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October 23, 2011 in City
Spin Control: Consistency in the eye of the beholder
OLYMPIA – As the news media lurches between ignoring and overexposing the Occupy Wall Street/Spokane/Seattle/ Everywhere movement, is it too much to ask for the pontificators to show a little consistency in their love or disdain for populist rebellions in the 21st century?
Conservative commentators are complaining that the Occupy (fill in the blank) protesters are inexperienced at best and ignorant at worst. Liberal commentators have essentially alibi’d the protesters by saying the movement is young, diverse and still in its nascent stages.
Funny thing is that two years ago when the tea party movement sprang up, the conservatives and liberals were taking the opposite stances. So here’s a thought:
If you criticized tea partyers two years ago for saying they opposed government-run health care when some of them were on Medicare, you can ding Occupy Wherever for complaining about capitalism while wearing Nike logo clothing or using their ATM cards to get cash for a latte at Starbucks. If you ignored the first, you should ignore the second.
If you razzed tea partyers’ bizarre tea-bag festooned hats and Colonial tri-corners, you can toss verbal bricks at the 99 percenters for dressing like they shopped at a Haight-Ashbury Value Village. If you gave one a pass on weird fashions, do the same to the other.
If you suggested that tea partyers didn’t understand health care reform, tax policy or the democratic process, you can suggest that occupiers don’t understand banking regulations, international finance or the democratic process. If you thought the one provided a refreshing new perspective on old tired issues, don’t accuse the other of being foolishly naïve.
And don’t pop out that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that a foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of a small mind. A consistent lack of consistency is the hallmark of an even smaller one.
State overseas voting earns good marks
The state caught some flak last summer when it received a waiver of the federal deadline for getting ballots to the troops overseas. At one point, Fox News commentators even accused the state of trying to take the most precious right of democracy away from the brave men and women fighting and dying to defend that right.
Or something like that.
No matter how hard then-assistant state elections director Katie Blinn tried to explain the state’s system, Fox anchor Megyn Kelly couldn’t seem to wrap her head around the idea that Washington gave the troops more time because it counts ballots for nearly two weeks after “Election Day.”
At one point, the state GOP’s executive and central committees passed a resolution calling for the state to withdraw the waiver request.
A study released last week on how states handled getting ballots to and from deployed troops and other overseas voters gives Washington high marks for the 2010 election.
The state sent out nearly 53,000 ballots overseas, 32,597 of them to military personnel. About 21,000 of them came back, with 13,065 coming from military voters.
The state counted 99 percent of the ballots that came back. Of the 274 rejected ballots, only 17 weren’t counted because they arrived too late. The main reason for rejecting a military or overseas ballot is the same as for regular ballots: the signature didn’t match the one on file.
It is true that the turn-in rate for military and other overseas voters was much lower than for the general population – 40 percent compared to about 71 percent for voters at home. It may be that by the time some ballots caught up to troops in forward bases it was so late they didn’t have time to mark the ballots and mail them back. It’s also possible they had other, more pressing, things going on. Their rate of return was higher than the national average of 32 percent.
The number of ballots Washington sent to deployed troops and other overseas voters was fifth in the nation, behind more populous California, Texas, Florida and New York. The percentage of returned ballots that were counted was fourth. In both cases, that’s far ahead of many states that didn’t get a waiver of the federal law requiring ballots be sent out a minimum of 45 days before the election.
Spin Control, a weekly column by Olympia reporter Jim Camden, also appears online at www.spokesman.com/ blogs/spincontrol, where you can find a link to the exchange between Kelly and Blinn.
Supermajority for taxes unconstitutional, judge rules 
greenlibertarian on October 23 at 12:28 a.m.
wwytree on October 25 at 11:05 p.m.
If we the citizens of the United States of America don’t wake-up and understand that our right to protest, is a means to voice our concerns against injustices in a non-violent way; which our founding fathers wrote into the constitution, as a constitutional right. It will leave no choice, just like what they faced with the monarchy in England. Their voice of concern of the injustice of governance was not being heard, for the greed of the monarchy. It left them with no choice but to revolt by means of an armed uprising, that we now celebrate on July 4th.
The use of our police force by our government to stop the protests is no different then what the monarchy of England did when they used their army to stop our founding fathers protest. But if we took off our blinders and looked around; we would find that corporations and special interest groups, have control over the elected officals; that are suppose to respond to what the people that voted them in want. And based on the numbers that are being given on the public support of these protests, if they would show-up at these demonstrations in mass; it would allow the chance for a peaceful resolution.
The corporations and special interest groups through their minions (tories) will use any means at their disposal to stop the citizens of the United States from controlling their government. It is funny in a sad way that we don’t see the similarities in the revolts that are currently happening or justed happen in the Arabic countries. The only difference in the attempt to stop the protesting by their citizens in those countries; is their military is used and we use our police force. But, they are both controlled by the government. We like them have been taught to fear our law enforcement. Which if studied, we would find that a large number of the ones that support the Occupy movement, but will not physically participate in protest demonstrations is due to fear of arrest. There also will be a group that fear the lost of their job if their employer learned that they participated in the protest.
I hope that people will recognize that if we don’t take our government back from the corporations and special interest groups (the one supplying large contributions to elected officals) there will be no future for our children. And it will lead to a violent confrontation as the have nots decide they have nothing to lose. It like cornering an animal, at some point they will consider themself dead and will fight knowing they have nothing to lose with the possibility they might win. Look at the history of the Civil War, more Americans died when we fought against ourselves, then any other war we been in.
We are a free nation, so we get what we asked for. Through our inaction we are giving our support in allowing our elected officals to give their loyalties to ones that give them large amounts of money. In the past this was call bribery, now it’s called a campaign contribution . But then again they made loan sharking legal (now it’s cheaper to use the Mafia for getting a loan). Whose interests do you think they had when they allowed this. As a nation we need to look at the laws that our elected officals have and are passing in our name; as to who do they really benefit.
Lets say that we the citizens of the USA do come together to protest the control that corporations and special interest groups have over the elected offical that we vote into office. We as a group must keep in mind that we are a very diverse group of people that have one common goal, to take back control of our government from the corporations and special interest groups. If we let our differences distract us from why we have come together for, we lose before we even get started. So it will not matter who is right or wrong in what our government should be doing, because none of our voices will be heard.
wwytree on October 25 at 11:07 p.m.
Cont.
(not allowed to post over 4000 characters on one post)
Keeping this from happening will be hard, since the minions of the corporations and special interest groups will try to start disagreements to cause division so to dilute the protests ability to bring the change in government. All the different groups of people are not heard; even when they are saying the same thing. But, as one large group our voice can not be ignored.