A Broader Perspective on Our Fight For Elections

[GuvWurld]

Fighting for election integrity and/or election reform has revealed so many potential fronts on which to take a stand. Yet success in any one or even a few areas will not come close to solving the overall problem. There may be no succinct way to reflect all that is encompassed when referring to the big picture, but I suspect those of us in the election protection movement would agree that our current so-called "elections" are not legitimate and therefore should not confer legitimate power and authority on those claiming victory from this tainted process. This is where our eye has been removed from the ball. Again, no matter which fronts turn into hard-won victories, we'll still be enabling and reinforcing power usurpers who do not govern with our Consent. Election reform cannot be a goal unto itself but must instead be a tactic toward peaceful revolution.

If our goal has always been to prevent more bogus elections, it is time we do a serious reality check. We are entering primary season and there is still no basis for confidence in the results reported from "elections." If we can't prevent more bogus elections then the next challenge is preventing illegitimate claims to power from solidifying. Remember after the last two presidential elections when you felt robbed, and we all held out hope that we could prevent Bush from taking office? Put yourself in the frame of mind that you had during the period of uncertainty that followed these two "elections." What could have happened differently? What can be done next time?

Our election work belongs in this broader perspective of peaceful revolution where we see our true goals literally relate to the transfer of power, the very process which elections exist to facilitate.

[rumpel]

1. k&r.

[GuvWurld]

2. kick (eom)

[roseBudd]

3. My personal belief is that to be successful we need the equivalent of

a march to Selma. If you think about it a huge part of the GOP election stealing franchise depends on suppression of D votes but also taking D votes and converting them to R votes. In order to do this they have to figure out who the D voters are. This is why they focus so much energy on suppressing the African American vote. It is a D vote that they can spot with very little analysis. It is also my belief that they choose to convert D votes to R votes during fraudulent tabulation supplied by GOP supporting election equipment and software companies.

We really really need African Americans complaining loudly and publicly about their disenfranchisement.

It is a type of election fraud that is easy to see, easy to document, has a human face and is easy to understand. Thinking moderate republicans who do not understand how computer software programming works can wrap their minds around disenfranchisement.

[GuvWurld]

4. Disenfranchisement is universal, and guaranteed

I agree with you that a Selma march event, in terms of unprecedented size and magnitude and impact, is necessary to help catalyze large scale change. But I don't think such an occurrence alone will bring a tipping point. Yes, we need the African American community at large to rise up, but this has to be accompanied by a loud and visible presence across all demographics and it has to be constantly sustained across issues beyond just elections (though clearly I support using elections as the main point of emphasis). I had the honor and privilege of speaking at the NAACP's MLK Day event in Humboldt County, CA six weeks ago. See if you think my message then matches my point here.

Monday, January 16, 2006
My Speech to the NAACP Today, MLK Day
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2006/01/my-speech-to-naacp-today-mlk-day.html

When the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 I was not yet born. I do remember last August when the NAACP put on a big event in Atlanta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of this landmark legislation. I remember Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney and John Conyers. They all spoke about stolen elections. The Black Caucus has shown the country's greatest leadership since our constitutional crisis began during the 2000 election.

I remember a year ago last week when the Congresswoman from Ohio, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, along with California's own Barbara Boxer, stood up and made the unprecedented challenge to the 2004 election.

When we hear about the problems with our elections, we learn that 30% of the votes cast around the country in November 2004 were cast on paperless electronic machines. Those votes are unverifiable. They cannot be recounted. No matter what, we can't really know how those votes were truly cast, or what the election's outcome rightfully ought to be.

We hear about private corporations that make these election machines. The machines run on software considered "proprietary," and it is kept secret from the public. Not even our local elections officials know how it works.

Of course we hear a lot about disenfranchisement too. But that's not just for the poor, or African Americans. It isn't even limited to Democratic strongholds. Let me tell you something. Disenfranchisement is universal. And it is guaranteed. If we can't recount the votes, nobody's vote counts and we are all disenfranchised. When we hold elections under these conditions, the Consent of the Governed is not being sought.

