AlterNet: How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?

[marmar]

How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?

By David Michael Green, AlterNet. Posted March 28, 2008.

Presidents and prime ministers will lie their countries into war -- but why do We the People keep buying it?



Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.

As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration (No, it's not a terrorist attack -- that was 2001! No, it's not a catastrophic war -- that was 2003! No, it's not a drowning city -- that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he's attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again -- and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again -- is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny -- and as stiff -- as Dick Nixon, by comparison.

It's simply incomprehensible. It's not so astonishing, of course, that a country could have a bad leader whose aims are nefarious on the occasions when they are competent enough to rise to that level of intentionality. Plenty of countries have managed that feat, especially when -- as was the case with Bush -- every sort of scam is employed to steal power, and then pure corruption and intimidation used to keep it. History is quite littered indeed with bimbos and petty criminals of this caliber. What is harder to explain is how the citizens of a country of such remarkable achievements in other domains, and with the capacity to choose, allow this to happen. And then stand by silently watching for eight years as the tragedy unfolds before their eyes.

But let's give credit where credit is due. This is precisely by design. This is exactly the outcome intended by the greatest propaganda-promulgating regime since Hermann Göring set fire to the Reichstag. It was Göring himself who famously reminded us that, "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Sure worked in Germany. And it worked even better here, because these guys were so absolutely careful to avoid exposing the costs of their war to those who could demand its end. For example, by some counts, there are more mercenaries in Iraq, at extremely high cost, than there are U.S. military personnel. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/audits/80497/

[fed-up]

1. how stupid is the author of article?-the election was STOLEN...nt

[marmar]

2. But perhaps the argument is "Why was it even close?"

n/t

[tavalon]

5. Or the question that niggles at me in the dark nights:

Was it even close? I think it was, hell, I hope it was because we're on the eve of another "election". What if the fiction can be as big as they want it to be. Why is 60,000 a stealable number but not 6 million?

[Senator]

9. Part of that is answered

It wasn't close. They did "steal 6 million." That was roughly the difference between the exit polls and the arranged result. A 3 million Kerry margin was flipped to a 3 million bushkid margin. Not that the national margin is relevant to electoral voting -- that number in Ohio, NM, NV, etc... was far lower.

But they learned from being caught the last time (2000) that a popular vote gap could be a problem politically. So they stole more in places it "didn't matter." Now is 16 million, or 26 for that matter, a "stealable number?" As you say, why not?

And there are many ways to "steal." Who's to say how far the thieves will go this time. Actual violence on election day or after? Putting D candidates in jail before to swing states? Or just back to the formerly-supreme court to babble some gibberish and reinstall an appointed ruler? Remember, they're not part of the "reality-based community." They just need something to parrot to themselves across the Euphemedia.

But at least this time the race is between the thieves and the election reformers (the D and R candidates are nearly irrelevant). The election reformers "won" in 2006. But that was a off-year -- not a true test. Certainly the reformers have had more victories and secured more of the process than ever before.

Most of the "leadership" on our side learned nothing. So the DC Dems are as likely to do any thing about it as they are likely to impeach for torture and war crimes.

We may not know until long after election day. When Lieberman leads some gaggle of sellouts and/or "blue dogs" in a chorus of "(we know what's) good for the nation."

---

[DCKit]

3. They simply mis-spoke early in the article then said...

"...every sort of scam is employed to steal power..." to clarify the point. I do agree that it should have been made clear from the beginning that 2000 was sElection, as well as election fraud, and 2004 was done without the collusion of the Supremes.

Had the MSM reported it, their use of Goering's tactics to lead us by the nose to Iraq would have - and should have - ended in failure for the malAdministration. It doesn't matter why the MSM was in collusion, only that they were and, considering the import of what's been done to the country, we can't afford to ever trust them again with anything more important than celebrity gossip and, possibly, the weather.

[Wednesdays]

6. But isn't that what they're already doing?

we can't afford to ever trust them again with anything more important than celebrity gossip and, possibly, the weather.

But these days politics and "celebrity gossip" are synonymous...you see as many politicians adorning the covers of tabloids and People Magazine as anyone else. Especially if they're a Democrat. :shrug:

[peacetalksforall]

4. True similar comment over at AlterNet related to article - all the alternataives

who say they bring us the news won't touch 9-11 news or investigations. Stolen elections and 9-11 - not good for us to know about, moreso 9-11.

[bryant69]

7. The 2004 election was not stolen, last i heard.

But I know better than to argue with someone's religious principles.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DCKit]

10. I'm willing to listen to any intelligent debate on the issue of election fraud,

but the repeat of irregularities in Florida and, especially, Ohio in 2004 plus the revelation that "Kkkarl has the math" prior to the 2004 election and the fact that there's nothing I wouldn't put past this gang, what else am I supposed to think?

Allowing this cabal to retake the WH under any circumstance was no different - and far more damaging - than handing a loaded, cocked handgun to a three year old. They have no restraint, are assured of their personal manifest destiny and will allow nothing to stand in their way. What chance does the electoral process have against the will of God?

