Good Things Happen Because People Make Them Happen (District 21/22/23 Newsletter)
One of the great chronic problems of the elections in Hawaii, is staffing the polling places on those designated days, Saturday, September 23 for the primary election, and Tuesday, November 7, 2006 for the general election, 5:30am-7:00pm, and this year is no exception, so party headquarters, has requested that as many as can work either or both of those days, notify them at 593-8180 or eliza@gophawaii.com
by Thursday, May 25 at 12 pm, and thereafter, the Office of Elections, 453-VOTE(8683). The pay is at least $75, and nominally more, if one is the precinct chair or vice-chair, (Voter Assistance official).
They’ll be recruiting workers up to the day of the elections, and even out of the voters lined up to vote that day, usually complaining what the problem is that the process isn’t moving faster and smoother, yet few willing to step forward and volunteer to work that day to make it happen -- as they think it ought to. Many of these people don’t have anything else (better) to do that day, but it never occurs to them to help in this manner.
In many communities across the country, staffing the polling places is a great tradition -- with those regularly working those days, providing few openings for newcomers -- whereas in Honolulu (I don’t know about the other islands as well), any continuity of staffing has been a problem for quite some time now. The apathy and indifference is quite impressive in light of the fact that many are quick to complain that government doesn’t work as well as it should -- and government, they are used to thinking, is somebody else, somebody getting paid a lot of money -- to do as little as possible.
But the fact of the matter is that a large part of government (and politics), are simply what citizens make it to be -- and there is no machine making it happen, automatically, impersonally. Yet despite that, elections run exceptionally well and reliably because there is this great tradition of free elections in the USA so that everybody who participates, ensures the integrity of the process. That is, the elections are fair because everybody has that expectation and desire, and does their best to ensure that -- regardless of whether they are working the polls as paid officials.
That makes the job somewhat easier, because as voters in the past, we know what to expect, as well as we are familiar with the procedures and the protocols. Even the schools usually have variations of elections at every level. So the major part of the job is just setting things up to make them work as well as they do -- and then letting people do their own thing.
There is a training class to familiarize everyone with the latest information on what they need to know to work the elections, and an additional class for those who will either be the precinct chair or voter assistance official (vice-chair), so there is at least one person who knows the big picture of what needs to be done. After the elections are over, there is a debriefing meeting for the precinct chairs at the Capitol to learn how the elections can be done better the next time. This is an excellent opportunity for those interested in getting to the heart of involvement in civic life without a too regular commitment of time, to step up and make it happen.
Party headquarters is requesting notification by Thursday, May 25 at 12pm, of those willing to work, so they can fulfill their own statutory requirement of providing a preliminary list of those suitable to act as precinct officials and officers, after which date, the Chief Election Officer fills these positions at his own discretion, regardless of party affiliation and balance. So what we are trying to do is ensure that there is at least one Republican at each polling place by so designating ourselves at this early date.
So if there is the slightest possibility one is able to work the polls on either of those two days, or even attend the training to learn what is involved, please call the Republican Headquarters at 593-8180.
Also, it is not too late to attend the Hawaii Republican Convention at the Sheraton Waikiki, May 26-28. You can download the registration form at: http://www.gophawaii.com/images/HI/2006%20Convention%20Registration%20Forms.pdf
And deliver it to the office to preregister before May 26 or bring it to the convention door. The convention registration fee is $50 -- with an additional late charge of $15. While the convention is for members of the Republican Party of Hawaii, one can attend as a self-designated guest if one is not a predesignated delegate because the party is always open to new members in this way. You get to see what the principals are really like, and whether these are the people one feels comfortable affiliating with, and choosing to represent them.
I personally think the era of overly contentious partisanship is over -- and the major parties realize that the winning hand is having the biggest tent in town -- and not excluding affiliation by ideological purity tests -- while maintaining true universal core values. High among those values should be that they are people we like and respect as good people. Otherwise, their words have no meaning, and there is no substitute for seeing and hearing with one’s own senses and trusting in one’s own judgment about people. The Republican Party is not the party that insists on doing your thinking for you; that is clear in the diversity of opinions that are expressed. There is nobody enforcing political correctness here. And that is the clear advantage.
“The goal of Hawaii’s Republicans is to create a vibrant multi party system of moral, ethical and law-abiding leaders who restore integrity to government and unleash the powerful reforming influence of checks and balances that America’s founders worked so hard to establish. Doing so will create an open, honest form of government free of cronyism and favoritism where every citizen can expect equal opportunity and respect and have their faith in government restored.
E Komo Mai!”