Where does this phrase come from, Consent of the Governed? I see a lot of children here today and I know that the Declaration of Independence is still taught in school. Parents, is it enough for your kids to hear the words, or do you think the spirit of Dr. King says they must grasp the meaning too? For some context, the Declaration says:

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these Ends--the self-evident truths that we are created equal with unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness--it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

And so we must say, to such unacceptable election conditions: WE DO NOT CONSENT. And to the destruction of the environment: WE DO NOT CONSENT. Can I hear you say it with me now: WE DO NOT CONSENT. Spying on Americans: WE DO NOT CONSENT. War, war, and more war on phony scapegoats: WE DO NOT CONSENT. Peaceful demonstrators labeled as terrorists: WE DO NOT CONSENT. No more innocent until proven guilty: WE DO NOT CONSENT.

How long are we going to continue to allow our citizens to be jailed without charges, detained indefinitely without access to an attorney? We must understand, in the greatest spirit of Dr. King, that non-violent revolution has become necessary, NOW!

I want to invite you all to attend a community forum on Saturday, February 11, starting at 2pm at the Vets Hall. We will be working on what each of us can do, and what we can all do together to take responsibility for turning our words into deeds and truly beginning the peaceful revolution.

Dr. King spoke of Freedom, of being In the Light, and of Every Person Counting. Of this responsibility we each have to the Dream. That Each of us can stand up in a NON-violent way, Oppose the wrongness in our ill society. That only by each of us standing up, being responsible, and demanding that responsibility from our leaders, will we be a Free People. Without a vote, we have no voice, and without a voice, how can we demand this responsibility? Without a voice, we are not a Free People.

WE DO NOT CONSENT.

Thank you.

[BeFree]

5. Great speech, GUV

Not to be picky but: "No more innocent until proven guilty" may need a rewrite, eh?

So how did the speech go over? Did you get a positive repsonse to the election protection ideas? Did they understand the "Without a voice we are not a free people"

[GuvWurld]

7. This speech was well received

I think this was the first time I had ever gotten an audience to do any kind of chant--WE DO NOT CONSENT. Just getting that to happen was pretty powerful for me. But also, the VP of the local NAACP chapter was very positive in his praise to me. We subsequently had a private meeting and we've been discussing more ways to work together in the community. He has also offered me a bunch of diverse contacts. Beyond that, I posted it at DU and got a dozen or so recommendations, plus I put it up at GuvWurld and got many private comments about it plus a few that are on the blog.

[Stevepol]

31. Don't forget the typical break-ins at Dem headquarters.

"This is why they focus so much energy on suppressing the African American vote. It is a D vote that they can spot with very little analysis."

It's also why they have so many break-ins (never investigated) of Dem headquarters and stealing computer records. Searching for the D vote.

[Amaryllis]

6. K and R. But, what do you propose when you ask

"What can be done next time?" I don't know the answer to this. Some people say do a Ukraine, but is that practical or even possible in a country the size of the U.S.? The Ukraine was a far smaller country, as big as one state.

[GuvWurld]

8. I'm not certain what's best either

When I ask "what can be done next time?" I am asking a genuine question, not making a proposal. I think it is important that we discuss this now, before it happens again. In fact, let me take you back in time to October 2004.

Knowing with certainty, based on the conditions of the "election" we were about to have, that there would not be universal acceptance of the outcome, I went before the City Council of Eureka, CA and I explained why this was bound to happen. I asked them to consider what kind of response would be appropriate from the community in order for them to feel justified in speaking out. I told them that we would be needing them, and that from experience we could not be sure that we would get the support we would need from them. So could they please give us a clue about what it would take for them to weigh in. I promised to keep coming back (which I did) with updates about the anomalies and irregularities, but that really it was only the conditions that were needed to reach the conclusion that there is no basis for confidence in the results reported.

