Balancing Act

Let’s be brutally honest.

Do we have to be brutal? Is there no other way? Can we not be pleasantly honest? Agreeably honest? Diplomatically honest? Or is that not completely honest?

Let’s be perfectly honest – as if that were possible.

Let’s be brutally honest. What makes Florida Congressional District Three a “safe” Republican District is the fact that it is three-quarters rural, peopled by conservative country folk, largely white, God-fearing, and gun-toting.

In 2012 the Democrats ran J.R. Galliot, a black man, knowing they would lose badly but at least they would capture the black vote. This time around, in 2014, the Democrats tried another strategy and nominated Marihelen Wheeler, a seasoned public school teacher and activist, a white woman who had grown up in rural Kentucky and lived for 30 years in rural Florida, someone with whom the country folk of District Three could identify.

The Democrats might have reasoned that J.R. Galliot, a black man, really had a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning white votes in counties where the Klan is still active. The voters hated him on sight. But with Marihelen, they might not hate her on sight, unless they were going to hate her for being a woman, and since more than half the voters in any election are women, that gave her a better chance.

Well, no, it didn’t. It didn’t change the outcome one damn bit. District Three is still a “safe” Republican District, and Ted Yoho is still our Representative in Congress.

To be fair, nothing changed in District Five either, where Corrine Brown in her “safe” Democratic District defeated her Republican rival by a percentage nearly identical to Yoho’s victory.

What is to be learned from this? Nothing that we did not already know. All it did was provide confirmation – not that this is the way the system works, because it doesn’t work, only that this is the way the system is.

We got our hopes up because Marihelen seemed like such a winning candidate. As Victor Okorochukwa who was behind the camera when we taped our interview with Marihelen for ANTV commented, “She looks like the All-American Girl.”

But Marihelen actually got a smaller percentage of the votes than J. R. Galliot got in 2012. She did worse than he did. She was not a better candidate. Ted Yoho was the better candidate – for District Three. Easily. Just as Corrine Brown was for District Five. Intentional gerrymandering, in this case, worked out just the way it’s supposed to, with one tally for the Republicans and one for the Democrats, tit for tat, fair and balanced.

But let’s step back and look at this picture – and it is the very map Barack is talking about that turns the whole country into Republamia.

You can’t look at it like a flat map. You have to look at the topography. All of Urbania is Corrine Brown territory. Everything that is rural is Ted Yoho’s. It’s Suburbia that is up for grabs.

Except that it has already been grabbed. Suburbia is not owned by the Republicans, but it is on loan to them – by moneyed interests. That’s why we call it capitalism. In the meantime, Democrats can and will still win the Presidency and sometimes even both Houses of Congress – see 2008, but the pendulum will always swing back to the right – and since the rules are tilted in favor of capital, not labor, to begin with, things will naturally settle somewhere center right – see now.

All of which may make it seem like things aren’t changing, but nothing could be further from the truth. How do we know this? Because it has risen to the level of consciousness, because it is being articulated, because we are close now to forcing the minimum wage to go up, because business is good, hell, we even voted to let working class people and sick people get high, because we really did win the right to health insurance and if the Republicans take that away from people, there will be hell to pay, which you may recall is what we were paying for health insurance before.

Faith in Marihelen Wheeler

We know that the only way democracy can work is through an educated electorate. It makes sense then to cast your vote for the candidates and initiatives that best reflect what you have learned.

Spinoza enjoined us to proceed logically and ethically exclusively on the basis of good or adequate ideas. So let’s start with the proposition that the House of Representatives should actually represent us. That leads to the question: Who are we?

We are the electorate, a diverse population of citizens, all equal in the eyes of the law and each with the right to vote. We live here, we pay taxes, and each in our own way contributes to the growth of our community, some more than others.

If it is a good idea that Congress should really represent us and that each of us then in good faith votes for those candidates and initiatives that put forth and promote our good or adequate ideas, it follows that democracy in action will produce a representative government acting on behalf of the good of the people.

You may think that is not true. You may not believe that is the case. You may not intuitively trust that judgment, because you’ve been down that road before, but when you enter the voting booth you should hold it as an article of faith and you should suspend your disbelief that your vote matters.

But don’t stop there – even though that is the traditional conclusion of the election season public service announcement. That your vote matters is not the conclusion, but, rather, the premise. The conclusion is, if your vote matters and you vote or, even worse, if you choose not to vote, then we don’t need to hear any more from you about the Government doing this, that, or the other, taking your guns and what not, or being the enemy of small business. We are the Government. That is the meaning of democracy.

