of it--is gravely compromised. I mean, when you look at it with open eyes, it's just ludicrous: Rightwing Bushite corporations "counting" all the votes with new, highly insecure and insider hackable electronic voting machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls.
This is NEW. This was done AT THE SAME TIME as the Iraq War Resolution (October 2002)--with the so-called "Help America Vote Act"--which our party leadership not only supported, but has forcefully defended, by, among other things, helping the war profiteering corporate news monopolies to 'blackhole' what is, in fact, probably the most important news story in the history of democracy: the hijacking of America's election system by private, partisan corporations!
Since I knew this, in November 2006, while I was delighted and heartened to see signs of life in our democracy, I was not expecting any big change or reform. I was not expecting impeachment. I was not expecting an end to the war. Hoping for them, of course, but not expecting them. We in the election reform movement also had early warning from TruthIsAll that the Democratic victory--some 30 seats in the House, and a one-vote edge in the Senate--was less than it should have been. Should have been about 50 seats in the House, and more of an edge in the Senate. Two other portents: 1) Pelosi's "Impeachment is off the table" (WHAT table, Nancy?)--first words out of her mouth (weird!), and 2) I caught a C-Span radio interview of the "Blue Dogs" just after the election--Pelosi was in the studio, introducing these "Blue Dogs" to the C-Span interviewer (but didn't speak herself--it was in the nature of an endorsement, though), and what they said was this: They were for "fiscal responsibility," they said, and they wanted to cut everything in the budget EXCEPT the war spending. Must "support our troops."
Oh, brother, I thought--are we in for a "B team" disappointment, or what? I knew things were not right, early on.
But I was NOT aware of how bad it was--that this so-called 'Democratic' Congress would actually ESCALATE the war, and lard Bush and Cheney with $100 billion MORE of our non-existent tax dollars, to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights. And THEN would IN ADDITION wipe Bush/Cheney's spying FELONY off the books, by ENDORSING domestic spying!
I tried to think positive thoughts about all three things. "Impeachment is off the table." Okay, Pelosi made a deal with Bush/Cheney: 'You don't attack Iran, we won't impeach--and get rid of Rumsfeld." Could be she secretly saved us from WW III. The ESCALATION. Okay, withdrawing troops from an illegal occupation is not cheap. Maybe they're actually ending the war. (I was ignoring all those permanent U.S. military bases--just couldn't think about them.) Then came the FISA bill.
No, actually it was HR 811--Holt's bandaid on our broken election system--that alarmed (or is it, disgusted?) me more than anything else. And finding out that Diane Feinstein heads the Senate committee that HR 811 would be filtered through. Sure enough, they threw us the sop of a "paper trail," kept the "trade secret" code and the rightwing Bushite corporate control, and went one step further: put control of the secret code in the hands of the President!
Ah, God! Please no!
No more! No more!
Or was it the fourth tours of duty I began hearing about. National Guards, Reservists, plucked from their civilian lives, and conscripted to Iraq for 12-month, 18-month tours, not just once, not just twice, not just three times, but four times over, along with all the regular military who were suffering the same fate: slave labor to corporate oil interests.
And our 'Democratic' Congress would do nothing about even this.
"Support our troops." Right.
----------------------------------
Okay, STOP! It's horrible, yes. It is far worse than even I expected. And how bad it is DOES have strategic implications, for the forces of democracy in the U.S.A. But what I want is to avoid piling on, regarding the disempowerment of the American majority, 70% of whom oppose this war today--and 56% of whom--a significant majority--opposed this war from the beginning (Feb. '03). 56% would be a landslide in a presidential election (and believe me, it was). 70% is a staggering, overwhelming consensus.
The demoralization, and, above all, DISEMPOWERMENT of the majority, is the real issue here. That's what all the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are about. That's what the rigged voting machines are about. They are about telling YOU that YOU are a member of a MINORITY--the opposite of the truth--and YOU have no power to stop their fascist juggernaut. It's all about demoralization.
We have to be realistic--and truthful--about how bad things are. But we also have to be careful, because the chief METHOD of this fascist coup is psychological. They can make you NOT SEE the rigged voting machines. They've done it! They can make you think that the majority is goosestepping to Bush's war, when it never was true. They can make you believe that the rightwing is ascendant in the U.S., when it clearly (if you think about it) is NOT. They can convince you that George Bush and Dick Cheney--and a whole lot of other criminals--were elected by the American people, while they're feeding all the election "results" through rightwing Bushite "trade secret" formulae, to the war consortium "news" networks, who then DOCTOR their exits polls (which said that Bush/Cheney LOST) to force them to fit the "trade secret" conclusion.
The trick is for them to make you believe it. At that, they are very successful. They cannot convince the American people that the unjust slaughter of half a million innocent Iraqis, to get their oil, is okay. But they CAN convince them that they have no power to do anything about it. That there is no turning back from rigged elections. That 70% of the American people are HELPLESS. That YOU are helpless, and unconnected to anyone else.
The Fascist Party--the Bushites combined with the "Blue Dogs" (war profiteering corporate 'Democrats')--cannot rule for long with no support. Something's gonna go boom. That's how it FEELS, anyway. Insurrection? 9/11, Part 2, and martial law?
