Proportional Selection of Electors is EVEN LESS DEMOCRATIC than winner-take-all

Some liberals and leftists falsely believe that Proportional Assignment of State Electors within the Electoral College System would create more fair elections then the current Winner-Take-All approach in most states.

In fact, the opposite is true.  If Electors were assigned proportionally in every state, there would be even more elections in which the popular vote winner lost the election.  And in many recent elections, the numbers of electors would be so close that the race would be sent to a special session in which each state gets one vote (1992, 1996, 2000, 2016), which is even worse than the Electoral College, and Republicans would win that nearly every time.

I've previously argued that the winner-take-all assignment of electors actually undoes some of the anti-democratic bias in the electoral college, and this analysis proves it.

What we need instead is the Interstate Compact for a National Popular Vote.  That is an interstate agreement which effectively negates the Electoral College and replaces it with a popular vote.  Fifteen States have already signed on to the idea, and they just need a few more.  (But it may be hard to get more states as long as they are controlled by Republicans--who consistently benefit from the Electoral College--as they did in 2000 and 2016 winning the Electoral College but not the Popular vote.  Still, every other way of ending the Electoral College faces the same challenge of getting a few more states to flip, but the interstate compact permits the change with the least amount of flipping and other constitutional hurdles.)

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/shortcoming-proportional-method-awarding-electoral-votes

Sadly, Republicans are much better organized

Republicans are much better organized, and Democrats and like minded people are often foolish.  That's why Republicans are successful, despite being a minority and their success is really the success of an even tinier minority of oligarchs, who manage to pull the wool over the eyes of their base with religions and lifestyles they invented and steer for that purpose.  It's the old way, goes back to dawn of civilization.  Democratic Party surrounds a more liberal set of oligarchs, somewhat to the better.  The Republican Party had started as such reformers, but over time evolved backwards.  We still live in the sad era of Reagan, whose new movement conservatism vowed to end unions and the new deal, much to the public loss.  Even Democratic Presidents have existed within that envelope, only Bernie could have started a new era, if he had punched all the way through fear and conservatism.

Republicans and pseudo lefty intellectuals (like Glen Greenwald and Matt Taibbi) believe that the Trumpian Republican party represents the "working class,"  the people who work harder, and the Democratic Party represents the relatively elitist "middle class."

Except that the middle class also represents working people (not so much capitalists) and also Republicans represent a majority of richer people, and a minority of poorer people.

You can just look at the Republican policies.  They want to destroy unions (which created better paying jobs with benefits) and cut taxes primarily on wealthy people.  All around their policies emphasize making the rich richer, and somehow this is supposed to benefit us all, which it never does.

I believe when Biden uses the term middle class he does not use it in distinction from working class.  He follows the textbook path and refers to middle in the context of low, middle, and high.  Certainly we should enlarge the middle class and make the lower class smaller.   All jobs should be decent paying jobs, aka middle class jobs, pushing everyone up to the middle class, and it should be easier to make unions.  Biden has called for that sort of change, with some specifics (like $15/hr minimum wage).  We need to hold him accountable to these promises.

Greenwald and Taibbi partly follow the infamous example of David Brooks in judging people by their cargo and dividing working people into two groups to hate one of them.  In the other part, their observations are anecdotes, not unbiased surveys.  The actually poor people don't go to political rallies at all.  

Leading up to the election Biden was keeping everyone safe with only small fundraising events, not money-draining super-spreader rallies.  That doesn't mean the attendees at the small fundraising events are representative of those who identify with or vote for Democrats.  Biden managed to win in spite of such a plan that required little organization.  There were lots of independent progressive organizations pushing for Biden, not funded by Biden donors, and the independents were probably more effective.

The better organization of the Republican Party and their allies also should put rest to any fear that shady Democrat (sic) Operatives could have interfered with the vote.  Regardless of their percentage in the local population, Republicans turn out like robots, spurred by their religious or cultural organizations, to every place votes are counted, to win every way possible.  The insist on examining everything, and look for the tiniest excuse to throw out Democratic  ballots.  I'm sad to say I let one Republican vote counting goon overwhelm me for a few votes until I discovered I could call the elcction judge, who could call another election judge, until it all got sorted out.  In my opinion, the intent of the voter should be recorded if at all unambiguous, but different states have different standards, and it may also depend on the technologies involved.  Nowadays, nearly everything is processed by machine.

I have to believe that vote counting operations in battleground states were very serious operations.  They knew how important their job was, how much it would be scrutinized, etc.  They did everything to the T.  No doubt, Republicans where there en masse, complaining about everything as they always do, if majority Democratic votes are being counted.  But the job got done to a high degree of conformity to prevailing standards.  Jerrymandering and otherwise rigging vote suppression are primarily things Republican state government officials do.  Democrats want to see every vote counted.

Still, I see lots of speculation about the possible success of Trumpian legal challenges.  We must pay attention to all of this in real time.  The much better organized Republican Party also has more judges, and of course Supreme Court Justices as well.  If there is a case, they are certain to exploit it, and the possibility exists they may do so unjustly to favor Republicans.

I remain sure that part of the solution, long term (the only way it can be solved without enormous luck) is to build the left secular social institutions serving the central social function that churches do for Christians, and comparable religious institutions for other religions.  There has to be a track where kids could grow up and meet like minded partners and friends, and likewise older people.  Fragmentary expriences such as those offered by bars, restaurants, and typical activist organizations are insufficient to build the social trust that a high degree of organization requires.

A much better society is achieved if all people are automatically part of a sectoral labor union, as in Germany.

Labor organizations are among the best mass organizations.  I'd also like to see coffee houses where you can smoke marijuana but not tobacco, and just hang out.

Don't Laugh Till It's Over

I wouldn't laugh until it's over.  Remember that Gore lost when the US Supreme Court decided to stop the recounts in Florida.  Later work proved that if the recounts had used the same standard across the state, Gore would have won.  Gore had only asked for selective recounts, which was later proven to be a defective strategy.  But the Florida Supreme Court either had or was about to impose state-wide standards in a state-wide recount, which would have clinched it for Gore.  Then overnight the US Supreme Court ruled and blocked the Florida Supreme Court.

Trump dreams of similar achievement.  This was a huge incentive to get the Supreme Court filled with the last of his 3 appointments.

This is how developer/con-man/mobster trump has always worked.  Pull every lever, including lawyers guns and money, until desired result achieved.  I wouldn't be surprised if Trump has spent more time in the company of lawyers than any other profession.

We hope it won't work this time.  But hope is not a plan.  My plan is to participate in a demonstration on Saturday.

I've been thinking this is the inevitable result of an anti-democratic system like the Electoral College.  One party works out a superior strategy to take advantage of the anti-democratic features, and can therefore win with smaller and smaller minority (and therefore less need to satisfy actual voters).  (Original strategy: appeal to slaveholders.  Current strategy: appeal to racists and bigots.)  This lets them win with smaller and smaller national minorities instead of majorities.  But success breeds ideology as well.  Soon, nothing matters, but winning.  Republicans don't care if black votes are counted, etc.  The system makes them feel more and more like blacks, gays, liberals, aren't even human, as rationalization for a system that marginalizes their votes.  Thus, the anti-democratic system was created by thugs and proceeds to reproduce thuggery.

This is not to say that all people in Red States, or even members of Republican Party, are thugs.  Most are merely sheep following their local thugs, in principle not different from Democrats, where sheep also follow thugs.  However, there is an extra advantage gained among those leading thugs on the Republican side (which used to be the Democratic side before 1948, but the parties switched roles 1948-1968 in these regards...because principled Democrats like Hubert Humphrey kicked the racists out) through racism and bigotry, so when it is even tolerated, it becomes crucial to reproduction of their continued success.  It is not so much tolerated in cities, which explains the nationwide red/blue division, which is really urban/rural, not even large/small states...but the admixture of urbanity differs among those categories, and therefore the racist-bigot-edge emerges from them.  Once again, it has nothing to do with small-stateness, or rural-ness per se, but that is where leading racist thugs and bigots can best get away with their thuggery and yet still be followed by masses, because other masses don't so much appear on their doorstep to stop it.  In short: people based organization is more difficult where there is lower density of people.  And where there is organization fallure, or democratic failure, rationalizing ideologies emerge from them.

