Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films exposes the most aggressive interference in the ability of Americans to vote since sheriffs in the Deep South stopped giving African-Americans that Latin exam.
The number of states in which there has been a tightening of voter i.d. requirements, which are arguably unconstitutional, has tripled in recent years.
Obviously, the US if you take the entire population is a center-left country, but it can be configured as a right wing country if you just kick enough people off the voting rolls on various pretexts.
The 99% are increasingly in a fight not just for their homes, their jobs, their livelihoods, with the top 1%. They are now even in a fight for their democratic participation.
There is a word for people who can be tricked out of their homes and then not allowed to vote because they don’t have a stable address: slaves.
Voter suppression is a long-term right wing project, one of the foundations of the movement.
In the ’90s, I used to pick up the really hardline gun mags and see the term “14th Amendment citizen”. It turned out there was a whole movement that demanded the restoration of pre-Civil War law that gave state legislatures a monopoly on deciding who could vote. Worse, this movement was hiding its racist agenda by appealing to libertarians on the internet. The agenda was made clear by constant smears of the poor as corruptors who would steal everything for themselves once enough of them voted. Now why would the poor become a majority unless either capitalism failed or non-whites were kept oppressed? A 14th Amendment citizen, by the way, is a euphemism for anyone who got the right to vote by Federal act, including citizens of Washington, D.C. (70% black).
I guess Kochs’ sucker Herman Cain will be eager to explain why blacks must be presumed guilty of voter fraud until proven Republican.
What the Koch Brothers are doing in the US is criminal in many countries. The US can learn from others.
The Right to Vote must be protected and enforced by aggressive legislation on voting registration, laws and processes which will make it illegal and criminal to inhibit, make more difficult or unfair the processes of voting.
Congress is very corrupt, much by the Republican Party. Thus, the suggested legislation below may be achievable only by Presidential executive orders.
All individuals, groups and governments of all levels inhibiting the voting processes would be subject to criminal charges, fines and imprisonment. Those found guilty would be barred from all goverment positions and work for life. Currently gerrymandering is going which should be stopped since unfair and without doubt, illegal and criminal.
Suggested Immediate Legislation
by Presidential Executive Orders
Some from Juan Cole’s: “10 Ways Arab Democracies Can Avoid American Mistakes”
link to juancole.com
1a. No elections on work days or weekends.
Many workers need their weekends off.
1b. Make election day a national holiday with pay.
1c. Some other plan.
2. Compulsory, government run voter registration at age 18
3. Enforced compulsory voting. Absentee ballots must be timely mailed or a fine of 0.1% of individual’s or family’s gross income. In the world, 32 countries have compulsory voting but America doesn’t. America can learn from others.
4. ID cards with photo to be provided free by each State for those that do not have driver licenses.
5. Enforce the Bill of Rights. Violations of individual rights are routine in America.
6. Regulate public radio and TV stations to stop news being biased by the Democratic & Republican parties, by corporations and by the Dictators and their puppets. The news on PBS NewsHour is controlled by the 1%’ers.
I don’t know how the this will be done.
I’m 70, a little slow, but still give a hoot about America.