Stockholm Syndrome becomes Glasgow Syndrome as Scots vote no to self-rule

By now “Stockholm Syndrome” is accepted to be a misnomer, not the behavior but the geographical attribution. But the term fits the Scotish people who have just rejected independence in favor of continued vassalage to the United Kingdom. If Scotland had elected autonomy, Wales might have followed, then Northern Ireland and even England, to pull the rug from under monarchic London, the feudal center of the vampiric British empire. Scotland’s “Glasgow Syndrome” proves London is in charge of the UK no doubt about it.

CS Indy turns to cruel IFES deceiver to voice cautionary best hope for Haiti

IFESWhen it came to coverage of the Haiti earthquake disaster, the CS Indy left it to their Your Turn column, and by “your” they meant YOUR MASSAH. What caught my eye was the headline “Time for a new Haiti” accompanied by the excerpt blurb “Aristide’s return would be a disaster,” written by a pasty diplomat who had a personal hand in Haiti’s ongoing misery. Here is our allegedly progressive newsweekly giving the podium to IFES criminal Richard Soudriette instead of bundling him off to Port Au Prince for a well deserved drubbing.

Mr. Soudriette presided over the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) from 1988 to 2007, the period which saw two US coups in Haiti, where twice the democratically elected Bertrand Aristide was removed from office by our hands. Who better to have blown the whistle on the US interference than someone observing, even advising and conducting, the elections? That’s ignoring of course that the IFES is actually a private agency which does the CIA’s work, created in the 80s when Congress moved to limit the CIA’s official role destabilizing democracies. Through the IFES, through the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA continues its intelligence wars subverting foreign governments who threaten America’s corporate rule.

If you want to believe that enterprises like IFES might be serving some good, consider this: if democratic ideals were really being advanced, the US State Department would be proud to do the work. These aren’t subcontracted jobs that wouldn’t benefit from official diplomatic networks. The IFES and ilk are as disreputable cretins as ever wore stuffed shirts, designed to separate people from legitimate representation.

And don’t think all the pitchfork bearing victims of its election racketeering are overseas. The IFES has been an adversary of the American people as Americans have tried to rescue their elections from Diebold and the stolen votes of 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006.

When will traitorous, undemocratic Neocons like Richard Soudriette meet the wrath they have so richly courted? The Haitians are suffering, there are countless stories of Americans helping in the effort, instead the Indy gives people of Haiti more of the same malignant spin. How did Soudriette explain his expertise on Aristide? He didn’t:

“Unfortunately Aristide is hinting at a comeback despite his two failed terms. Aristide’s return to Haitian politics would be a disaster for the country. His many political allies in the U.S. and abroad would best serve Haiti’s interests by encouraging Aristide to permanently step aside from politics.”

Rather, Soudriette says, we need to back efforts to amend Haiti’s constitution to allow America’s man Preval serve additional terms. Oh, and give more responsibility to USAID, another CIA arm. Why is Soudriette spinning this message to Colorado Springs I wonder?

It’s not enough that Soudriette lent his villainy to Haiti’s disastrous last decades, now two years removed from the job, on the occasion of its most recent natural calamity, Soudriette resurfaces to damn the Haitian people with the same lies, lest they ever catch a break. That’s what makes this brand of conservative bureaucrat so damnable.

And why is the Indy propagating this venomous neo-liberal drivel? It could be highlighting the truly hopeful opportunities which locals have been taking to help the earthquake victims. Tired of watching the US military bureaucracy monopolize and bungle the aid efforts, a Springs surgical team enlisted a local businessman’s private turboprop to spend a week in Port Au Prince effecting miracles. Let’s hear about that story.

To pick up where we left off with scoundrel Soudriette, he of the many Haitian crony friends in DC, the careerist democracy-thief has moved to Colorado Springs, to lecture for El Pomar, and head the Center for Diplomacy and Democracy, which may be just another shell to which the CIA funnels funding. While stationed in DC for the IFES, Soudriette was also billing from an M Street address for the Conservation International Foundation. The good news is that apart from a CFDD franchise opened in Northern Iraq, no doubt to milk from Iraq reconstruction funds, the headquarters here appears to be merely a residence with a walkout on the golf course of the Country Club of Colorado.

Non profit front on the Country Club of Colorado golf course

El Paso County resists blue trend how?

Two articles caught my eye in this morning’s Gazette, and I’d like to thank the editors for putting them side by side. The first lauded El Paso County’s strong Republican push-back to the Obama landslide, the other illuminated Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink’s dubiously legal measures at the EPC polling stations. Do the Gazette editors think, as I, that one of these stories could have a bearing on the other?