The establishment itself is divided between resource-wealth owners, like Kochs, who want to keep the oil fracking no matter what, and process-wealth-exploiters, like Silicon Valley and Wall Street, who would be happy to have carbon tax, etc.  Trump has been making US more and more a pariah state, which is not good for Silicon Valley or much of Wall Street.

Sadly there is little division within the establishment in many areas like empire.  Changes there cannot be made merely by voting for President (they don't make it that easy), though having a reactionary President makes improvement all but impossible (only through total collapse, which could destroy the world, but many believe in this path anyway).

Sadly many in the "left-wing" see this as meaning the parties are the identical, therefore no point in voting for either.  This includes a lot of people I used to respect and a few I still do with some reservations.

Here are some examples:

Glenn Greenwald since leaving The Intercept last week has been furiously writing how horrible the Democrats are.  Rarely mentions Trump.

Matt Taibbi has long been doing what Greenwald is now doing.  (Greenwald's editors at The Intercept were able to edit him to look lefty, but in reality Greenwald is libertarian.  We can only guess about Taibbi.)

Moon-of-Alabama (Bernard H., a German citizen) admits he is somewhat on the pro-Trump side because he believes the Democratic Party is more efficient at running empire, and he wants empire to collapse.  One of his recent articles blasted the slow vote counting.  I tried to counter his remarks in a level headed reply and was tempted to end my monthly donation.

On the good side, I've started supporting the new media operation of David Sirota, former Bernie manager.  He split from Bernie after Bernie quit the race, and like me doesn't like a lot of things about many Democrats, but still votes Democratic and strongly hopes for a Biden win. Sirota wrote a great article on all the methods Republicans used to weaken democracy in the now "battleground" states.

Florida might have gone for Biden as well, if it were not for a appeals court decision on September 11 2020 that upheld the authority of the state to require ex-felons to pay off all fines and charges before getting their right to vote back.  A lower court had ruled that this requirement amounted to a poll tax (it does, IMO, in no other case can your vote be taken away, regardless of unpaid fines etc).  Bloomberg and others have famously been trying to pay off those fines, but facing fierce opposition (and possibly lawsuits) from Republicans.  At most, Bloomberg paid off costs for 30,000 ex-felons (and possibly only 10,000), but there are 775,000 ex-felons in Florida.  It was, at most, a tip of the iceberg.

A country which elected it's Chief Executive and Head of State through a more democratic means would become a better country.  A country which had a more democratic legislature (e.g., no highly undemocratic Senate) would also become a better country.  A country whose leader doesn't succeed primarily by exploiting these anti-democratic features to stoke further division can become a better country.  It may be constitutional, and I may never see it change in my lifetime, but it is not good when Presidents are elected with a minority popular vote because of the Electoral College.  It means a system to prevent democracy is working to its fullest extent.

When the vote is fully counted everywhere, with no exceptions, the anti-democratic effect of the Electoral College is minimized.  That is because in the reverse situation, where some votes aren't counted, is the one where the Electoral College system is most pathological.  We saw a perfect illustration of this in 2000, where the failure to count Florida's vote accurately, a minute percentage error in the Florida count meant that the Electoral College decision differed from a large popular majority, whereas with no error in Florida they would have been the same.  A national majoritarian system could give the correct result with far less precision.  If all we needed to know was whether Biden or Trump had the largest plurality of the popular vote, that could have been fairly well established on Tuesday Night, then with increasing precision afterwards.  There has never been much doubt where it would go either,, Trump would never have been elected in the first place under such a system, his whole sexist-racist-bigot-billionaire-thug schtick only works because of it.  He isn't popular in the city he comes from, and nearly any other big city, where those antics have grown stale.  He succeeded only because of alienation and division.

People who live in small states should want to have the Electoral College system replaced, because of its corrupting influences.  Undemocratic power corrupts undemocratically.  They are also the ones who are going to need to oppose the system before it can be changed.  But I'm not holding my breath until then.  There are other big problems possibly more amenable to change.  Including the full counting of every election.

Sean Connery and James Bond

Sean Connery has died.

Sean Connery was an acting genius, activist for Scottish nationalism, charmer, and tough (too often having been cheated) business partner.  I respect him.  I haven't seen many of his movies, but I've seen endless clips of him on TV.

I have complicated feelings about James Bond.  The movie Thunderball came out when I was 9, and I saw it on my birthday and it somehow failed to impress much and I was more impressed a few years later by James Coburn's Flint--which recently I've started re-viewing without disappointment...as I grew up I felt Bond was the inferior other-peoples-icon...I had similar feelings about Johnny Carson who I thought the inferior lowbrow version of Dick Cavett).

Subsequent to the 60's, Sean Connery's bond became legendary.  And perhaps even in part because times had moved on, but the character not so much.  Though no doubt, Connery was a genius at this role.  As he admitted later in life, all his roles represented much of his core as a person.  I would call it rogue.  He's the slick operator, who instead of sneaking from behind to pick your wallet or steal your heart, walks right out in front and distracts you with his casually brilliant hamming.  And you would tend to hope, he wouldn't take your wallet or heart unless you needed it taken.

But the character Bond was cast in a fake cold war drama.  In which the cunning and evil were opposed to us ("the free world"--aka western empire), the slow thinking but honorable people.  But we had Bond, who had just enough bad boy to turn the tables on the evil and cunning enemy.

Not exactly an inversion of the truth, but certainly a simplification.  It was indeed our bad boys vs theirs.

Nevertheless, Bond, and especially Connery's Bond, became a cult, a legend, and much more.  Seeing endless comparison clips, it was obvious how much cooler Connery's Bond was than all the replacements. Few seemed to ask other questions.

I was very looking forward to seeing Bond's Goldfinger at a special screening organized by Texas Public Radio at a major cinemaplex 15 years ago.  I was beginning to think my animus toward Bond series as a whole was that I was the unlucky kid who never got to see Goldfinger.  I had seen Thunderball, but that wasn't the real magic one.  Having been left behind, I worshipped an alternate.

As I drove up the theater (cutting a bit of work time to go see the movie) a thunderbolt hit the transformer near the cinemaplex, which blew up, and the theaters and the entire surrounding area went dark.  I could see all this happen, and headed home.  It seemed like fate had spoken, and a second time.  I was not supposed to see this movie, it seemed.

So then I bought a copy of DVD of Goldfinger.  I was almost afraid to.  JaAfter sitting around for 10 years, about 5 years ago I finally got around to watching the movie.

I was shocked.  I could hardly bear it.  Even by my forgiving standards, the sexism was over the top.  And that was just the start.  The us-vs-them Imperialism and good-guy-vs-bad-guy simplfication was glaring.  I had to take several sessions to watch the entire move.  But then I should admit, this is true of most movies when I watch them by myself.  I greatly prefer watching movies with other people, who can carry me along emotionally just by sharing the experience.

I intend to have another look again, my standards and tolerances and expectations keep evolving.  I'd long ago started wondering about Dick Cavett too.  But I think it's obvious that Goldfinger is a Cold Warrior Movie, and the whole enterprise is warrior-justification, an in-principle evil.

But that's true of virtually everything, including many other things I like to much to give up, so I don't know.  But my theory now is Connery played Bond when Bond was the most cool, but as society moved on, the character didn't so much, and so it's no wonder that no other actor has been able to do it well either.

But Connery was uniquely gifted in his roguishly charming ways too.  So perhaps making a treat for some to watch his act even if you considered the whole enterprise consummate evil.  This possibility is why I'm still looking forward to re-viewing Goldfinger again someday.

How Obama era CIA bought the Narrative

Stories like this landmark report which truly brings it all together is why I continue to support MoonOfAlabama despite his recurring abominable opinions and often knee-jerk predictions.  However, I admit, it took me awhile to decide to support him.

