Latest corporate/fascist meme: "Ballot-box government."

[Peace Patriot]

I was innocently reading a reprint of the Sacramento Bee's most corporate/fascist columnist, Dan Walters, sipping my coffee this morning. Normally I avoid that corporate craprag's opinions, but the topic interested me: California demographics (2 million residents at the turn of the last century, 40 million by 2010, 60 million by 2050, and about 70% of those folks will be non-white, mostly Latino). Walters' (or somebody's) title for the column was "Growth in California's population means growth in conflict," so I was alerted to the corporate/fascist message (or what I thought was the message)--lots of poor brown people will be bad, and will produce "conflict." ("And yet," writes corporate/fascist Walters, "we need infusions of young immigrants to provide workers for an expanding economy, fill government coffers and meet the needs of a rapidly aging white population.") He talks about land use and resource and cultural "conflicts." Then, in the final paragraphs--the gist of the matter--Walters starts discussing "whether government as practiced in California is capable of dealing with the consequences" of all these "conflicts" that will be caused by infusions of young, brown, poor, working "immigrants."

Here's the key paragraph (and the new anti-democracy phrase "ballot-box government"):

"Population growth and social complexity may warrant powerful, multi-purpose regional and state agencies, but a bigger-is-better approach to governance clashes with our notions of localized decision-making and BALLOT-BOX GOVERNMENT and the MUCH CHERISHED 'checks and balances' that purposely make rapid response difficult." (Dan Walters - emphasis added).

"Ballot-box government."

"Much cherished 'checks and balances."

Whatever is he getting at? I would have thought that the corporate fascists had solved their problem of "ballot-box government" (i.e., democracy) by the 2002 to 2004 fast-tracking of electronic voting machines all over the country--voting machines run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations--with the enthusiastic support of the Democratic Party leadership. Some (like me) would say that WAS the fascist coup.

As for our "much cherished 'checks and balances," the Bush Junta has pretty much taken care of that bulwark against tyranny, so cherished by the Founders of our Republic. WHAT "checks and balances"? Our Corporate Rulers and their puppet presidents now control EVERYTHING, including having bought themselves SECRET control over all election outcomes, quite "under the radar" of the American people.

However, the American people ARE starting to fight back, for instance, in 2006, by outvoting the rigged voting machines in some cases, in a desperate effort to achieve an accountable Congress, and in local, state and nationwide efforts to restore transparent vote counting. Both of these struggles--outvoting the rightwing Bushite, secretly programmed voting machines, and fighting for paper ballots and handcounts, or, at least, for serious testing and auditing/recount controls over the election theft machines, are exemplified in the election and open government activism of our new California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen--one of the miracles of the 2006 elections. Perhaps that is what has the Sacramento Bee worried--that these millions of new poor brown "immigrants" will actually have the right to vote.

"Ballot-box government." Hear the sneer. Hear the contempt. You can almost feel Rush Limbaugh's wet tongue lipping the word "liberal" and hocking into the spittoon.

The Sacramento Bee is a good bellweather of the latest, most fashionable rightwing crap, packaged in a rightwing 'think tank' sort of way, as if it were reasonable, as if it were based on the facts, as if it weren't out to rob you blind and kill your children in corporate resource wars.

Be alerted: As the American people start taking back their country, the phrase "ballot-box government" is coming soon to your local war profiteering corporate news monopoly.

[Mythsaje]

1. "Ballot Box government."

"What--you mean Democracy? Funny, I thought we were killing people to spread Democracy to the middle east. Now you don't want it here?"

[glitch]

2. Interesting choice of attack. Sneer at the voters expecting valid counting.

They don't seem to even need their own base (such as it is) any more do they? K & R

[annabanana]

3. Actual "voting" - how quaint... how retro...

It reminds me of the sneer in the voices of beltway boobies when they refer to concerned Americans and activists as "goo-goo types" "good government". . . get it?

hyuck hyuck

[smoogatz]

4. As a catchphrase, it seems like kind of a non-starter to me.

The implications are too obvious. "Ballot-box government" as opposed to what? Dictatorship? Monarchy? Oligarchy? Corporatocracy? Those aren't the questions a "conservative" columnist really wants to raise in the minds of his/her readers. Assuming they have minds, that is. But that may be the point at which my theory falls apart. I can sort of see my 95-year-old grandfather-in-law right now--"Goddamn ballot boxers!" So maybe it will catch on. Holy crap.

[Perry Logan]

5. It's a confession of what we all know: the Republicans cannot win by democratic means.

[WCGreen]

6. He is talking about, I guess, ballot initiatives that are popular in Cali...

He is trying to scare all the white folk that soon, sooner than you think, them brown heathens will be able to control everything...

[Uncle Joe]

7. Why does Dan Walters hate America?

The man has no faith in our most basic democratic principles, and so he's willing to sell his soul down the river, just to maintain his illusion of power. What a coward!:puke: :grr: