An Early Study of the 2006 Vote

Early reports of machine error and other kinds of voting fraud are leading to a serious analysis of the mid-term elections of 2006 in the United States.

At the link below is one such study. I believe you will find it well-researched, although early, and quite thought-provoking.

It is already clear significant problems remain with the voting system in the United States. Groups such as the Election Defense Alliance are to be applauded for their work.


http://electiondefensealliance.org/landslide_denied_exit_polls_vs_vote_count_2006

"Bobby"

On this the day after the forty-third anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I am glad to commend to you the new film "Bobby". Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, the film is a fictionalized account of the lives of several persons who were at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night of the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy.

Although the lateness of the hour precludes a decent review of the film here, I can attest to the film's quality, and its humaneness. The showing of the film at my local "civilized" theatre was enough to bring tears to the eyes of several.

If time permits I will write more about this rather important film. In the meantime, see the film if you can. It will do you good.

Election Fall-out

There has been much written in these last two weeks following the mid-term elections of 2006. In addition to being very busy with my employment, I have wanted to take a certain amount of time to read and try to digest some of what has been written.

The results are to be seen as significant. The pundits are right in saying the voters repudiated the Bush administration in every major area -- on the economy, on the Iraq War, even on North Korea. If anything the ire of the voters was muted -- by continued voter suppression efforts and by a media and Washington establishment which touted conciliation as a supposed expressed desire of the electorate.

Numerous Washington Democrats rushed to the microphones to state their readiness to work cordially with G. W. Bush, who almost immediately began plans to push for a radical agenda in the lame-duck Congress, including a renewed push to open the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

As readers of this web log know, Bush No. 43, as he is now known, represents the fascist forces in the world, the same forces which drove the economics of the British Empire and never accepted the establishing of the United States. Thus, any accomodation of Bush is akin to the appeasement Neville Chamberlain once offered to the Nazi, Adolf Hitler.

Let us not be deluded into thinking the desire for world domination by the corporate interests who stand behind Bush is over. I support the efforts of persons who are working to have an impeachment simultaneously or nearly so, of Cheney and Bush. We can be humane in our treatment of them. But an effort to drive them from office is tantamount at this point to a repudiation of the corporate globalization agenda. So, the necessity of the legal removal from office of these terror twins is clear. May this happen in a near time.

A Reader Responds

On the morning after the Election of 2006 I am glad to share with you this response to my posts of last evening from a reader in Brazil.


I agree with you. I hope Democrats come back to Congress in majority. Bush external politic is shaming US people from the rest of the world.

Stay alert and use the internet to protest.

(Slightly edited by TMP)

National Public Radio Projects Democratic Control of New Congress

The headline above tells the news. I believe this means not so much a victory for Democrats as a repudiation of President George W. Bush and the Republicans.

It is not too early to begin working anew for the impeachment or resignation of G. W. Bush, surely the most fascist President in American history.

More Results in Election 2006

There have been more results announced by CBS News. In the U.S. House, the Democrats have won some 159 seats so far compared with the Republicans who have won 149.

At this point the Democratic trend is continuing. Katie Couric has claimed the Democrats who are winning against the Republicans are conservative, anti-abortion candidates. On balance that may or may not be the case. If true, it does not change the fact that the far-right Republican agenda appears to be waning. That fact alone, is worth celebrating.

Election 2006 -- computer glitches

There are some early reports of computer problems in Election 2006. The web page whose URL appears below has some good information about computer glitches on Tuesday, November 7.


http://news.com.com/A+sampling+of+e-voting+glitches+on+election+day+2006/2100-1028_3-6133440.html

More of Election 2006

More results and projections are coming in. There are some disappointments for Democrats but few if any announcements are true surprises.

Deval Patrick, an African-American, has won the governorship of Massachusetts for the Democrats. Robert Menendez has retained his Senate seat in the New Jersey race against Republican Kean in a hard-fought battle. Since Menendez was considered the most vulnerable Democratic Senator, this is another sign of a Democratic trend this evening. Democratic Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been declared the winner by the Associated Press although Governor Blagojevich himself has not claimed victory.

Certainly, it is too early to make broad predictions about this election. At this point, however, Democrats appear to be doing well.

Election 2006

Tonight I have the pleasure of writing about Election 2006. If things go well in my schedule I plan to post several posts as the evening continues.

This morning I voted in my precinct with no obvious problems. The turn-out was light. There was no difficulty with the optical scan ballot which I actually found more "voter-friendly" than the old punch card ballot. My good feeling was spoiled only by the electronic "ballot box" which had the name Diebold prominently displayed. However, according to my research the optical ballot is relatively more secure than the touch screen computers.

At this point, Blackwell has been defeated in the Ohio governor's race, Rick Santorum has gone down to defeat, and Katherine Harris will not advance to the Senate. In very early returns, Democrat Claire McCaskill is leading Republican James Talent.

A few so-called bell-weather U.S. House seats have gone to the Democratic candidate.

Perhaps we have seen the high-water mark of the far-right political wave in American politics. Only time will tell. I will be staying tuned.

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Customs and Manners

This post consists almost entirely of an excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. I am quoting this today because of the eloquence of the writing, the obvious intelligence of this early President and because I believe the import of its message has a bearing on the U.S. of now. Although the excerpt deals with the bad effects of slavery, there is a resonance with now. For indeed, do we not now have a kind of economic slavery in which people must work in order to obtain health care? Is it not a kind of slavery to be only one paycheck away from starvation? Here, then, is the excerpt:

From Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, the section entitled The Particular Customs and Manners That May Happen to Be Received in That State

It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotisms on the one part and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him....if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him.

The Rush of Events

The past week has been a busy one for your web log host.

