Why I Will Not Shut Up About the Election Results

In these few days following the election, I have seen an outpouring of rhetoric, whether it be intentionally or unintentionally inflammatory, regarding the reactions of myself and others like me. "Not everyone who voted for Trump is racist!" Some have said. "Donald doesn't actually want to kill gay people!"

Not once in my life have I uttered either of those statements, so I will begin by reasserting that any attempt to refute points I make herein with the above will be categorically dismissed as a failure to even attempt to read and understand what I am desperately attempting to convey to folks struggling to wrap their minds around the upset surrounding these results.

The inherent discomfort I feel stems from a place far deeper than "losing an election." I live in rural Pennsylvania. On the state and congressional level, the political party I affiliate with has not won an election since I've been eligible to vote. I am an ideological outlier, and this is something I have accepted while continuing to build a community of like-minded folks in an otherwise overwhelmingly conservative area. I do not hiss at my neighbors, I do not shout at everyone in the grocery store and presume them to be bigots because that would be one, hopefully entirely untrue, and, two, a monumental waste of my precious time and effort.

Despite the fact that I find myself in the middle of a political island, I have found a profound sense of hope over the past 8 years with the progress I thought we were making surrounding rights for marginalized groups. Things were far from perfect, and a lot of changes still needed to be made, but I was confident that the movements would continue to grow and positive change would keep rolling in.

This admittedly rose-tinted vision I had of the future was shattered over my head like that glass plate The Trunchbull smacked Bruce Bogtrotter with in Matilda. The Saturday preceding the election, a group of several dozen Neo-Nazis held their bi-annual rally against diversity on the steps of Pennsylvania's State Capitol. A black Trump supporter was thrown out of a Trump rally while Donald himself referred to him as a "thug." Kids in a middle school in Michigan started chanting "Build The Wall" in their school cafeteria. Students are referring to classmates as "cotton-pickers," "dykes," and other insults I refuse to type out at a school in Lehigh Valley.

This behavior has been reported at rallies for months leading up to the election, and that's nothing to say of the demagoguery coming out of Donald's mouth itself. And while I fully understand that every individual who voted for Drumpf is not violently racist, homophobic, Islamaphobic, or otherwise wholly intolerant of anyone who has some sort of perceived difference, what I am saying is that the election of him as president has created a space for this kind of rhetoric where those who do feel that way. I am concerned these individuals now have a space that they feel they can vocally and physically assert these opinions without recompense. His vice president (who, as of today, has taken on responsibility for the governmental transition team) has vocally supported conversion therapy for LGBT youth. Because this involves minors, it does not require their consent. Electroshock therapy is often used in conversion therapy. Just to revisit this point, Pence supports forcing children into traumatizing therapy sessions against their will.

As many of you know, I am a student of political science and have spent a decent amount of time reading essays from John Locke, who is considered one of the most important political philosophers in Western history, as well as one of the first developers of modern democratic thought. In his essays Two Treatises on Government, he explores a concept referred to as tacit consent. "Political power," he writes, "is that power which every man in the state of nature has given up into the hands of the society and therein to the governors whom the society has set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good and the preservation of their property."

Without regurgitating his writing further, what Locke asserts in his essays is that in order for a government to be a legitimate, individuals living within that government must consent to it. Obviously, not every individual does (one needs only to look at electoral turnout and note that half of the eligible voting population in America tends to stay home). This is where tacit consent comes into play-- if you accept the benefits living within a government gives you, you are consenting to the burdens the government places on you (i.e. if you use the roads the government has paved, you pay the taxes for their upkeep).

I am vocal because I want it to be known, explicitly, that there is not one fiber of my being that consents to the behavior flaring up as a result of his victory. Do I hope to god that this is a minor flare-up and that minority communities are not in a perpetual state of heightened danger? Absolutely. But, I'm going to be as loud as hell about opposing it until it stops.

Don Sterling: bloated racist pissbaby

So this is one of the few news items that I've actually been keeping tabs on over the past week or so because it's absolutely disgusting. As I'm sure you're all aware, Sterling is under fire for some incredibly racist remarks he made on tape and is facing some relatively stringent repercussions. He's been slapped with a $2.5 million dollar fine-- I'm trying to keep my tears to a minimum considering the man is worth several billion dollars-- and has been banned from all league activities for the rest of his life.

