesn’t matter who wins, wake up. And if you are awake, make your voice heard.

And hey, if you are pro-Romney, and weren’t planning on voting, still, vote. Obviously our beliefs are different, but I still believe in democracy, and your vote is a part of that. 
 

A shift in the weather

I like to keep things a little lighter on Fridays, especially since I switched this blog to just Monday through Friday. And, there are a couple of things that I have been thinking about.

For one thing, people are getting pretty tired of politics. I get that. We are getting so many mailings and robocalls and seeing so many commercials, and that isn’t even for the presidential race. But there’s that, and the Facebook posts, and people are tired of it, and even though I am intensely interested in how this will turn out, and I think it’s really important, I do sympathize.

Fortunately, there is a remedy that is always timely, and that is to help someone. It makes you feel better. First of all, you are doing good in the world, and I believe there is a spiritual payoff to that. In addition, it should reinforce what you have (increasing gratitude), remind you that you are capable of accomplishing things (it is easy, and awful, to feel helpless), and can increase bonds with others. It’s good at any time, and there are a lot of people needing help now in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. I’m going to call out a few of the things that I have seen.

First of all, the obvious one is that you can text REDCROSS to 90999 and make a $10 donation to the Red Cross which will be added to your phone bill. If you have old phones and are technologically backwards, like me, you can also go to the www.redcross.org site and donate. In a good sign, it is currently undergoing maintenance due to high volume.

(If you are so technologically behind that you can’t use a web site, I’m pretty sure you don’t read the blog, but I guess the next step would be looking up the Red Cross in the Yellow Pages.)

Also, NBC is having a telethon tonight: http://www.nbc.com/hurricane-sandy-coming-together/

Donating dry goods locally is not particularly helpful in a case like this, though your local food bank would probably still be interested, but donating blood would be great. That supply is always running a little close anyway, and one thing Sandy did was cause many blood drives to be canceled. Even if there were not any new injuries, there would still be a need.

The other thing that I’m seeing is that various local (to New Jersey) artistic types are finding was to use their craft to attain donations. Here are two:

http://restoretheshore.cowerking.com/

http://www.etsy.com/listing/113774582/hurricane-sandy-charity-bracelets

Restore the Shore is almost at goal already, which is amazing. I admit, I tend to prefer to just donate money, and not get stuff, but I understand wanting to contribute, and wanting to give a tangible, and I love the outpouring of generosity. I think we will see a lot more of these.

For another way to donate time and talents and skills (this time for techies):

http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/11/hurricane-sandy-recovery-crisis-camp-voluntee.html#.UJQp8GPs8Ns.twitter

This is providing a valuable service in a manner where I am completely useless, but many people are not.

Something I understand completely is the need to keep in touch, and bless the people who had power and put out extension cords and set up ad hoc charging stations. It is so valuable to be able to make and keep contact.

I saw an interesting question from the people at http://weareteamlondon.org/:

“Ok! We need your thoughts & help! This year our family has decided to forego Christmas presents & instead adopt a family. With all that has happened on the East Coast, we are looking for a family that could use a very Merry Christmas! We would prefer children & animals in our family & we would prefer NOT to go through another Org - we want 100% of our contribution to go directly to that family... ...we don't see a reason to have a "middle-man" that reaps profit off of this very heartfelt cause! Does anyone know a family that has truly lost EVERYTHING? We understand there are thousands that lost a LOT of things & half of their things, but some people lost it all... we would like to help! - Amanda, G, Beast & Jade!”

I don’t know a way to help with that one, but I bet there is someone who does. And based on the pictures, I am sure there are several who have really lost everything.

Find something good to do, and I promise you will feel better. And the election is almost over.

Own it

I feel like I am having a harder time being coherent lately. Writing about politics at the time of a major election means there is a lot more signal noise than I usually have. I just wrote kind of an apology for that which ended up in my journal instead, and of course, writing it out was what I needed. If there is a part of me that thinks that I should have waited until after the election to treat politics at all, and that is really looking forward to getting back to music and comics, well, I’ll be okay.

The noise is a factor, but really a lot of the problem is organizational, because all of my thoughts bleed into each other. The mindset is related to the media is related to the corporate influence is related to the economy is related to regulations is related to GOP policies is related to the mindset, and on it goes. However, in my case the point of writing is to stop the tilt-a-whirl from tilting and whirling, and get some order out of it. I am sorry for being organizationally weaker now, and I do think it will get better.

Fortunately, I do not expect to actually influence anyone politically, so that takes off a lot of the pressure, and it frees me to tell Republicans what they are doing wrong, thus technically helping them to do better, if there were any chance of them taking my advice. I do not expect this to be an issue.

So, perhaps a good starting point is with Romney specifically and the topic of ownership. I have covered already how he does not seem to have a strong core of any kind, which seems to bother me more than most people. Maybe they assume that he must have a core, but there’s no evidence for that, and that’s really dangerous.

