Talking about US Election Fraud on Irish Radio! - NOW

www.nearfm.ie

This time was unusual because true exit poll data was available at the end of the day.

E-M suggested that Kerry voters more willing to participate in exit polls.

Like Ukraine.

In 2004 lots of irregularities. Touch screen computers.

"I think I'd break out in a cold sweat if I voted for a labor party candidate and got another candidate.."

Good that Ireland didn't go with electronic voting.

Paper trail. Ballots counted and recounted in secret.

Led to believe that participation rate less than 10 percent in some places.

Kerry vote not recorded.

Where is the outrage?

In American grassroots! Enormous outrage, but not getting thru in media.

Amricans have been holding teachins, had a national conference in Nashville. American corporate media not covering it.

People find it impossible to believe that something so enormous could have been committed.

Corps afraid of rocking the boat or lose their tax concessions.

in Ireland and she sounded like she was speaking a foreign language.

We speak many distinct accents, even within the same big city, because people tend to live in very settled communities through many generations.

Now talking about Blackwell.

Documenting the hard evidence is difficult. Computer voting fraud difficult to verify.

Question:
In essence, American democracy is not failed, but checks and balances have become meaningless when executive branch allowed to appoint judiciary?

No, more fundamental problems. Redistricting, a process by which politicians choose their voters.

Corps have the same rights as individuals.

American democracy of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, says interviewer.

Bizarre how FOX news declared Bush as winner of 2000 election.

Recount not permitted because it might cast doubt on whether or not he was elected.

People don't realize how close we came to rioting on the streets last November. People were outraged, said a lawyer to the commission.

Now counter inaugural demonstration--police had to put up fences all along the route.

Unarmed people storming police lines. If prsident not elected it is our duty to perform acts of civil disobedience against him.

Highlights democratic deficit, says announcer.

Wow!!!

Nice going, Ojai!

Delighted to see that it was appreciated.

This was tough, as I'm more used to writing very precisely detailed stuff, where I have the time to check the details, and this involved more thinking on my feet, paraphrasing in simple terms, and always striving to cover all the bases, under some time pressure.

Any points of inaccuracy/lack of detail that I should be aware of for future reference?

Is to keep talking the talk!

KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

:D Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! :D :loveya:

:kick:

I have also been informed today that a certain current affairs magazine will publish a letter to the editor in which I argue that the trad media must fight to recapture disenchanted customers who have gone over to reading blogs because of the repeated failures of the trad media to do their job - e.g. as regards coverage of Bush 2000 and the lies about Iraq.

I will post the full text after the magazine goes to print.

Heh, if I lived in the US, either they would have locked me up for storming police lines at the counter-inaugural or I'd be living in an orange tent outside the White House. ;)

not all election fraud activists you've talked to in the US are ignorant of the word "gerrymandering". : )

Otherwise, there might be some questions about your use of the word "paper trail". There has been some talk here of how that is not enough.... It needs to be a veoter-verified, auditable paper trail. Perhaps for your purposes, however, just paper trail is good for keeping it clean and simple.

Thanks for correcting me. I see that Americans know all about this:

TRANSITIVE VERB: To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.
ETYMOLOGY: After Elbridge Gerry + (sala)mander (from the shape of an election district created while Gerry was governor of Massachusetts).
http://www.bartleby.com/61/62/G0106200.html


A shame to see this has become a firmly established tradition, as detailed in an article in that ultra-left extremist rag, Economist:


How to rig an election
Apr 25th 2002 | WASHINGTON, DC
In a normal democracy, voters choose their representatives. In America, it is rapidly becoming the other way around
...
Other districts look like donuts, embryos or Rorschach tests.

But the champion gerrymandering comes from Illinois. Chicago has two Hispanic areas. They are in different parts of the city, but that has not discouraged the good politicians of Illinois from creating a constituency consisting of these two areas only. They lie on either side of a black part of the city like the bread of a sandwich. Worst of all is the state's extraordinary 17th District, which is a crab (see chart). Though most of it lies in the western part of the state, two claws stretch out towards the eastern part to grab Democratic cities in order to make the surrounding 18th and 19th districts more reliably Republican.
...

http://tinyurl.com/af4sv


The only bit of this article I don't understand is the "rapidly becoming". Couldn't they delete those two words?