Good.


just look at this smug bastard

This morning, while I was driving to campus, I was listening to NPR and found out that the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, is hoping to have Sterling (why are all these men named after metals) sell off his team in order to further alienate him from the league. It requires 3/4 of the votes from the 29 team owners, and he's confident he has those votes in order to oust Silver.

Even better.

And then I heard what this contributor on NPR had to say and I was actually screaming, in my car, by myself, for the last five minutes of my commute. To be fair, the man is a regular writer for Slate so I probably should have known better, but I digress. This man was defending Sterling's rights to his property (and I'd just like to raise the point of how problematic that language is-- we're talking about a sports team. I realize it's a franchise with merchandising rights etc. etc. etc. BUT. At its core, it is a team. A team of people. I am pretty damn sure people are not property. So gross. anyway) and that it was questionable for the league to make this decision because the tape was "recorded illegally." He went on to say that Sterling is gross, everything he said is gross, but this is "taking it too far."

Um.

No.


apparently the woman on his right is his girlfriend...?

Now, I do not want to speak on the behalf of any POC, however, as someone who is constantly unpacking my own privilege in order to better work in solidarity with my peers, I think this is a huge, necessary step for the NBA. I think what a lot of people are failing to understand in this situation is that racism is not just bigoted, fat-faced blubber-lipped old white men spouting off racial epitaphs. So many people fail to recognize racism because they're not seeing violent hate crimes, they're not seeing segregation-- on the surface, everything points to living in what some are referring to as a "post-racist" society. But it's just not true. 

Racism is an institution. It has been built on for hundreds of years using junk science and legal discrimination and miseducation to create a systemic disadvantage for people who are not white or white-passing. With this so-called "overreaction" from the NBA, the league is setting a precedent. A precedent that they will not stand for racism and microaggressions, that it does not matter how much money you can throw at a problem or how much influence you have within a system, your bigotry will not be tolerated. And that is vastly important. I can only hope that, in the future, other professional sports organizations will follow their example when dealing with this kind of idiocy. So many young people look up to these professional athletes and these organizations, and the NBA setting this kind of example is vital in helping to show young kids what's right and what's not.

So excuse me if I'm not moved by Don Sterling's traumatic plight.
(also he will be making an incredible amount of money off of selling the team so I really feel like it should just be nationalized and owned by the people but I'll leave my Marxist rantings for another time)

Long time, no see.

So, it has been a very long time since I wrote up anything for my angry little corner of the internet.
That isn't to say that I haven't been angry. Politically, I have been irritated almost incessantly for the past fifteen months. By lack of political participation and general ignorance among my peers, the continuous power-grabbing by the United States government, and the childish way that international relations are being handled between important members of the UNSC.
And don't even get me started on corporate subsidies.
But the reason I am here today, snarkily addressing issues in a way that the three people who ever read this are amused by (Hi, Dianna, by the way)((that's my step-mom, folks)) is because of this little guy:

"How quaintly Orwellian!" you might say. "Is this concept art for some revamp of a dystopian novel written during the Cold War?

Oh, how I wish it were. 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is the bureaucratic umbrella for all of the United States' seventeen intelligence gathering organizations. 

Yeah. Seventeen. I was surprised, too. 

It just so happens that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of them. The NRO was founded in 1961 and is responsible for the control of all of the United States' reconnaissance satellites. According to their blurb on the ODNI website: "NRO products, provided to an expanding list of customers like the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense, can warn of potential trouble spots around the world, help plan military operations, and monitor the environment." Cute. 

They sent up a new satellite on the 5th, and had the unmitigated gall to slap that cantankerous cephalopod on the side of it. 

With all of the information about the NSA spreading faster than ringworm on a high school wrestling team, this begs the question:

Who the hell is charge of PR for this branch of the government? 

WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. 

Like, I'm just trying to imagine the meeting they were in that developed this abomination.
"Oh, hey, public opinion's sinking pretty fast, Jim. What do you think we can do about this?