As we begin a new week, a week leading to the final days of Campaign '06, I wanted to deal with a couple of matters.

First, after considerable thought, I am coming to the conclusion that due to circumstances essentially beyond our control, progressives and lovers of liberty and justice are given no alternative but to work and vote for Democrats in the election next week. Such voting, however, must be accompanied by renewed activism at the local level to ensure both the abolition of insecure computerized voting, and the appearance of new progressive candidates on the ballot in the future.

Second, for those of you in the U.S. and beyond you may be interested in a new progressive talk radio network. Here is the link to its web site. http://www.novamradio.com/

The Constitution Is the Supreme Law of the Land

Lest it be forgotten, the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land. No Congress nor any President can trump the language of the Constitution.

The Miliary Commissions Act of 2006 attempts to subvert the Constitution of the United States by removing long-standing legal protections, protections which make the U.S. a civilized nation. Remembering that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, anyone who attempts to subvert the constitution is not only a criminal but a traitor as well. These are in no way meant to be inflammatory words. This is the simple truth of the matter. I mean this quite literally.

While the matter of so-called "enemy combatants" has its own history, we must remember that the "War on Terrorism" is as much a marketing term as anything else, regardless of the actual existence of terrorists. That is, this is no war, but a campaign replete with its propaganda arm as well as military and psychological components. Much more can be said.

By way of reminder I quote now the sixth ammendment to the U.S. Constitution, an ammendment still widely admired around the world:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Highwater Mark?

The Native Americans living on the coasts of these shores were assiduous watchers of the tides. From the tides they could tell the time of day, and even the seasons of the year, as I understand it. High tide to us today can mean plenty. It can also mean inundation.

In any event, high tide is always followed by a gracious retreat and then low tide. And so it is in American politics under the "two-party" system. We seem to have passed high tide with the current Republican-led federal government.

Over the past several years, and before the starting of this "blog", I had the opportunity to do a certain amount of historical research. This is not the time to get into that, but I can say perhaps some things now.

Indeed we have had the high tide of profit economics recently. At least we have had the high tide of trying to maintain the profit system. By around 1980-90 or so, we had come to the point in history where, in order for the profit system to survive, drastic measures were going to have to be taken. We then had "The Battle for Seattle" and other huge protests against the world financial system. (This is the true meaning of the protests against the G-8 meetings and other similar meetings.) The oligarchs of the world knew this level of protest could not continue at the same time as their profit flow.

These oligarchs are the same financial interests who, for example, led the British Empire by the nose in conquest after conquest all over the world, including in North America. In the case of Britain, these were the same interests who supported the Confederacy over the Union in the American Civil War. It is no accident that the Southern viewpoint has become dominant in the Federal government of now.

In order to stem the tide of protest, a certain type of "Reichstag fire event" was needed. It is my belief and that of increasing numbers of people that the events of September 11 served that purpose.

The supporting evidence for these statements must await another time, and perhaps a book. But for now, it is helpful to know something of the cause of the fascist tilt in America now. It comes from evil -- the desire to dominate, control, and own others. It is a force at least as old as society itself. The question for us, then, is to decide which side we are on. Do you know the old labor song "Which Side Are You On?" It is a great song, and one with a current meaning.

Choosing a side also means choosing certain actions. It has been one of the purposes of this web log to encourage clear, informed thinking, followed by right actions. As the days go by I hope to demonstrate this purpose itself more clearly. In the meantime, dear reader, I will ask you: "Which side are you on?"

A Valuable Voters Resource

Recent unbiased reports indicate the likelihood of voting problems in the U.S. next month is high. Whether this will culminate in another illegitimate announced "result" is unknown at this time, of course.

A helpful web site for voters is shown below. Voters United is a good group of folk, as far as I can tell. Their web site always has good up-to-date information. I think you will find it a valued resource for accurate news about the voting process in the United States at this point in our history.

I will soon have more to say about this subject viz a viz recent polling data which indicates a Republican debacle in the mid-term elections next month. Please check back here for a post on this subject in coming days.


http://www.votersunite.org/

The America We Loved Is Still Here

For today's post, I have chosen an encouraging title, because I believe it to be true. The America of tremendous physical beauty in a variety unparalleled on earth -- is still here. The America of charming and open people -- though changed -- is still here. The America of freedom of religion -- is still here.

At the same time there is unease in the land, a vague disquietude. There is no earthquake but rather a rippling, something more felt than heard. There is a sense of wrongness, but also a disinclination to see that wrongness clearly.

The wrongness has been most evident in these last days in the form of a Congressional bill which attempts to give the President sweeping powers to use degrading and inhumane treatment, or really any treatment he sees fit regarding prisoners. It even gives him and him alone the power to determine who is an "enemy combatant", either foreign or domestic. This includes U.S. citizens. Every citizen of the world should be frightened by this bill, for it is the U.S. which is still the historic leader and champion of human rights. It should frighten us because we know human nature well enough to know that no one can be trusted with such awesome power.

So what are we to make of an America with such a law? Yes, we who are American citizens can hardly escape blame. It is we who have allowed such a person as G. W. Bush to first enter the White House, then preside (if that is the word for it) in that place for nearly six years.

This, truly, is not America. This is surely not the best of us. The question is can we, even now, do better? Or the question might be put, can we do anything but work to drive out this alien uncouthness, this brutal governmental force which lives and works among us? (And the driving out, it should be said, is to be done non-violently, for violence only tends to beget violence.)

I believe we are up to the task. Yes, we will have to set aside our cynicism. And yes, we will have to get up out of our chairs and do some work. Yet, just as I attended our local October 5 protest yesterday, everyone can do something to save our Republic in this time. It is truly a defining moment for America. Let us be about the work of democracy, of justice, and even love.