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capability of completely flipping this election around, without detection, and will get a pass from the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, as they did in 2004, and from some but not all of the Democratic leaders and candidates, if history is any guide.
Bushite corporations own and control our election system, through TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code in all the electronic voting machines and central tabulators, and, in ADDITION, have used their power to perpetrate massive vote suppression. Between the two, we have to admit that the capability is there, and that they are unscrupulous, undemocratic, unamerican, conscienceless dirtbags, with no qualms about stealing elections.
What makes me optimistic is the American people, and how they keep trying. I am very, very impressed with my fellow and sister Americans, and I'm sure now that we are going to get our country back. It may not be easy, but we are going to do it.
If they outright steal it, it will be very obvious. There is MUCH MORE consciousness of the fraudulent election system this time. There was almost zip consciousness in 2004. Most people were mystified as to what went wrong with our political system, and felt demoralized and disempowered. After all that work--for instance, the grass roots movement created a Democratic blowout success in new voter registration nearly 60/40 in 2004. How could Bush win with all those folks flocking to the Democratic Party for change?
But now we know--or a lot more of us know than did then. One sign of it: Absentee Ballot voting has QUINTUPLED in some places, and has seen dramatic increases everywhere, in direct proportion to the cancerous spread of corporate-controlled election voting machines. This is a huge PROTEST against the machines! Ordinary people are signaling that they've gotten the word. They know! And they are trying to get their vote counted. They want PAPER BALLOTS, HAND COUNTED. They are BOYCOTTING the machines.
So I'm optimistic even if the Diebold/ES&S steals it big. It will expose them, and we'll be able to get rid of these machines all the quicker.
I have always felt that election reform will be solved at the LOCAL/STATE level where ordinary people still have some influence, and where decisions about voting systems are still made. This huge Absentee Ballot protest will put great pressure on election officials. The voters are giving a thumbs down on electronic voting. And if the Bushites use their secret programming to steal it big, all the more citizen outrage and pressure for change will be generated.
But if they want to preserve their election theft capability for future purposes, they won't steal it big--in defiance of all the polls. They will steal it cleverly. They will put together an apparent Democratic victory in the House, but one that includes too many Bushite Democrats (like those who voted for torture and suspension of habeas corpus the other week) who will combine with outright Bushites to tie the hands of the REAL Democrats who represent the great majority of people in the country. This may have already been arranged by means of Diebold/ES&S in the PRIMARIES. Diebold/ES&S hold control over our choice of candidates in the primaries, as well as who wins in the general (s)elections. That's how we end up with so few antiwar candidates, in a country with SEVENTY PERCENT of the people against the war. And it's how we end up with so-called Democrats like Harold Ford, or Joe Lieberman, or Christopher Dodd, or Diane Feinstein, for candidates--people we can barely stand to vote for, and who actually are Republicans and even Bushites in many respects. Or all the so-called "centrists" Democrats who were born to compromise. Corporatists, really. Not a socialist bone in their bodies. WHERE are the populists? WHERE are the firebrand leftists, so badly needed these days?: WHERE are the REAL representatives of the people?
So, in this scenario, we win but not really. We may gain the benefit of people like Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and Henry Waxman being in charge of the House. That is significant. But if other Democrats constantly stymie them, it's going to be very frustrating. Think about this: Will the best Democratic House that you can imagine in present circumstances rescind the torture bill? And what of the Senate?
Further, those of us who still object to Bushite corporations counting all our votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, are going to hear, "What's your beef--the Democrats won, didn't they?" A carefully calculated victory for the Dems in the House, that doesn't have much clout, will be use AGAINST badly needed election reform.
It will be especially frustrating for election reformers, who know that the long term problem of direct Corporate control of our election results is extremely grave--and MUST be broken, for real democracy to happen here.
But, again, I have a strong faith in the American people. Corporations "counting" all our votes with SECRET programming is just plain unamerican and wrong. 92% of the people in a Zogy poll want TRANSPARENT vote counting--vote counting they can see and understand. THEY are going to solve this eventually.
Even with a Dem majority in the House, I don't think we can remedy the election system in Congress. Bear in mind that almost ALL of these people will be (s)elected by Diebold/ES&S, which makes Congress, which is already too far removed from ordinary people and ordinary life, nearly immune from the opinions of their constituents. Some of these office-holders would have been elected anyway. Not all. (And almost none of the Bushites, in my opinion. What a scurvy crew!) So Congress is not likely going to solve it. The best they will propose, in my opinion, is a mandated paper ballot, but that is simply not good enough, when the real problem may well be the TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming in the central tabulators! Optiscans are not okay because of this. They just scan your ballot into the rigged electronics, and turn it into manipulable electrons that are "sent" to the central tabulators, and, with zero auditing in some places--and only a 1% audit in the best states--wholesale, undetectable vote theft is still possible. Diebold/ES&S is still in control. And I'm afraid that our Corporate Democrats like it that way. They seem to see nothing wrong with secret Corporate control of the vote counting. The official Dem policy is pro-optiscans, and has NOTHING TO SAY about the central tabulators, nor about the vast corruption of the electronic voting machine boondoggle and its big, expensive electronics contracts.
So the problem will have to be solved by we, the people, at the local/state level, where we can still have something to say about things, if we put our collective minds together. Election officials live next door. State officials are not that far away. And people are roused up about this, if the huge Absentee Ballot protest is any indication--and I think it surely is. People are already protesting the machines in big numbers.
Third scenario: Diebold/ES&S back off entirely--possible, but not probable (I think the second scenario, above, is the most likely one.) We win 30-50 seats in the House. The Bushite Democrats are totally outnumbered. And we win the Senate, too (if there is any justice). That's what SHOULD happen. That's what history and precedent dictate. That's what the polls are saying. But we have a rigged election system that we must get rid of, before we see real representation of the majority of Americans in Congress.
Once we restore real elections and our right to vote--working long and hard at the local/state level--we will then find ourselves back at square one, as to the our election system. Filthy with corporate money. Dominated by corporate lobbyists, and the political debate skewed way to the right by the corporate news monopolies. But at least we will have the basic tool--TRANSPARENT elections--with which to address these problems, by electing good people who are beholden to US, not to Corporate vote counting.
56% of the American people opposed the Iraq war, way back before the invasion--Feb. '03. 70% oppose Bush and his heinous war now. And impeachment sentiment is up to 50%.
63% of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances"--May '04.
60% to 70% of the American people disagree with Bush and the Bushites on virtually every major issue.
50% to 60% of the voters in some places are onto Diebold and ES&S--and are BOYCOTTING their machines by Absentee Ballot voting.
This is the basis of my faith in the American people. And even some apparently negative statistics support that faith. For instance, some 50% of the people still believe that Saddam had WMDs and/or had something to do with 9/11. But, you see, almost 60% still opposed the invasion, and opposition to the war now is in the 70% range. Interesting, huh? What it means to me is that the American people are struggling mightily to think for themselves! They may have some disinformation rattling around in their heads--but they STILL don't trust George Bush, and never did. They may still believe in the WMDS, but they don't think the threat warranted invasion. They may still believe in a 9/11 connection, but they obviously think it was minor, and again, not justification for a war.
And, boy, that is some fine thinking, and fine discrimination! Figure this: Ordinary Americans have been battered with 24/7 rightwing propaganda from our corporate news monopolies for six years! And that propaganda has FAILED.
You want your country back? You got it! It's been here all along. Now all we have to do is get our POWER back!
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