Why The Brooklyn DA Race Matters As Much As Any This November
To summarize Senator Golden's argument, the recent incident on the West Side highway where a motorcycle gang terrorized Alexian Lien and his family is the reason to support Joe Hynes. The subtext here is be afraid, scary things happen in this city. Mr. Golden seeks to leverage that fear as the reason to support stop-and-frisk in it's current form and therefore Charles Hynes.
Why We Need A Fair Elections System To Get Big Money Out Of Politics
In the Federalist Papers one can find that the Founding Fathers, when creating our more perfect union, intended to create a government that was dependent upon the people alone. Yet our current system is one that has become almost entirely dependent upon special interests, lobbyists and the .01%. We even have a term for it, we call it "pay to play."
This is not a rhetorical attack on the media. It’s not meant to be a self serving indictment of the media, but rather an appeal to our newspapers and especially our television news to renew their efforts to make a genuine contribution to our society. In this modern era of hyper-partisanship, when trust in government, trust in commerce and trust in each other are at historical lows, the fourth estate is needed more than ever.
We don't need to see facts to convince us, we know, deep in our core, that our system is out of control. We know that there is too much money. We know that there are very powerful forces at work influencing decisions. We know that often the best decisions are being killed in favor of no decision or worse yet the wrong decision.
Will we choose to paddle hard back to shore or will we be carried away by the raging torrent of money that is flooding our political system?
The idea that religion, being religious, being a good person of high moral character is the explicit domain of one party is as corrupt, confused and cynical an idea as anyone could have. Exploiting religion for personal gain, for political gain, to distort truth itself is as fundamental a misunderstanding of the word as there could possibly be.
Beyond the divisiveness, beyond the cheapening of patriotism by turning it into a talking point, the real concern about the loss of the word patriot is that it begins to elevate cynical views that weaken us, while weakening the best among us. Patriotism is not a word, it is a behavior. Patriotism is about character. Patriotism is about fulfilling our collective obligations to our communities, to the people around us. Patriotism is about true love of country, not superficial love.
A simple understanding of the english language would allow anyone to conclude that our founders use of words like "people" and "[wo]men" clearly indicate that citizens are, well, people. This truth is self-evident.
Celebrating Our Independence From Another Right Wing Falsehood
With the birth of our nation fresh on our minds it seems like the right time to bask in the glow of the rocket’s red glare as the myth of America as a center right nation explodes in front of us. The question for our republican friends is, if we are a center right nation, why are you so afraid of people voting?
