Steven D currently has a frontpaged diary up here called Guess Who Believes in Election Fraud? It is about some recent Hillary Clinton remarks at a speech in Ohio.
She said:
Referring to presidential races, Clinton said, “This country deserves to have an electoral system that has integrity. I know there’s been a problem here in Ohio, and I hope everybody from Ohio is watching this election like a hawk. Don’t let them pull anything over your eyes again.”
Without naming Blackwell, Clinton said, “One of the people running for high office is actually running the election. That should not be permitted. It’s a conflict of interest. … We’ve got to take back our democracy.”
Now I have no quarrel with Steven D. I am GLAD that he made this post.
I just want to go a little further here.
Into groupthink waters.
And the possible future of our country.
More below.
So…here’s Steven D’s title again.
Guess Who Believes in Election Fraud?
As if her concern about vote fraud is some sort of surprise.
There is currently a shitstorm going on both at dKos and My Left Wing regarding Maryscott O’Connors’ recent dKos post regarding the dangers of “groupthink” in left blogworld. Something is Rotten in Blogmark: Final Update
Ironically…but not unexpectedly, as least by me…the group has come down quite solidly on the side of the idea that there IS no “groupthink”.
Clomp clomp clomp.
Deep.
Well Bunkies and Bunkettes, I am here to tell you that there certainly IS a groupthink mentality going on, and the left blogworld business as usual trashing of Hillary Clinton is a prime example.
Even when you AGREE with her, the snark is on.
It is implicit right in the title of Steven D’s post.
Guess Who Believes in Election Fraud?
As if this is some kind of surprise coming from a heretofore stupid, plodding centrist.
Well, check it out.
This woman has been there since before many (Most?) of us knew the difference between a Democrat and our Mama’s left nipple. (If of course we were lucky enough to be breast fed.)
She was a member of House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry staff. She was working for all she was worth to get Nixon impeached in 1974. She was 26 years old.
What were y’all doing in 1974?
For that matter…not to be too age specific about it…what were you doing WHENEVER you were 26? (If you have even REACHED that grand old age yet?)
Yup.
I thought so.
Me too.
Hillary Clinton is not shallow. She is a deep politics politician. Something of a political genius. On the evidence. If politics were chess, she would be a world class grandmaster. And these statements about vote fraud should come as no surprise.
Now I do not agree with her tactics at present, but then…I am not a political genius. Also on the evidence. I am a political OBSERVER, because my views are too far out to ever win an election and I’ll be damned if I’ll spend my life playing games with assholes in little rooms. I’m OK with that, too. I just attended a little fundraiser for a dKos-approved style “New Dem”, and what I saw there turned my stomach. I have little to no patience or tolerance for upper middle class twits, no matter WHAT their supposed politics, and the room was FULL of them. There was another “New Dem” politician working the room who claimed to be a musician. I had my doubts, just on his handshake and smile. (Count Basie-“I don’t need to audition people anymore. I can tell how they play by the way they carry their case.” Yup.) I went to his website, and sure enough, he can’t even sing in tune. Another faker. So it goes. A bar FULL of fakers, mostly. (Except for my friend “R”, if he is looking in here. And the bartender, who was doing a REAL job. And possibly of course a couple of others. See my recent post Meet-up in the Working-class Boonies for the other side of that story as far as I am concerned. The REAL left.)
However…that’s what makes politics. “EVERYBODY wants ta get into de act!!!”
My current observation regarding Hillary is that she may have painted herself into a centrist corner (now THERE’S an image right out of M.C. Escher) from which she may never recover, but she has had a very clear view of what is up with the right wing of this country for about 40 years.
And by hook or by crook, she has ACTED upon that view.
I quote:
Pretty damned avant-garde statement for a major Democrat eight years ago.
Pretty damned avant-garde for a major Democrat even now.
More? Sure.
