What a way to run a country

We call it politics, but sometime during the last century it became increasingly clear that its propaganda -- the medium is the message and all that. Well its true, and basically all politicians are forced to adhere to the same approach.
Maybe it hasn't changed all that much, but the sophistocation of the techniques, and the money to execute them is truly frightening.

With Bush, politics has taken on a religious fervor -- the opposite of rationalism. We point fingers at those fundamentalist foreigners, but anyone with that messianic glint in their eye is no different.

And now the Republican effort to suppress votes is in full swing, the aim being to constipate the voting process in order to discourage votes being cast in primarily Deomocratic, minority, urban areas.
This seems a last ditch, dirty tricks effort since it is likely that any legal challenges to the process will not hold up. Probably the thugs won't even pursue challenges or appeals unless the vote is seriously close. But they're keeping their options open as the saying goes.

There is no doubt that however dirty the tricks, the faithful will find post hoc justification for them all should thier messiah manage to dominate the process. That this fervent blindness -- in both its hateful and optimistic forms -- has infected the right wing body politic is apparent in spades. The story out of Florida about the Bush rally at which a loyaty oath was administerd, complete with right arms raised, should leave no doubt that we have passed beyond hyperbole [about rw fascism] onto the genuine article.

I note this without a bit of smugness at having all of the dire forecasts of the increasing virulence of the rw mentality becoming manifest. More with sadness and, at this stage, with anger than fear. After KERRY WINS on Tuesday it will be time not to simply breath a sigh of relief and go on, but continue to address the sickness and rot that have infected this country while that which is good and decent in Americans has been eroded by extremism of the perpetrators and credulity and sloth amongst most of the rest of us.

The tools we have been honing in the runup to the election, including the new power of the word as delivered through cyber communication, will need to continue to hum.

Bullying the voters: Republican Style

As election day approaches and its looking more and more like Bush will be thrown out of office, along with many of his Congressional chorts one hopes, the Bush campaign's strategy increasingly resemble the thug tactics they so richly have cultivated. Voter intimidation by Republican operatives is being reported nationwide, and while my eye is perhaps jaundiced, it is hard to believe the press is disproportionately reporting Republican irregularities when, all along, the general trend has been to give Bush every benefit of the doubt and more.

So from the BBC comes this:

New Florida vote scandal feared

By Greg Palast Reporting for BBC's
Newsnight

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in
Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in
the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation
reveals.

Election supervisor Ion Sancho believes some voters are being
intimidatedTwo e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign
in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC,
contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".
It lists 1,886 names and
addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of
Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown
the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a
thing is to challenge voters on election day."
Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted
that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to
stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

A Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged
at polling stationsIn Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas,
noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if
there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.
The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black
residents.
When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list,
Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either
fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to
verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.
Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list
was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say
it would not be used in that manner.
Rather, she did acknowledge that the
party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated
in the law."
There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would
be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Similar tactics are being planned in Ohio as reported by the New York Times:

Big G.O.P. Bid to Challenge Voters at Polls in Key StateBy MICHAEL
MOSSPublished: October 23, 2004

Republican Party officials in Ohio took
formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on
Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not
eligible to cast ballots.
Party officials say their effort is necessary to
guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register
tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal
battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.

.......................................

Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to
prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to
be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints
among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could
discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.
....................................

Elections officials in Ohio said they hoped the criteria would minimize the
potential for disruption. But Democrats worry that the challenges will
inevitably delay the process and frustrate the voters

". . . delay the process and frustrate the voters. . . ." Now those are some lofty aspects of the democratic process.

None of this should come as a surprise, since the Bush crowd practiced such intimidation in Florida in 2000 under Jeb Bush, in all likelihood stealing the election for his brother. What should surprise and shock the American people is the scale on which it is being organized only four years later. If we hadn't become so inured to the sleaze and outright lying and corruption under the Bush regime, we might even have a normal reaction to such chicanery, horrified and disgusted that we have begun to resemble a third world country in what passes for governance.

2000 was a mistake. Bush was handed the election, but went on to act as if he had received a massive mandate. Ideological, secretive and anti-democratic, the Bush administration has gone on to dismantle much of our institutional democracy brick by brick. We the people have been negligent and lazy in protecting and participating in government. Rot had indeed begun to set in. Politics to be bought more than ever.

Maybe this year the populace will wake up a bit to the immense dangers of assuming that because politicians will be politicians one is as good (or as bad) as the next. Bush has shown the fallacy of such thinking beyond our wildest nightmare.

Media, perception and public opinion

I am continuing to wait and watch with relish the wheels come off the Bush machine. But I am well aware that while it will be a hugely positive thing to get rid of the presidential disgrace, it is a stunningly dismal landscape we inhabit still. From the pathetic state of Congress, and the fragile economy, to the truly dispiriting mess we call American diplomacy.

