Are We Still An Intelligent Electorate?
A sharing With Barbara Mayer
October 28, 2012
One of my heroes in American history is Thomas Jefferson. Human as he was, Jefferson was wise enough to call for an America with an intelligent electorate.
When he was approaching the end of his life, someone asked Jefferson what he felt was his greatest contribution to the burgeoning United States of America, He was, after all, the third president, the first USA ambassador, he sat on the Supreme Court, and he wrote the majority of the Declaration of Independence!
Jefferson’s answer? He said the best thing he ever did for this young nation was to found the University of Virginia. His reasoning? The only way this new government could possibly succeed, he said — where the people elect leaders who will then rule over them — was to have an intelligent electorate. Not just for the wealthy or powerful. Not just a matter of any other kind of diversity, but a nation where equal voting rights and education were available to all citizens. And in his founding of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was in effect starting a public education system, which would then provide for educating all the people so they could make intelligent decisions about who would be the best persons to occupy all governmental positions — from local and state to the highest office in the land.
That system has worked until now. This time, however, there is a threat that America is not so much a democracy any more, but a billionacracy, where the candidate with more super billionaires in her or his corner, can now literally buy an election. Saturate the airwaves with truth – or untruth. Just say it loud enough and often enough, and because the people are easily swayed and don’t bother to investigate the facts –and are no longer a truly intelligent electorate, the billionaires’ candidates will win on the sheer force of saturation marketing.
Let us hope that isn’t the case in this all-important election.
And let us not forget what the Ryan budget — if ever enacted – would do to many of America’s minorities, especially the American women who will no longer receive health benefits from screening for cancer and other diseases, to a host of other female health issues.
Less than 100 years ago women were imprisoned, suffered actual cruelty while in prison, and were subject to incredible abuse simply because they sought the right to vote – not in some third world country, but in these very United States of America.
Only after years of torture at the hands of law officials and an absolute bloody battle for access to the ballot box, did the U.S. government finally pass the Nineteenth Amendment, finally making law what should have been presumed as the right of any American citizen.
The question now remains – what are today’s American women doing with that precious right to vote – for which their predecessors suffered so much to win?
Polling in our own area as well as across the nation which shows many women are standing up to protect their right to proper health care — also reveals many other women are planning to cast their vote in support of the Paul Ryan budget. The reasons? Some are simply not aware of what that budget will do to deprive women, the elderly and other minorities some of the basic health care every other civilized nation is this world already provides. Some other women are holding true to Tammy Wynette’s old advice – “Stand by your man”. And if their “man” votes for Paul Ryan’s budget, so will they!
Other Republican women are in denial that their Grand Old Party, now basically controlled by the Tea Party, would actually take away their rights to contraception and abortion, not to mention their party’s refusal to support the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act. Somehow they think the Democrats have made all this up as some kind of fear tactic when, in fact, the Republican statements are all available online in this wonderful age of instant communication. As a woman, it boggles my mind how women could vote so obviously against their own interests, as well as those of their daughters, granddaughters, friends, and even, in some cases, their own mothers! The suffragettes must be rolling over in their graves!
This is not just another election. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, women’s rights — as well as other basics of American society — are now being very seriously threatened.
The question: will American voters, and especially American women and other minorities realize the impact of their precious votes, or will Jefferson’s hope for an intelligent electorate be trampled by indifference, ignorance, false loyalties, in some cases downright hatred, and billionaires’ saturation advertising?
We shall see. And we shall all share in the positive results, or the extremely harmful results this election will bring.
God, bless America. Please …
Barbara Mayer is an author, teacher and interfaith minister who resides and votes in Sedona, Arizona.
4 Comments
Barbara, it is unfortunate that we have become a billionocracy and hopefully we citizens will learn from this election and demand that this is no longer acceptable in future elections. It is also true that the airwaves are saturated with truths and untruths and it seems that you have accepted some of the un-truths as fact. There is nothing in the Ryan budget that prevents women or minorities from receiving screening for cancer or other diseases.
