Election Issues

As the year ends, 2003 will be remembered by future historians as the year the pretense of democracy in the United States ended.

Since the 1940s, conservatives have accepted the assumption of economist Joseph Schumpeter that democracy in a mass society existed of little more than the following: the adult population could vote; the votes were fairly counted; and the masses could choose between elites from one of two parties.

With the most recent revelations about the 2000 Bush coup in Florida disclosed in the shocking stolen Diebold memos, the Bush family has signaled that an authoritarian right-wing dynasty is the future course for American politics.

I was surprised by an email from an old friend, usually apolitical, who wanted to engage me about Dennis Kucinch. While I don't always put my heart into rising to such bait, I was invigorated enough by our exchange to share it with the world:

My friend began: Danny, I have to ask...if you're intent on dispensing with Bush, why are you backing Kucinich instead of a Democratic candidate with a chance?  I'm not settled on anyone as of yet--I can barely keep track of who's running--but after going with Nader in 2000, I can't stomach going with a beautiful loser Democrat on election day and then watching four more years of Bush.  What are your thoughts?

Kucinich may be the only guy who can win this [US Presidential] election. Sounds far-fetched, right? What the Brits would call Loony Left delusional thinking. The U.S. press would just ignore the whole thing, naturally, until it's no longer possible. Just plain crazy. But is it? Every finely tuned ear has recorded the spike in interest every time someone has had the guts to speak up about various aspects of the nascent fascism we are confronting. From Gore's early comments breaking the taboo of criticizing Bush to Byrd's articulate blasts, mainstream politicians have received a grateful roar from the rabble with each thrust, the bolder the better.

Vote for President Bush and Republican Senators and Congressmen if:  

You think $900/month ($10,800/year) is a fair price for a health insurance policy.

*  You believe drug companies should prevent you from buying Canadian drugs at half price.

*   You are a senior citizen and you think you are about to receive all your medication for free because President Bush has passed the “prescription drugs for seniors under Medicare” legislation.

*   You think large tax breaks for CEO’s making over $50 million are good, but your own CEO may have to cut the company budget and eliminate your position.

*   You never work or get paid for overtime so you don’t care about the recent Bush bill that will eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers. You don’t know any of the 9 million unemployed U.S. and don’t know anyone in Iraq.

*   Your state has a budget deficit of $2 billion but we should spend $600 billion in Iraq.

*   You know Iraq has more oil than any other country in the world, but no one knows where it ends up after it comes out of the ground or who got the money for it.

The most important political task of our time is the defeat of George W. Bush. There has rarely, if ever, been a President of such exceedingly limited ability and poor moral judgement, and all the money in the world (which he appears to have) may not be enough to save his bacon a second time.

The most important political task, TOMORROW, is the Annabel Palma election in the Bronx. Annabel is a WFP candidate for City Council, and is taking on a very powerful Bronx political family. If Annabel wins the Democratic primary tomorrow, she will be poised to run a strong WFP-Democrat race in November against Republican and Independence Party candidates.

Starting as a health care aide to senior citizens, Annabel then became a health and safety specialist for her union, SEIU 1199. [George W. Bush didn't get a job until he was 40, and his main idea for senior citizens is to gut their/our Social Security benefits]. A product of the public school system, Annabel put herself through Bronx Community College while raising her son, now 13. [In Ann Richard's immortal phrase, George W. Bush "was born on third base but thought he had hit a triple"].

During the Cold War, the CIA, in the words of long-time agent Ralph McGehee, practiced the art of "deadly deceits." Throughout the Third World, the secret spy agency engaged in covert operations, blatant acts of economic destabilization and wanton acts of mass violence.

In the 1970s, Idaho Senator Frank Church's investigatory committee established that the CIA also engaged in so-called "benign" operations including rigging elections. The agency used the term "demonstration elections" - elections that are superficially democratic but the results manipulated by the CIA.

I was surprised by an email from an old friend, usually apolitical, who wanted to engage me about Dennis Kucinch. While I don't always put my heart into rising to such bait, I was invigorated enough by our exchange to share it with the world:

My friend began:
Danny, I have to ask...if you're intent on dispensing with Bush, why are you backing Kucinich instead of a Democratic candidate with a chance?  I'm not settled on anyone as of yet--I can barely keep track of who's running--but after going with Nader in 2000, I can't stomach going with a beautiful loser Democrat on election day and then watching four more years of Bush.  What are your thoughts?

I answered:

I suppose I should have a colorful Howard Dean anecdote, but I don’t. When he was governor here, the newspapers would run a photo of him every year, ceremonially tapping the first sugar maple. His blue blood was betrayed by his choked-up grip on the hammer; obviously a man not used to swinging a tool. One year, he wore a helmet for the ceremony. I can’t begin to explain that.

That’s the Howard Dean I know; I’m not sure who this guy is I keep reading about in the newspaper. Al From and Joe Lieberman keep warning Howard Dean will drive the Democratic Party off the left side of the road, but where’s the evidence for that?

Howard Dean was governor of the only state where it’s legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit and the only state where it’s legal to shoot fish. He has high marks from the National Rifle Association. In 1997, when Gov. Dean first began to covet the presidency, he announced his switch from anti- to pro-death penalty. Definitely a political move, but not to the left.

Welcome to the spring Green issue of the Columbus Free Press, an actually remaining free press. Most of the American mainstream press have determined that Bushism is 21st century Americanism. In the words of ACLU of Ohio Legal Director Raymond Vasvari, we should attempt to resist “an Orwellian slide into a surveillance society.”

If you’re not afraid of the National Security Agency’s Echelon project eavesdropping on your electronic communications, or the FBI’s Carnivore software snooping on your email communications, or the national security bureaucracies Face Recognition Technology, then you should enjoy this issue of the Free Press.

By now it should be clear to Freep readers and supporters that the so-called “shadow government,” the undemocratic forces of the military industrial complex and their spooky friends, see the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S. as a golden opportunity to promote happy-face, nanny-state fascism. Investigative reporter Marty Yant points out how a Bush administration official was in Afghanistan the month before the terrorist attack threatening U.S. military action against the Taliban.

On the one hand, the calls for "closure," "finality" and national unity. On the other, Justice John Paul Stevens' bitter summation: "in the interests of finality, however, the majority (of the U.S. Supreme Court) effectively orders the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose ballots reveal their intent, and are therefore legal votes under (Florida) state law, but were for some reason rejected by the ballot-counting machines ... Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law."

Back in the 1980s, we radicals used to write about "demonstration elections," conducted in Central American countries such as El Salvador at the instigation of the U.S. government and micromanaged by the CIA.