The first article was written with the partisanship we’re used to from the Gazette. In face of this election’s “blue tsunami,” El Paso County remained high and dry. Can we read this any other way than meaning “safe” and Republican (red), in the face of the Obama danger? The article detailed how El Paso County voted against the prevailing tide. Even the Democratic candidates who won elsewhere were “stomped” here. Stomped –like cockroaches?

The adjacent article was about the Clerk and Recorder. It reported that on election day, the media had been banned from the local polling places. This measure was in defiance of common practice and, the question was raised, even election law. Apparently, lawsuits may follow.

Mention was also made of Balink’s attempt to intimidate Colorado College students.

Did the media ban mask inappropriate election worker activity? Had the CC letter deterred student voters?

The article did not mention a yet-to-be investigated story, the mysterious fire alarm at Centennial Hall, a half hour after voting closed. Everyone had to leave the building. By the way, the fire alarm tactic is a recurring theme if you’ve watched video reports of past election irregularities, in this new age of the self-deputized citizen poll watcher.

Centennial Hall was not only the main poll station downtown, and the chief early voting location, it was the central office into which all the El Paso County precincts reported their election results. Might there be a story here?

The article also didn’t address why in El Paso County, paper ballots were not permitted for early voters. Only Diebold touch-screen machines were available for the early birds, who one might guess would have been the most activated of the new wave.

How my vote was stolen

How I lost my vote to EARLY VOTING. Alright, to be less dramatic: How my vote is now in somebody else’s pocket.

Following the prevailing advice, Obama’s for example, among others, I voted early. But against the most important precautionary warnings, I wasn’t able to use a paper ballot. You can’t, for EARLY VOTING. In El Paso County, for some reason, early voting is all electronic.

Why do I presume there is something inherently wrong with the Diebold touch-screen voting machines? The problem is, no one can make a case for how the computers involved can be defended from corruption.

While it sounds unfair to consider electronic voting devices guilty until proven otherwise, imagine we were talking about a leaky boat. If experts can point to the holes, it would become the obligation of the designers to demonstrate how their perforated vessel is going to stay afloat. Can we agree that we might require some such proof before we put our destiny in their hands. Isn’t that fair enough?

Let’s also admit that reassurances from inexperts, who maintain that no such holes exist, do not hold water. Especially when they’re backed by party bosses who profess expertise, minus technical degrees. And cling to power, mysteriously unaccountable to their constituents. Think about the issue of building the County Jail, in spite of the incredible local outcry.

In much of the country, electronic voting devices, manufactured by GOP-backers Diebold for example, or otherwise, have been taken out of the election loop. Many state legislatures have taken heed of the 2004 election experiences, and popular outcry, and banned “black box voting” altogether. Colorado is not one of those wised-up states. What better indication do you need that to be “conservative” really means to be an idiot?

Really. The “conservative” take on the Diebold anti-democratic vote theft of 2004 is to say “balderdash.”

At least our Secretary of State was made to provide paper ballots to all who request them. Except in El Paso County, for early voting.

In all three early voting centers in Colorado Springs, your only option is to use the Diebold touch-screen machines. When I asked about a paper ballot, I was told that I would be able to verify my vote on a paper receipt generated by the machine.

Here’s how it works. After you make your choices on the touch-screen, and after you scroll through the completed ballot on the screen, you have the option to make a print out of your votes on a cash-register-like roll of paper located inside a compartment beside the Diebold screen. There, behind a small plastic window, you can see a line by line record of your votes, in three inch length glimpses. Each time you touch the “print” button, the paper advances with the next three inches of your votes. Eventually it line feeds into the upper portion of the compartment, presumably to accumulate until the roll is replenished. Exactly like a cash register, actually.

Now if you’ve used a cash register, you might also know that it often keeps two separate tapes. One for the customer, and an abbreviated one for the sales tax records. The latter is compressed to save paper, but in substance they are identical. But a programmable point of sale machine could produce different tallies, if such was desired.

Likewise, the Diebold print-out which you see but cannot touch behind the plastic, needn’t be the print-out being archived. As simple as that.

Interestingly, the printout visible under the plastic is more a translation of your vote, in plain English, than a coded abbreviation of what your vote represented. Meaning, to reassure you that your vote is recorded according to your wish, the paper trail sacrifices being in a format easily tabulated by an auditor. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the rolls processed at all. Even the election volunteer giving my tutorial explained that the roll is kept only for extenuating circumstances. I was not polled upon emerging from the election center, to survey how El Paso County’s early voters are leaning. So, will there be any call for election workers to review the roll of paper representing my vote?

