Prop 8.: What the hell happened? / Plot out a counterattack. / I've got a proposition for you...

If you live in California, and hell... even if you don't, it's no surprise that this remarkable history changing victory of President Barack Obama (damn! that feels good to type) has been soured somewhat.

It's been soured because of a little something called Proposition 8.
It's amazing so much hate and injustice can be squeezed into a word and a number.

Yet again California was subjected to the whims of millions of dollars of propaganda designed to sow divisions and emphasize the "otherness" of anybody that is not a straight heterosexual churchgoing white family.
It's intolerence plain and simple.

And it got written into the constitution because we fell asleep at the wheel.

Look at this picture:


Look at these sanctimonious hate breeding fucks.
That's from the LA times at the Yes on 8 Victory party.
All of that out of state Mormon money at work.
Are you pissed off?
Good.

What, you thought this was going to be easy?

this is a great article about what went wrong, it shows the dangers of reactive politics. I'm going to spend a bit of time with my take on things before moving on to the good stuff.

See, what happened, in essence is that "our side" decided... YET AGAIN, that if we just present a fact based argument that people will listen to reason.
That's cute, don't get me wrong.
It's not the way the world works.

The Yes on 8 folks did many things right, they made appeals to peoples sense of family... yes capitalizing on many peoples secret fear of "teh gay" sure, but they also effectively lied about marriage being taught to kids in school.
Let me repeat that, they said

Why did this succeed?
Well first off because being a parent is hard, the world is changing, times are tough... parents often feel like they have no control over what their children are learning.
This reinforces the secret fear they have and amplifies into something else.

It turns it from a discussion about different types of people to advocacy and, the underlying threat is recruitment, for something they don't believe it.

This doesn't make any sense factually, but it's not meant to.
It's the "other" trying to ruin the sanctity of marriage.
(please hold off all comments about this too btw, I know it's fucking retarded)

Why does the right always throw in stuff about "hard work"? It's because the "other" doesn't work and is freeloading off of their tax dollars.
That is the frame and the facts bounce right off it.

ok, are we clear about that? They lied effectively, and our side got distracted with (admittedly) big things.

Also, whether it was because people thought it was a done deal and just wanted to party, or that the presidential race was called early or what, but these are numbers for San Francisco
Department of Elections

Registration                         477,651 	  
Total Ballots Cast                   241,090    50.47 %
 Election Day Reporting               191,962 	  
Vote by Mail / Absentee Reporting     49,128

That turnout frankly... sucks... it's down 24% from 2004.
Guess what, that's lower than 1996.
Granted provisionals are still being counted and whay not, but this is not so good.

However, let's not focus on that.

Because now we talk about what we need to do next.
You ready for this?

I've seen a lot of stuff going around, the most amusing of which to me is this petition
That is really cute and all, but what the 91,000 people who signed it don't seem to realize is you can't "reopen" a proposition. Won't happen, can't happen.
That's not even in the Governor's power to control even if he would.

Quite franly it's a waste of time, and the small feeling you may have at feeling you've done something is misguided because it will accomplish nothing.

There is one way to fight this, and not only fight this injustice but kneecap these hateful bigots who think that because they have a few million they can throw around, they can fool normally good people into buying their agenda.

It's a multiered agenda but it goes as follows:

Why play a reactive game? Why sit around and gnash our teeth, palms sweating and such waiting for the next attack.
The time to strike is now, while people are fully energized, when people are hurt and angry, but know that we can accomplish great things.

We write OUR OWN proposition, this one guarantees equal rights to all.
I've been frustrated with the Gay Marriage fight, because it turned into Civil Unions vs. Marriage and what is marriage.
This has nothing to do with that, this is about equal rights! Do you think all of the African American familes that were scared into voting yes on this because they didn't want "gay marriage taught to their children", are going to vote against equal rights?
NO! Not a chance, we need to get aggressive with our phrasing. No more passive mealy mouthed "definitions of marriage" etc. This isn't about marriage, What is the argument against equal rights? There is none. Period.

We write another proposition requiring that a 2/3 majority to change the state constitution for anything.
One of the things the California Republican Party did in a "from hate's heart I stab at thee" last ditch was establish a 2/3 majority for approving many important things.
That is why we have a highly paid legislature that can't do a god damn thing and you end up with plumbers and hot dog vendors trying to figure out which bond measure makes the most sense for the state.
That is lame in and of itself, but imagine if that same level of difficulty was required to amend the state constitution?
a 2/3 majority is almost a complete safeguard over temporary populist uprisings stirred up my misleading ads.
And if you think about it, the US constitution needs a hell of a lot more to be amended.

Then we write yet ANOTHER proposition to reform the California Proposition Process so that signature collectors cannot be paid.

That may sound harsh, but it would ensure that people with millions of dollars to blow can't foist their beliefs on others and have more legislation by the ballot box. Unpaid signature collectors would still represent actual ideas with popular support.

If signature collectors were not paid, this ballot would have never had this propostion, period... this is also true of the most odious stuff out there we've voted on the last few years.

I'm going to spearhead this the best I can in the time I have available and with the resources I have.
I've written policy position papers before, but i'm still researching the logistics for writing an actual proposition.

We have a long way to go for equal rights, but the battle begins anew today, and this is a battle that we WILL win.

Writing out a ballot proposition is an obnoxious and time consuming task, but I will commit to this, and to finding as much talent as possible to make this ironclad, but that in and of itself is not enough.

CAN I COUNT ON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR THIS IMPORTANT CAUSE AND GIVE EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THIS ON THE NEXT CA STATEWIDE BALLOT?

We have not time to mess around here, if this is something you truly believe in, we need to make this happen.

I want a commitment from you RIGHT NOW that you will do this, no equivacation, no prefacing statements.

And to paraphrase our new president elect:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, we have our answer...

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we cant, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

YES WE CAN.

Mount up people, we have some work to do.

-C.
X'posted all over the damn place, please feel free to forward and do the same.