Wise Words from Sr. Joan Chittister

[wlotus]

By the Way, While We're Changing Washington...
"Where I Stand", by Sr. Joan Chittister, 3 November 2008

The election that the numbers said ended almost a month ago -- whether anyone really noticed or not -- is just hours from being over. And not a day too soon for a country whose mental health has been taxed over and over again for the last four years. It's time for someone to start cleaning up the mess rather than simply go on creating it. We hope.

Before that can happen, however, someone ought to stop long enough to look at the election process itself. This time we had primaries full of likely presidential candidates, all of whom turned out to be what the world would have thought, looking in through the USA looking glass, to be unlikely candidates: a long-term politico, a young African-American, a two-time presidential candidate and a woman. Everything about this election distracted from everything else about it so nobody paid much attention to the obvious.

Maybe we should.

Read the rest...

Comments

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

Good article. And yeah, this campaign has made everyone mentally exhausted and sick of the whole darn thing. I used to be a bit of a geek about politics- this whole horrlble campaign has killed that for good. The trashing of Hillary with grotesque levels of misogyny from Obama, his campaign people and the Obot backers, repeated with similar attacks on both Sarah Palin and Cynthia McKinney (yeah, I've seen Obots call McKinney the c word too) will likely make many good women terrified of ever running, knowing they'll get the same treatment.

I'm seeing this misogyny directed locally against a liberal woman who is running for judge, she's being called a slut and "unqualified" because she is rumored to have a tattoo on her lower back- just above her butt. (and the tattoo isn't anything freaky either, it's one of the official symbols of my town) And it's not just right wingers attacking her, the fauxgressives are too- and guess the real reason why- because she has a strong record as a prosecuting attorney on domestic violence cases.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Everything you said has made me thoroughly sick of politics. If I didn't feel as strongly as I did that I need to exercise my hard-won right to vote, I would ignore the election altogether. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I've avoided the media for weeks, now, and I will avoid it for weeks more, because I have no desire to hear the rehashing after tomorrow, no matter who wins. Both major party candidates are equally as bad, just in different ways, so I couldn't care less about the post-election debriefings.

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

I feel the same. I'll vote for McKinney for president,straight Dem downticket, and for judges I'm reasonably sure aren't right wingers, then that's all I want to know. Except I hope Lumsford wins against that sleazebag Republican McConnell. Lumsford backed Hillary in the primaries and the Clintons clearly like him, they've both rallied very willingly for him numerous times. Hoping Katie King wins too, with the misogynist smear campaign directed against her.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

There's no question our elections are screwed up. We take too long with our campaigns, we have too complex an electoral system, we spend too much time on the "horse race" aspects, and allow moneyed interests to influence the process way too much.

Frankly, I'm in favor of complete overhaul. We abolish the Electoral College and redesign the system to be parliamentary, with proportional representation and multiple parties. Something like the system they use in Canada, or in Israel.

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

Hillary proposed a bill to get rid of the Electoral College a couple of years ago and making it really one person, one vote. I like that idea better than a parlimentry system which has issues too with really giving the voters a say. The Electoral College was created as a compromise with the federalists that had a sneering distain for the "common man" (and it, of course, was only white men at that time, and land owning white men at that, that could vote. You had people like Jefferson, Madison, Paine, Burr, etc... who believed in the popular vote against men like Adams and Hamilton who wanted the common people to have a little power as possible. Hamilton, in particular, was full of contempt for the common people and wanted the presidency to be more like a kingship, and a congress like the House of Lords.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Problem is, people in sparsely-populated states will vigorously oppose any attempt at one-person/one-vote because of the fear that heavily populated areas will have an advantage over them. There's far too much of an US vs THEM mentality, especially from the viewpoint of westerners casting a very suspicious eye at practically everyone else.

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

That's not universally true. I've blogged with rural people from western states (admittedly all Democrats) who are strongly supportive of eliminating the Electoral College- the 2000 election was a wake up call for them.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

I didnt' say it was universally true. But it is true enough that that is exactly how opponents of one person/one vote would spin it, and it'd be an uphill battle to convince people who buy it otherwise. There are Democrats who dislike the one person/one vote concept for fear of losing their voice. It's not a party-specific paranoia--this is the kind of thing that will serve either party at any given time.