 

Alternative Media Exposed?

Mainstream media, such as the New York Times, and even, mostly, The Intercept, have been exposed as manufacturing consent shills for the endless promotion of the evidence free Russiagate conspiracy theory.

Now, strangely, a reverse thing is happening.  Long time self-proclaimed antiwar journalists may be exposing themselves as a different kind of manufacturing consent shills for the endless promotion of the relatively trivial Hunter Biden allegations.  This includes MoonOfAlabama, Glenn Greenwald, Caitlin Johnstone, and many others.

This is ultimately about Garden Variety corruption, in which by one means or another Hunter picks up $50,000 or whatever here or there.  I frankly don't care about such things.  I have never spent more than a minute watching Rachel Maddow or others on MSNBC talk about Trumps infinite dealings here or there either, even when there might have been some facts to back them up (which is possible on topics other than the fact-free Russiagate).  I wish journalists would stop obsessing about such things, but they do because they can get a lot of attention, ("dirty laundry") and steer it what every way they want, because of course the entire establishment, even capitalism itself, is based on corruption.  So all you have to do is look exclusively to one side or another to use corruption to steer your audience away from one side and towards another.   The corruption is everywhere, that's not an issue in this election, or any other, or of much importance to making progress vs regress to society in general.  Corrupt societies might well advance more than less corrupt societies following stupidly antisocial policies (such as neoliberalism), corruption is a relatively independent factor, compared with degrees of public support and investment and general social policies.

Some of my friends do take these kinds of corruption things seriously.  I don't speak for them, but I suspect they could claim what is likely true...that Trump and his family have been proven to be involved in far more and/or more serious cases of corruption.  Mainstream media will generally reach for doubt rather than context.

By huffing and puffing about these trivial allegations against Hunter Biden, many of my favorite  alternative media reporters are enhancing continued war with China by two means:

1) Possibly helping the Trump administration retain power, by weakening the resolve of many to vote effectively against Trump by voting for Biden, his leading and only relevant rival.  Trump has had China in his sights from day one, hiring an endless series of anti-China (and anti-Iran) hawks.

2) If people like me manage to get Biden elected (which may require aiding the many groups which are trying to do so, rather than merely Biden and the DNC themselves) the continued huffing and puffing about Hunter Biden could in fact help stall peace with China.

Sadly, I have to say, all these fine journalists who I deeply respect as journalists (but not as analysts--that's my job of course) are following in this self-defeating and self-discrediting track.  I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt as not having been GOP (and/or Russian) shills all along, as I'm sure many long have, but it is clear they don't care if Trump is reelected, Moon has listed that as his slight preference (and prediction), whereas Caitlin and Glenn simply say it doesn't matter.  This is a mark against them all in my book, though I'd say at this point Moon is not replaceable, because he's currently the best journalist I know of (as well as an often crappy analyst and forecaster and anarcho-Trumper).  Caitlin is brilliant occasionally, but highly variable (which led me to quit my patronage) and Glenn is like that too though I think he's more professional and less variable--when edited.  I should have also mentioned Taibbi, he's in this bunch too,  very good writer, but too long winded in his huffing and puffing for me to take much of.

I'll be looking for replacements who are clear anti-Trumpers.  I believe David Sirota and Aaron Mate are in that category.  I would have believed the late Robert Parry to be, though many of the writers at Consortium News, such as Patrick Lawrence, are not.  When edited for Consortium News, generally Trumpism is restrained if not completely hidden.

Note:  I don't think Russia's or Putin's effect on the 2016 or any other US election has been or will be significant.  There is not evidence that it has been, and Putin clearly would not want to appear to be the meddler he well knows the US to be (unlike most Americans, who seem unaware of how much US hac sontrolled Russia and other countries).  However, this is not necessarily to say Putin wouldn't have any preference.  I would believe he has a soft preference for Trump, and China the reverse.  So could Russians be key sources for people I've mentioned here?  Quite possibly, yes.  Do I care about that?  No, I care about the importance, accuracy, relative fairness, and contextuality of the reporting and opinions expressed or implied, not where the facts came from.  But it may require highly professional standards to prevent sources from becoming leans.  We know that's a problem in the mainstream media.

