Warning: The following post contains strong political opinions from outside of the corporate media. If you can’t control yourself, don’t read them. As this is an editorial, the standard disclaimer is in effect: this does not portend to represent the views of all Oregon Hill residents.

It has been two weeks since Election Day. The majority of neighbors and City residents voted for the Democratic Party presidential candidate Harris and she did win Virginia’s electoral votes. However, in what was a shock to some and unsurprising to others, she convincingly lost the national popular vote and the electoral vote. Experts note that turnout in the seven swing states at the heart of the election was even higher than in the rest of the country.

While many Democrats would like to try to blame Greens, Russians, and others for their loss, as they have obnoxiously and wrongly done in the past, they simply can’t when faced with the facts. As a Green, I can take comfort in that I voted against both sides of the corporate duopoly (both Democrats and Republicans) – my hands are clean. I voted, but I did not vote for Biden/Harris, Trump, or genocide, and I give my utter appreciation to the courageous Jill Stein and her electors/petitioners for that opportunity. I sincerely hope everyone still has that opportunity in the future.

I could go on and revisit ‘Election Thoughts’ from 2016 and discuss needed election reforms, but instead, let’s concentrate on the current international moment:

While the contentious Presidential election is over, there’s still time to do the right thing. Speaking of facts, according to a new United Nations Special Committee report, Israel’s war conduct in Gaza “is consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” including mass civilian casualties and using starvation as a weapon. American corporate media downplays the situation, even as more children and noncombatants die from U.S. bombs. Something for Americans to think about as they decorate their homes with Christmas nativity scenes – there are thousands of Middle Eastern families looking for refuge and none of the carnage and displacement will bring back the victims of the Hamas October 7 attack of the previous year.

If Democrats were smart, they would press (baby boomer) Biden to resign NOW before Trump takes office and then quickly announce a sea change in foreign policy under (gen X) Harris, demanding that Israel end the war and allow Palestinians to return to north Gaza or else IMMEDIATELY lose all financial and military support (over $250 billion). After all, the Israeli government has ignored all previous ‘guidance’ and warnings from the current president. The Biden administration so far has done nothing in response and lamely clung to policies that support war and, yes, genocide. Its doable- President Reagan did it with one phone call back in 1982. We are constantly being told we are ‘the most powerful country on earth’, so surely we can adjust foreign policy. Harris lost the election, yet she could still gain more hearts and claw her way to higher moral ground with a last minute generational shift in regard to other nations.

Sure, President Trump, once he is back in power, will likely rescind any such large moves to ‘the left’, though he would have to expend some time and energy to explicitly change back the policy and be forced to retrench his own hardline position in support of Israel’s right wing government. That alone might make it worth it from a pure ‘resistance’ strategy point-of-view.

Also, an alteration in foreign policy would let American voters know that election campaign mistakes can be corrected and signal that a new Democratic leadership can abandon the ‘war party’. More importantly, the rest of the world would learn that arrogant “American exceptionalism” does not apply to genocide and this country is still capable of change for the better and bigger picture.

However, as a Green I am very doubtful that the Democratic Party is capable of even this reform as it is too tied to its own hubris, militarism, war-profiteering, and lobbyist money. I gave up on it a long time ago and urge others to join the voter revolt and build something new. We need left wing populism to counter the right wing populism (Trumpism).

Sadly, it’s too easy to predict that this country, under the corporate duopoly, will continue to ignore many young people and go further down a right wing path of fascism and war. Next up, we will see if Ukraine goes from a ‘conventional’ battlefield to a nuclear one.

Screenshot

We know we cannot count on the corporate media to supply alternatives, so we have to take it upon ourselves (the WRIR lesson)….
As stated here previously, Paul Goldman deserves a lot of credit for almost single-handily obtaining the 10,000 signatures needed to make the City charter change for voting Mayor at large in the first place, but it’s past time for more electoral reform. We know we need to update and strengthen the City’s Board of Elections anyway, so we might as well join other cities around the world in enacting RCV/IRV.

Ranked choice voting (RCV) — also known as instant runoff voting (IRV) — makes our elections better by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

RCV is straightforward: Voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so forth. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot counts for your next choice.

RCV works in all types of elections and supports more representative outcomes. RCV means better choices, better campaigns, and better representation. That’s why it’s the fastest-growing voting reform in the nation…

Except, of course, in decidedly unprogressive Richmond, VA, where City Council tossed it aside.

UVA, GMU, JMU, and Washington & Lee use it for their campus/student government elections, but VCU, UR, and VUU are still behind the times, despite the offered prize.

Anyway, back to challenging the status quo… Note that this is just a poll, of course, and that according to the current Mayoral election rules, the winner is not who wins the popular vote. It’s not who gets the most votes, it’s who gets the most votes out of five out of the nine City Council districts. Which does makes an expensive runoff election a distinct possibility… a problem that RCV could solve.

But for now, vote in this ‘mock election’. Just don’t forget the real stakes involved and tell your favorite candidate to do the required homework…

Julian Assange during a 2014 press conference attended by international media

On October 1, 2024, Julian Assange broke his silence. The WikiLeaks founder testified before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) about the chilling effect his detention and conviction has had on human rights. When Assange was detained, The Committee previously found he met PACE’s definition of a political prisoner. Assange’s testimony marked his first substantive, public comments in over half a decade. Other than his remarks at his sentencing hearing, the public has largely not heard from Assange since his 2019 arrest.

For what it is worth, this ‘community news site’, even in its mostly ‘amateur’ status, declares its solidarity with Julian Assange. Hopefully, this site will not get targeted by the C.I.A. for doing so. It is more noteworthy and distressing that local ‘professional’ journalists have not done more to declare their solidarity.

It’s also an election year, and, incredibly, Donald Trump is running for re-election as President of the United States. What is sad and remarkable is that many citizens still don’t know or have forgotten that Assange revealed how Trump was made into a serious political candidate in the first place. The reality is that much of the ‘transnational repression’ we have seen from the U.S. government in regard to Assange is most likely not instigated from the WikiLeaks publication/documenting of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, but from their revelations on the amount of triangulation involved in American politics.

It’s noteworthy that one of Oregon Hill’s previous Halloween parades (2013) was in honor of whistleblowers Assange, Manning, and Snowden.

When journalism is criminalized, as in Assange’s case, things get truly scary.

This yard sign appeared on W.Cary Street.

From corresponding website:

Since the start of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, residents have been demanding Richmond City Council call for an immediate ceasefire and acknowledge and divest all city funding tied to Israel. Citizens have been drafting resolutions, meeting with council members, and attending and speaking at countless biweekly public meetings.

Richmond City Councillors have refused to take action. Richmond’s Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan, and both Senator Tim Kaine and Senator Mark Warner, have also refused to take action to divest from Israel and protect Palestinian lives. They ignore our pleas and continue to send billions of dollars of military aid and weapons to Israel.

As Pennsylvania Congresswoman Summer Lee stated, “Opposing genocide is good politics and good policy.” It’s time to tell our representatives that actively opposing genocide is not only a moral imperative, but a political necessity.

We are joining the growing number of people across the United States working to send a clear message to all candidates and elected officials on local, state, and national levels who are unswayed by our appeals to their humanity – we will NOT support you while you continue to support genocide. #NoVotesForGenocide

It’s worth mentioning that according to recent polls, over two-thirds of voters want any administration to work towards a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of conflict in Gaza. That goes along with last year’s “Banner of The Year”.