Eureka's City Council is rather conservative, ideologically and behaviorally, and exhibits a strong tendency to avoid issues that are not strictly local. This is in drastic contrast to the City Council of Arcata, which famously adopted the Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR) in July 2005. I don't know that there is a good explanation for why Arcata wasn't more ready to stand up sooner, but perhaps it is because two of the three Councilmembers who voted to adopt the VCR were elected into office for the first time in November 2004.

At any rate, we're in the same boat again and I'm encouraging everyone to consider how we can respond. This should be the subject of more than just its own thread. We should be having town hall forums about this. Given all the election news water under the bridge since 11/04, the visibility I personally have attained in my community, and the evolving relationships I've developed with members of my local government, I'm looking at revisiting my old strategy just for starters. Who has additional ideas?

[Stevepol]

9. Capital idea and probably the only one that will work in the long-run.

I talked with Bev Harris by phone once when she first started her campaign and was still on good terms with Andy S. and her first publisher, and she said that cleaning up the elections would probably not succeed until there was marching in the streets like the 60s against the Vietnam War.

I think I agree with that opinion. It would gain by being tied to overall revolution, just as the Vietnam War protests were part of a larger revolution: civil rightw, women's rights, etc.

[GuvWurld]

10. Note that I have been trying persistently to start this exact conversation

http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2005/10/peaceful-revolution-is-elephant-in.html

Saturday, October 08, 2005
Peaceful Revolution Is The Elephant In The Room

The National Summit To Save Our Elections was held in Portland, OR last weekend, bookended by two meetings devoted to developing a cohesive national strategy for election reform. While I attended both strategy sessions, I am not at liberty to discuss many details. I will say the elephant in the room was called out and a big effort was made to address it. Unfortunately, as objects in rearview mirrors can be, it now seems to me the elephant was falsely identified. The election reform movement is inherently revolutionary and yet that is the biggest of pictures that we most completely ignore.

There are advocates of hand counted paper ballots who are at odds with other election reformers calling for any of a number of verifiable electronic solutions. As important as this is, we can't afford to get hung up on the minutia of these issues. We must focus on the larger picture. In my community, the City Council of Arcata, CA put this rift to rest with the Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR). This document contains an eight point election reform platform, all of which must be enacted to achieve the true end goals of ensuring conclusive election outcomes, creating a basis for confidence in the results reported, and establishing an accountable government that represents We The People with our Consent. Consider just these three platform items:

1) voting processes owned and operated entirely in the public domain, and

3) a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast and additional uniform standards determined by a non-partisan nationally recognized commission, and

5) counting all votes publicly and locally in the presence of citizen witnesses and credentialed members of the media

Those words were chosen so as not to explicitly demand or deny any of the various narrow grounds on which election reform advocates have been divided. Having been through the process of crafting the VCR, I know that these three reforms alone won't lead to Democracy, but they also won't preclude advocates of paper ballots or otherwise from supporting the advancement of the movement. People on both sides of the debate need to consider the best case scenario rather than their narrowly defined success. Both sides should conclude that an enormous array of other issues will still prevent the true goals of conclusive outcomes, a basis for confidence, and accountable representatives seeking our Consent. In Portland, we did all agree on these three goals and I expect that we can grow the movement by asking for buy-in at this level. That buy-in will allow us to think bigger.

Also in Portland, I took comfort in observing that most if not all in attendance understand empirically, logically and emotionally that there is no rational basis for confidence in the results reported from U.S. federal elections. There was a lot of discussion about what has happened in recent "elections." But even more important were the projections, made with certainty, that future elections held under these conditions will guarantee inconclusive outcomes and fail to produce unanimous acceptance of the results. A good portion of Americans are still willing to argue about what is a fact. It is therefore a wiser strategy to avoid that confrontation and instead build on those points on which we agree.

