Peace Patriot --- Because this Post deserves its own thread

Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Fri May-06-05 01:28 PM
Response to Original message

38. I want to reintroduce my rrrK theory: Reluctant Republican Respondents...


...who voted for Kerry. This election, and the political and social climate in this country, are quite unique in my memory (and I go way back). I cannot remember anything similar except when I was a child and the Army-McCarthy hearings were on our grainy little black and white TV screens. Peoples' lives being ruined for being "pinkos" or "fellow travelers." I grew up in an area where the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade held big tent gatherings, and where the John Birch Society was founded. These were truly scary people--not much better than the KKK.

These people are back--only they are now up to far worse things than McCarthyite witch-hunts. And they are now running our national and many of our state governments, and the libs and Dems in government are scared of them. I'm scared of them. If I were living in a Republican county now, I would most certainly be reluctant to admit a Kerry vote to a strange pollster, who approached me after I voted. For one thing, I wouldn't be at all sure who this person really was. I now live in a very Dem area, and guess what? I never did put a Kerry sticker on my car--for fear of tire slashing and other vandalism by Bushite thugs. In a Dem area!

We are being ruled by thugs. Real scary people. Now imagine yourself, say, as a lifelong Republican. You've decided Bush is nuts. (I know some elderly Republicans who said just that--"Bush is nuts.") You've decided to vote for Kerry. You live in a white, Christian Anti-Communist Crusade type of county. You've never voted for a Democrat before in your life. But you can't take this war and this deficit any more. These are not conservative policies. Being a Republican, you don't talk much about politics with your friends and family, so you don't know much about how others are feeling. And the only people who speak up are loud Bushites. So you go ahead and cast your vote for Kerry, and you may not even have told your husband that you were going to. And somebody comes toward you, out of the blue, and asks you to state publicly how you voted. And either you just walk away--because it's none of their business--or you say you voted for Bush, because you don't want any repercussions.

I think this is a much more likely picture of a Reluctant Responder than one who voted for Bush--especially one who voted for Bush in a Republican precinct. What would they have to fear? Why would they be shy in this Bush Cartel controlled country? On the other hand, what would they have to fear if they defected from the Bush paradigm (which, quite frankly, I suspect a lot of them did)? I think they would have much to fear, and much reason to be silent.

I have never seen such fear-mongering, such out of control fascism, such naked bullying of the poor by the rich, such arrogance and irrationality, and such...what is the word? ...insanity in my country, and I have never, ever been so afraid for my country, as I am now.

This election can't really be compared to any other. We have not had these political and social conditions ever before. In the 50s, we had sane people in government, like Dwight Eisenhower, who helped put a stop to McCarthyism. And even in the 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam war protests, even when protesters were being shot dead, I never felt that the government had gone bonkers. I thought it would eventually respond to the clear will of the majority--and it eventually did. Even Nixon wasn't this crazy.

So I'm just saying that maybe the rules, and precedents, and what happened in previous elections are not all that relevant. Maybe some Republicans were shy of pollsters in previous elections. But everything has changed now. This is a far, far different country than existed in 2000. And, as I said above, to me, the opposite of the rBr is what makes sense. People being afraid of Bush and his bully boys--and voting against them, and then being afraid to say so--because Republican social culture has become so poisoned with repression and coercion.

I noticed above some comment and response about Febble not being an American. Maybe that IS a factor, Febble, in your view of these statistics. Because I don't know if people who are living in free countries can fully appreciate what it has been like living in this one, over the last several years. Maybe an older east German would understand.

I recall reading commentary somewhere, last year--I think it was from an American who had been ensconced in France for a while, and traveled a lot between Great Britain, France and the U.S.--about Americans being misinformed and asleep. And I just felt that this person had no idea what it was like being trapped in a supposed democracy with a constant barrage of propaganda and brainwashing from every news monopoly, and being too poor to travel and visit other countries for a new perspective, and trying to sort all this out, and figure out what is real, and what is true.

The startling thing, to me, is that, given these conditions, the majority of Americans did figure it out. They saw through all the B.S., and came out in droves to vote the Bush Cartel out of office. That's what the total of the evidence shows--from the Dem blowout success in new voter registration (almost 60/40) to the long lines in Ohio, to the overwhelming disapproval of Bush policies and dismal Bush approval ratings in all opinion polls.

To many of us it is patently obvious that Bush does not represent the majority of people here, and was not elected. What we are looking at is a fascist coup. And since the evidence of the fraud has been largely hidden from most Americans--I mean, the TV networks CHANGED these exit polls, just went and CHANGED them, denying Americans this important information--we can easily get impatient and even nuts with just normal academic questioning. We have been lied to so much. We have seen so much corruption and ass-kissing from people who are supposed to be our intellectuals--not to mention outright disinformation campaigns, and smear campaigns, and black ops. And what we are facing--what this fascist regime may well lead to--is we, ourselves, and our loved ones, and our friends and political compadres, being ruined, imprisoned, or disappeared in the dead of night.

That's what this supposed election MEANS TO US. That's what its consequence could be.

