PROCESS OF ELUCIDATION

PROCESS OF ELUCIDATION: One of the more absurd of Yogi Berra's non-sequiturs was that "nobody goes there any more- it's too crowded."

When it comes the field of "acceptable" candidates in this year's elections the ballot is anything but crowded. That's the case up and down the ticket on Kaua`i but it's exemplified by the County Council election where a record low nine people are running for seven seats.

The key word there is "acceptable" because the way democracy has combined with capitalism in America we've managed to define "acceptable" as "corporate-funded, duopoly selected."

But that has little or nothing to do with the reason why Hawai`i in particular is at or near the bottom of the list in voter turnout. This week a six-part series by blogger/journalist Ian Lind in Civil Beat tried to explain why through statistical gymnastics that, while we're sure are true, seemed anything but insightful.

One thing missing in Lind's report is the "sun and surf" factor.

Stay with us. Hawai`i is the home of the tourism-industry crummy jobs that cause all members of the family to work at least two close-to-minimum-wage jobs apiece. With the cost of living higher than other places in the US, people just don't have time to pay attention to politics and certainly want to spend their leisure time doing something other than figuring out who to vote for.

Even though we political junkies don't see the logic in that, it makes more sense when you add in that "immigrants" don't exactly flock here to get involved in politics, which also goes for those born and raised here who have usually chosen to "stay home" after they finish school.

Most people are here one way or another because they can surf, hike, snorkel, fish and do all the things that make living in the islands unique. If anything, they came here- or stay here- because they are actually running away from places obsessed with politics and the like.

Then of course there are also those who aren't particularly interested in participating in what they see as the central activity that an "occupying nation" uses to justify their military control and "make the world safe for democracy." Though it's not a vast number who think that way, it's more than most people think.

But if you really want to know why few among the remaining are voting it may be the simplest reason of all: there's "no one" running.

Why vote when all the Democrats and Republicans are greedy power mongers who are all, in one way or another, on the take?

While there are exceptions that prove the rule like Mina Morita or Gary Hooser (who, maybe not so coincidentally, are both currently out of office although Hooser is seeking to return to the county council) it's been like pulling proverbial teeth to get people to run for office these days.

We just spent a year and a half recruiting candidates and didn’t find a one. We even lost a couple at the last second.

We approached almost every "community activist" we know, even some we disagree with because we knew that at least they fight for things they actually believe in. And every one said "thanks but no thanks," some adding "why in the hell would I want to do that?"

Indeed running for office is a daunting proposition. Just the prospect of having to ask people for money makes many back off. The idea of spending every spare moment for a year going door to door, attending every gathering and being subjected to more scrutiny than a prize pig at an auction is not one that makes one's heart go pitter-patter.

Surprisingly many say that actually serving- crafting legislation, guiding it through, going to meetings and all that intriguing stuff- is what they want to avoid because they'd have to deal with all the a-holes in office who, for the most part, actually enjoy all the back-stabbing political gamesmanship that got them into office and keeps them there.

Can you imagine having to sit there with Mel Rapozo or Dickie Chang- and not just sit there at a meeting but actually negotiate with and schmooze them? Are you going to listen to Jay Furfaro go on endlessly about his delusions of success or try to figure out why Kipukai Kuali`i would be aligning himself with Rapozo and the Queen of Spleen, Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho- and then actually come up with equally sinister plans to oppose their evil schemes?

What fun. Who'd wanna go surfing when you can listen to a three hour report on some incomprehensible, unattainable, feel-good plan to spend a million bucks to spruce up the county building parking lot?

So there you have it- an electorate that's already got better things to do and actually came or stayed here to get away from the backstabbing political culture on the mainland. And if they do take a look at the local political culture they see nothing but a bunch of moronic and vicious bozos appealing to what's left of the electorate. And those that do vote do so on the basis of who went to school with whom and whether they attend the same church... or cock fight.

And it's only getting worse. Don't forget the last mayoral election where the only one to run against a punch-drunk, concussion-syndrome-addled, ex-football player was a well-meaning too-smart-for-the-job, haole lady who'd lived here all of ten minutes. And this year, even with the criminally insane, moist-Malaprop-spewing Iseri running for prosecuting attorney against what appears to be a smart, honest and upstanding progressive apparently actually interested in serving justice (imagine that), it's still a race too close to call because she grew up here and he didn't.

It doesn't get any better with our choices for US congress where unlike the Kaua`i state legislative contest, there is one. For the U.S. house it's a war-obsessed vet who has gotten non-religion and is suddenly bigoted-no-more, running against a slimy pay-for-play veteran who has as much substance as dark matter. And for senate it's a pseudo-progressive against a pseudo-Democrat in the primaries and the winner gets to take on the Stepford Wife, chameleon ex-governor who has the unique talent for speaking out of all three sides of her mouth.

