Globe publishes response to editorial

[emlev]

This thoughtful response was written by voting rights activist Sheila Parks of the Massachusetts group Coalition Against Election Fraud.

"The dangers of electronic voting"

...Not only do many of them not make a paper record, as you state, but Diebold -- one of the major manufacturers of electronic voting machines -- is also one of the major makers of ATMs. So because ''the technology is simple and inexpensive" as you state, the question remains: What is their motivation for not including a paper record for the electronic voting machines?

full letter at:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/05/03/the_dangers_of_electronic_voting/

[applegrove]

1. Isn't it obvious? The motivation is to create fear among some democrats

and therefore divide the party up.

By not allowing for paper records they create an unassuaged fear in a portion of the democratic party.

That is what sociopaths do! They wedge the democrats from themselves as well as the religious from democrats.

Wedgies everywhere!!

Fear everyhwere!

Welcome to the world of Karl Rove!!

[pgh_dem]

2. hmmm...yeah

Armchair psychology writ large by Diebold/Rove to create fear, just like sociopaths.

That's a more reasonable explanation than:
They don't want a paper record because they don't want the votes to be verifiable. If the votes aren't verifiable, their machine can cough up a hairball and shuffle votes around, and they can't be held liable. And if it just happens to keep coughing up right-wing favoring hairballs...golly, just their good luck.

Why is it you can believe that these people are such devious sociopaths, and yet the idea that they would steal votes is so far beyond your conception?

[applegrove]

3. Because sociopaths like Rove don't want to be caught and 'creating'

feelings leaves no footprints and cannot be prosecuted. Sociopaths always play in the grey area of the law.

If they have the habit of playing in the physical realm.. they can get caught and prosecuted.

Do you not see much evidence of 'creating fear' in all sorts of places in American life? Fear that need not exist?

If you look at their pattern, it follows.

[pgh_dem]

4. I don't get it...seems like a false dichotomy

Who would catch them? How could they get caught?

If they are creating fear about anything, it's creating fear about catching them. Like scaring people into not wanting to see sausages made.

They *have* made the conrete physical action of creating and selling a machine that can't be verified. Once you have that, I don't see how they have any reason to worry about being caught.

[applegrove]

5. And by refusing to solve technical issues like 'verifyability' they

get to keep stirring the pot and keep a portion of the dems in shock.

These diebold people are the ones who build ATM machines. They could put a piece of paper anywhere they wanted to. And they could then charge extra and make a profit on the practice.

They don't - because they like the devisions it creates in the Democratic Party.

IMHO.

[pgh_dem]

6. running in circles here

"These diebold people are the ones who build ATM machines. They could put a piece of paper anywhere they wanted to. And they could then charge extra and make a profit on the practice.

They don't - because they like the devisions it creates in the Democratic Party."

Or, They don't - because their machines could be rigged to screw the Democratic Party, and even 'moderate' Repubs, and the rigging would be impossible to detect.

Can't you see how that's a lot more appealing to your garden-variety sociopath?

Unless you want to redefine sociopathy, I think "What's stopping me?" is a much more functional question a sociopath would ask than "How can I sow division and fear, muhahaha?"

[applegrove]

8. That is Rove's pattern to deal in the 'feelings' of people.

It is what stops them all the time from getting caught. They don't deal in things that can be proved. That is their nature.

Only stupid non-sociopaths or stupid & young sociopaths do that type of crime.

[pgh_dem]

16. How on earth do YOU know what sociopaths do?

Your premise is insane.

Your assessment of what sociopaths do, or do not do, is devoid of reason.

Please check up on what makes a sociopath tick.

Hint 1) They don't CARE

If you want to call these people Machiavellian masochists, who revel in B-movie villain Rube Goldberg plots to screw with the minds of Democrats, to no more pragmatic an end than because it's fun...fine!

But you've got to stop using the term 'sociopath' to describe your bizarroworld fantasy.

Here's the quick and dirty of what to do when you're a sociopath with a political agenda:

1) You make a machine that no legal entity has access to
2) You make sure it keeps no legal record of its actions
3) You make sure it is vulnerable to fraud (edit: only *YOUR* fraud, not theirs, of course)
4) You use it to fix elections
5) You sleep soundly, unconcerned that you have obliterated the underpinnings of democracy, because you're a sociopath

Things you DON'T DO, when you're a sociopath:
1) Create the illooooosion of unverifiability to spooook your opponents into not trusting the reults of their elections
2) Fan the flames of their divisiveness, cackling maniacally and rubbing your hands together, because...
3) Somehow, you'll win elections this way

The reason sociopaths don't do the above is that they do what works with a (here it is) *sociopathic* disregard for laws, morals or other social constructs.

