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the Democrats' 30-seat win in the House, and very tight majority in the Senate (giving them the committee chairs) was a victory, if for nothing else, for common sense. But looking at the composition of the Congress, you still do not see a representative body, nor one that even comes close to being representative of the American people. For instance, SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people want the Iraq War ended--yet there is a significant group among the Democratic majority, like the Democrats who voted for torture and suspension of habeas corpus just prior to the election--Bushite Democrats--who can block strong action on the war, block Congress holding Bush accountable on finances and policy, block impeachment, and block any strong effort to restore the "balance of powers" which has been catastrophically tilted toward the president. For instance, what if Henry Waxman issues a subpoena to Cheney for documents, and Cheney defies it--which he has already promised to do? Does this Congress have sufficient numbers to force the issue with impeachment? Really, I don't think they do. So, just looking at the makeup of the new Congress, and knowing what I do about Bushite corporate control of our election system (--with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code in all the new, extremely insecure and insider hackable electronic voting machines), I am inclined to believe that this is a very crafted Congress and that the victory for the people, and the left, is something of an illusion.
We still have elections that are awash in dirty money. We still have war profiteering corporate news monopolies that severely limit political debate. And added to this, we now have a NON-TRANSPARENT election system, which is being run by corporations with close ties to the Republican Party and far rightwing causes, using SECRET code to count all the votes. Our corporate rulers (and associated war profiteers) thus clearly possess the ability--in both indirect and direct ways--to shape Congress to their own purposes. And it is not at all a "conspiratorial" or outlandish speculation that, a) they decided to let a little steam out of our pentup political system, by permitting a modest Democratic win in the House (with a selected group of candidates, with leftist/antiwar views largely weeded out in the primaries--or unable to be heard in the primaries, due to lack of money or news manipulation); and b) the voters overwhelmed the machines (and rightwing money) in some cases, and gave the Democrats a bigger win than was planned.
There is an indirect bit of evidence that the voters intended an even bigger swing to the left--and that is the Absentee Ballot vote. There was a huge increase in the AB vote this year--50% of the entire state of California voted by AB, and it was big all over the nation.* This appears to me to be a voter REVOLT against the electronic voting machines. Voters--in big numbers--were trying to get around the rigged electronics. And this indicates widespread and deep suspicion of the system and a rebellious attitude.
The rebelliousness of the American people is evident in many ways. And this trend left is a phenomenon that is by no means restricted to this country. Virtually the entire map of South America has now gone "blue"--with leftist (majorityist) governments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia, and--as of today--Ecuador! (Leftist Rafael Correa won the election, big time!) And there is a huge leftist revolt in Mexico, which the right has handled much the same way they have handled the progressive majority here, by stealing elections. This is only going to make the peoples' revolt more determined, of course, and when the majority gains power, the correction toward the left may mean serious curtailment of the Corporate Rulers. Fools, they!
Restoring the "balance of power" here, though--in the heart of the Evil Empire--may take longer. We have not really had a political party that represents the majority for some time. And we either have to achieve serious reform of the Democratic Party or start a new one, to effect long, long overdue reforms. And the worse things get--and they are already very bad, under Bush--the more radical those reforms need to be. See anything radical in the new Congress' agenda? The recent midterms were a correction to the middle, not to the left. A raise in the minimum wage, but the draconian bankruptcy bill stays in place. Talk of "withdrawal" plans for Iraq (withdrawal to nearby emirates!), but not a whisper about the military budget and how it can tempt fascists to conduct wars of choice. (Why do we need an offensive military capability at all? Who else are we planning to invade? Why not cut the military budget down to a true defensive posture, and thus make presidential slaughters of innocent people impossible?) A true leftist (majorityist) reaction to what Bush has done would be to propose, say, a 50% cut in the "Defense" budget. But there is no talk of that. We here talk of investigations, but "impeachment is off the table" (--in spite of the longest list of "high crimes and misdemeanors" we have ever seen in the executive branch).
