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Politics : Illyia's Heart on SI -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: illyia who wrote (851)	3/3/2006 1:27:29 AM
From: zonkie	Respond to of 7567

Electronic voting in California. ---------------------- Global Eye Party Hacks By Chris Floyd Published: March 3, 2006 Two weeks ago, an obscure, unelected, Republican-appointed official in California decided the future of the world. That future -- at least for the next several years -- will be an accelerating nightmare of war, corruption, repression, atrocity and terror. That's because the loyal apparatchik has, with the stroke of a pen, guaranteed the perpetuation of the Bush faction in power in 2008 and beyond. One of the few certainties in modern U.S. politics is that no Democrat can win the presidency without carrying California. Thanks to the Electoral College system set up by the Founding Oligarchs to keep the low-born rabble from voting directly for president, the big haul of California's electoral votes is crucial for Democrats to offset the multitude of small, sparsely populated states that reliably vote Republican. Bagging California doesn't guarantee Democratic victory, but without it, the cliffhanger electoral counts in the goosed elections of 2000 and 2004 wouldn't even have been close. Thus, the sudden, hugger-mugger decision by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to override the objections of his own experts and certify the eminently hackable voting machines of the politically partisan firm, Diebold, for use throughout the state means, quite simply, that the fix is in for 2008. It doesn't matter who the Democrats run -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, George Clooney or Jesus H. Christ in an Uncle Sam suit. It won't make a bit of difference. California is lost, the presidency is lost and the Bushists are in -- already. It's over. After Diebold's machines failed miserably in a battery of tests last year, McPherson vowed to put their certification on hold until his own hand-picked panel of experts had fine-combed the system to a fare-thee-well, blogger Brad Friedman reports. The panel delivered their conclusions last month -- and the results were staggering, far beyond the worst fears of the most hard-core "conspiracy theorist." The panel found that Diebold's machines were riddled with curious built-in glitches that effectively "ceded complete control of the system" to hackers who could "change vote totals, modify reports, change the names of candidates and change the races being voted on." What's more, "hackers wouldn't need to know passwords or cryptographic keys, or have access to any other part of the system to do their dirty work," the Los Angeles Times notes. "Voters, candidates and election monitors wouldn't necessarily know they'd been rooked." A more perfect vehicle for fixing an election can hardly be imagined. And it would require nothing more than a handful of high-tech zealots, not a vast conspiracy. To Our Readers The Moscow Times welcomes letters to the editor. Letters for publication should be signed and bear the signatory's address and telephone number. Letters to the editor should be sent by fax to (7-495) 232-6529, by e-mail to oped@imedia.ru, or by post. The Moscow Times reserves the right to edit letters. Email the Opinion Page Editor Naturally, after such a blistering condemnation, McPherson did what any official charged with guaranteeing the integrity and credibility of his state's elections would do: He approved the slipshod system by the dark of the moon, on a Friday before a holiday weekend, without any public hearings -- indeed, without waiting for the results of a pending federal review of Diebold's mole-infested code. Now, the Diebold contraptions, whose chronic "breakdowns" have featured in numerous contested elections and last-second "miracle" victories by Republican candidates across the country in recent years, will control California's pot of electoral gold. A good example of how this control works can be found in Alaska. There, the state Democratic Party has long been seeking an audit of some of the 2004 Diebold-counted returns, which produced a series of strange anomalies -- including awarding President George W. Bush an extra 100,000 votes that turned out to be phantoms. First, state officials blocked the request because that information, the vote count of a public election, was a "company secret" that belonged exclusively to Diebold, Friedman reports. Then they decided that the returns could be examined -- but only on the condition that Diebold and the Republican officials be allowed to "manipulate the data" before it was released. In the end, even this tainted transparency was too much for the Bushist ballot crunchers; late last month, Alaska officials suddenly declared that examining the returns would pose a dire but unspecified "security risk" to the state. America's votes are increasingly controlled by a small number of interrelated corporations: Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, all of which have close political and financial ties to the Bush faction -- and to other dark forces as well. Diebold and ES&S were both bankrolled by tycoon Howard Ahmanson, who was also a major funder of the Christian "Reconstructionist" movement, which openly advocates a totalitarian theocracy in America, including the death penalty for homosexuals, slavery for debtors, stoning for sinners and stripping nonbelievers of citizenship. As journalist Max Blumenthal reports, these extremists have been welcomed as a key part of the Bushist base of politicized evangelicals, whose cadres have been quietly filling government posts for the past five years. Meanwhile, Sequoia -- whose machines racked up 100,000 "mistakes" in just one Florida county in 2004, according to a recent audit -- is owned by a business partner of the Carlyle Group, the investment firm whose insider deals and war profiteering have earned millions for the Bush family. Thus, the 2008 election will be conducted largely on wide-open machines programmed by avowed partisans and paymasters of a ruthless gang that has already committed demonstrable vote fraud on a massive scale in engineering narrow "victories" in 2000 and 2004. So it doesn't matter who runs, who votes or how unpopular the Bush faction becomes through the murderous ruin of its radical agenda. The "consent of the governed" will be drowned in the blood money that has bought the nation's electoral process. context.themoscowtimes.com

