PRESIDENT: JILL STEIN. Is there really any need to list Obama's failures? Is it defensible to vote for a person who represents the opposite of what you think you represent? Obama's first term saw his total capitulation to Wall Street; the waiving of habeas corpus; increased deportations; a reversal of his promise to legalize medical marijuana, and on and on. Name the issue and Obama has been worse than Bush. And Romney dittos all of it. Of course the Democrats, as they have for the last fifty years, are claiming the sky will fall if Obama isn't re-elected for a second term aiding and abetting catastrophe. And it's true that there is one essential difference between the candidates: under Obama things will get worse about a week slower than they will under Romney. Because even the pretense of political democracy is long gone from this country, and we're now ruled by a plutocracy of One Percenters on whose behalf both parties serve, the election process, validated by a toady media, naturally excludes the more viable third party candidates from the corporate-sponsored presidential "debates." But take it from your beloved community newspaper, Jill Stein of the Green Party is perfect on the issues. She's where Obama would be if he weren't a willing creature of the forces of destruction. And she's where most of you on the Northcoast are, too, and you should vote for her rather than more of the same. JILL STEIN FOR PRESIDENT.
U.S. SENATE
Choice here is between the middle of the road extremist Diane Feinstein, basically a country club Republican, and a lady named Emken, a Republican-Republican too young to realize how dangerously crazy her fellow party members are. AVA voters are advised to write someone in or not vote for this office. NOBODY!
CONGRESS
DESPITE its wholly undeserved reputation as a "progressive" hotbed, slightly less than 10 percent of Northcoast libs voted in the primary for the genuinely progressive Norman Solomon over the career office holding mainstream Democrat, Jared "Spike" Huffman, a San Rafael volleyball player and assemblyman. On the issues Huffman is likely to be a little better than Mike Thompson, not that he could be much worse. Huffman's opposed by a token Republican named Dan Roberts, also of Marin. NOBODY!
ASSEMBLY
That eternal curse on Northcoast electoral politics, Wes Chesbro, is opposed by a bona fide good guy in Tom Lynch of Guerneville. While Chesbro has spent his entire adult life moving from one government sinecure to the next government sinecure, Lynch has been working for a living. LYNCH!
MEASURE F. Should the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors pass a resolution against corporate personhood? Do you like your Mom better than Monsanto? And even if you don't much care for the old girl, you surely aren't as far gone to the right as our Supreme Court, which ruled that corporations are people just like THEM, are you? Yes on F. Our Supreme Court is only occasionally human, but Corporations definitely aren't people. YES ON MEASURE F!
MEASURE G. Should the Abandoned Vehicle Abatement Program be renewed for another ten years and funded via a $1 or $2 vehicle registration fee add-on? Although there are people up and down the Northcoast who regard abandoned car parts in their front yards as garden art, most of us think of automobile graveyards as eyesores. Keep Mendocino County beautiful. YES ON MEASURE G!
STATE PROPOSITIONS
A few words about the tax measures on the ballot before we begin. Both of them are phony to varying degrees because there's nothing in either of them preventing state government from diverting the money raised to other purposes. Of course if you trust Wes Chesbro to make spending decisions for you we have nothing further to talk about. But if you happen to be a discerning, conscientious person of the type likely to subscribe to this fine publication, you will know that our tax system is unfair — very unfair — because the wealthy do not pay their share of the social load. In France, you may have noticed, the new president wants to tax the rich at about 75%. Which is what we used to do in this country before people like Romney and the Apple Gizmo Corporation, to name two unAmerican tax dodgers, began parking their money overseas where it couldn't be taxed. Or they simply kept their loot at home where Mike Thompson, Chesbro, Feinstein, Obama and the rest of the Republicans lowered taxes for them in return for, I dunno, airplane rides with movie stars? Governor Brown's Prop 30 is typical. It puts a slight tax raise on incomes over $250,000 for seven years but raises the sales tax a quarter cent for four years, meaning the $250,000 people will pay a lot less proportionately than the rest of us will because we'll be paying that quarter cent every goddam time we buy anything! And there are millions of us but incomes over $250,000 have most of the money. So, your beloved community newspaper is recommending a NO vote on the two tax propositions, not out of hostility for teachers or cops or little kids but because we need a fair system of taxation in this state and in this country, not these tiptoe taxes on people who are radically, woefully undertaxed.
