Reply #3: Here's something behind the scenes on this [View All]

[BevHarris]

I've been winning the "she's just a conspiracy theorist" battle lately, but clearly, some of the reporters are just darn tootin' sure they are going to call it "conspiracy."

This Palm Beach Post reporter called me and tried to fish the "conspiracy" stuff out of me, or at least things he can label "conspiracy." I've learned to recognize it and every time he did, I said "want to see a memo?" -- basically, offered to document everything with internal Diebold documents, including R.F.P. sales proposals, memos, and software analyses.

He pretty much ran the other direction. Now, I notice he brought in Lynn Landes and used her for the excuse to get the word "conspiracy" into the article. I was sorry to see this; her reports are credible. But I'm glad more people are getting interviewed, because it is truly coming from all sides now. And Landes was the one that wrote "Assume Crooks are in Control" on Common Dreams last fall, and that is the article that piqued my interest in this.

Listen, all of you who are activists in this issue: Keep your antennas up, way up, for attempts to paint you as a conspiracy theorist. Stand your ground. Don't let them do that. I swear, some of these guys are told "you can cover it, but make sure you get the word 'conspiracy' in there somewhere."

In my Seattle Times article, I told him if he called me a conspiracy theorist I'd make him back it up with evidence or demand a correction. He said he'd write that other people said that about me. I put him on notice that the Slate guy who did that was told to print a correction, and if he quoted someone who had a correction printed, he'd have one too. So he said that I publish my stuff on Conspiracy Planet -- pretty disengenuous, because he knew my work was also vetted out in articles in AP, Washington Post, and CNN.

Just something to be aware of. It's one of the last talking points they've got, and the "conspiracy" objection is taking some hard punches now.

Bev