...our candidate in 2008, and utilize that War Democrat's administration--if Diebold and ES&S decide, for their own reasons, to let him/her win in '08--to try to achieve transparent elections in one fell swoop by federal action. Even a War Democrat will have to pay lip service to progressive values such as honest, transparent elections. It may be our one chance to achieve that goal on a national basis. (Otherwise it's a slow slog state by state, county by county, that may take decades.)
Our votes are now tabulated by two far rightwing Bushite corporations--Diebold and ES&S--using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code in the new electronic systems--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it. This outrageous and utterly unacceptable condition is WHY we have 60% to 70% majorities in the issue polls opposing every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, for the last two years, and could not dislodge the Bush junta, and cannot be heard in Washington DC.
We MUST restore our right to vote. We do not have a democracy without it. There is no higher priority. Without transparent elections, we can do nothing to stop the killing in Iraq, or to achieve desperately needed change on any issue. There are many extremely urgent priorities--busting the war profiteering corporate news monopolies and restoring democracy to our public airwaves; reigning in global corporate predators; drastically re-thinking "defense"; criminal proceedings against war looters to recover funds; a revamping of the tax code; universal medical care, and on and on. But without the right to vote--that is, with our votes counted behind a veil of secrecy, controlled by rightwing interests--we can't even begin to set our country on the right path.
58% of the American people opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion. I'll never forget that stat. It was burned into my memory. Feb. '03. 58%! Yet we were given two pro-war candidates to choose between in 2004: one who had prosecuted an illegal war based on lies and whose policy of deliberate mismanagement created the chaotic conditions for major looting of our treasury and subjugation of the Iraqi people, and another who promised to run a better war and who failed to object to the illegality of the Iraq war or to the use of torture and indefinite detention against prisoners of war.
We were not permitted the choice of rejecting the war altogether--even with a big majority opposed to it.
The conditions that limited our choice remain in place. The vote tabulation is non-transparent and controlled by fascists and warmongers; and the news media is still largely controlled by the same fascist political and financial forces who brought us this illegal war (and who, not incidentally, ALTERED their own exit polls, on election night, 2004--polls that Kerry won--to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won), thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud).
It may be in the interest of the rightwing to let a War Democrat win in '08, and start taking some of the rap for Bush's financial and foreign policy disasters--also to get a Draft (which Bush cannot do), and to put down the food, jobs and veterans protests--preparatory to a worse fascist regime in '12 (say, Jeb). We should not let ourselves be distracted by the issue of who we like, or who we don't like, among the pro-war and faux antiwar candidates who will be permitted to win primaries. It doesn't matter. We are not going to get a true antiwar candidate or true populist nominated. (They won't take that risk, even with control over the vote tabulation, which, of necessity, is really only control of the 3% to 10% tweak they must do, to select the Repub.) (The tweak can't be suspiciously high, and likely has to be pre-programmed--limitations on the fraudsters.)
So-o-o-o, in that case (a War Democrat being permitted to win), our first priority MUST BE election reform. Until we have election reform, we can do little or nothing about any other issue. We may get a few sops from such a Democratic regime--jawboning about a peace initiative in the Middle East; perhaps a mild tax or two on the rich; slightly less cruel policies on programs for the poor, curtailment of some of the worst corporate abuses, etc.--but none of the fundamental policy changes that are so desperately needed: such as a total re-thinking of the "defense" issue; busting of the corporate news monopolies; universal health care; elimination of private money in political campaigns, etc.
The latter--serious, desperately needed revolutionary change, nor even mildly serious reform--CANNOT occur with Diebold and ES&S controlling our vote tabulation.
We really need to think about what the Bushites, and Diebold and ES&S, did to us in 2004. We really have only one viable political party left in the U.S.--the Democratic Party--and it is seriously corrupt and compromised. The Republican Party is a sham, a party based on fraudulent elections; a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil companies and the Saudis; full of Bush "pod people" who spout Rovian "talking points." The Republican Party itself has been the victim of the Bushite fascist coup. This is a VERY BAD political situation, in and of itself, but made even worse by non-transparent elections. We CANNOT ACHIEVE a majority of real populists in Congress. It WILL NOT BE PERMITTED. We CANNOT ELECT a real antiwar, populist Democrat to the White House, no matter how popular that person might be. The range of the political spectrum has been severely restricted--and has been moved far, far to the right of the American people.
And transparent elections are the ONLY mechanism that we have for achieving political health--a wide spectrum of ideas and choices, a lively political life--and other kinds of progress.
If Diebold and ES&S compounds their 2004 election theft with further entrenchment of the minority fascists, in '06 and '08, then we will be in a revolutionary situation similar to 1776, and will have to consider more dire measures, such as taking hammers to their election theft machines (as someone suggested in a recent thread)--or throwing their election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor,' so to speak. Refusing to vote. Refusing to participate. A General Strike. Shutting down the country, until our right to vote is restored. This can be done peacefully, without harm to persons--although it might have to involve harm to machines. But there is nothing more sacred, or more important, than our right to vote, and if ever damage to machines was justified, it would be in this instance--a justification very similar, for instance, to the Jesuit priests who poured blood on Draft records in the 1960s; that is, civil disobedience, wherein you openly accept the legal consequences of your actions--including, potentially, jail.
