We’ve been told Obama’s “got this” because he can shoot hoops in the WH basement with skill, and grab flies out of the air like a Kung Fu master. We’ve been told Obama’s playing “multidimensional chess” with his opponents by continuing every single one of the illegal and anti-democratic policies of his Neocon predecessor. And now, with the health insurance reform debate gone all Town Hall during recess, we are told we don’t really need health insurance reform, single payer health care, or even a public option to facilitate the expected mandate we’ll be handed that forces us to pay more money than we’ve got to the murder-by-spreadsheed for-profit industry.

We still have “state secrets” privilege on who’s lobbying in the Oval Office. We still have DADT in the military. We still have two illegal wars going, a new third front opened in Columbia, off-the-books deficits accumulated by the fact that there’s twice as many paid mercenaries in those war zones than U.S. soldiers, we’re still rendering and torturing “detainees” who haven’t been charged with any crimes and haven’t been afforded the status of POWs, and we’re still bailing out Wall Street gamblers to the tune of multiple trillions while not even beginning to address reinstating necessary regulations.

A plethora of Democratic/Progressive activist groups have sprung up to pressure Congress and the White House on these issues as well as health insurance reform, letter-writing campaigns, calls and emails to representatives and senators, mass demonstrations… You name it, it’s being done. And what we get from the WH is insults and dismissals as those of us anywhere to the left of center are repeatedly told to STFU.

Meanwhile, I am receiving between 6 and a dozen pleas for money every single day from various Democratic entities. DCCC, DLC, etc., etc., each one of them extolling me to give more to ensure that “my” interests are represented and protected by people who have amply demonstrated they don’t represent my interests or care about protecting me or my family from the corporatist policies of the Neocons who Won’t Go Away. So I have decided to take a clue from my grandson, who turned 18 last year and registered to vote for the first time. For Obama, of course.

We were originally a little piqued that he chose to register Independent instead of Democratic, but he was adamant and is perfectly happy with his choice. In our state he could still vote in the primary – one merely has to request either the Dem or Rep ballot to vote in one of them, it doesn’t matter what your own registration is. And I notice that he never gets any political mail asking for money he hasn’t got or telling him outrageous lies about what ‘his’ party’s doiing in the state or in D.C.

If the end product of this health insurance charade turns out just as it looks very strongly to be turning out, I am changing my voter registration from Democrat to Independent. Figure that the party hacks who don’t care about what I think or want can do what they do without my support or my money. They can just cross me off their list, and my email will be much more manageable. In writing this, there’s a small chance that others might consider the idea to be pretty good, and perhaps a few of them will change their registration too. If the idea catches on, a lot of people might decide to change their registration to reflect something real that nobody in D.C. seems to have noticed.

The Republicans are now marginalized to a regional sub-party status, claiming less than 20% of all voters and dominant in only 5 states. Libertarians are stronger than that. They’ve a few leftover power brokers in D.C. stonewalling all things necessary to save the country, but Democrats dominate. Dems now calll themselves the “Center-Right” party, telling us that the 79% of Americans who are center-left to progressive are insignificant. We don’t deserve representation. If they were to actually LOSE that 79% – or any considerable fraction of it – they just might have to start doing the jobs they were elected (by us) to do. And if not, we can go ahead and field candidates of our own and have a real chance of winning.

We are all the way to a single-party system in this country, all possible challengers relegated to 20% of the electorate or less. Except for the left-leaners in the dominant party, who have been told to STFU. Well, okay. We can split that coconut rather dramatically, and end up with a larger portion than they’ve got left.

Or not. I won’t be holding my breath for other progressives to catch a clue. I’m changing my registration and getting my name off their fundraising list. After more than a week of battling swine flu, it’ll make me feel much better, I’m sure. Wish me luck!

Events in Iran following the outrageous actions of losing candidate Ahmadinejad (try to say it three times fast) and the supreme Ayatollah against massive street demonstrations in Tehran and across the country have turned violent. Though the secondary Ayatollah, the Iranian military and about half of the elite Republican Guard are supporting challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, or at least staying out of the fray.