Now I cannot remember for certain, but it seemed that the push “print” operation was optional. Because of the numerous ballot initiatives this year, the ballot was particularly long. I had to push “print” at least a half-dozen times. That’s rather strange, isn’t it, if printing would not be optional? But then, what kind of a paper trail would represent each Diebold unit, if the rolls only recorded the votes which only particular users were concerned to see in print?

Thus my choices for office holders and local amendments are now recorded with Diebold. They will be counted on other electronic devices, and communicated to central devices. Experts have pointed to man-in-the-middle vulnerabilities where results can be processed at intermediary points-unkown before being retransmitted to their official destinations.

These are the vulnerabilities which other states have determined pose a risk to democratic elections. El Paso County officials, GOP bureaucrats determined that things remain exactly as they are, are plenty happy to stick to their tried and true Diebolds.

Perhaps they know that El Paso County is expected to fall in line with the GOP, and thus no one is planning to challenge the results anyway. Even if this were true, what about the local issues on the ballot. Might the public not want to verify the votes on the sales tax measure? The county administrators themselves benefit from that tax increase. Might taxpayers want to audit that vote, in case it’s really the citizen’s preference not to raise a regressive tax that weighs more heavily on those with less money? The county has been in financial trouble because of the breaks it’s been giving to the wealthiest of clients. Why should they make up the shortfall on the backs of the needy?

Don’t give El Paso County your vote to do with what they please. Cast a paper ballot which remains traceable to your authentic vote. If you believe that your only role in this Democracy is the right to vote, at least, make certain it counts.

RIGGED!

indy event
COLORADO SPRINGS- I attended the Every Vote Matters town hall symposium and I can cut through the unselfconscious evasiveness for you. The El Paso County election is RIGGED. The Republicans in charge are already folding their arms smugly behind locked glass doors. Many of the major bureaucrats showed up today to be seen smiling about it.

County Commissioner Dennis Hisey introduced the event with this assurance on behalf of the agency: “All those eligible to vote will be able to do so.” Give Hisey credit for taking straight aim to muddy the chief point of contention. Both the State of Colorado and El Paso County have been caught hindering voter registration. Promising to respect voting rights reserved for eligible citizens is a sick joke.

El Paso County’s purposeful mishandling of voter registrations has already excluded thousands who Hisey may well consider now ineligible.

What else? Here’s what else:

1. No redress for voter participation already suppressed.
2. Many newly registered will not be notified of their eligibility.
3. More will be sidelined with provisional ballots.
4. No early voting facility for voters more likely Democrats.
5. No paper ballot alternative to Diebold for early voters.
6. No nonpartisan oversight of Republican data technicians.

Neither Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink nor Secretary of State Mike Coffman showed up to answer the current accusations. Instead two representatives from the election staff were put forward to offer attendees the same reassurances crafted for the county website. Every vote matters, regardless the election, partisanship aside, yada yada.

The two women were besieged by complaints and worries from public at large, and though they had no answers, they were applauded by the Republicans in the room, most of whom were men in suits, many of whom were county employees. So much for partisanship. You’ve never seen such smug assholes.

In fairness, I’d guess neither Liz Olsen nor Terry Sholdt know the partisan shenanigans being pulled by their bosses. Probably the two are fully qualified office managers who enforce the rules they are given. Without a hint of awareness of the big picture. “Anyone with concerns should feel free to call us anytime.” I’m paraphrasing Olsen. Their office is eager to resolve any issue, so long as it’s brought to their attention. Fortunately someone was on hand in the audience to tell them trying to reach their office by phone was often impossible.

And is that your understanding of a voter’s rights? So long as a voter knows to call the Office of the County Clerk and Recorder, or try, he needn’t feel disenfranchised.

NOTE: Mark Lewis provides some video of the meeting:

McCain is a Member of a Terrorist Organization: the GOP!

kill-the-media
Some “rescue.” Stock Market continues to plummet, the DOW has lost 25% of it’s value since the bailout was passed, less than a week ago.

Bill Gates no longer the richest person in America.

McCain doesn’t give a damn about the economy. Why should he? He’s filthy rich.

Why does John McCain hate veterans?

McCain linked to Iran Contra scandal.

Insane McCain, not fit to be president!

