The Moral Hypocracy

There is growing interest in investigating varous forms of voter fraud in the 2004 election. Groups like blackboxvoting.org are starting their own probes (here's their site)
Black Box Voting - Bev Harris - one of the leading groups doing voting machine investigations. A nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer protection group for elections.

while John Kerry's law team is reportedly looking into allegations, three Members of Congress have called for an investigation, and the Green Party candidate and Libertarian Party candidate have joined together to ask for a recount of Ohio.

Apparently one of the few media outfits following the story is Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. We'll send along links to stories as we come to them.

Morality in Politics

There are a number of interesting pieces on the web concerning morality, religion and national politics. Here is a decent overview from the LA Times; it includes the statistic that although Born Again Christians constitute 38% of the electorate, they made up over 50 percent of the apparent number of alleged voters in this election.

It is probably hard for many people to believe that Born Again Christians are such a large group. We have our doubts as well, and we'll keep our eyes open for skeptical analyses. Still, it's worth considering.

This article also includes figures that show a larger proportion of voters believe the war in Iraq is a moral issue (42%) than same-sex marriage (9%). Too bad they didn't vote that way, apparently.

But this and other pieces indicate that progressives have room to position poverty and greed, for example, as moral issues. That they are moral issues seems transparent, but some are saying that they need to be articulated more clearly and forcefully as moral issues in a coherent unified way.

This does hit on one subject the Dash brothers agreed should have been raised more forcefully in the campaign: the Iraq prison abuses. Not only was that a moral outrage, but it followed directly from this administration's policies and philosophies, and evidenced its general incompetence. It also speaks to the dangers of privatizing conduct of crucial government activity. That is another moral issue: blackening the name of America and of Americans by ceding government responsibilities to favored corporations. The moral issue is responsibility.

Moderates, Liberals Hear Call to Morality Debate

The immoral Bush war on Iraq continues with the demolishing of Fallujah. Among the military targets smashed to bits are hospitals and first aid stations, and a mosque. Washington Post reported that resistance fighters include women and children.
In the meantime, insurgents are taking over other cities. But we've gotten good at this: destroying a country in order to save it.


Poor Tony Blair. He has to endure a press conference question about whether he is Bush's poodle. He delivered his day-after statement on the election in a shaky voice, obviously rattled and dispiritied. He knew that Kerry's defeat meant the end of his political career. This Prime Minister is toast.

The essay on "Change" linked below is a bit moderate for me, but I guess it's worth a look.


BLUE VOICE

---Theron Dash

What if the exit polls were right?

TomPaine.com - Kerry Won. . .

Remember, these are the people who lied about why they went to war in Iraq, then lied about the lies, and then lied about lying about the lies. George Bush was lying in every campaign speech he gave in the final month. These guardians of American morals have shown time and again that they consider politics a morality-free zone, and so anything that is effective in keeping the righteous in power and increasing their ability to force their holy mission on the horrified world is justified. They heap praise on each other for successful character assassination. The support given to the Swift Boat Liars constitute the worst stain on public morality in a generation, and an offense of the worst kind against every VETERAN who ever bled in the belief they were defending their country. So would we really be surprised if it turns out they stole this election outright????

Either America is utterly schizoid---which is entirely possible--or this is more evidence that the election was stolen: a poll showing that by a wide margin Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction under Bush, and that support for Kerry's policies is high.

News Releases

The Stealing of Florida---and the USA---and the World

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

The Hispanic Ashcroft

Of Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, White House Counsel and longtime Bush loyalist, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights says simply,``The road from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib was paved with the memos of Gonzales.''

One fascisistic lawyer replaces another, although this one may be worse because he's smart.

Reward for Hispanics supplying 44% of their vote to Bush, though further analysis will likely show it wasn't the Hispanic vote, it was the Catholic vote. I'm sure we'll see more Abu Ghraib moral values in the future.
---Theron Dash

A Week Later

...and it still stinks. Did we really lose the hearts and minds of the heartland? Are we destined to lose forever as the biggest minority group? Suppose for a minute you accept the numbers on the totals boards as reflecting an actual fair election. Even then, the picture might be different than the ones we've been seeing. For instance, there are different ways to draw that red v. blue map:
Election result maps

But let's not be so quick to accept the numbers. There's still a big smelly stink around here and it's called OHIO. Too few voting machines in Democratic urban areas, so people had to wait in line for 4, 6, 8 and yes, documented 10 hours, and even then they might not get to vote. How many went home. Whereas there were plenty of voting machines in the Republican burbs. And that's just for starters.

Remember, these were Diebold machines, made by the guy who guaranteed that Bush would win Ohio. GUARANTEED IT.

This election was taken from the voters in Ohio, Florida (Jeb Bush did it again) and Texas, where Tom DeLay, the ethically challenged GOP House leader who will be seeing the inside of a jail cell before the next election, engineered a redistricting that guaranteed 5 House seats would move from Democrat to Republican, and they did. They all violated laws, but they're all at least temporarily above the law. The best you can say is that it was successfully stolen, and when you throw in the lies, the stench is everywhere.

No wonder Bush is planning to ring his Inauguration with combat troops and as many cops as he can strip from other cities. Wonder if Karl Rove will teach them to goosestep in time for the parade.

---Theron Dash