Fool Me Once, Shame On You - Fool Me Me Twice, Shame On Me
Talking about Stolen Elections, is Mark Crispin Miller's new book, Fooled Again -- How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One, Too (Unless We Stop Them).
Miller has become a known and respected progressive figure, one of the
few in-your-face bespectacled lefty author types with any credibility.
But when it comes to promoting Fooled Again, the guy can't even
get arrested. No interviews, nothing. In fact, these days even his cash
bounces -- Miller can't even buy a spot on National Public Radio for
his book.
I came to this book with, I think, the usual preconceptions: it will
present a paranoid conspiracy theory, it 's just a Democrat's sour
grapes, it will be the left-wing equivalent of an Ann Coulter or Joe
Scarborough rant--in other words, nothing new to say, shrieked at top
volume. Instead I found that Miller has the rare courage to take on a
forbidden topic, one of the few remaining in America. He asks us to
consider the possibility that our cherished democracy, the very heart
of American exceptionalism and the thing that sets us apart from (and,
in the eyes of many Americans, above) all other nations, is not merely
flawed or compromised but actually in danger of disappearing. Perhaps
it has already disappeared. We are now a nation in which one political
party has no intention of ever releasing its hold on power and the
other is too cowed to defend itself against constant attacks, let alone
defend its constituents or the integrity of the process by which power
is allocated.
The most glaring suspicion that the result was fraudulent arose around
the massive discrepancies between the exit polls and the result in
several states. Exit polls have been accurate at every election in
living memory in the US - except in 2000, which we have since
discovered would have been won by Al Gore if the Supreme Court had not
stopped the count and handed `Dubya' the presidency. The exit polls in
2004 were dramatically at odds with the result, and every single
discrepancy favoured Bush. In March 2005, a study came out from US
Count Votes, computing that the odds against such an enormous error in
the exit polls were 959,000 - 1. In other words, the chances that the
2004 election was not rigged are nearly a million to one.
The examples are detailed, numerous, and specific: widespread and
systematic pre-election disenfranchisement by local Republican election
officials, failure to register Democratic voters, distributing absentee
ballots late or incorrectly, spreading false and misleading
information, refusing to register Democrats to vote, manipulating the
availability of working voting machines to favor Republican precincts,
intimidating voters on college campuses and at the polls,
undersupplying provisional ballots in Democratic districts, throwing
away Democratic votes, manipulating paperless electronic voting
machines manufactured by Republican supporters, and virtually
prohibiting millions of overseas absentee ballots from being counted.
Miller points out that the Republican Party not only engaged in all of
these vote suppression tactics and more, they simultaneously asserted
repeatedly that the Democratic Party was in fact the one that was
engaging in the same underhanded behaviors they were perpetrating!
One weakness of the book is that it focuses exclusively on anecdotal
evidence for election theft. There is another half of the story which
is told by numerical evidence. The widespread statistical anomalies in
the 2004 election provide a context for the anecdotes, so that they
cannot be dismissed as isolated aberrations. The statistical story will
be told in a forthcoming book by Steve Freeman.
It has always been the duty
of the press or a few spectacularly brave individuals to call attention
to such things. And on rare occasions the press has done just that. But
this is not one of those occasions. Not for CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS or NPR.
Especially not for NPR. Given that the Republicans have them by the
balls, it is easier, not to mention far safer, for everyone to deny
that criminals operate within our political system and have established
what amounts to a corporate/political underworld. We can smell it at
every turn, and have seen its very reflection in those exit poll
results.
At some deep national level we all know, George W. Bush
has no right to be farting into the Oval Office desk chair. As Helen
Caldicott recently put it: "What's to become of us? Ask any experienced
mental health practitioner what happens to a person who constructs and
tries to maintain a life based on denial of fundamental reality. It can
be done for a while, in spite of occasional outbursts of behavioral
oddities (remember Dr. Strangelove's disobedient arm that was always
popping up in an embarrassing Nazi salute). But how long can such a
pretense be maintained, even when the pretender is surrounded by the
best handlers moneycan buy?" Apparently, Helen, a damned long time. At least eight years.
Miller's incredulity is further bolstered by the number of former
Bush-supporting newspapers that changed sides, and a number of
Republican luminaries (eg. Thruston Morton - former RNC Chairman, Rep.
Bob Barr, Eisenhower's son, faculty members from the Harvard Business
School).
One certain conclusion: Election officials have no business being
involved in anyone's campaigns, whether in Ohio, Florida, or anywhere
else!
UPDATE: Hear Black Elk
Earth Prayer
"Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to
hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need,
older than all prayer. All things belong to you -- the two-legged, the
four-legged, the wings of the air, and all green things that live.
"You have set the powers of the four quarters of the earth to cross
each other. You have made me cross the good road and road of
difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in, day out,
forevermore, you are the life of things."
Hey! Lean to hear my feeble voice.
At the center of the sacred hoop
You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
With running eyes I must say
The tree has never bloomed
Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!
Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.
If we shall fail to defend the Constitution, I shall fail in the attempt.
Talking about Stolen Elections, is Mark Crispin Miller's new book, Fooled Again -- How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One, Too (Unless We Stop Them).
Miller has become a known and respected progressive figure, one of the
few in-your-face bespectacled lefty author types with any credibility.
But when it comes to promoting Fooled Again, the guy can't even
get arrested. No interviews, nothing. In fact, these days even his cash
bounces -- 
