US Public has ADD - MSM enables it, Rove knows/uses it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

Collectively, the vast majority of people in the US seem incapable of holding more than one thought (news item, disaster, event) in their mind at a time - and each subsequent one just pushes the previous one out of the way for good. I suspect that valueless television and the MSM ineffective use of the 24 hour news cycle enables the problem, and the public is too lazy to fight it. The scandal-filled misadministration could not survive otherwise - and Rove is playing this like a piano. How can this be undone?

[Armstead]

1. Massive distribution of Ritalin?

[Frustratedlady]

2. Putting it plain and simply....

You asked: ...Rove is playing this like a piano. How can this be undone?

You have to come up with a nicer tune and a better performer who can blast louder and longer than Rove.

Actually, Rove was more like a magician. He pulled tricks out of his sleeve before our very eyes and we couldn't figure out how he did it. Well, everyone has finally figured out his act and it ain't playin' in Peoria.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The American people have consistently opposed the war on Iraq FROM THE

BEGINNING. 56% opposed, Feb. 03, before the invasion, after Colin Powell's 100% pack of lies to the UN but before all the lies were exposed. Didn't trust Bush then. Trust him even less now. Over 70% opposed to the Iraq war now; also, 84% (!) (--some polls, 65%) oppose any US participation in a widened Mideast war--Bush's heart's desire.

Opposition to the Iraq war dipped only once, in the few weeks of the invasion, when US troops were at max risk, then went right back up to nearly 60%, where it stayed throughout the 2004 election period.

Further, all polls--corporate, independent, issue polls, approval polls--show significant majority disapproval of every Bush policy, foreign and domestic, some of it way up in the 60% to 70% range. Bush had the lowest approval rating of any (supposedly) re-elected 2nd term president in history on the very day of his 2nd term inauguration--49%! And it has sunk like the Titanic ever since.

The American people have been amazingly resistant to Bush junta propaganda, which is shoveled at them 24/7. They have stuck to their progressive views--and their sense of ethics, fairness, lawfulness and good government--on war, on items like torture, on economic policy, on women's rights and a host of other issues.*

I think you need to find another reason for how this "scandal-filled administration survives." What could it be?

Rove's is a subtle game, for sure--but misinterpreting what the game is and how it works could lead to serious strategic errors. To understand Rove's game, you have first to understand that our election system was completely and quickly taken over by electronic voting corporations with very close ties to the Bush junta, during the 2002-2004 period. The new factors of TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls were introduced, and became fatally widespread, as the result of a $4 billion dollar electronic voting boondoggle (the so-called "Help America Vote Act")--with NO ELECTION TRANSPARENCY CONTROLS--engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (both now resigned amidst bribery scandals).

One third of the country voted on non-transparent, paperless electronic voting machines--elections that could not even be recounted or audited--run on Bushite corporate controlled SECRET PROGRAMMING, in 2004; and the rest voted mostly electronically, but with extremely inadequate audit controls, and virtually ALL the votes were centrally tabulated ALSO with secret programming. The associations of the people who ran or funded the two main corporations--Diebold and ES&S (a spinoff of Diebold)--are unbelievably partisan (Bush-Cheney campaign chair; billionaire funder of far rightwing religious causes).

Transparent elections are a no-brainer. The Bushites did not want a transparent election in 2004 (or ever again). What the Democrats wanted is hard to figure out. They all voted for HAVA and have been MIND-BOGGLINGLY SILENT about the Bushite corporate takeover of our election system. Ask THEM. I don't know. I have my suspicions, of course--about corruption, fear, big gov't electronics contracts, and open or secret love of Bush's war. But I'll be damned if I know why they didn't want Kerry to be president, or to have a majority in Congress. Bushite corporate TRADE SECRET vote tabulation guarantees their minority status.

But back to Karl Rove. It really doesn't take much talent to write the copy for pre-determined events. He plants little newsturds into the corporate newsstream all along the way--gay marriage, brown immigrants, phony terrorist alerts (remember those, leading up to the 2004 election?--people were laughing about them), boffo "get out the vote" campaign in the churches (no evidence of success--none! zero; zilch). Like that. Then he pulls his little pot belly up to his word processor and writes their "victory" narrative, and sends the "talking points" out to the lapdog press for "explaining" how this "scandal-filled administration" manages to "survive."

It's not that these fascist criminals have convinced the American people about the benefits of unjust war or tax cuts for the super-rich. They haven't. But what they HAVE convinced the American people of is that, a) OTHER Americans have gone nuts, and their own views--progressive views--are in the MINORITY; and b) the good and sensible and progressive Americans, who share their views (if there are any left) have no power to change things.

This is a DIFFERENT strategic problem than Americans being "sheeple"--"too lazy to fight" the brainwashing. I strongly believe that the REAL problem is that Americans have been disempowered, and are demoralized, and, above all, DISENFRANCHISED.

The story of the Bushite corporate takeover of our election system has been the MOST black-holed of all news stories--the most important news story in the history of our democracy. So Americans DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. And they are THEREFORE vulnerable to 24/7 propaganda that tells them that their views DON'T MATTER.

Remedy: Throw Diebold, ES&S and all these new election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

How do we do that?

Strategic problem: By public education and lawsuits (on-going big efforts of grass roots groups and individuals). But we have an election coming up in November in which we will be UNABLE TO RELY ON THE RESULTS. Almost totally non-transparent, all run on Bushite secret code. Fraud is inevitable.

My proposal: Massive Absentee Ballot voting. Boycott the machines! Let them sit idle! Don't cooperate with your own undoing! Flood election officials with MOUNTAINS of paper ballots to deal with. Create panic and crisis in the election theft industry, and FORCE reform NOW. AB votes are NOT "safe" either, and will NOT result in accurate counts this fall, but if enough people do it (and many are--it's up to 50% in Los Angeles), it DOES have the potential to bring this election theft system to its knees.

It's easy. Everybody can do it. It's a maximum participation protest. And it gives the disillusioned a REASON to vote--it will HELP turnout. It turns voting into a positive protest, rather than a passive act of despair. A massive citizen "Vote of NO CONFIDENCE" in things as they are.

Bust the Machines! Bust Bush! Bust the War! Bust Congress! VOTE ABSENTEE!


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*(The only items on which the American people lapse from progressive policy are on capital punishment (since before Bush), and on some "war on terror" disinformation issues (for instance--they tend to believe Saddam-9/11 connection and Saddam-WMDs); however, they recently expressed more trust in the Democrats on national security matters, and they have consistently opposed the Iraq war, from a majority to a large majority.)