|
Our democracy is hanging by the thinnest of threads. BushCon companies OWN the election system (secret proprietary source code running the vote tabulation machines; no paper trail in a third of the country)--in addition to owning the presidency, the Congress, the courts and the media. (Germany 1934, consolidation of all state power.)
We really need to get this through our heads. Voting doesn't matter in these circumstances. WE WILL NEVER ELECT A PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENT OR CONGRESS EVER AGAIN, unless we can get this changed NOW.
It CAN be done. Election rules are still largely a state matter. And most people would agree that, a) a paper receipt for every vote, and b) open source code, are sensible and just (if not paper ballot and hand counts--the best solution).
We need highly focused local and state groups to get this done NOW. (Congress isn't going to be helpful!)
This must be Project #2, after the election fraud fight--which of course feeds into it. The more people who realize the election was stolen by electronic means, the more will be outraged and demand change, and support our efforts to change it. Kerry voters are the majority! --nationwide, in many big states, and probably ALSO in a lot of "red" states that, in reality, turned "blue" on 11/2. So we DO have the power to get transparent elections, if we act NOW.
The election fraud challenge--whatever its outcome--is critical to recovering our election system, because it is a very good way to inform Kerry voters what happened.
Another thing we really need to understand is that the Democratic leadership for the most part acquiesced in the BushCons owning the election system. They should have screamed bloody murder about this. They should have burned down the Capitol to get it changed.
Why they didn't, I can't fathom. Truly, it's a mystery. At the very least, they should have yelled about it on the campaign trail, and, for godssake, WARNED the voters and the volunteers.
Horror scenario #8978765: BushCons introduce legislation to mandate electronic, paperless voting in the entire country, with BushCon companies owning the secret source code that runs the machines. What power do we have to stop them?
A few--maybe many--Democrats object. They are knocked over like so many bowling pins. And that's where they stay. Flat out on the ground, spinning around. THEY HAVE NO POWER TO STOP IT. WE HAVE NO POWER TO STOP IT.
Ridicule? Embarrassment? Publicity? Outraged voters? Outraged communities? A hundred thousand letters to Congress? Ha. The BushCons are immune to public opinion, for the very reason that they own the election system itself, and can produce any result they wish. And they can make it total control if they want to, and select who the token opposition (our representatives) are going to be.
They know they can't win an honest election. They will hang onto hackable voting with tooth and claw, and extend it, if they decide to.
WE MUST GET THIS CHANGED AT THE STATE LEVEL NOW! WE MUST! It's our last remaining right, and they have taken it away. It's fundamental to everything else. THERE IS NO OTHER ISSUE OF IMPORTANCE!
In my estimation, our democracy and our country are in so much trouble, it doesn't matter how you vote, who you support, or what party you register with--except for how it may affect, right now, the struggle to recover our right to vote.
A few weeks ago, I pledged to abandon my forty year membership in the Democratic Party, and to re-register Green, on Jan. 6, if the Democrats do not strongly challenge this election and defend our right to vote.
I wanted to punish them for their catastrophic failure of leadership on the election system, and for their seeming obliviousness to what it means: the END of our democracy.
I think most Democratic leaders exist in a bubble of money and power, apart from the rest of us, and think they will be safe no matter what the BushCons DO to the rest of us--they will be preserved as the token and appearance of democracy. That's what some of them think, anyway, in my opinion. They are protecting fiefdoms and their own hides. And they are beyond worthless--they are a positive menace--as our spokespeople and representatives.
So there is much reason to abandon the Democrats, and to punish them resoundingly--and, in time-honored fashion in American politics, create a third party, or join the Green Party and help expand it.
Time-honored, yes. But this, today, is an extremely unusual circumstance. Our loss of the right to vote is a CATASTROPHE. It MUST be reversed. And gaining allies and forming coalitions to get that done is of first importance.
Another consideration: One of the chief factors in the undoing of the German liberal democracy in the early 1930s was the fracturing of the Left. It's possible that the German communists of that era did not have the best of motives (they were allied with Russia). But the fighting between the socialists and the communists, and the fractures among all left and progressive parties, disabled the government--the vacuum into which Hitler stepped.
There were also serious economic factors, and post WWI demoralization-- but if the liberal government had been able to hold things together, Hitler might not have gained the foothold that he did in legitimate government. He then crushed the entire Left, and Center, and even the Right. No more parties. No more democracy. And embarked on his extremist course.
It's happening somewhat differently here (and we ARE a quite different country in many ways--not nearly so easy to control), but that ineptness and in-fighting on the Left haunts me.
You can be sure some of it was instigated by Hitler's operatives (divide and conquer). But not all of it. Some was just the normal workings of democracy (free minds always argue more)--but not all of it. There seem to have been no wise, steady people who could keep the progressive majority focused and unified.
I think the lesson is that great care should be taken to STRATEGIZE our activities, especially internal criticism, and circular firing squad eruptions--is it constructive? does it serve our goals? is it motivating and inspiring people? is it petty and egotistical? is it purely emotional venting, or reasonable and useful?
We here in the U.S. are at the vortex of ill-intended and outright evil forces that are bent on dominating and shutting us up, and sucking us dry. Our power to stop this fascist coup, and all that it is doing to the rest of the world, is well understood by the fascists themselves. That's why they are doing what they're doing--why they set up a fraudulent, non-transparent election system; why they propagandize us; why they bother with us at all. They want our money and our natural resources. They are already feeding like parasites off of our tremendous creativity and industriousness. But most of all they want and need to coopt our power as citizens, and they are well on their way to doing so.
There is no other country in the world in which the re-establishment of democracy is so vital, as it is here.
It's very difficult to see out of this vortex--to see what we're in the middle of. It's a hurricane-force, swirling, dizzying spin downwards. We need to give a lot of thought to keeping each other from drowning, preventing panic, and looking for that stick, that raft, that life-preserver, or that inner strength, that can get us out of the vortex, and back into a calmer, saner world.
I think that saving object is our right to vote. We must hang onto it for dear life.
___________
"Inaction from the Democrats on January 6 was a foregone conclusion on November 3rd."--Walt Starr
Well, we'll see about that. Reports seem to say otherwise--that there WILL be a challenge.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
