The Disenfranchisement of the New Orleans vote has national implications

This is not a local issue. It is national in scope.

If the government prevails in the rigged April elections in New Orleans, the possibility of a complete Republican takeover of the State in November (US Congress) becomes a distinct possibility.

Resources:

http://www.traprockpeace.org/calendar/view_entry.php?id=840&date=20060328

http://www.defiancezone.com/PeaceInPink.php

Please help us get the word out about the true reason the federal government allowed Hurricane Katrina to become a man made, intentional disaster for voters' rights and civil liberties!

The Bushies came to power and have stayed in power by disenfranchising voters wherever they can.

Does any one wonder why Bush's spin about "spreading democracy" rings so hollow?

So he keeps spreading profit, for his base, I really think that his legacy should be as
a coin bank.

George Orwell would have a field day talking about the way Bush and his aides use the language.

talking about pre-emptive strikes on America, if George can do it, why can't we, now
we are beating the drum over Iran having Nuclear technology while giving it to India
with no strings, they don't have to oversight of their military program. We stand
in front of the world as hypocrites. We have alienated the entire world, no country
is going to tolerate us grabbing their citizens sometimes from our airports and
sometimes from their own streets for "rendition." The neocons must go, if this country
is going to have foreign diplomacy and respect in the world community. Our national
security depends on it.

Democracy is a state where:

• Citizenship is universal. Each person born within the boundaries of the state is a citizen, as is one born abroad to at least one citizen parent or who swears allegiance to the state in a rite of naturalization.
• Citizenship is equal. Each citizen has an equal opportunity to participate in and influence public affairs. Every adult citizen shall be enfranchised with the right to vote. Decisions are made by a majority voted based on the principle of one man/one vote.
• Citizenship is inalienable. A guaranteed set of civil liberties is in place to assure full and open public discourse of civic affairs. No citizen may be stripped of his citizenship or otherwise punished by the state for expressing any point of view, no matter how unpopular or even absurd.

Both Bush's America and Kim Jong Il's North Korea flunk these tests. Kim's North Korea, more than Bush's America, is a system designed to protect the power of the political elites, the leader in power and his apparatchiks. Bush's America is a system designed to protect the power of the wealthy elite, the owners of large corporations. However, Bush's America shows signs of moving toward a system that will have the same adverse effect on democratic processes as Kim's North Korea, including machinery to maintain the power of a narrow political class.

Ironically, the official name of North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Like Bush, Kim Jong Il is the spoiled child of power and privilege, a man with an inflated view of his own abilities.

Like Bush, Kim Jong Il holds that he, as leader, is beyond any restraint any law puts on him, rendering any law meaningless. He, too, maintains that this is true unless he is removed from power, a process that he makes as difficult as possible through disenfranchisement of voters. North Koreans are disenfranchised by having their choices restricted in most elections to supporters of the regime; Americans are disenfranchised by having their choices effectively limited to those whose campaign bills the wealthy are willing to foot and to elections in which votes will be counted by easily-rigged machines. We are now witnessing in America refugees from a natural disaster having it made difficult to return to their homes in New Orleans on a basis that is designed to discriminate against those less likely to vote for supporters of Mr. Bush. Those who were originally refugees from a natural disaster are now, in effect, political refugees.

In both North Korea and America, news and information is filtered by those in power. In North Korea, it's Kim's government; in America, it's the wealthy who own the major media outlets. With major media outlets coming into fewer and more homogeneous hands, it is almost as difficult for an American to learn something those in power don't want him to know as it is for a North Korean.

In spite of official Marxist ideology and rhetoric, Kim Jong Il doesn't give two bits for the welfare of his people. In North Korea, people are starving. In America, wages are falling as manufacturing jobs are moved overseas. Personal bankruptcies have increased this year. How much longer will it be before famine becomes a problem in America? Of course, will we know it if it does? Will the corporate-owned major media outlets report it if that happens?

ON EDIT

This post now has its own thread. It is also posted in Jack Rabbit's Warren. Please pay a visit.

First, now that Bush has issued the signing statement to the Patriot Act, he has stated
that he will not submit to any congressional oversight at all. This completely negates
the work of Pat Roberts on the wiretapping issue. When the president says that Congress
has no right to oversee his actions, their criticism of the censure resolution is thread bare.

Second, I read of a conservative republican pollster, who surveyed 4000 people in Florida
and Georgia, he predicts that those states will go democratic. They have been lost.
I agree with you that this is a dangerous time but there were 3 big problems with
Bush's plan. The failure of the Iraq War, the activism of the bloggers, and the
persecution of Rahman as a Christian, this will pull the defense of the Republican
Party as the Christian Party, and I will add the Dubai Ports Deal pulling the thread
that the Republicans care about National Security.

:kick:

work on this problem. The GOP was already planning to exploit this situation back then, why were the Democrats doing nothing to prepare for it?

Organize, please!