The Government isn’t about to take your guns. I would take your guns if I could, but the Government won’t. The Government won’t even think about taking your guns. And the Government isn’t the enemy of small businesses. Big business is the enemy of small business. It’s not the Government that puts Mom and Pop out of business – it’s Walmart. The problem is when Government is on the same side as big business, because then just about everybody loses. Just about everybody. The top one percent make out like bandits.

For a long time Cliff Stearns was our man in Congress, a conservative Republican. We live in what is called a “safe” Republican District. Gainesville, being a University town, is predictably progressive, but only a portion of Gainesville makes it into District Three. The surrounding counties are rural Republican strongholds.

Despite his long and faithful service to Republican principles, Stearns wasn’t far enough to the right to satisfy his constituents, and he was outflanked by Ted Yoho, a Tea Party favorite who thinks that only property-owners should be able to vote. The reason he got elected is because in his District pretty much it’s only property owners who vote.

Here, you will note, we have strayed somewhat from our proposition based on good or adequate ideas that we are the electorate and we are the Government – because we don’t own any property.

When I say we I mean you and I, that we, first person plural. I don’t own any property. Do you? If you do, I’m not necessarily speaking to you. I don’t own any property. I don’t own any property and I just bought a house. I suppose I could say I own property now, but really the bank owns it. Most people are not property owners. In Plato’s republic, the poets are excluded. In Ted Yoho’s republic most people would not have the right to vote.

It’s usually not a good idea to cast your vote against someone because the candidate you end up voting for may not be the answer either. Such a case must have presented itself to conservative voters when Yoho challenged Stearns to begin with. They were dissatisfied with Stearns. He reminded them too much of George Bush, which is to say he reminded them that they had voted for George Bush, and so they got rid of Stearns out of shame. Now they find that they had not yet realized the depth of their shame. And that’s where Marihelen Wheeler comes in.

No one will vote for Marihelen Wheeler out of shame, even though we might well be ashamed of Ted Yoho’s performance in Congress where he was one of the leaders of the infamous Government shut-down. A vote for Marihelen Wheeler is something you can be genuinely proud of, and here’s how I know.

I taught with Marihelen Wheeler for 22 years at Westwood Middle School. For the longest time she taught out in the portable classroom at the end of Portable Row, the special education class, the self-contained unit, the school’s severest psychological and pedagogical challenges, competently, calmly, confidently, kindly, empathetically, and she also taught Art, nurturing the greatest of our school’s creative capabilities. All the while she was a staunch member of the Alachua County Education Association, the teachers union, actively supporting its efforts for better pay for teachers and an improved learning environment for both teachers and students. She found her way into politics by fighting for Florida’s water resources.

We voted Marihelen Wheeler the Teacher of the Year, but had we the Vatican’s power we likely would have canonized her as a saint. The Church of course requires the performance of a miracle as proof of one’s sainthood, but a Democrat winning Florida’s Congressional District Three just might qualify.

If you support raising the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, protecting the environment, immigration reform, expanding health care, then vote for Marihelen Wheeler to represent us in Congress with an open mind and a kind heart, and it will be so.

Wheeler Reality meets Yoho Dream at the Border

It’s a little after three in the afternoon in a small lecture hall on the campus of Santa Fe College. Merihelen Wheeler, the challenger, is here, and Ted Yoho, the incumbent will be here shortly. In November the electorate will decide which one will represent District Three in the House of Representatives. The venue was changed at the last moment from the Fine Arts Auditorium, and so far only about 25 people have found their way here, mostly students, and a few old progressives. The students are mostly diddling with their phones, the older folk talking to one another. Just before 3:30 a swarm of students pour through the door, many wearing Wheeler buttons, and then Ted Yoho arrives, and the place is hopping, the students all talking to each other now about what is happening on their phones. Ted, like a gentleman, pulls out Marihelen’s chair for her and they chat amicably before the forum begins.

The moderator is Dr. Vilma Fuentes, Santa Fe assistant vice president for academic affairs. She tells us that traditionally college students do not vote, so Santa Fe is staging this event to inspire students to vote. Students will be asking the questions. The two candidates introduce themselves and their ideology before the questions begin.

Marihelen explains that she is taking her first leave of absence in 37 years of teaching to run for Congress and that there is a 23 year-old teacher taking her place at Westwood Middle school, who really hopes she wins.