Six members of the Iranian national soccer team wore green armbands in solidarity during the first half of a World Cup qualifying game yesterday (June 17). The government has tried hard to cut off all lines of communication to the outside world, but sporadic cell phone service has allowed text updates and cell phone videos to be distributed. Twitter put off scheduled maintenance to keep its service going during this dramatic confrontation, incoming posts at #iranelection.

HuffPo’s Live Blog has incoming information day and night, the University of Chicago has opened a dedicated Iran fax line [at 1-888-308-3025 for incoming] as cell service gets more unreliable. Various volunteers have been receiving cell videos from Iran and posting them to YouTube.

Here’s how you can help, and many people have set their computers up for proxy to cover individuals reporting from Iran. Election challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi is posting regularly on his Facebook page, which can be read in English by clicking that version at the bottom of the page. He has called for a national day of mourning for “those killed in post-election clashes” June 18.

The whole world is watching, President Obama said the other day, and it’s true. So wear some green, try to keep up, and let’s all hope for the best outcome.

Three of the four registered voters in my household voted more than two weeks ago, just 4 days into the early voting period here in North Carolina. That’s me, my hubby and our grandson who turned 18 in May. Daughter is voting today, mostly because she has this ‘thing’ about voting on election day. Then she and grandson are headed for Asheville to tend lines (I doubt there will be one here, more than three quarters of this end of the county early voted), then to an election party expected to go late into the night. Hubby and I will be off to our county seat, where we’ve been recruited as “Poll Ninjas” by the Dem chair, there to assist in case anybody is challenged, lawyers standing by.

Paper ballots again this year too, since Diebold got kicked out of the state after throwing the 2004 election into utter turmoil (it took months to sort out some state races, so many split-ticket votes had been compromised! Filling in the dot isn’t that hard. Counting them isn’t that hard either.

But it’ll be morning before we know the actual results, so I thought I’d offer a true story about voting out in “real America”…

Election Day in Wilburton, Oklahoma

It was 1982, a midterm election generally, but important locally for the city government, police chief and sheriff, county wigs. I worked as a typesetter and editor for the local weekly newspaper – it was the county seat, but there wasn’t enough going on in the county for more than a weekly. The newspaper office was across the street (little more than an alley) from the courthouse, police station and jail. Next door to the funeral home, across a vacant lot that was part of their big lawn.

There were no radio or television stations in the county, so the citizens started gathering on the funeral home lawn about a half hour before the polls closed. They brought blankets, lawn chairs, coolers, picnic baskets and children, by 7 p.m. the place was packed. Fred the publisher had a gigantic blackboard on a stand that was marked with grids in white paint that he’d used to post vote tallies as they came in for at least 4 decades. It was a regular feature for the county, families had been gathering there for generations.

Once the candidates and offices were written-in on the blackboard, we carried it outside and set it right in the middle of the street between our office and the courthouse where the votes were being counted. As the precinct totals were released, a runner would bring it to Fred in his big lawn chair, he’d nod, then I would hand it to the pressman precariously perched on a ladder, chalk in hand. He’d add the tally under the proper columns, and the people on the funeral home lawn would cheer or boo by turns. The totals had to be refreshed each time another precinct came in, and that was my job. I had a nice pocket calculator to help me with the math, and if I got it wrong I knew for sure I’d hear about it immediately from the crowd.

The last of the ballot boxes didn’t come in from far corners of the county until nearly 9 p.m., and by then many of the families with small children had made their way back home. But new people kept the lawn full as factory shifts were over and others got off work. The winners and losers were known by about 10 p.m. unless it was a very close race. We had one that year for Sheriff, it went all the way to 11 before we knew who won.

Now, we the “Paper People” didn’t get out of there until 3 a.m., since after all that song and dance for the audience we had to put the Special Election Edition together, get it printed and distributed. Made for a very, very long night, but I remember it fondly as my all-time favorite election.

Fred died some years ago, I have heard that the people don’t gather on the funeral home lawn anymore to watch the election results. They stay behind closed doors and watch Fox News, wait until the next day to find out who won the local contests. That’s very sad to me, just another symptom of the fog of depression that settled over Oklahoma when it abandoned its fervently Democratic status in favor of these past 8 years’ worth of fear-mongering, hate and insult. I don’t guess there will ever be a friendly community election again in that part of the country, so this little bit of Americana has gone the way of the dinosaur. I miss it, especially on an election day so full of Hope as this one!