WE ARE ALL FLORIDA NOW - George Will (???)

[kpete]

WE ARE ALL FLORIDA NOW
George Will


THANKS TO ELECTION 'REFORM' October 29, 2006 -- THE hoariest jest in conservatism's repertoire is that the three least-credible assertions in the English language are "The check is in the mail," "Of course I'll respect you in the morning" and "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." Which brings us to the exquisitely named Help America Vote Act.

Having fixed Iraq and New Orleans, the federal government's healing touch is now being applied to voting. As a result, days - perhaps weeks - might pass after Election Day without the nation knowing which party controls the House or Senate. If that happens, one reason might be HAVA, that 2002 bit of federal helpfulness.

For more than two centuries before Congress passed HAVA, Americans voted. Really. Unlike today, those who were elected - Clay, Webster, Lincoln and lesser lights - often were more complex and sophisticated than the voting machinery.

Using pencils to make marks on paper, and later using machines to punch holes in paper ballots, voters (without federal help; imagine) caused congresses and presidents to come and go. States ran elections, some better than others. Some ballots (and some voting machines) have been better designed than others; most have been adequate. The gross defects of U.S. voting practices were laws that established or permitted discrimination and other abuses. Tardily, but emphatically, those laws were changed and other abuses halted.

more at:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/we_are_all_florida_now_opedcolumnists_george_f__will.htm

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Someone needs to tell George Will that the government is now

controlled by his buddy's in the Chamber of Commerce. What a joke. Our whole government system has become psychopathic.

[hedgehog]

2. I enjoyed reading that this "reform" is being driven by the

federal government. Somehow I was under the mistaken notion that the Republicans were behind this.


Does this article mean that the Republicans know they're going to lose big so they've already started to plant suspicions about the results?

[Kurovski]

4. Well, one wag in DU's Election Reform Forum did dub HAVA the

"Hack America's Vote Act."

[Peace Patriot]

8. a.k.a. the "Help America Vote for Bush Act"!

Worst piece of crap legislation ever passed by a U.S. Congress, with the possible exception of the torture/suspension of habeas corpus bill the other week. They keep outdoing themselves.

But the torture bill follows from "HAVBA." That WAS the coup. Oct. 29, 2002. The day Bush signed the law that killed U.S. democracy.

Now it's real, real hard to get it back. I do think we will. I don't think it's going to be easy. But I'm very encouraged by the huge Absentee Ballot vote this time. People KNOW. And they're trying to figure out how to get around the rigged system.

I've said all along--well, starting about 11/3/04--that this is a junta. These Bushites don't represent the majority. And I think the word is out as to how they stayed in power. The American people are going to solve this, collectively, in a restoration of our great democratic tradition. I have always felt that we would. I've always had faith in the American people, and in the great progressive majority. And I have faith that the human mind longs for truth, and eventually sorts out lies and leaders' illusion-makings. I think a lot of people had this crew figured out way back in Feb. '03 before the invasion of Iraq (56% of the American people opposed to it, way back then). What we had not figured out, then, was how we were being manipulated into powerlessness and feelings of hopelessness--for instance, this whole 'christian' winger thing pushed by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, way out of proportion to its actual numbers (among other things). Relentless 24/7 propaganda--which did NOT succeed on its APPARENT message that killing and torturing Arabs and multiple tax cuts for the super-rich are good for our country--but DID succeed in making members of the majority feel outnumbered, isolated and alone. Then HAVBA kicked in, to make us feel that a whole lot of OTHER Americans had gone bonkers and voted for four more years of this horror.

Well, we're seeing a lot of people wake up from this nightmare--and it's a beautiful thing, I must say. But we still have a lot of hard work to do, to get our country back.

[BeFree]

5. HAVA

The year was 2002. Tom Delay and Bob Ney two (now indicted) congressmen came up with the HAVA act. Around the time the act was passed, Delay was quoted as saying the pubs were now going to crush the democrats. The republicans were indeed behind this *reform*.

HAVA spent nearly 4 billion federal dollars on new-fangled voting machines. Basically three companies were the beneficiaries of those dollars. Two of the companies were solidly republican, and the CEO of one - diebold promised he would deliver Ohio's 2004 electoral vote to bushco.

George will has seen the light. He now recognizes the disaster HAVA has created. Of course, if we citizens didn't see it two years ago and begin acting to counter it's revolution in voting systems, it's doubtful anyone today would even be talking about it. And it was mainly red-blooded patriotic Americans who happened to be democrats, that saw HAVA for what it is those long 2 years ago. Now even George Will is asking questions.

We are winning.

[flyarm]

7. actually it was 4 years ago in Florida and Georgia..that began exposing

Hava and the machines..we had these machines in 2002 when another of our elections were stolen!! and having our voters disenfranchised since 2000!!

fly

[BeFree]

9. Yep

Georgia was the first state to go all electronic. The year was 2002, right after HAVA was passed. It took until next year, 2003, before HAVA money was disbursed and the election of 2004 was duly infected with the vote stealing machines.

But most state deadlines for being totally infected by HAVA was this year: 2006.

In Georgia 2002, the diebold vote stealing machines pulled off a couple of remarkable upsets. The pre election polls calling for Dem wins were off by as much as 10%, as were the exit-polls. It was the first time in exit-polling history that exit-pollers were left scratching their heads wondering what happened. Until then they had always correctly called elections, sometimes as early as 5pm on election days.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Now there's a fascist meme for you. Put fascists in charge of the federal

government. They fuck everything up--from the military, to emergency response, to our election system. Then BLAME IT ON THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S "HEALING TOUCH."