GOP isn’t even pretending they are a separate entity from unAmerican Murdoch’s Fox News &amp Propaganda, now releasing Fox transcripts verbatim as RNC press releases.

Jewish pogrom in Israel Palestine. Israeli Jews are making German Nazis look like boy scouts.

More Nazi Jews riot in Palestine, Israeli Foreign Minister tells Palestinians: “Do not defend yourselves!”

I think McCain is going to lose for the same reason that Hillary lost: that arrogant, elitist attitude that it’s “his [or her] turn” to be president. Because nothing will piss off a voter faster than telling him he doesn’t have a choice. Then again, the only vote that counts in November is Diebold’s, and the Democrats haven’t done a damned thing about that in the last two years they’ve been in charge of Congress. Maybe that’s why McCain’s so confident.

If they succeed in fixing this election, I hope the backlash makes the French Revolution look like a love in.

Opposing eternal war for corporate profit now classifies you as a “terrorist.”

Lock your doors, the Republicans are coming.

Former Republican governor of Michigan withdraws endorsement of McCain.

Sarah Palin throws husband under bus.

Proof that the GOP is now offically the American Nazi Party. [more]

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Oct 9 notes, thomasmc.com.

Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!

Rick Davis & Freddie Mac: it’s Keating 5 all over again,
except this time there aren’t five to blame, just John McCain.

John McCain’s taking a nap. Let’s hope he never wakes up. Now that McCain and Palin have chickened out of the debates, they should just concede the election. The voters have seen what liars and frauds they are, the only way they could win now would be to buy off Diebold, and I don’t think America is going to put up with that again.

Bush’s speech last night was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever witnessed. Him recounting the sequence of failures, like a schoolkid trying to prove he had been paying attention in class, but showing not a bit more insight as to why they failed, than if he had just been scanning the newspaper headlines for the last few weeks. All that kept going through my mind was how many times he has insisted there was nothing to worry about, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” This country is going to need a Truth and Reconcilliation commission, so we can round up and prosecute all these crooks, along with everyone who helped them get away with it.

Treasury Secretary Paulson blames future administrations for current financial crisis.

Democrats and Republicans reach deal, they will sell your children and grandchildren into slavery, in order to keep Wall St. in the luxury to which it has become accustomed.

John Edwards may have spent $400 on a haircut, but John McCain spent $5,500 on makeup!

McCain wanted Condi Rice, not Sarah Palin, as his VP running mate, but thought her being a lesbian would kill the ticket.

Sarah Palin’s lover revealed. And it ain’t Todd, it’s his best friend! Way to go, Ms. “Family Values!”

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 25 notes, thomasmc.com.

Latest Election 2008 news is old news

All the bad news last week provided cover for the breaking of worse news. The Georgia standoff, the Iranian escalation, the dawning climate disaster –what could be a worst development? Lost hope. In election news, pollsters are beginning to tell us this presidential election is going to be close. Wha?! I’ve heard that one before, and so have you.

Wasn’t it just months ago that Obama could do no wrong? McCain was dismissed out of hand. Now they’re tied?! Oh I have no doubt that they’re neck and neck. In media terms, and in ballot counts. It’s plenty easy to forecast what you see coming if you’re going to deliver it. A close race. Like Bush and Gore. Like Bush and Kerry.

What’s expected as a landslide for reform becomes a close race, then a Republican victory, then a count with contestable irregularities, then an irreversible stolen election. So we’re at stage two. Obama’s voice of hope, tidal wave of public disaffection with the DC cabal, is ground to a halt against a heretofore wart on the ugly face of American idiocy. How is it possible? When you watch a magic act, do you ask, how is this possible? Because that’s not in question, is it? It’s not possible. The question is, how did the magician do it.

What have we learned from the past close elections? That we should have tried harder? That we could have given the slightest bit more? Let me ask you, how many more votes did we need to overcome a rigged count? How much larger an exit-poll count would we have needed to dispute the official tally?

News now that this election is going to be close, should be the harbinger of the shell game to come. Concentrate as hard as you like, give as much money to the shills standing around in hope that they will keep a close watch with you, you haven’t figured out the nature of this game.

The fix is in. The old coot is going to win. No mount of Obama TV ads to counter McCain TV ads are going to alter the Diebold, Republican Secretary of State office election fraud. Oh, the polls are dead on. The corporate media is dead on. The election will be close. Ask them what the count will be. They know that already too.

Is your hate of Hillary all your own?

