Day 89…
It’s quiet this morning. No sirens. No helicopters. The curfew in New York City was lifted yesterday. It seems to have been a relatively peaceful evening last night.
There are fourteen Black Lives Matter marches and rallies scheduled for today plus two press conferences and a cleanup.
Today marks the point at which we, here in the city, enter into Phase 1 of the reopening of our economy. The only change that most of us will see in our day to day lives is that some additional stores will now be open, but for curb-side pickup only. What that means is that you can order something online or over the phone then go to the store and pick it up. It will be interesting to see which stores do that. It will also be interesting to see which stores are actually still going to be in business.
I’m voting today.
Because of the pandemic, I was able to get an absentee ballot. I am going to the Post Office to mail it after lunch.
It is the Democratic primary election which means that we are choosing which candidate we want to represent the Democratic party for both President and Member of Congress from our district.
Voting is really the only way that we, as individuals, can actually make our voices heard. Yes, we can protest and try and influence the decisions of the people we’ve previously chosen, but they can choose not to listen. Voting is where we, ourselves, can speak up. WE can choose who we want to lead us.
The right to vote is still not universal in this country. The idea of one man, one vote has long been subject to interpretation. What constitutes a “man”? Does that include women?
In the 1600’s, the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts began by restricting voting rights to male property holders. After about a decade, they added the additional qualification that voting was only open to freemen who were “orthodox in the fundamentals of religion.” Quakers were not allowed to vote. Other colonies restricted voting rights to Christians, but excluded Baptists and Catholics.
The US Constitution did not, when it was first written, define who was eligible to vote. It was up to the individual states to decide.
Originally, several states allowed freed black men to vote as well as women who were property owners. By the late 1700’s, however, most states restricted voting to white male property owners, stripping women and freed black men of that right. By the mid 1800’s the property-owning restrictions on voting were largely lifted, but the racial and gender restrictions were still very much in place.
Starting after the Civil War, amendments were added to the Constitution that expanded voting rights.
The fifteenth amendment added in 1870 stated that voting rights could not be denied because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
The nineteenth amendment added in 1920 stated that voting rights could not be denied “on account of sex.”
The twenty-fourth amendment stated that voting rights could not be denied “by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax” for federal elections.
The twenty-sixth amendment set the minimum voting age at eighteen.
Because the Constitution never explicitly stated a universal right to vote, states have still, to this day, even with the amendments, been able to weasel around the idea of suffrage for all. In many states you are required to register to vote in a set number of days before an election. Convicted felons are not permitted to vote in many places, even after they have served their sentences. Different states have different laws on recounting ballots in the event of an issue. People who live in US protectorates like Puerto Rico and Guam, despite being considered American citizens, are not allowed to vote in Presidential elections.
Historically, the more people who vote, the worse the Republican party does. Voting by mail means that many more people can and will vote.
In the middle of a global pandemic, it is dangerous to gather. With mail-in voting, people will not need to risk their health and safety by going to a polling site, they can just vote from home.
Completely unsurprisingly, the President is trying to demonize voting by mail. He is ranting and raving about totally unsubstantiated wide-spread mail fraud. He is even going so far as to try and de-fund and close the United States Postal Service to keep this from happening.
Thankfully, though, none of this is up to him. It’s up to the individual states.
Not for nothing, the President votes by mail himself.
In the 1980’s Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence in Myanmar (formerly Burma), in Southeast Asia. She became the Secretary General of the National League for Democracy (NLD) a political party that she, herself, helped form. In 1990, the NLD won 81% of the seats in Parliament, but the Military Junta who were in control, nullified the results.
For much of the following two decades Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in her home. She became internationally famous as a symbol of resistance against repression. Time magazine claimed that she was the non-violent spiritual heir to Mahatma Gandhi. Prominent politicians the world over visited her to seek her blessing.
In 1991, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
When she was finally released in 2010, the world waited with breathless anticipation to see what remarkable things she would do. In 2015, her party won 86% of the seats in Parliament, and she became State Counsellor, a role similar to that of Prime Minister.
Of particular concern to the rest of the world was the genocide being perpetrated against the Rohingya people, a tribal group, by the Burmese government. It was widely thought that Aung San Suu Kyi would, with her newfound freedom and party position, finally be able to speak out against the massacres.
She said nothing.
The world was outraged. Bob Geldorf called her a “handmaiden to genocide.” There were calls for her Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked.
In response, she has said, “I am a politician.”
She feels that to speak out against the military directly will land her back in confinement. She has spoken out on some issues such as voicing opposition to a measure that would limit Rohingya people to only having two children. On the genocide as a whole, however, she has largely remained silent.
“I am a politician.”
We wanted a saint. What we got was a fallible human being - a politician.
As a politician, she has had to weigh what she feels that she can accomplish at any given moment, and what she can’t. Is it better to speak up and just be imprisoned again, or to largely keep silent and try and effect small changes from within? She chose the latter. It was a political decision - not a humanist one - because that is how she defines herself.
When we vote, we are voting for people, not for saints.
Jimmy Carter might be the best example of someone we have had in office who comes closest to exemplifying the ideals of what a human being could and should be. He is a poster boy for Humanism. He has dedicated his entire life to being of service to others. At 95 years old, the man is still out there swinging a hammer to build homes for those in need.
He was not a great president. Great guy. Fairly ineffective politician.
The conservative right-leaning religious groups in this country have based their political aspirations squarely on the moral codes outlined in the Christian bible. They have promoted legislation that they feel follows the teachings of the bible. They have supported candidates whom they feel will uphold those values and torn apart those that they feel don’t. In 2016 they united behind a candidate who embodies the exact opposite of all of their values. They supported a candidate whose every action and thought goes firmly against their beliefs.
Why? Politics. They wanted to win.
Voting is one of the only times where we can DIRECTLY change the way that we choose to be governed.
Only 58.1% of the eligible voters in the United States of America voted in the presidential election of 2016.
We are not choosing saints. We are choosing people.
We are choosing simple, flawed human beings to represent us in the decisions being made that govern us. Ideally, that person should embody positive traits such as strength, compassion, humility and kindness, but to effectively lead, they also need a certain amount of ruthlessness and drive. Ideally, that person should have some experience in navigating through the various levels and channels of our government.
There are a multitude of things in our country that need fixing. The last few weeks and months have shown us just how much of what and who is governing us is not working. One person can’t do very much to fix things, but together we truly have the power to change anything we want. But it takes time.
To start, we have to vote - TOGETHER.
The people we choose will not be perfect. They are, after all, just people. We are choosing politicians - not saints.
We need to vote. We need to make change happen. All of us.
Not just 58.1% - ALL of us.
Please, however you can, vote.
looked up the word politician... I thought to myself yesterday, listening to the change waving through us...maybe it will in fact be
We The People
I voted xx