Reply #6: BBC (Friday): The machinery of an anxious democracy

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Friday September 24

The machinery of an anxious democracy
November's presidential elections will be truly historic.
By Clare Murphy
BBC News Online

For the first time, representatives from the OSCE - the European body which has traditionally monitored elections in fledgling democracies - will observe as Americans elect their president.
There have certainly been objections to the involvement of foreign monitors in the domestic affairs of a country which sees itself as a beacon of democracy.
But the Florida fiasco of 2000 with its hanging chads and voter purges has shaken confidence in the sanctity of the system, producing in the words of one observer, a climate of "unease, distrust and scepticism".
New technology brought in to replace the old - polls suggest - is as mistrusted as that which it has replaced, and anxiety abounds in the media over every conceivable aspect of the vote.

Read more.

For decades, the BBC has been a traditional source of news and information for those living in places deprived of a free and independent press. That is why this American living in the age of Bush and corporatism relies on the BBC and the British press to find out what is happening in America.