Void the "Vote"

"The epic legal battle over Ohio's presidential vote count is back in the state Supreme Court, with an election challenge claiming George W. Bush was wrongly declared the winner on Nov. 2 and seeking a court-ordered reversal of that victory. "

"Meanwhile, efforts to recount Ohio's vote may have been fatally tainted by the Republican Party, raising questions of what the GOP has to hide, and prompting demands for criminal prosecution. "

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election 2004

In the mood for a grumpy Winter Solstice column? A Letter from the Dead Novel office? Try Blue Voice. (Prohibited where void.)
Neat photo, too.

In case you missed the SF Chronicle review of James Hillman's A Terrible Love of War, selected as a Best Book of 2004 by the SF Chronicle, you can find it along with many other fine reviews at Books In Heat. Neat photos, too.

example: election racism in Ohio

Ohio and the Future

by Phineas Dash

The Ohio recount is proceeding, and reports are that the bureaucrats are doing their best to subvert it. I learned the ways of petty bureaucrats while serving on the faculty committee on student affairs as a token student representative. They wear you down. They use technicalities when it suits them, and ignore the rules when it suits their purposes. If there is a hue and cry and something gets passed they don’t like, they accept it quietly, and when everybody is exhausted after the fight, they subvert it, then change it back at the next opportunity.

So it goes in Ohio. You expect that from bureaucrats. But there has to be some countervailing power. There are activists there. Apparently some of the Democrats are gaining respect for the sheer stubbornness of the Greens. Greens certainly can be stubborn.

But the activists have lives and eventually they have to earn livings, take finals, feed the baby. The bureaucrats are forever, especially when the Republican fat cats finance them.

Where are the leaders? You might well ask. They are arguing over whether Ohio is worth it. Some say Ohio is the past. It’s time to organize for the future. The real fight is over the party chairperson. Reform in the state parties. The election is so over, so last month. Time to get serious about the nitty gritty, the block chairperson, the state blog.

The conflict is in some ways just the usual reflexive either/or. Some people are appropriately concentrating on organizing for the next elections. They're obsessed with who the next chair of the Democratic party will be. Other people are fighting it out in Ohio, with many supporters obsessed with what's going on there. There's plenty of people to go around.

But there's a more crucial point, and it has many facets. It is this: Ohio is the future.

As someone said in a daily kos diary comment, what's the point of party reform if the votes aren't counted?

There is nothing more important in American politics than the integrity of the vote. It all starts there, it all ends there.

It is a question of justice. It is specifically a question of civil rights, and even more specifically a question of voting rights for African Americans.

At this point I mention for those who don't know it, that although Republican crimes may have been very widespread, at the moment it is particularly clear that it was concentrated in the African American neighborhoods and precincts in Ohio and in Florida, and other less publicized states. That's why you're seeing a black congressman, John Conyers, leading the fight there, and one of the last of the 1960s Civil Rights leaders, Jesse Jackson, who still speaks with the authority of someone who was at Selma, when he says this is the same as Selma.

The Democratic party committed itself to fighting for voting rights for African Americans many years ago, certainly in 1963. It was a political decision, and it was a principled decision. The Kennedys knew that if they supported voting rights, the Democrats would lose the South for a generation or more. They did it anyway.

But if the effort stopped there, it was in vain. If Democrats don't fight for voting rights in 2004, in Ohio, in Florida and elsewhere, then we dishonor our past, we dishonor ourselves, and incidentally, we throttle the future of our party.

I say this as a non-African American Democrat, who as a teenager marched behind Martin Luther King in Washington in 1963. One reason I marched was so that my President would know he had political support to do the right thing. He did.

We keep a focus on Ohio because justice demands it. Injustice in the recent past becomes the cause of the present, and if we don't rise to this occasion, we subvert the future.

We subvert the future in another, very practical way, for those of you who are concerned with the nuts and bolts of the Democratic Party's future. Here in California we begin to see the future that the rest of the country will soon see. There used to be a majority called white. But today there is no majority. And there will be no majority race in America pretty soon.

