Denver Voters: Here's How I'm Voting, And Why

by: Fong

Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 06:00:00 AM MST

The following order is from most- to least- important to me.

3A Mill levy increase to restore enrichment programs, provide technology and expand early education Vote NO

I'd vote Yes on 3A because it provides (a measly) increase in some programs that actually benefit working class families, but I feel manipulated. The little that goes to the working class was tied on because the rest of the deal is so awful, that there was nothing to bring out the desperate-but-informed-vote, which is needed to sway every municipal measure in Denver. Even the poor teacher's union was duped into supporting it because it provides the shred of a chance that they might get a break. It's sad, because they're going to be very unsatisfied with their scraps in the face of what's going to go down with--

3B Issuance of bonds to repair, renovate, and improve and construct school facilities. Vote NO

I'm voting NOOOO! on 3B because it primarily funnels half a million in tax dollars to the coffers of a few companies who happen to have an in with the people who designed and approved 3B.

For brevity's sake, the biggest example of how 3B is corrupt is in the question of why would Oakwood Homes give more than $50k to the campaign to pass it if they weren't guaranteed a return on their investment? The biggest expense in the bond is to build an unneeded high school at Stapleton around which Oakwood Homes will build their shitty houses. The contracting company to build the unnecessary high school (Forest City, Inc.) employs the HUSBAND of the president of the Denver Public School Board, Mary Seawell. Forest City Inc also donated more than $50,000.00 Can you say "cronyism"??

Of course, voters and the campaign supporting 3A/3B know that the schools are struggling, public education is broken, and that education in Colorado is disgustingly underfunded, therefore, in typical disaster capitalism-style, the campaign is playing on this, and the voters will support it because it's being presented as an emergency and as innovative, and ANYTHING is better than what we've got, right?

Rrrriiiiight...

On a side note, I do very much look forward to watching people (especially intellectual chickenshits in the non-profit industrial complex) wake up to how they've been screwed and how they have contributed to screwing the working class. But in this not-too-distant reality, by the time they come around, Oakwood Homes, Forest City, etc., will have their money and will have gotten away with it. But in the future, it will become harder and harder to pass education funding measures because more and more voters will see how they've been tricked, and they will lose trust.

Either that or the people won't catch on to it, and we'll all live in a dissociated hell of zombies.

How much money does it take for a campaign to gain trust? Is the non-profit industrial complex becoming less and less relevant?

The campaign supporting 3A/3B has more money than the formal opposition by over 300:1  

I'm voting no because the first thing Mayor Hancock did when he entered office with a multi-million deficit is hook up his cronies with $2.7 million in raises. Should Denver's revenues pick up, 2A would give Hancock extra money and he will just give it to his friends. I know the roads in Denver are awful. I know services in Denver are ridiculous, but Hancock is a sellout through the bone, and the most he will ever do for Denver is placate us. SInce we're docile, it looks as though placating is not on his calendar anytime soon...

S   Increases flexibility of hiring procedures for state offices. Vote NO
This is just another way for Hickenlooper to bust up the civil service and screw unions under the guise of disaster capitalism once again. If we're going to go with this economy-thing, we'd do better to keep our resources in state instead of going to the highest bidder that makes Frackenlooper's pee-pee go up and down.

Amendment 64 - Provides for the regulation, sale and taxation of marijuana like alcohol  Vote WHATEVER

I'm probably going to vote Yes because it mildly resembles something that would fuck with the system, but I'm not sure about that.

Amendment 65 -  Instructs legislators to support limits to campaign contribution Vote NO

This is so ridiculous:

Shall there be amendments to the Colorado constitution and the Colorado revised statutes concerning support by Colorado's legislative representatives for a federal constitutional amendment to limit campaign contributions and spending, and, in connection therewith, instructing Colorado's congressional delegation to propose and support, and the members of Colorado's state legislature to ratify, an amendment to the United States constitution that allows congress and the states to limit campaign contributions and spending?

It's stupid to think that somehow it's an important thing to petition this on the ballot in order to tell our state legislators to support a fucking federal amendment (something they have NO say in) to limit campaign contributions and spending limits and that the Colorado congressional delegation is also supposed to support the amendment and self-impose these limits. This reeks of something Ken Gordon and his anti-super PAC super PAC would like.

This amendment and its probable passage is testimony to how dim-witted voters are. Voters think that if candidates are unable to raise and spend money, that somehow the lies we're told in political ads that rile us into a tizzy, will magically disappear. To the advantage of the soft side, voters think that the awful ads and annoying calls we receive come from the candidates. The truth behind the soft-side entities has evaded the voter. The voter blames everything on the politician, which is where we get slogans like "vote them all out".

As long as the oligarchy exists, the oligarchy will use their abundant resources to launch misinformation campaigns to tilt the perception of rules in their favor. The fact that voters would support something like 65 is testimony to this.

I'm voting No on 65 because all it does is send a message to our elected officials that reads "we don't really know what we're talking about, but we're going to attribute all evil in the system to you who has not saved us from ourselves, and we're going to go ahead and ask you to throw yourselves into the abyss as well."

Never mind that voting on a message to the state legislature to influence something they can't is a waste of intention. Never mind that our angst and inconvenience is borne of the soft side of politics-- which would completely escape this amendment's idiotic intention to  castrate our own elected representatives, thereby handing the responsibility of the majority of political communications regarding lawmaking to unaccountable interest groups and entities that seek to make and usurp laws in their favor.

So yeah. No on everything. This whole ballot is a product of disaster capitalism, and it's just going to get worse.