-- Preamble to the Hawaii Republican Party platform
Aloha Everyone,
I realize this is short notice, but the deadline for submitting names for precinct officials is on May 25. This is not the same thing as a poll watcher, but it is very important. Please send a notice to your districts informing them that the opportunity is available. We would like to receive the names by Thursday, May 25 at 12pm so that we can pass this along to the Office of Elections. We would like to have one for each precinct if possible. If you have an organization this volunteer effort can also be used as a fundraiser. Please see attached for more information.
Please contact Eliza to submit names or for questions at 593-8180 or eliza@gophawaii.com.
Mahalo!
Eliza
posted by Mike Hu @ 1:07 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Emailed response:
Dear Michael Hu,
My campaign is developing according to schedule. I thank you in advance for whatever help you may provide to me. As you may know, I am working on some events in Maui and the Big Island as well as the upcoming convention. I hope to work in connection with all District Chairs and all other Republican Candidates. I am in a unique position in that everyone else’s voters are also my voters. I am also in the unique position of being unopposed in the primary. Therefore, unless you want to put in your name, I will be the Republican candidate for US Senate to run against Case or Akaka--my guess right now is Akaka but I am preparing for both.
Below is an article I wrote for my journalism company Best Ideas Hawaii (see www.bestideashawaii.com). I send at least one article a week out to 350 different news sources in Hawaii and the Mainland--a growing number of which are publishing them.
I would appreciate if you forwarded this article to any in your district or other lists that you might think would appreciate hearing about the value of the sacrifice of our armed services.
Thank you in advance. Please keep in touch with me so that we can coordinate our efforts. Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk at Guy Ontai’s house. I hope soon I will be able to talk at your house as well.
Sincerely,
Mark S. Beatty MA, THM, PHD, MBA, JD
Republican Candidate for US Senate, Hawaii
PO Box 5484 Kaneohe Hawaii 96744
Phone: 808 247-8878
Website: www.electmarkbeatty.com
Article for May 21, 2006
Death or Life from Iraq?
News reporters across the United States update us on the latest toll: “More Military killed in Iraq.” This simple statement, however, covers up a subtle but deceitful use of the word “kill,” and hides the real number we should be concerned with—3,768.
The word “killed” often means “died tragically for no particular purpose” as in “34 people are killed in homicides in Detroit each month,” or “approximately 200,000 people were killed last year in the United States through medical malpractice,” or “since 2003 over 400,000 people were killed in Darfur.”
We should not use the word “killed” without qualification when talking about a marine, soldier, airman, sailor or coasty who died in Iraq. Some might say that each death is unacceptable because President George W. Bush is generally horrible so everything he does is generally horrible. This goes along with assumption, “The world hates the United States because of a personality conflict with President Bush.” The President’s critics are naïve about the threat.
The correct idea is that each military death saves 3,768 US citizens here in the United States. On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists killed 2,986 Americans, meaning that each terrorist killed 157 people. In Vietnam, about 24 Viet Cong were killed for every US death causing communist Vietnam to be one week away from surrendering when the United States gave up. Assuming the same 1 to 24 ratio, each US military person who gives his or her life in Iraq saves 3,768 (157 X 24) of us here who can safely walk in shopping malls, send our kids to schools, and work in crowded buildings.
In Iraq some 2,448 US military personnel have been killed. The sorrow for each family member of the deceased is real and the value of their sacrifice might not help the angry and grieving parent, spouse or child. From my viewpoint, however, 9,224,064 (2,448 X 3,768) citizens of the United States are safe. That includes your children and mine who are safe to learn math correctly.
Mark Beatty, MA, THM, PHD, MBA, JD served in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom. He lives in Kaneohe Hawaii where he is campaigning for the US Senate seat now held by Dan Akaka (see www.electmarkbeatty.com). His other articles can be found at www.bestideashawaii.com.
Apparently, it doesn't get any easier. Here's Congressman Ed Case's experience so far:
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?2c93ece2-ff37-446c-a675-218081fc34bb
Let's Debate!
Open Letter to U.S. Senator Akaka
By Congressman Ed Case, 5/23/2006 2:10:45 PM
Dear Senator Akaka:
It has been four months since I announced my candidacy for the United States Senate and you confirmed your own. More important, it is now just four months to the day until our September 23rd election.
I know you agree that our candidacies present Hawaii's voters with a crucial choice not only of who can best represent them in the U.S. Senate over the next six years, but of the present and future of our Hawaii's representation in Congress. I hope you agree that Hawaii's voters are entitled to as much information as possible with which to make that choice.