We are a multiracial society, with a growing number of people who are themselves multiracial. If we can't consciously commit to a common cause of justice regarding African Americans, who have been subject to injustice for most of our history, we aren't going to be ready for that future.

Moreover, if the Democratic party does not aggressively recruit more leaders of many racial backgrounds, we will be a party of only the past.

Ohio is crucial to our credibility as a party, with the African American community and with other communities outside the usual power structures.

It is crucial to the party's credibility with voters of all races who cared so much about this election. I made phone calls as a volunteer for the Kerry campaign, and talked to people in battleground states in every region. People were passionate. They were doing everything they could. They were absolutely determined to have their vote count.

We pay attention to the 2004 vote for the people who stood for five hours in the rain in Florida to vote early. We pay attention to Ohio for the people who stood for ten hours and still didn't get to vote on election day.

We do it for the people who were told at the polls by men in dark suits that Democrats vote on Wednesday, come back then.

We do it for people who don't speak or read English well, but who have the same right to vote, but who were either badly served or more likely, taken advantage of.

We do it because America deserves better than the scandal of a banana republic, where the voting machines are owned and operated by a partisan of the party in power.

We do it because all of this was wrong. And we do it because the people who were determined to vote and were denied, are the future.

And we must do it. I don't know why more prominent Democrats aren't visibly in this fight. I do know the impression it is leaving with people: that the Democrats must have committed just as much fraud as the Republicans, so they are afraid of being exposed if they question what Republicans did.

But as important as celebrity voices these days in capturing media attention, we should not depend on them. We are a little too dependent on daddy. If it's not Daddy Clinton then it's Daddy Kerry. Sometimes I think so many people voted for Bush, not for President (because they would have had to consider competence) but for Daddy.

We don't have any daddy. I admire John Kerry, and I wish he was more visible on this issue, but he seems to feel it isn’t appropriate, or at least not yet. He’s done some things, but some things are never enough. Because one problem with depending on daddy is that daddy can never do enough. If he issues statements of support, then daddy should go to court. If he goes to court, then daddy should go on television.

When we marched on Washington in 1963, JFK and RFK could look out the window and see 300,000 people, and they knew that the world could see them, too. When we marched on the Pentagon in 1968, LBJ ignored us. When we marched on Washington in 1971 behind John Kerry, Nixon circled the school buses around the White House. But in 1963, JFK invited the leaders of the March on Washington into the White House. That was the difference. That was the leadership.

Of course we hope that the efforts in Ohio would lead to a just change in the outcome, because our country's future would immediately be brighter if John Kerry were President. But if this election wasn't stolen, there were serious attempts made to steal it. The crime is in the commission, not in its success.

In 2000 we left it up to daddy to fix the problems before 2004. But our quiet only enticed our cynical adversaries whose only morality is that their side wins.

There’s a march scheduled in New York this weekend. I hope people show up for it, and there are many more. Maybe we should all march to Ohio. Kent State would be a good place to meet.

We have to let them know, we won't be fooled again. That's about the present, and the future.

The Faith-Based Missile

While global heating threatens the world, and Homeland Security can't even agree on a list of places to protect from terrorism, at least we've got a missile defense system.

Apart from no missiles it can defend against, the system has another notable flaw:

It don't work.

Yesterday there was yet another test of our Star Wars shield missile. It failed.

What's new about that? You might well ask, since every test has failed.

Well, those were tests of missiles in development. This was a test of a missile like the ones that are already in the ground. Yes, there are seven of them. It's part of the new strategy, probably learned from those friendly pharamaceutical companies, of putting the stuff on the market before it's tested for effectiveness and safety.

The Bushies have poured $15 billion into this so far. That's a lot of armor some guys and gals didn't get over in Iraqnam.

The test alone cost $85 million. That's your Social Security right there; yours and all your relatives.

