The other day I stirred up a minor shitstorm with
this post about how useless polls are considering the amount of electoral fraud that's been going on. For those of you who missed it or don't feel like clicking the link, let me repeat what I said to Markos in specific and to everyone else in general:
- I hate to keep dousing water on your poll parade, but what exactly have we done about election reform that makes anyone confident that they won't just steal another one?
How many more times will we be told to "get over it" when polls show a clear Democratic victory but the "election" shows a 51% GOP win? How long before they decide they can get away with giving themselves a supermajority and really tear down the Constitution?
Fuck the polls. Fuck them to death, they're meaningless. Stop bragging about Hackett's 49%: I have news for you, 49% of the vote is 0% of the power. Take all the energy you're spending watching these pointless polls and fix the goddamn system. Then you can write about the goddamn fucking polls.
Not exactly the most eloquent way of putting it, but then I never claimed to be eloquent, and this issue, in my opinion, is far too important to worry about stepping on a few toes.
How To Discuss Election Misconduct is important, but it's only one part of a far more important issue:
How To Fix The System. My beef with Markos isn't with him personally, it's about the fact that after five years, we're still not past the talking stage. And talking about polls while not doing anything substantial about fixing the problems is an exercise in futility. Worse, showing these numbers builds up our hopes only to see them crushed on "election" night.
How many of you out there know that most of the New Deal programs that we take for granted now were simply expansions of things that had been done before on a smaller scale, mostly in New York City? That the people who FDR placed to run the new organizations were already war-hardened political veterans, experienced players in their fields? They not only had the ideas, they had the know-how and the courage to try them out.
That was then, this is now. I don't doubt the sincerity and the ability of anyone here, but I don't see a lot of real accomplishments. What have we really done from the point of view of actual political power? More to the point, what are we doing on any level as far as election reform goes? Certainly there are states and counties that are run by an overwhelming majority of Democrats, have any of them bothered to implement any of the ideas set forth by one of the numerous election reform groups? Has anyone even
pressured any of them to try? Not one that I'm aware of. Which means it either isn't being done or no one is bothering to publicize it: either way it means we can't make any real difference in what is going on.
As I mentioned, I support what the group
Defenders Of Democracy (DOD) wants to do: establish the paper ballot as the official ballot of record. Have the ballots counted by hand, in full public view, at each polling place when the polls close. Establish a clear and public chain of custody for the ballots to prevent tampering. Let's find a few test areas and get them to implement this system. We can do what the DOD does: they go to every local seminar about elections with some paper ballots and a ballot box and hold an election right there asking people whether they would prefer machines or people to count the vote, demonstrating how simple and effective the system can be. This gives us a foundation to work on, an example to prove that it can be done on a small scale, and therefore on a larger scale. No more machines. Get it right the first time. And as far as I'm concerned, anyone who is against having the most accurate, fraud-free elections we can possibly have is truly anti-American.
Almost as much as the lack of action as far as election reform goes, the
general reaction I got to my post on Kos is what depresses me. The internet has proven to be a powerful tool for organizing and raising money (Speaking of which, here's a
shameless plug for my tip jar). But unfortunately, it's also amplified the old nature of progressive politics. We still wind up falling into little cliques and arguing among ourselves. Some people saw my post as an insult to Kos, and by extension, to themselves. There are all too many people out there in the blogosphere more concerned with their own sense of self-importance than they are in fixing the serious problems we have. And there are all too members of the Democratic leadership more concerned with their standing than they are with the well-being of their constituents and their country. This is too big for any of that, and it's time we started facing up to it. You don't have to like me, I don't have to like you. But we'd better recognize the nature of the threat we face.
And what is that threat?
Paul Krugman lays it out for us:
- Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
Mr. Krugman is being polite, of course. Saying the Republicans would be "tempted" to rig the election in '06 is like saying that a junkie would be "tempted" to shoot up if they saw some stash just lying around. Face it, they've been getting away with it for the last five years, why would they stop now?
When Bush stepped into the White House, he and his administration were already discussing ways of removing Hussein from power. This we know from several sources. With 9/11, the temptation to use the political power they were given was there, and they jumped on it. Think about it: they willingly and happily started a war that killed tens of thousands of innocent people the moment the opportunity presented itself. If they were willing to do that, and for the most part we know they were, why then should we think they wouldn't bother to rig an election? And if they were capable of killing thousands of Iraqis, they are perfectly capable of doing the same to us, if the opportunity presents itself. Does that prospect frighten you? It should. I don't want to see Kos wind up being one of the most important prisoners in the concentration camp.
Never forget: to the Bush administration, the Republican leadership, and their financial backers, we don't even count as human beings. Their cavalier attitude towards the deaths of innocents in Iraq and the soldiers they sent to kill them is proof of that. They must be stopped, they must be held accountable for their actions, and they must be prevented from rising again as a political force. I for one would gladly sacrifice the political career and reputation of any blogger, activist or politician in order to accomplish those goals. And so should we all. The sacrifices of the past and the lives of the generations to come demand no less of us than that.
Cup O' Joe - Blog Of The Working Man!
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