Topic of the moment: Mandatory voting

[ElNono]

Wrong solution to a real problem?

For those that didn't hear:

CNN reports that when asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voting/) "Other countries have mandatory voting," said Obama "It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly. "The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups. There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls." At least 26 countries have compulsory voting (http://www.idea.int/vt/compulsory_voting.cfm#practicing), according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison. Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections (http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/news/2014/11/13/2014-midterms-defined-by-low-voter-turnout), according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans — more than the population of Russia — skipped out. Critics of mandatory voting have questioned the practicality of passing and enforcing such a requirement; others say that freedom also means the freedom not to do something (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/03/19/obama-broaches-mandatory-voting/25010443/).

[boutons_deux]

Obama is right.

Mandatory voting would make a huge difference in USA, but it's too late. America is fucked and unfuckbale because the 1%/corporatocracy and their Repug whores control enough of America at all levels that any mandatory voting bill would be defeated.

Then there is real practical problem of enforcement.

The reason Repugs screw democracy with extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression is that have known for years that Repug voters are the minority population, and increasingly so, so they must cheat to win, and win on social issues of god/guns/gays/abortion/immigration/war-mongering/bogus-patriotism/Christian-theocracy rather than on proposing solutions to problems and progress.

[CosmicCowboy]

It's obvious why he wants it. Ignorant people tend to vote democrat.

[TDMVPDPOY]

MANDATORY VOTING is nothing more then another revenue raising scheme

so what happens if u dont g o vote after signing up? u going to get a fine?

down here its about 200bucks fine if u dont go vote after registering, i dont think u can unregister

[boutons_deux]

It's obvious why he wants it. Ignorant people tend to vote democrat.

:lol you rednecks, bubbas, Bible humpers, Freedom! lovers, vote Repug on social issues, then Repugs screw you, try to privatize Social Security, privatize Medicare, close (rural) post offices, give the right-to-work-less, waste your $Ts and kids lives in bullshit wars-for-oil, etc, etc.

and the Dems are ignorant? :lol

[unleashbaynes]

Not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, if every single person really did vote, I'd bet the results would be pretty interesting. Shit, it may even lead to a third party candidate being elected to high office. On the other, it seems a little anti-American to force it on people.

[boutons_deux]

Freedom! not to vote is just another word for granting Freedom! to the 1%/VRWC/BigCorp to screw you (out of your wealth and health) harder and deeper and longer.

[DisAsTerBot]

gonna be a lot of uninformed voters

[Blake]

Take down our sorry two party system and I might be more in favor of mandatory voting.

But as it is, forcing me to vote when my two options are dog shit or cat shit is wrong. Me not voting is my own subtle protest against the system.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol you rednecks, bubbas, Bible humpers, Freedom! lovers, vote Repug on social issues, then Repugs screw you, try to privatize Social Security, privatize Medicare, close (rural) post offices, give the right-to-work-less, waste your $Ts and kids lives in bullshit wars-for-oil, etc, etc.

and the Dems are ignorant? :lol



Bet you had to wipe your screen down after that spittle explosion.

I am not saying all democrats are ignorant. There are informed liberals in here that research the candidates and then consciously choose that path. I will be the first to admit that republicans obsession with social/moral issues is a big turnoff.

For the most part, though, if your uneducated, ignorant masses (hands up don't shoot) were required to vote they would most likely pull that big "D' lever without ever taking the time to research the candidates or the issues. Mandatory voting would undoubtedly be advantageous for the Democratic party and that's why Obama advocated it and floated that trial balloon.

[boutons_deux]

" Ignorant people tend to vote democrat."

did you mean Democrat?

[The Reckoning]

i have a right to not give a shit.

[boutons_deux]

"Mandatory voting would undoubtedly be advantageous for the Democratic party"

it would be advantageous for USA democracy,

lessen the influence of 1% $Bs and the Kock sucking tea baggers,

and allow ALL voting By The People and For The People, instead of the corrupt 1%/corporatocracy we have now, and we will most probably have for decades, as American democracy is and will be a fuckin joke.

[CosmicCowboy]

" Ignorant people tend to vote democrat."

did you mean Democrat?

:lmao at spittleboy being the capitalization cop.

[boutons_deux]

:lmao at spittleboy being the capitalization cop.

brilliant retort, I'm devastated yet again.