Stuart RisdenIf you’re indulging yourself gloating about Hillary’s dashed presidential aspirations, you might consider who’s cheering with you. As the battle for the nomination dragged on, Ms. Clinton faced near universal scorn, whipped up gleefully by all of media-dom. When has the media reported anything that you’ve discovered was truthful? Anything?
 
(Man’s traditional response to threatening women, midwives or healers? They’re witches!)

Unless you have been keeping in touch with Hillary Clinton personally, I would hesitate to say you don’t know if she has been represented objectively. Unless you’ve seen her in person, can you really say if her head’s the size of a pumpkin? Have you seen, heard, felt pangs of intuition that weren’t spun by the waves of an electronic transmission fashioned over an editor’s desk?

I’ve become rather suspicious that Ms. Clinton may have posed the biggest threat to the powers that be, to the beltway and the corporate media, and that’s why she was painted with such dastard derision.

Maybe?

The unanimity and height of disrespect shown in the catty ridicule made of Hillary has an identical scent really of an earlier smear campaign, the ulterior motives now well documented, against the embarrassment “beyond words” of Hillary’s First Husband, Bill.

President Clinton was too centrist for my taste, but it turns out he made some inroads for the people even despite being mostly thwarted by the corporate multinationals and the bankers.

Was the combined Clinton battle experience going to be crucial facing the still predominantly neoconservative-crony Washington establishment? The DC heavyweights are criminals and profiteers to the last, do we expect them to invite a reformer into the White House?

As much as they hated the Clintons, and Hillary Clinton in her own right, the power brokers appear to be smitten by Barack Obama. What does that say to you?

Some think it’s a sign that everyone’s ready for change. Some think the Republicans are content to let a Democrat be left to pick up Bush’s pieces. A friend of mine quotes T. S. Eliot:

“An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.”

I think the vociferous appetite the Neocons have shown in devouring America’s treasury at the expense of the middle class indicates they don’t intend to leave even a piece until it’s in their bank account. The bad guys are not through. In these days of irradiation, they do not need their poultry kept live.

The media favoritism of Barack over Hillary says to me, they’ll abide a black man on their porch because they have no intention of letting him inside. They can serenade him even, confident they can excuse their ultimate inhospitality on the Appalachian problem. If American voters prove more progressive than they want, Diebold’s blackboxes will smite our great last hope.

Republican McCain has been criticized by none of the press. With Hillary out of the way, the press has already started to unleash on Obama, and will now be now free to lavish the erstwhile witch with the affection they now display for her term-limited husband.

America’s masters needed one heck of a ringer to face the Bush blow-back. A presumptive presumptuous first black president will prove just the straw man they need. Even the most cynical voter will not be surprised that white America is not ready to elect a black president.

All that hoopla about Obama needing to distance himself from his pastor’s unpatriotic rants was very telling. Do you remember Reverend Wright’s chief focus? God Damn America, yes, but his chief refrain? America’s racism. White America doesn’t want to believe it is racist, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Apparently racism is gone if we want it gone. To decry its persistence is to break the self-hypnotic spell and bring racism back. Blame the messenger apparently.

It is not racist to predict that Obama faces entrenched racism. It would be swell to think America is otherwise, and the media would love for us to believe it. But they and the lobbyists and their owners Big Pharma, Big Agra, Big Oil, the financiers and the war machine are banking on McCain.

Advising Hillary about advising Obama

Weren’t they so cute, Mary Matalin and the bald guy, circa Election 1992, political advisers and marital partners, swinging for opposite teams, both obviously high-roller clever wits. It could have made a sitcom. Did it? I remember a Mork-n-Mindy-esque book cover. Mr. and Mrs. Smith of political hit-making, presumably. Now I hear there’s another Carville-Matalin academic dream pair advising the Democratic rivals. Christopher Edley and Maria Echaveste. He for Obama, she for Hillary. Isn’t that cute? Now wait a minute.

Are we to believe the stakes are so high, and political acumen such a rarity, that married couples have to divide their energies between political campaigns? Out of our entire population, or out of the small pool of “experts” consulted by the networks, the political campaigns have to hire professors whose partners are otherwise indisposed with the other side?!

In any other line of work, it would be called a conflict of interest. But in politics we’re supposed to think it’s a matter of tomayto or tomahto. Nothing you can’t resolve after the 9 to 5. At the end of the day, which candidate wins is a wash.

Probably we’re encouraged to make this comparison. But do you know any couple to survive even a mismatched allegiance to sports teams? The only way I know to stomach a partner’s at-odds political views is to have separate abodes. I’m thinking that elections have indeed become so sophisticated that in order to collude effectively, you have to have intimately briefed operators. What are they called? Bed fellows!

