From Selma to Ohio - my report on the hearing today

WilliamPitt

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Wed Dec-08-04 08:57 PM
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From Selma to Ohio - my report on the hearing today

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120904W.shtml

From Selma to Ohio: A Report from the Conyers Hearing
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 08 December 2004

It looked for all the world like a real hearing. Along the far wall were arrayed Congressional Representatives from the Judiciary Committee. Before them at a long table sat witnesses and experts in front of microphones, prepared to give testimony on the record. Behind the witnesses sat row upon row of everyday citizens who came out to watch the proceedings; the crowd was so large that an overflow room needed to be opened on another floor. Along both walls were arrayed more than a dozen television cameras.

It looked like a real hearing but it wasn’t, because despite the issuing of invitations by the Democratic Minority members to their GOP Majority brethren on the Judiciary Committee, not one Republican congressman bothered to show up or give their blessing to the proceedings. Judiciary staffers from the Minority office told me the GOP majority would not even allow this hearing to be videotaped on the television equipment that came with the hearing room, and so they were forced to pester C-SPAN into showing up. They did, along with a number of other media outlets, but the effect was a quieting of the entire event.

In the official sense, then, this was not a true Congressional hearing. It bore no weight in law. One cannot overstate, however, the importance of what took place in room 2237 of the Rayburn House Office Building today. In this place was discussed the very future of participatory democracy in America, and the serious problems that future holds if the allegations of vote fraud in Ohio and elsewhere which were the subject of this hearing, are not dealt with in immediate and dynamic fashion.

(snip)

The hearing today took place in a unique moment in our history. Election fraud and voter disenfranchisement are not new in our history, but have been as much a part of the process as campaign buttons and baby-kissing. The fact that the electorate’s voting habits are becoming more clearly drawn, and the fact that so many were watching like hawks after Florida in 2000, means that the standard-issue fraud which has always existed now has a bright light shining upon it, and means the new kinds of fraud involving electronic machines and computer tabulators are likewise suffering intense scrutiny. In this moment, that bright light means the problems, both new and old, can and must be addressed, repaired, and purged from our democratic process.

Aspects of the hearing could have been better. There was a lot of heat from the panelists and from the crowd, but not nearly as much cold data delivered. Had the forum presented that cold data, had the forum made an irrefutable case, the process to come would have been better served. The data was there – the panelists came armed with reams of paper and facts – but needs to be more fully delivered to the public at large. There were also grumblings among the assembled about why it was that Dennis Kucinich was not in attendance, about why Howard Dean chose this day to hold a press conference that sucked some of the media oxygen out of the hearing room, and about why no Kerry campaign people or Senate staffers made any kind of public appearance at the event.

There was also a moment of deep frustration when the Representatives opened the floor to general questions from the audience. This led to something that always seems to happen when liberals and progressives get in a room together. Person after person came to the microphone not to ask questions, but to pontificate at length on whatever crossed their minds. As usual, this stole time from people who actually had questions, and led to a watering-down of the information at hand. When Conyers gently prodded people to move it along, some got openly aggressive and angry, despite the fact that they were riding roughshod over the stated process. Rep. Frank finally had to lay down the stomp on the quickly-unwinding process. The open forum could have been a beneficial addition to the hearing, but became in the end a waste of valuable time.

At the end of the day, the hearing was a beginning, a chance for those fighting this fight to look upon one another and know they are not alone. Rep. Conyers and his fellow Congressmen are to be commended for putting the process in motion. The most striking moment came when the hearing ended, and all of the people assembled began embracing one another. They had made their voices heard, they knew they were not alone, and it smelled like vindication in there when all was said and done.

The hearing was a beginning. There will be more, especially in Ohio. The lawsuits will continue. Rep. Conyers intimated today that he might object to the seating of the Ohio Electors when the certification process begins. The protests will continue to grow across the country. Perhaps, if we can follow through and accomplish the cleansing of our democratic process, we will look back on this day in room 2237 of the Rayburn House Office Building and know that yet another popular movement towards achieving that more perfect union began here, in this time, and in this place.

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