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war profiteering news monopolies--a narrative to accompany Diebold/ES&s's vote "count"--way back around May 2004, when he conceived one of the key issue to be "gay marriage" in order to push the really important issue of the day--the torture of prisoners (which had just been revealed)--and the war itself out of the story. 63% of Americans oppose torture "under any circumstances" (NYT poll, May '04). That's a whopping big majority. The horror that they were torturing prisoners, and on a widespread basis, SHOULD HAVE been the dominant issue of the election. So a narrative had to be concocted to replace that reality.
Or he began writing it further back, during the Oct. '02 to Feb. '03 period, or just afterward. Two very important things happened in Oct. '02: the passage of the Iraq War Resolution (with about half the Democrats voting for it), and, in the same month, passage of the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" (electronic voting run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls--a bill that almost all of the Democrats voted for). These two bills are closely related. Around the same time (Feb. '03)--just before the invasion--all polls were showing a significant majority of Americans against the Iraq War (55-56%). It was to defeat this majority of peace-minded Americans that non-transparent electronic voting was fast-tracked across the country, with $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding, and no controls on corporate lobbying, and no provisions whatsoever for verifying the vote totals that these machines would produce.
55-56% would be a landslide in a presidential election.
Given this easy, virtually undetectable method of vote stealing in 80% of the country--and the backup plan in Ohio (massive vote suppression by filthy Republican political machine)--Rove could, in confidence, write the election narrative in May '04 or earlier, including what phony issues needed to be put on ballots (such as "gay marriage") to make it appear that rightwing 'christians' came out in force for Bush, in response to that issue, soundbites by Cheney and others about what a great GOTV job they were doing (in truth, the Democratic grass roots blew the Bushites away in new voter registration, nearly 60/40, in 2004), and a series of "Homeland Security" "terrorist" alerts in the weeks before the election that was so absurd people were laughing about it. "Soccer moms" or "security moms," or whatever you want to call them, would be another element of his story. The people--who were actually laughing--were presumed to be "scared," because, well, Rove insisted on it--and he's the author, right? "Talking point two"--they all dutifully wrote it down, to "explain" the election.
One thing I know about Rove: although he is a vicious SOB, he is not a very talented PR man. It doesn't take much talent to write copy for pre-ordained events. Just run-of-the-mill writing skills. Slapdashing things together--"gay marriage," "soccer moms," "terror." It all falls apart when you look at it closely. And Bush's numbers started plummeting on the very day of his 2nd inauguration (unprecedented!), and have never recovered. It's down to 26% or so now, with over 70% of the American people now opposed to the Iraq War and wanting it ended. A total failure of propaganda--by Rove, and by his lapdog corporate press.
The only thing they have succeeded at, on the propaganda front, is in convincing many members of the great, peace-minded, justice-minded, tolerant and largely progressive American majority that they are in the minority, that they are outnumbered by religious wackos, the super-rich and people with no common sense. They succeeded in demoralizing and disempowering the great majority--at least for a time--and they utterly smashed the awesome grass roots election movement that had arisen to oust Bush.
The truth of the matter is that the Zogby poll, which predicted a Kerry win, and the exit polls (the unexpurgated ones), which recorded a Kerry win on election day, were right, and the Diebold/ES&S secret formula vote totals were wrong. But we didn't know that then. We, the American people. And we, the election workers. Some of us presumed that the American people had gone nuts. Others blamed Kerry and the campaign. Still others--a small band of fanatic statisticians and skeptics, shunned by everyone--began analyzing the data, and discovering all sorts of things, for instance, that the exit polls had been DOCTORED to conform to Diebold/ES&S totals!
I was one of those fanatics--and so the great cloud of doom that fell over the nation didn't affect me as much as it affected some. I knew something about Diebold/ES&S. I had also been following the issue polls very closely, and I simply could not reconcile what the American people were saying they believed in, with a majority voting for Bush. 56% against the war from the beginning. 63% against torture "under any circumstances." And even bigger percentages on social and other government issues, way up in the 70% to 80% range, opposed to ALL Bush policy.
And I had one anecdotal bit, too, that just baffled me. I won't detail it, but it was a large group of older, retired Republicans in San Diego who hated Bush, and considered him to be "nuts" (in summer '04). None of them were voting for Bush! This fits with some theories that a major portion of the vote stealing was from Republican voters who voted for Kerry. Republican areas would be the safest place to switch votes from Kerry to Bush, without raising eyebrows.
In addition to realizing just how badly we have been fucked over by the Bushites, and by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, we must realize that we ALSO have a serious problem with our Democratic leadership, who not only supported Bush's war, and have not only ESCALATED it, and given these bastards another $100 billion for killing Iraqis and stealing their oil, but they also colluded on non-transparent vote counting. That, to me, is the worst betrayal of all. That's why I mentioned, above, Congress' vote in favor of the election theft machines--which drew even more Democratic office holders' support than the Iraq War, and which has made it so hard to inform the public about this, and to restore transparent vote counting. Many Americans still believe that the Democratic Party provides an opposition, and that nothing as bad as this--Bushite corporations "counting" all our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy--would get by them. Well, it didn't just get by them. They supported it then, and they still support it.
I DO think that SOME Democratic office holders are good people, and are trying to represent us. And I think that, to some extent, fear and bullying has been responsible for their silence on these egregiously undemocratic voting machines--voting machines that violate every principle of fair elections. I just want us to be aware that the purpose of these election theft machines may not be--and probably is not--restricted to keeping Bush/Cheney in office and continuing the war. Their purpose is long term Corporate Ruler control of our election results and our government.
The election theft machines are not the only thing wrong with our election system. But they are the coup de grace. They make change impossible. We can match the fascists dollar for dollar in this rotten campaign contribution system--by means of many small donations. And we can outmaneuver the corporate news monopolies by word of mouth and GOTV. We clearly outnumber the fascists, and, even when they purge a million black voters from the voting rolls, we can outvote them. We can also monitor the polling places for other vote suppression tactics. But we cannot defeat "trade secret" vote counting. We have no tools for that. It's SECRET! And it has very nearly has been the death of our democracy. And it WILL be the death of our democracy if we don't find a way to change it (--which I think may be most doable at the state/local level).
We now have over 70% of the American people opposed to the war, and yet we could NOT get a Congress to stop the war, and instead got a Congress that ESCALATED the war. Think about it. How many of the "Blue Dog" Democrats who voted to escalate the war were honestly elected in 2006? Is THIS the reason why our party leaders support Diebold/ES&S secret vote counting? They're part of this fascist coup?
Yesterday, they voted to PREVENT the "Fairness Doctrine" from ever being re-instituted to require broadcasters to provide equal time for opposing political views. It seems suicidal for Democrats to do this (over 100 Dems voted for it, and it passed!!). Something is not right.
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