First up on today's wide-ranging show, Ralph speaks to political scientist Adolph Reed about how American politics has started taking its cues from professional wrestling and how the left can rebuild itself.
What is this nonsense exploration on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour with Adolph Reed around Bernie Sanders..? The true left will *never* support or follow Sanders again. He utterly betrayed the movement by selling out to the DNC in crucial crippling ways, the most recent and worst of which is to drag his feet, equivocate, and do nothing substantial, to stop Israel's genocide on Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Real leftists now *despise* Sanders. Talk of Sanders leading the movement again is an utter waste of time and energy.
All three parts of this week’s program were fantastic! Adolph Reed’s discussion of the role of the federal government and the antipathy toward government during the past half century was one of the best assessments of how the far right has succeeded in capturing the imaginations or lack of imagination of so many. How can the left rebuild itself? A major problem on the left is that we’ve been fighting so many rear-guard battles for so long that many have lost sight of the big picture and where emphasis needs to be placed in political action. The Black Caucus has been about effective as the Progressive Caucus at a practical and meaningful level. After two stints in both the 2016 and 2020 Sanders’ campaigns at street level, I don’t know if a movement on the left for working people can succeed in any way.
Steve Silberstein’s voter initiative in the National Popular Vote may work, but depending on Donald Trump for any democratizing push may be like getting a fox to support veganism vis-a-vis chickens.
Having taught both basic remedial courses and independent study courses at the community college level for many years, I really liked your dictionary assignment. As a journalist, I’m connected at the hip to the use of words to make arguments and make them in an interesting and clear way.
Again, a tremendous program! Please read my article that appears in this weekend's edition of CounterPunch: “”A Little Learning Is Not Such a Dangerous Thing."
Howie, your points about the left rebuilding itself, losing sight of the big picture, and where to put emphasis are quite related to Dr. Reed’s statement about engaging with people “directly around issues that affect their own lives.”
Economics are central to almost every presidential and Congressional elections, but progressives almost universally fail to make economics the central point of their campaigns. What little discussion of economics they present is almost always of a vacuous quality. Not only is it uninformed, but it is counter to the democratic will of the people. What little is said is often of a ‘we promise to give you everything you’re angry about as it is’ nature.
That inane quote from John Lewis that Dr. Reed cited is a perfect example of this. There are many ways progressives could have accurately countered that balderdash, but I suspect few efforts were made and the efforts that were made were surely not aligned with empirical macroeconomic theory. In many ways, Bernie Sanders should blame himself for that because he was advised by at least one leading economist in 2016 and Bernie chose to ignore her sage advice in order to favor failed neoliberal economic narratives. Bernie got a lot right in 2016 and 2020, but he acted rather cowardly in that respect.
The perception I get from my fellow progressives is that economics is ‘difficult,’ ‘boring,’ and some kind of mythical entity with a natural right-wing orientation. This is not correct at all though. The macroeconomic state is entirely the result of man-made policies. The neoliberal orientation of the economy that Dr. Reed discusses is the product of progressives ignoring macroeconomic matters and ceding it to neoliberal interests which dominate the Democratic and Republican parties.
Just as Mr. Nader correctly states that language matters in his discussion about dictionaries, it is important for progressives to understand the economic needs of the citizenry and how to meet them through citizen-focused fiscal policy. Successful citizen-focused fiscal policies which achieve full employment, and the price stability which comes from that, must be derived from empirical knowledge about the monetary system. The good news is that learning about this is not as daunting as it may seem. I dare to say anyone who can read the dictionary is capable of making sense of empirical macroeconomic theory and using that to develop cogent fiscal policy.
"The Young Turks" make a salient point about capitalism and what Adam Smith taught on the vital role of regulations over corporations and how dangerous it is if these "non-breathers" in the words of Gerry Spence are not held to account.
Not so impressed with analyzing this or that dirty POTUS or administration. Christ, the news, man, get people on with in the trenches and hell-hole experience: Try and put this sickness through the Jewish or Talmudic or Torah filter? The Jewish leaders of Israel believe this is their rules based religion and crusades. Jewish Crusades.
Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report on December 28 in which it reported “deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area” at the hands of the Israelis.
The report goes on to reveal harrowing accounts of sexual assault against nurses, patients, and their companions:
Israeli soldiers forced women and girls to remove their clothing under threats, insults, and offensive slurs targeting their honour. Several women and girls also reported being sexually harassed.
One of the women expelled from the area told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “A soldier forced a nurse to take off her trousers, then placed his hand on her. When she tried to resist, he struck her hard across the face, causing her nose to bleed.”
Another woman reported that a soldier told a woman in their group: "Take it off, or we’ll force it off you."
In another incident, a woman refused to remove her headscarf, prompting a soldier to tear her clothes, exposing her chest. One victim recounted being dragged by a soldier who forced her to press against him, saying, “Take it off now,” while hurling obscene remarks at her.
Similarly, a hospital staff member told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “The soldiers ordered us to remove our hijabs, but we refused. They then turned to the girls under 20 years old and demanded they remove their hijabs, but they also refused. The soldiers decided to punish us by taking two women at a time and forcing them to lift their clothes and lower their trousers under threats and coercion.”
Kamal Adwan’s destruction is latest in the relentless Israeli assault on Gaza’s medical infrastructure as the Zionist occupation attempts to make the besieged enclave unfit for human habitation. The Israelis have destroyed every single one of Gaza’s 30 plus hospitals, some of them multiple times. Palestinians with their resourcefulness and resilience have restored some of the hospitals to whatever level they could. But most of the facilities are barely functioning, if at all. Due to the crippling siege imposed by the Israelis and targeted attacks on doctors and other medical staff, the hospitals lack the resources to treat the flood of patients that Israeli bombardments are creating daily.
Yikes. Oh, more automation Titans. And that was 23 years ago. What a fine mess, Ollie/Stevie, you've gotten us into.
Steve Silberstein founded and served as the first president of Innovative Interfaces Inc., a leading supplier of computer software for the automation of college and city libraries.
And here we are, with all those nerdy types, living large (or just plainly rich) off of those pregenitors of the AGI death grip machine.
Some of us so tire of these Silbersteins and their analyses, when in fact, they are-wre part of the problem we journalists and faculty face:
Without a Rolling Strike, Without Shut Downs and Sit Ins, Without a Brave ten Million Using Molotovs, Palestine (70 percent of the World) Will Never Be . . .
What? When was it a democracy? Kleptocracy. Oh, that new one, as we see the country is for, by, with, because of, always in the pockets of, inside and adoringly aligned with BILLIONAIRES.
Kakistocracy? Government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
Three branches of government bought and sold, and the Fourth Estate just Presstitution, and education? Come on, AGI, bring on the useless eaters, learners, breathers. DO NOT READ books, please. The Kushner-Trump-Stephen Miller Minyan LLC is now under the watchful eye of that foreigner: Apartheid and Neo-Zionist Musk.
