WHERE DO I VOTE? Or Should I Bother? Are we just being exploited? Nov 7 2018 edition

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1st:



TO FIND YOUR POLLING PLACE



and/or to confirm your registration status:



https://iwillvote.com/



Have questions about voting? Call the voter hotline at:



833-336-8683



(Bernie Sanders distributed that website & phone number in a nationwide email blast, election day morning.)

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2nd:



GUIDE TO THE CALIFORNIA BALLOT PROPOSITIONS and CANDIDATE ENDORSEMENTS, and info on JUDGES, plus our late-added "ISSUES CALCULATOR" on Congressional and State Legislature candidates -- our own publication -- is all



STILL AVAILABLE for you to use and share, at:



https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2018/11/election-guide-guide-to-california.html

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3rd:



REPORT IRREGULARITIES / PROBLEMS AT YOUR POLLING PLACE



The national, nonpartisan Election Protection coalition was formed to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. Made up of more than 100 local, state and national partners, Election Protection works year-round to advance and defend the right to vote.



https://866ourvote.org



California may not be immune in 2018.



In 2016, California voters reported issues with their registrations being dropped in both June and November. In the 2016 California Primary, would-be voters reported their party being changed, or receiving the wrong ballot that didn’t let them vote for president in the primary.



If you see something, say something, and REPORT IT.

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4th:



IS THIS A "SOLEMN DUTY," OR DOES IT JUST MAKE US BUY-IN TO THEIR EXPLOITATION OF US?



Let's discuss that from several angles.

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Here's our first perspective on the day:



"The only place everybody's equal -- the person on welfare, the multimillionaire -- everybody's equal in that booth, the voting booth."



 -- Joe Biden, former Vice President of the United States, on election day morning in Delaware, Tues., Nov. 6th, 2018.

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Then, there's this...



"THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE," the long-running PBS series, is sending-out this on election day morning:



"Freedom is not free. In August 1962 Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper turned civil rights activist, attempted to register to vote in Indianola, MS but failed the 'mandatory' literacy test designed to prevent African Americans from becoming voters. That experience, followed by her prompt dismissal from the plantation on which she worked -- for trying to register -- sparked her activism in the civil rights movement. Her efforts contributed significantly to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and she would be remembered for her activism and resolve during the most turbulent of times for people of color and women.



"Fannie Lou Hamer stood up and challenged the movement. After registering to vote, she and 17 others were arrested, and she had to leave her home and her job. Of 'the people of Mississippi, the Negroes,' she said, 'We are not satisfied and we haven't been satisfied a long time.'



"And 'Freedom Summer' interviewee Anthony Harris's takeaway from Hamer's inspirational efforts around voting rights in 1964?



'Don't give up. Freedom is not free. Keep fighting, keep fighting, keep fighting.'"



Watch the clip (2 mins, 49 secs), "Freedom Is Not Free" from the series' episode, "Freedom Summer," at:



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-not-free/



(Warning: that video clip is as powerful as all get-out!)

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And, there's this perspective:



"It is, regrettably, no exaggeration to say that we are living in an era of irrationality, deception, confusion, anger, and unfocused fear -- an ominous combination, with few precedents. There has never been a time when it was so important to have a voice of sanity, insight, understanding of what is happening in the world."



-- Noam Chomsky, esteemed university professor, prolific author of influential and landmark books, and singular voice of global peace, understanding, and sanity.

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And here's a different historical take altogether:



In just a few days, on November 11, we will observe the 100th anniversary of the day World War I ended. "THE" war that was



"To make the world safe for democracy,"



President Woodrow Wilson called it. Though millions died to make it true, it was a mournfully naive hope.



History proved that, when millions more died in World War II.



In the 21st century, bloodless corporate takeovers could make it untrue again -- the world MAY NEVER be safe for democracy.



That's up to us, in our time. Now. Our time. Specifically, today. Election day.

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The day is upon us. It is now. Our day. Our time. Finally. It is your move. It's Tuesday, November 7th.