To: illyia who wrote (851)	3/3/2006 2:38:58 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 7567

If one is to understand the apparently incongruent actions of the U.S. government it is imperative to view events in the proper context. Too many of us are muddled in trying to explain U.S. policy from the perspective that we are a democratic republic undivided by socioeconomic class. This is not surprising. After all, this is what we were taught from earliest childhood; and the belief has been reinforced all the way to the grave. However, the absurdity of this assertion should be obvious to any student of history. The hypocrisy of rhetoric versus the reality created by policy is simply too great to ignore, and it is growing worse every year. To understand American policy in historical context we must divorce ourselves from the old paradigm that has been ingrained in us—America as a classless democratic republic. This is simply a popular myth used by the ruling class to deceive and subvert the working class into servitude. U.S. policy makes sense only when we examine its formulation as stemming from plutocratic interests, rather than democratic principles America as we know it was founded upon the eradication of its indigenous people—the American Indians. When the declaration of independence was written, slavery was the institution that drove the economic engines of the country. The merchant class emerged as the ruling class—the farmers and the artisans fell into the working class. From its very inception, America was never a true democracy because it did not allow the citizenship a great proportion of the population—including non-white males, women and slaves. The founding fathers never intended to create a true democratic republic. This was the basis for what was to become a nation divided by class and gender. Ironically, there was a viable democracy in operation during this period of colonial history—the Iroquois nation. Thomas Jefferson recognized this fact and sought to base the Constitution in part on these behaviors. But like all democracies encountered by plutocracy, the Iroquois nation was brutally eradicated. Democracy and plutocracy cannot peacefully coexist. Plutocracy is a doctrine of conquest and subjugation that cannot be reconciled with democracy. It was the elitism fostered by plutocracy that morphed into the doctrine of Manifest Destiny that drives U.S. policy to this day. We are witnessing the continued attempted overthrow of democratic governments throughout the world by the U.S. led plutocrats—most notably in Latin America. But even as the pentagon sends our troops to conquer and subdue the people of Iraq (a feat it will never accomplish), Democratic Socialism is taking root in several South American Countries, including Venezuela, Bolivia, and Chile—and it is spreading. The U.S. has a long history of covert actions against democratic republics. For example, a few years ago covert C.I.A. operatives succeeded in ousting Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez from office; but only for two days. The immense popularity enjoyed by Chavez is something that a puppet like George Bush and his minions can only envy. That kind of respect cannot be given—it is earned through service to the people. Indeed, Hugo Chavez and other Lain American leaders pose a viable threat to the United States, but not for the reasons we are told. The threat is not against the people of the U.S.; it is against plutocratic rule. Removing control from a privileged few and placing power in the hands of the people, would eliminate the class divisions that have always characterized America. Colossal wealth would no longer be concentrated among the top one or two percent of society—it would be equitably distributed among the people for the good of the Commonwealth. America’s ruling elite cannot abide even the least vestige of a true democratic republic. They rail against democracy wherever they find it, as evidenced by countless U.S. sponsored acts of terror around the world. These often covert actions virtually always occur against left leaning governments that are not amendable to exploitation of their natural resources and human labor by U.S. business interests. This is what is meant when the president and cabal speak of ‘protecting American interests.’ They are referring to their own hold on power and wealth, not the welfare of the republic, as is so widely assumed. The U.S. plutocracy has a long and bloody history of fomenting upheaval and violence against Democratic Socialism. For example, on September 11, 1973 a U.S. backed coup d’ etat was carried out against Chilean president Salvador Allende, in which the Popular Unity (socialist) government was overthrown, and Allende was assassinated. President Allende was replaced by Augusto Pinochet, a brutal dictator who with C.I.A. backing tortured and murdered thousands of people. Pinochet is the kind of man the U.S. always backs. His kind makes the host country safe for plunder by U.S. corporations. Look at the litany of brutal dictators the U.S. has supported all over the world. The list reads like a who’s who of world class terrorists. How can this be reconciled with democracy? The assassination of Allende is part of a familiar pattern of intervention that can only be described as terrorism. The C.I.A. is involved in creating instability and insurrections in democratic governments all over the world—your tax dollars at work. It is the plutocrats who foment political instability in democratic