BTW, I read that bit about coming close to rioting in the streets in an article written by Conor O'Clery in the Irish Times. I was too pressed for time to post the text of that article at the time, but it was excellent. And now I'm not sure where I've put it.

Can anybody point me to a transcript of the proceedings of the Commission?

Or any other reference to that comment? Or other telling quotes from the Commission?

I was impressed with that quote...I thought you had dilligently gleaned it from a thorough reading of the transcript.

I will look for it.

I'll have to go through a pile of old newspapers and see whether I can find that article. It was excellent - also quoted Baker saying that they had no hope of addressing the really controversial issues. - !!

Glad to hear this news is getting out there!

I'm headed off for the old country in a few weeks.

I was told to buy Canadian flags and place them on my luggage.

I said fuck that!

Instead, I proudly will have tags with my Irish Coat of Arms for ALL to see and let them question me!

IRELAND FOR THE IRISH!

:kick:

Honest, Ireland is one of the most American-friendly places in Europe. And we are quite capable of distinguishing between the traits of the individual and the behaviour of your political leaders.

As long as your name is not Dubya, you will find people very welcoming (and even if your name were Dubya, some people would welcome you!). Some people over here may be under the illusion that a majority of Americans voted for that pariah, but even then I think we would find it difficult to imagine that any real person we might meet could have done something so vile.

So the worst that is likely to happen is that you may overhear people engaged in surprisingly well-informed and unflattering discussions of the role your country plays in the world.

Please let us know when you get a copy of this.

We now have the plenary sessions (all 14 hours of them) from the National Election Reform Conference available on two CDs. If you think there might be some airplay and other uses you can put them to, please PM me with your address and we'll send them your way.

My Irish grandmother will be so proud (on whatever cloud she's sitting on this evening) that work her grandson helped accomplish to save our democracy was mentioned in the mother country.

Thanks, I can't PM yet, but will e-mail you.

Perhaps you would like to play on your Irish ancestry in a letter to the Irish ambassador? I have provided a draft, including address, fax and e-mail addresses, on this thread:
Ireland talking about vote fraud bloggers vs. traditional media
http://tinyurl.com/bfv4r

See post headed:
Letter to the Irish ambassador requesting help to expose Bush fraud 2004

Don't suppose it will be available as an archieve??

This is TERRIFIC news. We must all email the radio host and THANK them!!

NEAR fm 101.6
Northside Civic Centre
Bunratty Road
Dublin 17

Tel: 867 1016
Fax: 848 6111

Station e-mail:
nearfm@iol.ie
Arts:
arts@nearfm.ie
Sports:
sports@nearfm.ie

Local Point:
localpoint@nearfm.ie
Senior Citizens Programme:
seniorcitizens@nearfm.ie
The Zone:
thezone@nearfm.ie
Sacred Music:
sacredmusic@nearfm.ie
Night Train:
nighttrain@nearfm.ie
White Noise:
whitenoise@nearfm.ie
Live Wire:
livewire@nearfm.ie
Urban Vibez:
urbanvibez@nearfm.ie
Dance Nation:
dancenation@nearfm.ie



If you have any comments or sugestions
about the Website then e-mail: it@nearfm.ie

There is no archive, unfortunately, but Paddy will get a copy. Maybe if we ask the station.

And thanks Paddy in advance for maybe getting us a copy! I am so thrilled to hear this news!

Then I've just got to figure out how to upload it from my DVD player to my PC, and then how to make it available on the net.

Any suggestions where I could put it up for people to download?

Can we use your song, "A Nation Once Again"?

------

Thank you so much for this work, Paddy! It's very, very, very important!

-----

One thing I've noticed about Europeans, even savvy ones--and also American expatriates long time out of the US--is that people who don't live in the US--that is, in BushWorld--often don't grok what it's like living under the IRON CURTAIN of the news monopolies. (Poles & Czechs might get it.) Barrage of propaganda and brainwashing on all channels all the time. It is amazing and deeply, deeply disturbing. You often see it discussed here at DU--and one manifestation is that we often encounter friends, acquaintances, co-workers, even family who say, "But it's not in the news." They think "the news" more or less represents reality.

