Review of Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein
This is a great book – in particular the first 4 chapters explaining polarization. Klein cites numerous...
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Guide to 2020 California Ballot Propositions
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Divided and Conquered
Manipulation
Power comes from the people in a democracy, so manipulating the people is the path to power. Many of us are informed, but our fate is decided by the uninformed, distracted, easily manipulated masses. Planted “news” on the internet is spread by people clicking on what is the most salacious, and mainstream news is an unwitting accomplice by reporting on that. We are intentionally pitted against each other by special interests to support their agendas.
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Finance Reform
Balanced budget. The total US debt increased from $3 trillion in 1990 to over $20 trillion in 2017, and that doesn’t count another $63.5 trillion in unfunded Medicare, Social Security and federal pension benefits. We continue to run a deficit during the longest economic boom in U.S. history. We need to address this. Now.
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Election Reform
The system is rigged. The incumbent majority party draws district lines to dilute the other party’s votes and maintain a majority even with a minority of the vote. Winner take all elections eliminate minority party representation. Rules that make it hard to vote are designed to limit opposition voter turnout. The primary system ensures the most radical of the two parties become the candidates. All of this has caused the virtual extinction of yet another species on Earth – the moderate representative.
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Book Reviews
If you are interested in delving deeper into the issues addressed on this site, here are some great books to read.
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Campaign Finance
The solution to special interests buying our representatives is obvious – let’s outbid them with public financing of political campaigns. Instead of having our representatives on the payroll of special interests, corporations and unions, let’s put them on our payroll for all of their expenses, so they really work for us. The cost of public funding would be more than covered by the potential cut back on pork Congress doles out to contributors and the waste resulting from their subsidies to special interests.
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Other
This category addresses a variety of other issues where there are common sense solutions most people would agree on – if only we can fix the system.
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Welcome to Calcentrist.org
We know something is wrong with our political system when we can’t stop the mentally ill from buying automatic weapons because of the NRA lobby, can’t evaluate teachers based on whether their students learn because of the teachers unions, can’t pass effective financial reform after the worst meltdown since the Great Depression because of the financial lobby, and have cities going bankrupt because they can’t rein in public union pensions.This site is about fixing the system, so the system can fix the problems.
Most recent articles
The Supreme Court just punted on Gerrymandering – Now what?
If you don’t like the hyper-partisan and gridlocked U.S. government, I’ve got your villain –...
Adopt Ranked Choice Voting in California
No matter what issue you want the government to address, we need to fix the system first to be responsive to...
“Zucked,” by Roger McNamee
Although somewhat repetitive, and with Roger tooting his own horn, this is a fascinating story of the rise...
S.O.S. for the U.S.
Politics is partisan and gridlocked because of the system. There are grassroots efforts having...