on the voters, or Americans in general, as stupid, clueless, uncaring, etc., etc.? Why make that assumption, right off the bat? Why not give some attention to the actual mechanisms by which unpopular Bushites with extremist minority views gain their power (i.e., the election system itself, for instance), and to what these supposed "stupid" voters actually believe?
I think we underestimate just how important it is to the Corporate Rulers and War Profiteers that majorities in American elections do not win. Our vote is an extremely important power--it is a power that, when used collectively, has the potential to regulate Corporations, and to significantly curb their activities, including the RIGHT to de-charter them and dismantle them. We, the people, are the sovereign power in the U.S.--or so our founders said. The war, and exploitation, and environmental destruction that is occurring in the world is mostly emanating from our shores, driven by Corporations whom we have the inherent right to control.
Ergo, Americans are more propagandized, and more disinformed, than any other people on earth. And with all this, still...STILL, 58% of Americans opposed the war in Iraq BEFORE the invasion. I will never forget that stat. And, if you look at ALL the polls over the last year or so, what do you find? Americans disapprove of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range. Iraq. Social Security. The deficit. Torturing prisoners. You name it. And that is not even to mention Bush's current 42% approval rating--or the utterly dismal and unprecedented 49% on the very day of his inauguration.
So, Americans are not so stupid. I think what Americans are, for the most part, is DISENFRANCHISED.
I am familiar with all of the election 2004 evidence, and I know that that election was stolen. (WHERE is Bush's support NOW? Where are the voters of Karl Rove's "invisible" get out the vote campaign? WHERE ARE THEY?) (Sorry to shout, but I think the evidence is SCREAMING at us.)
Anyway, I think 2004 was just outright stolen--by Diebold and ES&S, the two rightwing companies and major Bush supporters who own and control the vote tabulation with SECRET PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE. I think Ohio was added in (Rove Plan B)--overt suppression of Dem voters; massive violations of the Voting Rights Act--because Kerry's win was bigger than expected (approx. 10% margin.) (Plan C--phony "terrorist alerts"--which was well set up in "the news" prior to the election--wasn't needed, except in Warren County, Ohio, where a phony "terrorist alert" was used to eject all observers from the vote count.)
The Schwarzenegger coup was a bit more complicated. The key, I think, is to be found in our loss of Dem Sec of State Kevin Shelley, who was driven from office on trumped up charges after suing Dieobld for their lies about the security of their machines, and decertifying their touchscreens (election theft machines) prior to the 2004 election. He also provided Californians with a paper ballot option. (And, among other reforms, forbade "revolving door" employment in his office--one of the ways that Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia have corrupted our election system.)
One of the key things that was happening when Shelley was destroyed is that he had demanded to review Diebold's source code, via his lawsuit against them. (We don't have that right--to review their code--as per contract between the state and these private companies--you know that, don't you? Not even our Sec of State!)
Schwarzenegger now has his own lapdog appointee as Sec of State (Bruce McPherson), who will most certainly respect the "trade secrets" of the Bushite election machine companies who own our election system.
Back up to 2003. Shelley had just been elected, and had not had much time to figure out what was going on with California's election system. Bang, he's hit with an unusual Recall election. His predecessor, Repub Bill Jones, and Jones' chief aide, Alfie Charles--both now working for Sequoia--had authorized Sequoia and other electronic voting in Calif. Electronic voting was very new--full of bugs (still is)--and scandalously insecure and unreliable. Shelley simply did not have time to fully understand or do anything about these problems before the Recall vote.
The Recall election was extremely odd. The election period was extraordinarily short. There was no primary, in which party voters and citizens in general got to vet the candidates. There were 125 candidates on the ballot! Time magazine and Larry King jumped in, and gave Schwarzenegger--already trading on his acting fame alone--millions and millions of dollars in free publicity (Time put him on the cover, for godssakes, just before the election!). And Cruz Bustamante, whom voters had chosen as Lt. Gov. in the normal election (the one Gray Davis and Bustamante had just won), was put in the awkward position of having to rule about his own status. (If Davis lost the Recall, shouldn't the Lt. Gov. succeed him? --I sure thought he should. THAT'S WHY I HAD VOTED FOR HIM. THAT'S his JOB--to step in, if something happens to the Gov.)
So, the Democratic leadership was just flummoxed. They should never have permitted that Recall to occur. It was an extremely manipulated and wrongful event. And Shelley had had barely enough time to find out where the pencil sharpener was--let alone ride herd on all the new electronic systems, and all the unusual decisions and circumstances.