Not all stories that may originate or pass through the hands of Russians are disinformation or the result of unethical operations.  Russians--including Putin--may have a lot of truths to tell, and if some journalist can distill these truths into journalistic reports, even lacking combination with others, that's an asset of some kind.  However full contextualization is important, and that is in principle why a organization of journalists and editors is useful.

There can be a fine line between advocacy and reporting.  To some degree, all reporting is advocacy by selection, merely deciding which stories to tell.  Excessive reporting on unimportant stories is clear advocacy.

Advocacy is fine...for advocates.  Self-proclaimed objective or non-partisan should not be involved in advocacy--even on their own time--because it reduces their appearance and ability to maintain objectivity.  This used to be well understood.  Now it's violated by all, including otherwise exemplary journalists in alternative media.

Taibbi wrote the book on Hate Media.  Now he seems to relish becoming a part of it himself.

I will see if I can add Greenwald and/or Taibbi to my pile of subscriptions I already don't have time for, when they start reporting important stories that need to be reported in their depth.

The truth behind Russiagate was one of those stories, precisely because it was never just about Trump corruption, it was about an alleged justification for endless war with Russia, and a new McCarthyism that painted any skeptics as tools of Moscow.  I could tell from the very beginning that Trump would never be removed, only controlled, as if he needed some such controlling (and not mere insider pressure) to maintain the cold war with Russia.  The National Security State was taking no chances.  Trump might be too big to be pressured (an idea which has been proven false in many cases).

Russiagate was also about destroying the left.  It started as a distraction from the important confirmation that the DNC was strongly working against Sanders.  That real news was immediately drowned out by the fake story that Russia had been behind obtaining that real news, which was essentially irrelevant to the first story even if it was true.  And it would be the illegal activities that Russia engaged in, as opposed to merely assisting a journalistic operation, which would be of some limited interest.  The US has of course engaged in such illegal activities in other countries on a vast scale for decades.  Failing to include that context was also a fault in nearly all Russiagate reporting from the outset.

Biden does deserve calling out whenever he (or anyone else) continues to peddle Russiagate stories, as he has done from time to time.  Trump in some cases rightfully dismisses them.  Fortunately this does not appear to be a big obsession with Biden.  But this kind of thing is so ordinary, it is not big news.  Trump is far more full of fake stories.  I pretty much ignore those too.

Thoughts about ET

Isn't The Earth a fairly desireable chunk of Real Estate for the possibly recently-become-homeless escapees of a cosmic event?

IF there are Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings, carbon based too (which is likely), and like therefore like us (due to various limits, etc).

That might be the biggest question.

IF there are, then there have to be, at any given time, some displaced and looking for a new nice place (as we might be someday).

AND IF they are reasonable close to us, and capable of traveling near light speed.

THEN they would be looking for a place just like this.

AND what to do about the pesky existing inhabitants... Well that depends a lot on what you consider the fundamental "nature" of such beings, which may be hard to contemplate.

THEY could mix in, unknown to us.  (Possibly the most likely scenario, I think, maybe therefore already could have already have happened a few times--except that they may not be many such possibilities in the past few million years.  In fact, considering this possibility...it could be that's what "homo sapiens" as we know it now is.  A hybrid of ET's that blended in to establish themselves here.)

THEY could take over, blam.

OR they could try to arrange things, so we did ourselves in, saving them the trouble and cleanup.  But in a fairly benign way.  I don't think they'd like the Nuclear Winter option.  Social collapse from excess growth might be fast enough, once again it's hard to know their fundamental nature.  They could be operating from sone distance mostly, out of view, and not in a huge hurry to take the big prize, knowing they have some time before the next such ET.

So that option would entail giving us just the right knowledge.  Knowing too much of some things and too little of others.

I suppose that point is equally likely even without ET orchestration.