The Black Agenda, Open Primaries, Independents, Centrists and Extremists
By Nancy Hanks | Related entries in News- Fred Newman talks about Tavis Smiley, the Black Agenda, Rev. Al Sharpton, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Jessie Jackson, Cornel West and Karl Marx in Talk Talk with Jackie Salit. You can view Tavis Smiley’s “Black Agenda” summit on C-Span here.
- While campaigns are underway in Louisiana and California for open primaries (Proposition 14 in CA) that would allow independents and decline-to-state voters to vote (right now parties are allowed to exclude these voters), voters in many states are registering into parties in order to vote in primaries.
- Centrist John Avlon’s new book decries political extremes as “wingnuts“.
- NYC Dems don’t want charter revision ballot referendum items this year, while Indies want nonpartisan elections. You can read Dr. Lenora Fulani’s testimony here.
For more news for independent voters, see The Hankster
This entry was posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:55 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Donklephant. Donklephant said: DONKLEPHANT: The Black Agenda, Open Primaries, Independents, Centrists and Extremists http://ow.ly/171yZr [...]
April 9th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Why I think I like open primaries… sometimes. While it means the potential for more wild switches in party philosophy is increased, this dynamism might also cause moments of chaos where some system settings get reset with a concurrent increase in political job turnover, leadership role redefinition… I’m not happy with the system as it exists so I figure a little more randomness might be the way to go. Of course, I don’t believe in my prediction abilities so I definitely could be wrong about needing more randomness or, if randomness is needed, how much more. I think it’s the last sentence that makes me a moderate.
April 9th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Josh, wonderfully INDEterminent comment!!
http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/
“I’m not happy with the system as it exists so I figure a little more randomness might be the way to go.”
So for us all!
In fact I think independents, people who don’t affiliate with any party, will play a significant role in moving our country forward, politically and philosophically.
Randomness of the World Unite! (pun, contradictoriness, and word-play intended!)
Thanks for your comment,
Nancy
April 9th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Hi Nancy, Thanks for the compliment, John Cage… very cool. I’m afraid I’m less sanguine than you about the unaffiliated playing a large role in moving the country forward. I always assumed that the unaffiliated, as a class, would be comparatively weaker since some percentage of them are unaffiliated due to apathy. You’ve probably heard the old saw pointed out by the grizzled newspaper columnist (back when such people existed) that a story never seems to start with “A million angry moderates took to the streets…”
On the other hand, It does feel like we’re reaching some kind of tipping point, a point where possibilities open up and the unexpected happens. I do believe that it is both healthy and not false humility to doubt my ability to predict how a complex system will evolve so, while I can make a variety of predictions, even tell them with narrative consistency, they would, in some major ways contradict each other and regardless, I would probably get it wrong. None the less, I feel safe in positing that change is happening and the pace seems to be increasing and correlated with the increasing efficiency of the individual’s ability to communicate (blogs, twitter, cell phones…). On the bright side, for those with a strong sense of curiosity, it should be interesting.
Cheers.
Josh
April 10th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
It would be nice if the non-partisan election people would be open about their desire to establish the U.S. as a one party state. The push in California is to eliminate the last few Republicans that hold office and to lock in the Democrats.
As the U.S. becomes a one party that here will not be wild swing in voting patterns but a newer entrenchment where race, ethnicity, and speical interest will dominate. To keep all of the special interest happy, spending will have to increase massively while more race based government programs are established.
April 15th, 2010 at 7:22 am
It’s nice to know that, whereas the rest of us stand out as unique and distinct individuals, every black in America shares the same identical agenda.