PROP 30: Governor Brown's temporary taxes to fund education AND funding for "realignment," the latter being the shuffling of state prisoners to county jails, which Brown did with only one year of initial money to do it. He says the money is for kids and cops, which is pretty cynical even by his standards. NO!
PROP 31: State budget: A complicated but phony fix that would actually allow the diversion of money from a state budget mostly devoted to school funding. Why would a 2-year budget be any better than a yearly one at a time and in an economy that barely limps along on an annual basis? NO!
PROP 32: Political contributions. The problem of big money in electoral process is obvious, but this one is aimed at unions by rich people who'd return 10-year olds to work in coal mines if they could get away with it. But they can't, so they go after labor however they can, and Prop 32 is their way of chipping away at the little power organized groups of working people have to defend themselves against capital. NO!
PROP 33: Auto insurance: This thing would allow insurance combines to set the prices you pay for insurance. Which they do anyway, pretty much. But they want more control over the rules. And guess who wrote it? They did, the insurance companies. You want insurance companies to have the power to raise your rates even if you have a perfect driving record? That's what I thought. NO!
PROP 34: Death penalty repeal: Without a lot of re-hash of an old discussion, YES, of course. People FOR the death penalty argue that it's a deterrent and that some people really, really have it coming, which they do, but so long as executions are carried out by the midnight needle, and not in full view of the public, even the satisfaction the public allegedly gets from revenge is denied. And if government has the authority to kill people, well, the government just might get around to executing you, buddy. And how many people condemned to death have been found to be innocent when groups like the Innocence Project revisted their cases? Lots. Lock away the monsters, but don't take the chance of murdering an innocent person. YES!
PROP 35: Radical increase in jail time for pimps that would also require that they register as sex offenders. YES!
PROP 36: Three strikes law: A lot of career criminals pick up their third strike for relatively trivial offenses, but you've got to be fairly well committed to crime in the first place if you've already got two serious felonies when you shoplift a fifth of booze from the supermarket. But in its present form Three Strikes can be disproportionately harsh, unreasonable. The root of most crime is a combination of drugs and poverty. It will be a while before either disappears. But until they do, the justice system should be made to be as fair as possible, so..... YES!
PROP 37: Should genetically engineered foods be labeled? Of course. Should genetically engineered food even be available? No. Is Prop 37 the first step to banning Frankenfoods as its opponents claim? We hope so. Will the label make any difference? Answer: How many people read food labels? Frankenfoods are here, although France and Russia have successfully banned them. Of course those countries have more or less representative government, at least France does. Our government is owned by Monsanto, and no one reads food labels. Vote YES but don't expect anything to change.
PROP 38: Another phony tax measure, this one devised by a multi-millionaire, not that Governor Brown is a pauper. This one would supposedly fund early education. But, like Brown's measure, this thing would tax EVERYONE, leveling tiny taxes on personal incomes over $7,316 and topping out at a measly 2.2 percent for incomes of more than $2.5 million, the whole farcical show coming to an end in 12 years. Why not tax the big incomes at 95 percent as we did up through the 1950s?
PROP 39: Basically compels corporations based outside California to pay proportionate taxes in California. YES!
PROP 40: This thing has been withdrawn, but is there still someone out there who doesn't think this state is gerrymandered to keep the same people in office forever? YES! 950s?
PROP 39: Basically compels corporations based outside California to pay proportionate taxes in California. YES!
PROP 40: This thing has been withdrawn, but is there still someone out there who doesn't think this state is gerrymandered to keep the same people in office forever?
Be First to Comment