I am a loyal and regular listener to Ralph's radio hour and heard Steve Silberstein's recent return to the show. I am a member of 55+, an organization that provides lectures on a variety of topics to a community of adults seeking social interaction with other life-long learners. I would like to invite Steve to speak to our group, but I don't know how to contact him (or someone else on the board of directors of National Popular Vote). Any advice?
PS - I LOVED the interviews with the dictionary reading interns!!
I propose a new political dictionary of terms. In particular, I note almost every political commentator-including Ralph and this week’s guests— are fond of classifying Americans as “far right,” “right,” “left,” and “far left.”In my mind, these terms accomplish little more than polarizing us.
Are citizens, who oppose wars in Palestine and Ukraine, automatically “leftists” or "rightwing"-- as for instance, Judge Anthony Napolitano?
Are citizens who oppose transgender surgical treatment for minors necessarily “far-right” or might their views be shaped by constitutional and medical authorities seemingly or legitimately against the practice? See, e.g., Eknes-Tucker, et. al. v. Alabama, 80 F.4th 1205 (11 Cir. 2023). Are not there genuine Marxists and Communists that share the same view?
Are those who voted for Trump because they have lost faith in the Democratic Party necessarily “right” or “far right”? Or, are those who could not bring themselves to vote at all given the two choices either “left” or “right?”
Can a person labeled “left” or “far left” be against deficit spending now exceeding $35 trillion dollars or are only rightwingers allowed that opinion?
And, can people labeled both “left” and “right” be of a single belief that we live in an oligarchy of billionaires and corporations who are in charge of both political parties, and hence, choose the Tweedledums and Tweedledees we are left to vote for? Maybe that is why the split this year was almost 50-50.
I know I’m getting a little redundant and overlapping, here, but you get the point. Americans, in general, I think, follow no political dogmas; don’t like to be labeled and certainly don’t deserve to be pitted against each other through the use of a bunch of amorphous categories (Hell, the largest political category in our country labels itself “independent.”). Maybe, we should stop using these terms and start debating things on substance.
We need to learn to use the levers of power in the US; I find myself going over the head of people in companies, etc. a lot due to the inability to hold them directly accountable. Growing up in a household that was not well managed I wrote a letter to my father regarding my concerns; he much appreciated that. I've taken on a lot of people over the years but the use of citizen groups to get action is under-utilized and something I have not done much.
It has become clear John Berger, one of our nation's top climate scientists (author of Solving the Climate Crisis), is thankfully right: “What if there were a way to safely pull billions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, to substantially reduce or even eliminate global warming? What if this approach cost relatively little and could be used around the world? What if it also put billions of dollars in cash into the hands of countless working Americans and people world-wide? What if even slashed fuel consumption and made the world more resilient to climate stress?
Well, it turns out there is a system that can do all that. It is called carbon farming, and it just might be key to restabilizing the climate. In the process, it can revitalize rural economies while also producing healthier, more nutritious crops. And, amazingly, it is low-cost, low-tech, and low risk...It's a 'down-to-earth' solution to global warming that employs nature's omnipresent carbon cycle, which constantly shuttles molecules of carbon into and out of the atmosphere, soil, freshwater and ocean. Yet carbon farming is still neither widely known nor widely practiced today.”
John Berger is an environmental science and policy specialist, prize-winning author and journalist. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of California. Berger has written for Scientific American, HuffPost, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor and the USA Today Magazine. He has been a consultant to the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Congress, as well as a professor at the University of Maryland. John cofounded the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and founded Restoring the Earth to bring environmental restoration to national attention.
What the Biden Administration Could Still Achieve:
Mandating Chemical Agribusiness Transition to Regenerative, Organic Agriculture
Approving subsidies for small farmers to return to land appropriated by Agribusinesses Redirecting subsidies from agriculture that kills the soil to helping transition to organic agriculture with organic soil aggregates, organic controls for insects and “weeds” and viable seed for heirloom reseeding. The majority of this nation's citizens wish for this transition.
As discussed on NPR, such a mandate, if applied to countries where millions have abandoned their farms for not being able to feed their families, would end the immigration “problem.”
Also such a mandate would:
Reverse climate change
Have agriculture become principally locally-based
As proven, result in communities becoming economically stable
Increase exponentially the nutrition from crops
Decrease health problems caused by the
preponderance of chemicals surrounding communities
Create millions of jobs in more labor-intensive farming
Keep agribusinesses viable with no jobs lost as
they transition to regenerative life-giving agriculture
Reversing Climate Change by Drawing Down Carbon in the Atmosphere
A government carbon draw-down project supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture and holistic livestock management for increasing the draw-down capacity of the land. Government support to use the Key Line (Yeoman) subsoil plow for restoring land wherever our agribusinesses have killed the soil and where overgrazing has desertified the land.
A nation-wide program to transition livestock production to holistic management methods such as discovered by the Savory Institute. Turning waste into biogas for cooking, heating, lighting and transportation fuel (compressed natural un-fracked gas). That the effluent from biogas digesters be dried as an excellent organic soil fertilizer. All fuel-injection vehicles can be easily converted to run on natural gas.
A government supported program to accelerate reforestation world-wide (in tandem with the shuttering of electric generation stations that burn trees and destroy forests) and provide subsidized fuel logs or natural biogas for cooking. According to the United Nations, the number one cause of world-wide deforestation is the daily cutting of trees for cooking fuel; the only fuel not subsidized, yet the most essential of all.
OTHER POSSIBILITIES:
Increasing the Reflective (Albido) Effect of the Earth
A nation-wide effort to increase the Earth's albido (reflectivity) effect with the support of urban and rural community involvement, youth conservation corps, schools, non-profits, farmers, etc. It is estimated that the painting of rooftops reflective white, the lightening of all residences, commercial buildings and the lightening of parking lots and asphalt roads could make a dramatic impact on reducing global heating. Research is underway on lightening ocean surface waters and using gypsum (one example) to lighten dark soil
Focusing Government Agencies on Additional Solutions
Prioritization of Carbon Draw-Down Efforts over Highly Contaminating Emission Cutting Programs
NASA and other government agencies being mandated to direct research and development on carbon draw-down solutions. That the focus for these agencies becomes the Earth and preventing a Sixth Extinction from advancing to a tipping point and irreversible collapse. (Programs to create carbon dioxide on Mars, for example, should be suspended until a regenerative future for the Earth is assured.)
Ban the highly polluting ventures into space for the enjoyment of the wealthy.
Explore the feasibility of the placement of a space shield at the L1 orbiting point as researched by NASA. Findings showed that the atmosphere of the Earth could be cooled by the penumbral shadow of such a movable shield by two degrees Fahrenheit soon after deployment.
Founder and president of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com) which has launched a block-chain secured website (https://wethepeople.directvotedemocracy.com) now receiving votes on the First Question before the nation asking if we
might prefer to live in a constitutional democracy.