Competing businesses can’t even be caught meeting in the same hotel room without drawing an investigation into price fixing. Election fixing, even with Diebold’s collusion, has got to be quite a tenuous balancing act. You can’t have a Rove type working on both sides simultaneously, attending the meetings at least. But if you’ve got dueling advisers, perhaps they can coordinate the tempo, mood and fiddle, lest one side or the other fall out of step.

If you were being considered for a consultancy, wouldn’t you recuse yourself if your wife was already advising the competitor? If you didn’t offer up the info voluntarily, you could be liable for civil damages if it was found out.

But when it concerns politics, what? Never mind that your wife works for the other side. We need YOU. Oh, and you can tell us what she’s up to, without letting her in on the game. And make certain she isn’t playing you for the same. Or, your recruiters could make this pitch: The public loves a team couple. It dispels the wacky idea that politics have to do with class, or social differences.

Americans are such romantics. They believe (1) love conquers all, it even settles differences of opinion, and (2) that married couples are ultimately faithful to each other above all. One person playing double agent between rivals, betrays both naturally. But two people? They’re kept honest because they can’t lie to each other. Dirty politics become sanitized by Ward and June, each too much a patriot to betray each other.

The sitting on their thumbs liberals

Let’s fact it. American liberals are a total bunch of perpetual losers. They are a perpetual loser machine, and the reason why is that they are completely addicted to the Democratic Party, an apparatus that is more undemocratic than any Diebold voting machine in Florida could ever be.

The head honcho of the Democratic Party Leadership Council was on TV last night, and he assured his audience that he ‘has good ties to both Hillary and Barrack’. Well no shit Sherlock!

And the stupid Green Party ‘democrats’ are waiting, waiting, waiting…. Yawn… they’re out cold already. Liberalism is stupid, stupid, stupid, and not even God himself could save the stupid American liberal from him/herself. All they know how to do is vote, vote, vote. Other than that, they are totally decommissioned folk. ‘Green’ or donkey liberals???… they all be damned.

There is no anger in America, just dull dazed whining liberals who ‘don’t like Dubya’. They are the perfect match for dull dazed reactionary retards, that just don’t like Hillary because she is a cold calculating whore. This dichotomy is ‘politics’ in The Empire.

Inflated liberals, deflated liberals???? It makes no difference. Poor souls, bless them as they sneeze out their good will. Liberals offer no change in the future because they can only leap ahead into yet another of their ‘Anybody but the Republicans’ campaign. Even if they were to ‘win’, the liberal will get another Republican simply because that’s what they deserve.

Liberals or conservatives, America is a dead place. There is no hope at all for such a vacuous nation. We can look into Iraq and see the mirror of America’s soul, our American colony. And at the heart of the matter is that the sitting on their thumbs liberal, who is America’s conscience…. the whiny do-nothing liberal can do nothing but whine and vote, wine and vote.

The liberal will always fail to materialize. The liberal will always fail. The liberal will always be unhappy with the result. The liberal cannot change, nor cannot make CHANGE.

Liberal Democrats, your votes will not be counted

Election fever is once again in the air. All around us we see Liberal Democrats with their yard signs and bumperstickers as the delirium builds. And once again, they will try for change by promoting their Tweedle Dees against the others guys’ TweedleDumbs. If there any content to be found, it is simply in that the Democratic Party ‘loyal oppositionists’ seem to have rather more polite candidates, as opposed to the ruder ones the Republicans run. All the election paraphernalia is generally without differentiating slogans, or even differentiating colors. Yet this is somewhat deceptive, as the opposing religious brethen have convinced themselves that this is a battle of socialism versus fascism! Yes, that’s what it is in fantasy land America. Sad to say, but both sides just go on simply ignoring that it is the corporate world that funds both these 2 political parties, and that the corporate world is not about to give up the charade that having both these parties dominating the electoral game provides.

Both groupings have constructed a paranoid view of the other. The Republicans are going to steal the vote at the machines again, shouts the liberal Democratic Party cadre. Bush is a Fascist! And the Republicans swear that Al Gore and the now silent, Michael Moore, are socialist devils. And well, Al Franken is a Judas socialist devil we suppose. The Democrats side with the ‘Islamo Fascists’, you see (if you are a true believing dittohead). So, now it is in quite in vogue to fascist-bait these days, no matter what angle you come from. Perhaps this is an Israeli idealogical import? If you’re not with us, you are against us… sort of a Moses style, religious world view. Both the liberal and conservative American religions love this stuff!

