Friday, June 09, 2006

Damn, Now I'm Really Mad

If you've read the link from where cooper posted it at Fanatical
Apathy
, you can skip this post; cooper, you already know all this.

Did you ever wonder why John Kerry lost so solidly in 2004, when the exit polls said he had it nailed? Well, folks, the answer is simple and sad, and it's laid out in extreme detail, with footnotes and documentary evidence, in the article published last week in Rolling Stone, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The answer is fraud. The Republican administration in the state of Ohio, fraudulently prevented tens of thousands of Democratic voters from casting ballots; connived at tampering with voting machines so that votes cast for Kerry actually went to Bush, or weren't counted at all; imported goons from Texas to threaten and intimidate minority voters. These people make Kathleen Harris, in Florida in 2000, look like a chocolate cupcake.

Make no mistake: they succeeded. They swung the election. The wrong man is in the White House. The Republican machine is nothing if not efficient. Honest, no; honorable, no; but efficient. This is vote-rigging on a scale not seen in America since Tammany Hall, except maybe in Chicago on occasion.

It's a long article, but everyone should read it, and then everyone should write to their elected representative and urge them to Get Those Bastards Out Of There. Jimmy Carter, where were your election monitors in Ohio in 2004, when we needed them? This is the sort of shenanigan I associate with Belarus, or Zimbabwe; the only thing they left out were the armed goon squads actually shooting opposition voters.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:11 PM

    Seems to me I heard Jimmy talking on Fresh Air a while a while back and he said that his group could not monitor the elections in America because we did not meet the minimum requirments for fair elections that his group requires. Kind of makes you think, doesn't it? I'll have to read the article.

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  2. Oh, now that's really scary, stephen. Not necessarily surprising, but scary...

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  3. Anonymous6:37 AM

    RFK, Jr's article does an excellent job of compiling what happened, which was actually obvious before the election to anyone following the various machinations of Kenneth Blackwell, especially those of us in Florida who experienced Jeb Bush/Katherine Harris's machinations, although far too many of them were not made public until after the election, hard as Greg Palast tried to shine a light on them during the recount.

    This machine will continue to steal elections until it is stopped by the major media (I don't see the Democrats having a powerful enough alternative machine any time soon).

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  4. And in the interval, although I've heard some people shaking their heads over it, there doesn't seem to be any general outrage.

    Maybe this is all just an unavoidable side effect of having all the newspapers owned by the same 5 large corporations, none of whom is willing to piss off the administration. Back when newspapers were independent and competing in local markets, they would take risks on behalf of the public's right to know, which also built circulation - as in, the Pentagon Papers. Could the Pentagon Papers be published today? Worrying question.

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  5. Anonymous4:03 PM

    Likely answer re Pentagon Papers - no chance.

    The America we think we know is disappearing like polar ice.

    Anonymous David

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  6. Anonymous6:14 PM

    Much of this came out at the time from folks who lived in the state. My office mate's parents, who live in Ohiio, were astounded. You know, according to history, when rot creeps in little bit by little bit, it is pretty successful. Still there may be a time when admitting you are related to the Bush family is on a par with being related to the Donner family. (Hope was the last thing let out of the box.)

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