Producer of the documentary "Bolivia Beyond Belief" (on You Tube) regarding the Bolivian Democratic Revolution witnessed while living in Bolivia from 2005 to 2008. In Spanish it is entitled “Boliva Más Allá de la Fe” (Also on You Tube)
Initiated as an Andean Cosmovision Amauta
After working in 20 countries in community development a You Tube channel with 135 videos of the most successful appropriate technologies: "Community-based Appropriate Technologies"
Served as Area Director for South America and the Caribbean for Habitat for Humanity
Reflexologist certified by the International Institute of Reflexology
Founder of Colorado's San Luis Valley Solar Energy Association and Alamosa Childrens' School
Founder of the Rio Arriba Bioregional Council and the Española Valley Community Council, New Mexico
Author of I Am: A Journey Through Times and Spaces and the book The Great Mandate (available via Kindle)
Ralph asked if he was missing something about Democrats not enthusiastically supporting the Nation Popular Vote Compact.
The corporate Democrats, Republicans and even Trump have supported a national popular vote to elect the president.
What you are missing, Ralph, is that if the corporate Democrats, Republicans and Trump have a supported a national popular vote it is most likely not a good solution to the problem and will not provide the alleged benefit to ordinary citizens that proponents claim it will.
The flaw with the National Popular Vote Compact is that it only transfers the injustice of the winner take all distribution of electoral votes by states to the national level.
Citizens that do not vote for the winner of their state not only do not have their votes represented in their state's electoral votes but their votes are changed to a candidate they did not vote for in the state's electoral votes. This is an injustice on the voters in the minority in that state.
Under the NPVC, a state could have 60-70 % of voters in that state vote for a candidate that does not win the national popular vote and that state would award all their electoral votes to a candidate that won 30% or less of the votes in that state. Then the injustice currently suffered by a minority of voters in the state will be inflicted on a majority of voters in that state.
That is making the problem worse- not solving the problem.
I have written to the NPVC asking them to address this concern and received no reply. Every time you have a proponent of the NPVC on your program I comment with this concern and you do not address it.
I also ask, as others commenters also do, for you to bring on someone that is promoting proportional distribution of electoral votes which is a much better solution to the problem of voters not having their votes represented in the electoral votes of the winner take all states.
(note: I have not listened to the overtime segment yet so maybe you might mention it there, but it will probably be a dismissive mention if at all.)
Please bring on a proponent of proportional distribution of electoral votes rather than continuing to promote the injustice of the NPVC that is supported by the corporate Democrats, Republicans and Trump and let your listeners have the information to evaluate both proposals and decide which they choose to support.
I agree with your assessment that ending CU will not be enough. I believe, however, it is an important part of the problem. With 23 states already on board to constitutionally repeal it, we need to follow through. Maybe it will rally the troops to do
more. See, infra.
I also agree that grassroots local democracy is the way to get the rich out of our politics. I just don’t see how to get busy and sometimes indifferent people adequately motivated. That is the daunting task or puzzle that needs to be addressed as does our roll as individuals in helping.
So got any ideas on how two little grains of sand on the beach can contribute in a significant way?
The 23 states are the NPVC. The CU amendments are federal legislation that must then be ratified by the states.
The CU amendments also state that money is not speech. This would mean that there would no longer be a constitutional right to make political contributions.
That is a right I am not willing to give up as it will make further action much more difficult if not impossible.
All we can do is keep after people like Ralph to stop promoting false solutions such as the NPVC and the CU amendments that will actually make the problems worse and keep telling people like Ralph to offer and promote real solutions such as One Demand where people demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes.
I am getting a little fed up with Substack. I have written replies to your comments, but it is very easy to hit a wrong button on the computer and then, your effort disappears. Ig wastes my time. So I don’t know what has reached you and what has not. Maybe Substack can add some safeguard for people like me who can be computer challenged. Add a separate step before the comment flies off into cyberspace somewhere.
But the short answer to your response is that according to the Brennan Center, there are two CU initiatives— one in Congress and one through the states. Second, I know of no authority that eliminating CU will eliminate individual contributions. I have read and re-read the case as a lawyer as I am sure Mr. Nader has. I don’t see it. If you have a weighty authority to the contrary let me know.
CU initiatives require a constitutional amendment. States do not have the authority to change the constitution without congressional action. The states part of the process is to ratify amendments passed by the Congress.
You seem to be confusing two parts of the same process with two separate initiatives.
There is no specific right in the constitution to make political contributions.
The right to make political contributions is derived from the Supreme Court ruling that money as political contributions is an act of free speech.
The CU amendments state that money is not free speech.
Please explain how citizens will have the right to make a political contribution if the constitution is changed so that money is no longer considered free speech.
The authorities I have asked such as Ralph and proponents of CU amendments have not responded to my requests to explain how citizens will have the right to make political contributions if money is not free speech.
You can read and reread the case as much as want and won't find the answer because this about the amendments and the results of eliminating money as free speech and not about the case that inspired the proposed amendments.
If you require someone in a position of authority to agree with me before you will consider my opinion and questions then please ask Ralph and proponents of CU amendments to address this question.
I guess we exhausted that issue. I guess we could argue on, but nobody’s listening anyhow.
How we elect presidents, however, seems to be a lesser problem than how we get money out of politics. I see there’s a lot of people working on trying to get Citizens United eliminated. A daunting task but worth the effort and then some. Wish I could figure out how to get more people involved, but I’m just a grain of sand on that beach.
Steve reads every comment. Maybe he can get Ralph to do an episode comparing the merits of NPVC vs. proportional distribution of electoral votes.
Getting money out of politics is not the problem. Getting BIG money out of politics is the problem.
The Overturn Citizens United Amendments are another false solution designed to distract people from real solutions, make people invest their time, effort and treasure on a useless strategy and will also only make the problem worse if it were to be passed, ratified and implemented twenty years or more from now.
There is a much more achievable strategy that does not require a Constitutional amendment, can begin being effective in 2026 and make major progress towards removing big money in 4-6 years.
People can demand that politicians do not take big money and enforce that demand with their votes. You may have heard of this strategy- it's called democracy.
I have been trying to get Ralph to discuss this strategy for ten years and found it to be a daunting task as Ralph has not responded to this grain of sand in a meaningful way even though he said on Washington Journal (10-24-2018 about 13 minutes in) that he would have me on the Radio Hour to discuss it.
This grain of sand will not be washed away. But one grain of sand does not provide enough of an irritant to get addressed.
But just a few more grains of sand can get Ralph to address this strategy and that could lead to a sandstorm that could sandblast the big money out of politics before it is too late.
2. Historically, the EC has corrupted the election process: The political parties concentrate on the citizens in a handful of swing states, ignoring those in the majority of the other states. Even worse, to secure votes, the parties compete to see which one can provide more economic goodies to the swing states at the expense of taxpayers in other states.
3.The EC disenfranchises up to 50% of the voters in each state: In the majority of states up to half the voters don’t count. For instance, if blue presidential candidate beats red candidate, 50.01% to 49.9% in any particular state, 49.99% of that state’s electorate has been effectively disenfranchised. Their votes are cancelled out because all electoral votes are awarded to the blue candidate. Even worse, on important occasions in our history (Bush v Gore for instance), the votes of a majority of Americans can be disenfranchised by the illogical EC system. See, e.g., Brennan Center, supra.