“I’m 63 years old,” Marihelen says. “I was born in 1951 and I grew up in the 50s when everything was black and white – literally.” She is a teacher and an activist who’s been fighting for Florida’s water resources for years.

She talks about people, like her, who work at jobs and hope they can make it till their Medicaid and Social Security kick in. She cares about those people because she’s one of them. She cares about the water we drink, the water that is essential to our existence, one vital commonality amidst the wide diversity of District Three is water, and we all should be concerned that Duke Energy is aiming a gas pipeline through Florida for the purpose of exporting gas and oil.

Then it is Ted’s turn, and sizing up the crowd he says, “Marihelen, you sure draw a crowd.” Ted tells us that Florida is the best state in the country and District Three is the best district in the state. Ted is a Christian Conservative Family man. He is also a large animal veterinarian and a product of the American Dream. He’s been in Congress, so he knows that the only way Congress can work is when the common goal is what’s best for America. Today business owners who are products of the American Dream tell him that they could never have made it when they were starting out if things were the way they are today.

Ted is concerned with national security, immigration, and the national debt. He tells us that we are 18 trillion dollars in debt and then he breaks that down and tells us how much that comes to for each of us individually and that you don’t get the government you want; you get the government you deserve.

This will come as a disappointment to voters who may feel we deserve better.

Dr. Fuentes calls on a young bearded man in the back row to ask the first question. “I’m from Dixie County where the unemployment rate is 8% and the crime rate is through the roof.” He mentions that he keeps his gun clean and ready. What could be done to improve things there?

Ted says they passed an Agriculture Bill in Congress that would help, but nothing ever came of it because it landed on Harry Reid’s desk in the Senate and that killed it. He’ll try to pass more bills that will help people to invest – because investment is the answer. But he can’t promise the Senate will act.

Marihelen sees a connection between high unemployment and crime, and maybe if you reduce unemployment then crime might go down, but in the meantime neighbors maybe need to change their attitudes about one another if they’re going to get along. Speaking of bills, she notes that there would be a lot more jobs if Florida had accepted the high-speed rail system that would have simultaneously addressed both transportation and energy problems, and if Florida hadn’t declined the Medicaid expansion to go with the Affordable Care Act.

Next, a student asks where the candidates stand on the issue of net neutrality.

Marihelen tells us she is a right-brained art teacher, but when it comes to technology she’s learned to listen to her students. She’s listened to college students too and she knows the issue of net neutrality is all about the privatization of information, and she believes in freedom of information.

Ted, as a conservative, is against the government sticking its nose into this. He doesn’t want the government determining who does or doesn’t have access to information. Presumably then whether or not information will be privatized will have to be determined privately. We’re on our own here, but that’s the way like it.

The next question returns to the subject of our infrastructure.

Marihelen starts from off-shore, looking at what the oil companies have done to the Gulf of Mexico. She arrives at our infrastructure by wondering how we can get more cars off the road and the answer comes back again: Trains.

Ted knows that you have to pay for infrastructure, so where’s the money going to come from? Now that cars are trying so hard to be gas-efficient, a gas tax can’t raise enough money to pay for repairing roads and bridges. There was a Highway Bill in Congress, but he had to vote against it because attached to it was provision for, you guessed it, trains.

Next is a student of Ted’s ilk who looks up from his laptop where numbers have been crunching and  he rings up the National Debt.

Ted tells us how to reduce the National Debt. You do it by creating an environment of confidence. We can’t even have confidence in our money because a dime’s not worth a dime’s worth. The reason that things cost so much is because our government prints too much money. Our money has to be based on something, something real, if not gold, well then something else. Otherwise we will lack confidence and the debt will soar ever higher.

Marihelen asks if anyone happens to know just how much they personally contributed to the debt, and none of us can recall anything we might have done to incur such debt. Why then, we begin to wonder, should we be the ones expected to re-pay it.

If there’s a debt we might be worried about paying, it’s not so much the national debt as it might be, say, student loans. Maybe we could lower the cost of student loans. Maybe students could get a break, the way we give large corporations a break. And another thing that might help would be to raise the minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage isn’t going to help, Ted counters. He worked for minimum wage when he was a kid, washing cars. It was $1.70 an hour, and since then the minimum wage has been raised 14 times and all that’s done is make it higher. Employers tell him that they aren’t going to be able to hire more workers if the minimum wage goes up.

Next is a student who tells us that he is a first generation American. His parents came here from Honduras. Could the candidates speak to the issue of immigration.

