Reply #13: Now THAT is an opposition! Imagine Congressfolk backing the people! [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

It just sears my soul to think what happened--or rather what didn't happen--in our own Congress, after Diebold and ES&S (s)elected Bush in '04--following upon the Supreme Court (s)electing Bush in '00.

Nothing...and...nothing.

Well, I shouldn't say that the Black Caucus in '00, and the Black Caucus-plus-Barbara Boxer in '04, was nothing. Their protest was magnificent. But they were the ONLY patriots, loyal to the people and free and fair elections. The ONLY ones.

Now we find that the whole goddamned Democratic Party leadership COLLUDED with Tom Delay and Bob Ney--the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--to destroy free and fair elections ALTOGETHER, with the so-called "Help America Vote Act" of 2002 and its $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle for Bush's buds at Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. Now we have Bushite corporations "counting" all our votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it--with virtually no audit/recount controls.

Dead silence--mind-boggling silence--at the top of our party from 2002 through 2005. "Iron Curtain" over the subject of a fraudulent election system and a fraudulent election.

Are they all insane, or what?

With Republicans, you don't need an explanation for why they would support Bushite corporations "counting" all the votes under a veil of secrecy. The new Bushite Republican Party is a foul lot. Stink steams from all their orifices. Now we find that Bush likes to initiate new White House interns by farting in their presence. That's the mentality, and the odor, of the Republican Party now. Diebold and ES&S are a logical extrapolation of the garbage they have become.

But Democrats. How on earth could Democrats permit this to happen? Let me re-word this. How on earth could Democrats permit this to happen without SCREAMING ABOUT IT FROM ALL OF THE ROOFTOPS IN WASHINGTON DC, AND ALL OF THE ROOFTOPS IN ALL OF THE STATE CAPITOLS AND MAJOR METROPOLITAN AREAS AROUND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

Maybe they couldn't stop it. There was anthrax in the air, after all--and a couple of their compadres' small planes had mysteriously fallen out of the air for no good reason--and Rethugs were pissing and shitting in their pants in gleeful anticipation of the Fort Knox of money to made from New Yorkers frying in tall buildings, and getting blown to smithereens, and jumping to their deaths.

But why didn't they at least protest--and apprise American voters of the awful thing that had been done to our election system--and try to stop it at the state level, where the $4 billion was being used to bribe and entice local election officials to purchase this crapass, insider hackable voting machinery, and Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia were lavishing election officials and legislators with items like a week of fun and sun and high-end shopping at the Beverly Hilton?

It's not as if it was a secret WHO these corporations ARE.

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy.

The third big election theft player, Sequoia, employs Republican former CA Sec of State, Bill Jones, and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, to peddle their machines--an outstanding example of the highly corrupt practice of "revolving door employment."

All three major election system vendors with very close ties to the Republican Party. Red flag, no? And all insisting on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code in their electronic voting systems, and lobbying against any paper trail at all. Un-recountable, un-auditable elections.

Why weren't Democratic leaders screaming bloody murder about this?

Democrats are more complex creatures than Bushites. Fear was a factor, possibly a big one (not fear of "terrorists"--fear of the Bush Junta; although this doesn't explain their silence NOW). Corruption (they, too, were getting lavishly lobbied by the election theft industry; they're all into big gov't contracts, especially jazzy new 'high tech' electronics contracts). Corporatism (corporations control THEM--why shouldn't corporations ALSO control the voters?). The biggest Democratic traitor is Christopher Dodd, a Bilderberg 'Democrat' who actively colluded with Tom Delay and Bob Ney to destroy our election system with unaccountable electronic voting, controlled by Bushites, and is now running for president (announced yesterday on the Al Franken Show). Corporatism--and yet another factor, ignorance--certainly played roles. Our candidate Kerry had Dodd as his adviser on electronic voting--and Kerry didn't realize until after the election who these S.O.B.s were, who were "counting" all the votes with secret programming (or so it seems, from remarks Teresa has made). Ignorance? Possibly.

Almost ALL of the Democrats in Congress voted for this piece of crap legislation. All but two U.S. Democratic Senators*, and all but 60 House Democrats. This contrasts with the vote on the Iraq war, where a hefty 125 Congresspeople bucked the lethal powers in the White House and the Pentagon (and at the New York Times, and in the offices of the 5 CEOs who control all "news" in this country), and voted AGAINST giving away Congress' war powers to the stupidest president in history.

