Friday, August 31, 2012

Facebook and Politics

A friend recently criticized Michael Moore for his pessimism about the upcoming election.  This is what I wanted to tell her:

I think it is hard to get past their (GOP) strategy.  By enacting the Voter ID law in so many states, Obama's chances are shrunk. Also, there are some great articles about how the lies they are telling help RomneyRyan cement their appeal to white people through racism.  This is the last time a white Republican will be able to win depending on "angry white males" and they intend to do it so they can affect the greatest shift of wealth - from the bottom to the top. They'll do it through tax cuts for the wealthy and dismantling social security and Medicare. 

So many people do not have the base documents to acquire Voter ID which is why that is a great way to disenfranchise.  Obama not only inherited a fiscal mess, but also a Civil Rights division filled with Bush appointees who were then (by Bush) granted civil service status which made it difficult to fire them.  Those folks were not willing to challenge the Voter ID laws when they first came up because it helped "their side."  My 82 year old mother learned in the last 10 years that she was born on March 31 instead of March 29 - born at home.  So many elderly people who would vote for Obama have the same problem - without a birth certificate you can't get the photo ID.

I can't find my birth certificate. I brought a copy with me here to Greece and now can't find it and haven't been able to find the right agency in New Jersey to get another copy.  Thank God I keep renewing my drivers' license and passport.

Then there's the money spent on lying ads - it has been proved (I'll have to use the Google as I read so much I've forgotten which article) that continuously telling a lie, and then debunking it, convinces people that the original lie was true.

We will all do our best, but Facebook has the unfortunate thing of being an echo chamber - we are talking to the chorus.