Although the Bush Junta has been marshaling powers that scare the bejeebers out of all who are aware of them (harbinger of 9/11, Part 2?), and although there ARE rumblings of insurrection (the American people are very, VERY upset), I think it ain't gonna go that way. It ain't gonna go bad. Not in the near term. Could go bad, eventually. But not right away. Which gives us a WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY to fix this democracy.
Here's why: The Bush Junta is NOT acting like Hitler and the Nazis. It is NOT building a great war machine, with a brainwashed, hypnotized, propagandized, seig heiling population to cheer on its "victories" (invasions!). They are not convincing anyone of anything (except our helplessness). No one is cheering on their "victories." They are outsourcing our manufacturing base--and all the jobs! They are bankrupting the federal government! They are turning us INTO Germany 1929, not pulling us OUT OF Germany 1929 --why Hitler was successful, at first; overcame the Great Depression, which had hit Germany very, very hard; created jobs, full employment; put bread on the table; appealed to German pride; got the "trains running on time," etc. But what the Bushites (and their 'Democratic' collaborators) are doing is: crippling "the trains," corroding the tracks, outsourcing the train engineers to China and Mexico and India, demoralizing the work force, encouraging incompetence and inefficiency (and vast corruption), and permitting the very rich to rip off the last profits from a once-prosperous, but now crumbling, economic/social/political system.
You see any Nazi Youth parading around the streets seig heiling to Bush? What do we have to be proud of? Our bridges are literally FALLING DOWN! The place is a wreck! Our ideals, our once famous creativity and industriousness, and the very bridges we drive over, are crumbling.
This is NOT **A PLAN**. This is predatory capitalism gone absolutely apeshit crazy, with the rich looting everything in sight.
**A Plan** for the nazification of America may come out of this (--at the earliest, by 2012, I think). MEANWHILE, we have a chance to save it.
As for insurrection, the American people are slow to go that route. The closest we ever came was in the leftist/labor (and, to some extent, communist) movement in the early 20th century. But eventually a compromise was reached. Capitalism would continue WITH LABOR RIGHTS. With a fair shake for the workers.
It's a very big country, with a VERY culturally diverse population. Not easy to nazify. It's going to take more time to create the conditions in which that could happen. The PRECEDENTS are being put in place for it--a noose around our necks that is slowly squeezing. But neither the Bushites nor their 'Democratic' colluders have the political credit, the mandate or the means to control this entire country by force--or rather, it is ONLY by blunt force that they could attempt it, and they would fail, at this point. (For one thing, much of their blunt force is in Iraq!)
A window of opportunity. What should we do with it?
POWER, my friends. This is the issue. What is our power?
Our right to vote.
How have they taken it away?
By rigged voting machines. (Also, vote suppression, but it is the HIDDEN power of "trade secret" vote counting that is the one that is most lethal.)
How do we get it back? (Congress ain't gonna do it.)
By forcing LOCAL and STATE election officials out office if they won't count our votes in a way that everyone can see and understand. Pressure. Agitation. Forget picketing your Congress member. Picket your country registrar, who lives right down the street. THAT is the person who is materially blockading reform. THAT is who sold your right to vote to Bushite corporations with their secret code.
Ordinary people still have some influence at the state/local level. That is beginning to be evident all over the country, on the election reform issue. Witness what is going on in California--a tremendous and powerful grass roots movement resulted in the voters OUTVOTING THE MACHINES, and electing Debra Bowen Secretary of State, against monumental odds. And she is now "kicking ass and taking names," as DUers are fond of saying. (See Andrew Gumbel's new article in L.A. CityBeat:
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=5959&IssueNum=218.)
It's happening.
We just have to rally TO it, back her up and help spread election reform everywhere--support it, where it's happening, and make it happen, where it isn't yet off the ground.
This is our POWER. This should be our strategy. I think it should be our entire focus. Because we can't do ANYTHING without the power of our votes to hold over our representatives' heads. Reform is impossible, overall--in congress and the presidency--if they can tweak two elections for every one in which we outvote the machines. We can't get traction, nationally. We'll continue to have this lopsided situation, with the vast majority--70% of the American people opposed to the war--being REVERSED in Washington DC.
And this is, and must be, a LONG TERM battle. We're very likely going to get a War/Corporate 'Democrat' imposed on us next year, as 'our' candidate, and likely as president. There is not much we can do about that. The fascists will go all out to achieve it. But how do we use the "window of opportunity,' before full nazification can occur, to RE-EMPOWER the great, peace-loving, justice-loving American majority, IN THE MEANTIME?
How do we pull back from insurrection? How do we pull back from nazification? How do we RESTORE democracy? How do we restore the "rule of law"? How do we rescue our failing economy--not to mention our failing planetary environment--from disaster?
What is our chief power as a people--and very nearly the definition of our sovereignty as a people? Voting! And so, we MUST restore transparent vote counting. And I think we CAN do this by 2012, through good grass roots organization and strong pressure on election officials at the state/local level.
And, once we have restored transparent vote counting, the OTHER reforms--in every aspect of our government, economy and political life--are going to make your heads spin. We are going to be amazed at what the American people can do, when their votes are counted.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
