Democracy's Abu Ghraib If they can disable an election, what's coming next [View All]

[helderheid]

Democracy's Abu Ghraib
If they can disable an election, what's coming next?

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.” — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

What if it could happen here?

This is the disquieting question I hesitate to ask because, once asked, it pretty much changes everything. The answer roars in behind it, as obvious as a Florida hurricane, an Ohio twister, ripping up the complacent heart. What if it could? What if it did? I think of my daughter, quickly, guiltily, and the country she’d inherit. I can no longer stay on the sidelines. No breath comes easily afterward.

It’s what I would call the spirit of Nashville, where a national conference was held in early April on the issue of vote fraud and election reform — a conference of expert testimony on dirty tricks, uncounted ballots, needlessly long lines, weird numbers and evidence of electronic vote tampering, adding up to a crime against democracy.

As angry as I’ve ever been with the direction of any given administration’s foreign or domestic policy, I never doubted the bedrock premise that the country itself was sound and free, and that political activity — speaking up, attempting to sway public opinion — always had the chance of reversing that policy. I never doubted, even after moving to Chicago in the mid-’70s, with the old Daley Machine (“vote early and vote often”) still huffing and wheezing, that elections mattered and could alter the balance of power. I never felt disenfranchised. Now that certainty is gone, replaced by dread.

http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col291.htm