Those are our choices? Well actually not. Because even though we have convinced ourselves that we can only vote for one of them, there are others on the ballot, many of whom aren't corrupt caricatures of public servants. It's just that we've convinced ourselves we're not allowed to vote for them.

The fact is that people believe in the cockamamie "two party system" that has created a fraudulent scheme where legalized bribery is compulsory, corporate billionaires do the bribing and everyone is too intimidated to vote for the candidate they actually like because no one else will.

Maybe Yogi had it right: there's nobody running- the field is too crowded. In other words, why would you vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein? She's too popular.

PICK YOUR POISON

PICK YOUR POISON: It looked bad- real bad. Now?- maybe not so much.

There appeared to be the proverbial slim and no chance to stop our 2nd US Congressional District from falling into the hands of one of, if not the most obnoxious, disingenuous and generally politically repulsive hack in the islands.

Perennial political opportunist Mufi Hannemann announced early for the seat and as the list of no-name challengers grew it was punctuated by a name that seemed equally repulsive in its own way: Gabbard.

The one running for the 2nd CD wasn't State Senator Mike Gabbard- the bigoted homophobe who was in large part responsible for our first-in-the-nation state constitutional amendment allowing the banning of gay marriage- a voter approved measure that followed the first-in-the-nation state supreme court ruling that had mandated equity in marriage.

Another political hack, Gabbard was one of those Hawai`i Republicans who saw his political future in the GOP as nonexistent and so was reborn an environmentalist Democrat.

The Gabbard on the ballot is his daughter, Honolulu Councilmember Tulsi Gabbard, who, although she led the also-rans in early polls, trailed Hannemann by a wide, almost insurmountable margin.

It was hard to not see Tulsi as an almost equally repulsive choice, having supported her father's evangelical hate-spewing zealotry in the late 90's and having little or no chance to win to boot.

Apparently we aren't the only ones that have reserved a little corner of political hell for the Mufster- a hack in the truest sense of the word- whose style is to tell people what he thinks they want to hear unless he's busy race-baiting or staking out equally repulsive positions on civil rights.

We thought, "oh well- why bother." The seat held by the late beloved progressive Patsy Mink had already fallen into the hands of the blue-dog devil Ed Case for a few years a few years back and, well, we've become accustomed to falling out of the political frying pan.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the proforma. Not only has Tulsi Gabbard renounced her prior positions on marriage and civil unions, but a recent poll in Civil Beat shows she has not only caught up but passed Hannemann in a recent poll by a four point margin (35%-31%)- just slightly more than the 3.7% margin of error.

We should not though that her position is not exactly pro gay marriage but that slithery-slimy one where she's opposed to state involvement in marriage of any type and favors civil unions for all

Unfortunately other candidates, like the more progressive Esther Kia`aina, are seemingly out of it at around 10%. But the question this raises as to the Tulsi- Mufi race (are we really supposed to say "Tulsi-Mufi without laughing for the next five months?) is, do you believe her?

The answer is another question? Does it matter?

In essence it is one of those "potted plant" elections- in other words one where our first reaction to the announced presumed victor is, "I'd vote for a ficus before I'd vote for him."

Tulsi Gabbard's transformation has got to raise a few eyebrows, from a military yahoo who quit her state senate seat to kill Arabs after rallying the home troops to enshrine bigotry in our state constitution, to a liberal lioness.

But it's going to be a lot easier for us and many others to forget the past if the choice is between (as local talk show host Jonathan Jay posted on Facebook) "the tall one and the hot one."

Well all we can say is we'd rather get burned from the heat than looked down on by corruption from above.

TOMBSTONE BLUES

TOMBSTONE BLUES: We're screwed. And we're only going to get screweder.

With Gary Hooser's decision earlier this year to abandon a run for congress in the 2nd Hawai`i District it looks like we are going to get stuck the most revoltin' of developments- Mufi Hannemann living the Life of Riley, having a virtual "lock" on next November's election.

We didn't need to be reminded that with today's news that the Hawaii Teamsters & Allied Workers Union Local 996 has endorsed him, the carpetbagging creep moves one step closer to election. He's already the poster boy for all that's wrong with so-called American democracy's campaign finance system- one that produces winners by virtue of an overflowing war chest that scares off the good guys like Hooser from even entering the race.

Oh sure, there are some good candidates challenging the Moofster in the Democratic Primary- we'd vote for patients' rights advocate Rafael del Castillo in a hot second. Or maybe even Hilo attorney Bob Marx... although by virtue of the singular fact that Marx is not Hannemann.

But the only candidate with two shots of beating Mufi- slim and none to be specific- is Honolulu City Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard, a bigoted piece of crap like her father who plays down her homophobia and plays up her supposed environmental credentials so as to woo unsuspecting progressives.

The fact is that Hooser came within whisker of deciding to take on Hannemann but, at the last moment, decided there was no way he could raise the kind of money it would take to beat him is a case study in all that's wrong with American elections in the 21st century.

