- Jun 6, 2007
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The behavior of both political parties during the other parties political convention this election year has been shocking and disgraceful! The parties have thrown away tradition and respect for the democratic process. Traditionally, the presidential candidate or the likely presidential candidate and his party lay low during the other parties political convention it was done out of respect for the democratic process the value being upheld was a party gives the other party the opportunity to make their pitch to the American people on why they should get the reins of power in Washington and then the party stepping back has their opportunity to make their pitch during their convention and the American people can make their decision on how they'll vote after this good look-see. This civility and campaign decorum which has been a valuable part of our country's democracy has been thrown in trash with this election cycle and it is an utter disgrace something that leaders of our country should commit to never again allow to happen. The specific transgressions being that on the one hand you had Vice-President Biden intending to go to the Republic Convention in Tampa Florida and would have but for Hurricane Isaac, the Democrat Mayor of LA Mr. Villaraigosa actually went to Tampa to crash the party; the Republicans were no better they had the their so called "Rapid Response " team with Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus in Charlotte, North Carolina the site of the Democrat National Convention considering this group's activities it would probably have been more accurate to call it the "Ninja Political Assassins of Democrats" team.
This moral spiraling down of campaigns today changes campaigns from what they should be if America is to be all it can be which is a debate on the issues, a discussion of the merits of the opposing policies on issues, to a contest to gain voter support by any means possible. This endless pursuit by both parties to score political points against opposing parties and candidates sacrifices this very important focus by the America people on issues which are neglected in America. Like what are the American people going to do about the grain commodity shortage for America and the rest of the world due to global droughts and cold temperatures - the world has seen food shortages lead to violence and political instability; America has an abundance of arable land it may not be in continuous blocks equivalent in size to large farms, it may need to be cleared and/or it may be public lands but America does have the land capacity to solve this problem. Why doesn't the federal government throw its full backing behind turning America's unused arable land into small farms using government loan programs, making these new farms enterprise zones free from taxes for ten years (Uncle Sam wouldn't be losing tax revenue for it isn't getting any tax revenue from this land today) and using the Agricultural Department to lend expertise to these small farmers to get their farms up and running! Like what the hell is going on in Washington and both parties are guilty here where the country has a lot of jobs available but not the workers with the necessary training to fill them and the country is experiencing a terrible unemployment crisis. Both Congress and the White House should be taking managers heads in the Labor department, every six months should be seeing dramatic progress here, if they don't have programs in place to develop programs in the nation's colleges and universities and if need be apprentice or in-house training programs (where Uncle Sam picks up part of the tab) to produce American workers that can fill these jobs; this is tripling a more relevant subject when Americans consider all the manufacturing and trade workers who are in their fifties or older who are nearing retirement and America doesn't have the trained workers to fill their jobs. These mundane issues don't capture much if any of the party or candidates attention but they damn well should because they can make a big difference in a lot of peoples lives!
Part of the reason of this disintegration of democracy in America is because of the influence of money in political campaigns. This influx of massive amounts of money results in hiring of large staffs, consultants and large amounts of tv advertisements, etc. which turns America's political process into a political war instead of a pursuit and effectuation of the best policies on their merits. The core of this problem is that the Supreme Court of the United States has got it absolutely wrong, the ability to donate money to issue groups or political ideology groups is not equivalent to the right of free speech; what money can buy in terms of media and experts and the like can suppress and muffle other Americans political speech, some Americans have a lot more money than other Americans and these wealthy Americans shouldn't be able to use that money which they currently can to have a massively greater influence in the political process than ordinary Americans it isn't fair it isn't democratic - Mr. Sheldon Adelson is an example of this disproportionate political influence! America's leaders should be calling for and working for a change to the Constitution of the United States to restrict the inflows of money into politics in all manners so that individual Americans rights to participate and have a say in their government is not violated! The other aspect of the American political system which just bolsters our system turning into a competition for political power is the gerrymandering of voting districts most members of Congress are in safe districts meaning the make-up, that is the position on the issues, of the clear majority of the citizens of their district is that held by the elected officials "party" and that is because the bosses of the state party in political power when the district is drawn every ten years rig it that way because that allows them to maintain control. If a person wants to hold that elected office seat he or she has to adopt the party's positions and submit to the will of the party bosses or he or she will lose the bosses favor and won't get the parties resource come election time to hold onto the seat. If voting districts weren't gerrymandered issues and policies would matter more a candidate would have to show he or she holds the right policies on the merits if the candidate wants to best position themselves to win the election for the district seat. Why doesn't America do on this issue what any American that would claim to be an intelligent and responsible citizen would consider as obvious? That being why isn't the Constitution of the United States changed to stop the democracy killing gerrymandering district drawing that takes place it would be easy to do just mandate that voting districts be drawn in an even four sided geometric formulaic manner with districts centered on the largest population centers possible; specific and timeless algorithms could be created that would take the politics out of this activity and make the system dramatically fairer! If America did the above political campaigns would be more about solving problems that are significantly important to a lot of Americans and less about how one can take a candidates words out of context and politically hurt that candidate over it, to put it another way America would move closer to getting its political system working right!