4.Passage of the National Popular Vote Initiative will have the identical effect as a Constitutional amendment in favor of Presidential election by majority vote. I think we have no argument between us that presidential election by national majority vote is by far a better and fairer system and is favored by the vast majority of Americans. A Constitutional Amendment has proved impossible thus far notwithstanding. The National Popular Vote Initiative accomplishes the same exact thing by a different and more easily obtained route.
So I don’t understand the opposition, except from doctrinaire party members where their party’s candidate always wins in their particular state. However, in a one person one vote democratic system it is counter-productive. I wonder for instance how much better off the world would have been if Gore had become President. I, for one, tend to believe considerably. I think the “majority” of Americans would agree.
In a state with 15 electoral votes under the NPVC if one of those candidates won the national popular vote all the state's electoral votes would go to that candidate while the other got no electoral votes. If neither candidate won the national popular vote then both candidates would get no electoral votes.
With proportional distribution of electoral votes each candidate would get 7 electoral votes and the winner of the state would get the left over electoral vote.
I see. I’m thick these days. Proportional electoral vote representation would certainly be better than what we have now I don’t know the mathematics of it, but it probably would guarantee that the popular vote always won as a practical matter.
As a practical matter, however, therefore advanced in the Popular vote initiative. One would think they would’ve considered the proportional vote system your advocating???
Sorry for the occasional grammatical mistakes. My thumbs are pretty fat so that’s why the spelling errors.
"They" probably did consider proportional distribution of electoral votes and realized it would be a real solution to a real problem which is not a motivating factor for "them".
They usually look for or create something to distract people from real solutions to real problems and spend their time working on a false solution that will not solve the problem and the NPVC fits the bill by getting people to think the problem is that the popular vote doesn't always align with the electoral vote rather than the real problem of the winner take all distribution of electoral votes which the NPVC does not solve and would actually makes worse.
My guess is simpler and less conspiratorial: To achieve a proportional solution, they would need to achieve a constitutional amendment, which would be impossible. Virtually all the states would have to agree to the change. Thus, they went the achievable route of just getting enough states to nullify the electoral college vote.
Not a good guess. States can change the way they distribute electoral votes without changing the Constitution or the NPVC would require a constitutional amendment. Two states already distribute electoral votes proportionally.
Are you saying the electoral college system which results in a few swing states deciding our Presidential elections is superior to the election being decided by a majority vote?
Today is the college football playoffs. Imagine if the team with the least amount of points could be declared the winner, based upon some nonsensical recomputation?
Say Texas wins 21 to 20. Oh wait. Let’s give the game to Arizona because they scored the most points in the fourth quarter or whatever. Do you think rational people in a country based ostensibly on democratic majority rule would find the result satisfying?
We do need some protections from pure majority rule. The current implementation of the electoral college which results in a few swing states deciding our elections can be remedied as you said by manipulating the electoral college.
The NPVC manipulates the electoral college in a way that makes the winner take all problem worse by transferring the injustice from the state to the national level. Proportional distribution of electoral votes eliminates the injustice by awarding electoral votes on a proportional basis so that all voters have their votes represented in the electoral votes.
Do you think people would feel satisfied if they were part of a state in the compact and the candidate they voted for won 70% of that state's vote but their state being part of the compact awarded all the states electoral votes to a different candidate that won the national popular vote?
Living in a red state, it’s a little silly to vote when you know your vote does not count unless you vote red. I kind of like the idea that the national majority wins- even though the only way to achieve it is to manipulate the electoral college system.
It is nice when the electoral vote and the national popular vote align with each other. But it is not constitutionally required and it is okay in my opinion and in the constitution if in a close election it does not align.
It is not okay in my opinion if the constitutionally allowable manipulation of the electoral vote is made worse as it would be under the NPVC so that my vote is represented in the electoral vote by being changed from someone I voted for to someone that I did not vote for based on winner take all at the national instead of the state level. It is not okay at either level.
I'd like to hear a rigorous overview of reasons to not sue not just economic ones such as inability to get a successful outcome. Most of my older siblings are reluctant to do the good citizen things of contacting politicians, going over the heads of irresponsible or ineffective professionals and prefer to shrug their shoulders and "move on". I tend to call out bad actors and go over their heads if I see bad conduct.
As far as the "apprentices" and their going into dictionaries and their experiences, forgive my cynicism but it would be nice if their experiences are real, but they sounded pretentious. I've loved my relationships with books my whole life. I read a physical copy of the Bible, and have since I was in my early 20s going through it each year. Some other members of Bible studies go on their smart phones looking for answers and commentaries. I just don't find small screens to be business-like or serious. When I was in high school here in CT the classics teacher brought us to Yale to use their card catalogs to research topics. Universities such as my alma mater Fairfield U. have extensive book collections that cannot be found online, even if they could be found it is awkward to read them online. Physical books are the very lifeblood of scholarly study; however as Henry Thoreau said you can tell the level of physical health of the writer by how they write. Some day the internet will be taken down by a meteor storm, etc. and then will the device addicts be?
There is a gaping lack of real critical or even "brilliant" thinking these days and I rarely find inciteful comments in study groups. The top 4.0 students have learned assiduously to tell their teachers what they want to hear, students become copies of their professors. Supposedly talented people who received top notch grants leading to degrees lack moral courage and are petrified to stand outside the group. The Clintons are examples of "brilliant" graduates of top notch colleges that sold out their country and never did real physical work in their lives and looked down on those who did. The biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater, has many of these brilliant members of their trading teams who'd never turn whistleblower that anyone with a particle of conscience would. I've heard people in Pharma companies who know their products don't work challenged about their failure to expose these frauds, and their responses are that they pay their high end lifestyles and college tuition.
What is this nonsense exploration on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour with Adolph Reed around Bernie Sanders..? The true left will *never* support or follow Sanders again. He utterly betrayed the movement by selling out to the DNC in crucial crippling ways, the most recent and worst of which is to drag his feet, equivocate, and do nothing substantial, to stop Israel's genocide on Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Real leftists now *despise* Sanders. Talk of Sanders leading the movement again is an utter waste of time and energy.
We got this! https://republia.substack.com/p/the-difference-between-monarchies?r=4ucf6d
I don’t think I’m part of the “real left”.
All three parts of this week’s program were fantastic! Adolph Reed’s discussion of the role of the federal government and the antipathy toward government during the past half century was one of the best assessments of how the far right has succeeded in capturing the imaginations or lack of imagination of so many. How can the left rebuild itself? A major problem on the left is that we’ve been fighting so many rear-guard battles for so long that many have lost sight of the big picture and where emphasis needs to be placed in political action. The Black Caucus has been about effective as the Progressive Caucus at a practical and meaningful level. After two stints in both the 2016 and 2020 Sanders’ campaigns at street level, I don’t know if a movement on the left for working people can succeed in any way.
