Tribune Media Services’ Bob Koehler was one of the first voices, from within the corporate mainstream media, to speak about the bastardization of our current electoral system. He did so, beginning way back in the darkest days of 2005, when writing and/or saying such things aloud got folks fired, spiked, and otherwise Dixie Chicked for daring to speak such truths in a country which once claimed to believe in “freedom of speech” and “freedom of the press.”
From Ohio’s 2004 abberation of democracy, to voting systems that don’t work, to those who would do anything to win, such as keep voters from voting however they can, Koehler has continued to bang the drum, no matter the heat he has taken in return.
This week he continues to beat that drum, and offers us a few kind words in the bargain, yet again. Here’s a few key grafs from his latest, headlined “Goo Goo Government”…
However, in applied, as opposed to merely theoretical, democracy, there are things you can do about a numbers problem like this — legal, quasi-legal and blatantly, wildly, desperately (but undetectably) illegal. And the GOP, in its virulent neocon incarnation, is going to do all of them. In impolite, non-mainstream-media circles, it’s called cheating.
Indeed, “this is an all out Republican war on democracy in which we will be witnessing an unprecedented ‘troop surge’ between here and November,” Brad Friedman, whose blog sounded one of the earliest and most clarion voices of warning about election fraud, wrote recently in the U.K. Guardian. Friedman quoted conservative guru Paul Weyrich, who back in 1980 mocked the idea of democracy and good government as “goo-goo syndrome,” and bluntly stated: “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
Koehler concludes, appropriately, with the message that very few in the corporate MSM seem capable of (or interested in) delivering…
Amen. As you’ll find, when you read the whole thing, you are that power base! Get to work!
One of the best ways to deter the Neo-con’s efforts to rig the secret vote “counts” again is by participating in a citizen exit poll effort. For more info, see http://www.ProjectVoteCount.com
Project Vote Count’s Election News http://www.projectvotecount.com...ctionNews.aspx
and Project Vote Count’s FAQ http://www.projectvotecount.com/faq.aspx
Nice article by Koehler! Read the whole thing. It has some reassuring parts. Not something that pops up much in this fight.