Rigged
Rigged by David SwansonBy David Swanson
http://davidswanson.org/node/5315
The 2016 Republican presidential primary was rigged. It wasn't rigged by the
Republicans, the Democrats, Russians, space aliens, or voters. It was rigged
by the owners of television networks who believed that giving one candidate
far more coverage than others was good for their ratings. The CEO of CBS
Leslie Moonves said of this decision: "It may not be good for America, but
it's damn good for CBS." Justifying that choice based on polling gets the
chronology backwards, ignores Moonves' actual motivation, and avoids the
problem, which is that there ought to be fair coverage for all qualified
candidates (and a democratic way to determine who is qualified).
The 2016 Democratic presidential primary was rigged. It wasn't rigged by
bankers, misogynists, Russians, Republicans, or computer hackers. It was
rigged by the Democratic National Committee and its co-conspirators in the
media, many of whom have helpfully confessed (in case it wasn't obvious) in
emails leaked from the DNC and from John Podesta. The DNC chose Hillary
Clinton and worked hard to make sure that she "won." Nobody has produced a
hint of evidence as to who leaked the emails that added unnecessary
confirmation of this rigging, but they should be thanked for informing us,
whoever they are.
The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's misuse of email was as rigged as
the non-prosecution of the CEO of Wells Fargo. The U.S. political system is
bought and paid for. Without millions of dollars to funnel to television
networks for advertising, any candidate is rigged right out of
participating. This rigging of the system is not fixed by someone like
Donald Trump pretending for a while that he won't take bribes, that he'll
spend only his own money, because most people don't have that kind of money
to spend. This rigging is not fixed by making someone like Hillary Clinton
take her bribes through her family foundation or requiring that her
political action committees remain theoretically separate from the campaign
they are collaborating hand-in-glove with, because money buys power.
The debates are rigged by a private entity with no official status that
calls itself the Commission on Presidential Debates and transforms open
debates among multiple candidates into exclusively bipartisan joint
appearances with many large and fine points negotiated beforehand.
Actual governance of the United States is rigged. Congress plans to attempt
to ram through a number of intensely unpopular measures just after the
election, including a supplemental spending bill for more wars and including
the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The hope is that most people will have tuned
out after the election circus, and that most of them will forget what
happened 2 or 4 years later.
The demonization of Vladimir Putin is rigged. Nobody has seen evidence that
he or his government did us the favor of informing us of the DNC's
corruption. He proposed a ban on cyber "war" that was rejected by the United
States, for goodness sake. There's no evidence that Russia shot down an
airplane in Ukraine or invaded Ukraine or seized Crimea or plotted attacks
on the United States. The United States pulled out of the ABM treaty,
expanded NATO to Russia's border, built missile bases, arranged military
"exercises," facilitated a Ukrainian coup, and pushed a string of hostile
lies. Russia has shown even more restraint than your typical U.S. voter (who
usually sits home and does not vote, especially in primaries).
Military spending is rigged. Nobody knows it amounts to over half of U.S.
discretionary spending. Nobody knows it's as much in the U.S. as in the rest
of the world (allies and otherwise) combined. Nobody pays attention to the
bribes from war profiteers, or to the threats held over Congress members to
pull weapons jobs out of districts or states. Supporters of both big
candidates claim their candidate plans to cut military spending. Both
candidates have said the exact opposite. The debates and interviews steer
clear of the whole topic.
The shapes of the districts are blatantly rigged by gerrymandering. The
existence of the Senate, in which Rhode Island and Wyoming each have as much
say as California is rigged against the popular will. The electoral college
is rigged against the popular will and in favor of concentrating national
campaigns in a handful of "swing states."
Voter registration is rigged. A handful of states have now made it
automatic, as most states have long-since done for military draft
registration. In the rest of the country, thousands of young people run
around registering voters, imagining they are engaged in "activism."
Meanwhile, the right to vote can be denied to anyone by claiming they aren't
registered.
People's names are stripped from voting rolls through a so-called justice
system that brands them as felons, and through the careful rigging of those
rolls by corrupt and partisan state governments that intentionally strip out
people likely to vote for a particular party. This includes racial
profiling. Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Greg Palast and others have
reported extensively on these practices.
Election day is rigged as well. It's not a holiday. Most people have to
work. Poor districts and racial minority districts tend to have fewer
machines and longer lines. ID requirements are used to deny people the right
to vote. Intimidation and racial profiling by partisan activists serve the
same function of rigging the election. The myths and lies about the
virtually nonexistent phenomenon of "voter fraud" also serve to rig the
election.
The election machines are also rigged. That is to say: instead of verifiable
paper ballots publicly hand-counted in front of observers from all
interested parties in each polling place, we have a faith-based system of
voting on black-box machines that can never, even in theory, be checked for
accuracy. These machines have been very easily hacked in demonstrations.
These machines have visibly flipped votes before the eyes (and cameras) of
countless voters. These machines have almost certainly played a key role in
flipping the results of numerous elections.
Now, the wider the margin of victory, the less likely an electronic
flipping. And the fact that machines can easily be used to steal an election
does not mean that they always will be. But it was very odd during the late
summer of 2016 to watch the U.S. media announce that these machines were
totally unreliable -- just what many of us had been saying for years. But
the media said this in order to accuse Russia of planning to sabotage the
coming U.S. election, or in order to accuse Russia of exactly what these
media reports themselves did: plant seeds of doubt in U.S. minds.
Those doubts should be there. People should watch for visible problems with
machines and with partisan and racist intimidators, and report all such to
1-866-OUR-VOTE, to county clerks, to secretaries of state, and to corporate
and independent media. Then we should work for necessary reforms, including
a respectful cessation of the U.S. government's routine practice of
interfering in elections and overthrowing governments in other people's
countries -- a practice that has clearly resulted in the U.S. media
projecting such behavior on others.
Ultimately, an unrigging of the U.S. system might take the form of amending
the U.S. Constitution to slip in words like these:
The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights
of natural persons only.
Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and
other entities, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or
any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are
subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.
The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People,
through Federal, State, or local law.
The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence
elections to be speech under the First Amendment.
All elections for President and members of the United States House of
Representatives and the United States Senate shall be entirely publicly
financed. No political contributions shall be permitted to any federal
candidate, from any other source, including the candidate. No political
expenditures shall be permitted in support of any federal candidate, or in
opposition to any federal candidate, from any other source, including the
candidate. The Congress shall, by statute, provide limitations on the
amounts and timing of the expenditures of such public funds and provide
criminal penalties for any violation of this section.
State and local governments shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions
and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and
expenditures, for the purpose of influencing in any way the election of any
candidate for state or local public office or any state or local ballot
measure.
The right of the individual U.S. citizen to vote and to directly elect all
candidates by popular vote in all pertinent local, state, and federal
elections shall not be violated. Citizens will be automatically registered
to vote upon reaching the age of 18 or upon becoming citizens at an age
above 18, and the right to vote shall not be taken away from them. Votes
shall be recorded on paper ballots, which shall be publicly counted at the
polling place. Election day shall be a national holiday.
Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the
freedom of the press. During a designated campaign period of no longer than
six months, free air time shall be provided in equal measure to all
candidates for federal office on national, state, or district television and
radio stations, provided that each candidate has, during the previous year,
received the supporting signatures of at least five percent of their
potential voting-age constituents. The same supporting signatures shall also
place the candidate's name on the ballot and require their invitation to
participate in any public debate among the candidates for the same office.