Steve Silberstein’s voter initiative in the National Popular Vote may work, but depending on Donald Trump for any democratizing push may be like getting a fox to support veganism vis-a-vis chickens.
Having taught both basic remedial courses and independent study courses at the community college level for many years, I really liked your dictionary assignment. As a journalist, I’m connected at the hip to the use of words to make arguments and make them in an interesting and clear way.
Again, a tremendous program! Please read my article that appears in this weekend's edition of CounterPunch: “”A Little Learning Is Not Such a Dangerous Thing."
Howie, your points about the left rebuilding itself, losing sight of the big picture, and where to put emphasis are quite related to Dr. Reed’s statement about engaging with people “directly around issues that affect their own lives.”
Economics are central to almost every presidential and Congressional elections, but progressives almost universally fail to make economics the central point of their campaigns. What little discussion of economics they present is almost always of a vacuous quality. Not only is it uninformed, but it is counter to the democratic will of the people. What little is said is often of a ‘we promise to give you everything you’re angry about as it is’ nature.
That inane quote from John Lewis that Dr. Reed cited is a perfect example of this. There are many ways progressives could have accurately countered that balderdash, but I suspect few efforts were made and the efforts that were made were surely not aligned with empirical macroeconomic theory. In many ways, Bernie Sanders should blame himself for that because he was advised by at least one leading economist in 2016 and Bernie chose to ignore her sage advice in order to favor failed neoliberal economic narratives. Bernie got a lot right in 2016 and 2020, but he acted rather cowardly in that respect.
The perception I get from my fellow progressives is that economics is ‘difficult,’ ‘boring,’ and some kind of mythical entity with a natural right-wing orientation. This is not correct at all though. The macroeconomic state is entirely the result of man-made policies. The neoliberal orientation of the economy that Dr. Reed discusses is the product of progressives ignoring macroeconomic matters and ceding it to neoliberal interests which dominate the Democratic and Republican parties.
Just as Mr. Nader correctly states that language matters in his discussion about dictionaries, it is important for progressives to understand the economic needs of the citizenry and how to meet them through citizen-focused fiscal policy. Successful citizen-focused fiscal policies which achieve full employment, and the price stability which comes from that, must be derived from empirical knowledge about the monetary system. The good news is that learning about this is not as daunting as it may seem. I dare to say anyone who can read the dictionary is capable of making sense of empirical macroeconomic theory and using that to develop cogent fiscal policy.
I really would appreciate a definition of "working class" who is included, who is excluded
Have ever noticed when a disaster strikes everyone asks , where is the government? But This time it's going to be the other way around and
It won't be easy , it won't be fun , they bought the paint,, I hope they do a good job painting the house or maybe they will just take it down .
Good luck America, have a great day my friends.
Biden's use of pardons exposes how corrupt he and his DNC lackeys are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avEZFOuxByg
"The Young Turks" make a salient point about capitalism and what Adam Smith taught on the vital role of regulations over corporations and how dangerous it is if these "non-breathers" in the words of Gerry Spence are not held to account.
Not so impressed with analyzing this or that dirty POTUS or administration. Christ, the news, man, get people on with in the trenches and hell-hole experience: Try and put this sickness through the Jewish or Talmudic or Torah filter? The Jewish leaders of Israel believe this is their rules based religion and crusades. Jewish Crusades.
Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report on December 28 in which it reported “deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area” at the hands of the Israelis.
The report goes on to reveal harrowing accounts of sexual assault against nurses, patients, and their companions:
Israeli soldiers forced women and girls to remove their clothing under threats, insults, and offensive slurs targeting their honour. Several women and girls also reported being sexually harassed.
One of the women expelled from the area told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “A soldier forced a nurse to take off her trousers, then placed his hand on her. When she tried to resist, he struck her hard across the face, causing her nose to bleed.”
Another woman reported that a soldier told a woman in their group: "Take it off, or we’ll force it off you."
In another incident, a woman refused to remove her headscarf, prompting a soldier to tear her clothes, exposing her chest. One victim recounted being dragged by a soldier who forced her to press against him, saying, “Take it off now,” while hurling obscene remarks at her.
Similarly, a hospital staff member told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “The soldiers ordered us to remove our hijabs, but we refused. They then turned to the girls under 20 years old and demanded they remove their hijabs, but they also refused. The soldiers decided to punish us by taking two women at a time and forcing them to lift their clothes and lower their trousers under threats and coercion.”
Kamal Adwan’s destruction is latest in the relentless Israeli assault on Gaza’s medical infrastructure as the Zionist occupation attempts to make the besieged enclave unfit for human habitation. The Israelis have destroyed every single one of Gaza’s 30 plus hospitals, some of them multiple times. Palestinians with their resourcefulness and resilience have restored some of the hospitals to whatever level they could. But most of the facilities are barely functioning, if at all. Due to the crippling siege imposed by the Israelis and targeted attacks on doctors and other medical staff, the hospitals lack the resources to treat the flood of patients that Israeli bombardments are creating daily.
Yikes. Oh, more automation Titans. And that was 23 years ago. What a fine mess, Ollie/Stevie, you've gotten us into.
Steve Silberstein founded and served as the first president of Innovative Interfaces Inc., a leading supplier of computer software for the automation of college and city libraries.
And here we are, with all those nerdy types, living large (or just plainly rich) off of those pregenitors of the AGI death grip machine.
Some of us so tire of these Silbersteins and their analyses, when in fact, they are-wre part of the problem we journalists and faculty face:
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/the-nation-that-controls-the-food-
Even ex-Google Gulag engineers are saying, AI/AGI is worse than climate change!
Watch these two extremely wrong but oh so tech smart dudes with the Russian Jewish backgrounds:
https://youtu.be/NNr6gPelJ3E?si=nelst0RcMs9z1Nud
+--+
Without a Rolling Strike, Without Shut Downs and Sit Ins, Without a Brave ten Million Using Molotovs, Palestine (70 percent of the World) Will Never Be . . .
...Free?
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/without-a-rolling-strike-without
+--+
What? When was it a democracy? Kleptocracy. Oh, that new one, as we see the country is for, by, with, because of, always in the pockets of, inside and adoringly aligned with BILLIONAIRES.
Kakistocracy? Government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
Three branches of government bought and sold, and the Fourth Estate just Presstitution, and education? Come on, AGI, bring on the useless eaters, learners, breathers. DO NOT READ books, please. The Kushner-Trump-Stephen Miller Minyan LLC is now under the watchful eye of that foreigner: Apartheid and Neo-Zionist Musk.
I am a loyal and regular listener to Ralph's radio hour and heard Steve Silberstein's recent return to the show. I am a member of 55+, an organization that provides lectures on a variety of topics to a community of adults seeking social interaction with other life-long learners. I would like to invite Steve to speak to our group, but I don't know how to contact him (or someone else on the board of directors of National Popular Vote). Any advice?
PS - I LOVED the interviews with the dictionary reading interns!!