I have spoken repeatedly since announcing my candidacy of my desire and willingness to enter into a series of debates or other joint appearances with you across Hawai‘i, both personally and through the media, so that our voters can consider our respective candidacies, ask us questions, and otherwise gain the full scope of information with which to make their decisions. I have said and believe that it is not important whether these are called "debates" or not, nor exactly how they are structured, so long as they provide voters with opportunities to make informed judgments.
Unfortunately, you have thus far declined all opportunities to engage in any such joint efforts or to commit to any future efforts. These are some examples:
(1) I accepted but you declined an invitation from KHET/Hawai‘i Public Television of a joint appearance on January 25th, instead choosing to appear separately, the first and only time that you have accepted even a separate appearance at the same event.
(2) I accepted but you declined to participate in an April 17th joint appearance at Hawai‘i Pacific University.
(3) I accepted but you have thus far declined a joint appearance at the Rotary Club of Honolulu's August 1st lunch meeting;
(4) I accepted but you have thus far declined a joint appearance at the Hawai‘i Publishers Association's August 8th annual meeting;
(5) The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has offered to both of us that it will sponsor a statewide primetime debate between us on one of Hawaii's major television stations at a mutually convenient date in the weeks before the September 23rd election; I accepted but you have not responded;
(6) I have accepted but you have thus far declined an invitation to a statewide debate on another of Hawaii's major television stations at a mutually convenient time; and
(7) I have accepted but you have thus far declined open invitations to appear on morning television news shows.
Additionally, there have been and are many other opportunities that I am sure Hawaii's various media and community organizations would be willing to sponsor. The following are just three examples:
(a) Mike Buck of The Mike Buck Show on KHVH radio has extended to you an open invitation to appear jointly with me on our regularly scheduled Tuesday afternoon prime drivetime show;
(b) I appear weekly on talk radio with Greg Everett of KAOI/Maui, also KUMU/O‘ahu and KONG/Kauai; I believe he would be amenable to a joint appearance; and
(c) I appear every other week on "Community Forum" radio with Ken Hupp of KPUA/Big Island; I believe he would be similarly amenable to a joint appearance.
You have cited your Senate schedule as a reason for your unavailability for some of these appearances. The Senate's schedule over the next four months provides ample opportunities for us to schedule debates/joint appearances. Besides whatever weekends you may choose to travel back to Hawaii during that period, these are the Senate recess periods, during which I assume you will be in Hawaii:
-Saturday, May 27th through Sunday, June 4th -Saturday, July 1st through Sunday, July 9th -Saturday, July 29th through Monday, September 4th
This provides us with a minimum of 56 days, plus whatever weekends you are at home, of availability.
I offer and ask you to commit now to a series of mutual debates/joint appearances across Hawaii over the four brief months until the election, on and before all of state and local media, community organizations, and our communities themselves. These would include at least the following:
(i) Acceptance of any and all statewide television invitations;
(ii) Acceptance of any reasonable requests for joint appearances from any other media or community organization, including pending requests; and
(iii) A series of statewide Senate Talk Stories, each featuring both of us stating our positions and beliefs and answering questions from our voters. These would be an incredible opportunity to take our campaigns to the voters and to truly engage them in their government generally and in the specific decision we are asking them to make. We would need, and I ask you to commit to, at least ten such Senate Talk Stories to cover the state: four throughout O‘ahu and six throughout the other islands.
I ask that you consider my requests carefully and elect democracy at its best. We owe no less to the voters of Hawaii. I look forward to your response at your earliest opportunity, and stand ready to meet with you to work out the details.
With aloha,
Ed Case, United States Congressman, D-Hawaii
As a guerilla campaigner, what I would suggest, is that any candidate running for office this year, get into the habit of putting one of those name tag stickers on every morning and wear them constantly until the elections are over.
I don't see the point in sign waving, yard signs, etc., while going unnoticed, unidentified, and unrecognized the rest of the time -- unless you are too well-known and overly famous. With a name tag on, one can just go about one's business and gain name recognition at the supermarket, church, bank, etc.
There's no law against it and it's perfectly acceptable everywhere. Of course, "For US Senator" would be stretching it but jut to build grassroots, everyday name recognition, most people overlook this simple opportunity. A lot of people go to public meetings and even door to door without that identification. Or sign-wave without letting people know that they are the candidate we're sign-waving for -- as though they were already well-known.
Those are just observations from the cheap eats. I'm amazed to hear from people who presume, "Everybody knows who I am."
It reminds me a lot of the road signs out here -- that make perfectly good sense if one already knows where he is going and already knows how to get there, but are totally baffling to the unfamiliar -- who one would hope, are the ones the road signs should be there to aid.
