I wrote a long cover story for the Reno News & Review four months ago declaring it better to vote for the blustery Donald Trump than the same old-same old Hillary Clinton.
I laid out the many reasons why people should oppose Clinton for president. She is a Democrat, yes, and the Democratic Party is the only one I ever support. But Clinton’s record is hawkish, her emails fishy, we don’t need another third-rate Clinton in the White House and I am bloody sick of always voting for the lesser to two evils.
In short, I wrote that Trump would make a more challenging, exciting and stimulating president.
Now Election Day has arrived and I am forced to choose. I cannot possibly vote for Clinton. Voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away. And, contrary to my earlier advice in print, I can’t vote for Trump with a clear conscience.
Trump has alienated far too many people and whole organizations. The last straw was criticizing women and groping them. I have long been pro-feminist, an ardent proponent of woman’s rights. I supported the Equal Rights Amendment that was never ratified.
So how will I vote for president today? “None of these candidates,” an option we are fortune to have in Nevada.
OREGON VOTING EASIER
Oregon is the best in the nation when it comes to easy voting.
You go to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Oregon and can register to vote.
In Oregon, you can register online.
You can pre-register to vote when you’re 17 in Oregon.
In Oregon, there is a movement to mobilize young people and engage them in the political process.
Oregon became the first state in the country to register eligible citizens to vote when they obtain or renew their driver’s licenses or get state IDs.
These glad tidings were brought to you by Lornet Turnbull, Seattle-based freelance writer, in a dispatch on Truthout.
EVERY POLITICIAN A POPULIST
The Nation magazine, which should know better, is now calling Trump a “right-wing populist.” He certainly is not.
Populism is a sacred left-wing name in the history of U.S politics. It dates from the People’s Party, or Populist Party, in the 1890s. Its party platform in 1892, mostly written by farmers and “common folk,” called for:
“The abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax, direct election of U.S. senators, civil service reform, a working day or eight hours and government control of all railroads, telegraphs and telephones.”
While some of these reforms have been enacted, some unfortunately were not. Nevertheless, you can see how radical the platform was when written in 1892–and still is.
The Nation magazine shares the guilt with many other publications in America, which call every half-baked politician populist and ever party platform populism.
The Populist Party folded into the Democratic Party under William Jennings Bryan in 1896. But the Populists made third-party inroads, capturing 11 seats in the House of Representatives, several governorships and the legislatures of Kansas, Nebraska and North Carolina.
HARVARD STIFFS WORKERS
“Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in “Communist Manifesto” (1848)
Workers are no longer in metaphorical chains but most are still underpaid.
Harvard University, the richest college in the world, underpays its 700 cafeteria union workers, so much so that that recently they went on strike for the first time in three decades.
The picketers chant and hold signs in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The three languages are to be expected at brilliant Harvard U. But underpayment is not.
The workers are making $22 an hour, three times the minimum wage. Fine. But, they also pay costly health insurance required by the university.
The real sticking point is that the campus is closed for three months every summer and six weeks at mid-term. They are not paid those days nor paid on holidays when they are working. The cafeteria workers have a hard time getting a job for three months in the summer or six weeks at midterm when the campus is shut.
Many of the workers must take temporary work at low pay. The workers scramble to live in the summer, especially if they live nearby in expensive Boston.
Harvard, “citadel of enlightenment,“ has a $36 billion endowment. It can raise $7 billion quickly because of its rich alumni. And: the fat-cat administration had a $63 million operating surplus in 2015.
Jake Highton is an emeritus journalism professor from the University of Nevada, Reno. (jake@unr.edu)
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