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This is an update of an earlier post by AtLiberty about the article as reported on in the Free Press.
The article's sub-title is "Ohio, the Election, and America's Servile Press" and that's the real focus of the article.
The mag is out now and the article, by Mark Crispin Miller, is a real looloo. I don't think it's available on the IT, but I'd suggest everybody interested in election reform buy the mag and support Harper's, maybe get a subscription if you can afford it. Lewis Lapham, editor, has been from the beginning one of the few journalists who could see the truth and was unafraid to write about it. There's also a topnotch article "The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong" by Bill McKibben about the religious right in America and its effect on politics.
A few highlights from the article:
After detailing the oddities of the 04 election, that is, that Bush could supposedly win by 3,000,176 votes when so many other demographic and other factors were stacked against him, Miller says:
"The press has had little to say about most of the strange dteails of the election -- except, that is, to ridicule all efforts to discuss them. This animus appeared soon after Nov 2, in a spate of caustic articles dismissing any critical discussion of the outcome as crazed speculation: 'Election paranoia surfaces: Conspiracy theorists call results rigged,' chuckled the BALTIMORE SUN on Nov 5. 'Internet Buzz on Vote Fraud is Dismissed,' proclaimed the BOSTON GLOBE on Nov 5. 'Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether,' the WASHINGTON POST chortled on Nov 11. The NEW YORK TIMES weighed in with 'Vote fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried' -- making mock not only of the 'post-election theorizing' but of cyberspace itself, the fins et origo of all such loony tunes, according to the Times.
snip
The final paragraph gives a hint of the focus:
"In this nation's epic struggle on behalf of freedom, reason, and democracy, the press has unilaterally disarmed -- and therefore many good Americans, both liberal and conservative, have lost faith in the promise of self-government. That vast surrender is demoralizing, certainly, but if we face it, and endeavor to reverse it, it will not prove fatal. This democracy can survive a plot to hijack an election. What it cannot survive is our indifference to, or unawareness of, the evidence that such a plot has succeeded."
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