Marihelen points out that in fact the people who live in Central America and South America as well as those in North America are all Americans, and that some practical way must be found to address the situation that finds 11 million illegal immigrants in our country. It won’t happen by trying to impeach the President or by trying again to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

Ted asks the student what is it that his parents came here for.

“For the American Dream,” he says.

Perfect. Ted Yoho, a product of the American Dream, tells the student that as a Member of Congress his responsibility is to the citizens of the United States. (We can deduce then that the American Dream is just for Americans.) Ted says there are two kind of illegal immigrants – those who have overstayed their visas and those who have entered the country illegally. He has some tolerance for the former and none for the latter – not even the little kids. If we are going to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into our country, we’re going to have to secure the borders, and we’re going to have to turn off the magnet that attracts them. And what is the magnet? Free education and free health care.

Marihelen begs to differ. The magnet is jobs, especially here, where mega-farms and horse farms exploit illegal labor.

The last question of the forum raises the issue of education.

Ted has ideas about reforming the Department of Education by limiting its powers and enhancing those on the state and local level. The States need to take back education.

Marihelen, who happens to be a teacher, says she’s wary of the reforms Ted is speaking of because none of them sees fit to involve teachers in their process, which seems to be turning universities into just another kind of corporation, to go along with the testing industry, which has effectively eliminated teaching the whole student and instead teaches only that part of a student that takes tests.

With that the forum concludes and Ted salutes Dr. Fuentes for her moderating and the enthusiasm which she and the students have brought to the campaign. Marihelen echoes this and encourages us all to vote.

We are left to ponder the American Dream.

Ted is one of those people who stay awake at night worrying about how we’re going to pay off the national debt. Usually people who worry about how to pay off the national debt don’t have many significant debts of their own to worry about, which frees them to worry about the national debt; whereas if I were to stay up nights worrying about the national debt my wife would say, “Why don’t you worry about your own damn debt?” Conversely, it could well be argued that I have no damn business worrying about the national debt seeing as how I can’t even keep myself out of debt.

See the connection?

The American Dream means you can dream big and make it. That means in the black, not the red. So if you are a product of the American Dream, one of us who operates in the black, then you can be entrusted with dealing with the national debt. However, if you are not one of us who operates in the black, if you’re just a poor schmuck like the rest of us, getting by from paycheck to paycheck, working till you qualify for Medicaid and Social Security, like Marihelen Wheeler, then what the hell are we listening to you for?

And the answer is – because you should always pay attention to the teacher. The teacher will explain how things work. The teacher will tell you what to study. The teacher will answer your questions. The teacher won’t kick you out of school because you are a refugee.

Now do your homework.

 

 

 

 

Dream Meets Reality – Yoho v Wheeler

It’s the first Monday of October and the scene is the Meeting Room atop the Downtown Library in Gainesville, where the League of Women Voters is staging a debate between Republican Congressman Ted Yoho and his Democratic challenger Marihelen Wheeler. There are about a hundred people here, but only one black man, a young man in his 20s with a notebook. Mostly it’s an older liberal crowd that bespeaks this progressive stronghold in north-central Florida.

Allison Gerenscer of the League of Women Voters is the moderator. She’ll be asking the questions.

District Three is comprised of all of Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Suwannee, and Union counties – which are mostly all country folk, conservative, solidly Republican – and part of Alachua, Marion, Madison, and Union counties where some Democrats live. Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida, is solidly Democrat, and the gerrymandering lines have been drawn to cut it in half. District Three is a “safe” Republican District.

Marihelen goes first. She tells the audience that she has spent her life as a public school teacher. She teaches Art at Westwood Middle School and she has a degree in Special Education, and in the course of 30 years she has come to know and work with about 6,000 poor and working families in District Three.

Then comes Ted. He tells us that he is a veterinarian and that he and his wife Carolyn are products of the American Dream. He went to Washington because he doesn’t believe in kicking the can down the road.

The first question is about the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United, which allows corporations to be treated as people, thereby empowering corporations with political clout weighted in their favor by capital.

The League of Women Voters, the moderator tells us, is strongly against the decision.

Merihelen would like to do what she can in Congress to overturn the ruling, but the only way to do that is democratically, by voting, by getting people, not corporations, real live hard-working people, out to vote. “Corporations will be people,” Merihelen says memorably, “if we, the people, allow them to be – by not voting.”

Ted doesn’t actually mention the Citizens United ruling in what he has to say, but he tells us that he is worried about all the big money in politics and he supports campaign finance reform because he believes in accountability. He obviously liked Marihelen’s line because he co-opts it. “Corporations will be people,” Ted says, “unless people get out and vote.”

