Joining the 21st century - finally reading Palast's book

[Selwynn]

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

Yes, I'm a little behind. But in my defense, I have an amazon "wish list" that still has 45 books on it, I just got a shipment of 10 books, that was one of them. I'm reading as fast as I can. :D

Part of the reason I hadn't gotten around to the book yet is because, while I knew it would be great, I also knew that I already had a lot of evidence for many of not most of the points made therein, and agreed with them. So I had focused on other reading.

I have to say though, the first chapter on the theft of the 2000 election is absolutely chilling. Again, I never doubted the reality of election fraud in Florida, nor the disenfranchisement of thousands of minority voters. So as I said, this reading hadn't been at the top of my list. But the shear scope of what happened, and how clearly evidenced it is still maintains a jaw-dropping effect - even after already believing it, even after four years to "get over it."

I do have one confession to make. Partly due to attempting to make peace with my more conservative family (though to their credit, they are disgusted with the last four years of bush and disgusted with republican hypocrisy) and partly out of some misguided notion of good sportsmanship, I was one of the ones ready to be gracious and accept Bush as president after the Supreme Court decision. At that time, the biggest visibility issue I knew about was debate on counted votes. I knew little about the wrongful purging of voters or voter intimidation.

Still, I maintained this kind of conciliatory attitude, ready to give Bush a chance, etc. Well obviously, his subsequent actions have been appalling, but more importantly reading Palast's detailed account of the investigation in Florida reminded me once again that what we saw in 2000 was the historical undermining of democracy. If "accidental" it represents such gross as absolute incompetence that no part of the media, no congressmen, and no citizen - like me - should have rested until everyone involved were looking for new jobs. If deliberate, which seems to take far less faith to conclude than does "accident," then it represents nothing short of a bloodless coup d'etat.

I was wrong to be so conciliatory. I was wrong to not bring this issue of election theft up every chance I got. All I can do now is never forget - and get ready. Ready for the 2004 election. I know now that the people in power are capable of damn near anything. They are capable of subverting the election process again - they are capable of using fear, intimidation or outright criminal action to get the results they want. And by God, I will do my part to ensure that they never do that again with my near silent complicency.

If there is a stolen election this year, I'll see you in the streets.
Sel