The result of the Nov 2 election left everyone in a shock as the Republicans gained control over America and its millions of citizens, snatching away the Congress and whitehouse from the Democrats. A dejavu comes over me as I see a replay, at a bigger scale, all that happened in my own country in the elections earlier this year. Except that while we had a new leader, America retained its leader, a leader that has been compared to Reagen. The dejavu I am talking about is suspected corruption and mishandling of the electoral system. Has something messed up big time, or have a majority of Americans become fundamentalists overnight? I see this no longer as a struggle between left and right, but a bigger problem of a system going from democratic to semi-totalitarian. Is the Camelot days over? But then, this is just my opinion.
I have posted here some of the debates and links related to the Nov 2 elections. Though we might want to ignore the outcome of the elections, the fact that the American government and foreign policies affect our lives means that we better sit up and stop being ignorant. One does not have to agree with all the views posted below, but it is good to weigh all your options.
It will be interesting to see what the White House has in store for the next year. I wonder if the New Yorker will still be featuring as much stories on US politics after the elections.
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From: Kevin Glynn
Reply-To: Cultural Studies
To: cultstud-l@mailman.acomp.usf.edu
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 13:52:01 +1300
Subject: [cultstud-l] In Diebold Systems Inc. We Trust?
OK – there is for sure a right-wing populist lunatic fringe that spoke very loudly a couple days ago. But the other big populist story of “election” ’04 was the astonishing mobilization of anger from the hip hop generation to the elderly, from Springsteen and Eminem and Chuck D to the Dixie Chicks – anger over Iraq and the estimated 100,000+ killed there already, anger over the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans in 2000, anger over an insane Republican theocracy that is off the leash. And frankly I’m with Greg Palast (author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy) when he says there’s no reason to put any faith in the official election results reported in states with unaccountable and unverifiable “black box” voting machines courtesy of Diebold Systems Inc. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but what better way to respond to a massive mobilization of really pissed-off first-time voters, young voters and other voters-who-don’t-usually-vote, than to get ‘em to stand in line in the rain for 8 hours just to teach them that all their mobilization meant nothing in the end after all. Hell, the Michigan Republican who said several months ago that “we’ve gotta do something to suppress the black vote this year or it’ll be our undoing” (or words to that effect) spoke to a profound sense of threat that was rampant throughout the whole right-wing kleptocracy called “our” government. THIS “president,” “elected” again under these global and domestic circumstances, in a fashion that apparently (and all too conveniently) puts to bed the controversy over the theft of the White House in 2000 and sets the stage for a radical restructuring of state power in the US, as well as potentially nipping in the bud a populist mobilization that just might feel newly emboldened to flex its “dangerous” muscles in future elections? Sorry, I’m just not buying it. It’s all too fishy. Something really stinks here. Here’s this from a computer science prof in the Netherlands (see http://www.electoral-vote.com/, and recall that exit polling is generally considered to be far more accurate than predictive pre-election polling, since it entails asking people who’ve just voted, how they actually voted):“Various people sent me mail saying that it is awfully fishy that the exit polls and final results were substantially different in some places. I hope someone will follow this up and actually do a careful analysis. Does anyone know of a Website containing all the exit poll data? If we go to computerized voting without a paper trail and the machines can be set up to cheat, that is the end of our democracy. Switching 5 votes per machine is probably all it would take to throw an election and nobody would ever see it unless someone compares the computer totals and exit polls. I am still very concerned about the remark of Walden O'Dell a Republican fund raiser and CEO of Diebold, which makes voting machines saying he would deliver Ohio for President Bush. Someone (not me) should look into this carefully. The major newspapers actually recounted all the votes in Florida last time. Maybe this year's project should be looking at the exit polls. If there are descrepancies between the exit polls and the final results in touch-screen counties but not in paper-ballot counties, that would be a signal. At the very least it could be a good masters thesis for a political science student. The Open voting consortium <http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/> is a group addressing the subject of verifiable voting.”Things are just too smelly here. The bill that would have required all states to use verifiable voting machines has been stalled for months in the Republican Congress. Jeb Bush has flatly refused to install the paper trail that would actually benefit him by making the Florida 2004 result appear credible. Ditto in Ohio (for months labeled the “new Florida” of 2004). But don’t look for this story on Fox News! For more on Diebold, point your browsers here:http://www.jewishtimes.com/2435.stmFor Palast's latest account of this year's sequel to the theft of democracy in 2000, see:http://www.tompaine.com/print/kerry_won.phpOn the prospect of Diebold rigged elections forevermore, see:http://www.alternet.org/The theorists of “Election” 2004 are Gramsci and Baudrillard: the declared, official result may well be a simulacrum designed to subvert the formation and mobilization of a progressive bloc. Yes – a simulated election, complete with long queues, record turnouts, a pre-programmed (Diebold), down-to-the-wire outcome, and even a few minor "reported incidents" of voter obstruction, etc. It would be the perfect "model" of democracy in action (as Baudrillard might put it). What more legitimating spectacle could Bush and his despicable cronies wish for?-kevin
From: winna rae
Reply-To: Cultural Studies
To: Cultural Studies
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:40:18 -0500
Subject: Re: [cultstud-l] In Diebold Systems Inc. We Trust?
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/There's also the question of the county in Ohio where over 4000 peoplevoted for Bush.One problem.There are only about 600 registered voters there.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/224812/643
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From me-
For a history of the electoral system, check out the government website at http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/election04/
And you can hear views from all sides here
http://www.watchblog.com/
Recap of news in the run-up to the elections.
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1865.cfm
Some require subscription, but you can read the free news
http://news.ft.com/indepth/uselections
And my favourite online newspaper for all these news would be
http://www.nytimes.com
And here are some archives of America's brutal domestic past
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/home.htm
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/
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