I propose a new political dictionary of terms. In particular, I note almost every political commentator-including Ralph and this week’s guests— are fond of classifying Americans as “far right,” “right,” “left,” and “far left.”In my mind, these terms accomplish little more than polarizing us.
Are citizens, who oppose wars in Palestine and Ukraine, automatically “leftists” or "rightwing"-- as for instance, Judge Anthony Napolitano?
Are citizens who oppose transgender surgical treatment for minors necessarily “far-right” or might their views be shaped by constitutional and medical authorities seemingly or legitimately against the practice? See, e.g., Eknes-Tucker, et. al. v. Alabama, 80 F.4th 1205 (11 Cir. 2023). Are not there genuine Marxists and Communists that share the same view?
Are those who voted for Trump because they have lost faith in the Democratic Party necessarily “right” or “far right”? Or, are those who could not bring themselves to vote at all given the two choices either “left” or “right?”
Can a person labeled “left” or “far left” be against deficit spending now exceeding $35 trillion dollars or are only rightwingers allowed that opinion?
And, can people labeled both “left” and “right” be of a single belief that we live in an oligarchy of billionaires and corporations who are in charge of both political parties, and hence, choose the Tweedledums and Tweedledees we are left to vote for? Maybe that is why the split this year was almost 50-50.
I know I’m getting a little redundant and overlapping, here, but you get the point. Americans, in general, I think, follow no political dogmas; don’t like to be labeled and certainly don’t deserve to be pitted against each other through the use of a bunch of amorphous categories (Hell, the largest political category in our country labels itself “independent.”). Maybe, we should stop using these terms and start debating things on substance.
Erik Thueson
We need to learn to use the levers of power in the US; I find myself going over the head of people in companies, etc. a lot due to the inability to hold them directly accountable. Growing up in a household that was not well managed I wrote a letter to my father regarding my concerns; he much appreciated that. I've taken on a lot of people over the years but the use of citizen groups to get action is under-utilized and something I have not done much.
Homelessness has doubled under President Biden: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/12/30/xpdj-d30.html
URGENT - CRITICALLY IMPORTANT - ELEGANT SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE- PLEASE READ:
What Needs to be Done Now or Never
Halting the Slide into Extinction and Creating a Regenerative Future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkCXLErz32k
It has become clear John Berger, one of our nation's top climate scientists (author of Solving the Climate Crisis), is thankfully right: “What if there were a way to safely pull billions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, to substantially reduce or even eliminate global warming? What if this approach cost relatively little and could be used around the world? What if it also put billions of dollars in cash into the hands of countless working Americans and people world-wide? What if even slashed fuel consumption and made the world more resilient to climate stress?
Well, it turns out there is a system that can do all that. It is called carbon farming, and it just might be key to restabilizing the climate. In the process, it can revitalize rural economies while also producing healthier, more nutritious crops. And, amazingly, it is low-cost, low-tech, and low risk...It's a 'down-to-earth' solution to global warming that employs nature's omnipresent carbon cycle, which constantly shuttles molecules of carbon into and out of the atmosphere, soil, freshwater and ocean. Yet carbon farming is still neither widely known nor widely practiced today.”
John Berger is an environmental science and policy specialist, prize-winning author and journalist. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of California. Berger has written for Scientific American, HuffPost, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor and the USA Today Magazine. He has been a consultant to the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Congress, as well as a professor at the University of Maryland. John cofounded the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and founded Restoring the Earth to bring environmental restoration to national attention.
What the Biden Administration Could Still Achieve:
Mandating Chemical Agribusiness Transition to Regenerative, Organic Agriculture
Approving subsidies for small farmers to return to land appropriated by Agribusinesses Redirecting subsidies from agriculture that kills the soil to helping transition to organic agriculture with organic soil aggregates, organic controls for insects and “weeds” and viable seed for heirloom reseeding. The majority of this nation's citizens wish for this transition.
As discussed on NPR, such a mandate, if applied to countries where millions have abandoned their farms for not being able to feed their families, would end the immigration “problem.”
Also such a mandate would:
Reverse climate change
Have agriculture become principally locally-based
As proven, result in communities becoming economically stable
Increase exponentially the nutrition from crops
Decrease health problems caused by the
preponderance of chemicals surrounding communities
Create millions of jobs in more labor-intensive farming
Keep agribusinesses viable with no jobs lost as
they transition to regenerative life-giving agriculture
Reversing Climate Change by Drawing Down Carbon in the Atmosphere
A government carbon draw-down project supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture and holistic livestock management for increasing the draw-down capacity of the land. Government support to use the Key Line (Yeoman) subsoil plow for restoring land wherever our agribusinesses have killed the soil and where overgrazing has desertified the land.
A nation-wide program to transition livestock production to holistic management methods such as discovered by the Savory Institute. Turning waste into biogas for cooking, heating, lighting and transportation fuel (compressed natural un-fracked gas). That the effluent from biogas digesters be dried as an excellent organic soil fertilizer. All fuel-injection vehicles can be easily converted to run on natural gas.
A government supported program to accelerate reforestation world-wide (in tandem with the shuttering of electric generation stations that burn trees and destroy forests) and provide subsidized fuel logs or natural biogas for cooking. According to the United Nations, the number one cause of world-wide deforestation is the daily cutting of trees for cooking fuel; the only fuel not subsidized, yet the most essential of all.
OTHER POSSIBILITIES:
Increasing the Reflective (Albido) Effect of the Earth
A nation-wide effort to increase the Earth's albido (reflectivity) effect with the support of urban and rural community involvement, youth conservation corps, schools, non-profits, farmers, etc. It is estimated that the painting of rooftops reflective white, the lightening of all residences, commercial buildings and the lightening of parking lots and asphalt roads could make a dramatic impact on reducing global heating. Research is underway on lightening ocean surface waters and using gypsum (one example) to lighten dark soil
Focusing Government Agencies on Additional Solutions
Prioritization of Carbon Draw-Down Efforts over Highly Contaminating Emission Cutting Programs
NASA and other government agencies being mandated to direct research and development on carbon draw-down solutions. That the focus for these agencies becomes the Earth and preventing a Sixth Extinction from advancing to a tipping point and irreversible collapse. (Programs to create carbon dioxide on Mars, for example, should be suspended until a regenerative future for the Earth is assured.)
Ban the highly polluting ventures into space for the enjoyment of the wealthy.
Explore the feasibility of the placement of a space shield at the L1 orbiting point as researched by NASA. Findings showed that the atmosphere of the Earth could be cooled by the penumbral shadow of such a movable shield by two degrees Fahrenheit soon after deployment.
Looking forward,
Bob Dunsmore
heartmindalliance@gmail.com
phone: 505-423-2468
Founder and president of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com) which has launched a block-chain secured website (https://wethepeople.directvotedemocracy.com) now receiving votes on the First Question before the nation asking if we
might prefer to live in a constitutional democracy.