Imagine a tourist driving out of the airport in their unfamiliar rental car seeing, "Likelike Hwy Right Lane Only."
The information lacks context, the big picture -- like so much information out here, and why communications are often problematical, one person thinking it is perfectly clear, while the other has no idea what the other is trying to communicate.
At jobs or in school, it will be, "Do this," "Do that," and one is not provided the big picture context for fear that if the other knew, they could do "my job."
Without this big picture context, it's impossible for everybody to be pulling in the same direction because nobody knows what the ultimate objective is but the big kahuna or luna -- who wants to be The Boss. And so there is no orderly, systematic program of succession -- but the undermining of possible successor's power so they can't be a threat.
That's the old style of leadership -- which was simply dominance, that one sees in all those animal shows -- the only things that seem to be worthwhile on television along with sporting events.
Those seem to be the only shows with credibility and authenticity anymore, since the talking heads will say anything they think can get them attention. A perennial favorite is, "I'm smarter than the President; I'm the smartest guy in the world -- I should replace Dan or Oprah."
Of course, I think one of the great reasons for attending a live gathering of the major personages one often reads about in the newspapers or sees on television, is to find out what the people are really like -- rather than what some demagogic media personality would like us to believe about everybody else.
Such authoritarian persons have always been particularly bad in Hawaii because they all stick together -- as long as they perceive that they control the only game in town. When that solidarity breaks, or wavers -- it's every man for himself, in their dog eat dog world.
The worst thing is that our leaders are vilified for the self-aggrandizement of the media demagogues, who often have no real contact with those they so intimately and knowingly write about. They can claim those distortions as their freedom of expression -- while claiming to be "objective."
Nobody else claims that privilege of self-pronouncing themselves "objective," in this manner anymore. Even the top scientists don't have that degree of absolute certainty in the infallibility of their observations -- so how can those much further down the line, with much less understanding, make such an assertion unless they have no idea what the word meant? For surely, that is what it means -- that these reporters have no idea what they are talking about -- but are writing to the limitations of their own understanding.
So in a time and age when these opportunities present themselves, one really should avail themselves of these unprecedented opportunities to find out what is going on for themselves because that is the wave of the future -- and not more mediated (second-hand)knowledge. Most people don;t know better -- or even more. But some do.
And not everybody can recognize that -- and some don't want to; their minds are already made up -- about the story, the angle they want to write about, and are only looking for the "facts" that confirm what they already think.
That's the real significance of the information and communications revolution -- not simply more of the old information and communications, with its many layers of intermediaries, interpreters, experts, studies, polls -- telling us what to think.
We get to find out and think for ourselves. In that way, the world is already better.
The future of the newspaper is no longer the professional journalist and that infrastructure, but is likely to be a compilation of essays by the people who originate the knowledge in the first place.
Their language structure is integral to the process of discovery and insight -- whereas the AP (Associated Press) style presumes authority, even while it may have none. It's all about seeming to know -- rather than actually knowing, and good readers can tell that difference.
The Internet and all its shenanigans, have caused the evolution of readers who can make those distinctions quite clearly and easily. They are forensic readers -- they can read what is said, what is meant, and what the writer wishes to hide or doesn't understand, and everything he does understand.
That never happened before because the writing was uniform -- so that everything sounded alike. That's what the AP style does -- homogenize experience and understanding until it all looks and sounds the same. Of course, everything is reported with the presumption of perfect hindsight.
Real knowing is always uncertain -- one's best guess at what is happening because he is not relying on some authority to tell him what happened, as though that person actually knew, with the certainty they affect. The real scientiest (inquirer) is always probing into what he does not know, and not professing the certainty of what he knows -- which is a delusion (opinion) made into a monstrous absolute. That kind of an education is also crippling -- for it breeds a mind that cannot tolerate uncertainty but latches on to the first person (demagogue) who offers him that certainty (correctness) -- that they don't have to think for themselves.
And that is the greatest crime in a free society.
The criticisms of the media are also the same that can be said of the schools and universities. They transmit knowledge from those who have never discovered anything for themselves but have been told what the truth is -- and so they teach that is what the truth is, instead of discovering the truth for oneself.
When one can do that, then one can learn anything -- by teaching himself, which is the only knowledge worth knowing. All the other "facts" could be wrong, if the person who has all the authority in these matters, discovers something new or different -- but that is unlikely because his reputation is based on that 'knowledge." And so he has a vested interest in what he already knows, and feels compelled to protect and defend that knowledge as the basis of their status and esteem. It would be bad form to admit to not having perfect knowledge -- like the others also pretend to.
And that's what the schools and universities have become.
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