"Ignorant people tend to vote democrat."

[FromWayDowntown]

It would be preferable that there be greater self determination to get to the polls and vote. That, of course, would be far easier to accomplish if there were fewer hurdles to actually voting in elections. But, the greater interest of those who hold office in many places is to entrench power rather than effectuate a true democracy, so we're moving further away from easing the burdens associated with voting in the apparent hope that it will deter the "wrong" people from casting ballots and diminish the chances that the control of the ruling party will be diminished.

I don't necessarily think that mandatory voting is ideal, but it would certainly make the efforts to subtly disenfranchise certain parts of the electorate that seem to be so vogue these days much less effective.

[Wild Cobra]

It's obvious why he wants it. Ignorant people tend to vote democrat.

This is so true, and why democrats try to maximize registration.

[Wild Cobra]

Take down our sorry two party system and I might be more in favor of mandatory voting.

But as it is, forcing me to vote when my two options are dog shit or cat shit is wrong. Me not voting is my own subtle protest against the system.
We need a true runoff style election system. This way people can be secure in voting for their choices in order, and not electing the worse choice by default.

[Wild Cobra]

i have a right to not give a shit.

So true.

[Wild Cobra]

it would be advantageous for USA democracy,


No it wouldn't. US democracy is a joke. Too many lazy people voting by soundbites. We effectively only have a two party system. We need better educated voters, and runoff elections.

[cantthinkofanything]

Dems are ignorant? :lol



not all Dems are ignorant but most ignorants vote Dem.

[boutons_deux]

No it wouldn't. US democracy is a joke. Too many lazy people voting by soundbites. We effectively only have a two party system. We need better educated voters, and runoff elections.

Repugs, BigCorp, 1%, Christian Taleban are doing everything they can to dumb down kids into for-profit indoctrination charter schools, so there's little hope they America with Get Smart.

[boutons_deux]

not all Dems are ignorant but most ignorants vote Dem.

you're ignorant

[boutons_deux]

i have a right to not give a shit.

What a Super-Patriot you are.

[cantthinkofanything]

you're ignorant

LOL.

You're the man getting fucked in the ass by the man who is getting fucked in the ass by the dog.

[The Reckoning]

lol i moved out of the country. don't want to waste my time mailing in a ballot for something I don't care about.

[ElNono]

The "informed vote" is such a terrible argument, tbh. At the current participation rate, these alleged "informed" votes are mostly tribal votes. ie: gun rights, lgbt rights, i'm a red teamer, i'm a blue teamer, hate this guy, love this guy, etc.

This is the wrong solution because fighting apathy by forcing people to engage doesn't address why people are apathetic in the first place.

But the lack of actual popular representation does somewhat removes luster from the democratic system.

FWIW, I do come from a country that had mandatory voting, and I hated it. At least over there voting day was a holiday, IIRC.

[boutons_deux]

"lack of actual popular representation does somewhat removes luster from the democratic system."

:lol understatement of the hour!

democracy in USA is a joke, long gone, and won't return anytime soon. the kleptocratic, plutocratic oligarchy rules, gets EVERYTHING it wants

[Wild Cobra]

Repugs, BigCorp, 1%, Christian Taleban are doing everything they can to dumb down kids into for-profit indoctrination charter schools, so there's little hope they America with Get Smart.

They have to balance pundits like Randi Rhodes, Rachel Madcow, etc.

[Wild Cobra]

The "informed vote" is such a terrible argument, tbh. At the current participation rate, these alleged "informed" votes are mostly tribal votes. ie: gun rights, lgbt rights, i'm a red teamer, i'm a blue teamer, hate this guy, love this guy, etc.


It seems to me that if politicians stopped trying to take away out rights, these wouldn't be issues.

[boutons_deux]

The New American Order

1% Elections, The Privatization of the State, a Fourth Branch of Government, and the Demobilization of "We the People"

By Tom Engelhardt (http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/tom)

Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.

And here’s what I find strange: the evidence of this, however inchoate, is all around us and yet it’s as if we can’t bear to take it in or make sense of it or even say that it might be so.

Let me make my case, however minimally, based on five areas in which at least the faint outlines of that new system seem to be emerging: political campaigns and elections; the privatization of Washington through the marriage of the corporation and the state; the de-legitimization of our traditional system of governance; the empowerment of the national security state as an untouchable fourth branch of government; and the demobilization of "we the people."

Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway, and yet its birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.

1. 1% Elections

Check out the news about the 2016 presidential election and you’ll quickly feel a sense of been-there, done-that. As a start, the two names most associated with it, Bush and Clinton, couldn’t be more familiar, highlighting as they do the curiously dynastic quality of recent presidential contests. (If a Bush or Clinton should win in 2016 and again in 2020, a member of one of those families will have controlled the presidency for 28 of the last 36 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-no-freshness-in-our-2016-presidential-contest/2015/01/16/f7c4c310-9d8c-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html) years.)

Take, for instance, “Why 2016 Is Likely to Become a Close Race,” a recent piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/upshot/hillary-clinton-is-more-vulnerable-in-2016-than-you-think.html) Nate Cohn wrote for my hometown paper. A noted election statistician, Cohn points out that, despite Hillary Clinton’s historically staggering lead in Democratic primary polls (and lack of serious challengers), she could lose the general election. He bases this on what we know about her polling popularity from the Monica Lewinsky moment of the 1990s to the present. Cohn assures readers that Hillary will not “be a Democratic Eisenhower, a popular, senior statesperson who cruises to an easy victory.” It’s the sort of comparison that offers a certain implicit reassurance about the near future. (No, Virginia, we haven’t left the world of politics in which former general and president Dwight D. Eisenhower can still be a touchstone.)

Cohn may be right when it comes to Hillary’s electability, but this is not Dwight D. Eisenhower’s or even Al Gore’s America. If you want a measure of that, consider this year’s primaries. I mean, of course, the 2015 ones. Once upon a time, the campaign season started with candidates flocking to Iowa and New Hampshire early in the election year to establish their bona fides among party voters. These days, however, those are already late primaries.

The early primaries, the ones that count, take place among a small group of millionaires andbillionaires (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/koch-seminar-is-early-proving-ground-for-gop-hopefuls.html), a new caste flush with cash who will personally, or through complex networks of funders, pour multi-millions of dollars into the campaigns of candidates of their choice. So the early primaries -- this year mainly a Republican affair -- are taking place in resort spots like Las Vegas, Rancho Mirage, California, and Sea Island, Georgia, as has been widely reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/us/politics/gop-race-starts-in-lavish-haunts-of-rich-donors.html). These “contests” involve groveling politicians appearing at the beck and call of the rich and powerful, and so reflect our new 1% electoral system. (The main pro-Hillary super PAC, for instance, is aiming for a kitty of $500 million (http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-fenn/2015/02/12/jeb-bush-and-hillary-clinton-2016-fundraising-is-out-of-control) heading into 2016, while the Koch brothers network has already promised to drop almost $1 billion (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/koch-retreat-donors-249-million-2016) into the coming campaign season, doubling their efforts in the last presidential election year.)

Ever since the Supreme Court opened up the ultimate floodgates with its 2010 Citizens United (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Opinions_of_the_Court) decision, each subsequent election has seen record-breaking amounts of money donated and spent. The 2012 presidential campaign was the first $2 billion election (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/2012-presidential-election-cost_n_2254138.html); campaign 2016 is expected to hit (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/230318-the-5-billion-campaign) the $5 billion mark without breaking a sweat. By comparison, according to Burton Abrams and Russell Settle in their study, “The Effect of Broadcasting on Political Campaign Spending,” Republicans and Democrats spent just under $13 million combined in 1956 when Eisenhower won his second term.

In the meantime, it’s still true that the 2016 primaries will involve actual voters, as will the election that follows. The previous election season, the midterms of 2014, cost almost $4 billion (http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/01/politics/4-billion-expensive-election/), a record despite the number of small donors continuing to drop (http://ivn.us/2014/12/01/political-donors-spent-enough-money-last-election-to-rebuild-detroit-twice/). It also represented the lowest midterm voter (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/11/10/voter-turnout-in-2014-was-the-lowest-since-wwii/) turnout since World War II. (See: demobilization of the public, below -- and add in the demobilization of the Democrats as a real party, the breaking of organized labor, the fragmenting of the Republican Party, and the return of voter suppression laws (https://www.aclu.org/maps/battle-protect-ballot-voter-suppression-measures-passed-2013) visibly meant to limit the franchise.) It hardly matters just what the flood of new money does in such elections, when you can feel the weight of inequality (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/16/richer-and-poorer) bearing down on the whole process in a way that is pushing us somewhere new.

