Ahmanson: bagman for Christian Reconstructionist movement

[donsu]

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/09/19/120.html

Vanishing Act

It's a shell game, with money, companies and corporate brands switching in a blur of buyouts and bogus fronts. It's a sinkhole, where mobbed-up operators, paid-off public servants, crazed Christian fascists, CIA shadow-jobbers, war-pimping arms dealers -- and presidential family members -- lie down together in the slime. It's a hacker's dream, with pork-funded, half-finished, secretly programmed computer systems installed without basic security standards by politically partisan private firms, and protected by law from public scrutiny. It's how the United States, the "world's greatest democracy," casts its votes. And it's why George W. Bush will almost certainly be the next president of the United States -- no matter what the people of the United States might want.

The American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate players -- Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia -- with a fourth, Science Applications International Corporation, coming on strong. These companies -- all of them hardwired into the Bushist Party power grid -- have been given billions of dollars by the Bush Regime to complete a sweeping computerization of voting machines nationwide by the 2004 election. These glitch-riddled systems -- many using "touch-screen" technology that leaves no paper trail at all -- are almost laughably open to manipulation, according to corporate whistleblowers and computer scientists at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and other universities.

-snip-

Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: The corporate lines -- even the bloodlines -- of these "competitors" are so intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold -- whose corporate chief, Wally O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to "delivering" his home state's votes to Bush next year -- the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing "steering group" stacked with Bushist faithful.

Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, which openly advocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy, placing the entire society under the "dominion" of "Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the death penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of sinners and -- we kid you not -- slavery, "one of the most beneficent of Biblical laws."

Ahmanson also has major holdings in ES&S, whose former CEO is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. When Hagel ran for office, his own company counted the votes; needless to say, his initial victory was reported as "an amazing upset." Hagel still has a million-dollar stake in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's votes.
-snip-
----------------------------


how many days until THE vote? how much damage can the bloody hands bushgang do in that many days? where is the military in all of this?

[dusty64]

1. He is very scary indeed.

The fact that his private company produces many electronic "voting" machines with little to no oversight is frightening. This nutcase definitely has an evil agenda, would you trust him with your vote?

[seemslikeadream]

2. donsu

Where is the military in all of this? They're checkin' the machines to see if they're secure! SAIC!

But lets tell a little more about Theonomic Reconstructionism. It is a belief that the only true authority is God's, that allegiance to biblical laws trumps that of Civic law and that the Kingdom of Heaven needs to be built here on Earth, before Jesus will come again. In addition to that, homosexuals should be put to death, women should be banned from civic office, apostates and heritics should be stoned to death and there is a great need for more Christian politicians.

Funded by billionaires such as Howard Ahmanson and the Coors and Hunt families, Reconstructionists formed think tanks such as the Chalcedon Institute and the Rutherford Institute.

[donsu]

3. seems like it will take a world revolution to rid us of this gang

if the bloody hands bushgang owns our military and our votes - we are already doomed.

[seemslikeadream]

4. no no no no

My business accountant and personal friend of 25 years called me this morning. He's a life long Repub. He was at the ballgame last night with some big repubs in Chicago and they say bush will not be the party's choice for 04. Isn't that something. Do you remember who how when and why the Convention was to be in New York? He told me a few other things that's got me thinkin'

[donsu]

5. we will see

nt

[Resistance Is Futile]

6. I'll believe it when I see it

If Chimpy the Boy King spends too much time with his re-elect numbers below %50, he'll be pulled. The movement to dismantle the New Deal is much bigger than just Chimpy: AEI has paid for a president who can deliver the goods and if Chimpy can't, he'll be replaced with a less defective model. I will, however, believe it when I see it.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter if Chimpy is replaced. Whoever runs on the GOP ticket will follow the same (fascist) playbook because that's where the money is coming from.

[aquart]

8. They have no primaries planned, do they?

Nothing budgeted for primaries?

Which would mean a bloodless coup in the party, and the appointment of a candidate unknown to the public.

Or is there someone we do know that they could be sure we'd vote for?

[Eloriel]

7. Ahmanson put up money for Global Election Manageent

in the early days.

Eloriel

[blm]

9. Bump....

this si serious stuff, folks. This is the guy who got creationism in the Ohio public schools.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Perhaps the most extreme member of the Claremont Institute

is Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., who sits on the Claremont's board of directors. Ahmanson, a California multi-millionaire who inherited Home Savings of America from his father, also served for more than 20 years on the board of the Chalcedon Institute. That groups's vision statement, as posted on its Web site, proposes a return to "an explicitly Biblical system of thought and action as the exclusive basis for civilization." Chalcedon's president, Dr. Rousas J Rushdoony, is considered to be the modern patriarch of Christian Reconstructionism, a group that believes that the nation's legal system should be modeled on Biblical Old Testament law, where offenses such as blasphemy and adultery could be punished by death.

Several members of Claremont Institue have been at the forefront of right-wing political causes. Claremont Vice President Larry P Arnn is a member of the Council on National Policy, a network of Republicans that includes televangelist Pat Robertson and religious-right radio broadcaster James Dobson. The group frequently meets to plot political strategy.