[Peace-discuss] Was the election stolen?

[Phil Stinard]

Matt,

I'm in basic agreement with the points that you make, especially that Bush 
most likely won the election in as fair and square a manner as one can win 
an election in the US.  Fraud needs to be prevented, but I don't see any 
strong movement in that direction.  If it doesn't happen  now, it won't 
happen until just before the next election, as it did just before this 
election, which is too late.  Federal elections need to be standardized with 
respect to who can vote, and how they vote.  My recommendation is 
touch-screen voting with multiple levels of high security and a paper trail. 
  I also support the right of people with criminal records to vote.  In 
Puerto Rico, even prison inmates vote.

Clearly, there are still alot of bad feelings between the ABBers and the 
people who "voted their conscience."  I'll admit that I still harbor a lot 
of resentment.  Until there is healing, I doubt that there will be any truly 
unified efforts to fight the Bush agenda.  Rather, there will be a lot of 
smaller and individual efforts.  I think that unified efforts are better, 
but until people get over their tremendous egos, those people with 
tremendous egos will lead small, relatively ineffective efforts.  But at 
least they'll feel good doing it!  And, those of us who watched it happen 
and fell for it won't be fooled again.  Contemplate the differences between 
Michael Moore and Amy Goodman.  Who is more effective over the long run?

I hope that people express their feelings about the election and start the 
process of healing.  It would be great if AWARE could set aside an hour or 
so before a meeting to have a discussion on just thoughts about the 
election, how the elections strategies played out, resentment within the 
progressive movement, etc.  People might just end up yelling at each other, 
which is certainly not any worse than the current catty exchanges, but maybe 
people will understand each other's positions better and move forward with 
respect to common goals.

--Phil

>Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:32:03 -0600
>From: "Matt Reichel" <mattreichel at hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Was the election stolen?
>To: Peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
>Message-ID: <BAY17-F19UUx6EfkU9X00009c1a at hotmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
>This was the first American election to include United Nations monitors,
>whose assessment was that the elections were relatively free and fair, with
>the biggest problem being long lines and archaic equipment. In Venezuela,
>Brazil and other countries of the so-called "Developing World," the
>technology used to administer elections is on average more state-of-the-art
>and efficient than the equipment used in the world's great defender of
>freedom and democracy.
>Beyond that, there were few reports of widespread voter fraud or any
>possibility that the Republicans stole this one from the Democrats.
>
>The Dems lost the election; the Republicans didn't have to do it for them.
>While Katrina Vanden Huevel, Medea Benjamin and other ABBers are now 
>willing
>to admit this, I wonder where their ability at foresight was?? With so many
>commentators steadily warning that the ABB tactic was doomed to failure,
>especially at the wonderful counterpunch.org site, you have to wonder why
>these ABBers were so intent at keeping their head in the sky.
>The current ABB dogma is predictable: "Oh wait, we should start protesting
>the war again," as if those that remained steadily opposed to excessive war
>and imperialism by opposing both entrenched parties should just give up and
>forgive them without having them admit their tragic error.
>
>Lastly, the "safe state" strategy employed by the "candidacy" of the 
>Greens'
>Cobb is not coherently distinct from the ABB strategy. If you believe that
>it is unimportant to support the least worst evil because of their 
>complicit
>involvement in the prominent neo-liberal crusade, then it makes no
>difference what state you live in: vote your conscience. Much like the ABB
>movement has destroyed the peace movement we worked so hard to create,
>Cobb's safe state strategy has severely injured the Greens, whose election
>returns were outright pathetic in this election (The Libertarians and the
>Constitution party each safely out-running Cobb). I thought Cobb's 
>candidacy
>was all about building the party???? What a joke!
>
>-
>mer
>
>
> >From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
> >To: Peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
> >Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Was the election stolen?
> >Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 22:36:45 -0600
> >
> >Phil--
> >
> >I think your general argument here is quite correct and well-put, except
> >for what's essentially a footnote: I think you misinterpret Alex
> >Cockburn's remarks. He's quite far from making "excuses for the
> >Democrats."  He has in fact excoriated them in a series of columns
> >(available at counterpunch.org), to the point that our own Mort Brussel
> >accused him of Schadenfreude at the Democrats' disarray.  I think Mort's
> >view is at least overstated, but it's true that Cockburn has condemned 
>not
> >only the Democrats but also the "safe-state" strategy, because of his
> >contempt for the party and its candidate.
> >
> >The point Cockburn makes in the passage you quote is simply the 
>undeniable
> >one that the Republicans were able to gay-bait the Democrats in this
> >election as they once Red-baited them (e.g., "Who lost China?" and
> >McCarthy's "Twenty years of treason" -- i.e. the New Deal.)
> >
> >And BTW, I once went looking for a source for the oft-repeated Niemoeller
> >quote -- and was never able to find it.  But it's good enough that, if he
> >didn't say it, he should have.
> >
> >Best, Carl
> >
> >
> >On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, Phil Stinard wrote:
> >
> > > At tonight's AWARE meeting, David (at least I think it was David),
> > > suggested that time be set aside to discuss the US election, and
> > > whether the vote was stolen.  For various reasons, there was no time
> > > for this, so since I'm all primed and ready to go, I'll continue the
> > > conversion on the Peace-Discuss List.
> > >
> > > To discuss whether the election was stolen, one must first answer the
> > > question, "Stolen from whom?"  Since I didn't vote for Kerry, and
> > > since I'm confident that my write-in vote for Ralph Nader was duly
> > > counted (there were three Nader votes in Urbana 2, and I know one of
> > > the other two Nader voters), I don't feel that my vote was stolen.
> > > However, I understand that there are some embittered Kerry voters who
> > > feel that their vote WAS stolen because Kerry didn't win.  I put in
> > > that last clause intentionally, because had Kerry won, I doubt that
> > > few Kerry supporters would be complaining about fraud or stolen votes.
> > > My view is that there is a certain amount of fraud, discarded votes,
> > > and disenfranchisement in every election, and that this election was
> > > no worse than any other, and yet, it is only the loser in a close race
> > > who cries fraud, or more precisely, the supporters of the loser who
> > > cry fraud, because Kerry himself is rather silent on the subject.  At
> > > the November 3 post-election meeting held at the IMC, I was one of the
> > > few people in the room who said that their major concern after the
> > > election is making sure that everyone's vote is counted.  For those
> > > interested in fair elections, the top priority MUST be election
> > > reform.  I don't see that coming from either of the two major parties.
> > > Gosh, I wonder why?  Maybe it's because that's how they get elected.
> > > If you want to see an example of how to run a fair and honest election
> > > that meets even ex-President Carter's standards, look no further than
> > > Venezuela's August 15 referendum on Hugo Chavez's presidency.  It was
> > > run using state-of-the-art electronic voting machines with something
> > > like seven levels of security, and the machines printed paper receipts
> > > that the voter inspected, and then placed into a secure ballot box to
> > > be used should a manual recount be required.  There was almost nothing
> > > about this in the English language press--I translated and/or wrote
> > > some of the few articles that are available in English about those
> > > machines.  That election took only a few months to set up.  We have
> > > four years.  The clock is ticking.
> > >
> > > If I remember my death-and-dying correctly, Elisabeth Kubler Ross said
> > > that the first stage of grief is denial.  That explains Greg Palast's
> > > claim of a stolen election, ending with his illogical but dramatic
> > > conclusion that he didn't leave his country, his country left him
> > > (which if taken out of context would seem to be the last stage of
> > > grieving, acceptance that maybe more people did vote for Bush than for
> > > Kerry, although that was not his intent).
> > >
> > > The Democrats who didn't follow Kerry's lead and support Bush after
> > > the election have been doing a lot of agonizing over how they "lost"
> > > the election.  Sharon Smith provides an excellent analysis of what
> > > went wrong for Democrats and progressives in her article "The
> > > Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Lesser Evilism"
> > > (http://www.counterpunch.org/smith11042004.html).  I wanted to point
> > > out Alexander Cockburn's analysis from Counterpunch, though, as an
> > > example of how far people will go to make excuses for the Democrats:
> > >
> > > "The Democrats spent the year wasting money and passion attacking
> > > Ralph Nader whose early predictions of his ultimate drawing power at
> > > the polls turned out to be on the money. If the Democrats had wanted
> > > to identify a serious saboteur of their chances they should have homed
> > > in on Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco whose okay to gay marriage
> > > saw all those same sex couples on the steps of City Hall embracing, on
> > > every front page and nightly news in America. Ohio had its proposition
> > > banning gay marriage and the drive to put it on the ballot and push it
> > > to victory brought the Christians out in their hundreds of thousands,
> > > marching to the polls across the rubble of their state's economy."
> > >
> > > It was Ralph Nader last time, and now that they have elimated him as a
> > > threat, their next target is gays, and you have people like Alexander
> > > Cockburn cheering the effort with hyperbolic excess.  It reminds me of
> > > Martin Niemoeller's poem on victims of the Nazi regime:
> > >
> > > ?First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I
> > > did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade
> > > Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came
> > > for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when
> > > they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.?
> > >
> > > Well, I'm going to speak out, and this is only the beginning.  I urge
> > > everyone to keep a close eye on both parties the next time around, and
> > > don't blindly support the Democrats just because they're not
> > > Republicans.  The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
> > >
> > > --Phil