I read this, this morning, and laughed out loud.

Yes, Virginia, the federal government CAN have a "healing touch." It can stop white bigots in the south from shooting and a disappearing the bodies of civil rights rights workers. It can enforce the right of all citizens to vote, and their Constitutional right to non-discrimination in employment, housing, schools, lunch counters, drinking fountains and bus transportation. It can drag the nation out of the Great Depression by innovative federal work programs, national retirement insurance, placing a safety net under the poor and REGULATING big business. It can foster the American Dream, by funding good local educational programs and scholarships, and enacting a progressive tax system. It can protect workers' rights. It can defeat organized crime. The federal government--the collective will and policy of the American people--can do MANY things to heal the rifts between one race and another, and between the rich and the poor. And it COULD HAVE improved the fairness and transparency of our election system after the 2000 election debacle--instead of making things infinitely worse.

But only if Republican fascists are NOT in charge of it.

[w4rma]

6. Well written, Mr. Will. (nt)

[porkrind]

10. Duh, of course HAVA is a disaster.

Funny that this has been obvious since the POS HAVA was introduced, but only now does establishment shill George Will speak out. Only now that he can feel change in the electoral wind against the * administration. Will is a lightweight who is so desperate to be seen as an intellectual that he uses big words everywhere they don't fit. He's like the rest of the GOP bootlickers that now suddenly call themselves "libertarians" and "economic conservatives" instead of repugs because they sense the boat is sinking.

That anyone takes George Will seriously is an indication of just how completely out-of-touch the beltway is.

[DaveT]

11. If you look at what Will is saying instead of griping about him,

he is telling you something interesting. He predicts that the outcomes of a number of elections will be delayed.

I think he is on to the scam this go round. Rather than having several million "stealth" voters show up to reverse the outcome of relatively close elections as in 2002 and 2004, the systems are just going to go zonk in dozens of jurisdictions, making the vote count impossible. (IE, whole precincts erased; other precincts producing four times as many votes as people who sign in, etc.) In the chaos of twenty or thirty disputed elections with obvious and undeniable "problems" in tabulation, we are back to Florida 2000 -- with Cable TV and talk radio able to exercise their tactical advantage of instant propaganda to accuse various Dems of trying to "steal" their elections.

Eventually, the Repubs will say that it is up to Congress to decide who won and who lost -- and if anybody tries to litigate against this notion, it winds up back with Scalia et al at the Supreme Court who will say that in the absence of a mandate to change the status quo from "the people", the incumbent stays in office. Or some such sophistry.

If they just jam a massive fraud that is belied by all the polling data down the country's throat, it will be too preposterous for even many of their own supporters to swallow.

But if the fix is not exactly in the GOP's favor, but instead just screws up the counting process, people will be confused and the "game" will go on. When you are behind by 8 points in football, you try to tie the score and worry about overtime when it comes. . . .

[BeFree]

13. Yep

The "game" will go on. Some folks have a simplistic notion about the election "game". They still think it is honest as can be... it seems some folks still think "They wouldn't do that, not here in the good ol' USA."

Chaos has served bushco rather well. It has been their plan from day one.

Well, our plan is to prove the fraud that flows from the chaos. You with us, Dave?

[DaveT]

14. I'm not sure what you mean by "with us" but yeah I'm up for

the fight about the election if it goes that way.

I hesitate to just say Yeah because I do agree with the "side" here at DU that counsels against despair and fatalism and the assumption that the Repubs will steal or otherwise hamper the election. Many on the other "side" of the argument post these pathetic notions about how the Repubs have the whole thing wired and then add nothing more in the way of a countervailing strategy. I figure that many of them are stealth trolls playing what I call the Borg Card -- the last edge that the scumbags have is that so many people believe that Rove is a "genius" and that all the significant national institutions are in his hip pocket and therefore resistance is futile.

I believe we shouldn't look at it as either/or but both/and.

Yes, we should fight for every possible vote as if we believe there will be a fair vote count. In point of fact, voting fraud was not invented in the 21st Century and one of the best weapons against it is to turn out a huge majority of the people attempting to vote. That makes it much harder to steal.

But that can't be the whole strategy.

We have to be ready to keep fighting through the vote count and beyond. Count me in for that.

[BeFree]

15. Even on DU

Has the chaos taken hold. They've set us fighting amongst ourselves.

The backlash against the folks who express their displeasure with what they see as a system designed to steal their vote is understandable. What concerns me is that it is just that: a backlash, a knee jerk reaction.

Instead of helping these folks with reasons to be encouraged, they just lash out - call them freepers, trolls, etc. While a few may have been puppets, methinks many are rightfully scared of the situation. A situation that frankly has no simple solution.

Anyway, glad to see you are willing to wade in and work to protect the vote. We will need everyone we can muster to make sense out of the coming chaos.

[DaveT]

17. Thanks, excellent perspective

I hope more clarity can be achieved.

[Kip Humphrey]

12. Best sign Dems will win? Repubs are now worried about our voting systems

Afraid they are Dems will gain control of the machines and the code!

[jazzjunkysue]

16. It's largely an excuse: How can you expect the govt to get it right?

He's letting the repubs off the hook, by starting the "Oh, well. I guess we goofed" defense.

Sneaky. This guy's a bigot, but he's a clever, subtle bigot.