-Well Bill, I was thinking we could fashion up a cuddlier version of Cthulhu and have it doing a sort of Vulcan death grip on the planet. Star Trek's cool again, right?

Jim, you are a genius! What better way to endear ourselves to the international population than to imply that we are always watching them and are constantly aware of their every motion."

It's like Santa Claus, except instead of presents we just have all of our online/cellular communication conveniently gathered into one place. 

...I think I'm going to go live in the woods. 

Never mind the fattie in New Jersey, I have bigger fish to fry

Yeah, yeah I'm angry the human compost machine vetoed gay marriage in New Jersey. But that seems to me like more of a perpetuation of the inevitable, given that polls in Jersey show it'll pass if left up to popular vote.

An article popped up on my facebook feed this evening and, as always, I did a little investigation. Some may call me suspicious; I just like to think of it as someone telling me the sky is falling. I'm still going to look outside to make sure. The title? "Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal."

Sounds a little extreme, right? So, I go to look for the amendment, and it turns out it's shorter than the article itself. The search for the amendment only stays live for thirty minutes before you have to search for it again (it's fairly easy, you can do it here). I'll outline some of the text here.   

"Sec. 1752. Restricted building or grounds

`(a) Whoever--

`(1) knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so;

`(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

`(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; or

`(4) knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;

or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b)."

So... people aren't allowed to protest around protected buildings or grounds? A little rude, well, actually, very rude, but it makes sense, right?
...if you've ever been to Washington D.C., I'm sure you've seen people camped outside the Capitol building picketing this or that. Now,  the Capitol Building is not a restricted building or grounds within the context of this bill.
However, if anyone in that building has protection of the Secret Service, that automatically enacts these rules.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure engaging in physical violence is against the rules from everywhere from daycare to Phillies games, so I'm not sure what the point is in outlining that in this amendment.

So, let's look at this subsection b to see how they're punished, shall we?

"(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is--

`(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if--

`(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or

`(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and

`(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case."
 

I'm struggling finding this section 2118, but what is more important here is that there is that anyone who transgresses this law faces a fine or up to one year of imprisonment. This preventing of "ingress and egress?" That means entering and leaving buildings. So people who knowingly interrupt people's entering/leaving the White House or a building that contains someone protected by the Secret Service could be potentially arrested, fined, and imprisoned?

Oh, okay.

"knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;" 

This definition is loose for a reason. On February 16, Pro-Life demonstrators were arrested outside the White House for protesting. Protesting? Hm... that reminds me of something...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So, what you're telling me is that I have a right to assemble, and that Congress cannot make any law that inhibits that right... and that Congress is in the process of passing a bill that prohibits just that?
That's not the only document allowing the right to assembly. It's also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 20) and the American Convention on Human Rights (Article 15).

People who protest are people who typically do not hold majority opinion (or if they do, it's not been enacted into law-- *cough* gay marriage in New Jersey *cough*).
I'm not sure if you ever heard of this guy, James Madison, but he wasn't a fan of the majority trampling all over everyone, in fact he wrote about it once, in an essay called Federalist 10. It was included in a collection of papers from Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, which detailed how they wished to shape the new government after the clear failure of the Articles of Confederation (spoiler alert: these ideas are incorporated into the constitution). Madison writes:

"Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."

He speaks of "the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority," that is, the tyranny of the majority. In simpler terms, Madison feared that those who held the positions of power who were part of the majority would use their positions to enact their will upon the rest and stifle opposition.

It's exactly what's happening now.

How can the candidates running for office claim to want to go back to the Constitution, when their political comrades are systematically dismantling everything for which it stands? First, they pass the Indefinite Detention Bill, effectively pooping on habeas corpus, and now they're blowing their nose with the First Amendment.

Civil liberties are not a joke, but they certainly seem to be amongst the politicians in Washington.