This moral spiraling down of campaigns today changes campaigns from what they should be if America is to be all it can be which is a debate on the issues, a discussion of the merits of the opposing policies on issues, to a contest to gain voter support by any means possible. This endless pursuit by both parties to score political points against opposing parties and candidates sacrifices this very important focus by the America people on issues which are neglected in America. Like what are the American people going to do about the grain commodity shortage for America and the rest of the world due to global droughts and cold temperatures - the world has seen food shortages lead to violence and political instability; America has an abundance of arable land it may not be in continuous blocks equivalent in size to large farms, it may need to be cleared and/or it may be public lands but America does have the land capacity to solve this problem. Why doesn't the federal government throw its full backing behind turning America's unused arable land into small farms using government loan programs, making these new farms enterprise zones free from taxes for ten years (Uncle Sam wouldn't be losing tax revenue for it isn't getting any tax revenue from this land today) and using the Agricultural Department to lend expertise to these small farmers to get their farms up and running! Like what the hell is going on in Washington and both parties are guilty here where the country has a lot of jobs available but not the workers with the necessary training to fill them and the country is experiencing a terrible unemployment crisis. Both Congress and the White House should be taking managers heads in the Labor department, every six months should be seeing dramatic progress here, if they don't have programs in place to develop programs in the nation's colleges and universities and if need be apprentice or in-house training programs (where Uncle Sam picks up part of the tab) to produce American workers that can fill these jobs; this is tripling a more relevant subject when Americans consider all the manufacturing and trade workers who are in their fifties or older who are nearing retirement and America doesn't have the trained workers to fill their jobs. These mundane issues don't capture much if any of the party or candidates attention but they damn well should because they can make a big difference in a lot of peoples lives!
Part of the reason of this disintegration of democracy in America is because of the influence of money in political campaigns. This influx of massive amounts of money results in hiring of large staffs, consultants and large amounts of tv advertisements, etc. which turns America's political process into a political war instead of a pursuit and effectuation of the best policies on their merits. The core of this problem is that the Supreme Court of the United States has got it absolutely wrong, the ability to donate money to issue groups or political ideology groups is not equivalent to the right of free speech; what money can buy in terms of media and experts and the like can suppress and muffle other Americans political speech, some Americans have a lot more money than other Americans and these wealthy Americans shouldn't be able to use that money which they currently can to have a massively greater influence in the political process than ordinary Americans it isn't fair it isn't democratic - Mr. Sheldon Adelson is an example of this disproportionate political influence! America's leaders should be calling for and working for a change to the Constitution of the United States to restrict the inflows of money into politics in all manners so that individual Americans rights to participate and have a say in their government is not violated! The other aspect of the American political system which just bolsters our system turning into a competition for political power is the gerrymandering of voting districts most members of Congress are in safe districts meaning the make-up, that is the position on the issues, of the clear majority of the citizens of their district is that held by the elected officials "party" and that is because the bosses of the state party in political power when the district is drawn every ten years rig it that way because that allows them to maintain control. If a person wants to hold that elected office seat he or she has to adopt the party's positions and submit to the will of the party bosses or he or she will lose the bosses favor and won't get the parties resource come election time to hold onto the seat. If voting districts weren't gerrymandered issues and policies would matter more a candidate would have to show he or she holds the right policies on the merits if the candidate wants to best position themselves to win the election for the district seat. Why doesn't America do on this issue what any American that would claim to be an intelligent and responsible citizen would consider as obvious? That being why isn't the Constitution of the United States changed to stop the democracy killing gerrymandering district drawing that takes place it would be easy to do just mandate that voting districts be drawn in an even four sided geometric formulaic manner with districts centered on the largest population centers possible; specific and timeless algorithms could be created that would take the politics out of this activity and make the system dramatically fairer! If America did the above political campaigns would be more about solving problems that are significantly important to a lot of Americans and less about how one can take a candidates words out of context and politically hurt that candidate over it, to put it another way America would move closer to getting its political system working right!
