Sunday, December 20, 2009

If This Situation Continues, Bend Waaay Over and Kiss Your Country Good-Bye

Mark Crispin Miller is a national treasure, and though many may use that phrase lightly, there is nothing light about his worth in gold. No one seems to be following the matter of the sanctity of the vote except for a very few progressive bloggers - and I use that word "progressive" as a synonym for "honest."

Although this tale is highly complicated, it’s well worth your close attention, if you’re concerned about the status of electoral democracy in the US, and the possibility of saving it. Some would say that Georgia is Ground Zero of Bush/Cheney’s grand subversion of our voting system. (Others would say the same of Arizona.) The situation there has been especially dismal since Election Day, 2002, when Sen. Max Cleland and Gov. Roy Barnes were both robbed of their victories – a theft for which, by now, there is abundant solid evidence.

And yet the Democratic Party (Cleland and Barnes included) continues to look steadfastly away from what went down there. Remember President-elect Obama’s big speech in Chicago’s Grant Park?

Remember his inspiring tale of Annie Hooper Nixon, the old Georgia woman whose forebears toiled in chains, yet who, that very day, had cast her ballot as a free American? Presumably, of course, she’d cast her vote for him – and yet it’s just as likely that her ballot counted for McCain, since Annie Nixon voted electronically, on a voting machine devised and operated by Diebold/Premier.

Although Obama was aware that she had cast an electronic vote (he ringingly invoked the moment “when she put her finger on that button”), he either somehow didn’t know, or simply doesn’t care, (a) that Diebold/Premier had from the start been owned and runby Christianist Republicans, and (b) had, early in the decade, signed a secret deal with Georgia’s SoS (Cathy Cox, a “moderate” Democrat) to manage most elections in thePeach State, where elections had, therefore, been largely privatized.

So, with “Democrats” like that – i.e., not only Cathy Cox, but Cleland and Obama and the rest of them – who needs “Republicans”? Both parties have long been complicit in the theft of our elections, even if the Democrats’ collusion has been passive.

Fighting for Democracy in Georgia (in the US, Not the Caucasus) Posted by mcm December 17, 2009 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Suzan __________________

7 comments:

One Fly said...

The dims were told and knew the dangers of electronic voting machines but like most everything else even back then they went along with it.

We can already kiss most of it away.

Cirze said...

You make such a good point, One Fly.

I've wondered in times past when reading about the genesis of this deal with the known devils exactly how large the contribs had to be to have them sign off on the country's lifeblood.

Today's health care fiasco proves that whatever the price was, it was right.

For them.

Thanks for your comments, and I too fear that we are beyond recovery in our low information environment and are left with the only alternative being to make plans to leave.

S

rjs said...

this is old, but still appropriate: vote by diebold

Cirze said...

Not old to me (unless you mean by its date).

Thanks for the info, friend!

S

Lisa G. said...

Brava Suzan. See I can get through that! Diebold is just plain evil. We use optical scan here in IL. I really like it. We like our politicians corrupt and Dem here in the Land of Lincoln, but sometimes they get something right.

Greendayman said...

We use the optical scanners here in Maine as well. As heinous as these crimes are, they are but a cog in the machine that elects and controls our senators, congressmen and President. The money machine.

I know that my Obama/Dem majority denial ran very deep until recently when I read a few excerpts of Nadar's new book and it was making sense.

I am also starting to believe that these corporate interests are so deeply embedded into our system from the voting booth to media control and corporate lobbying money that we may very well be beyond the point of no return. I can never remember it being this blatently obvious that corporate interests trump popular support. I, too, plan my escape to the wilds of Maine.

Cirze said...

I'm with you GDM (and Lisa!).

Escape!

Did you read Fritz Hollings expose of the original David Rockefeller/G-S/AIG, etc., scheme to move all the jobs offshore back in the 70's? I'm gonna write about it tomorrow.

Yeah. It worked!

He's documented all the players involved and how they benefitted and how they are still at the trough.

This puts a pretty fine point on Billary's term, not to mention the Bushes' and why Raygun, who didn't move fast enough for them earned a couple of bullets from CIA-connected Hinckley.

Sickening.

Gagging,

S