The next question is about infrastructure.

Here’s the thing Ted wants to say about our falling apart infrastructure – somebody needs to be held accountable. Sometimes they say the money is for this and they use it for that, and all they’re doing is kicking the can down the road and that’s what he went to Washington to stop.

Marihelen says our bridges and roads are falling apart and people need jobs, so why not put people to work repairing roads and bridges?

The next question is about Ebola. The UN says that a billion dollars will be needed to fight Ebola. What do the candidates think the US should do?

Marihelen points out that there is no way to live in a global economy without people moving around, so that when faced with a global problem, the US needs to do everything it can do in order to help solve the problem, and by “everything” she means everything, even changing our priorities to the extent that we subsidize health care in preference to war.

Ted wants to secure the borders, and he wants to make sure we don’t waste a lot of money on programs that don’t deserve to be funded. He’s a large animal veterinarian, remember, so he knows something about infectious disease, but what it is he knows he doesn’t say.

The next question asks how we might protect the state from climate change.

Ted says we do that by using “common sense science”.

Just try to parse that phrase: Common Sense Science. It seems like common sense would be one thing, while science would be another. It would seem like something would be either one thing or the other. It seems like if something were common sense it would just be plain common sense, whereas if something were scientific, it might well be counter-intuitive, it might well be not what you might think were you to apply just plain common sense. Science would seem to set the bar just a tad higher than just plain common sense, because if something were just plain common sense, you wouldn’t need to appeal to science for an answer.

Marihelen says the first thing to do is to say no to the gas pipeline proposed to subvert the state’s water systems to the benefit of big oil companies. The pipeline is not to benefit Floridians; its object is oil for export, and to that end Miami is already being dredged to make way for big oil tankers.

Ted doesn’t see anything wrong with the gas pipeline. He thinks it’s worth a try. He wants to improve the economy. There’s too much regulation anyway, and sometimes it doesn’t make sense, this being one of those times.

What about income inequality?

Ted finds the source of income inequality in two factors: high unemployment and illegal immigration, which devolve into one. You see people are out of work, and illegal immigrants are coming here to take our jobs.

Marihelen says something we can do right away to correct the problem of income inequality is to raise the minimum wage, but it has nothing to do with illegal immigrants – because those people aren’t coming here and taking our jobs; they’re taking jobs no one else will do and they don’t get paid enough to do more than survive.

In closing Ted says he wants to stay in Congress so that he can continue to reach across the aisle.

Really.

Ted mentions again that he and his wife Carolyn are products of the American Dream. Imagine a dream that produces products, and Ted and his wife are two of them – Ted, presumably, because he dreamed of becoming a large animal veterinarian and then he became one. He had big dreams. He would treat large animals and therefore he would know about infectious diseases and how to treat the Ebola crisis. His wife apparently dreamed of marrying a man with big dreams – a product of the American dream just like herself – and then she found Ted and the dream came true.

But unless Ted is the only product of the American Dream in the race, this won’t be a political advantage. What if Marihelen is a product of the American Dream too? Then it’s a wash.

By “product of the American Dream” Ted means turning your life into a success, to dream big, not just to be a veterinarian but to be a successful veterinarian, so successful that you needs must move on to bigger and better things – like running for Congress.

Marihelen Wheeler is just a public schoolteacher. That’s not what you call dreaming big and nobody ever applies the adjective “successful” to the common noun schoolteacher because unfortunately it is not the kind of profession you “succeed” at. You either do the job or you don’t. You can make it big as a veterinarian, but you don’t make it big as a teacher – you make it through.

The question for both candidates is: What do you do next?

What you usually do next after teaching for 30 years is retire. You’ve given your life to public service, you deserve a rest. Unless of course you’re not tired yet and you’ve got more to give, unless, that is, you could be of further service. Then you go on. You take on the incumbent Republican Congressman in the safe Republican district, the birther who would like the President impeached, who favors running a gas pipeline through our water, who is against raising the minimum wage, against gun control, who thinks only property owners should be allowed to vote, and who is proud of his role in leading the charge to shut down the government.

Marihelen says she wants to use what she knows and what she’s learned as a teacher to continue to help working families.

We are left to consider the qualities of the teacher versus those of the large animal veterinarian as befits one to hold public office. We are left to consider the dedicated public school teacher working with poor kids and their families on the one hand, and on the other the successful large animal veterinarian who serves needs of those who own horses and livestock.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida’s_3rd_congressional_district