Media framing the issue proves cover-up/conspiracy

The media are framing this as a bunch of conspiracy theories that need to be dismissed instead of framing it as voting irregularities that need to be investigated.

This, to me, proves they are covering up. Because, if the administration has NOTHING to hide, if Diebold has NOTHING to hide, etc., then it would be a straightforward matter of simply needing to investigate what went wrong.

So to those who say we are conspiracy theorists, I say to them: sure looks like a conspiracy to me when none of you will discuss the facts about something that is CRITICAL to our democratic system of government and therefore affects the vital interests of EVERY American citizen.

ASK THE MEDIA: WHAT'S WRONG WITH DEMANDING AN INVESTIGATION TO ENSURE THAT OUR VOTING SYSTEMS ARE WORKING?

That they are talking about this is a very good sign, indeed.

They know that the crisis is too important to ignore.

They framed the discussion (swiftboat liars). We somehow have to turn that around. Any suggestions on how to change the wording to ltte's so it's turned back on the media?

Why do they disparage an investigation that would help reinforce the legitimacy of our elected government? There are documented irregularities in our system of voting as it currently exists. Why does the MSM resist an investigation? If we cannot solve these lingering questions, not only will the American people fear that our system does not reflect our true votes, but other countries around the world may well refuse to acknowledge our government as legal. That would open the door to massive strife, both domestic and abroad, with long-lasting implications.

Why does the MSM hate our democratic process?

:evilgrin:

How can you frame all of these issues as conspiracy theories when election results are now being overturned in several local races and NC may have to do a complete re-vote for one of their races, all because of machine problems?

That's the problem. There's no evidence that any of these elections got screwed up because of fraud. Without fraud, there's no stolen election.

It's about the NUMEROUS problems surrounding this election. Obviously, there were many, many irregularities in vote counts. There are hundreds of reports of voter suppression. There are problems surrounding absentee ballots and provisional ballots.

It's about the SYSTEM. It isn't working. And we need to find out what went wrong and why!

The media didn't frame it as a conspiracy, WE did. By screaming "fraud" and "stolen election". You can pretend nobody did that if you want to, but I don't see the point.

I don't blame them from staying away from the fraud issue for exactly the reason you state...there's simply no direct evidence of that at this point.

But most of the mainstream media is dismissing the voting irregularites themselves, and without even investigating, their language is downright belittling.

It's not the media's fault the fraud story is out there. It's not the media's fault erroneous "voting irregularity" stories got blown out of proportion because they weren't investigated correctly by the people spouting them, like the Florida counties. And after LIHOP and MIHOP and a bunch of other unproveable conspiracy theories, it's no wonder people have trouble gathering mainstream support to investigate the real problems.

Of course it is the media's fault. It is the job of journalists to dig in and find the truth. The fact that some people blew voting irregularity stories out of proportion or didn't investigate them correctly does not excuse anyone in the media.

"...it's no wonder people have trouble gathering mainstream support to investigate the real problems."

Has it occured to anyone that the opposition is spouting these unprovable conspiracy theories? (God are we still even using that phrase?)

gone both ways. Some counties would show Kerry having more votes than registered democrats, or registered voters. How can a person see that EVERY "voter irregularity" favors not only *, but always Repug candidates for the house and senate -- and then say there's no evidence of fraud???

We're not stupid.

Who committed the fraud? With what machines? How was it done?

You bet it's peculiar. But until all the garbage had been cleared out, and only the most blatant "peculiarities" remained, the word fraud should not have been mentioned. Sorry, but the current media problem is the fault of reactionaries. People have simply got to learn to get their ducks in a row. The ducks only, not the chickens and woodpeckers.

that Bev Harris and those who read and repeated her assertions are to blame for the "tinfoil" label.

And Randi Rhodes.


And Barry Goldwater ie "None Dare Call It Conspiracy."

Come to think of it, that put ol' Barry into a tinfoil hat as well.

I don't care about ol' Barry. I care about changing the world's shittiest election system. I'd much rather Randi Rhodes just made a laughing stock of the whole thing, rather than turn us into a laughing stock.

errors to 'mysteriously' support B* or a Rep candidate...as 'mysterious' as the exit poll data being incorrect!

I love what Bev does, I really do. But when you say you've got proof of fraud, you by god better have proof of fraud. Don't blame the media when people shot from the hip about various problems and were proven wrong. Now the effort to change "fraud" to faulty voting machines is doubly hard. People can hate me all the want to, but when I harp and harp and harp on being careful that we can prove what we say, this is the exact reason why.

wow, and do you believe in the tooth fairy too?

they have a VERY strong predilection for supporting and promoting the status quo, the "official story line," etc. In fact, I have just recently come to understand that they see that as their job, NOT the reporting of "news." They help create and shape public opinion, rather than allowing (and then reporting objectively) public opinion to shape itself from the facts, which the public never gets to see except thru the lens/filter of the Protectors of the Official Mythology.

I think their treatment of this issue has driven home to me just how inept, arrogant, lazy and -- I have to say it again -- arrogant they are. Here are a gazillion indices of something rotten in Denmark, and they (by "they" I'm thinking in particular of Peter Jennings and the NYT/WP) immediately pounce on it, through their own bias (which could be a number of things) to denounce it.

Possible sources of bias:

* anti-internet (or just severe lack of understanding about it)

* anti-"conspiracy theory" which is just the term for facts and information that don't support the Official Story, really, and a darned good way to immediately turn off the attention span of a lot of Americans

* anti-other sources of news -- Hey, if it doesn't come from them, it can't be real. Can it? Nahhhh.

