It Can't Happen Here....

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It can't happen here, in little ol' Fargo...until it does. How about your hometown?

After the debacle of Florida 2000 and the chicanery in Ohio in 2004, the issue of voting and voting rights has been a hot button for me. So I've read the reports of the Indiana picture I.D. and the Texas "voting fraud" and the proposed Missouri voting rights changes--all targeting likely Democratic constituencies--and been, well, too complacent about good ol' Fargo, North Dakota.

After all, our 80- and 90-year-old nuns don't have to worry about being denied the right to vote in North Dakota for want of a driver's license with picture i.d.

But it turns out, maybe they...and other elderly and disabled and economically disadvantaged persons do need to worry...about getting to the polls.

Here's the backstory: some months back, the powers-that-be decided to remove polling places from our neighborhood schools [homeland security, anyone?] and simultaneously consolidate all the polling places into larger multi-precinct voting centers.

In rural North Dakota, that can mean now-daunting distances for people to travel to vote. In Fargo, that may mean the polling places have moved just a few blocks, as is the case in my neighborhood.

But a Sunday letter to the editor, "Fargo's precinct changes unwelcome" in our local newspaper, The Forum, brought me up short. Bruce D. Brovold reminds that for some, a few blocks change [from the community room of the high rise for elderly and disabled to the Civic Center] can be as daunting as rural miles. [unfortunately, the letter is not available on the website at the time I write this]

"...once again the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the handicapped have to be put out in order to save a little money... To move the voting site to the Civic Center is not a long way for most people, however for the elderly, disabled and handicapped, it could just as well be 100 miles.

I would hope the election officials reconsider this move next year, after they discover the lost percentage of voters who will not vote in this year's election in this precinct, compared to past years."

I hope even more that whether we're seeing here the law of unintended consequences in action or the chicanery of partisan politicking to squelch voting groups, that those of us committed to progressive change recognize we cannot afford to be complacent. Not anywhere.

And that we can't just wait 'til Election Day in November to go and try to vote. We must ramp up now.

In Fargo, for example, heavily funded campaigns are pushing a big business agenda to elect, on June 10, a city commission candidate and to advocate for a sales tax to support "economic development." Once again the working class is being asked to subsidize the uberclass. Whatever the merits of the case for or against doing that, the real question is:

If a group of voters is disenfranchised,
is the "common good" for all of us being served?

If that matters to you, don't wait for election day and stroll into your voting center, join the process now. Work in the primaries, work in the city elections, work for the campaigns that represent your values. Talk up the candidates who deserve our support.

And every election day, don't just vote for yourself, help the other guy vote, too.

[Cross-posted today at North Decoder]

Wrongs of Spring

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Still gathering information, but having heard while driving in the tall timber some emerging details about a show by the Saddle and Sirloin Club at North Dakota State University that insults presidential candidate Barack Obama, women, gays, and who knows who else, I want to go on record immediately with the following:

I graduated from this university. I edited its newspaper back in the day. I had encounters back then with racist attitudes, including by a fraternity. It was an issue I thought would have been left in the dark, ignorant history of those Vietnam era times. I guess I was wrong.

As an alumnus and an almost lifelong resident of Fargo, I am ashamed to know that this kind of activity took place, and it goes to show just how much Barack Obama's speech on racism actually speaks to reality. A sorry time for our university.

And asinine arguments that it was their first amendment right to do it are a pathetic apologist effort. There can be no excusing, no rationalizing, no equivocating on the wrongness of this program.

It was wrong. It was offensive. It was stupid. It was willfully ignorant...of the times and of basic human decency. Mockery of people by stereotype is discrimination.

That it occurred under the umbrella of a university, my university, is beyond offensive. That it reflects the current standard of "willful ignorance" that is promulgated from the White House, through rightwing hate radio and down to the schoolyard is no excuse.

My name is Sandy Scheel Huseby, NDSU, Class of '71, and today, I am ashamed. And I'm sorry.

Banality of Discrimination

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Been a couple days now, time for the dust to settle a bit. The Obama speech on race, while addressing his pastor controversy [and we're lookin' forward to hearing Hillary and McCain address theirs...well, no, not really....], rose above it to open a door of opportunity to all of US. And the speech has rippled, resonated, roared through the discourse of politics and punditry.

Because Obama also challenged US. Each of US. To step up to the plate. Not to be distracted by sturm und drang in the media. To examine our own hearts. To walk a bit in the other guy's shoes. To imagine what it must be. To be honest with ourselves. To think.

The Sunshine family came late to the concept of discrimination. When you're a white bread, white family in Middle America, even when a black brother marries into the family, you don't understand, because you open welcoming arms and it's family. When your friendship circles include people of all races, ethnicities, religions or not, you don't understand.

Until you do. Discrimination is far broader than the sexism, racism spearpoint of this human—or subhuman—conversation. It extends to those with disabilities, gays, ageism, livin' on the wrong side of the glass wall... anyone who some "one" can point to and call "other."

One of the many beauties of the Obama speech was his giving voice to the frustrations of both white and black discrimination perspectives.

And most of the time we don't even see it in ourselves. Does the neighbor who doesn't shovel their sidewalk know that he's made it impossible for his disabled neighbor to wheel down the block? Or think of it, even?

Does the quilting group that's decided to go modern and computer and freeform so we won't talk about hand-piecing anymore know that it's demeaning some of its elder members?

Does the friendship circle leave out one from conversation from time to time because her politics are different than most of theirs? Unconscious discrimination.

Looking in the mirror seems too often for primping and preening these days. Maybe all of us should, before we go out for our Easter dinners and gatherings, take a look in the mirror at the face of US.

The Usual Suspects.

Some are easy to name. The orchestrated demeaners and deriders quick with the dialing fingers to local talk radio after the Obama speech. Kitchen sink crowd or Rethuglican Rovers? The highly paid to be race-baiting pundits on national cable and radio with their questions. Hannity, Limbaugh, Elder, Faux News... masters of putting out their crapola in the form of questions they can then deny ownership of. All in the name of drowning out the message.

We have a thinking man. Who's offered us an opportunity to think beyond our own small self interests. Discrimination is...whether by religion or race, politics or place, gender or gay, health or.... bet you can fill in something I hadn't even thought of.

And that's all it takes. A little thinking instead of just swallowing the spew of derision and demeaning, corruption and misleading.

Whaddya think? Big deal? Or banality as usual...