As I wrote in the Blueprint For Peaceful Revolution, Americans are engaged in a Cold Civil War as a result of the government's intentional divisiveness. Government power has been consolidated by pitting We The People against each other, thus preventing us from uniting against our common fascist foe. Inherent uncertainty is one of the government's most frequently used techniques. If we can't recount the votes, we can't know who really won an election.

Looking at the real elephant in the room includes these questions: where is the movement going? What will it look like when it succeeds? How can we develop and facilitate the implementation of a cohesive national strategy? And how can we make the phrase "peaceful revolution" socially acceptable? This is why I went to Portland. There was some progress made but we did not get to the core of this matter.

As our post-Summit dialog continues, this is where I'll be directing my energy. Reformers from Portland as well as Berkeley, CA have told me of their intention to organize in support of the VCR. I will work to connect leaders with other volunteers, and also to engage other communities in this same pursuit. Listen up San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Ithaca and New Paltz, you are just a few of the places where every City Councilmember has received the VCR and knows what we're doing. Let your City Council know you support this, and help them make connections with other like-minded communities.

These are the growing pains of the movement. Our movement is growing, and it hurts so good.

[GuvWurld]

11. Kick (eom)

[GuvWurld]

12. This is still the elephant in the middle of the room

This thread should not fade away

[GuvWurld]

13. If you have been hyping my book this weekend, don't ignore this thread

The importance of this thread is surely not lost on the regulars of this board. So why does it fade away? Is it not yet clear that We Do Not Consent, my book coming out tomorrow, which many of you have graciously promoted over the past few days, is attempting to kick the ass of this elephant in the room?

Consider if there could possibly be a sadder irony than collectively ignoring the blinking arrow pointing at the thing being ignored.

Someone please assure me that we're not going to be another group to talk a good game while failing to seize the moment for action.

And to be sure I'm double-plus clear, if you say you're ready for action but you don't know what to do, figuring that out is exactly the conversation I'm insisting we must have.

[Land Shark]

14. Without the procedural integrity provided by the election protection folks

there is no moral or political claim to legitimacy.

(Democracy does not claim that the majority is correct -- on the contrary there's such a thing as "tyranny of the majority" and that's why we have Const rights in part to protect against. Because this substantive result has never been claimed to be just by democracy, whether the govt is just or somewhat unjust is justified by the procedural processes of the "consent of the governed". But when that process is corrupted, the whole house of cards falls, and the standing govt becomes illegitimate)

Therefore, if you believe that elections lack integrity, it follows directly from that there is no consent of the governed, and the govt lacks legitimacy.

Maintaining this to be the case sets incentives properly as well. Govts want to be legitimate, so they should fall all over themselves trying to create transparently legitimate election procedures.

[GuvWurld]

15. Kick (eom)

[GuvWurld]

16. Kicking the elephant in the middle of the room

The faster this thread drops, the more my point is made.

[GuvWurld]

17. Lamenting another regrettable self-kick

If you said nice things about my book launch yesterday this is the thread in which to really come clean about setting aside the distracting scandals du jour in order to focus on the elephant in the room - peaceful revolution is necessary, NOW!

[Kurovski]

18. Kick.

Recommended an hour ago.

[GuvWurld]

19. Kick (eom)

[GuvWurld]

20. WE DO NOT CONSENT

http://tinyurl.com/rlnr2

[Amaryllis]

21. YOu have asked this numerous times, as have I, and we have yet to

come up with an answer. This country is too big to do a "Ukraine."
If enough people were educated, we could do that on an individual basis perhaps...with each suspect race. We have made much progress in that even MSM is now covering these issues to a certain extent, but far from enough to have more basis for confidence; in fact if anything, we now have less due to more HAVA implementation of DREs.

[GuvWurld]

22. Strategy

As with the Voter Confidence Resolution, I think what we are fumbling for here is a strategy that can be implemented locally, and replicated in many places. What we can achieve here on this board is to share ideas and consider what may be most realistic for any given location, and then most likely to be workable for a variety of locations. It may be that there isn't a one size fits all approach, but a few different things that reflect a range of options. Once we start to put this realm of possibilities into concrete terms, others will see how feasible this all is and why it is the utter necessity of our drawing a line in the sand.