Even smart people think this--people who know they've been lied to time and again. They just stay plugged into all this crap anyway, and get the latest black hole (election fraud does not exist) drilled into their brains.

People outside the US need to know this. They need to know HOW DIFFICULT it is to fight these black holes in the brainwashing, propagandistic "news"--because it to some extent explains why Americans are NOT rioting in the streets.

Let me give you an example. Many Americans DO NOT KNOW that John Kerry won the exit polls. Why don't they know it? Because the news monopolies CHANGED the exit poll data on everybody's TV screens on election night--"adjusted" it to fit the official tally.

They even fooled ME--for about 6 hours. I thought Bush had won the exit polls!

Total manipulation and lies and brainwashing of a very sophisticated kind.

If challenged, they (the pollsters) blather about "that's how we've always done it" (nonsense! --not in other countries, they don't!)--and they ignore and fail to address the most important point: That, with stolen election in 2000, and with many experts crying foul on the NEW electronic voting, and controversial NEW electronic voting systems being tested out nationwide for the first time, this situation CRIED OUT FOR exit poll verification of the election and they DELIBERATELY denied the American public the information that the exit polls strongly pointed to fraud.

The pollsters were hired by all the news monopolies. Together they perpetrated this journalistic crime--FALSIFIED EXIT POLL NUMBERS--on all of us.

That's why there were no riots here (as in the Ukraine). That's how official investigation was squelched.

People outside the US need to get the full picture of what's happening here. Such an experience--falsification of the exit poll data--is not that common a thing in Euro nations and other democracies, from what I understand. I imagine the Irish, the English, the French, the Danes, etc., and people in most well-established democracies would be shocked and outraged if crap like that were perpetrated on them. They would burn the news stations down! But here, people have been quite literally brainwashed into trusting "the news" despite what their rational minds tell them.

Why this is so is another discussion. Maybe we're such a fractured nation right now, that people cling to "the news" as to an umbilical cord to "the nation" (false mother that it is!). Fear and division and a fascist government can do funny things to people's hearts and minds.

The good part is that Americans saw through all the B.S., and voted the Bush Cartel out! We therefore do have viable, working systems of communication outside of the news monopolies, and we're getting better at it all the time.

The bad part is that most Americans still don't know they were defrauded, and many are depressed, fearful and feeling powerless--and in all kinds of states of denial.

The "no election fraud" black hole is very, very big (much akin to the "9/11" black hole). It is a bigger black hole than Iraq WMDs and other stories where some of the truth got covered by the news monopolies--for one thing, because the Bushites couldn't find any WMDs, and/or got foiled in planting them (my theory of David Kelly's murder), but also because we had some powerful truth-tellers out there (Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspectors, France, Germany, Russia...). It was impossible not to report UN refusal to go along--and even if they downplayed or distorted it, it got through to people. (Prior to the invasion, nearly 60% of Americans outright opposed the war OR wanted it to be decided upon by the UN, not unilateral.)

I think a similar thing happened with the Swiftboat Liars and Bush's shirking of his National Guard duty. Despite every effort of the Bush machine, some of the truth leaked out with all the B.S. and got currency. People were able to discern the truth.

On 9/11, and on election fraud, they are getting virtually NO NEWS. Total black hole. They have nothing to go on but their gut feelings (if they're plugged into the news monopolies). Look what happened to Lampley--his columns SPIKED by the Chicago Tribune. They are positively censoring this huge story! Not just ignoring it, deliberately x-ing it out.

But we're not all ignorant or cowed! Some of us are fighting back as best we can, and trying to inform others. That's the other good news.

-----

On "paper trail"/"paper BALLOT." People use "paper trail" as a generic term to mean VERIFIABILITY, and associate it with white collar criminal prosecution (i.e., "the bank managers shredded the paper trail showing their fraudulent transactions, and the prosecution had a hard time reconstructing what they did").

But in voting...

a mere "paper trail" (receipt, or whatever) has no legal standing as "the VOTE"

and a "paper BALLOT" does have legal standing as "the VOTE."

In a recount, fraud-minded election officials can discard the paper "receipt" in favor of the electronic tally. Not so a BALLOT. It's a legal technicality, but a VERY important one.