Producer of the documentary "Bolivia Beyond Belief" (on You Tube) regarding the Bolivian Democratic Revolution witnessed while living in Bolivia from 2005 to 2008. In Spanish it is entitled “Boliva Más Allá de la Fe” (Also on You Tube)
Initiated as an Andean Cosmovision Amauta
After working in 20 countries in community development a You Tube channel with 135 videos of the most successful appropriate technologies: "Community-based Appropriate Technologies"
Served as Area Director for South America and the Caribbean for Habitat for Humanity
Reflexologist certified by the International Institute of Reflexology
Founder of Colorado's San Luis Valley Solar Energy Association and Alamosa Childrens' School
Founder of the Rio Arriba Bioregional Council and the Española Valley Community Council, New Mexico
Author of I Am: A Journey Through Times and Spaces and the book The Great Mandate (available via Kindle)
Grandfather of three
Ralph asked if he was missing something about Democrats not enthusiastically supporting the Nation Popular Vote Compact.
The corporate Democrats, Republicans and even Trump have supported a national popular vote to elect the president.
What you are missing, Ralph, is that if the corporate Democrats, Republicans and Trump have a supported a national popular vote it is most likely not a good solution to the problem and will not provide the alleged benefit to ordinary citizens that proponents claim it will.
The flaw with the National Popular Vote Compact is that it only transfers the injustice of the winner take all distribution of electoral votes by states to the national level.
Citizens that do not vote for the winner of their state not only do not have their votes represented in their state's electoral votes but their votes are changed to a candidate they did not vote for in the state's electoral votes. This is an injustice on the voters in the minority in that state.
Under the NPVC, a state could have 60-70 % of voters in that state vote for a candidate that does not win the national popular vote and that state would award all their electoral votes to a candidate that won 30% or less of the votes in that state. Then the injustice currently suffered by a minority of voters in the state will be inflicted on a majority of voters in that state.
That is making the problem worse- not solving the problem.
I have written to the NPVC asking them to address this concern and received no reply. Every time you have a proponent of the NPVC on your program I comment with this concern and you do not address it.
I also ask, as others commenters also do, for you to bring on someone that is promoting proportional distribution of electoral votes which is a much better solution to the problem of voters not having their votes represented in the electoral votes of the winner take all states.
(note: I have not listened to the overtime segment yet so maybe you might mention it there, but it will probably be a dismissive mention if at all.)
Please bring on a proponent of proportional distribution of electoral votes rather than continuing to promote the injustice of the NPVC that is supported by the corporate Democrats, Republicans and Trump and let your listeners have the information to evaluate both proposals and decide which they choose to support.
I agree with your assessment that ending CU will not be enough. I believe, however, it is an important part of the problem. With 23 states already on board to constitutionally repeal it, we need to follow through. Maybe it will rally the troops to do
more. See, infra.
I also agree that grassroots local democracy is the way to get the rich out of our politics. I just don’t see how to get busy and sometimes indifferent people adequately motivated. That is the daunting task or puzzle that needs to be addressed as does our roll as individuals in helping.
So got any ideas on how two little grains of sand on the beach can contribute in a significant way?
The 23 states are the NPVC. The CU amendments are federal legislation that must then be ratified by the states.
The CU amendments also state that money is not speech. This would mean that there would no longer be a constitutional right to make political contributions.
That is a right I am not willing to give up as it will make further action much more difficult if not impossible.
All we can do is keep after people like Ralph to stop promoting false solutions such as the NPVC and the CU amendments that will actually make the problems worse and keep telling people like Ralph to offer and promote real solutions such as One Demand where people demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes.
Dear Don,
First my general complaint:
I am getting a little fed up with Substack. I have written replies to your comments, but it is very easy to hit a wrong button on the computer and then, your effort disappears. Ig wastes my time. So I don’t know what has reached you and what has not. Maybe Substack can add some safeguard for people like me who can be computer challenged. Add a separate step before the comment flies off into cyberspace somewhere.
But the short answer to your response is that according to the Brennan Center, there are two CU initiatives— one in Congress and one through the states. Second, I know of no authority that eliminating CU will eliminate individual contributions. I have read and re-read the case as a lawyer as I am sure Mr. Nader has. I don’t see it. If you have a weighty authority to the contrary let me know.
Erik
CU initiatives require a constitutional amendment. States do not have the authority to change the constitution without congressional action. The states part of the process is to ratify amendments passed by the Congress.
You seem to be confusing two parts of the same process with two separate initiatives.
There is no specific right in the constitution to make political contributions.
The right to make political contributions is derived from the Supreme Court ruling that money as political contributions is an act of free speech.
The CU amendments state that money is not free speech.
Please explain how citizens will have the right to make a political contribution if the constitution is changed so that money is no longer considered free speech.
The authorities I have asked such as Ralph and proponents of CU amendments have not responded to my requests to explain how citizens will have the right to make political contributions if money is not free speech.
You can read and reread the case as much as want and won't find the answer because this about the amendments and the results of eliminating money as free speech and not about the case that inspired the proposed amendments.
If you require someone in a position of authority to agree with me before you will consider my opinion and questions then please ask Ralph and proponents of CU amendments to address this question.
Don, I replied on your Substack account. let me know if you got it.
Thanks,
Erik
I guess we exhausted that issue. I guess we could argue on, but nobody’s listening anyhow.
How we elect presidents, however, seems to be a lesser problem than how we get money out of politics. I see there’s a lot of people working on trying to get Citizens United eliminated. A daunting task but worth the effort and then some. Wish I could figure out how to get more people involved, but I’m just a grain of sand on that beach.
Steve reads every comment. Maybe he can get Ralph to do an episode comparing the merits of NPVC vs. proportional distribution of electoral votes.
Getting money out of politics is not the problem. Getting BIG money out of politics is the problem.
The Overturn Citizens United Amendments are another false solution designed to distract people from real solutions, make people invest their time, effort and treasure on a useless strategy and will also only make the problem worse if it were to be passed, ratified and implemented twenty years or more from now.
There is a much more achievable strategy that does not require a Constitutional amendment, can begin being effective in 2026 and make major progress towards removing big money in 4-6 years.
People can demand that politicians do not take big money and enforce that demand with their votes. You may have heard of this strategy- it's called democracy.
I have been trying to get Ralph to discuss this strategy for ten years and found it to be a daunting task as Ralph has not responded to this grain of sand in a meaningful way even though he said on Washington Journal (10-24-2018 about 13 minutes in) that he would have me on the Radio Hour to discuss it.
This grain of sand will not be washed away. But one grain of sand does not provide enough of an irritant to get addressed.
But just a few more grains of sand can get Ralph to address this strategy and that could lead to a sandstorm that could sandblast the big money out of politics before it is too late.
Din, enjoy the debate. Looks like we won’t agree on this, but here’s my rebuttal:
1. From its beginning, the electoral college[EC] was a bad idea and everybody knew it. As one scholar puts it: “It wasn’t like the Founders said, ‘Hey, what a great idea! This is the preferred way to select the chief executive, period. They were tired, impatient, frustrated. They cobbled together this plan because they couldn’t agree on anything else.” https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention, See also, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/electoral-college-explained.
