Village Voice article says we're all nuts...especially here at DU

[bobbieinok]

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0451/perlstein.php

It's too irritating and discouraging to post excerpts.

It does have a few good suggestions about what democrats should/would do if we had a Rove clone.

[MissBrooks]

1. What do you expect?

[Homer12]

2. I got

A banjo and a Jug full of Hooch, I'm crazy nutso.

[eleny]

3. We don't need to emulate the underhandedness of Rove

What he's believed to have done in the past is illegal. Nuts to the V-V.

[Desert Liberal]

10. No, we don't need to emulate Rove, BUT

We do need to mobilize and make changes for the benefit of our country. Jesse Jackson's Constitutional amendment sounds like a great start. Let's stop running around like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off.

[eleny]

21. you've got that right

[Carolab]

4. Yes, sure and that's what everyone said when we told them GORE won

but it's true. So up theirs.

[AngryAmish]

5. So we are nuts?

Screw him if he can't do the math.

[Nederland]

6. I liked it

I thought it was a balanced article that yet again demonstrates that Democrats are their own worst enemy.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Patsy Stone]

7. Two other threads on this article...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x185870
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=183658&mesg_id=183658

[bobbieinok]

19. hadn't seen them when I posted this.....the article is still maddening

[Patsy Stone]

24. True that... n/t

[RaulVB]

8. Already posted

And one portion of the "article" is actually very good for our movement:

"If the Ohio situation shows anything, it is how lazy, harried, dilettantish, variable, confusing, and sometimes even arbitrary election administration can be in the United States of America. "I don't think people understand how elections get reported on election night," says Jonathan Rosen, director of the New York Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "I mean, it's literally old blue-haired ladies who work once a year for a hundred bucks . . . yelling out the number to their husband with a hearing aid who's going to change the eight to a zero." The confusion advantages the more ruthless party, the Republicans: They are willing, as in Florida in 2000, to proclaim victory before all the votes have been counted—taking advantage of the American need for the election to be done with on election night—and to make those who protest sound like whiners, wreckers, or extremists..."

It describes how this joke of a democracy works, even if the "author" of the hit piece didn't try to explain it.

[The Gigmeister]

9. We DO need a "Rove"!!

James Carville, anyone?

As for the Village Voice...

It is THE Progressive publication and I, personally, respect them very much! I think we could learn a lot from this article. Personally, I would like to win next time!!!

[TruthIsAll]

12. Sure. n/t

.

[The Gigmeister]

35. Are you 99.95% "Sure"?

[HeeBGBz]

13. I thought Village Voice was a radical newspaper

Silly me. The times they are a-changin.

[enough]

20. Someone in another thread said the Voice is now owned by Murdoch.

Can anybody confirm?

[nashville_brook]

30. no, not murdoch -- owned by a corsortium set up by the Nasvhille Scene

Scene publisher Albie deFavro put together a deal where he created an entity that bought the Villiage Voice, the LA alt paper and all their little baby papers.

the scene used to be cool -- they used to rail against local "business pigs" and call out the stupidity of TN politics. but then something changed, i think the editor just got lazy and the scene. While continuing to garner lots of AAN awards, the Scene became more biz-centered. nothing wrong with that -- you want to be successful. but the overall tone of the paper became much more picayune (to borrow a word from the article).

at any rate -- they bought these giants of alt publishing. latida.

wouldn't matter if murdoch owned it or not.

[enough]

38. Thank you, nashville_brook

Very interesting.

[Carolab]

25. Carville? Don't make me laugh.

DEAN is the Democrat's Rove. Dean scares the piss out of Rove.

[NewsGuyOne]

32. Explain how Dean scares Rove.

Dean is damaged goods.
And besides, what makes you think he can play dirty and win?
Because that's what we're talking about when we say we want our own Karl Rove

[Carolab]

39. Dean is NOT damaged goods

Dean went on to reform Dean for America as Democracy for America and helped true progressive candidates to win their seats. His mission is quite clear: to do what Rove did and reform the party from the bottom up. He scares Rove all right, that was clear during the primaries when Rove said the opposite. He scares him because Dean isn't a candyass who is afraid to speak truth to power. He scares him because Dean is a grassroots organizer with a following that loves him and respects him. He scares Rove because Dean mobilized a huge grassroots organization that remains loyal to him. He scares Rove because he proved that a candidate for the people can collect mountains of money through many small donations, most of them over the Internet. Dean's organization is what started the Internet grassroots campaigning that catapulted Kerry's contributions to the top.