The world's most expensive scarecrows. And they're buried in the ground.

A whole other meaning to faith-based.

$85-million U.S. missile test goes nowhere

The U.S. Leads the World---Towards Apocalypse

With evidence mounting that global heating is leading to disasters even faster than predicted, with costs in disaster relief, reconstruction, etc. mounting rapidly as well, the latest climate conference seems poised to do...not so much. (As Jon Stewart would say.)

The conference is divided into two camps, this report says, the U.S., and everybody else. But among everybody else are those loathe to offend the nation with most of the bombs and missiles, which is also a big greedy customer for oil. So the world burns.

Science News Article | Reuters.com

Investigate the Vote: Alerting the FBI

Rep. John Conyers has requested an FBI investigation into possible tampering with voting machines prior to the Ohio recount.

This link is to a dubious site but the letter is reproduced in full.

The Blue Lemur - Progressive Politics and Media News ? Conyers? letter to FBI in response to allegations of Triad tampering

It's Not Who Votes That Counts

It's who counts the votes.

This link is to a diary on the daily Kos blog site which summarizes the main suit filed in Ohio alleging purposeful fraud, and maintaining that Kerry won the state by nearly 150,000 votes.

Further down in the comments you'll find several people involved in the suit or even tangentially in support of it who have been threatened by right wing goons, and in one case, apparently followed and forced off the road by well-heeled goons who seem to have sophisticated survelliance equipment and skills.

The establishment politicians and media ignoring it, evidence of serious wrongdoing and efforts to expose it championed by marginal figures, threats and intimidation...it has all the earmarks of the kind of scandal that eventually will define this time. It's Love Canal, Karen Silkwood and Watergate rolled into one.

Daily Kos :: Arnebeck Lawsuit: Summary, Explanation

Brother Sites News

Star Trek fans may want to check out the review of the first episodes of Enterprise this season, plus an account of a visit to the Enterprise set, and further down (below the June 30, 2004 entry) an essay on the first Star Trek feature film, which begins the Trekalog of all 10 Star Trek features. It's all at Soul of Star Trek.

(Brother Morgan Dash works on that site, under a pseudonym. Don't tell anybody.)

This is what your God wants?

The last great trees hundreds of years old, the anchors of one of the last great forests in northwest America, "one of the richest terrestrial ecosystems in the hemisphere," are to be cut down for the short-term gain of some big company? Trees that cannot be replaced for many centuries, especially if the forest that sustains them dies, all for money and politcal gain? All made possible by the Bush administration's deliberate changes in environmental and forest management policy.

This is the new moral order, bringing God back into policy making? This is what your God wants?

New sales reignite timber battles / Bush allows harvest of larger, older trees in northern counties

And while other nations are working to stop harming the last whales with loud noises used for military sonar devices--these creatures, the closest species to humans in the ocean, who depend on sound like we depend on sight--- when there is no war on any ocean, nor any active ocean-going enemies, but the U.S. refuses to cooperate or to stop its own damaging practices---this is what your God wants? Trees don't matter, forests don't matter, ecosystems don't matter, whales don't matter, the oceans don't matter, Iraqi children don't matter, not even American soldiers matter---Republican fat cats are the only species that matter. This is what your God says?

Testimony of David Cobb, Green Party prez candidate, to the Conyers committee, which includes allegations of apparent tampering with voting machines before the recount.

At the very least, this account deserves thorough investigation, and reporting by our alleged Fourth Estate.

Cobb Testifies Before Congressional Forum in Ohio: Reveals Shocking Allegation of New Evidence of Intentional Tampering with Voting Machines

Or are "dissident groups" of African Americans and progressives the only ones who care about the integrity of voting in America?

Investigate the Vote: Ohio Testimony

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election 2004

We were perhaps giving the American media too much credit. The 2004 election was stolen in Ohio, but that's not important enough to cover today. Not when the Scott Peterson verdict is in.