SOMEBODY on the right is issuing "talking points" about "conservatism" surviving in these elections. It's Karl Rove's MO to steal elections and then issue the pre-written narrative for post-election "talking points" about why they "won." I think that's what we're seeing here (and it all sounds so much the same, as if it is issuing from one keyboard). So I understand the impulse to fight it. It is a lie--one of those lies that sounds true, if you only look at selected facts. (It's like the cherrypicked "intelligence" on Iraq WMDs.) "Conservatism" may have survived artificially, in remnant form, due to the "cherrypicking" of candidates by Diebold/ES&S, the corporate news slant, and money, but the majority of Americans clearly wanted more than that: 30% approval rating for Bush (and rarely over 40% going on two years now--ever since the 2004 Diebold/ES&S (s)election). 70% against the War, up from 56% just before the invasion. 84% (!) want no part in a widened Mideast war ('06). 63% oppose torture "under any circumstances" (5/04). And grave worries about jobs, skyrocketing medical costs, education costs, energy costs and personal debt. NOBODY is seeing to the needs of MOST of the people in this country. The very definition of "the left" is a belief in government intervention against predatory capitalism, on the side of labor, the poor and other victims, who are deprived of their RIGHTFUL share of profits, or who require society's humanitarian assistance. The vast majority of this country wants leftist government--government that is on THEIR side.
In truth, "Conservatism" committed suicide when it invaded Iraq, allied itself with nutball 'christians,' and drove up the deficit to $10 TRILLION, amidst multiple tax cuts for the super-rich. It is dead. And I think it would have been dead a couple of years ago, if it hadn't been for the electronic voting coup. The greedbags will have to think up something else as a contrived narrative for their stolen elections (if we continue to let them steal our elections--or craft them).
I think the only broad political question that remains involves the struggle between the Corporate Democrats and the real Democrats. The real Democrats, who are still a minority in Congress, bear the burden of representing the majority of the American people. They are already being called "radical"--on this weird political spectrum that the corporate news monopolies have invented, in which mere common sense--or policies that favor most people--are considered "extremist." The Corporate Democrats are tools of the Corporate Rulers--not nearly the "pod people" that the Bushites are, but still way far to the "right" for the party of FDR (labor, the poor). They're all millionaires, or multi-millionaires. And most of them voted for the war, and would probably support a widened Mideast war, if it was more "efficient" (with less hand over fist stealing). "Corporate" includes corporate war profiteer--the "military-industrial complex," with too many of our Democrats hogtied to it, for economic reasons (and reasons of corruption). They have ceased to be representative of the American people. And they are very powerful and entrenched. So, when we say the Democrats swept the Congressional elections, we have to take this into consideration. What was the spectrum of choice? And did the American people get the spectrum of choice they wanted--that truly reflects their views? I certainly don't think they did.
But that LACK OF democracy is no basis on which to say that the voters somehow endorsed "conservatism." That is lie! It is Karl Rove all over again, pre-writing the corporate news monopoly narrative, on the basis of elections that remain extremely non-transparent and skewed way to the right by money and entrenched power.
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*(The big Absentee Ballot vote also gives the election reform movement a ready-made strategy for achieving a paper ballot system BY DEFAULT--a strategy that does not depend on Congress for half measures, or gutted reform bills, but proactively organizes these AB voters at the state/local level, to pressure election officials to, a) handcount the AB votes and, b) post the results BEFORE any electronics are involved. This is clearly what the AB voters want, and they are such a big voting constituency now, that they have to clout to get it, at the LOCAL level. As they start getting these concessions, it will snowball. Everyone will want this security for their vote. This strategy also circumvents the corruption wrought by billions of dollars in e-voting contracts. It gives corrupt (or duped) officials a way to save face. They can keep their expensive, crapass, hackable new machines, for the time being, and can use them for double-checking the hand count, and storage/reporting of data. But the secret corporate lock on vote tabulation will be broken.)
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