[applegrove]

19. Because I experience alot and read up on it.

[applegrove]

20. You are totally wrong. Sociopaths like Hitler & others in power wedge

and tribalize. And they create patriotism & other tribal tools to win elections. And Karl Rove runs around the country taking credit for all of it. And they spend years getting into power and forging and breaking alliances to they get more and more powerful. And they use coercion of one form or another to keep people form complaining. And they get their followers to think 'the leader' is all goodness and the opposition is 'all bad'. And they teach their followers to mirror there sociopathic asses by getting them to grow down and behave as adolescents and bait, scapegoat, target, wedge, and place different levels of fear in the heads of different groups. And they target leaders and try and flip them. And they do it up and down and backwards and forwards. They use propaganda. They change people's realities by changing their hearts and then their minds, or the other way around.

Milosovic
Hussein
Hitler

they all behaved the same way.

And the way we defeat them is by using empathy and adult discernment. And grieving our losses. And by not being predictable. And by calling them on their overall patterns.

[pgh_dem]

21. You'll have to find examples that actually back up

your premise.

The people you list really could be hindsight-diagnosed with sociopathy. And they really did maintain power through propaganda aimed at developing a cult of personality.

I'd throw in Moussolini, Stalin, Kim Jong Il and Pol Pot just to fill out the list some more.

However, that isn't the point of your 'divide and tribalize, but don't commit crimes you could get caught for' concept. Here is where your point breaks down:

These people DID actual crimes. Repeatedly. Real, provable crimes, with real dead bodies, real burned houses, in other words, real evidence. Guess what? They didn't worry about prosecution! They either intimidated any remaining real law enforcement or witnesses, or they *were* the only law enforcement, or they were possessed of such complete power that they could just declare that what they did wasn't a crime.

This is analagous (note: not equivalent) to fixing elections through machine fraud and voter intimidation. The attitude of completely ignoring the law, or worse, becoming the law, is consistent with sociopathy.

In other words, Hitler et al's cults of personality and political maneuvering are unrelated to their sociopathy, except possibly that their ruthless criminality contributes to their mythology.

At any rate, to get to the point of this discussion, you would have to find an example of someone who wielded such mystical dividing and tribalizing power *without* also being actual criminals (since you maintain that Rove/Diebold/etc would *not* commit real crimes, instead confusing the populace by leaving the impression of the possibility that crimes could be committed).

Maybe Rasputin. But you'll have to leave the real criminals out of the argument.

[applegrove]

22. 1 in 100 people is a sociopath (of some kind).

They don't all commit crimes. When they do they try to in a way they won't get caught. That means targeting someone who doesn't know they exist, diminishing the lives of co-workers by staring them down, putting them in an emotional frenzy and then playing them off all their co-workers and the co-worker watch them react but don't know the dual nature of the sociopathic personality who is stage-managing the show. They will create an admiration society wherever they go (cabal). They will have at times various groups followers who will do anything for them and take on policing or health professional roles to protect their leader (by coercing or driving people nuts with well placed and stirred fears).

They will resort to messing with your stuff if they have some beef with you or can get violent when they are about to be figured out and they will get third parties to do things. They will insert themselves in your life (or their cabal members) if they decide there is a need or if they covet something about you (or if they think you have information on them that will result in their downfall). They will mess with your physical stuff when they think they will never be identified or caught. They will mess with your stuff or somebody else's' to intimidate. They will ruin lives, cause suicides and will isolate people who go up against them and spread rumors and follow you from town to town if what you know of them is a big enough threat to their existence.

Yes they are capable of anything. But the political sociopaths I & you described only started with the obvious murder and genocide once they had consolidated power - an had no authority over them because they had control of the army & the judiciary. Before that the physical crimes were in secret. These guys in the WH just sent the boys & girls off to war at the least expense possible (and with not enough numbers to properly take control causing too much civilian casualties too) and try and erase the empathy the keeps the democracy together because it is just garbage to them (having no feelings you would not have empathy and would see human rights laws, laws about legal wars and illegal wars, and laws on feeding kids well using welfare would just look so wasteful). They will never get away with murder unless it is legislated to they cannot dial up the hate that far. But they feel it is open season on destroying the fabric of the country and feel that nobody will prosecute them for that - so they go ahead.

The point is that their behavior (they have no rules) changes as they adapt to situations.. always with the intent of doing as much as they can to empower themselves without getting caught. For Karl Rove to spend 30 years building up to this and then to throw away what he obviously thinks will be a 20 year empire over messing with diebold voting machines is ridiculous. In his youth he got accused of planting a bug in his own candidate's office to cause an election turnaround at the last moment. It worked, voters assumed it was the Democrats who planted the bug, but the FBI were called in to investigate and Mr. Rove was under suspicion. If they had proof it would have been the end of his career because he would have done jail time or something. He played out his physical cards in his youth. He can no longer do things like that (remember Nixon and how physical manipulation of things resulted in him leaving office (break-in)). Rove got fired for the Willie Horton ad when he worked under George Sr. So now he uses surrogates whenever he goes really negative. He may have played out too many cards with the Valerie Plame affair and again is under investigation.