Well here’s the thing. Most people are not with either of these 2 religious camps anymore. The great American agnostic majority is beginning to form, and they don’t like the fact that their votes don’t count. The Repubilcan Right wants a Christian Republic declared, but Bush doesn’t deliver. The Democratic Party liberal wants the US out of Iraq and a stop to the bankrupting of our country through the Pentagon welfare system. And the Democratic Party hierarchy says NAY. Or whatever the sound a donkey makes? The corporations funding both parties want neither a theocracy, nor a society without ample, Pentagon based corporate welfare. So Liberal Democrats, your vote won’t count, just like the Right Wing Christian votes will not be counted, neither. Neither one of your two world views is the core values of your respective corporate funded political parties.

So why continue getting religion, if your vote won’t count, Liberals? Howard Dean, DP chair, already told you that it don’t make a difference if the Democrats do win. You heard it from the donkey’s mouth! Your votes will not be counted, and it has nothing to do with the Diebold machines. It has nothing to do with gerrymandering voter registration lists. It has nothing to do with fascism. It has all to do with corporations not listening to consumers. When you vote Demcoratic Party, you are consuming a corproate ideological product. Consider it yet another mass produced hamburger taken in. So you don’t like the secret sauce and complain to management. They are laughing at you, not changing their product line.

Big liberals going to pressure the corporate board of Democratic Party Unlimited in Gall? I just visited the Progressive Democrats of America website, and they are calling for … get this!… that the Democrats should CENSURE Bush and Cheney! Not jail him, nor even impeach him. What backbone, what pressure they apply! These liberal nuns at PDA want Dean to demand a slapping of Dick and Dubya’s wrists with the rulers! Oh such torture! Bush and Cheney must be shaking in their combat boots. lol. Well, Liberals, the Republicans will shoot you down just like so many quail! OOps, your own party will do it for them, won’t they? Ask Dean. The answer is there already.

So please get off your butts, and stop campaigning. Your vote will not be counted. Try something else.

The absentee election reform solution

Here is the Democratic Party plan to combat black box voting. Mail in your ballots. That’s the plan to overcome the GOP control over the registration of the voters, over the administration of the voting, over the programming of the electronic voting machines, over the electronic counting of the votes, over the poll taking at the voting centers, over the reporting of the voting results and over the concession by the losing party. The Democratic party plan to enforce an inviolate paper trail? Encourage the use of absentee ballots.

Sit down, it’s already too late to request an absentee ballot if you don’t have one already. And asking for an absentee ballot on the cusp of the deadline increases the chance that you will be struck from the list of voters permitted to vote on election day, as well as receive no ballot in the mail.

The call to encourage absentee ballots was not made very loudly, presumably so as not to diminish confidence in the voting process thereby losing more prospective votes than the Democrats could save. But in the end, whose purpose will that serve? How will we overcome GOP election fraud if we do not cry foul?

Election 2000 was rigged, as was 2002 and 2004. What are the indications that 2006 will be otherwise? Are there now fewer Diebold voting machines? Fewer Republican election officials?

The press reports that a landslide of voters are disenchanted with Bush and the war in Iraq. Yet it’s predicted that many of the candidates are neck and neck. It’s being forecast that Decision 2006 will be a tough call. Wow. Well. Kick in a few more bucks to your party. Is the election really going to be anybody’s call? Or is that anybody making the call already a Republican?

Joe Lieberman and Jesse James

One of my favorite poems by Richard Brautigan ends thus

“My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.”

 
I feel the same way about people who exert their authority to bore or obstruct.

Brautigan’s sentiment reflects I think not just the severity of the crime of boring a child, but also the crime of using a position of authority to subject a child to your boring ass, made worse by behaving self-righteously about it.

The association to Jesse James is not as merely to a thief, but to a capital criminal, having stolen youth, deserving to meet death by hanging, or any looming ignoble death, hastily arranged by unanimous consent.

Boring teachers are the least of it. I believe we could find universal condemnation of any bureaucrat who stands in the way of disclosure which would serve the public good, we’ve passed laws to punish not just bureaucrats who would impede justice.