2. The Privatization of the State (or the U.S. as a Prospective Third-World Nation)

In the recent coverage of the Hillary Clinton email flap, you can find endless references to the Clintons of yore (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/opinion/frank-bruni-hillary-clinton-the-email-controversy-and-the-2016-presidential-race.html) in wink-wink, you-know-how-they-are-style reporting; and yes, she did delete a lot of emails; and yes, it’s an election year coming and, as everyone points out, the Republicans are going to do their best to keep the email issue alive until hell freezes over, etc., etc. Again, the coverage, while eyeball gluing, is in a you’ve-seen-it-all-before, you’ll-see-it-all-again-mode.

However, you haven’t seen it all before. The most striking aspect of this little brouhaha lies in what’s most obvious but least highlighted. An American secretary of state chose to set up her own private, safeguarded email system for doing government work; that is, she chose to privatize her communications. If this were Cairo, it might not warrant a second thought. But it didn’t happen in some third-world state. It was the act of a key official of the planet’s reigning (or thrashing) superpower, which -- even if it wasn’t (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/11/two-names-the-press-omits-from-email-coverage-c/202847) the first time such a thing had ever occurred -- should be taken as a tiny symptom of something that couldn’t be larger or, in the long stretch of history, newer: the ongoing privatization of the American state, or at least the national security part of it.

Though the marriage of the state and the corporation has a pre-history, the full-scale arrival of the warrior corporation (http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175507/tom_engelhardt_remotely_piloted_war) only occurred after 9/11. Someday, that will undoubtedly be seen as a seminal moment in the formation of whatever may be coming in this country. Only 13 years later, there is no part of the war state that has not experienced major forms of privatization. The U.S. military could no longer go to war without its crony corporationsdoing KP (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175036/pratap_chatterjee_inheriting_halliburton_s_army) and guard duty, delivering the mail, building the bases, and being involved in just about all of its activities, including training (http://www.thenation.com/blog/197057/afghanistan-war-still-raging-time-its-being-waged-contractors) the militaries of foreign allies and even fighting. Such warrior corporations are now involved in every aspect of the national security state, including torture (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/12/outsourcing-torture_n_6317236.html), drone strikes (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/29/world/la-fg-drones-civilians-20111230), and -- to the tune of hundreds of thousands (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/nsa-leak-contractors_n_3418876.html?1370919691) of contract employees like Edward Snowden -- intelligence gathering and spying. You name it and, in these years, it’s been at least partly privatized.

All you have to do is read reporter James Risen’s recent book,Pay Any Price (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0544341414/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20), on how the global war on terror was fought in Washington, and you know that privatization has brought something else with it: corruption, scams, and the gaming of the system for profits of a sort that might normally be associated with a typical third-world kleptocracy. And all of this, a new world being born, was reflected in a tiny way in Hillary Clinton’s very personal decision about her emails.

Though it’s a subject I know so much less about, this kind of privatization (and the corruption that goes with it) is undoubtedly underway in the non-war-making, non-security-projecting part of the American state as well.

[boutons_deux]

3. The De-legitimization of Congress and the Presidency

On a third front, American “confidence” in the three classic check-and-balance branches of government, as measured by polling outfits, continues to fall. In 2014, Americans expressing (http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages/HTML%20Reports/confidence-in-institutions-trends-in-americans-attitudes-toward-government-media-and-business0310-2333.aspx) a “great deal of confidence” in the Supreme Court hit a new low of 23%; in the presidency, it was 11%, and in Congress a bottom-scraping 5%. (The military, on the other hand, registers at 50%.) The figures for “hardly any confidence at all” are respectively 20%, 44%, and more than 50%. All are in or near record-breaking territory for the last four decades.

It seems fair to say that in recent years Congress has been engaged in a process of delegitimizing itself. Where that body once had the genuine power to declare war, for example, it is now “debating” in a desultory fashion (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/us/congress-shows-a-lack-of-enthusiasm-for-giving-obama-war-powers-to-fight-isis.html) an “authorization” for a war against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, and possibly elsewhere that has already been underway for eight months and whose course, it seems, will be essentially unaltered, whether Congress authorizes it or not.