If anybody new is reading this thread here and thinks this is just a bunch of cliches that don't mean anything, understand that I am very seriously talking about very specifically preventing power and authority from being bestowed upon a supposed "winner" in a so-called "election" when the whole charade has no legitimacy on its face. If we continue to allow this, that is, if we keep on letting people settle into their newly "won" ill-begotten power, then the old saying will be true: we will get the government we deserve. Of course, if we stand up as we are discussing, and we truly prevent more such travesties from occurring, then too we will get the government we deserve. If we're going to get the government we deserve either way, shouldn't we at least get the government we want?

[Amaryllis]

23. "If we continue to allow this," dont agree with this statement. I and

many others have been doing all in our power not to allow it, but you yourself have not come up with a strategy to stop it.

"If we continue to allow this, that is, if we keep on letting people settle into their newly "won" ill-begotten power, then the old saying will be true: we will get the government we deserve."

[GuvWurld]

24. Nothing personal

I mean what I said but I will clarify to indicate I mean the royal "we," that is, this is how things have played out in our society, despite our best efforts otherwise, both yours and mine. If we want this to stop, we should first recognize that this is our actual goal. If we are not clear on that it is easy to understand why we haven't achieved it, and of course that's true of any goal.

What I've been attempting to do that I haven't seen others doing is brainstorming around making this an actual achievable goal, or at least something we feel prepared to deal with. We're all pretty determined to improve election conditions, and rightfully so. But we know that many elections around the country through this primary season and in November will be held under bogus conditions guaranteed to produce inconclusive outcomes. So then who decides who gets put in office? Anybody who wants their voice to count in that question belongs in this thread.

Where else is this discussion occurring but between GuvWurld and Amaryllis at DU? Not good enough. But thank you Amaryllis, I appreciate your camaraderie and encouragement.

[Amaryllis]

25. Gotcha! Good points.

[GuvWurld]

26. Maybe we need another thread with a different title?

This thread has been painful. But I think we have a more narrow and precise sense of where the conversation needs to be starting from. Could we use this thread to at least determine how best to launch a continuation in another thread that might get better participation?

Paging autorank.

[autorank]

27. Free and fair elections...to what end...

I favor free and fair elections as goals in and of themselves. It is the basis for human dignity and agency. Since we're not assured that we're getting honest results and open and inclusive registration to gain broad participation, we have no reason to believe in the legitimacy of our leaders. In addition, we are affronted by the manifest disrespect shown to each of us and felt by each of us as we see our friends, neighbors, and people we don't even know, fellow citizens however, disrespected by petty bureaucrats and their plutocratic masters as they spit in our faces and shove us to the side in pursuit of their need for greed.

I also favor free and fair elections as a means to an end. I should point out that free and fair elections mean: open,inclusive registration; easily verifiable (by all who chose to do so) elections; and campaigns that are absent corporate, PAC, or any other type of funding other than public donations through USPS and required donations from newspapers, radio, and television (cable too!).

To what end? Quite simply, the end of our drift, rather gallop toward the cliff of extinction. We have as a broad consensus on these facts: the polar ice caps will have melted and sea level will have risen 20 feet by 2100. This won't happen all at once, it's incremental. Almost all Florida cities, New Orleans, and Manhattan will be underwater. London too and the Netherlands will cease to exist. We face a crisis of civilization, world civilization.

Has anyone heard any world leader say: "Human culture faces a radical attack brought on by our own behaviors and practices. We face global cataclysm in just a matter of years. The death, suffering and material costs are so great, we face total collapse as societies. Therefore, it is imperative that all countries recognize the undeniable scientific facts about global climate change and bond together to meet this challenge. Wars, trade disputes, espionage, military budgets, and petty politics are a thing of the past."

Of course not one major leader has said this. They are all blinded by their own power politics and, given their failure to respond to this, they are all idiots.

