Daily Archives: November 6, 2012

Politics

Obama

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Samhain                                                              Fallowturn Moon

President Barack Obama re-elected to 2nd term

An Obama victory.  A technical victory on a very technical climb.  Unemployment was too high.  His popularity too low.  There was a rabidly energetic right-wing fringe that gained real traction and power.  The economy struggled like a punch-drunk fighter, getting up, weaving, falling down, standing up.  It was the scenario in which an incumbent loses.

His campaign focused on battleground states with organizing at the grassroots level.  He managed to paint Romney as an out of touch rich guy.   The Obama campaign stayed on message.  It was uninspiring.  It was ugly.  But it was bruising politics at its best.  This one will be studied for a long time.  Especially if Romney’s persistent lead in the popular vote holds up.

The National Journal says this election comes with no mandate.  Well, duh.  A divided electorate is not going to hand out atta boys.  Nope, a mandate will have to be earned, if that’s possible.  I’ll settle for more judicial appointments, defense of the Affordable Health Care act and something decent in regards to climate change.

The lunatic fringe lost two probable wins in senate races with Todd Aikin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana losing what were thought safe Republican seats.  They represent an anti-science, misogynistic, historical fantasy version of politics.  William Cullen Bryant would be proud.

 

 

Travel

A Year Ago

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Samhain                                                             Fallowturn Moon

Valparaiso on Two Levels

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Charles

Spring Moon of the Southern Cross

Valparaiso, Chile

Kate went out today on a Chilean Spirit: Wine and Horses excursion and I stayed behind.

The city of Valparaiso, like Coquimbo, rises from the ocean on a rocky peninsula. Different from Coquimbo, Valparaiso has two levels, a commercial, educational and institutional level near the port with some residential and a second, higher level filled with neighborhoods and little else.

Since the division between the two is quite steep, there are several ascensors located along the hill, funiculars that take regular traffic up and down in gaily colored cars. The fare saja, rising, is 300 pesons and 300 pesos for basada. 300 pesos is the equivalent of .60. At the top of the funicular I rode is the Naval Historical Museum and a lovely overlook with two cupolas with benches, a long promenade and several handicraft stall selling better than usual quality work.

I bought a nice wood engraving of the funicular for $16.

While walking a twenty minute stroll from the embarkation center for cruises, I had several interesting experiences.

The first was Mercado Central, open and buzzing on a Sunday, filled with fruit and vegetables for the most part, but there were also stalls selling wheels of cheese, pickled vegetables and pickled onions. Many men worked here essentially as beasts of burden carrying large sacks of onions, lugs of banana’s, boxes of artichokes.

My destination, Plaza Sotomayor, lay a good way away, so I walked along a boulevarded street with statuary and palm trees in the large planted area in the middle. Though nothing was open and traffic was light I did begin to notice graffiti that interested me.

Whipping out my spanish-english dictionary, I soon became fascinated by: Without profit, without capital. Organize. Revolution to the middle. Communista=fascista. This is a university city, so much of the material seemed to come from students, but nonetheless it spoke to a vital underground political community.

It made me wonder what it would be like to be a radical in one of these countries, say Peru or Chile. The pull would be incredible because the gap between rich and poor is so vast and the government so often heavy handed and greedy. On the other hand radicals here often pay the price. There were several spray painted pictures of individuals with asesenio on top: murderer or assassin. Politics would not be for the faint hearted, especially politics outside the normal order.

Politics

That Mid-Point On Election Day

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Samhain                                                           Fallowturn Moon

Molar, already root canaled, now planed and scaled.  This tooth has had a lot of attention, more than any other.  I hope it appreciates it all.

Our votes have been cast and the lines, across the nation, seem to be long.  It’s now the midpoint of election day, votes still being made, yet polling place closing is much closer now than their opening.  Then the counting and the projecting and the analyzing and the harrumphing and might of beens and could have dones.  Joys and sorrows.

Election time brings my fondest memories of my dad.  Watching the Eisenhower/Stevenson race until the wee hours on our little black and white television.  Going out as a poll watcher to run numbers back to the Times-Tribune.  Dissecting the races, results.  Politics were, in the beginning, a bond.  In the end it was politics that drove us apart.  Vietnam.  Remember Vietnam?

My first election as a voter was 1968.  Never missed an election since, many of them as active participant in party caucuses, conventions, campaigns.  Lot of time on the policy side, too, working Minneapolis City Council and the Minnesota State Legislature, even occasional forays out to DC.  Maybe politics have been my second vocation, running parallel to everything else.

This one has felt more like more molar, in bad need of planing, scaling.  Give me a political Cavitron with which I can trim out excess verbiage, mendacity and cowardice.

 

Politics

Multiple Choice Test

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Samhain                                                       Fallowturn Moon

Filled in the ovals with black ink.  No. No. Amendments.  Yes. Obama, Klobuchar.  With faint disdain.  No.  Bachman.  Yes. Graves.  The rest, less feeling.  House of Representatives.  Council person.  County Commissioner.  Less feeling because the latter two have no candidates I like and on the first my guy has no chance.

Good news, though.  Lines were steady even at 10 in the morning.  The church parking lot was full.  Good turnout usually mean good things for Democrats, so I’m heartened.

Walt Whitman’s poem published below was about an election in 1884, 128 years ago.  That’s a long stretch for a democracy, peaceful transitions of power.  Remarkable, really, given world history.  Even when we consider moving to Canada or Monaco (depending on your feared winner) we do so from political repugnance, not out of fear of political reprisals or partisan violence.

I feel optimistic about this election in that I think candidates I prefer will, largely, prevail.  I fell less optimistic about this evenly divided country in the near term future.  Our current intractable differences make for vilification, not compromise, and we need movement on so many issues, among them entitlement reform, climate change and controlling the costs of healthcare.

Poetry, Politics

It’s Here. It’s Here. Stop the Political Ads Day Is Finally Here! Rejoice.

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Samhain                                                           Fallowturn Moon

The 538 poll column gives Obama a 91.6% chance of winning the electoral college and 50.6% of the popular vote.  As the Wiccans say, “Blessed be.”  and “So mote it be.”

(source)

Here’s Walt Whitman.  We know he would have voted no on the marriage amendment:

Election Day, November, 1884

If I should need to name, O Western World, your

powerfulest scene and show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara–nor you, ye limitless

prairies–nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite–nor Yellowstone, with all its

spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies,

appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones–nor Huron’s belt of mighty

lakes–nor Mississippi’s stream:
–This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now,

I’d name–the still small voice vibrating–America’s

choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen–the act itself the

main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous’d–sea-board

and inland–Texas to Maine–the Prairie States–

Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West–the

paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling–(a swordless

conflict,
Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern

Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity–welcoming the darker

odds, the dross:
–Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to

purify–while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.