What would President Harry Truman, who once famously ran a presidential campaign against a “do-nothing (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/01/do-nothing-congress-was-way-more-productive-than-the-current-one)” Congress, have to say about a body that truly can do just about nothing? Or rather, to give the Republican war hawks in that new Congress their due, not quite nothing. They are proving capable of acting effectively to delegitimize the presidency as well. House Majority Leader John Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undercut the president's Iranian nuclear negotiations and the letter (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/09/text-of-gop-senators-letter-to-irans-leaders-on-nuclear-talks/)signed by 47 Republican senators and directed to the Iranian ayatollahs are striking examples of this. They are visibly meant to tear down an “imperial presidency” that Republicans gloried in not so long ago.

The radical nature of that letter, not as an act of state but of its de-legitimization, was noted even in Iran, where fundamentalist Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proclaimed (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/world/middleeast/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-criticizes-republicans-letter-on-iran-nuclear-talks.html) it “a sign of a decline in political ethics and the destruction of the American establishment from within.” Here, however, the letter is either being covered as a singularly extreme one-off act (“treason! (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/curtis-houck/2015/03/12/nbc-touts-petition-alleging-gop-senators-committed-treason-and)”) or, as Jon Stewart did (http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ial564/under-miner) on “The Daily Show,” as part of a repetitive (http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/11/opinions/stanley-congress-iran-letter/) tit-for-tat between Democrats and Republicans over who controls foreign policy. It is, in fact, neither. It represents part of a growing pattern in which Congress becomes an ever less effective body, except in its willingness to take on (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/us/politics/struggling-in-congress-republicans-unite-on-foreign-policy.html) and potentially take out the presidency.

In the twenty-first century, all that “small government” Republicans and “big government” Democrats can agree on is offering essentially unconditional support to the military and the national security state. The Republican Party -- its various factions increasingly at each other’s throats almost as often as at those of the Democrats -- seems reasonably united solely on issues of war-making and security. As for the Democrats, an unpopular administration, facing constant attack by those who loath President Obama, has kept its footing in part by allying with and fusing with the national security state. A president who came into office rejecting torture and promoting sunshine and transparency (http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20090121/index.htm) in government has, in the course of six-plus years, come to identify himself almost totally with the U.S. military, the CIA, the NSA, and the like. While it has launched an unprecedented campaign (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175500/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_in_washington,_fear_th e_silence,_not_the_noise/) against whistleblowers and leakers (as well as sunshine and transparency), the Obama White House has proved a powerful enabler of, but also remarkably dependent upon, that state-within-a-state, a strange fate for “the imperial presidency.”

4. The Rise of the National Security State as the Fourth Branch of Government

One “branch” of government is, however, visibly on the rise and rapidly gaining independence from just about any kind of oversight. Its ability to enact its wishes with almost no opposition in Washington is a striking feature of our moment. But while the symptoms of this process are regularly reported, the overall phenomenon -- the creation of ade facto fourth branch of government -- gets remarkably little attention. In the war on terror era, the national security state has come into its own. Its growth (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/) has been phenomenal. Though it’s seldom pointed out, it should be considered remarkable that in this period we gained a second full-scale “defense department,” the Department of Homeland Security, and that it and the Pentagon have become even more entrenched, each surrounded by its own growing “complex” of private corporations, lobbyists, and allied politicians. The militarization of the country has, in these years, proceeded apace.

Meanwhile, the duplication to be found in the U.S. Intelligence Community with its 17 major agencies (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175901/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_entering_the_intelligence_l abyrinth/) and outfits is staggering. Its growing ability to surveil and spy on a global scale, including on its own citizens, puts the totalitarian states of the twentieth century to shame (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_you_are_our_secret/). That the various parts of the national security state can act in just about any fashion without fear of accountability (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175833/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_knowledge_is_crime/) in a court of law is by now too obvious to belabor. As wealth has traveled upwards in American society in ways not seen since the first Gilded Age, so taxpayer dollars have migrated into the national security state in an almost plutocratic fashion.