societies, and conduct campaigns of terror in order to exploit and to conquer. Their purpose is to extend hegemony for the creation of private wealth. Let us call it what it is—empire building. This is Manifest Destiny in action—a supremacist ideology that provides the moral underpinning for conquest and exploitation. As we have already seen, it was this doctrine that resulted in the extirpation of the American Indians and sanctioned the institution of chattel slavery. The same misguided ideology is driving U.S. Middle Eastern policy. As critical thinkers, we must ask ourselves whom these policies benefit and whom they harm. Is the conquest of Iraq beneficial to the average American? Is it beneficial to those who live in the Middle East; or does it profit corporations such as Halliburton and individuals like Dick Cheney? When the evidence is presented in this way the truth becomes obvious. The ideological divide between plutocracy and democracy are philosophically and ethically irreconcilable. Plutocratic government serves those possessed of wealth and power by exploiting the middle class and the under class. Democratic government places the welfare of the people above profiteering. Seen in these terms, which kind of government do we have? Once again, the truth is made clear. The divergence comes into clear focus when we contrast George Bush with Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. During the height of Hurricane Katrina last year, George Bush went on vacation. Dick Cheney was fly fishing in Arizona. Condi Rice was buying thousand dollar shoes in New York. The clear lack of concern for the welfare of the Gulf Region’s poor speaks volumes about the Bush cabal’s priorities. Hugo Chavez offered aide to the people of the Gulf Coast Region that our own government blithely abandoned. Bush flatly refused Chavez’s generous offer. What does this say about who George Bush serves? This question can be answered by investigating another Bush policy. Last year Exxon-Mobil enjoyed a $36 billion profit, primarily through the outright theft of Iraqi oil, as the result of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is the largest single year corporate profit in history. Exxon-Mobil paid its CEOs handsomely, and its shareholders. But it did share the wealth. Bush responded by giving U.S. oil companies an additional $7 billion of corporate welfare by giving away oil from our public lands. Can there be any doubt about whom Bush serves? Conversely, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is providing Citgo oil to America’s poor at deep discounts ranging from forty to fifty percent. By now it should be clear that the president of Venezuela is doing more for our nation’s poor than our own government. The corporate media has responded to Hugo Chavez’s humanitarian aide with predictable cynicism. It is often reported that Chavez is only seeking to embarrass the president. However, this assertion does not square with the facts in the case. Chavez has a history of service to the people that Bush does not. Bush caters to the elite, his self proclaimed political base. Chavez is a servant of the people, especially the poor. Nothing more clearly delineates the contrast between Bush and Chavez than their divergent social policies. Bush consistently chooses profits over people; Chavez places people above profits. Thus, in my view, George Bush is not worthy to carry Hugo Chavez’s shoes. Socialist Venezuela does not ransack its treasury or human capital on invading and occupying foreign nations in the service of empire. Conversely, plutocratic America sends its youth to serve as canon fodder for empire. Venezuela is not involved in the invasion of sovereign nations in order to pilfer their resources. As a result of a more humane social policy, Venezuela has the financial resources to provide health care to every citizen, and higher education to all who seek it. What does this say about our own national priorities? Whose interest do they serve? Even the most florid language cannot conceal the obvious contempt the Bush cabal has for the poor, or the world’s working class people. All rhetoric aside, their actions, as well as their inactions, speak loud and clear about whose interest they are protecting. America has a lot to answer for. Despite the willful perversion of language used to conceal unpopular truth, the soul of a nation is revealed not by what it says, but by what it does. We are not the people we purport to be. Our actions, our policies, do not portray a democratic republic concerned with human welfare, the common good. They depict the will of self-interested plutocrats who will gleefully kill every one of us in order to expand their power and increase their personal wealth. They do not care about us. To them, we are expendable servants who exist to do their evil bidding. Occasionally events occur that reveal transitory glimpses of painful truths that are ordinarily kept hidden from public view, as when lightning strikes in darkness and reveals the contours of a landscape. Hurricane Katrina was such an event. As that powerful storm wrecked havoc upon the Gulf Coast, the world saw with absolute clarity who this government serves. Unvarnished truth of this kind is rarely a pretty sight. Yet we must see it and recognize it for all that it is. Because we have eyes does not guarantee that we can see the truth that lies before us. Vision requires substantially more than eyes—it requires heart and soul and conscience. Our eyes may be open, yet we do not see or comprehend the travesty that unfolds before us, the hoax that is being perpetrated against us by those in power. Let us open our hearts and our minds and admit the light of truth that much of the world already knows. Let us see, for the first time, perhaps, who we really are. We must then reconcile that vision with our own conscience. Charles Sullivan is a photographer and free-lance writer living in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net. informationclearinghouse.info