"All I Did Was Say They Can't Run a Fair Election" - Andrew Gumbel

[Amaryllis]

Andrew Gumbel: All I did was say they can't run a fair election
"He caters to a British sensibility that sees us as an errant colony run by a gang of thugs"

Published: 29 August 2005

I've got bad news for anyone already made queasy by the marathon length of American presidential elections. Not only is the 2008 race already concentrating political minds, it is becoming ever clearer the country has not recovered from the infamous mano a mano between Al Gore and George W Bush in Florida in 2000. In fact, in many important - and depressing - ways, the battle over Florida is still raging.

I've learned this the hard way, by becoming part of the battle myself. This past week, a posse of internet screamers who clearly don't like the idea of an uppity Brit questioning the legitimacy of George W Bush's first election took it upon themselves to denounce me as a "conspiracy journalist", a "left-wing hack" and a bare-faced liar.

The occasion for their fury was a book I've written chronicling, and attempting to explain, the inability of the world's most powerful democracy to conduct fair and transparent elections by any recognisable international standard. It came as no surprise that some people would find the premise of the book troubling, even offensive. My conclusions are hardly tender towards voting machine manufacturers, local and state election officials, or indeed the entire two-party system that underpins US politics.

What I was not expecting, however, was that the object of the internet screamers' fury would be the raw arithmetical data from the 2000 presidential race, something I had naively believed had moved on from the stuff of partisan brick-throwing into the realm of historical research and analysis.

Rest of article:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0830-31.htm

[Boredtodeath]

1. Steal This Vote by Andrew Gumbel

Get it. Read it. Excellent book.

[MelissaB]

2. "...foundation of the American democratic system is corrupted and rotten."

No wonder the passions continue to rage. It is, or should be, beyond dispute that the Florida election was fought dirtily and that there is at least a case to be made that the wrong man ended up in the Oval Office. Contrary to received wisdom, the problem was not ultimately with deficient voting machines or even the respective merits and demerits of the Republican and Democratic causes. What Florida suggested - and continues to suggest - is that the very foundation of the American democratic system is corrupted and rotten. And that's a reality many Americans may not yet be ready to confront.

[drm604]

3. Of course they're screaming at him

The closer you are to the truth, the louder they scream.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Thanks for the post! Recommended! What a fun topic! Freepers

screaming at Brits for a change (instead of us!)--Brits who dare to view us as an errant colony. I've been considering that we might need a Queen, actually--but Cindy Sheehan comes to mind, or Media Benjamin, or Joan Baez--not Elizabeth. And until they do something about Tony Blair and the Labour Party's complicity in the war, I wouldn't want to be a colony again. Lots of other attractions, though. Real political debate. A parliament--many parties, coalitions, not this ugly Repug-Dem War Party business WE have. Medical care and housing for the poor. Wow! And the BBC. (I am so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o sick of NPR and its evah-so-c-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-tchud war profiteering corporate news monopoly sneer.) And actors who know how to act, and don't get all full of themselves. Yup, they've got some points.

And the IDEA of a Queen (or King, I guess) has its attractions. You see, I think the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are fulfilling that role, in the U.S., right now--partly because Bush is so bad at it, but also because we haven't had anybody good at it, in a very long time. The role of representing "the nation." Embodying "the nation." Being the reverential thing--the spirit of the land and its people. With the Bushwhackies having thrown the Constitution overboard, we don't have much left of a national concept. Bush is such a rotter, almost nobody wants to think of THAT as "the nation." And they've furthermore done such ugly stuff to stir up divisions and hatreds, the "center"--our common ground, our identity as Americans all in this together--is greatly imperiled.

So, what we're left with, to glue us together, is the corporate news establishment. And they turn around and use that dependence--and foster that dependence--to brainwash people, and make them feel isolated and out of it for being against war, and to propagandize the War Party line and the Corporate line, and mess up our heads with a million obnoxious commercials, so that we can barely follow a dramatic story line any more, in a TV drama show, let alone remember what happened last year in the real "nation."

An umbilical cord--a very, very poisonous one. And if we had a Queen (or King), then we might feel more confident in ourselves, in our inner beings--confident that someone IS "the nation," is fulfilling that role, 24/7, and "the nation" is therefore not going to fall apart while we're not looking--and we could better laugh at, and disconnect from, "the news"--that false monarch--and get our heads screwed back on right.

I mean, I know that we, the people, are supposed to be the sovereign in this country. But we're along way from that, I'm afraid. We can't even say how our votes are counted--we don't even have the right to know any more, with Diebold's and ES&S's secret, proprietary programming code for the 'tabulation' of our votes.

And the dangers of a president being king are more than obvious these days. So maybe what we need is some sacred figure to BE the land, and a Prime Minister to do the business--and get yelled at from the back bench, regularly, and have to defend himself on his feet, in the day to day.

So...the Freepers are barking at this Brit. I guess we'd better send him some thanks for bothering with us. The Brits must be good and sick of us, for what the Bush Cartel has done to their government in the last few years. I'm glad they still care. I will read the whole article (I loved the first part) and send him a nice letter.

[Amaryllis]

5. What I like about parliament is how they get to ask Tony Blair questions

and boo him when they don't like the answers. Although probably only the
members of the Congressional BLack CAucus and Barbara Boxer have the cajones to boo W even if they could...we'd have to do spine transplants for the Dems to get them to do it!

[autorank]

6. "They can't stand the truth!" Too damn bad. I'm sick of these idiots.

Oh, everything is just fine. Churlish Board of Election officials who think that election day is all about their convenience, pod-peopled suburbs pretending it's the '50's and it's all good (except the paranoia, atmospheric tests, Red scare, etc.), and business leaders who think they can steal the country blind, pay their workers nothing, and ship jobs overseas and still have a viable economy: these are the people who can't deal with with the truth. Well, too damn bad.

What is happening in NOLA is the great warning. All the IDIOTS who deny a stolen election are RESPONSIBLE for this because, well, they're IDIOTS.

STOLEN ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

WE'VE HAD THREE 2000, 2002, 2004 -- UNDENIABLE UNLESS YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

HOW MUCH MORE LYING, DISSEMBLING GARBAGE DO WE NEED FROM IDIOTS BEFORE WE GET THE POINT: STOLEN ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

New Orleans!