Posts published in October 2012

Barrett Rainey Second Thoughts

While standing in the checkout line the other day at my favorite warehouse store, a middle-aged couple pushed a partially-filled shopping cart up behind me. While both were well-dressed, his demeanor told me he was probably retired military. Because of a large VA hospital in our little burg, we’ve a large retired military presence. Usually makes for good neighbors.

Noting my nearly-filled shopping cart, he said innocently “Looks like you’re stocking up.”

I smiled and said “You bet. With gas at $4 a gallon, I’m making fewer trips to shop so I try to fill the list each time.”

“There’s only one reason for gas prices to be what they are,” he said with a suddenly edgy tone. Before I could ask what that was, he continued, “That damned Muslim Obama and his Muslim friends are trying to take away all our money.”

Silence. Somewhat awkward silence. But, always one with a snappy, on-point response to such statements, my retort was – - – “Oh?”

Upon recovery I asked sort of jokingly – deliberately ignoring the obvious – “If you were running for president in a tight, national election, and could control the price of gas, wouldn’t you cut it to someplace around $1.25?”

“He’s not going to cut anything,” the man said. “He and his Muslim friends won’t be happy until we’re broke and living under Sharia law.”

Regaining my composure a bit, I asked “You really think the President controls the price of gas?”

“You bet,” he replied. “And he won’t be happy until the Muslims control everything American.”

“Are there any facts to the contrary that would make you change your mind,” I asked.

“None” was the curt, one word answer.

My turn with the cashier came at that point and we parted. Quickly.

What do you say during such an encounter? What do you think when someone says obviously crazy things like that? What do you say?

While that was the most direct, strident, hate-filled encounter with such anger and ignorance for me recently, it certainly isn’t the only one. It’s in my incoming email file every 24 hours. It’s in “news” accounts each day. It’s the picture of a guy at a Romney rally wearing the words “Put white back in the White House” on his shirt. It’s political campaigners telling their audience we need to “send Obama home to Kenya.” It’s pictures of Americans wearing pistols and waving heavier weapons at otherwise peaceful events. It’s pictures of the President morphed with pictures of Hitler. It’s hate on bumper stickers like one with a rebel flag in our burg saying “I’m paying a bounty for Obama’s hide.” And more. Much, much more.

I’ve been accused by more than one acquaintance lately of being somewhat touchy when it comes to criticizing matters of hate or race when I see public instances such as hate speech, valueless stories of racial issues in the media, bombast from the hate-talkers and just plain blatant racism in mass media or public discourse.

The accusation may – or may not – be warranted. My question in response is “Why aren’t more people angry as Hell and pointing out the same things?”
We didn’t get into this national environment of hate all at once. It’s been building for decades. A little step here. A little give there. Overlooking what should have been red flags about such issues when they came up. Little by little, well-paid, hate-talkers on radio have pushed their dirty envelopes until there’s not much you can’t find on the airwaves today. Strident hate, homophobic slurs, race-baiting, out-and-out lies about nearly any subject – especially the President. Crackpot birtherism insanity. Social, medical and personal issues being passed off as subjects of “political import.” Lies being pedaled as truth when the truth has been proven repeatedly. Political prostitutes being elected to office with open wallets of unhinged billionaires seeking to build a theocracy they can control.

You’re damned right I’m touchy. I’m fed up with it and sick at heart about what’s happening to our nation. When otherwise thinking, middle-aged people can accost me in a store checkout line with the insanity I experienced this week, I’m more than touchy – I’m damned mad!

Free speech. I know. I know! It’s been an issue I’ve defended all my adult life – up to and including jail in the District of Columbia. It’s an issue my heart is fully into. But……………….

We’ve allowed the guaranteed right of freedom of speech to be unfettered by a matching obligation of informed speech. In defense of free speech, we’ve allowed the assurance of it to overwhelm any requirement for honest speech. Factual speech. We’ve even generously rewarded those who pervert it and who foist their perversions on the rest of us.

Do I know how to fix it? No. Not really. But this perpetuation of mental sickness under the guise of a constitutional right is gutting our sensibilities and creating alternate realities for millions of Americans. My daily contact with the I-net is the living proof of that. That and a shopping trip.

