Another proposal for action.

[tngledwebb]

Statistical anomalies, exit polls, probabilities, computer hacking, bbv, and the all powerful 'internet driven conspiracy' label, will be spun right over the heads of even the voters who can pay attention, assuming MSM ever brings it up for serious debate- and I'd bet money they never will.

Our politicians and our party, except for a small handful, have given BushCo carte blanche to send the country and the world into hell, when by rights they should have impeached them all by 2002 for a number of provable crimes.

What to do? One suggestion is an appeal to any overseas allies. Most of the world is strongly against Bush and his policies, but at the moment still supportive of the American people.

Beginning with the UK, and the stable EU countries, we need to initiate a massive and peaceful protest movement, with two prongs. One squarely AGAINST BushCo wars -and there will be more to come shortly- and the other clearly FOR uncovering fraud in recent US elections. But no tangential issues, no radical groups-as grassroots and mainstream as possible.

The movement will be spear-headed through the web, through world media, and most importantly, live and in person. Demonstrating outside the BBC head offices in the UK, or in front of #10 Downing Street, or wherever, if done peacefully and with great numbers, will finally be effective when covered by other media than our own. And on the streets of London or Paris or Berlin, there will be thousands of European small 'd' democrats and a not a few expat Americans willing to join us.

This may involve many of us leaving the country for some time, and the risk of jail or exile, and worse. But the situation is dire, and the future of our democracy and the planet is at stake.

There will be much to do here at home, as always, but it is more clear by the moment that that our options and our chances of success are severely limited by the complicity of MSM, and by the apparently chronic impotence of our politicians. The world needs to know these same terrible truths. It is watching already.

[JoMama49]

1. I'm on board!

Anyone know how we get in touch with the activists who exposed the Ukranian fraud? Perhaps they would be willing to help!
JoMama.

[tngledwebb]

2. Which Ukranian fraud?

There may be at least two, as in most healthy democracies.

[kk897]

3. Stats, numbers, etc.

I just don't get 'em. I don't understand how people can look at the same set of numbers and come up with radically different conclusions, how one statitician can debunk anothers' work, etc.

I dunno. I think I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and if I don't get it, I'm pretty sure most people won't. You'll notice how the other side spins things---they don't dispute it with more numbers; they dispute it by saying, "Internet conspiracy theories," or "the election went smoothly," or "you can't expect the system to be perfect," etc.

In other words, they use words to counter numbers, and by doing so they have more powerful influence over most people, who just tune in for sound bites, read headlines, or skim articles. Hey, I'm GLUED to developments about fraud, and if *my* eyes glaze over when reading things like "the tally for X county, when compared to Y, with Z number of absentee votes...figure, number, table, chart," then I think the way the evidence is presented must change. There's some guy on DU here who keeps saying CHANGE THE FRAME (a la Lakeoff or however you spell it), and I have to agree.

Put it in terms most people will understand and relate to. Show them this map:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x92747

or this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=201x5919

These are crystal clear. Appeal to people's sense of justice and fairplay. Talk about the dirty tricks, the criminal elements rather than the more opaque mathematical elements. Say very clearly, "Wealthy white people got more voting machines and didn't have to wait as long as poor Black people and Democratic areas." Say, "Poor and working class Democrats, especially Black people, received phone calls telling them to go to the wrong polling places and we have proof." Keep saying "we have proof" rather than "evidence." That's what's so genius about Jesse Jackson getting involved. He's a strong communicator (usually, anyway---I read elsewhere on DU that his moment on Countdown wasn't all that terrific).

We can take a leaf from the GOP notebook, and simply choose three major points and hammer, hammer, hammer on them all the time. Don't bring anything else up, and if someone does bring something else up to counter your arguments, just bring it back around to those same three points. (As those with NLP skills know, if you repeat something three times, it is more likely to sink into consciousness; if you ask questions of an audience that gets them to respond "yes," three times, you essentially have them in the palm of your hand. Think about "Are you ready to rock?" "I can't hear you, I said, Are you ready to rock? Oh, come on, you can do better than that! Are you ready to rock?" and the audience goes wild.)

In another way to counter spin, I'll say this: I'm in media relations, and I know that people believe that if the media writes a story about something that it lends it an air of legitimacy, so that's another area we need to hammer on. People are probably saying, well, if they have proof of fraud, wouldn't it be all over the papers and on my Yahoo! headlines? I don't have an answer for that, but perhaps the brain trust at DU might.