What Did--and Didn't--Just Happen in Israel's Elections

Judging by what I see online, most Americans have no idea how Israeli elections actually work. Here's a short introduction.

Nobody votes for prime minister. Israeli voters cast their ballots for one of many political parties. The parties get a share of the 120 seats in the Knesset in rough proportion to the number of votes they actually got. (You have to get a few percent to get ANY seats at all.)

The party that gets the most seats in the Knesset is usually--but not always--the one that gets to try to form a coalition with some of the other parties that includes more than 60 votes out of the 120. If they do, the leader of that party becomes the prime minister. So, neither Netanyahu, Herzog, nor anybody else was elected as prime minister today.

No party is clearly ahead. Depending on which poll you trust, either the two biggest parties have 27 seats each or the Likud has 28 and the Zionist Union has 27. It's basically a draw.

Therefore, it's not clear who will be asked to form the next government. That's up to the President of Israel (not the Prime Minister), and he has stated a clear preference for a "government of national unity": that is, a government that includes BOTH the biggest parties and others besides.

Netanyahu's party, the Likud, may have an advantage. It's fairly easy to see how they would get to 60+ votes. If every right or center-right party supported them, they'd be in.

But maybe not. One of the center-right parties is a breakaway from the Likud, headed by a man who personally dislikes Netanyahu. That party might choose to ally with center-left Zionist Union instead...for the right price.

The biggest news is not who's #1 nor #2.  The third largest bloc in the Knesset is likely to be the Joint List of Arab parties and one Arab & Jewish party. That has never happened before. What it means for the future is unclear, but at the very least, they'll be in a position to lobby for better services to Israeli citizens who are Arabs.

The Audacity of Disappointment

Why are we so disappointed with Barack Obama? A recent piece in the Boston Globe blamed it on our brains. "Research suggests that even when people know that someone has nothing but bad options to choose from, they still blame the decider for a bad outcome." Even worse: as time goes on, we think in more and more glowing terms about "what might have been if different decisions had been made, different policies pursued, or different politicians elected," and therefore feel even more disappointed with what actually happened.

The psychological explanation of "the big letdown" is a conservative explanation. It implies that things never could have been as much better as we think. Hope and change are delusions. As Hegel said, what is, is right--because TINA (There Is No Alternative).

How about a political explanation instead? We are disappointed with Obama because as a candidate, he seemed to get it that radical change in this country is urgently needed, and then as President, he forgot all about that. We are disappointed because he and his advisors said, in so many words, that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste--and then proceed to waste it, by failing to explain to the country what got us into this mess and what it would take to get us out, permanently. We are disappointed because it doesn't matter what options it seemed he had: the reason we elected him was to create new options. We are disappointed even if we knew all along ( as many of us did, and wrote) that Obama was a cautious technocrat by training and inclination. We are disappointed because we need and deserve better--and because not to be disappointed would be to accept the unacceptable state of affairs in which we continue to live.

Election Distraction

Should we end the war in Afghanistan as quick as we can, or possibly send in more troops? Can we provide health care (not just insurance!) to everyone who needs it, and will that mean putting private health insurers out of business? Is the recession slowing down, and for whom: is it good news if unemployment is still in double digits in certain regions? How do we stop nuclear proliferation, and global warming? Is it really a sign of progress when a woman in Iran stands up for the right to wear pants without being flogged for it, but women in many parts of the U.S. have to travel for hours to get the reproductive services (including both contraception and abortion) that the Constitution protects? How can the states pay for vital services and schools without going bankrupt?

All these questions, and many more, are serious and should be at the top of the agenda. But in Massachusetts, we're arguing about whether the governor should be able to appoint an interim U.S. Senator to take Ted Kennedy's seat or whether we have to wait five months to elect somebody. Huh?

OK, I know these questions are related. I have a Ph.D. in political science: no need to rehearse the arguments with me. The point is that whether it's an appointment, an election, or a coronation, it's also a distraction. Whoever we elect will only do as good a job as we force him or her to do. We should be focusing on the issues, not the candidates.

Obama Silent on Corporate Power

Progressives in Somerville, as elsewhere, have invested a lot of hope in an Obama presidency. After the Bush administration's systematic attack on rights, liberties, and the common good, Obama can hardly help doing better! Yet on some of the most basic issues, Obama has been silent.

Issue #1: Corporate power. It's refreshing that the Obama-Biden campaign pledged to protect consumers. On issues like mortgage fraud, predatory credit card lending, and bankruptcy laws, the new administration has taken positions we should support, and there are plenty of other examples. We have to ask, though: why have Democrats not addressed these issues already? It's not because they just discovered the issues. It's because any attempt to help the majority of us runs into the buzzsaw of corporate power.

• Corporate leaders directly intervene in elections by supporting some candidates over others. Obama may be less indebted to corporate funds than most candidates because of his ability to collect small donations in large numbers--but he has to work with Congress, most of which is already bought and paid for.
  