If and when these facts become recognized, it will perhaps also be remembered that GW Bush made one last campaign stop, on election day itself (a rarity for any candidate, if not unique), and that was to campaign headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.

If there is any justice left, there will be indictments of election officials in Columbus, at the very least.

not like those corrupt countries where the voting machines are owned and operated by partisans of the party in power...

Investigate the Vote: Kerry Requests Investigations in Ohio

It's just after midnight, and this is the first story coming out of Ohio, but this is likely to be making news all day: Through his lawyers, today John Kerry will request of the election officials in Ohio that they investigate a total of 11 separate kinds and instances of possible voting irregularities, questions and procedures involving the 2004 election. Though the statement says the outcome is not expected to change, the total number of votes in question is sufficient to change the outcome.

ONN. Ohio News Now: Kerry lawyer asks for visual inspection of some Ohio ballots

Morality x 4

Four articles in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle illustrate different points worth making on the difficult subject of morality in relation to political decision-making.

The first is an Insight piece which lays out the evidence behind a point of view that's well known in certain places (like San Francisco) but which may come as a surprise elsewhere. I first heard it from a gay man who was a Biblical scholar: it disputes the interpretation that many accept that the Bible specifically forbids homosexuality, or calls it immoral; and further, it points out many other injunctions in the same book of the Bible that fundamentalists often cite, that are clearly not considered moral, such as slavery.

This provides an opportunity for those who believe homosexuality is ipso facto immoral to examine the text, so here's a chance for this evidence to get beyond San Francisco.

That being said, the accompanying picture---of two big, pretty ugly men kissing---is the kind of in-your-face assertion that may sell papers in San Francisco but is precisely what alienates people who might be willing to concede the point that in today's world, in Red states as well as Blue, homosexuals are thoroughly integrated into society, and are in most respects just like everybody else. They might then be willing to concede that the Biblical evidence on the morality of homosexuality is at least unclear. But what they understandably react against is being forced to see behavior that is essentially private, and they'd rather not see; so they regard those pictures, with some justification, as having their noses rubbed in it.

And let's not pretend the Chronicle's motives in running this picture are entirely noble and idealistic. Like other media, they do it to mollify some readers and provoke others. It may well be that the Democrats lost this election when the first pictures of same-sex couples kissing after their marriage ceremonies in San Francisco were endlessly repeated on network and cable news, not because of news value but for sensationalism sake.

In some ways the support for gay rights as a Civil Rights issue is akin to the decisions of Kennedy and others to support Civil Rights and the Voting Rights act in the 60s, knowing full well that Democrats would lose the South for generations. But in other ways, it was just bad timing. However, let's both sides face the reality. It's the pictures that did it. The rest we might actually be able to reason about.

The Bible tells me so / Religion in the Heartland is more complex than those of us in the blue states sometimes think

The article linked here is about teaching evolution and/or "intelligent design." This is one of those subjects that gets discussed on a purity vs. purity basis, and so goes nowhere. The scientific purity says Darwinism is 100% correct, while the fundamentalist purity says evolution is 100% wrong.

The indefensibility of both positions is what has provided an opening for the Intelligent Design theorists. For example, in this article the I.D. proponent turns the tables on the scientists and says they are the dogmatists, not those who cite the Bible. He has a point, which many scientists acknowledge, though they'd never admit it in this particular debate. The neo-Darwinists have been attacked by other biologists for a number of dogmatic statements. It appears, for instance, that strict Darwinian natural selection may not apply below a certain threshhold of lifeform: to bacteria, for instance, or molds. And even in more apparently complex lifeforms, there may be other factors involved in what gets passed down, what is selected, and on what basis. The dogma of the so-called "selfish gene" is questioned by reputable scientists, for example.

On the other hand, the idea that the earth is 4,000 or 6,000 years old, as somebody says the Bible says, or that humans didn't evolve from other animal forms, is so antithetical to everything science says and does, that anyone who believes this will find themselves unqualified to get into a non-fundamentalist college or get a job even remotely having to do with science. This is the true tragedy of extending this debate into the schools.