New reports regularly surface about the further activities of parts of that state. In recent weeks, for instance, we learned from Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley of the Intercept
that the CIA has spent years trying to break the encryption (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/) on Apple iPhones and iPads; it has, that is, been aggressively seeking to attack an all-American corporation (even if significant parts of its production process are actually in China). Meanwhile, Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal reported (http://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-gave-justice-department-secret-phone-scanning-technology-1426009924) that the CIA, an agency barred from domestic spying operations of any sort, has been helping the U.S. Marshals Service (part of the Justice Department) create an airborne digital dragnet on American cell phones. Planes flying out of five U.S. cities carry a form of technology that "mimics a cellphone tower." This technology, developed and tested in distant American war zones and now brought to "the homeland," is just part of the ongoing militarization of the country from its borders (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175834/tomgram%3A_todd_miller,_the_creation_of_a_border_s ecurity_state/) to its police forces (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175881/tomgram%3A_matthew_harwood,_one_nation_under_swat/). And there’s hardly been a week since Edward Snowden first released crucial NSA documents in June 2013 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/series/the-snowden-files) when such “advances” haven’t been in the news.

News also regularly bubbles up about the further expansion, reorganization, and upgrading of parts of the intelligence world, the sorts of reports that have become the barely noticed background hum of our lives. Recently, for instance, Director John Brennan announced (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-plans-major-reorganization-and-a-focus-on-digital-espionage/2015/03/06/87e94a1e-c2aa-11e4-9ec2-b418f57a4a99_story.html) a major reorganization of the CIA meant to break down (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/06/spies-now-cia-director-announces-major-restructuring/) the classic separation between spies and analysts at the Agency, while creating a new Directorate of Digital Innovation responsible for, among other things, cyberwarfare and cyberespionage. At about the same time, according to (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/world/middleeast/us-intensifies-effort-to-blunt-isis-message.html) the New York Times, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, an obscure State Department agency, was given a new and expansive role in coordinating “all the existing attempts at countermessaging [against online propaganda by terror outfits like the Islamic State] by much larger federal departments, including the Pentagon, Homeland Security and intelligence agencies.”

This sort of thing is par for the course in an era in which the national security state has only grown stronger, endlessly elaborating, duplicating, and overlapping the various parts of its increasingly labyrinthine structure. And keep in mind that, in a structure that has fought hard (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175526/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_joining_the_whistleblo wers%27_club/)to keep what it's doing cloaked (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/16/whistleblowers-double-standard-obama-david-petraeus-chelsea-manning) in secrecy, there is so much more (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/14/congress-wont-protect-us-from-the-surveillance-state-theyll-enhance-it) that we don’t know. Still, we should know enough to realize that this ongoing process reflects something new in our American world (even if no one cares to notice).

5. The Demobilization of the American People

In The Age of Acquiescence (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316185434/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20), a new book about America’s two Gilded Ages, Steve Fraser asks why it was that, in the nineteenth century, another period of plutocratic excesses, concentration of wealth and inequality, buying of politicians, and attempts to demobilize the public, Americans took to the streets with such determination and in remarkable numbers over long periods of time to protest their treatment, and stayed there even when the brute power of the state was called out against them. In our own moment, Fraser wonders, why has the silence of the public in the face of similar developments been so striking?

After all, a grim new American system is arising before our eyes. Everything we once learned in the civics textbooks of our childhoods about how our government works now seems askew, while the growth of poverty, the flatlining of wages, the rise of the .01%, the collapse of labor, and the militarization of society are all evident.

The process of demobilizing the public certainly began with the military. It was initially a response to the disruptive and rebellious (https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html) draftees of the Vietnam-era. In 1973, at the stroke of a presidential pen, the citizen’s army was declared no more, the raising of new recruits was turned over to advertising agencies (a preview of the privatization of the state to come), and the public was sent home, never again to meddle in military affairs. Since 2001, that form of demobilization has been etched in stone and transformed (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175904/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_inside_the_american_terrord ome) into a way of life in the name of the “safety” and “security” of the public.

Since then, “we the people” have made ourselves felt in only three disparate ways: from the left in the Occupy movement, which, with its slogans about the 1% and the 99%, put the issue of growing economic inequality on the map of American consciousness; from the right, in the Tea Party movement, a complex expression of discontent backed and at least partially funded (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tea_Party) by right-wing operatives and billionaires, and aimed at the de-legitimization of the “nanny state”; and the recent round of post-Ferguson protests spurred at least in part by the militarization of the police in black and brown communities around the country.