It’s obvious from your comments, that you know nothing about the Tea Party Movement and what they stand for. May I suggest you attend the next Sedona Tea Party meeting at 6:30 on November 1st at the Sedona Library. All are wellcome to attend, regardless of Party affiliation. You mentioned how important it is for all of us to be informed and investigate both sides of each issue in order to become an intelligent electorate. There is much we can all learn if we are willing to always be open minded. I look forward to discussing some of the issues with you.
1. Medicaid is crucial to women’s health. It provides coverage to nearly 19 million low-income women, meaning that they make up 70 percent of the program’s beneficiaries. Any slashing of Medicaid’s rolls will therefore fall heavily on their shoulders.
And Paul Ryan’s policies would do just that. Ryan’s budget slashes Medicaid by more than 20 percent over the next ten years and turns it into a block grant to states, letting them spend the money as they wish—as opposed to the current form, in which states have to follow certain rules in how the money is spent. The Urban Institute estimated that the block grant plan alone would lead states to drop 14–27 million people from Medicaid by 2021.
On top of that, Ryan’s budget repeals the Affordable Care Act, and with it the Medicaid expansion that some states are already threatening to refuse. Without that expansion, 17 million people will be left without Medicaid coverage. Women will again be hurt by this outcome: 13.5 million were expected to get health insurance coverage under the expansion by 2016. A Ryan budget would ensure they stay unprotected.
2. Social Security is another crucial safety net program that women disproportionately rely on. It is virtually the only source of income for about a third of female beneficiaries over 65. (Compare that to less than a quarter of men.) Without it, half of those women would live in poverty.
Ryan’s budgets haven’t called for specific cuts to the program, although his first version favorably cited the cuts proposed by the Simpson-Bowles report. But before he was known for chart-filled budgets, he put his name to a plan to partially privatize Social Security by having workers divert about half of their Social Security payroll-tax contribution to a private retirement account. Remember how well 401(k)s fared during the recent financial crisis when stocks took a nosedive? That could happen again—and the women who rely on Social Security benefits could be left without anything to fall back on.
3. One more big social safety net program that women rely on: Medicare. The majority of Medicare beneficiaries are women, and twice as many women over age 65 live in poverty as compared to men.
Ryan’s budget plan would raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67 while repealing the ACA, leaving those between ages 65 and 67 with neither Medicare nor access to health insurance exchanges or subsidies to help them buy coverage. That will leave low-income people with nowhere to turn except the pricey private insurance market at an age when healthcare is crucially important. Come 2023 his plan would also replace Medicare’s guarantee of health coverage with payments to the elderly to buy coverage from private companies or traditional Medicare. The problem is that the payments would increase so slowly that spending on the average 67-year-old by 2050 could be reduced by as much as 40 percent as compared to now. That’s not going to go very far toward getting the elderly health coverage.
4. There are other huge pieces of the social safety net that women rely on that Ryan would unravel if given the chance. Beyond all the above cuts, his budget plan would spend about 16 percent less than President Obama’s budget on programs for the poor. This includes slashing SNAP, or food stamps, by $133.5 billion, more than 17 percent all told, over the next decade.
According to the National Women’s Law Center, women were over 60 percent of adult SNAP recipients and over 65 percent of elderly recipients in 2010. Plus over half of all households that rely on SNAP benefits were headed by a single adult—and over 90 percent of them were women.
5. His budget would also cut TANF, the program that replaced welfare, and Supplemental Security Income by $463 billion. Nearly nine in ten adult beneficiaries of TANF were women in 2009—over 85 percent.
6. Given that his budget plan gets over 60 percent of the $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts from support for low-income Americans, there are a host of other programs women rely on that would see huge cuts. Childcare assistance, Head Start, job training and housing and energy assistance would likely see a $291 billion cut. Cuts to childcare and Head Start will disproportionately impact working mothers. But other programs also greatly benefit women. Take housing support. The Housing Choice Voucher program provides families with rental assistance, and over 80 percent of households receiving that support are headed by women.
