[TAML] Re: [TAML-WNT] Waterboard Dick
- From: Kevin Hopkins <kh2@xxxxxxxx>
- To: teamamiga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 21:51:55 -0600
At 10:13 AM -0500 10/31/06, Dave Haynie wrote:
On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 14:55:01 -0600, Asha DeVelder <asha@xxxxxxxxxx>
jammed all night, and by sunrise was heard saying:
Tony,
On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:23:22 +0000, Tony Cooke
<tonyjcooke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> was caught saying:
>Asha DeVelder wrote:
>>> That is all just politics. He won the last election by a clear majority,
>>> so he is naturally not going to do the will of those who voted against
>>> him.
That's unfortunate, but it's also cave-man thinking.. and yeah, Bush is
certainly a Neanderthal, so that's appropriate. Good Presidents rise
above the event of the election, and attempt to be the President of the
entire nation. Great ones actually become that.
Yup.
>> Even with his vote tampering, he won the last election by a slim
>> margin.
That's not even remotely certain. In Ohio alone, there were possibly
hundreds of different forms of tampering and attempted tampering. It's
impossible to necessarily track the effect of post-vote tampering on the
worst of the machines (the DiBolds, for example) even if you can prove
there was tampering. Pre-vote tampering is hard to actually even prove
in some cases, much less count.
Ghost in the machine. Who knew it would turn out to be a poltergeist.
>He didn`t win the last election AT ALL on the basis of the total number
>of votes cast! Only as a result of your peculiar election `system`.
The US's peculiar election system was further "massaged" by what
seriously looks like tampering with the votes as well.
At least that's something that COULD be address with the proper
technology (either the old stuff: punched cards, or an e-voting machine
that wasn't designed by an idiot -- or a person with a specific agenda.
I could design a tamper-proof machine in my sleep, but it doesn't start
with a PC). What you can't really count in numbers, necessarily, is all
of the pre-vote interference. Who's not able to vote because of
artificial obstacles? Who doesn't vote, because they've been [mis]led to
believe they're not registered?
It all boils down to the intent of those running the system. Those
with integrity are willing to subsume their own personal preferences
to serving the expression of the will of the people. Those with an
agenda serve party and candidate and to hell with the people. My
kingdom for an honest man.
But even with all that, he barely won. What was it 52%? 53%? In
my mind, that's barely scraping by even if all the votes attributed to
him were actually cast by the voters who walked into those booths.
However, he isn't even doing the will of the majority of those
who actually voted for him.
That was precisely the problem the Republicans in the 60's and 70's
struggled with. Inherently in the classic Republican philosophy, only
the Rich are served, and curiously, you can't have a majority of rich
people... they're an inherent minority. So the courting of the Religious
Right was one of the strategies that arose from the numerous, well
funded Republican think-tanks. The idea being, if you can capture a
majority of "single-issue" (eg, non-thinking) voters, they'll pretty
much take whatever else you have to offer. Of course, you do have to
posture to keep that vote: thus, the Anti-Abortion, Anti-Gay, etc.
rhetoric (with very little actual results) that come along right before
any recent election.
That's it in a nut shell. Pun intended.
It helps that the Religious Right, as a group, are less educated, and
particularly, less media savvy. They don't understand, well enough
anyway, that all that rhetoric is simply a marketing campaign. Perhaps
it shifted a bit under Mr. Bush, who certainly did have something of an
allegiance to the Religious Right, but clearly that came after his
loyalties to Big Oil, and in general, The Rich (eg, "my base... the
have's and the have more's").
Precisely.
The rich are getting richer, while his
voting base are struggling to get by. He isn't even delivering on his
> promises to the Religious Right, some of whom are beginning to get
disillusioned with him (it's about time!)
Well, thing is, MOST of the Republican fodder for the Religious Right is
just so much hot air. It pretty much has to be. I mean, think of all of
the promises they've been making since they started that dance. If they
actually came through on any of this stuff (at least intentionally),
then they'd be looking for something else to promise them. And in the
meantime, at least the less nutty in that crowd might start noticing
things. Like, just how un-Christian the Republicans, as a whole, are
behaving. Or perhaps that other than that lip service, the Republican
vote has left them much, much worse off... that this is only good for
Rich People (and then, only for the short term).
I think that "start noticing things" is pretty much at the heart of
David Kuo "Tempting Faith." It was certainly at the heart of the
lament in Thomas Franks's "What's The Matter With Kansas?"
--
Kevin Hopkins <kh2@xxxxxxxx>
The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate.
Values may 'matter most' to voters, but they always take a backseat
to the needs of money once the elections are won.
--- Thomas Frank, "What's The Matter With Kansas?" ---
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