Your move. We've already made ours, and it's in your hands,



•  After we researched and published our "GUIDE TO THE CALIFORNIA BALLOT PROPOSITIONS"



•  AND included key L.A. CITY and L.A. COUNTY ballot measures,





• AND even included information on the traditionally mysterious contests and candidates, including the JUDGES on your ballot,



•  AND, we went back and ADDED the "ISSUES CALCULATOR" to help you make sense of candidates for Congress and State Legislator seats,



•  AND, along the way, offered reasons you need to vote, and inspirations and motivations for you to vote,



•  AND, recounted some of our not-so-glorious American history of how everybody could not always vote, and what it took to GET the right to vote for everybody,


•  AND, we've included warnings about current efforts to take the vote away from many Americans -- unless we act together to protect our right to vote,



AND WE'RE JUST A LITTLE ARTS PUBLICATION THAT LIVES ON THE INTERNET.

So it's time for us to declare:



It's all up to you.



We place our future and our trust in your hands.



America places its trust and our shared future in your hands.



If you don't want to "bother" to vote by now,



Then we give up.



Democracy has died of benign neglect.



The rich oligarchs and corporations and kleptocrats who are actively seizing the people's government to make it work for themselves;



the clever exploiters and highly-paid class of amoral propagandists;



the 21st century's breed of snake-oil-salesmen;



the greedy who are not seen as tragically shortsighted;



the arrogantly abusive for whom power is the panacea that allows them to do as they damn well please;



the merchants of death who suck the lion's share of the public treasury into feeding their warconomy;



those whose mindset is based on extraction of resources, of wealth, of taking what is unsustainable and irreplaceable before someone else gets it;



and all who believe that money buys entitlement to rule, and license to disregard the needs of others who are not similarly entitled;



then you are agreeing to let them win.



America will be silently declaring its submission to the malevolent interests who take only for themselves.



And you can feel smug, because soon you will be able to tell everyone how right you were when you told them voting was a waste of time. Because you will help precipitate a self-fulfilling prophecy.



Voting will no longer matter. Or be possible.

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Or, you might, instead, choose to be the champion of this:



We are in this together, however we vote, so long as we all can and do vote.

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Fact is, it is a disgrace that we or anyone else feels a need to cajole, admonish, persuade, beg or plead with anyone to go vote in the United States of America, the birthplace of modern democracy, where so many have fought and suffered, struggled and even died, right here on the home soil of the American Republic, just to get the right to vote, and to make that right apply to all, to women, to African-Americans, to Native Americans, to Latino Americans, to young Americans as young as 18. If we are ever to achieve the hope expressed in the Preamble to our Constitution, to make this "A more perfect union," then we must safeguard AND EXERCISE our rights as citizens of the American Republic.

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The Guide waves its copyright on this edition -- as we did on our Election Guide edition -- provided it is shared intact, with no part omitted. We do this to allow and encourage you to share it.


Now, do you feel like you should vote? Are you going to GO VOTE?!


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LATE ADDITION...



DISENFRANCHISEMENT AT A POLLING PLACE



You don't expect this kind of thing in California. Maybe elsewhere, but certainly not here. And yet it can, and does, happen.



With voting just underway for two hours in California, the news had already brought word of voting irregularities that were caught in Chandler, AZ, and Atlanta, GA.



Now add Lancaster, CA. This morning, a polling place worker -- a white female -- was routinely making all African-American voters use provisional ballots.



She was caught and challenged by a white male voter who forced the polling place Inspector to remove her from her position.



Lancaster is a traditional Republican stronghold, and in the Congressional district where Democratic challenger Katie Hill is dead-even with one-term incumbent Republican Congressman Steve Knight. Every vote matters here.



The Guide will have a story for you on what happened. Our editor reports, "I'll be interviewing him and visiting that polling place to force a comment from the Inspector."



He added, "Anyone who takes voting for granted is in fantasyland."

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