It’s the year of the woman and you’d better be signed up to vote for her.

It’s been quite a roller-coaster ride since the Republican National Committee chose Mitt Romney as “most likely to succeed” President Barack Obama. Clearly, from the day President Obama took his oath of office in 2009, the right wing has been dead set on blocking all Democrat-sponsored legislation, as evidenced by the dramatically increased use of filibusters to block congressional voting.

One might assume that the constant undermining of the President by Republicans pining to recapture the White House would result in a breezy success story for the Romney campaign. It seems, however, that despite high expectations, the public has not fallen in love with the former Governor. His popularity has been dropping in recent weeks – caused, to a degree, by some inelegant candid statements captured on video and leaked to the press.

Desperate for a win, the GOP has resorted to disenfranchising whole segments of the population by reintroducing a modernized version of the post-Civil War Jim Crow era. Numerous Republican-controlled states have passed legislation that would discourage African Americans, Latinos, the elderly, the poor, and students from voting. Under the guise of “anti-fraud” regulations—though studies have shown voting fraud is almost non-existent—33 states now require one or more forms of picture identification to cast a ballot, even though many will find acquiring the necessary documentation to be difficult or impossible.

Although the Department of Justice is currently reviewing these restrictive measures state-by-state, time is growing short. The presidential election of 2012 is now only 43 days away. Meanwhile, grass-roots organizations are springing up to register voters, using social media venues like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to reach as many people as possible.

Today, September 25, is National Voter Registration Day and registering to vote will be as simple as going to a web site. There will be events at local libraries and schools nationwide. Just hit the “events” tab on the navigation bar, type in your zip code, and you will be pointed in the right direction. (Be sure to check the hours for each venue, as they may vary.)

For voter registration questions or to report problems (if any) there’s a toll-free number to call and contact information available in both English and Spanish. You’ll also find excellent information on requirements and deadlines for each state available from the New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. Simply find your state on the interactive map of the U S. and with a click, you’ll discover everything needed to cast your vote on November 6. While the site indicates it’s for students, anyone seeking detailed guidelines to state regulations or other updated election-related news will find this to be a useful resource.

And finally, check out Cuéntame. Geared to a young Latino audience, it’s enlightening, fact-filled, and entertains while delivering an inspiring message. You’ll register and then run to the voting booth on Election Day. Guaranteed.

video by Cuéntame

The post It’s the Year of the Woman: Register Today To Vote appeared first on EcoSalon.

Your graphical guide to Election 2012.

With the proliferation of news media and the punditry that comes from anyone with a soapbox (or Twitter handle) it can be difficult to wrap your head around the major issues at stake this election season. That’s why we’ve brought you this collection of politically-themed infographics, which explore everything from candidate tax proposals to voter suppression to social media rankings to merchandise statistics. Rumor has it that t-shirt sales are a key election result indicator…

Navigating Political Terminology in an Election Year: study up on your political jargon with this handy (and hilarious) multiple choice guide.

U.S. Presidential Election 2012: a month-by-month look at election season, courtesy of Al Jazeera.

The Digital Campaign Landscape: it’s looking to be the most expensive campaign season in history, and millions of that moolah is going into online advertising.

The Incredible Shrinking Cities: a historical look at the rise and fall of hot-button political issues; note how words like “cities” and “urban” have slowly disappeared into the mix.

Presidential Candidates and Their Tax Proposals: the tax experts at H&R Block explore how each candidate plans to address the issue of taxes.

A Closer Look at the 2012 GOP Candidates: if you care for a closer glance at Mitt, Newt, Ron, and Rick, here’s your chance.

Election 2012 Social Media Rankings: see how a candidate’s clout translates to Klout in the social media world.

The Facts About Voter Suppression: according to the ACLU, there has been more state legislation aimed at suppressing the vote, particularly for minority voters.

The Social Campaign: a visualization of how social media’s influence on elections has changed between 2008 and 2012.

