Posts tagged “democracy”

I don't think PRISM is a big deal, but here are eight things that genuinely threaten democracy: whistleblower persecution, National Security Letters, gutting the Voting Rights Act, partisan redistricting, corporate personhood, SuperPACs, attacks on abortion rights, and enshrining anti-gay discrimination in state constitutions. (Update: I was wrong about PRISM. Shut it down.)

Corporations aren't people. They don't breathe, they don't care about our health or happiness, and they serve no interests but their own. The Supreme Court's decision to grant them free speech rights in political advertising is a threat to democracy itself. We need to reverse this, now.

I'm passionately against Prop 8, but we lost a fair election. Protesting or pursuing legal challenges feels undemocratic and counterproductive. The real problem is older voters, and they're dying. We should put marriage equality back on the ballot in 2010. We will win eventually.

Vote Obama, not Clinton. Four reasons: no dynasty politics, anyone can be president, he unifies instead of polarizes, and he inspires rather than lectures.

Warwick students voted to ban smoking in their union. Selfish? Sure, but so is forcing non-smokers to breathe your fumes. Democracy runs on selfishness. Hurrah for the smoke-free majority. We non-smokers just need to wait for our numbers to grow -- which won't take long.

The UN Security Council voted unanimously for the Iraq resolution, prompting a Clinton NSC member to warn that there are "no checks and balances on President Bush." The irony of foreign autocracies positioning themselves as defenders of democratic restraint is apparently lost on everyone involved.