Without some sort of concerted national effort addressing this problem, our other freedoms are being endangered. We should all be more touchy. More of us should be damned mad.

Barrett Rainey Second Thoughts

At our house, we voted this morning. As I write this, nearly all of you in other states have another 10 days or so before traipsing to the polls. For us, the campaign is over. It ended with the slight swishing sound of two Oregon vote-by-mail ballots sliding down the intake of the ballot collection box. No stamps. No extra envelopes. No mess. It’s a great feeling!

Oregonians have been taking care of their most valuable labor of citizenship this clean, trouble-free way for 31 years. First, on a test basis for state elections starting in 1981; then permanently for all state elections since ‘87. By ‘95, federal races were added. In ‘98, Oregonians overwhelmingly voted by referendum to continue the process and make it permanent for all elections. We do it all by mail. The single question about the process that remains with me – why doesn’t everybody do it this way? It works!

All the skeptics – believe me, there were some – have long been muzzled. Oh, there are still a few of the “aluminum foil beanie crowd” mumbling about fraud and lost ballots. But even they have used the system successfully and their numbers are vastly reduced.

It works!

Oregon’s statewide elections are run on a shoestring budget because they can be. The six and seven figure costs in other states are gone for us. We don’t need poll workers, poll watchers, volunteers of any stripe. Even shut-ins or other folks who can’t physically get to the polls can vote. And do.

A statewide survey done in 2003 showed 81% of us felt the process was great and should be continued. Not that there was any serious talk of quitting. But just to reassure the “powers-that-be” that we still overwhelmingly supported the idea. Actually, Democrats approved by 85%; Republicans by 76%. And a full 30% said they voted more often and more regularly since the mail idea started. All together now: “It works!”

“And voter fraud? Gotta be some fraud in the process,” you say.
Well, if there’s been such skullduggery, it hasn’t shown up in any great amount. Our Secretary of State says the process is as clean – or cleaner – than states that still use in-person polling places. It just works.

Oh, we still have a booth or two at our county courthouses so the diehards and the purists can make the trip to town to vote the old way, then hand their ballot to a real live person. But, soon, even that will disappear. Especially if gas stays at four bucks a gallon.
Living in a state in which our elections are considered well-run and honest, I’ve been damned disgusted with the Republican-sponsored efforts to keep Americans from polling places elsewhere. Yes, Virginia, it’s all been Republican-sponsored. Not one state legislature with a Democrat majority has tried to limit voter participation using the phony excuse of “voter fraud.” Not one. It’s been the Republican National Committee pushing this “fraud” scheme, trying to keep minorities from voting. At first, behind-the-scenes; then more openly once exposed. Fortunately, court tests of these partisan efforts to discriminate – especially against minorities – have been shot down one by one.

And the irony is this. So far, in 2012 alone, there have been more reported examples of Republican efforts to cheat the system than all the cases of voter fraud prosecuted in the 50 states following the 2010 election!

Study after study – sponsored by reliably independent groups – found there have been no large-scale cases of voter fraud. Period! All this Republican-backed fraud business is another example of trying to apply fixes to problems that don’t exist. Or more properly said, attempts to steal elections. According to such surveys, no state – repeat – NO state is reporting serious, sizeable examples of voter fraud. In fact, when the top Pennsylvania elections official testivied in district court in defense of that state’s new, needless voter fraud law, she admitted she knew of no cases. Not one!

Further, she said she’d not even read the law. This is the same state in which the legislature’s Speaker of the House famously told a GOP audience the new fraud law would “guarantee the election of Mitt Romney.”

North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania and a few other state Republican parties and Republican-dominated legislatures have led despicable attempts to disenfranchise many Americans at the polls. A Pennsylvania district court decision to uphold that law was struck down on appeal. All others lost at the first hearing. As they should have.

But in Oregon. Ah, Oregon. Republicans and Democrats – and all those in the other, smaller parties – wait by the mailbox about two weeks before the national voting day. Taking time to peruse our ballots at home, talk with each other about the election, make our selections and sealing the envelopes, we join political hands, walk to the mailbox and put ‘em inside. Done!

And Oregon’s voter fraud cases? You gotta be kidding.

For all parties! For everyone! IT WORKS!