Political Merch Poll 2012: yeah, there’s foreign policy and gay marriage, but let’s explore the real issues: t-shirt sales.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

10 Earth Day Infographics

10 Food Infographics That Have Us Consciously Consuming

10 Fashion Infographics to Give Us a New Style Sense

Image: DonkeyHotey

The post 10 Political Infographics on Election 2012 appeared first on EcoSalon.

American culture circa 2011: Land of the partisans, home of the tribes.

We are a nation divided – by religion, by politics, by sexual mores, by attitudes toward food, climate change, science, land ownership and business, and so much more. We gravitate toward those who share most, if not all, of our views and opinions, and away from those who are different from us. Our nation really began as a collection of tribes (the basis of our federal system), and we have returned to this state ideologically.

On its face, finding like-minded people is a good thing. It allows us to feel like we belong. Being with people who share our taste in books, agree with us on health care legislation, go to the same church, live in our neighborhood, or work in our profession is comforting. People unite for causes and rally together for change. But, they also band together to inflict harm and dispense hate.

Seth Godin says that people thought the internet would be a great homogenizing influence, yet it has done more to help people form silos and band together with others of similar thinking than any other technology or tool in recent memory.

When we can understand opposing beliefs, even if we don’t embrace them, we can still function as a group, while our tribes form supportive, yet minor, internal cliques. Managing this balance is what makes a tolerant and unified society, but on many significant topics, our beliefs are so unyielding, so far from the middle, that our tribes clash furiously. As warring tribes, we can’t function as a group to solve our society’s problems and move forward.

In the Name of God…

Religion permeates everyday life in a multitude of ways, causing tension and strife between those who embrace its influence in every aspect of their lives, and those who believe it doesn’t belong in schools, government or the workplace. Religious and political lines divide us over many issues, including abortion rights and birth control, gay rights and same sex marriage, education, science, medicine and even climate change.

Although legislation has kept them separate for years, religion is creeping into public schools. Religious student groups are forming on campuses and handing out Bibles. The law says that students can express religious beliefs as long as they do not disrupt class or school activities, however schools must remain neutral, neither endorsing nor interfering with religious practices.

Religion can be deeply embedded in family culture. The range of religious involvement spans the spectrum from students spearheading religious groups on campus, to students who have faith, but keep it out of school, to students who simply don’t believe and just want to attend school without religious undertones.

One tribe believes in an entity that is all-knowing and all-forgiving, while the other believes that there is no heaven, everyone is accountable for their own actions and no deity will confer forgiveness. Children brought up to have faith often can’t comprehend children whose families do not, and ostracize those children due to their nonbelief. At the same time, students who are devoutly religious can also experience ridicule.

An extreme example of religious intolerance is the recent mass shooting in Oslo, Norway, where Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik bombed a federal building in Oslo, killing seven people, before traveling to a youth camp that espoused multiculturalism principles and shooting 86 adults and teenagers, resulting in 93 dead and 96 injured. Breivik wrote a 1,500 page manifesto about his Christian views and values, and viciously denounced multiculturalism in Europe. He also traversed the internet raging against Muslims and Islam. Breivik has confessed to carrying out the bombing and shooting, but maintains that he was absolutely justified in his actions to save Europe from encroaching Islam. Although European leaders condemned his actions, The New York Times reports that there has been a steady increase in extreme right-wing groups and sentiment in Europe. Here at home, media outlets like Fox News and conservative radio foment further resentment and division.

No, You Are Not Allowed to Make Decisions About Your Body

Abortion and birth control have been two of the most divisive issues in our culture for several decades, with the tide turning against abortion rights with the recent wave of state legislation limiting, abusing and nearly abolishing them in many states. This might be the most precarious time for Roe v. Wade since it was passed in 1973, and the battles are heating up.