[struggle4progress]

11. None dare call it stolen: Ohio, the election, and America's servile press

BY Mark Crispin Miller
PUBLISHED August 2005

... The infamously factious Democrats were fiercely unified—Ralph Nader garnered only about 0.38 percent of the national vote—while the Republicans were split, with a vocal anti-Bush front that included anti-Clinton warrior Bob Barr of Georgia; Ike's son John Eisenhower; Ronald Reagan's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Crowe Jr.; former Air Force Chief of Staff and onetime “Veteran for Bush” General Merrill “Tony” McPeak; founding neocon Francis Fukuyama; Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, and various large alliances of military officers, diplomats, and business professors ... At least fifty-nine daily newspapers that backed Bush in the previous election endorsed Kerry (or no one) in this election. The national turnout in 2004 was the highest since 1968, when another unpopular war had swept the ruling party from the White House. The national turnout in 2004 was the highest since 1968, when another unpopular war had swept the ruling party from the White House.Yet this ever-less-beloved president, this president who had united liberals and conservatives and nearly all the world against himself—this president somehow bested his opponent ...

The first phase of malfeasance entailed, among many other actions, several months of bureaucratic hijinks aimed at disenfranchising Democrats, the most spectacular result of which was “a wide discrepancy between the availability of voting machines in more minority, Democratic and urban areas as compared to more Republican, suburban and exurban areas.” Such unequal placement had the predictable effect of slowing the voting process to a crawl at Democratic polls, while making matters quick and easy in Bush country: a clever way to cancel out the Democrats' immense success at registering new voters in Ohio. (We cannot know the precise number of new voters registered in Ohio by either party because many states, including Ohio, do not register voters by party affiliation. The New York Times reported in September, however, that new registration rose 25 percent in Ohio's predominantly Republican precincts and 250 percent in Ohio's predominantly Democratic precincts.)

At Kenyon College in Gambier, for instance, there were only two machines for 1,300 would-be voters, even though “a surge of late registrations promised a record vote.” Gambier residents and Kenyon students had to stand in line for hours, in the rain and in “crowded, narrow hallways,” with some of them inevitably forced to call it quits. “In contrast, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, which is considered more Republican leaning, there were ample waiting machines and no lines.” This was not a consequence of limited resources. In Franklin County alone, as voters stood for hours throughout Columbus and elsewhere, at least 125 machines collected dust in storage. The county's election officials had “decided to make do with 2,866 machines, even though the analysis showed that the county needs 5,000 machines.”

It seemed at times that Ohio's secretary of state was determined to try every stunt short of levying a poll tax to suppress new voter turnout. On September 7, based on an overzealous reading of an obscure state bylaw, he ordered county boards of elections to reject all Ohio voter-registration forms not “printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight.” Under public pressure he reversed the order three weeks later, by which time unknown numbers of Ohioans had been disenfranchised. Blackwell also attempted to limit access to provisional ballots. The Help America Vote Act—passed in 2002 to address some of the problems of the 2000 election—prevents election officials from deciding at the polls who will be permitted to cast provisional ballots, as earlier Ohio law had permitted. On September 16, Blackwell issued a directive that somehow failed to note that change. A federal judge ordered him to revise the language, Blackwell resisted, and the court was forced to draft its own version of the directive, which it ordered Blackwell to accept, even as it noted Blackwell's “vigorous, indeed, at times, obdurate opposition” to compliance with the law ...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080696

[struggle4progress]

12. Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.Posted Jun 01, 2006 5:02 PM

... But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.(11) ...

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

[struggle4progress]

13. Blowback from Ohio's 2004 Stolen Election is Escalating

Published on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

... In the 2004 presidential election, Cuyahoga County suffered serious election irregularities that worked to the disadvantage of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Among them: the purging of 24.93% of all the voters in the city of Cleveland, where Kerry won 83% of the vote; mysterious and suspect vote totals for third party candidates in majority African American wards; unexplained "security" problems that caused the last-minute shift of voting locations in the inner city Cleveland Public School polling places; improbably low apparent turnouts in heavily Democratic inner city wards, and more.

Brunner's request for the resignations comes a week after two Cuyahoga County election workers were each sentenced to 18 months in prison for rigging the recount of the 2004 election in Ohio's biggest county. These are the first prison terms issued in the escalating scandal over the vote count that gave George W. Bush a second stay in the White House. The two women are out on bail pending appeal. But the substantial jail time demanded by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Peter Corrigan indicates there may be more trials and convictions yet to come, especially in light of new evidence unearthed by the Free Press in other counties around the state ...

Immediately following the election, 562,498 votes were reported cast in Cuyahoga County, with 30,791 listed as absentee or provisional ballots. But the official results show just 468,056 counted. This means that 94,442 ballots cast in the unofficial total disappeared in the official tallies, representing a shocking 16.8% of all the votes cast in Cuyahoga ...

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-23.htm

[Juche]

14. What have you heard

And do you have evidence that the 2004 election didn't involve fraud, that all the allegations are baseless? There were many claims of unrealistic turnout, ballots being thrown away, hidden counts, voter caging, machines that didn't work, democrats waiting in line longer, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities

[Richard Steele]

8. K&R