Petty Irritations of Election 2012

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I don't know how it is in the rest of these great United States (of America, in contrast to other, less distinguished united states that might exist in other less exalted places), but it is very trying around here for everyone who simply wants to have a reasonable election, and then get on with life.

There is, of course, a lot of fooling around with electoral boundaries all over the country.  The party in power (but not, thankfully, in the White House) is furiously trying to make permanent changes in the system to ensure that the opposition (that's us) has a harder time trying to get back in the saddle.  Conservatives are being placed on electoral commissions.  Conservative judges are being put on the bench all over the place.  Rules are being changed in favor of big business.  And, most recently, in Pennsylvania, the procedures for identifying a voter at the polls are being tightened up.  The new requirement is that the voter must provide several forms of identification, all of which must match in terms of name and address.  State governments, of course, are notoriously careless in getting a person's name correct; for instance, the PA bureau of motor vehicles inexplicably got my name wrong in a vehicle registration.  Then, because the vehicle registration did not match my driver's license, they changed the driver's license to match the registration.  I quickly learned that it was counterproductive to call in a change over the phone; it was just asking for trouble.  So, for instance if, on election day, any of the three forms of ID have different middle initials for you, it could give an opportunity for any troublemaker at the polling booth to deny you access to voting.  There is news that the requirements are being relaxed, but there are also rumors that the authorities at each polling booth are being allowed a certain degree of flexibility to interpret the regulations.  Obviously, flexibility is only good if there is any confidence that it will be used fairly.

Over in Ohio, there was an attempt (reportedly) to roll back the hours of access at certain polling locations.  From what I can gather, some precincts in which voters had obtained longer polling hours, typically locations with disadvantaged voters, (senior citizens, blacks and minorities,) were getting their hours reduced to the standard hours.  This was being reported by Democrats as a move to cut down the hours for just those minority-area polling stations.

What the actual facts are must be checked carefully, but changing the hours of access in such a way that certain targeted polling stations have shorter hours is an entirely different matter than retracting the expanded polling hours that particular polling stations had argued for, and won.  Both situations are unfortunate, but the former case is most definitely unfair.  I have given a link to just one news source; you should check the other side of the story.  This sort of incident must be carefully inspected and publicized.

However, not only is it insidious for the direct impact it might have, it could be seen as a systematic plan to disillusion younger voters about the electoral process.  Every incident of petty unfairness drives another nail in the coffin of youthful idealism.  Let's face it: Democracy is an idealistic thing.  It is an optimistic idea, that an election can take the temperature of a people, and decide a course of action to which the entire people can subscribe.  If a strategy of turning younger people off from the democratic process succeeds, it leaves the way open for special interests and professional politicians to conduct business to their private satisfaction, without reference to the interests of their constituents.

There is also a trend, under the conservative administrations, to give more discretionary power for states, and local governments, which are rife with even more corruption and stupidity than the Federal government, at this time in history.  A large proportion of the screwy machinations that go on are from ambitious small-time operatives with absolutely no sense of any sort of larger picture.

Well, let's wait and see what the consequences of all these shenanigans are.  They could easily backfire on the GOP.  But we must avoid doing the same silly things in a couple of years; if we don't like them being done to us, I imagine the GOP will like it just as little being done to them.  There is much to be said for putting the brakes on the escalating spiral of petty cheating (and retaliation).

On an entirely unrelated subject, there is news that a Federal judge has overturned an EPA mandated requirement for coal-burning power plants to reduce their emissions by a certain amount by January 1 (of which year, I'm not certain).  The coal-burning power plant lobby was delighted with the news, and certain coal stocks rose briefly immediately following the news, while gas stocks fell (by around 3%, according to some reports).  But the coal stocks subsequently fell, and the gas stocks are said to have bounced back.

First of all, though coal is a polluting fossil fuel, and as such less attractive than natural gas for power companies, it can be made cleaner.  Power companies all over the world use dirty coal, but use more sophisticated methods for scrubbing their emissions.  American power companies --no surprise-- have refused to move towards the new technology because of cost.  They probably insist on a higher profit margin than European or Indian companies, no doubt.

Secondly, both fuels are fossil fuels, and we should not invest in them in the long term.  But the thinking in economic circles is: cheap energy makes business profitable; when business is profitable, unemployment drops; when unemployment drops, the standard of living improves.  But we will eventually run out of both gas and coal.  Nobody wants to address that fact until we actually do run out of them.  The GOP and Big Business says: forget re-tooling away from fossil fuels until the Economy is fixed.  The Economy, of course, will never be fixed to anyone's satisfaction.  It will only be declared fixed when the Dow Jones goes into the stratosphere, and taxes are at 0%.  This is all a way for living with fossil fuels as long as possible.  Why?  Because oil, gas and coal stocks are still doing very well, and gasoline-burning cars have maintained their popularity, for absolutely no reason at all except sheer testosterone, jingoism and general fatheadedness.

One thing that has gotten general acceptance is that logic and reasoning are not important for politics.  We sing, but they do not dance.

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