Petty officials, loathsome hypocritical pedophiles -now we know it’s not just hyperbole, steely-eyed patronizing prigs. Such are men like Joe Lieberman. Today’s news is that Diebold does not deny the rumors of Lieberman’s likely win in November. Alarm bells are going off because Lieberman has been promised the chairmanship of two key subcommittees, both of which laymen Democrats had been thinking would be used to bring the Bush GOP to accounts. What would Harry Reid be doing in giving Lieberman those seats? Aren’t the Democrats running on the promise of setting matters straight? It’s said that Reid fears Lieberman would otherwise defect to the dark side. What part of Lieberman’s voting record offers us any representation otherwise?

Our Senator Salazar has been campaigning for Lieberbush, even though Lieberman was forced by his loss in the primaries to run as an independent. Party loyalty is one thing, but it’s not about political parties is it? Don’t tell grassroots party members they mustn’t discredit the party platform with extremism, yet at the same time reach to support an extreme right Democrat who’s finally thrown off his cloak in order to stay on the ticket. Lieberman needs to be kicked out of the party is what needs to happen.

When you just as easily eschew party affiliation to lobby for the opposition, because the candidate is an incumbent, you are lobbying for the status quo. No one is sent up to Washington on the opposition party ticket to fight for things as they are. What a mess. And the Democrats are riding what high horse? The high horse Bush rode in on?

The close election portent

Hmm. Another bad sign.

I saw CNN running a promo for its election season coverage, a teaser purporting to remind us to stick with CNN when the election is upon us.

At face value, is that not odd? Wouldn’t we be judging our news source based on its reporting of today’s news, instead of its relative foresight of tomorrow’s excitements? Also, are we not already CNN watchers if we are seeing the ads? This is not like advertizing one TV show to viewers of another. It’s like promoting the second half of the Superbowl during the first half. Pointless, I’d say, unless we have something to spin with the promotion.

CNN’s election 2006 hook? The CNN tagline was “Election 2006: How close will it be?”

How close will it be?

Has anyone said it will be close? At present the GOP is getting a trouncing. All the Republican yahoos have egg on their faces and the public wants to run the bums out. It’s happening all over, if not so widely celebrated on mainstream news.

Nevertheless, someone thinks the election in November will be close. Who? My guess it’s Diebold.

I’m guessing that Diebold would like to pave the way for an election result they can live with. To do this they first have to create an anticipation that the election will be close. Too close to call in fact. Then it won’t be such a surprise when the winners are… Republicans! By a nose!

When our media anchors began to report that the Mexican election was going to be very close, the fix was in. How chilling it was to hear. Until then everybody’s favorite Obrador had been leading throngs of supporters through the streets of Mexico City, leading a peaceful revolution against the entrenched pro-US corruption government. Mexico was following the populist flow of the Latin American justice and equality movement.

Then apparently the election was looking to be close. What, were there suddenly just as many entrenched corrupt bureaucrat voters as there were oppressed masses? Where would that voter parity come from, if not electronic ghost votes?

And now the Mexican election is being decided by their supreme court. Sound familiar?

Unfree unfair elections

Ask a Democrat when you have the chance, to what do they owe their sense of optimism about the upcoming elections? Do they think they can beat Diebold and GOP election administrators this time around?

Really, what went wrong in November 2004, and before that 2000? What could the Democrats do differently this time to win? (If not dismantling black box voting?)

Mexico’s popular candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expected a clean win in this summer’s election. But the voting machines came up dead even, and then tilted toward the bad guy by a smudge. Sorry Charlie. The Mexican public suspects foul play.
 
Millions of Mexicans are protesting in the street, asking for a recount of the election.
Do the Democrats imagine that they will be able to rally a disenfranchised American public?
  Mexico City protest

 
Except for Robert Kennedy Jr, a good many ostracized experts, and a growing progressive cognoscenti, few voices in the Democratic Party are even addressing the issue of crooked US elections. When will Democratic candidates and party leaders concede that previous elections have been stolen? How are Democrats to win if they face rigged results?

Instead Democratic Party members are urging us to concentrate on grassroot fund drives.

What kind of idiots do they take us for? To condemn them less cynically, what kind of idots are they? Or, less insulting, are they in collusion with the GOP?

Local Democratic organizers expect the rank and file to do their utmost this time, to walk the streets for the candidates, to contribute their money and their hope. The party is expecting all of us to place our hope in middle-of-the-road issues, nothing too radical for the sake of having a broader appeal in the next election.

Without electronic voting reform, I don’t think we have a chance in the next election. And I think DC Democrats are advocating centrist objectives to keep pertinent issues from the public discourse.

And it looks to me like Democrats are preparing to tell us, after lots of grassroots work, at the close of another lost election, that Rome wasn’t built in a day.