So please, please, forgive us, if we get impolite sometimes--or even unreasonable and wild. It is a very difficult time to be an American, and to see our democracy destroyed, and to see the truth about this regime smothered over.

We have seen so much crap like this "rBr" theory (not incidentally from people--E/M--who are trying to cover up their cover up)--we get crap like this from Karl Rove and Dick Cheney every day, and from all their ditto-heads--you can understand our touchiness. It reminds me of a discussion I had with someone close to me about Colin Powell's 100% lies to the UN about Iraq WMDs. At the time, I only knew for sure that it was about 50% lies, but I could FEEL it was all B.S. I KNEW it, as sure as I've ever known anything. She thought there was something to be concerned about--a reason to invade Iraq (even if only half of it were true). And I couldn't seem to get across that these Bush toadies lie for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then go home and tell lies in their dreams. That's the real trouble with "rBr"--it smells like a Karl Rove lie, like this mythical "invisible" Republican voter registration campaign they were talking about the other day. And whenever Rove or Cheney tell a lie like this, you can ask yourself what the opposite of that is, and you will probably find the truth.

rrrk. And that's probably where they stole the most votes, too--from Republicans who voted for Kerry.


"Anyone who isn't a conspiracy theorist these days isn't paying attention." --Paul Revere

Thanks, Peace Patriot. Nominated, because I'd like lots of people to read this and feel the wisdom and the reassurance.

:thumbsup:

Excellent piece, not a rant, but even better for that. Well reasoned and cogent. Keep it up.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

who admitted (privately) that they had voted for Kerry, the first time they had EVER voted for a Dem. I think a lot of *real* Republicans, not the RW wackos running the party now, did the same.

Thank you!

Where exactly the MSM was pulling THEIR wild theories from- on election night when wild donkeys couldn't have made them voice the slightest suspicion or the most rational doubts- one can guess as well.

They are not worth arguing against, wasting no time inventing and hawking- that very night, while conversely suppressing the hard data exit polls as otherwise too early to release- while the obvious darkness floated across the screen. Parrots, sycophants, absurdities and sweat.

There were a host of other factors that justify the exit polls and a few others that gave Bush only a ghost of a chance, eg. FRAUDULENT and illegal public crimes that prevented people from voting(likewise pooh-poohed away vaguely) and clouded voting reliability in all the usual places with all the usual methods. Instead of looking at the logic of a Kerry win, the Flat-Earthers, afraid of the stake, played off all the frauds harmlessly against each other- while lying about Kerry and the people. The stealing of perhaps a million votes and absentee ballots was likely indeed not enough to be decisive, but that evidence of malfeasance took no shine off the totally invisible hand of the GOP electronic voting machines which conferred such a sizable, no-comeback, convenient tally that no one could be forced to look back at the well televised, old fashioned pre-fraud. Their only logic was absurd, publicly conspiratorial in appearance and totally circular- drawn with crooked edges.

In keeping with the MSM circular logic and dismissal of history as one of those egghead subjects, the mere passage of time lessens the stripping away of the lies that uncovers the Kerry(no paper trail) win, the Bush theft. The covering leaves rotting to nothingness, for the MSM, are instead turned into the critical dissent and overwhelming evidence of fraud! Because the truth does not succeed in undoing the Coup, the Coup won in truth. It almost looks legitimate if you spin yourself dizzy. How wonderful it is to be able to choose and create what is truth and news. For now. And only now.

Stand by logic since the exit polls, consistent use of visible means of fraud and concealing of unreliable electronic tallies from all accountability(as crafted fiercely by the GOP), give more than ample PROOF of a decisive Kerry win deliberately unprovable thanks to the acrobatics of pure liars a fraudulent voting landscape naively left unfought as the sheep moved in to restore democracy.

I have noticed among the lefty pundits, only the prejudiced or not so smart retain a residual urge to be the complete patsy for the MSM fabric of lies. Some think they are going with the crowd- the crowd of the deceived. Some spin off the circular lie and get their bearings and ease from acceptance of one attractive defeatist absurdity or partial truth or self-destructive habit of thought.

The wise dissect Coup Two as mercilessly as Judgment day.

...from DU yesterday, after I first posted this in the rBr discussion, so I didn't see your post. While I was away, I was traveling in my car and happened to hear the Ed Schultz Show, and on the Ed Schultz Show was a guest who was among some 30 people in Waynesville, NC, who had just been thrown out of their Baptist Church for not pledging support to Bush--one of the more shocking things I have heard of, in BushWorld . This is the sort of social and political climate that exists in many Republican areas today. And so, if you imagine how people like this must have felt at the polling place, it makes a lot of sense that they would be quite reluctant to tell a strange pollster that they had voted for Kerry.

But, like in most urban cities of the south, Kerry carried the county.

GWB bumper stickers were everywhere.

During the primaries, I had a Dean poster and I put it up at my office. It was gone in a day or two.

I did not put a Kerry sticker on my car.

Instead I made up my own sign that said:

"Somebody new for President."

historical references are not relevant to the political/social situation today.