The Birth of a New System

Otherwise, a moment of increasing extremity has also been a moment of -- to use Fraser’s word -- “acquiescence.” Someday, we’ll assumedly understand far better how this all came to be. In the meantime, let me be as clear as I can be about something that seems murky indeed: this period doesn’t represent a version, no matter how perverse or extreme, of politics as usual; nor is the 2016 campaign an election as usual; nor are we experiencing Washington as usual. Put together our 1% elections, the privatization of our government, the de-legitimization of Congress and the presidency, as well as the empowerment of the national security state and the U.S. military, and add in the demobilization of the American public (in the name of protecting us from terrorism), and you have something like a new ballgame.

While significant planning has been involved in all of this, there may be no ruling pattern or design. Much of it may be happening in a purely seat-of-the-pants fashion. In response, there has been no urge to officially declare that something new is afoot, let alone convene a new constitutional convention. Still, don’t for a second think that the American political system isn’t being rewritten on the run by interested parties in Congress, our present crop of billionaires, corporate interests, lobbyists, the Pentagon, and the officials of the national security state.

Out of the chaos of this prolonged moment and inside the shell of the old system, a new culture, a new kind of politics, a new kind of governance is being born right before our eyes. Call it what you want. But call it something. Stop pretending it’s not happening.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175970/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_is_a_new_political_system _emerging_in_this_country/#more

[ElNono]

It seems to me that if politicians stopped trying to take away out rights, these wouldn't be issues.

There's always "issues", and there will always be some people on different sides of them. The question is more about what causes people not to participate in the process.

[Clipper Nation]

Mandatory voting would make literally no difference at all. You'd just have more ignorant people voting for which statist their media outlet of choice tells them to.

[boutons_deux]

There's always "issues", and there will always be some people on different sides of them. The question is more about what causes people not to participate in the process.

One of the strategies of the VRWC/1%/Repugs is to fuck up govt so badly (in their own favor), to maintain the rigged status quo, that serious people become hopeless about, disaffected, disengaged, disempowered from the political process. Increasingly losing the demographics, Repugs benefit from low turnout, eg, 2014 mid-terms lowest in 80, Repus romp.

Strategy is working: Americans have said in polls the last few months that (Repugs fucking up) government is the top problem.

People feel their votes are wasted, pointless, so why vote? The oligarchs, 1%, plutocrats, BigCorp get ALL they want, all the time.

[ElNono]

One of the strategies of the VRWC/1%/Repugs is to fuck up govt so badly (in their own favor), to maintain the rigged status quo, that serious people become hopeless about, disaffected, disengaged, disempowered from the political process. Increasingly losing the demographics, Repugs benefit from low turnout, eg, 2014 mid-terms lowest in 80, Repus romp.

Strategy is working: Americans have said in polls the last few months that (Repugs fucking up) government is the top problem.

People feel their votes are wasted, pointless, so why vote? The oligarchs, 1%, plutocrats, BigCorp get ALL they want, all the time.

People has had an all-time low perception of Congress even when Dems were in full command. The problem here isn't with just one team.

I don't disagree about the apathy factor, however. Even if you count gerrymandering, etc, there's still a sizeable portion of the electorate that does not vote, for whatever reasons: satisfaction with the status quo, lack of representation, apathy, etc.

On a personal level I have not ever voted simply because I don't buy into the lesser of two evils. While I understand that they'll never be a candidate that lines up exactly with the way I think, the current showings are very similar and generally polar opposites of the way I feel politics should be conducted, so I can't consciously cast a vote for either.

Forcing me to cast a vote doesn't address my dissatisfaction either, which is why this is the wrong solution.

[boutons_deux]

"People has had an all-time low perception of Congress even when Dems were in full command."

link, for 2009 - 2010? Under Obama, Dems have never controlled the Senate to overcome Repug filibusters.

[ElNono]

link, for 2009 - 2010?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx

[boutons_deux]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx

Lieberman (blocked the public option to satisfy his CT insurance companies), Baucus, Ben "Horse's Ass" Nelson all blocked a reliable Dem Senate majority.

[Nbadan]

Mandatory voting is useless ...we need to reform the way laws are drafted, brought to committee and limit the money that influences this process...we need to overturn Citizens United and
similar laws that give power to money and undermine everything the US founding fathers fought against..,,,Boutons is wrong...the system isn't fucked and un-fuckable...but it does take citizens who are motivated, educated and not so misinformed to change the things for the better...but if you want reform of government...work within the system...hate the current GOP with Cruz, Perry, Walker or Bonner and the prospect of yet another Bush running in 2016? Change it......would rather see Warren run in 2012 than Hillary? Change it....the corporations and extremists in government count on your apathy and distrust in government to succeed...

[Spurminator]

Make Election Day a federal holiday. Involve alcohol like every other holiday. Success.

[TeyshaBlue]

Good post, Dan.

[Nbadan]

Make Election Day a federal holiday. Involve alcohol like every other holiday. Success.

Vote and Tequila day...cast your vote in Texas and get a shot of tequila...thanks kimmel...

[Nbadan]

Or.....we could always let people vote online and prevent fraud with biometrics...vote at your local HEB or Walmart...November is election month so don't forget to vote and your receipt..no campaigning please...

[TeyshaBlue]

Vote and Tequila day...cast your vote in Texas and get a shot of tequila...thanks kimmel...

IN! :lol

[ChumpDumper]

Wrong solution to a real problem?

For those that didn't hear:

CNN reports that when asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voting/) "Other countries have mandatory voting," said Obama "It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly. "The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups. There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls." At least 26 countries have compulsory voting (http://www.idea.int/vt/compulsory_voting.cfm#practicing), according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison. Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections (http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/news/2014/11/13/2014-midterms-defined-by-low-voter-turnout), according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans — more than the population of Russia — skipped out. Critics of mandatory voting have questioned the practicality of passing and enforcing such a requirement; others say that freedom also means the freedom not to do something (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/03/19/obama-broaches-mandatory-voting/25010443/).Watching the CNN clip linked, it didn't really look like Obama suggested making it mandatory. Maybe there was more to it after it cut off.

[Blizzardwizard]

Nope. Mandatory voting is undemocratic. It would be worse in the US where you only have two choices without completely wasting your vote. You've got 'Conservative radical maniacs' or 'We pretend we're centrist but we're really Conservative'.

[The Reckoning]

maybe it'll dawn on obama that less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted because all the candidates SUCK

[boutons_deux]

maybe it'll dawn on obama that less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted because all the candidates SUCK

Has nothing to do with Obama. He doesn't choose the candidates.

Candidates are chosen by the party establishment as the ones most likely to $100Ms in contributions from BigCorp, Wall St, 0.01%ers like Adelson.

"better" candidates, eg For The People, don't have a chance to get the $100Ms they need to buy their election.

[The Reckoning]

Obama sucked too

[boutons_deux]

Obama sucked too

evidence?

[spursncowboys]

It's not a fine, it's a tax!

[The Reckoning]

evidence?

that's like, my opinion man, but extending the patriot act and manipulating the constitution are two qualities I don't look for in a president.

[boutons_deux]

that's like, my opinion man, but extending the patriot act and manipulating the constitution are two qualities I don't look for in a president.

patriot act, shitting whisteblowers, etc are all from the 4th branch of govt, aka, the Deep State (MIC/NSA/FBI/CIA/DHS police state). No Pres, esp not a Repug pres, would ever say no to them.

manipulating the Constitution? :lol

[The Reckoning]

patriot act, shitting whisteblowers, etc are all from the 4th branch of govt, aka, the Deep State (MIC/NSA/FBI/CIA/DHS police state). No Pres, esp not a Repug pres, would ever say no to them.

manipulating the Constitution? :lol


commerce clause


you can spin it all you want but obama catering to big bu$ine$$ and insurance companies, not saying no to repugs, makes him bush 2.0.

the one thing i like during his tenure is upping the minimum wage for federal contractors (which inadvertently helped me. he wasn't thinking about me.) and tackling employers who make their salaried employees work overtime without pay, which should have been done a long time ago.

[boutons_deux]

commerce clause



how so?

[The Reckoning]

how so?

you and your goldfish memory. I won't spell it out for you again buttons.

[boutons_deux]

you and your goldfish memory. I won't spell it out for you again buttons.

you're so mean to me!

the courts, even the right wing courts, said it's all Constitutional.