Why did they vote for Bushite corporations controlling the "counting" of our votes with TRADE SECRET programming?

WHY?????

Add it all up. Fear. Corruption. Corporatism. Ignorance. It still doesn't make sense. Until you come to the war on Iraq--and the widened war in the Middle East that is now being contrived. If you're going to conduct a war that most people do not want, in a democracy, you have to rig the elections.

56% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq, way back in Feb. '03, before the invasion. Opposition to Bush and his war is up to 70% today. And a whopping 84% oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war (in a recent poll posted here at DU). And, although there were many more Congressional votes against Bush's war than there were against the Vietnam War back in 1964 (125 vs. 2), still, the major Democratic leadership was with Bush. All the major leaders voted for the war (except for the one who would soon be dead--Paul Wellstone). About half the Democratic Senators, and all the big prez candidate names at the time--Kerry, Clinton, Edwards. Further, the DNC leadership was for it--so much so that they killed Howard Dean's antiwar candidacy in '04.

I try to control my 'tinfoil hat' tendency. But, really, what it looks like is that they were all in on it. That 2004 was a mock election, and they all knew it. The only people who didn't know were the voters--and the passionate thousands of Democratic campaign volunteers--who were determined to oust Bush, and elect Kerry, and actually did so (overturned by Diebold & brethren).

Why would the Democrats put up with this? Why would they throw the election? Because of Vietnam. Their rank and file has that Democratic Party war in living memory--and would not put up with a Democrat starting a new Vietnam in the Middle East. Answer: let George do it. (--very similar to the Bushite/Neo Con plan for widening the war, against 84% opposition at home--get Israel to do it).

If you think back over the many puzzling events of the last five years (puzzles like the NYT withholdings the Bush spying story until after the '04 election, Kerry's failure to skewer Bush on the torture issue (63% of Americans opposed to torture "under any circumstances"), and his failure even to mention it (this still amazes me), Democratic votes for the war, for the Patriot Act, for Alberto Gonzales--and many other such jaw-dropping events--this theory does make a lot of things start to make sense. We have one party in Washington DC--the War Party. About 25% of our representatives (representing the great majority of the people) dissent from it.** 75% of what I hesitate to call "our" representatives (representing about 35% of the people) support not just the Iraq War/Occupation but a widened Mideast War (which only 16% of the people support), and routinely vote against the interests of most of the American people. And Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia--Bushite corporations!-- will be keeping these collusive Democrats in office this fall, to combine with Diebolded Bushites against the Diebolded minority (and it will remain a minority) of real peoples' representatives.

Gulf of Tonkin, coming up.

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Well, the Mexican Congressfolk really got me going. Imagine having a real Congress.

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Notes

*(The only two U.S. Democratic Senators who voted against HAVA (Bushite-controlled electronic voting) were Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. Go figure.)


**(But why did a good portion of this 25% of our representatives--the real representatives--vote for HAVA? The answer may lie in the awful story of the "swiftboating" of Calif's elected, Democratic Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley. Shelley was doing his job. He sued Diebold for their lies about the security of their voting machines, de-certified the worst of their machines (the touchscreens), and demanded to see their source code, prior to the 2004 election. He was then driven from office on entirely bogus corruption charges--and Schwarzenegger APPOINTED Diebold shill Bruce McPherson to replace him. McPherson has now illegally RE-certified Diebold touchscreens and is swiftly undoing all of Shelley's good government/honest election measures. The state Democrats--with a 2 to 1 majority in both houses--colluded on Shelley's demise and McPherson's installation, and dissenting Democrats were strong-armed into silence by their own party leaders. The previous Sec of State, Republican Bill Jones--now working for Sequoia--had introduced this election theft technology in California. The disease--the plague, the infestation, the corrupting influence--that is electronic voting already had its grip on the state, and state legislators and county election officials were already corrupted by it, when Shelley started trying to remedy it. So those among the 25% of the good Democrats in DC who voted for HAVA were likely strong-armed into doing so, by their own party leaders--like the good Democrats in Calif were. Nothing was more important than HAVA to the War Party! Not the war, not the Patriot Act, nothing. The War Party tolerated dissenting votes on those things. Not on HAVA, the key to it all.)

(Edit: minor typo.)