The reality is that politically - instead - he & the GOP spends his time coming up with schemes like SS reform where the middle class will be split in half... and squeeze the upper middle class into learning how to be better little Karl Roves and loosing their empathy for the poor (no tax reform on minimum tax for the middle class who are paying a minimum tax based on rates that are 20 years old to punish them and squeeze them into hating paying taxes... and taking back their SS at the source .. and bankrupting the government so there will be no money for any program in the future). All of this to change the hearts and minds of a certain group of SS recipients. To divide and conquer the group of Americans who rely on SS.

The facts are that there was a repuke push during the last election to get African American church-goers to vote against gay marriage & the values thing. I think in Ohio Rove got an extra 5 percent of the black vote because of that. They very heavily targeted the black vote in Ohio. They got an increased percentage of the catholic vote with help from the Vatican. This guy works in percentages. He adds and adds them up and he pushes here, and a little there... this is where you should be concerned for America - in the hearts and minds of the percentage of voters who will vote with their church flock, on their fears and at the direction of some authority.. because Rove has these votes in the next election and he keeps building it up and going after more Americans

The fight is for the hearts and minds of Americans. Rove won that war in the last election. Nothing will change that. We hope that you will available for the greater fight which is for the hearts and minds of Americans. Because that is where all the evidence is. Not being able to accept that they won the last election (it was close) means you just isolate yourself and what Democratic party worker will be able to use your help if you are just going to scare off moderates?

How are you going to reach out to the majority of Americans who do not want to see abortion completely illegal - they just want to see it rare and regulated. How are you going to reach out to the upper middle class family that is frustrated at the minimum tax they pay (all skewed wrong and repukes refuse to fix it) when you should be comiserating with them on how nasty & punative it is for Bush to not fix that issue just because the upper middle class vote Democrat too often. Instead you will be going on about the stolen election of 2004. Which in no way allows you to share with that person.. the evil that is obvious in the George W. Bush WH.

There is so much evidence on the bad behaviour of the WH. Why not spend your time speculating on events when there is actual evidence of it all?

[Amaryllis]

17. You don't have to worry about creating fear if you can rig elections. You

can just do whatever you want.

[applegrove]

23. But Rove & the WH have done nothing but create fear. Why would

they bother with all the fear they have created in the last decade if they could just rig elections?

Because they can't. Nixon demonstrated that you cannot do that and get away with it (okay he broke in).

[garybeck]

7. what?

it's not about fear, it's about manipulating the vote counts.

[applegrove]

9. It is about playing on your fears to the extent that you are separated

from the rest of the democratic party and indeed scare some moderates away from the democratic party.

They separate people. That is how they win!

[abbiehoff]

10. Why is not knowing if my vote is counted

going to separate me from other Democrats, or scare me into the Republican party? That doesn't make any sense. Also, they are in absolutely no danger of being caught, because the machines have no record of what really happened, only what they say happened.

[applegrove]

11. Hasn't it separated you from people already? We need a big

tent to win. I see so many DUers who are angry that Carter joined the commission on Voting and attack him or are ready to attack since nothing will be talked about when there is no proof.

[abbiehoff]

12. No, I'm not angry that Carter is on the Commission.

I'm angry that Baker is on it, but I never heard Carter speak without saying "voter verified paper ballot." That's good enough for me. I can't think of a single person I feel separated from. If any of my friends disagree with me about the election being stolen, they haven't mentioned it to me. I will continue to try to persuade people of the possibility as well as the probability of election fraud.

[applegrove]

13. You have been separated into a group with a narrow set of beliefs.

I did not say that you would be aware of it. You could quite possibly be feeling more alive and connected than ever before in your life.

But you are now one of the lost tribes of america.

That is how elites rule. They tribalize to keep democracy from working.

[abbiehoff]

14. Actually, the percentage of people who believe

the election was stolen is increasing. Anyway, the point is not really whether or not it was stolen, but whether we are going to do anything about preventing future robberies. If we are going to continue to allow the privatization of our election process or not is the real issue. As long as vote manipulation is possible, it is also probable given the nature of politics.

[applegrove]

15. I disagree with your last phrase. But I agree with everything else you

said. Especially the part where we have to fight for more transparency. I think transparency is needed so that people do learn to trust the system again and do not get isolated in their fears.

That is what transparency is for in economics & in markets.

It is a crime that Bush has done nothing to fix the transparency problem in the voting. A normal human leader would not exploit that problem but try to fix it.

But when has Bush ever 'fixed' a problem when he could use it instead.

[mod mom]

18. Cheers to Ms. Parks who write a clear worded letter that I hope will

be a wake up call to many!