Recently legislation has been proposed that requires women to wait three days and submit to counseling from a biased, unlicensed counselor before getting an abortion, prove that her miscarriage was organic vs. induced, and get abortion insurance in case she is impregnated during a rape, to name a few bills on the landscape attacking a woman’s right to have an abortion. The divide goes nearly straight down the political aisle, pitting Democrats against Republicans in an ongoing feud.

The battle doesn’t stop at abortion. Birth control is under fire, too. Recently, in the context of talking about climate change, Al Gore said,

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children. You have to lift child-survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families. And most important, you have to educate girls and empower women. And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.” (h/t Grist)

Conservative writers immediately characterized Gore’s speech as instructing families to have fewer children to help the environment, and used it to underline extreme conservative agendas against birth control. In a video clip in Grist’s article, Texas State Rep. Wayne Christian states, “Well of course it’s a war on birth control.”

This is an issue that clashing tribes will never come to a consensus on. Whichever viewpoint is currently legally right will always be hammered on by the opposing one. The fight will go on indefinitely.

Same Sex Marriages are Not Real

The battle over same sex marriage and gay rights, including health benefits, medical power of attorney, and equal treatment with heterosexual unions has been ongoing. Individual states have granted legality to same sex marriages and then taken it away, while the measure comes to ballot in other states and is voted down. Some corporations offer same sex benefits, while state and federal governments take it away.

The very definition of marriage is at stake, and until recently, neither side wanted to concede. However, New York passed a same-sex marriage law in 2011 (which was previously voted down), becoming the largest state to do so, to date.  Republican Senator Mark J. Grisanti, who campaigned on the promise to oppose same sex marriages, made a surprising about-face, admitted he had been wrong and changed his vote to support the same-sex marriage legislation.

Grisanti told The New York Times, “I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.” Although only five states currently allow same-sex marriages, perhaps this marks a shift toward the middle on this issue.

There is No Such Thing as Climate Change

Scientists have been cautioning us for years that our current state of energy consumption and carbon emissions were irreparably damaging our environment. Climate deniers have long scoffed at this idea on little more than ideological grounds, but recently several have changed their viewpoints and admitted that climate change is a real danger.

However, members of the Republican party have denounced climate concerns, reigniting fierce debate. In March 2011, the GOP voted down an amendment to legislation they were attempting to pass that overruled the EPA’s assertion that global temperatures were rising and humans were the likely reason. Democrats suggested putting in language that simply explained climate change, but Republicans quashed it. Three times.

The Kyoto Protocol spurred countries to cut their carbon emissions, but the 2009 Copenhagen summit failed to continue the momentum, leaving the issue more up in the air than before with no set guidelines or penalties.

Will We Ever Be One Nation? Indivisible? With Liberty and Justice for All?

As a nation, are we moving forward, or back? Some days, it’s hard to tell. We’ve drawn lines crisscrossing our nation, our society, our towns, our friends and families. As members of many tribes, we are fractured, facing opposition on many fronts.

Our tribes have again become isolating and divisive, as they were at the start of our country and our culture, bringing us full circle. Religion and politics have driven wedges between people that are so divisive that it’s hard to see where we could come together as a society again. Lawrence Brown believes that tribal politics “threaten to roll back the hard-won progress of centuries.” Political gridlock in recent months – from holding up federal budget passage over Planned Parenthood funding to the current Congressional impasse over the debt ceiling – makes the depth of the division all too clear.

As we stay within our tribes, many times, so does the next generation. Although in many ways, we need the comfort of our tribes, our society can only move forward if we can see past our own small groups and their mindsets. Perhaps our fitful social landscape is a sign of a breakthrough pending – but perhaps we are headed straight for a wall.

Brown said, “We can’t depend on catastrophes and terrorists to bring us together. Love is a better social adhesive than grief. No one can claim to love their country if they hate half the people in it.”

Images: ginnerobot, szeke, andi.vs.zf, jonmatthew photography, Balaji.b, ^riza^

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It’s 5 o’clock in D.C. Perhaps our gridlocked politicians could try humanity’s oldest social lubricant.