He also does not do much to refute this, because he could come out boldly, and instead he softpedals. I was disappointed with the 47% apology, because it said nothing. I don’t think that satisfied anyone on the right or left. For the people who disagreed with it, just saying it was wrong, after initially saying that it was correct, but just inelegantly stated, was going to be completely inaccurate. For the people who agreed with the initial comment, then it just seems like pandering. (I must give big props to both Stephen Colbert and John Hodgman for making the elegant statements.)

Honestly, it’s amazing how much the media is letting Romney get away with, but with a stronger person, it’s unnecessary. There are two ways that he could have gone, and either would have been fine.

He could have apologized, said that he realized later that he was conflating different numbers and assigning too much meaning to them, and that he realizes that there are many hard-working people who struggle, and have not had great earning opportunities, and that his priority is to change that by healing the economy. (It would be a lie, because his policies will harm the economy a lot, but he lies all the time—he might as well learn to use it to his advantage.)

Going the other route, he could rail against the welfare state, and say that too many voters have been lulled into a false sense of complacency, and this is damaging to America, and there may be people whom he will never win over, and that he will not apologize for hating the destructive influence of the welfare state. There are people who would eat this up, and who cares about facts anyway? As it is, he made no one happy.

So let’s look at the tax issue, on which the media really should be pressing more. I know he said he wouldn’t answer, and that he is getting worse about answering questions all the time, but it was never my understanding that the press is supposed to cater to the politicians.

Forget that, though, let’s look at what we have. We have one tax return where some deductions were skipped to meet an arbitrary rate, and then a summary that doesn’t really say a lot. It may be true that he didn’t file for 10 years. I do believe someone told Harry Reid that Romney had not paid for ten years, and I do support Reid not revealing his source, but the source could be wrong.

What I am almost positive of is that Romney used the 2009 Swiss Bank Acount Amnesty, and that could have raised his overall average with the penalty, and maybe the reason the summary went back 20 years instead of 12 years was that there was higher tax-paying back then.

There are various mind-bogglers here. One is that he said that paying more taxes than he needed to would make him unfit to be president, and then by skipping those deductions he did. Also, it really seems like the thing that he should have thought about earlier. You didn’t think anyone would want to see years of back taxes when you were running for President? Actually, that’s another reason that I suspect the Swiss Bank Account Amnesty. There are candidates who have gotten away with not releasing very many years back, but I think Romney desperately needed to skip that year, which was not that long ago.

However, take ownership. If he had just released them, there would have been an initial flare-up, and it would have run its course. No one would care anymore. (Not that people seem to care that much now.)

Be belligerent about it. Say you think the government taxes too much, you have taken steps to avoid it, and now you will be just as protective of the taxpayers money. People will buy that. I would respect it more, though I still wouldn’t vote for him.

Or be apologetic. Say you have acted selfishly in the past, but you had a turning point when you helped out with the Olympics, you became more committed to public service, which is why you ran for governor, and why you ran for president, and part of that process was reconciling your financial past. Own that! Politics will put up with a bunch of hypocrasy.

Either of those Mitt’s is a Mitt that people would vote for—not just the staunch conservatives, who are voting for him anyway—but wavering conservatives and some independents and some disappointed liberals too.

Yes, I am very grateful for Romney’s incompetence, but there is still a lot that is annoying about it.

Bad strategies

This is a very late post. I’m hoping that with my day off tomorrow, I can get caught up, but as soon as I post this I am planning on working another hour of overtime, and hoping to write five pages in the screenplay. So, that’s just how it goes.

I did still get to read some news, and one of the most interesting things today was this piece by Ezra Klein:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/30/mitch-mcconnell-and-john-boehners-strategy-worked/

There are a few things that are interesting about this. One is just that what these endorsements really boil down to is at its best throwing in the towel on reasonable behavior, and at its worst the sort of thought that goes along with “Well she shouldn’t have been wearing that tight skirt.”

The other interesting thing is Klein’s point is that you don’t want to reward gridlock because that will lead to more of it. There is something to that point, though I am not sure that I agree with his assumption that a Democrat legislature would use it against a Republican president. We haven’t had a chance to observe every possibility of course, but based on observed behavior, obstructionism has been much more of a Republican strategy, while the Democrat strategy has been compromise until you fold.

However, I think there is a much more important point about the consequences of voting for Romney because Congress will work for him, and that is the types of things they will work on. GOP control of the legislative and executive branches could be expected to be devastating to the economy, the environment, healthcare, and as opportunities came up to appoint new Supreme Court justices, I would expect a big shift to the right there, with all of those attendent consequences.

Now, if you are in line with the conservative ideologies, and think that more tax cuts and less regulations are what will fix the economy, and there is no such thing as global warming, and Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act should be overturned, and the sooner the better, then obviously, Romney Ryan is the ticket you want. However, that did not seem to be the point of view of these endorsements.

When you have people with destructive goals, cooperation can be disastrous. A better strategy is to vote more Democrats into Congress, and if your officials are the obstructionists, write to them, and get other people involved. Yes, they need their corporate donor money, but they need it so they can get votes, and it doesn’t have to work. Frankly, the less it works, the better for all of us.