QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
“I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
Galileo
“Discoveries and Opinions”
1615
SENSE AND NONSENSE: UNDERSTANDING THE “NEW DARK AGE”
From the editor: The historical dark ages are generally considered to be between the 5th and 11th centuries starting when the last Western Roman emperor was deposed in 476 CE by a barbarian ruler. However, the term “dark age” has also been used to refer to the tension between the religious pursuit of power and the intellectual honesty fueled by reliance upon the power of empirical observation and reason. Galileo and his book Dialogue published in 1632 is the historical centerpiece of the struggle between science and religion. The Christian Crusades against Islam, the Reformation, and the remarkable reign of Queen Elizabeth I were all dominated by this tension between the power of reason and the power of the church. Framers of our constitution very wisely attempted to prevent a re-enactment of the dark ages in this country with the Bill of Rights and the separation of church and state.
The power of a particular religious belief and the power of the state are not coupled in the civilized world precisely to protect democracy from the threat of becoming a theocracy. Yet our children have inherited a world dominated by autocratic forces that would have them live in a plutocracy, a theocracy, an oligarchy, and/or a libertarian society featuring the ideological fantasy that prosperity is created in an unregulated business environment with wealth concentrated at the top.
The conservative message machine including “talking heads” on radio, cable, and major television networks have all, without exception, allowed spin and outright lies to be spewed on public airwaves without follow-up questions. The mass-media message machine has substituted dueling political analysis for “balanced” journalism. Fox News is an unequivocal propaganda outlet. While one drives through what is considered to be America’s “heartland,” the radio is full of conservative talk shows. Fox News is favored on most hotel lobby TVs in America and Canada. The mass media is chasing dollars rather than facts.
When I reflect upon the world in which I grew up and the world with which my children and grandchildren are dealing as they mature, I am struck by the lack of truthfulness in our society’s prevalent narrative. Opinion has replaced news. Spin has replaced evidence. Money has corrupted politics and the courts. Corporations are deemed to be persons. Ideological charter schools are replacing public education. Higher education is unaffordable. K-12 school textbooks distort history. The current societal narrative provides an anti-intellectual seedbed for a new dark age in this country.
In the coming months, The Compass will focus upon 10 keys to understanding the New Dark Age in the United States. These indicators are:
Growing poverty in the richest nation in the world;
Supply side economics;
Repeal of Glass-Steagall;
The Fairness Doctrine abandoned;
Demonizing government;
The “privatization” movement;
Voter suppression;
Religious extremism;
Politicizing the federal court system including the Supreme Court; and
Muzzling the voice of science and the humanities.
The Compass begins this series with an article on a wave of voter suppression techniques currently being implemented nationwide.
Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass Newsletter
(Editor’s note: The list of “New Dark Age” indicators will be repeated in future issues of The Compass. They will be discussed in random order with the highlighted indicator appearing in bold letters.)
THE NEW POLL TAXES
From the editor: The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes poll taxes illegal. That has not stopped the Republican assault upon voters – especially minorities, the elderly, and students. Republicans are afraid they are going to lose in 2012. The weak field of Republican candidates for President is a symptom of the political hole they have dug for themselves by being a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America. Consequently, Republicans are hedging their bets by launching a state by state war against the voting booth. They know their chances of victory are enhanced by preventing people from voting ala the dirty tricks campaign against voters in the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio and the 2000 Presidential election in Florida. The dirty tricks in Ohio by then Ohio Secretary of State, John Kenneth Blackwell, ranged from long lines in the heavily Democratic voting precincts created by too few voting machines to disqualifying eligible voters through a challenge. The dirty tricks in Florida ranged from the butterfly ballot to disqualification of people who had been accused of a felony but not convicted.
Voter suppression tactics past and present are a direct assault upon the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In June, 2011, the Republican legislature in Ohio passed H.B. 194, a law that would legalize a minefield of restrictive voter suppression strategies. The law cuts the period for early voting in half, requires a photo identification, and prohibits poll workers from assisting voters who need help filling out forms. Ohioans are fighting back with a petition drive that would prevent the law from becoming effective this month. But voter suppression in Ohio is the literal ‘tip of the iceberg.’
Two sources help explain the simultaneous nationwide assault on voting rights. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has published an extensive inventory of voter suppression legislation on October 3, 2011. The report is “Voting Law Changes in 2012” and is available on the Center’s website at HYPERLINK "http://www.brennancenter.org/"www.brennancenter.org. . The second source is a Rolling Stone magazine article by Ari Berman entitled “The GOP War on Voting.” The article appeared in the Sept. 15, 2011, issue.