I guess what we are talking about is the QUALITY of the "paper trail." A paper BALLOT is the highest quality "paper trail."

Some folks might not have gotten the concept of a "paper trail" (i.e., verifiability) in electronic voting. They may not realize how vulnerable electronic voting is to hacking--and why we MUST have HARDCOPY backup. Once you get them to understand that, then you can start talking about why it's important to have a BALLOT (not a mere receipt).

Otherwise, it can be confusing. (We're not demanding a paper trail? We're demanding return to the old system of paper ballots? --some are, some aren't. Some want old paper ballot/hand count. Some want receipt to have paper ballot legal standing, and other controls--especially open source code).

Also, the ATM example resonates with people. Everyone has had experience of it. It gives you a receipt, so you KNOW what the computer did with your money, and if it's wrong, you can go into the bank and fix it, and if your subsequent bank statement has it wrong and your receipt is right, you have the evidence to get it fixed. So...why can't voting machines do the same? This is a good basic argument for VERIFIABILITY (a "paper trail," in the generic sense).

It also resonates because the same companies that make ATMs make electronic voting machines. These companies ADVOCATE for paperless voting, and say a paper trail is too difficult and expensive. But they do it routinely in ATMs. (Liars, hypocrites! Why do they NOT want a paper trail for voting? What are they hiding?)

The ATM example is very useful in establishing the need for a "paper trail." But it breaks down after that, as an example, because, a) an ATM receipt is not a ballot, and, b) it is not a secret transaction, as a ballot must be (your bank knows who you are and generally knows what you did at the ATM machine, whereas government is supposedly forbidden to know how you voted.)

Still, it's useful--as a basic concept.

In explaining all this, I would START WITH the present situation.

--The central vote tabulators run by two companies with known rightwing connections (one of them in fact Bush-Cheney campaign chair in Ohio--Wally O'Dell--who promised in writing to "deliver" Ohio to Bush).

--A third of the country voting on electronic machines with NO PAPER TRAIL (let alone a paper ballot)

--The software running all the electronic voting machines and vote tabulators is SECRET, PROPRIETARY information; not even election officials are permitted to review it!

--Numerous experts saying electronic voting is highly insecure, unreliable and EASILY hackable. (One hacker, a couple of minutes.)

--A situation made to order for Bush Cartel fraud (--Bushite Tom Delay blocked any kind of paper trail from getting out of Congressional committee for a House vote).

--The federal (Bush) government, via Bush "pod people" in Congress, flooding the states and counties with money, to get them to pour that money into the pockets of major Bush donors (such as Diebold and ES&S) for the purchase of shoddy, hackable electronic voting systems, and corrupting local officials right and left--such low down, dirty irony (HAVA)!

These facts are stunning in themselves. The legal point of paper receipt/paper ballot is less important overall, in my opinion. It's for a discussion of remedies (important in THAT discussion).

AND, if electronic voting was NOT secret, was NOT privatized, was NOT in Bush Cartel hands, then the issue of receipt/ballot would not be so critical. (Review Venezuela's open system, which seems to work--the majority won!)

------

Another point I would make with a Euro audience is Bush's dismal approval ratings among Americans. It's VERY CLEAR on all counts that Bush does not represent the majority of Americans and was not elected.

(49% approval on his "inauguration" day--unprecedented! And falling. 42% today. Dismal all last year. With 60% to 70% of Americans disapproving of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic. Across the board. All reputable polls. Consistent over time.)

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (i.e., BushWorld). The smell is unmistakable, and it's only going to get worse with time. They can't hide this stinking corpse of an election much longer.

(Caveat: I think they may have pre-arranged this Baker-Carter Commission for just this purpose--to try to use this emerging stinking corpse to federalize elections under Bush Cartel control. First, they will blame it on the states; then they will say it all has to be in federal hands. Right now, the main control over election systems is local/state, where ordinary people still have some influence. If this phony private "commission"--and especially if Carter--recommends some kind of national electronic voting system, or if Bush's "pod people" in Congress interpret it that way, we could lose all local/state power to reject unverifiable/secret source code voting systems. This is something to be on the alert for.)

