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Edited on Sun Jul-09-06 11:01 AM by Peace Patriot
I've followed the elections and political developments in Latin America with avid interest, cheering them on, and hoping that their new, peaceful, democratic, Leftist (majorityist) revolution--which is largely based on TRANSPARENT elections--would inspire US. It's a bit voyeuristic, maybe. But also very hopeful. One thing I know about it, it didn't happen over night--but as the result of years of hard work by the OAS, EU election monitoring groups, the Carter Center and local civic groups on TRANSPARENT elections. And other work--the campesino movement (small farmers--huge, worldwide); the water protests in Bolivia (against Bechtel); the anti-IMF/World Bank movement in Argentina (a joint protest of the poor AND middle class, in which they took little hammers to all the ATM display windows of the offending banks); various anti-WTO protests (that I have participated in), and other local civic organization and protests. It's like this enormous new political consciousness is arising from the South. It is remarkable.
And still we languish. But remember this: We are quite a unique population in some ways--uniquely oppressed. The Corporate Rulers have taken special measures with us, as to propaganda and curtailment of our Leftist (majorityist) vote. The reason of course is that we are so potentially powerful. We hold (theoretically) the sovereign power to DISMANTLE most of the bad guys in the world--the global corporate predators--and seize their assets for the public good. We have that right. And they know it.
Further, we are still a bit too prosperous for full scale rebellion. The Latin Americans have seen the worst--the most brutal oppression, the worst poverty in the hemisphere. And they are, in a sense, beyond suffering that now. They are determined to turn it around. And they are most of all being led by, and being inspired by, the poorest of their people--the indigenous, the brown, the left out--as well as by enlightened leaders who come from poor roots, or identify with them. In Bolivia, for instance, we've seen the first indigenous ever elected president (Evo Morales). Hugo Chavez is part indigenous, part black, part Spanish. In Chile, they just elected their first woman president, socialist Michele Batchelet, who was tortured by Pinochet. In Brazil they elected a former steelworker as president.
Just imagine a Native American or a former steelworker, for that matter, being elected here! Hard to imagine, isn't it? A worker president. An indigenous president.
We are oppressed very much by design of our Corporate Rulers. With true democracy here, we could indeed change the world--and save the planet (since we produce 25% of the pollution that is killing it). But we first have to get back regulatory control of the corporations. We have to remove their status as "persons" (their ability to be treated as "a person," yet to never die--to just keep on accumulating property and power). And we have to dismantle some of them--including the corporate news monopolies.
And this is why they took away our right to vote. It's a left-handed honor! I have a lot of hope in the American people, for this reason (that I think we are especially and uniquely oppressed), and because they have, in fact, resisted the 24/7 corporate war propaganda that is inflicted on them. Think about it! The propaganda machine has failed! The American people have opposed Bush's war from the beginning (58% opposed, Feb. '03). They detest Bush, way up in the 70% range, today. They have largely stuck to their ethical views (on torture, for instance) and their belief in good government and in peace and justice, despite an unrelenting barrage of rightwing lies and drivel.
On the matter of the new Bushite control of the voting system, Americans have been inflicted with an "IRON CURTAIN" over the facts and the truth--an Iron Curtain enforced by the liberal as well as the fascist establishment. News of this coup has had to go largely by word of mouth (until very recently, with RFK Jr.'s article in Rolling Stone). And it was a very fast coup--greased by the $4 billion in the HAVA bill from the Anthrax Congress (Tom Delay's and Bob Ney's handiwork--also Christopher Dodd).
What I recommend, with regard to this, is a massive voter protest in the form of Absentee Ballot voting. I think it has the potential to throw enough of a monkey-wrench into this fraudulent election system, to get it changed. As election reform activists know, an Absentee Ballot vote is not safe. But what I see is a lot of ordinary citizens (50% in Los Angeles) voting this way as their protest against the machines. If enough people do it (say, if we can get it up to 70% by November), the machines will be nearly obsolete. No one will vote on them. And I think we've really got something then--an indigenous, citizen rebellion. The rebellion we've all been hoping for, and trying to inspire. It is in fact already happening.
We also have the problem, in the U.S., of lifestyle. People are used to, and dependent upon, an expensive lifestyle--and it's not so easy for them to give it up (either to save the planet, or to become a protester). Also, corporate design of our cities and suburbs has very much harmed community and citizen participation. A lot of people are disconnected from community and family. In contrast, in Latin America, community and family is often all there is. Life is much more communal than it is here. And we have an enormous country. I mean, where is the Bastille? Our prisons are dispersed all over the place, often in remote, rural areas. We have a stunning example of a Bastille in Guantanamo Bay, but that's in Cuba (and closely guarded). But you see the problem. And how many people can afford to fly 3,000 miles to DC for a protest? And take off a week to do that? (-cuz if you commit civil disobedience, or get rounded up, you're going to be there a week, at least). When the first American Revolution occurred, the size of the country was much smaller. Now we are a huge landmass that stretches across another country up to Alaska and across the Pacific to Hawaii. And then, when we DO protest in massive numbers--as in Seattle '99, and more recently in New York--we put 50,000 to 500,000 people in the streets, the Bush junta and its lapdog press just ignores us. Back in the '60s, a protest march of 30,000 people was a big, big deal--and this size protest eventually brought down a president. Today, they don't care. We could put a million people in DC. We could shut down DC for a time, and it wouldn't matter. Because the people in power are no longer beholden to us. They are beholden to Diebold and ES&S. And they will go right on with their fascist government in their fortified bunkers.
So we have to find another way. And I think more subversive and dispersed protest is the way. And this Absentee Ballot thing has caught my imagination. Can you imagine what it would mean--how it would look, and what it would mean in terms of public consciousness, and massive rebellion--if, say, 90% of the voters refused to use these machines? All these shiny, new, expensive, election theft machines just sitting there, gathering dust. And election officials having to hire hundreds of word processors to scan all the AB votes into the election theft system, in order to make it work for the fascists. I'm just laughing, thinking about it!
I think it could be THE protest that sparks the end of this fascist regime.
It would not directly result in TRANSPARENT vote counting. But it would be an un-ignorable statement of public disgust. The Bushites wouldn't care. But local/state officials would be under siege.
THEN we could hire the Mexicans to hold rallies for us!
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Viva Mexico! Viva AMLO!
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