With 125 candidates on the ballot, it would take only a programming kindergartner to shave votes to Schwarzenegger in whatever amounts he needed. Further, the short campaign prevented the public from finding out about Schwarzenegger's meeting with Ken Lay of Enron and other Bushites in Los Angeles in May 2001. Investigative reporter Greg Palast, who found out about that meeting, believes that the Recall was cooked up there--to stop Bustamante and Davis from recovering the $9 billion that Enron/Lay had stolen from Calif. If voters had known about the Schwarz/Enron connection--or even if they had been generally aware of the Enron theft--they would have been far less likely to blame Davis for the budget problems.
The news monopolies, of course, provided no help to the voters at all. And in that situation, with word of mouth and alternative news as the only vehicles for the truth, it takes TIME for the truth to get around. And, in the Recall election, there was no time.
So, I believe that the Recall was a test-run of the election theft machines, combined with a poorly informed electorate. (--whereas I believe that 2004 was a straight-up election theft, with the voters determined to oust the Bush Cartel).
Fast-forward: Shelly is now gone, and California has NO PROTECTION against Bushite ownership of our election system. Like the U.S. as a whole, we are in a very serious situation here, with Schwarz about to rig a second special election and destroy the big Democratic majority in the state with redistricting.
And here is yet another problem--possibly the worst: We have BI-PARTISAN corruption in the electronic elections business. And it IS a business now--a big business, involving lots of money. Elections are not a public matter any more. They are run by BUSHITE CORPORATIONS (who WON'T TELL US what's in their SECRET programming code!)
We have elections officials, both Dem and Repub, at the local level who are much too entangled with the private election machine business, if not outright corrupt. Check out this hogfest at the Beverly Hilton, planned for this August--a week of fun and sun for election officials from around the country, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. It will burn your eyeballs!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340One of the featured speakers at this event is L.A. county elections head Connie McCormack, a Democrat, and an advocate of paperless voting and Diebold, whose best friend Deborah Siler is the former chief Diebold salesperson in Calif. (--now asst. registrar in Solano County). McCormack was THE leader of the campaign to destroy Kevin Shelley.
Lavish lobbying. Future jobs offers. The heady power of controlling huge amounts of money in big business deals over electronic voting systems (systems that are endlessly costly to the taxpayers, because of continuing servicing and upgrading needs) And the heady power of being "the expert" and "the professional" who knows all the gobble-de-gook of electronic voting--versus the peon voters who don't have a clue how their votes are counted any more. (McCormack had the nerve to sneer at electronics specialist Kim Alexander, a voter advocate--"she's not a professional.")
McCormack led other county election officials in FIGHTING Shelley's reforms. It is the Sec of State's job to ride herd on these officials--ESPECIALLY with these new electronic systems--and to insure the integrity of the vote, and they fought him every way they could. McCormack told a legislative committee she wanted to "bulldoze" the Sec of State's office to get the touchscreens approved. He was holding up fed money--to pressure them to comply with security and auditing requirements.
I won't go into the details of how the SF Chronicle and other news monopolies drove Shelly from office. It's one of these Bushite-type black ops/secret dossier tales--murky, opaque, weird--where you can't figure out where things are coming from, and the story just doesn't add up. Shelly "misusing" fed election funds? No way! The witchhunt against Shelley stank to high heaven; Shelley did nothing wrong, and had no money--no legal fund--to defend himself with. Tells you something about Shelley--one of the last honest elections officials we will ever see in the U.S. of A.
There were anomalies in the 2004 election pointing to corruption and election fraud in Republican counties in Calif. Kerry won the state by a 10% margin, Barbara Boxer by a 20% margin. That might not be so unusual, except that Boxer's margin vis a vis Kerry all came in the most rightwing counties in the state--meaning that a whole bunch of people voted for Boxer...and Bush!? And only in Repub counties. I think about 3% to 5% of the Kerry vote was stolen in Calif's Repub counties, to pad Bush's wholly manufactured national popular majority.
But, to me, that is a given these days: Repub election fraud, wherever they can get away with it. What is more disturbing is people like McCormack, Democrats who are shills for Diebold--because I think they have sacrificed the voters and election integrity for careers in electronic voting and all the attendant perks.
The result is that we have a President and a Governor of California with whom the majority of the citizens disagree on just about everything; a Congress that is unresponsive to the will of the majority; and a democracy that is at death's door.
How can we fix this?
a) paper ballots/hand counts at the precinct level
or at the least
b) paper BALLOT (not "paper TRAIL") backup of all electronic voting machines, strict auditing (a 5% to 10% automatic recount), strict security (a long list of needs), and NO secret, proprietary programming code!
In general, we need to purge the Dem Party of electronic voting business corruption--county, state, federal--and BAN Bushite voting machine companies from our elections. Throw their machines into the Pacific Ocean (our "Boston Harbor"!). And start over.
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For more info and action ideas on election reform, see the DU 2004 Election Results and Discussion Forum, at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203 
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