Paddy did cover these points in his talk, but the thing about the media is a good insight...

It's hard for non-Americans to see how little light gets through in the way of information about the truth.

But Paddy is addressing this as well...

He has written a LTTE that will be published tomorrow that talks about why people are starting to trust blogs more than traditional media.

How does that song go?

A Nation Once Again
Thomas Davis

When boyhood's fire was in my blood,
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
THREE HUNDRED MEN AND THREE MEN.
And then I prayed I yet might see,
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A NATION ONCE AGAIN.

...

http://www.from-ireland.net/poemspoets/davisnation.htm

I take your point about the distinction between a receipt and a ballot. So perhaps, if Ireland ever introduces e-voting, we want the machines to register our votes and print them on a piece of paper and we can choose to discard it if we don't like what's printed on it?

And if we want a recount, then it is the paper ballots that get counted?


As you suggest, if the Irish or Danish media tried to pull a stunt like the way the American media pollute the exit polls with numbers from the vote tallies, then we would be outraged. But we wouldn't burn the TV stations down, we would just switch the telly off. Then the Irish would go down to the pub to talk about those rotten cheating politicians, and vow never to speak to them again, and the Danes would probably blockade the parliament building.

- No, on reflection, I think the Danish anarchist movement would storm the building, occupy it and install a form of participative democracy inspired by the Bolivian "asambleas" that defeated the move to privatise their water supply systems.

The Danes have had people standing watch outside the Danish parliament every day since Denmark sent a battleship to fight in the war in Afghanistan, on 19 October, 2001. http://www.fredsvagt.dk/

Can you tell me why I have not heard of a single, token American demonstrator sleeping in an orange tent outside the White House?


I also find your point about the degree of censorship interesting.

I can't know exactly how it is behind the Iron Curtain, but I do know that it is sometimes possible to break the censorship.

In 2002, Tom Nagy was nominated for a Project Censored award for his work in revealing that the Defense Intelligence Agency had studied "Iraq water treatment vulnerabilities", but he subsequently joked that he might have to decline the award, because the Montana Peace Seekers and the Seattle branch of Voices in the Wilderness had succeeded in getting him covered, and because Gannett News Service eventually picked the story up - oddly enough, because a researcher read about the story on a flyer he was given by an activist on the street in Egypt!

If I were living under the circumstances you describe, I think I would organise street demos where we trashed our TV sets and burned the lousy newspapers that refused to cover the most important stories. (I don't have a TV set of my own, but I imagine I could buy a broken-down set for the purpose of the demo. :)

And I would go on doing what I am doing: getting the word out through word of mouth, e-mail, printing my own newsletter for distribution by hand, local radio, etc.

As we go on, the old media must discover that they are being outflanked by means of communication that are either older or newer than theirs. Older: coffee-table gossip, teach-ins, hand-distributed flyers. Newer: blogs, discussion fora, e-mail, DVD's, CD's, technologies for sharing audio and video on the net.

Someone responded after I emailed the address for the show that helderheid had so graciously provided:

Shalom XXXX,

Glad that you could not only listen to NEAR-fm but appreciate our commitment to democratic ideals - something that once was once widespread in the U.S. OF A in the pre NeoCon era!

We have a "fraternal" relationship with DemocracyNow! which I understand flies the liberal flag quite loudly and proudly! Amy Goodman is a very eloquent and articulate spokesperson for many of the values we subscribe to - give her a listen if you are not already a fan!

If there are other issues you consider are worth our attention, we would be delighted to receive your input!

Yours sincerely,

Michael FitzGerald
Presenter/Producer - Local Point
NEARfm
Community Radio for Northeast Dublin
Northside Civic Centre
Bunratty Road
Dublin 17
Phone: 8671016 Fax: 8486111
www.nearfm.ie


This was in response to this letter I wrote after hearing the show:


Hello from California, in the USA. I tuned in to your show where you had that GP talking about voting fraud in the 2004 US election. Hardly anyone talks about it here, but that sure doesn't mean it didn't happen. Thank you so much for participating in intelligent discussion about this crucial topic that affects us all.

Good show!

Is there anyway to get a copy or is it archived somewhere?

Respectfully,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX