[Peace-discuss] What will we do?

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

To Catch a Thief
by Barbara Ehrenreich

We were six toasts into the wedding dinner when the 
conversation turned, as conversations usually do, to the 
possibility of a Republican theft of the election in 
November. "That's when we hit the streets!" declared the 
Cuban American community organizer from Pennsylvania. "Yeah!" 
bellowed the retired union president from Long Island, and we 
all pounded the table and raised our glasses yet 
again: "Everybody hit the streets!"

The streets must be feeling pretty threatened by this time, 
because the idea of a Republican-engineered election fraud is 
no longer the property of the kind of people who think George 
W. designed 9/11 and that John Kerry is a Halliburton-
supplied bot containing batteries set to run out on October 
15.

Following the wedding, I took an absolutely unscientific poll 
of friends and relatives, asking what they planned to do, and 
what they thought others should do, in the event of a 2000 
election hoax rerun. Everyone seemed to think this is a real 
possibility. My sister, for example, an office worker in 
Colorado, e-mailed to say, "Funny, I've been thinking about 
that . . . Ever since [2000], I've thought, 'How could we let 
this happen? Why didn't we--the majority--hit the streets in 
indignation?' "

Not everyone wants to rush outdoors with a picket sign. One 
nephew, who manages a fast food joint in Oklahoma, writes 
that the answer is "one word: RECALL." But my brother, a 
realtor in Missouri, doesn't want to bother with any more 
voting machines. In the event of massive fraud, he 
writes, "It would be time for a 'New Revolution'! . . . 
Hopefully peaceful, but I wouldn't rule out anything."

Steve Cobble, a D.C.-based political operative who's worked 
for Jesse Jackson Sr., told me, "We have to have plans to 
research the [election] results ASAP, while hitting the 
streets immediately." Among my activist friends, the only 
exception to the hit-the-streets line has been Bob Borosage 
of Campaign for America's Future, who says, "As for stealing 
the election, I think we better win it first."

Yes, of course, by all means. But no matter how many people 
we register and drive to the polls, the possibilities for 
monkey business are numerous and arcane. Among them:

* Computer fraud, especially in places offering touch screen 
voting without a paper trail (although a paper trail is no 
guarantee of accuracy if it's generated by the same screwed-
up software as the touch screen votes). It's particularly 
worrisome that at least two of the companies that provide 
computerized voting machines--Diebold and InterCivic--have 
strong ties to the Republican Party.

* Selective discouragement of easily identifiable Democratic 
voters, i.e., black ones, such as occurred in Florida in 
2000. Already, John Pappageorge, a Republican state 
legislator in Michigan, has urged his party to take measures 
to "suppress the Detroit vote." Plainclothes officers from 
the Florida state police have been trying to intimidate 
elderly black voters by going to their homes and 
interrogating them about their status as voters.

* Relying on the Pentagon to forward e-mail votes from troops 
in combat zones to their local election offices, as Missouri 
and North Dakota are planning to do. As The New York Times 
has editorialized, this creates a situation "rife with 
security problems."

* And, the most lurid of all, declaring a red alert and 
postponing the election, a possibility already floated as a 
trial balloon by Tom Ridge.

In the weeks remaining to us, prevention may be the best 
medicine, and all sorts of groups are gearing up to guard 
against a coup. Common Cause and People for the American Way, 
among others, are mobilizing to oppose touch screen voting 
and to increase the ranks of poll watchers. The Democratic 
Party has lined up 2,000 lawyers in case of dodgy-looking 
results and is bringing the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor our election for the 
first time ever. Taking the foreign monitor theme one step 
further, the feisty folks at Global Exchange have invited 
their own twenty-eight nonpartisan foreign observers. All 
over the country, local Democrats and citizens' groups like 
Count Every Vote 2004 are preparing for a heavy presence at 
the polls.

But if the preventive measures fail to produce a credible 
election, don't expect the Democratic Party to lead the fight 
for democracy. The most painful scene in Fahrenheit 9/11--and 
there are quite a few contenders for this title--is the one 
in which members of the Congressional Black Caucus speak to 
the Senate, one by one, pleading for just one Senator to join 
them in stopping the Supreme Court's selection of Bush. When 
faced with a truly revolutionary situation--an electoral coup 
from the right--Al Gore folded like a lawn chair. As for 
Kerry: He may have had some backbone thirty years ago, but 
too many years spent sitting in the Senate have rendered it 
the consistency of Play-Doh.

So we're on our own, folks--those of us who still hold to the 
idea that our leaders should be elected rather than 
perpetuated by fraud. In addition to all the poll monitoring, 
touch screen protesting, etc., we need two things. First, 
some agreed-upon group to declare the election fair or 
fraudulent. This may not be an easy or obvious call, 
according to my friend the political scientist Frances Fox 
Piven: "If this election is stolen, it will be stolen at the 
most local level, and we won't know right away." Maybe the 
OSCE can be relied on to pass judgment, or maybe the ACLU 
should be appointed to do the job, with MoveOn spreading the 
word.

Second, we need a plan of action for the all-too-likely event 
that the election is determined to be tainted. "Hitting the 
streets" sounds good, but if we each do it on our own, the 
neighbors will just conclude that we're taking out the 
recycling or assessing our leaf-raking issues. Asked what we 
should do, Linda Burnham, of Count Every Vote 2004, suggests 
people start planning now for local demonstrations at 
election boards. Piven recommends nationwide protests that 
are both "nonviolent and disruptive," possibly on 
inauguration day. John Cavanagh, director of the Institute 
for Policy Studies, writes: "On February 15, 2003, over ten 
million people in over 600 cities around the world took to 
the streets to say no to Bush's [war on Iraq.] Another stolen 
election will require coordinated efforts like this, on a 
larger and more sustained basis, until the stolen goods are 
returned. Mega-networks like United for Peace and Justice, 
which played a central role in February 15 as well as the 
recent mass march at the Republican Convention, will need to 
retool so they can play a central role."

All this sounds good to me--local planning for local 
responses and national coordination by a trusted group like 
United for Peace and Justice. But we have to get started, 
well, last week. Democratic voters need to be assured that 
some of us won't take another coup lying down. And Republican 
dirty-tricksters need to start feeling the first shivers of 
fear. If all the people who are saying they're willing to hit 
the streets actually do so, there won't be a lot of people 
left indoors to wait tables, teach school, or pay taxes 
during W's second term. 
__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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