[The Gigmeister]

34. Hey, I'm all for Dean too!

Dean at DNC, Carville back in the Warroom!!

[Anakin Skywalker]

14. Perlstein Can Suck it!

[Eric J in MN]

15. I don't think an ambiguous Constitutional amendment would

help.

We need to work at the state-level to get the best election-system in our respective states we can.

[jarab]

16. I wish they'd make up their minds ...

One minute I'm a nut ... the next a fruit ....
...O...

[dewaldd]

17. He's probably a CIA operative

Seriously, the CIA employs hundreds upon hundreds of journalists. It owns media outlets. It's called "Operation Mockingbird." Read more about it:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_01_03_03_mockingbird.html

Not to mention the CIA/Wall Street connection.

Man, we are so f*cked.

[SPDBoston]

37. stuff like the Prison Planet article and CIA conspiracy talk

makes the Vilage Voice write articles like the one linked.

Serious "tinfoil hat" issues going on here.

I just spent a year of my life working for John Kerry and the sooner people realize the main issue is the people in power in the party, the better.

[zeemike]

18. He was right about a lot of things

The way to solve these problems is a constitutional amendment.
But his mistake is thinking it was all due to wacky election workers making mistakes. I could by it if it were not for the fact that Republicans always benefit from there mistakes.
But it is understandable from people that are out of touch with the people at large because they believe that most people in the "lower class" (you know the uneducated at Harvard or by some ivy league college) are just stupid and would never be intelligent enough to conspire to commit a fraud.
But what he doesn't know is that a constitutional amendment has no chance of passing in my lifetime.
First, the republicans will never bring it to a vote as long as they have power, and secondly the news media will not talk about it and thus no mass support for it.

[Dancing_Dave]

22. Sounds like the writer is trying to help.

A constitutional ammendment would help raise the issue in the right way. Then if Republicans move to stop it, people will at least see their commitment to fraud!

[Peace Patriot]

28. Bush's illegitimately elected Congressional majority...

...is going to fix it with a Constitutional amendment, so that all the black, poor and Democratic voters get to have their votes counted???

Uh-huh.

This is a distraction--maybe okay to state as a principle, but a waste of time and energy to pursue.

And I'd just as soon Bush's Congress keep its hands off election reform, thank you very much. (Embarass the Republicans? ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha........)

But enough of this. Patriots, we have a job to do, and the only way to do it is with highly focused, local and state grass roots groups. It's fairly simple. Most people will agree with it. But we don't have much time (before Congress makes things worse!).

1. A paper receipt for every vote.
2. Open source code.

Or, in the alternative (probaby the best idea):

1. Paper ballot.
2. Hand counted.

After January, this should be at the top of our agenda, and we need to be unrelenting until it's done. Nothing else matters--and nothing else can be done--unless we recover our right to vote.

(Psst! The Village Voice, like Rolling Stone, has been out to lunch for a very long time.)

[chomskysright]

23. I wrote the editor....

stand up people: it may be the village voice but need to know that the Dem party does not need no stinkin karl rove strategist who assume that Americans are gullible and idiots.

I'm offended by this article.

PIE IN FACE (PIF PIF PIF)

wE NEED a freaking voting process that works. THEN the true vote will be known. As it is, we're boxing with shadows.

[nashville_brook]

31. right on! pearlstein is a moron! nt

[Pepper32]

36. Agreed. n/t

[steelyboo]

33. Here's my letter, I wouldn't have bothered, but if the damn Voice attacks

us.... grrrrrrrr

anywho, here it is:

I am writing in response to your Op-Ed piece for the GOP disguised as an "article", "The Case of the Ohio Recount." I never thought the day would come when the "Village Voice" would be so adamantly AGAINST something coming out of the political Left. Don't even bother considering it for publication; I wouldn't want you to sully my name publishing it in that rag you are trying to pass off as journalism.

[libertypirate]

26. They want us to think we are at the crazey stage...

when we are really fighting them. I know what I know, they can see it how they want but free people believe the facts as they interpret them not how someone else does!

Tell them to put that in their pipe and smoke it.

[johan helge]

27. The US election process - e-voting WITHOUT a paper trail, ballots being

counted ONLY by machines - is madness. So without recounts, without investigations, noone can be sure of what happened in the 2004 election. DU and others try to do what the election process should have done - prove who really won.

[McCamy Taylor]

29. If we had a Rove clone we would ABORT it!