But we are not quite there yet. I strongly suspect that we will be permitted some modest Congressional gains in '06 (but nowhere near a majority) and will get a War Democrat (by which I mean also a Corporate Democrat) in '08--if, for no other reason, than to throw suspicion off of the utterly fraudulent and non-transparent election system that has been put into place. But we must not be distracted--neither by these permitted seeming gains, nor by the OTHER issues that we would like to see addressed. Of course we must protest the war and do everything we can to get it scaled down, and to stop the killing and torture. And there are other important items, all of them urgent. But if we fail to reform the election system, and get it out of the hands of rightwing corporations, any modest gains we make for the majority CAN AND WILL BE QUICKLY UNDONE, and we will have no power to do anything about it.
As is evident in California right now, Diebold is seeking yet more control of the vote count: the introduction in California of their infamous touchscreens, the worst of their election theft machines. This is what we have to look forward to--a continuous struggle on multiple fronts, with their money and power often overwhelming citizen groups--if we fail to take advantage of the installation of a War Democrat to achieve full and quick election reform.
One final word: The facts about our election system can be very discouraging, and can provide an easy excuse for frustrated people not to vote. We must not let that happen. We must never, never, NEVER give up on our right to vote. NEVER! And there is at least the theoretical possibility of overwhelming the fraud with massive turnouts of progressive voters. We MUST NOT lie to people. They have a right now to know what's going down--and it really cannot be remedied without the help of the majority. But we must also not let that knowledge create despair and defeatism.
In fact, if people are informed about the non-transparency and fraudulence of our voting system, then they will be better prepared to understand fraud-created defeat.
Most people do not understand this now, about 2004. They think we lost. And they get into fractious debates about WHY we lost (even here at DU) that are largely irrelevant. We lost because the rightwing gained control of the vote tabulation with secret, proprietary programming code.
And anybody who thinks they didn't USE it--after going to so much trouble to set up a non-transparent, fraudulent, controlled system--is just being naive.
They set it up this way (during the 2002-2004 period); they used it to keep Bush in power. And the Democrats are afraid of it. That's mainly why they have been silent, I think--that, and plain corruption (lavish lobbying by Diebold, ES&S and the others). They can't afford to alienate the fascist corporations who are "counting" the votes, nor the local/state election officials who are in the thrall of these fascist companies, and who have become powermongers themselves (lording and ladying it over the dumb, peon voters, with their ever so expert, esoteric knowledge of electronic voting gobble-de-gook).
Whether or not the Kerry campaign could have overcome the fraud--by a more aggressive, more antiwar, more populist campaign--is another question. It's probable that he could have, in theory. He won by at least a 4% to 5% margin. If he had won by, say, 10%, the pre-programmed fraud (and the additional overt vote suppression in Ohio and elsewhere) might not have been able to steal it from him. But, personally, I think the Bush junta had contingency plans for a "terrorist alert" shutdown of the vote count, in that event, and that there is no way they would have given up power. They were/are just too vulnerable to impeachment and other prosecution (being the major criminals that they are), and they had a lot more war profiteering to do, a lot more protection and consolidation of their ill gotten gains, and a lot more thieving intentions toward the poor to be implemented, as well as long term plans (a la McKinley, Coolidge and Hoover) of packing the Supreme Court with fascists to prevent future reform, no matter how badly things go with our Bushite-looted economy.
So, basically, I don't think there is anything Kerry could have done that would have made any difference. I do wish he had been honest--and/or far smarter--about the election system, early on. The American people deserved a warning, at least. The solicitation of our donations on election night to help insure "that every vote will be counted" left a mighty bitter taste in my mouth, and in that of others, I'm sure. His early concession may have been necessary, or a strategic move. We just can't know. He was opposing major criminals, very dangerous people. I can't and won't judge him on that. And he most certainly was ill advised--by people who may have been in the pocket of Diebold and ES&S, and of the rightwing Israeli lobby (pro Iraq war). I think he's an honest, decent and intelligent man, and would have made (and may still make) a decent president. But the American people have been lied to, about more than the war. They've been lied to and deceived on the loss of our fundamental right to vote--by the Democrats as well as by the Republicans. And I wish to God it had been acknowledged. We would be so much better off now.
Instead we are back at square one. We've essentially lost our right to vote, and almost nobody knows it. Some may have a vague feeling that it might be true, but they don't know the how and the why, or how to fix it. That is a very bad situation, a breeder of hopelessness.
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We need...
1. Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)
or, at the least...
2. Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount, very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).
---------------------------
Please see this URGENT ACTION thread re: Diebold in California!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5410364 The Sacramento hearing and rally are tomorrow (Monday). Letters, emails and phone calls are urgently needed.
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