Glenn Greenwald has an interesting essay in Salon about what the people in Washington call being "non-partisan". The short version -- Republicans vote as a block, 99% of the time. Any flexibility comes from the Democrats. And, invariably, they cave to the pressure to not be "obstructionist".

A few years ago, when I was working at my last job, we were in the process of merging two branches of the company into one. There were a series of meetings to discuss the transitions. I went to a few, then bailed. My boss got angry with me, and challenged me with, "don't you want to help determine the direction of the company?"

"I'd love to," I said. "But I really don't think that I'm going to have any effect. I've been in mediation before. And I know what role they have and I know what role we have. They're specialists. Hard-wired to do things their way. We're generalists. We try to make people happy any way we can. That means we're going to do whatever they want. We have no say. They won't be flexible. They won't be accommodating. They'll be hard asses and we'll keep giving in and giving in. You seem to think that there'll be this new thing out of the merger, that combines the best of both of our operations. It won't happen. It won't. We're gone. We're them. Anything they don't like about us -- anyone they don't like -- is gone."

The Republicans have that shit down cold. Stay inflexible. Give lip-service to the idea of "consensus" and "reaching across the aisle". Bullfuck.

Still. I don't give up hope. And I try not to bee too jaded. Every couple years I'll go out and vote. And there are a few people here who I'm pretty proud to vote for. I'll be working for one of them on Tuesday. It should be fun. I'll be back to the snarky MoFo on Wednesday.

I was working on a call-in voter line today. Mostly helping people find their polling places. But there were way too many people who just rolled out of bed, and seemed to think, "Hey, I've never voted before. I should be able to do this by phone, using one of my many assumed identities. Or someone will pick me up and bring me there. Hey, my boss won't let me take off of work to vote, and I have plans tonight. Can I press charges? I registered to vote when I lived in California, and now I live in Georgia. But I'm still in the United States, so I don't have to register again, right?" Jeebus.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 03, 2008 at 11:29 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.