Yeah, it will be soooo self-satisfying to vote for Castillo... just like voting for presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein who is seeking the Green Party nod. In both cases, come next November, we'll be able proudly have the distinctly unsatisfying privilege of saying "well don't blame me- I didn't for for him/her."

This is where we usually offer some kind of pie-in-the-sky solution- like supporting the "Move to Amend (MTA)" group that seeks to reverse the perverse Citizens United, US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling which invented "corporate personhood (CP)" by making money a form of speech. The problem is that not only are few aware of MTA- although they will be becoming more and more aware of it this summer as hundreds of millions of anonymous, "independent (yeah, right) expenditure" dollars flow into the presidential race- but ending CP still wouldn't take money completely out of elections. Full public financing of all elections would but, although some say it is possible under existing SCOTUS rulings (Buckley v Valeo), it might take a constitutional amendment to do it like any CP countering measure would.

But people- even progressives- seem to be more interested in half-assed movements that blame the individual senators and congresspersons rather than the corporate monolith that perverts the system that elects them. We especially like the one to cut congressional pay and benefits as if making sure that millionaires and billionaires were the only ones who could afford to be in congress would somehow reverse the trend toward making "independently wealthy" a requirement to serve in office.

Yesterday we came across a blog post by Robert Reich former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley entitled "The Defining Issue: Not Government’s Size, but Who It’s For."

In it he details "how the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn’t about government’s size. The cynicism comes from a growing perception that government isn’t working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street, and the very rich instead."

Yet even the most progressive of progressives seems to get their jollies by climbing on the tea-bagger "government: bad" bandwagon. Though, like voting for Castillo or Stein, it can be really satisfying- and for pundits all too easy- to ridicule the very nature of government based on what passes for democracy in America today, unless and until all of us focus on the obscenity of the legalize bribery that passes for a democratic electoral system, we'll be stuck with the stream of gags that substitute for a functional system of representative republican democracy.

Place the final joke here yourself... we're not in the mood today.

(PNN) HOOSER MULLS CONGRESSIONAL RUN

HOOSER MULLS CONGRESSIONAL RUN

(PNN) -- Aug 12 -- Former Kaua`i Senator Gary Hooser is considering a run for the US congressional 2nd district seat being vacated by Maize Hirono.

According to an email sent Friday to core friends and supporter Hooser said "I know in my heart that at some point, serving in public office is where I need to be. While the timing may be uncertain, my commitment is not. The 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress is a path many have encouraged me to explore and one which I am seriously considering. I live in the District, have established networks on all islands and understand the unique challenges faced by rural communities."

Hooser is currently serving in the Abercrombie administration as Director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control.

He is expected to post his announcement on Facebook today and to the general public on Sunday.

Hooser, who started his political career as a councilmember on Kaua`i, rose to Senate Majority Leader before giving up his seat to unsuccessfully enter the lieutenant governor's race last year.

As to the reasons he has decided to test the waters and re-enter elective politics, Hooser wrote:

I can no longer merely watch from the sidelines as the “politics as usual” in Washington threatens the very fabric of our lives and the security of our democracy slips further and further every day.

As the financial debacle unfolds now in Washington and through-out the world, it is clear that Social Security, Medicare, education and the environment will soon be thrown beneath the bus under the guise of “fiscal responsibility”.Yes, we need to get our nation’s fiscal house in order, but that effort must be a balanced approach and include an end to the Bush tax cuts for the top 5%, a dramatic reduction in corporate entitlements, and an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hooser's decision may rest on the support, especially financial, he receives. In the email he said:

I am committed to re-entering the political process and helping to lead our community forward. But to do so, I must have your help and your financial support. Whether it’s $25, $50, $100 or more – To begin anew down the path toward elective office, I must have your help today. Our campaign must raise $12,500 this month for existing obligations and an additional $25,000 to fund other expenses necessary to maintain an ongoing strong and credible campaign presence. Contributions can be sent to Friends of Gary Hooser, P.O. Box 4094, Honolulu HI 96812.

My final decision and future path depends in large part on your response to this letter. If you want me to run for public office and serve you again in that capacity, I need to know.

The field for the congressional seat thus far is thin with the only two announced candidates for the Democratic nomination being Honolulu City Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard and Esther Kiaaina, former aide to ex-Congressman Ed Case and Senator Dan Akaka, although former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann's name has been mentioned as has former Lieutenant Governor Duke Aiona on the Republican side.

Hirono has announced she will run for the senate seat being vacated by the retiring Akaka

That would make Hooser the only progressive in the race so far for what is characterized by some as the most progressive district in the country. Hawai`i was recently named the most Democratic state in the country in a Gallup poll.

Hooser ran for the 2nd congressional district seat- which includes rural O`ahu and the neighbor islands- once before, losing to Hirono in a special election to replace Ed Case who resigned his seat to run against Akaka in 2006.

Hooser can be reached at 808-652-4279 or by emailing GaryLHooser@hotmail.com .