The election tomorrow and California Ballot Initiatives

first thing is the presidential race, which is (finally!) about to be over. after a year and a half of watching this stupid puppetshow drown out all the real news I’m well past ready for it to be over.

fuck john “bomb iran” mccain and barack “invade pakistan” oboma. how is that even supposed to represent a choice? we’ve got 2 war mongering capitalist douchebags with slightly different strategies for fucking us all over, and yet people get all excited about it as though our votes actually counted or something! I’ll never understand it.

So here’s my official election endorsement, for everyone who hasn’t already seen it:

As for the rest of the ballot, in California at least we have a little bit of direct democracy, and that to me is worth voting on. As an anarchist I’d like to see direct democracy used for just about everything, so while the ballot initiative system isn’t perfect, it’s at least a step in the right direction. Here’s my list:

* 1A – California High Speed Rail Bond. S.B. 1856.

a huge YES on this. It’d create the funding to put high-speed rail lines into place in california between Sacramento, San Francisco, and LA, eliminating tons of greenhouse gasses from cars and airplanes every day. If we want to prevent ecocide by global warming this is a damn good place to start.

* 2 – Treatment of Farm Animals. Statute.

YES. Factory farming is fucking evil. this won’t eliminate it, but at least it’ll tone down some of the nastiest abuses a little bit.

* 3 – Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program. Statute.

Bonds & Prison spending are the 2 reasons California – despite being the biggest wealthiest state in the union – is flat broke. That said, because we are flat broke, bonds have become one of the main ways to pay for things. which is stupid, but is about as good an encapsulation of politics as usual as you’re likely to find.

As for this specific bond, I could go either way. Children’s hospitals are great, but I’m not down to make taxpayers (ie us) pay over $2 billion to build a bunch of hospitals that poor and working class folks won’t even have access too because we can’t afford their rates. give us socialized healthcare (run locally along anarchist lines, of course) and then maybe I’ll be down to subsidize hospital building. I’ll probably leave this one blank.

* 4 – Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy. Constitutional Amendment. (third attempt at Proposition 73)

NO. Say you’re someone like, oh I dunno, Sarah Palin’s daughter; and your parents are rabidly pro-life even in cases of rape and incest. and you need to get an abortion, well guess what, suddenly it’s not your choice any more, it’s your parents. Or say daddy or your stepdad or one of his friends rapes you – remember most sexual abuse of minors is perpetrated by a friend of the family or a family member and 1 in 4 women is sexually assaulted before the age of 18 in America. Now not only did you just get raped, but you have to go ask the rapist or their good buddy for permission to have a safe and legal abortion. This law might result in a marginal decrease in the number of abortions, but it would also result in a massive increase in the number of deaths from failed back-alley abortions.

This is real shit people, it happens all the time. IF the pro-lifers really wanted to stop abortion they’d support funding for social safety nets that assist poor women and single mothers; something that’s been proven to drastically reduce the number of abortions in every country where it’s been tried. Making abortion illegal or hard to get, on the other hand, does NOTHING to impact the number of abortions, all it does is increase the likelihood that the mother will get killed during complications from an unsafe illegal abortion.

* 5 – Nonviolent Offenders. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Statute.

YES. this one would offer treatment programs to nonviolent offenders instead of locking them up. It’d save taxpayers millions and keep a lot of folks who shouldn’t be in prison out of prison. not that prisons should even exist, but that’s another story….

* 6 – Criminal Penalties and Laws. Public Safety Funding. Statute.

NO. This is more of the same “lock ‘em up & throw away the key” tough on crime bullshit the fascists have been pushing for decades

* 7 – Renewable Energy. Statute.

YES. duh. global warming & eco-apocalypse = bad.

* 8 – Eliminates the Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

NO NO NO! the fact that this is even on the ballot is an embarrassment. It’s disgusting, wrong, and a testament to the tremendous homophobic bigotry of the Mormon Church (it’s biggest backer by far) and just plain evil.

Seriously though, to deny same sex couples the legal equality offered by marriage (which like it or not is a civil contract, not just a religious one) is just plain evil. Personally, I don’t think marriage should be recognized or sanctioned by the state at all – i don’t think it’s any of the government’s business when where and how humans decide to mate. But as long as marriage IS a civil institution it has to be available to everyone without prejudice, to deny it to certain people because of their sexuality is just plain wrong.

* 9 – Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole. Constitutional Amendment and Statute.

NO. This is more of the same “lock ‘em up & throw away the key” tough on crime bullshit the fascists have been pushing for decades.. It does nothing for victims of violent crime at all, despite the name.

* 10 – Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Statute.

YES. duh. global warming & eco-apocalypse = bad.

* 11 – Redistricting. Constitutional Amendment and Statute.

Bleh, this one is a stupid procedural one, it’d theoretically make elections more competitive by taking the power to draw electoral districts away from the legislatureand giving that power to a (theoretically) neutral panel of judges, thus preventing them from gerrymandering their districts into non-competitive all-democrat or all-republican zones. Might as well vote yes, but don’t expect much in the way of real change….

* 12 – Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008. S.B. 1572.

YES. Funding for war = bad, funding for veterans who’ve had their lives shattered by evil capitalist wars = good.

Posted: November 3rd, 2008 under politrix.
Comments: 3

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