7. There are plenty of other ways that Ryan’s ultraconservative views could impact women financially beyond his severe budget and policy proposals. His views on contraception are from another century. He’s against the ACA’s mandate that religious employers provide insurance coverage for birth control. He’s also opposed to federally funded family planning services. He voted to deny birth control coverage to federal employees in 1999 and has voted at least four times to defund Planned Parenthood, a key provider of contraceptives, particularly for low-income women. He also supports the “personhood” movement, which writes bills defining conception as the beginning of life that would likely outlaw some forms of birth control.
This is not just a social issue. This is an economic issue for millions of women. Research has shown a clear link between women’s ability to control their fertility thanks to contraception and increased female employment. In 1950, 18 million women were in the workforce. Since then, the pill has become widely available and widely used, and that number has tripled to 66 million. Ryan threatens to set us back by at least half a century and make it that much harder for women to get into the workforce.
8. On top of this, he’s no supporter of equal pay for equal work, voting against the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which gives women more time to file lawsuits when they believe they’ve been discriminated against by an employer. The gender wage gap means that the typical woman loses $431,000 over a forty-year career as compared to her male peers.
On Feministing, Vanessa Valenti points out that there are plenty of other ways that Paul Ryan’s policies are a nightmare for the country’s women—from opposing Roe v. Wade to voting against marriage equality to being terrible on immigration issues. One thing is for sure: if Romney’s new running mate is voted in as second in command and his ideas guide the next administration, women can expect a lot of economic pain.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169368/paul-ryans-budget-deals-body-blow-womens-bottom-line#
Thanks, Nancy, for your detailing of all the major impacts that Ryan’s budget would force upon women — especially poor, minority and elderly women. Great job!
Barbara Mayer
Barbara is so very correct.
She is capsulizing the thoughts of the founder of the Democratic Party –Thomas Jefferson. Speaking of the need for a well-informed electorate.
The idea, the sense, of Social Justice does not occur in the GOP platform, in the speeches of Flip-Mitt Rich-Romney, nor his mate, “the smartest man in Republican Party” Lying-Ryan. Plutocracy is not the dream of our Founders.
We should not reward liars, and selfish greedy overlords.
American history over the past century has been made by progressives—those who believe in human rights and social justice. Meanwhile the Regressives—the Romneys / Ryans —would return America to the nineteenth century, the 1800’s, before America became a more equitable society.
Consider – Romney / Ryan would defund and / or eliminate FEMA, and Healthcare – tell that to the victims of hurricane Sandy !!
Thomas Jefferson headed the Democratic Party; in opposition to the Federalist Party headed by Alex Hamilton. The Republican Party was founded in 1854, and nominated John C. Fremont – who lost to the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan. Republican Abe Lincoln won in 1860.
From: Illustrated World Encyclopedia, Boblet Publishing Corp.; Woodbury, New York
Subject: Georgetown professors call Ryan “nonsense”
After bishops denounced his budget as immoral, (they) have called Congressman Ryan out for his nonsense, saying his plan reflects the values of “Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Ryan’s budget plan decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few. your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.” Paul Ryan’s Claim That His Budget Reflects Catholic Teaching Is ‘Nonsense’ John Nichols on April 26, 2012 ; thenation.com
William Jennings Bryan decried a century ago when he announced: “Plutocracy is abhorrent to a republic; it is more despotic than monarchy, more heartless than aristocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in the hour of its calamity. Conscienceless, compassionless and devoid of wisdom, it enervates its votaries while it impoverishes its victims.
“We’re not going let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” Neil Newhouse, the Romney campaign’s spokesman.
Mitt Romney: Lying to victory -Barbara MorrillFollow ; Daily Kos Oct 4, 2012
The results of Wednesday night’s first presidential debate are in and it’s official: Mitt Romney lied through his teeth for most of the debate.
Romney lied:
When he claimed that “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” They’re not.
When he said that President Obama had “cut Medicare by $716 billion to pay for Obamacare.” Obama didn’t.
When he denied proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. He did.
When he said President Obama had “added almost as much to the federal debt as all the prior presidents combined.” Not even close.
When he resurrected “death panels.” That was called “one of the biggest whoppers of the night.”
When he stated that half the green energy companies given stimulus funds had failed. Only if three out of nearly three dozen is half.
These just scratch the surface.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/04/1139793/-Mitt-Romney-Lying-to-victory?detail=email