2. Historically, the EC has corrupted the election process: The political parties concentrate on the citizens in a handful of swing states, ignoring those in the majority of the other states. Even worse, to secure votes, the parties compete to see which one can provide more economic goodies to the swing states at the expense of taxpayers in other states.
3.The EC disenfranchises up to 50% of the voters in each state: In the majority of states up to half the voters don’t count. For instance, if blue presidential candidate beats red candidate, 50.01% to 49.9% in any particular state, 49.99% of that state’s electorate has been effectively disenfranchised. Their votes are cancelled out because all electoral votes are awarded to the blue candidate. Even worse, on important occasions in our history (Bush v Gore for instance), the votes of a majority of Americans can be disenfranchised by the illogical EC system. See, e.g., Brennan Center, supra.
4.Passage of the National Popular Vote Initiative will have the identical effect as a Constitutional amendment in favor of Presidential election by majority vote. I think we have no argument between us that presidential election by national majority vote is by far a better and fairer system and is favored by the vast majority of Americans. A Constitutional Amendment has proved impossible thus far notwithstanding. The National Popular Vote Initiative accomplishes the same exact thing by a different and more easily obtained route.
So I don’t understand the opposition, except from doctrinaire party members where their party’s candidate always wins in their particular state. However, in a one person one vote democratic system it is counter-productive. I wonder for instance how much better off the world would have been if Gore had become President. I, for one, tend to believe considerably. I think the “majority” of Americans would agree.
You seem to misunderstand what my argument is.
I am not arguing that the electoral college should be maintained as is which is what you are arguing against.
I am arguing that a proportional distribution of electoral votes is a better manipulation of the electoral college than the NPVC.
But if you want to go back to Gore vs. Bush- the world would be much better off if Ralph had won that election.
For example, your 50.1% to 49.9% scenario.
In a state with 15 electoral votes under the NPVC if one of those candidates won the national popular vote all the state's electoral votes would go to that candidate while the other got no electoral votes. If neither candidate won the national popular vote then both candidates would get no electoral votes.
With proportional distribution of electoral votes each candidate would get 7 electoral votes and the winner of the state would get the left over electoral vote.
I see. I’m thick these days. Proportional electoral vote representation would certainly be better than what we have now I don’t know the mathematics of it, but it probably would guarantee that the popular vote always won as a practical matter.
As a practical matter, however, therefore advanced in the Popular vote initiative. One would think they would’ve considered the proportional vote system your advocating???
Sorry for the occasional grammatical mistakes. My thumbs are pretty fat so that’s why the spelling errors.
"They" probably did consider proportional distribution of electoral votes and realized it would be a real solution to a real problem which is not a motivating factor for "them".
They usually look for or create something to distract people from real solutions to real problems and spend their time working on a false solution that will not solve the problem and the NPVC fits the bill by getting people to think the problem is that the popular vote doesn't always align with the electoral vote rather than the real problem of the winner take all distribution of electoral votes which the NPVC does not solve and would actually makes worse.
My guess is simpler and less conspiratorial: To achieve a proportional solution, they would need to achieve a constitutional amendment, which would be impossible. Virtually all the states would have to agree to the change. Thus, they went the achievable route of just getting enough states to nullify the electoral college vote.
Not a good guess. States can change the way they distribute electoral votes without changing the Constitution or the NPVC would require a constitutional amendment. Two states already distribute electoral votes proportionally.
Good to hear from you Don.
Are you saying the electoral college system which results in a few swing states deciding our Presidential elections is superior to the election being decided by a majority vote?
Today is the college football playoffs. Imagine if the team with the least amount of points could be declared the winner, based upon some nonsensical recomputation?
Say Texas wins 21 to 20. Oh wait. Let’s give the game to Arizona because they scored the most points in the fourth quarter or whatever. Do you think rational people in a country based ostensibly on democratic majority rule would find the result satisfying?
We do need some protections from pure majority rule. The current implementation of the electoral college which results in a few swing states deciding our elections can be remedied as you said by manipulating the electoral college.
The NPVC manipulates the electoral college in a way that makes the winner take all problem worse by transferring the injustice from the state to the national level. Proportional distribution of electoral votes eliminates the injustice by awarding electoral votes on a proportional basis so that all voters have their votes represented in the electoral votes.
Do you think people would feel satisfied if they were part of a state in the compact and the candidate they voted for won 70% of that state's vote but their state being part of the compact awarded all the states electoral votes to a different candidate that won the national popular vote?
Living in a red state, it’s a little silly to vote when you know your vote does not count unless you vote red. I kind of like the idea that the national majority wins- even though the only way to achieve it is to manipulate the electoral college system.
It is nice when the electoral vote and the national popular vote align with each other. But it is not constitutionally required and it is okay in my opinion and in the constitution if in a close election it does not align.
It is not okay in my opinion if the constitutionally allowable manipulation of the electoral vote is made worse as it would be under the NPVC so that my vote is represented in the electoral vote by being changed from someone I voted for to someone that I did not vote for based on winner take all at the national instead of the state level. It is not okay at either level.
I'd like to hear a rigorous overview of reasons to not sue not just economic ones such as inability to get a successful outcome. Most of my older siblings are reluctant to do the good citizen things of contacting politicians, going over the heads of irresponsible or ineffective professionals and prefer to shrug their shoulders and "move on". I tend to call out bad actors and go over their heads if I see bad conduct.
As far as the "apprentices" and their going into dictionaries and their experiences, forgive my cynicism but it would be nice if their experiences are real, but they sounded pretentious. I've loved my relationships with books my whole life. I read a physical copy of the Bible, and have since I was in my early 20s going through it each year. Some other members of Bible studies go on their smart phones looking for answers and commentaries. I just don't find small screens to be business-like or serious. When I was in high school here in CT the classics teacher brought us to Yale to use their card catalogs to research topics. Universities such as my alma mater Fairfield U. have extensive book collections that cannot be found online, even if they could be found it is awkward to read them online. Physical books are the very lifeblood of scholarly study; however as Henry Thoreau said you can tell the level of physical health of the writer by how they write. Some day the internet will be taken down by a meteor storm, etc. and then will the device addicts be?
There is a gaping lack of real critical or even "brilliant" thinking these days and I rarely find inciteful comments in study groups. The top 4.0 students have learned assiduously to tell their teachers what they want to hear, students become copies of their professors. Supposedly talented people who received top notch grants leading to degrees lack moral courage and are petrified to stand outside the group. The Clintons are examples of "brilliant" graduates of top notch colleges that sold out their country and never did real physical work in their lives and looked down on those who did. The biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater, has many of these brilliant members of their trading teams who'd never turn whistleblower that anyone with a particle of conscience would. I've heard people in Pharma companies who know their products don't work challenged about their failure to expose these frauds, and their responses are that they pay their high end lifestyles and college tuition.