“It’s a lot easier to demonize someone you don’t know well than someone you do know well,” says Terry Nelson, a major Republican operative. Ain’t that the truth. If you believe the cable news channels, the Democrats and Republicans speak completely different languages with each one believing the other is channeling the devil.

As any couple’s therapist will tell you, one of the best ways to bring people together is to focus on what they have in common and try to strengthen this ‘bond’ so that other issues can be amicably worked out. We may not be at the point where we need to assign each congressional committee a shrink, but I could not think of a better time for our representatives to share their mutual love of extracurricular activities with members of the opposing party – just not at the taxpayers’ expense.

The pleasure I am referring to is wine and the Congressional Wine Caucus is a great model for cooperation. Set up by Mike Thompson (D- CA), this bipartisan group works on a host of issues like interstate shipping with a general consensus that transcends party lines.

I asked Thompson if he has noticed the spirit of collaboration found in the Congressional Wine Caucus seeping into other areas of policy among members. “You chat socially and I think it improves your working relationship with your colleagues down the line.”

Wine and politics, the perfect pairing.

I also talked to several of the Beltway’s palates, from different points on the political spectrum, to see if they ever share their Ridge Zins or Conterno Barolos with ‘the enemy.’

“Actually, I do, a good amount,” said Jeffrey Browne, a wine drinker since his student Eurail days and a principle at CAPAD Communications, a consulting firm that works with Democratic candidates. “I have some of my most interesting conversations with Republicans.”

But wait, what do Republican enophiles have to say about this? Nelson concurs with Browne, “It’s interesting for me to hear their perspective on what’s going on. In those discussions people try to be pretty objective of what’s going on in their party.”

Dan Hazelwood, who has been involved in Republican politics almost as long as he’s been a wine drinker, admits, “I tend to socialize more with Republicans but drinking wine is not necessarily a partisan perspective.” Doug Heye, former Director of the Republican National Committee and current Burgundy fiend, shares the feeling: “There is nothing partisan about it.”

I  met Heye on a trip to Champagne in 2008. As a long time San Francisco resident, my political bubble was shattered not only by Heye but by Sam Dealey, a self described “libertarian conservative” and prominent D.C. journalist who, on this same journey, became my late night drinking partner in crime. Meeting Heye and developing a friendship with Dealey opened my eyes to the “other side” – and helped inspire this article.

Which begs the question, can wine serve as a mediator of sorts between opposing political views?

“It’s an icebreaker, “ Hazelwood acknowledged, “It creates a bridge to have a dialogue without rancor.” Khalid Pitts, owner of Cork Wine Bar in Washington D.C. told me, “Any day you can walk through Cork and see people from all sides talking politics or about what they’re doing this weekend. You see staffers with other staffers coming across the aisle.” Keep in mind, many who are serving in both houses have started off their careers as staffers.

Richard Schlackman of RMS Associates, a fiscally moderate and socially liberal Democrat from San Francisco, can often be found sharing a bottle of Spanish wine with Alex Castellanos, a top Republican media consultant, when he is in the nation’s capital.

“Just a couple of weeks ago I was at Cork Wine Bar discussing  politics and the state of the world with Alex. We agreed upon how good the 1991 Lopez de Heredia was.”

Is that all they could see eye to eye on?

“ While you may not share everything, you share a love that transcends politics,” Dan Kully, a progressive Democratic and partner at Kully Hall said.

“It’s a good medium to have a conversation whether it’s about politics, sex or the local ball team,” Browne says.

Dealey concurs. “Any time you can connect with someone on a personal level you get beyond the colleague relationship to friend status.”

It seems oenophiles on both sides of the aisle can agree wine is a bridge to facilitating dialog. Perhaps the next budget debate should start off with a bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs and depending on how long it goes, finish with a Hunt Country ice wine from New York. For the love of Bacchus, please crack open a bottle, give a glass to your nearest adversary, and start talking.

Image: Jenny Downing

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