* anti-investigative journalism -- speaks for itself, I think

* anti-non-official story/mythology, already discussed

There is SO much real "news" out there about this election, in so many different states, and yet they can't freakin' be bothered to check any of it out. They can't even seem to let their fingers to the walking and consult google fer cryin' outloud.

It's very disturbing. Very. These aren't exactly new observations on my part (or anyone's), but again, the NON-coverage and/or DISMISSIVE coverage by the mainstream press, both print and broadcast/cable, is unbelievable. I think if we found a secret taped conversation of Rove giving instructions for some of this, they'd ignore it or laugh it off.

they aren't so stupid that they can't see how important verifying the integrity of our election systems is. They aren't so stupid that they can't see how big a problem voter suppression is. They aren't so stupid that they can't see that this is VITAL to a democratic republic.

You want all of this stuff covered, the way it should be, somebody needs to apologize. Somebody needs to come out right now and say loud and clear, no evidence of fraud or stolen elections has been found. And you know exactly who I mean. It's our own damn fault Eloriel, we just do not have the discipline to gather concrete evidence before shooting off our mouths.

Have you ever heard of "cognitive dissonance"? We see everything through the filter of our own belief systems. If we perceive something that we cannot immediately file within our preconceived structure of how the world works; we will LITERALLY NOT SEE IT. Cognitive dissonance theory has been researched extensively at institutions like Yale. The repugs are using this phenomenon to their advantage swimmingly.

The proof is in the statistical analysis. You can't argue with it. That's why we are hearing rubbish like "the reason we show more votes than registered voters, is because we mixed in the absentee ballots." HELLOOOO! Absentee ballots are only mailed to REGISTERED VOTERS.

It makes me ill. I can't stand it when people can't see what's right in front of their own eyes, just because they can't wrap their puny brains around something that they haven't encountered before.

What evidence does anybody have pointing to any person that participated in this fraud? You've got suspicious circumstances, at best. Some individual cases that will be prosecuted, that's the way it's handled in this country. Connect individual people to the campaign to George Bush, you've got fraud. I haven't seen that trail of evidence yet. Until we've got it, we shouldn't be saying it. It just doesn't help.

line of reasoning is your weakest argument. Fraud is a crime, like any other crime.

Indictments are returned against "John Doe(s)" all the time.

Linking a crime to individuals is great but it doesn't prove or dis-prove that a crime has been committed.

That said, I understand your concerns about how this has been handled. There are up sides and down sides to the process so far.

One up side is that anybody anywhere is talking about it at all. However I agree with you that there is a down side also.

I do see it. If any proof comes out, at least people were talking about it. But if proof of something besides "glitches" doesn't come out, then the downside is way way down. And this is an election, if it isn't tied to the Republican Party somehow, a broad claim of fraud, even proveable, doesn't help anything at all.

Why are you getting so frantic about people talking about republican election fraud? It's not as if it didn't happen in 2000 and 2002.

Exactly who is it who needs to apologize?

As long as the truth eventually comes out... KEEP WORKING guys!

At least they admitted that questions exist, but they didn't take it very seriously. From their quote of Kerry's lead lawyer in OH, it doesn't sound like the Kerry campaign is taking the problems very seriously, either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/politics/12theory.html?hp&ex=1100322000&en=bef1453564cd6e4e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

For its part, the Kerry campaign has been trying to tamp down the conspiracy theories and to tell supporters that their mission now is to ensure that every vote is counted, not that the election be overturned.

"We know this was an emotional election, and the losing side is very upset," said Daniel Hoffheimer, the lead lawyer for the Kerry campaign in Ohio. But, he said, "I have not seen anything to indicate intentional fraud or tampering."

It's not about "overturning". It's about finding out WHO REALLY WON. It's about finding out WHAT WENT WRONG AND WHY.

It's about the INTEGRITY OF OUR SYSTEM and making sure that it WORKS.

I wish they'd stop talking about it in ANY other way than that.

We, AMERICA, have a RIGHT to know that we are being given a FAIR and HONEST opportunity to vote AND that those votes are being COUNTED AND BEING COUNTED PROPERLY.

Apologies if this has been posted already, but there's a very solid story on Alternet: "A Legitimate Recount Effort in Ohio".

Link is here: http://www.alternet.org/election04/20494/

Just in case anyone missed it.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

One needs only to look at the innumerable articles on the security issues of computers to realize that this is hardly a conspiracy theory, tinfoil hat sort of problem. Those articles are all over: viruses, ad-ware, Trojan horses. Articles can be found not just in the specialized computer-related journals and magazines, but in the mainstream press, on the nightly news and certainly all over the internet.

Yet when this issue is raised in relation to the electronic voting machines it is dismissed as "conspiracy theory"? That is just plain ridiculous.

Actual conspiracy is not quite needed. If you see how the "brave" WAPO acted in "All the President's Men" you would see the few resources, the timidity, the hesitance devoted to a story that drew them a lot of threatening attention. That was THEN, since then the fatter, self-castrated and further dispersed audience(while the media has coagulated into 7 major league self-interest groups!) makes them more impotent, more cozy, more competitive to stay out of trouble.

National forums run by infotainment high salaried electronic media are toast and a joke. No one reaches the percent audience they used to. A gaggle of geese that can barely do the modern job anyway. They have become a glitzy tool for their magnates. Sad, very very sad.

The questionable prestige of early TV media(much over-hyped and naive) has now reached its nadir. There is still lower to go, but that is below the point of actual journalism and should not be dignified with being in an inner circle of actual "plans".

by design....

Obviously, they want this depticted as wackos rather than people who care about our democratic process.

are definitely hiding something. If Bush won fairly then the media could at least cover the issue of voting machine problems with a clear conscience.

Calling this "conspiracy theory" is the tip off. We've seen it before...

Let's hope there's something big in the works for our side on this.