Gerrymandering

My post today actually has something to do with my last one (continuity? Glee writers, take some notes).
When we last spoke, I had something to say about Joe Pitts. Being the silly person that I am, I neglected to refer to the redistricting lines drawn up after the 2011 Census-- Pennsylvania lost a seat in the House of Representatives, going down to 18. Due to this, in addition to movement of population, the congressional district lines needed to be re-drawn.
Oh, and re-drawn they were.
Today we're going to talk about gerrymandering. It's when district lines are altered to better suit political parties, by drawing them around pockets of voters to ensure they're getting the votes they need to stay in office.
I'm under the impression that it's one of the things ruining the political system of the United States. These lines are being moved around to suit the legislators, with absolutely no concern for the constituents. Before they were re-drawn, my district consisted of the entirety of my county, a very rural area, the lower half of Chester County, also fairly rural, and a tiny chunk of Berks County.
The district of which I am a part of now? It spans five counties. It includes a small chunk of Lancaster, areas outside of Reading, an hour and fifteen minutes northeast of where I live, and then sprawls over to the east to where my family lives, over an hour and a half away. I encourage you to play around with this website, because it shows you how freaking ludicrous the whole thing is.
The way its drawn up now, my representative will be the face of a pocket of Amish farmland, areas of the Main Line, one of the richest areas on the east coast, suburbs in Montgomery County, and some areas outside of Philadelphia that are full of lower-income families.
How the HELL is anyone supposed to come up with ideas to represent that kind of area? How do you choose what legislation to support? WHY IS THIS OKAY.

Short post is short. I'm too angry.

The Devil Inside

This post is not about the exorcism film that has an incredible 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, no, no, no. This is about a much more tangible evil, one that my peers come in contact with on a regular basis without a clue (this is also not about radon).
This, my friends, is about the Congressional Representative of the 16th district of Pennsylvania, representing Lancaster County, as well as a large chunk of Chester and a sliver of Berks (this was as of the 2000 Census). Luckily for Pitts and the rest of the Republicans in Pennsylvania, the district lines had the living shit gerrymeandered out of them once again, making six seats safer, and combining two Democratic districts into one! But don't tell the Republicans that they're being unfair, boys and girls. People who are party of the racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious majorities really don't like hearing about when they're stepping on other people's toes. They feel like they're being attacked! :(

His name is Joe Pitts. Good old Joe has a 100% approval rating from the Christian Coalition, the American Conservative Union, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Joe has a 0% approval rating from Public Citizens Congress Watch, the Human Rights Campaign, the Children's Health Fund, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Planned Parenthood, The National Farmer's Union, the United Fresh Produce Association, Americans for the Arts Action Fund, Citizens for Tax Justice, The American Liberty Association... there's a comprehensive list of all his scores here.

"So what, Colleen? He doesn't feed into the godforsaken liberal agenda! blahblahblahblahblah"
Okay, you've got me there. Pitts is a conservative's conservative, his voting record speaks for itself.

It should be no surprise that he does so well in Lancaster County, a forsaken wasteland of Amish farms sprinkled with trailer parks and scores of pregnant high schoolers. Speaking from 13 years of experience, Jesus is pretty much the only thing going for this place.

Joe is a bad, bad man. He belongs to The Fellowship, who sponsor the annual National Prayer breakfast. They've been up to some pretty nasty shenanigans lately. Uganda has been throwing around the idea of giving homosexuality the death penalty (it's already illegal) and you will NEVER GUESS where this idea came from. You want a hint?

When Bush was in office he appropriated $15 billion for sex education in foreign countries. One of the lucky winners was Uganda. Joe decided to redirect a lot of the money that was supposed to go toward sex education and put it toward abstinence education. This led to an evangelical revival in the country, and, subsequently, condom burnings. 

And this is how a country whose number of HIV positive people went from declining to doubling in an incredibly short period of time. 

yes, I just used memegenerator. Judge me all you like.

Shortly thereafter, a man from one of those 'I CAN MAKE YOU UNGAY' camps went on a little book tour around Uganda, preaching all about the evils of homosexuality and how it ruins every aspect of everyone's life. Ever. (do you want to guess who sent him over there? Hm? Any ideas?)

And that was when the bill was introduced to give homosexuality the death penalty. Additionally, if you knew of homosexual conduct and the officials find out that you're not going to report it, you get slapped with several years in prison and a hefty fine.(I wrote a really crappy paper on this if you want to read more. Or, you know, you could google it).

If that's not enough for you, Joe Pitts "unwittingly" received thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the Pakistani military. Their agenda was to tilt U.S. policy against India's control of the Kashmir region (NY Times article here). Strangely enough, Pitts traveled to India shortly thereafter to broker peace talks between India and Pakistan, and introduced a resolution for Bush to create a "special envoy" to help negotiate peace.
...but he didn't have any idea where that money came from.
He has since donated an equivalent amount to charities.

So far, he is running unopposed in the 2012 election. If anyone who reads this happens to be a United States citizen who is over 25, please run against him. I'll give you my whole piggy bank. And write your campaign speeches. They'll be snarky and fantastic.

2012: No, this isn't about the apocalypse

With 2011 quickly coming to a close, the GOP still does not have any semblance of a front-runner for the 2012 election. Every week, one of them is doing something absolutely ridiculous. Rick Perry put out that ridiculous ad three weeks ago, Gingrich is under fire because he's been claiming all along his wife wanted that divorce, and I'm not going to get started on Rick Santorum because I'm still too embarrassed about the fact that he was once allowed to represent my state.
So, I thought now would be a good time to take a look at the pros and cons of the Obama administration. Has this been the best presidency the country has ever seen? No, but I wouldn't say it's the equivalent to James Buchanan either (once again, why does Pennsylvania have to make such a terrible name for itself in the world of politics?).

Obama came into office after the economy was pooped on by previous administrations. Clinton managed to create a budget surplus by cutting 1/3 of the military; Bush ruined it by sending troops to one out of every three countries.* The Clinton administration allowed sub-prime lending and gave out a mortgage to everyone who could say "Excuse me, sir, I'd like to buy a house," and then SUDDENLY THE MARKET COLLAPSED BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO WERE MAKING $1,000 A MONTH HAD MORTGAGES FOR TWICE THAT MUCH. SHOCKING.
So then Obama bailed out the banks and the failing corporations. ...that probably would not have been my first choice. The results were mixed and we're still faced with high unemployment and I'm probably going to have to go to school for another three years to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of more debt so I can make more than $30,000 a year if I were to step out into the working world after I got my bachelor's degree.
Living the American dream.
Long and short of it: The economy's downfall wasn't Obama's fault, but he isn't doing the best job fixing the problem.

Obama said he was going to revolutionize health care. NAZI! America cried. SOCIALIST PIG! He managed to raise the age college kids can stay on their parents' health insurance, and it will shrink the donut hole in health care costs for the elderly. It increased Medicaid coverage, and expanded coverage to 32 million Americans who didn't have insurance-- that's over 10% of the population
How terrible of him!

Obama said he'd get the troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. He did. He repealed DADT, and he's currently working on DOMA.

It's also important to keep in mind that nothing is passed without Congress' consent, which is hard to come by with a majority of the opposite party in the House of Representatives. Some people think this is because of dissatisfaction with Obama's administration. While this may be true, statistics have shown that the party with the executive in power tends to have a much lower turnout at mid-term elections, usually causing a shift of power in Congress in either one or both chambers. 

That's not to say he hasn't done some things wrong. I mean, the whole bailout thing was a flop, he just signed a bill that can detain American citizens indefinitely without cause (I found an article on it here, however they seem a bit like rabid wolves and their words should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I encourage everyone to do their own research on the bill-- I still haven't read it.). He's also young in terms of politics, but he has some senior cabinet members that know what they're doing (HILLARY I'M LOOKING AT YOU).

So, as we look ahead to the 2012 elections, there are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Obama isn't the crappiest president ever
2. He is not the sole reason for unemployment
3. Please do not, under ANY circumstances, vote for Joe Pitts if you live in his district (more on that later)

I'm still not sure who I'm voting for. If Ron Paul becomes a more viable candidate I'll be looking into him more closely. My opinion on Obamaba changes about every thirty seconds. I'd probably just write-in myself if I were 35.

*this statistic on George Bush is grossly inaccurate. I only said it because it was a nice contrast. You know, numbers and semantics and all that.