• Corporate lobbyists have tight relationships of long standing with the Congressional committees that write laws and the bureaucracies that create and enforce policies in that corporation's line of work. These "iron triangles" are part of the reason the country is in the mortgage/foreclosure/banking crisis we are in right now. Out of sight, they worked in corporate interests and against the public interest.
  

• Corporate capital often gets what it wants without bribes or explicit threats. They just say that a given policy would not be good for "the economy." (When I hear "the economy" these days, I think of men in $2,000 suits getting $2,000,000 bonuses for crashing their companies.) Or they say that if a certain policy were passed, it would "cost jobs." This is a threat in disguise. Jobs don't just disappear. Corporate leaders slash positions when they are not making the profits they want--which are much higher now than corporate profits have ever been!
  

The whole liberal idea is to use government power to rein in corporate power. Unfortunately, and especially in the era of globalization, corporate power has been stronger. Barack Obama shows no signs of recognizing this problem, let alone using people power as the solution. So, it's up to us.

If The People Lead The Leaders Will Follow

Time for a Change--but We Must Make It Happen

The results of last night's election are about as good as I could have wished. Obama-Biden won by a large enough margin that no amount of cheating could affect the outcome. Democrats widened their lead in Congress, and progressives held onto their seats. There's still a chance that Al Franken could become the next Senator from Minnesota. Most important to me personally, Massachusetts voted 2-1 against eliminating the state income tax.

It' s still important that every vote be counted--and that attempts to suppress the vote be identified and punished. Whoever tried to use text messages and Facebook to convince college students the election date had been moved should go to jail!

So, I hope everyone enjoyed last night. It's time to get back to work. The campaign isn't over. If we really want change, we're going to have to make it happen.

What? Am I really saying we can't leave everything in Obama's hands? Yes, I am. For one thing, that's not democracy: that's electing a king. For another, Obama has never called for the changes I believe in. He's a 21st-century liberal who wants to tinker around the edges of government, not revolutionize it. Even to get done what he says he wants to do, however, he will need us to give him visible, vocal support, to overwhelm the opposition he will face and to stiffen his own political backbone.

So, over the next few days, I'm going to be exploring these kinds of change:

• the ones Obama has pledged to make
• the ones he hasn't addressed which we vitally need
• the wrongheaded policies Obama has proposed, where we will need to change him--or defeat him.

What would you put on the list? Write me and let me know.

Our Work Begins on Wednesday

In the progressive circles in which I travel, it's almost a cliche already: "The election is Tuesday, but our work really begins on Wednesday." What does this mean?

With any luck, all this week, I'll be exploring what people who care about justice and peace should be doing to push their agenda during an Obama administration. First, though, what if the election is stolen?

This is not a paranoid question. There is some reason to believe that both the 2000 and 2004 elections would have ended differently if many voters hadn't been removed from the rolls before the balloting began (let alone if all the votes had been counted or if the Supreme Court hadn't pulled a coup). Investigative reporter Greg Palast and voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have found that the laws passed to make voting cleaner since then have actually made things worse.

How do we steal the election back? According to Palast and Kennedy:

• Today, DO NOT ACCEPT A "PROVISIONAL" BALLOT. Chances are good it will never be counted. If someone tells you you're not entitled to vote, call a voter's rights hotline like 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Insist that your claim be adjudicated on the spot. Don't worry about slowing down the voting process: it's your right!

• Report any voting rights violations you are aware of: http://www.nomorestolenelections.org/addreport.

• Tomorrow, if you have been prevented from voting, pursue legal action. If it's good enough for the Obama campaign, it's good enough for you!
  

PLAN TO ASSEMBLE ON WEDNESDAY - Go to the No More Stolen Elections website and look for a Voter Assembly in or near your community. If you don't see one, organize one. Go to: http://www.NoMoreStolenElections.org/va.

What About the Poor?

So now we know that former Presidential candidate John Edwards had an affair with a consultant to his campaign. Some people are shaking their heads and asking, "How could he do it?" Others are looking sympathetically at Elizabeth Edwards and asking, "How must she be feeling now?"

To me, those are both the wrong questions. The question in this election year is, "What about the poor?"

The only reason that John Edwards matters is because he put the issue of poverty squarely on the table. Both Obama and Clinton said nice things about that when Edwards left the race. Neither has said very much about poverty since.

According to Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson:

Reports say the Edwards family will not be at the convention. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats now handle the morals issue in Denver, let alone the notion as to whether the poor will have any voice at all.

Don't let that notion alone! Edwards made it clear during his campaign that how we end poverty in this country is THE moral issue of our time. Many religious leaders, progressive and conservative, have said the same. We should not get distracted by the personal troubles of the Edwards family when there is a paramount public issue at stake.