I have done more this election cycle, especially contribute to the DNC, than my previous meager efforts, all the while being aware of the fact that the democratic party is hemmed in by bureaucracy and policy, particularly a right wing leaning foreign policy, which has drifted away from the potential greatness that could be America. So my hope is tempered with sadness.


Are Mr and Mrs America are waking up to the mean spirited jackass inhabiting the WH? Perhaps the debates revealed him in relief and somehow a more objective reality has cut through the fog -- people are perhaps more focused. I buy that, because I've thought the guy's a jerk forever but, lest we forget, most opinions are perceptions that are shaped by the media. If there is an interaction that somehow fairly modulates public percpetion and media interpretation I don't know about it. And I'm not about to believe it. The public is inattentive and apathetic. The media is a commercial venture foremost.Really I don't care about the defects in the system when it comes to getting rid of Bush. But the system and what it produces still sucks.

Non sequitur non pareil

From the NYT (10/10/04) comes this little gem attesting to the truly revolutionary nature of the afghan "elections". Setting the background, the piece notes chaos in the process occasioned by concern over voter fraud. Our . . . the US's . . . man in Kabul, Karzai, comes backs with the ultimate zinger:

``Who is more important, these 15 candidates, or the millions of people who
turned out today to vote?'' Karzai said at a news conference. ``Both myself and
all these 15 candidates should respect our people -- because in the dust and
snow and rain, they waited for hours and hours to vote.''

Is it just me, or is the presence of even vaguely legitimate candidates a prerequisite for an election that could be considered anything but a done deal, soviet style?

Things they'll be saying after the election

The caution exhibited by the fourth estate with regard to criticism of the Bushies will no doubt evaporate faster than a drop of water in a hot skillet after the election -- after Bush is sent packing. Not wanting to forgo access to the WH, those fearless men and women of the SCLM will no doubt embrace a new found zeal to report on the mess Bush has gotten us into.

What was heretofore reported only as rumor or innuendo, or unsubstantiaed fact . . . by some other reporter . . . will likely see new life, perhaps even with the wisdom of hindsight, if not hypocrisy.

The litany of scandal being accumulated by the current administration -- submerged in secrecy and protected from view by the instrument of fgovernment presided over by a corrupt and corrupting President will crumble like the corrupt edifice it is as the Presidency of this dangerous incumbant crumbles before a dismayed disgusted electorate.

Soon the stories shunned by the mass media will instead become their staple as if to validate all the horror we have lived through by finding anew zeal for reporting the lies and corruption that have been rampant and visble to those with eyes.

Coming late to the party, however, it will be difficult for the mass media to regain the confidence of the coutry as a serious institution counterbalancing the immense and potentially harful effects of a government swimming in ideological certainty, narrrow purpose, and arrogant intimidation.

Cakewalk? Uh, like don't remind me dude.

"Time changes everything" (Tompall Glazer)

Before we get too far away, I think its important to remind myself of some facts related to Iraq. Simple facts, with rather large brush strokes, but the kind of facts that throw today's spin into high relief.

Bush has been asked, as recently as the presidential debate a couple of days ago, if the 1000 plus lost lives of Americans, and countless Iraqis, are "worth it". When put that way, how can anyone even take the question seriously. I mean, what is Bush supposed to say, nah, not worth it. Big mistake. Never should have gone in there.

But what I want to remember is the mindset prevalent in the runup to the war -- surely among the neocons, Bush's advisors for the most part and, by extension, the American public brainwashed by the compliant media with the "steno Sue" mentality. The mindset that saw it as a cakewalk and even fantasized the flower strewn roads and huzzahs to the liberating troops.

Sure, we never expected to "win" so quickly. To tell the truth, few of those having Bush's ear expected much of what has evolved in Iraq. Those of us who felt otherwise were considered, well, mildly touched, unpatriotic, naive glue sniffing flower children. My wife got this bumper sticker for the car, and I hate bumper stickers, which we affixed before the invasion: "War is not the answer". Which war? Well it could have been any war but the implication was clear. And here, in the south, I felt like it was a bit of a risk. And we did get catcalls, and dirty looks, etc. No one shot at the car though. That was a plus.

We also had a small anti war protest here in our rural college town; again, bad looks, honking, catcalls, etc., by the local gentry.

No, being against this pre-emptive, presumptuous, concocted war was not popular. But I gotta ask, in light of the mass hypnosis and selective amnesia that afflicts all of us to a large degree: 1000 plus American lives; 7500 wounded; thousands of Iraqis dead? If we knew then what we know now -- lies and false WMD claims; creating a terrorist hotbed and likely failed state -- who could honestly say its worth it?

It is all well and good to say that was then and this is now. Realpolitik and all that. I'm not convinced. I think we need to constantly remind ourselves of just how wrong we were. Just how misled we were by our government. Just how stupid we look in retrospect. I doubt the dimensions of this disaster will shrink anytime soon. My bet is that Iraq and all that surrounds it will continue to fester and encumber the world. A year from today, I will be surprised if we've turned a corner, whatever that might be. Ten years hence, its still going to be a disaster.