Jewish people get to vote, black people get to vote, women get to vote, but my Third World people don't get to vote in this city.
Many of them don't even get to vote in their own countries because they got dictator creatures lording over them.
The right to vote is fundamental. Every human being deserves that basic outlet. Otherwise people end up with suffocation. That suffocation is painful to those who have to go through it, but it also has implications for the world at large. Swamps are no good. Mosquitoes show up ultimately.
Wealth is literally created out of thin air. Bill Gates did not steal 50 billion from someone. That 50 billion did not exist before he came along. Political space is also created out of thin air. A people who become free do not eat up space of others who were free before them. They expand the overall space through their freedom and so are now in a position to contribute to the larger good. It is a win win situation.
Nelson Mandela talks of "a thousand little indignities" in his autobiography. New York City is not exactly under the cloud of apartheid, but it sure is a city where about 40% of its people go about disenfranchised. And that has concrete implications. You end up with tens of little indignities.
Why do people petition Senators? Why don't they do it on their own? It is because there is a vertical degree of separation between the Senators and the citizens.
America Is A Senator Country
New York City is a Senator city like no other. Every little town on the planet is represented here. Everybody you need to spread democracy into the far corners of the earth lives right here inside the boundaries of this magic city. But so far they have been wasted. Because they have been kept disenfranchised.
New York City does not belong to New York City. New York City does not belong to America. New York City is one city that belongs to the world. This city like no other has the potential to be the progressive dynamo to all humanity. But the city's global political potential goes unharnessed.
If the neocons can be on schedule to spending two and a half trillion dollars just in Afghanistan and Iraq, the progressives must counter by giving the right to vote to every New Yorker in the city elections. It is a political decision, it does not cost money. And that one act can help the cause of democracy in countries across vast swathes of the planet, why only Iraq and Afghanistan?
If you live in the city, you should be able to vote in the city elections, as simple as that. Your landlord gets to certify you live in the said building. The data thus collected gets used only for city election purposes and for violent crime control. The date does not get shared with federal or local immigration officers.
But right now the political establishment in the city is no different from Third World dictators in its thinking. Both deny their people the right to vote.
Bill Perkins: Next Mayor Of New York City
When I think Third World, I don't think perceived slights, or oh you made me feel uncomfortable. The implications are much more concrete. People are dying, to unnecessary violence, to petty, curable diseases. There is the slow death of poverty, ignorance, primitive social ills, super sexism, ethnic divisions.
Thirld World woes get measured in deaths, daily deaths. A big chunk of that is just plain, utterly preventable infant mortality. I am pro-life on that one.
Democracy is where it begins. You introduce democracy into a country with a big bang.
Progressive Political Religion: No Place For Superpowers
In the long run, you want a leveling out. Through democracy, robust economic growths and the internet, you want to end up with a level playing field. People should not have to immigrate for greener pastures.
And New York City is in a unique place to be the dynamo for that positive change. Shanghai also has the skyscrapers, but it does not have NYC's diversity. But NYC has so far acted blind to that wealth.
The Third World people have to demand the right to vote in the city, and the political establishment has to meet it half way, happily so. The people should not have to struggle. If the establishment makes the people struggle, they are not acting progressive.
The current arrangement is racist. Racism is not part of the progressive ideal. This city is lying when it proclaims its progressive credentials. Progressive for whom? Not for the disenfranchised.
The war on terror concludes the day every Arab country is a democracy. That is the only way. This voting rights thing is the progressive way to become strong on defense and eat the neocons' lunch.
And, by the way, you get to say Global South. The term Third World is like the term n____. Only black people get to sometimes use that on each other, although that too has to be discouraged.
Wisconsin, Hawaii Returns Watch Party
| Time: | Tuesday, February 19 at 7:30 PM |
|---|---|
| Duration: | 4 hours |
| Host: | Faina Ibragimova |
| Location: | Irish Rogue (New York, NY) 356 W 44th St New York, NY 10036 |
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