Ari Berman’s article ends with the following warning: “Come Election Day 2012, such problems will only be exacerbated by the flood of new laws implemented by Republicans. Instead of a single fiasco in Florida, experts warn, there could be chaos in a dozen states as voters find themselves barred from the polls.”
The critical Republican communications link at the state level is provided by an organization named the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), funded in part by the Koch brothers. The ALEC helps explain how 34 states dominated by Republican legislatures and/or governors can simultaneously introduce legislation that requires voters to show photo identification to vote. Photo ID bills have already become law in seven states including Alabama, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of American citizens do not possess a government photo ID -- over 21 million citizens.
The Brennan Center report authored by Wendy Weiser and Lawrence Norden identifies five categories of voter suppression that have been passed or introduced across the country. The categories are:
Photo ID laws. Passed in seven states and introduced in a total of 34 states.
Proof of citizenship laws. At least 12 states have introduced legislation that would require proof of citizenship. Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee have passed laws.
Reducing early and absentee days. Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia have passed such laws and at least 12 states have introduced such legislation.
Making voter registration harder. At least 13 states have introduced bills to end same-day or election-day registration. Maine has passed a law eliminating election-day registration. (Note: Voters in Maine overturned this law on Nov. 8, 2011.) Florida, Illinois, and Texas have passed laws restricting voter registration drives.
Making it harder to restore voting rights. Florida and Iowa have permanently disenfranchised citizens with past felony convictions after they have served their sentences in full.
The Rolling Stone article summarizes its investigation by grouping Republican voter suppression efforts into four strategies. They are similar to the Brennan Center study, but provide additional information. They are:
Barriers to registration. Since January, six states have introduced legislation that would impose new restrictions on voter registration drives by groups such as the League of Women Voters.
Cuts to early voting. According to author Berman, “This strategy proved especially effective in Florida, where blacks outnumbered whites by two to one among early voter, and in Ohio, where Obama received fewer votes than McCain on Election Day but ended up winning by 263,000 ballots, thanks to his advantage among early voters in urban areas like Cleveland and Columbus.
Photo IDs. Again according to Berman, “This campaign was coordinated by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which provided GOP legislators with draft legislation based on Indiana’s ID requirement.”
Disenfranchising ex-felons. Ex-Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, restored the voting rights of 154,000 former prisoners who had been convicted of nonviolent crimes. But in March, 2011, “after only 30 minutes of public debate,” current Florida Gov. Rick Scott overturned his predecessor’s decision, instantly disenfranchising 97,491 ex-felons and prohibiting another 1.1 million prisoners from being allowed to vote after serving their time, according to Berman.
The Brennan Center estimates that more than 5 million voters could be affected by the new laws with 3.2 million previously eligible voters affected by new photo ID laws; one to two million voters affected by rolling back of early voting; 262,000 affected by voter registration restrictions; 240,000 affected by proof of citizenship; and 100,000 disenfranchised ex-felons.
Republicans try to justify their current war on voters with claims of rampant voter fraud. The documented cases of voter fraud nationwide in past elections are minuscule and can largely be attributed to unintentional violations by immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware they were ineligible to vote. The U.S. Department of Justice under President Bush conducted a major probe between 2002 and 2007. Out of the 300,000,000 votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted 86 people for voter fraud.
THINGS THAT WORK
From The New York Times: John Wood, an ex-Microsoft marketing director, has opened 12,000 libraries around the world along with 1,500 schools, according to The New York Times. Wood’s story appeared in a recent column by Nicholas Kristof.
Wood’s efforts began in 1998 when he visited a remote school in Nepal. The school had no books. Wood was able to deliver “a mountain of books” via a caravan of donkeys. This effort has evolved into one of America’s fastest growing charities called Room to Read.
Kristof reports in his column that Wood runs Room to Read “with an aggressive businesslike efficiency that he learned at Microsoft.” He tells supporters they are making an investment. He asks rhetorically, “Where can you get more bang for the buck than starting a library for $5,000?”
Wood told Kristof outside one of Wood’s libraries in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, “I get frustrated that there are 793 million illiterate people, when the solution is so inexpensive. If we provide this, it’s no guarantee that every child will take advantage of it. But if we don’t provide it, we pretty much guarantee that we perpetuate poverty.”
“There are no books for kids in some languages, so we had to become a self-publisher,” Wood explains. Room to Read has so far published 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.
Copyright © 2011, The Compass Society
www.compasssocietynews.com
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