There's more to be said on this subject at another time, but for now let's use this article to illustrate that it's not dogma versus the scientific method every time. That this person cites the Bible in defense of his intelligent design theory is not in itself non-reality based, if he cites it as evidence of past observations (as one cites an indigenous legend) or point of view. But citing it as Divine Truth makes it religion, and not in the realm of knowledge. So while he says the scientists are defending a religion (and metaphorically, this is accurate---though fundamentalists are not big on metaphor), he is trying to pass off faith-based theory---religion---as science.

That's how tricky this all gets, partly because both sides insist on extreme and oversimplified positions. It's the Crossfire of consciousness, our substitute for informed debate.

Teaching evolution as theory not fact / Intelligent design booster speaks out

You have to give this much to the Bushies---they know which buttons to push. Lots of mediaheads thought Bush had gone off the deep end when he devoted part of his State of the Union address, not to Iraq or prison torture or the economy, but steroids in baseball as an important political issue.

Recent so-called revelations (stories based on alleged Grand Jury testimony still under seal) started a firestorm, more or less led by the less than Red State advocate, the San Francisco Chronicle. Talk about leaping to conclusions and making a broad accusation of immorality, either out of sincere outrage, or to sell papers or get votes.

Does anybody actually know what steroids are, what the substances involved actually do, what the health risks actually are, etc.? Why do people go balllistic over some substances they call Drugs but not others which are also potent drugs, but which are advertised on TV as miracle cures, though most of the commercials consist of recitations of awful side effects---drugs that may be really unsafe when used as directed, even more unsafe when used as a cure-all, and are basically untested by anybody outside the employ of the company that profits from their sale? Why is marijuana the devil's weed and people go to jail for it, and even known medicinal purposes are outlawed, and to make it even more absurd, the entire substance known as hemp, which for centuries provided paper and fiber that nobody got high from, is also outlawed? While alcohol and cigarettes are legal, when they kill hundeds of thousands of people a year, including people entirely innocent of using them, and we all know this?

Let's get a little sane on the subject of steroids. In the very same newspaper on the same day as its editor defends its anti-steroids in baseball crusade, a column by Joan Ryan gives another point of view which ought to be considered. Perhaps a truly informed debate on steroids and health would be in order?

Let's get real about sports and steroids

Finally, something for Christians to consider, as well as those of other faiths. The word "values" implies assigning a number, a priority, to a particular act or issue. What do you value? means What do you value more than other things? If you value X, do you value it over Y, or are they equally important?

So while one thing may not be "more moral" than another, we do set priorities. Those priorities are often the first thing we forget in the emotional firestorm of controversies. Suddenly the issue of the day seems the most important. Other priorities, even higher ones, are forgotten, much to the joy of those exploiting these controversies for their personal gain or political agenda, or both.

So the move currently underway among some progressives to redefine their issues in terms of values and morality is not some radical idea, or even some cynical re-branding technique. It is an attempt to remind us of the moral dimensions of issues, so we can decide which we value, and in something like what order.

For example, this story on the morality of poverty. There are political questions involved---unregulated capitalism vs. government support---which may be pertinent, but may be smokescreens, or simply not as relevant as they appear. Because the question might well be, what is more important as a moral issue? Somebody's sexual behavior? Or poverty that could be allievated fairly easily, with a little attention and commitment? How often, for example, did Christ talk about helping the poor, versus condemning any sexual practices? In fact, the term "bleeding heart liberal" comes from the bleeding heart of Christ, bleeding for the poor and the sick and the suffering. What kind of a morality ignores that, and in fact makes fun of it, makes it into a curse? Some of us who voted Blue would like to know.

Pushing poverty into 'moral-values' debate / Some religious leaders trying to broaden discussion beyond abortion and marriage