We're in a horse race between our ability to effect change resulting in real democracy and a wide awareness of the dangers we face as a species impelling a variety of outcomes. It's simply not possible to predict with any degree of accuracy. However, it's important to recognize that the dire state of our ecosystem will be greatly aided by real democracy. At the same time, the looming eco catastrophes will be used by our "leaders" to diminish our rights further and relegate us to passive witnesses to our own destruction. Remember, our leaders are ipso facto idiots.

In my opinion, given the facts as they are, our goal should be:

1) Push very hard on the obvious fact that we do not have democracy and our leaders are illegitimate. This is important because people will be saying WTF, how did this happen. We have the answer. A collection of rule breakers constructed a system to systematically deny people both the opportunity to vote and the right to have their votes counted. As a result, we're in our present circumstance because the people, full enfranchised and freely informed, would never have endorsed the creation of our current troubles.

2) Uphold democracy as the logical alternative to rule by usurpers, rule breakers. They break the rules of nature as easily as those of politics. Why are we surprised that they've ruined our habitat. Pick any 535 people at random from the us population. Randomly assign 100 as Senators and 453 as Representatives...you will have a congress superior to the one we have now. Allow real elections and the representation will be even better. Our motto should be, why not give democracy a chance.

3) Be on the watch for any excuses the usurpers come up with to deny democracy. Touch screens, centralized voter registration databases, racial discrimination to deny voter registration are some we know. National security, catastrophes etc. will be other excuses.

As advocates for choice by the people we are necessarily advocates for the wisdom of those choices. We have to make the case again and again that we've never really had that for some time and it's a better alternative than the rule of the self-selected. Look where they've taken us.

There will be some event that will blow things wide open evolving from an accelerating series of reports, like those we see now (LA registration system rejecting 43% of voters) and we'll have our audience. We need to be prepared. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Simple points -- Free and fair elections confer legitimacy; the absence denies rulers the right to rule. Democracy does not exist with electronic voting hidden and operated by private firms. The absence of democracy is the reason we're in such trouble. Letting the people decide their own fate, which would certainly be to continue as a species, is the cure, democracy is the cure.

Maybe a Ukraine, maybe a Whiskey Rebellion, maybe a rapid evolution in our culture like the Irish experienced in the past 20 years (only much quicker)...who knows. We just need to keep the fire burning and our goals refined and focused. The massive failures by our "leaders" will be so abundantly clear, we will soon be presented with a special opportunity to make a simple, reasonable, and optimistic case -- real democracy for people who want to live rather than accept the fate of a slow roll off a large cliff.

[Amaryllis]

28. Wow, Auto, this was inspired and inspiring!

[Kip Humphrey]

30. Instead of fighting to regain our democracy stolen by neo-fascists

we fell into the ineffectual pablum of election reform and its politically correct ways so as not to offend those in power for whom we carried a self-deluded notion that they would pass corrective legislation if only we asked or persuaded politely!

FACT: Those in power will not relinquish their control of our election processes without massive public insistence (See Ukraine).

FACT: Without massive public support and insistence, we've got nothing.

FACT: Pursuing meaningless paper receipts generated for/from wholly untrustworthy digital vote processing systems because "its a start..." or "at least we have paper records..." is entirely self-defeating and very dangerous to ever gaining sufficient public support and involvement to regain our democracy.

FACT: We know what to do:
1. On street corners, at house parties, and via the Internet, educate the public about the stolen elections and the loss of our democracy engineered by digital vote processing systems
2. Motivate those we educate to spread the word and educate others
3. Mobilize those so motivated to lobby and organize protests
4. Demand Hand Counted Paper Ballots and the complete elimination of digital vote processing systems

[GuvWurld]

29. Kick

I'm working on a new essay related to this

[autorank]

32. Keep working, we need more fundamental, foundational material.

I thought that this was new but I'm glad you kicked it and I'll kick your kick;)