Substitute Butch for Nixon, the NSA trolling thing for Watergate, and Iraq for Vietnam and you have something that no major figure in the Democratic Party except possibly Russ Feingold would DARE to say publicly today.
Including Hillary Clinton.
She has made her centrist bed in an attempt to gain enough power to DO something about what is happening here in America, and one of the problems with making a successful big time political bed is that you are then forced to lie in it. And I DO mean “lie”. The poker of politics EMPHASIZES the bluff. I still think that she is about a 4 to 1 favorite to win the Democratic nomination…not least because she tacks with the shifting winds of popular opinion in a MOST amazingly graceful manner (Witness her handling of the Lieberman brouhaha so far. Remember…Connecticut is right across the street from her own NY power base. Dangerous. Like a great defensive fighter, she is there/not there almost simultaneously.)
And I think it is pick ’em between Hillary and McCain as far as the Presidential election is concerned. Neck and neck, and polls be damned. (McCain being the Hillary of the right. He’s tacked with the shifting winds over there and as a result has been given the keys to the mainstream Ratpub bank. Money buys nominations. In BOTH parties.)
If I were FORCED to pick between them, to put my money where my mouth is, I would lay it down for Hillary. Not because I am a leftist, but because the giant albatross of the Butch administration’s eight years of mistakes can and will be exploited by any really savvy, courageous politician in an open electoral process.
Which terms…savvy, courageous…apply pretty much exclusively to Hillary Clinton as far as the current likely field of Dem Presidential candidates is concerned.
I would only aim them at two other major Dems…Feingold and Dean. Neither of whom has much of a chance. Dean blew his chance already, and Feingold is too radical AND a Jew. Also John Conyers, who is too old to run. And probably too smart, as well.
Gore? He is a piece of lead, and I believe he knows it. GOOD lead, but not ready for prime time as a candidate. Never was; never will be. His silver/lead alloy spoon weighs too heavily upon his tongue.
The rest? Edwards, Warner, Biden, Clark? Also rans. Bet on it.
So Hillary believes in election fraud?
What a SURPRISE!!! She watched as Bill was railroaded into political impotence by media fraud and what had all the earmarks of an intel honeytrap. She of ALL people knows to what lengths the right will go to stay in power.
Once again, in case anybody missed it.
She didn’t say that the vast right-wing conspiracy was STARTED to go after Bill. I am quite sure that she does not think that it has been defeated, either.
And what are the vote fraud efforts that have managed to give us the most evil administration in the entire history of this nation?
They are part of that vast right-wing conspiracy.
Duh.
So where is the surprise, here?
There should BE none.
I said above:”…the giant albatross of the Butch administration’s eight years of mistakes can and will be exploited by any really savvy, courageous politician in an open electoral process.”
The kicker in that statement?
The words “open electoral process.”
Hillary knows this.
Thus we hear this part of her emerging platform.
Watch her.
She’s the real deal.
AG
Do not take this post as in ANY way an attack of Steven D of blogworld in general. (I know…I am getting paranoid in my blog old age. 1 1/2 years and counting. Forgive me. Too many fresh scars.)
Blogworld ITSELF is very young, and it is growing. I am just trying to add my well-meaning two cents (Ok…I’m a spendthrift. A dollar three-eighty would be more like it.) to its higher education fund.
All tips, recs and general support would be (and are ALWAYS) much appreciated by this radical loner.
I don’t like groupthink much, but friends and allies are nothing less than precious to me.
Later…
AG
That’s “Steven D or blogworld”, of course.
Later…
AG
Arthur,
I just wanted to mention my appreciation for your diaries and your points of view. At first, I had trouble reading them, catching the rhythm, so to speak ;), but once I got past all that and was more concentrated on what you were saying, rather than how you were saying it, I’ve come to really look forward to seeing how you will view any particular event.
This doesn’t mean that I always agree with your every point or anything, but I realized that you often shine a floodlight on the voiceless and marginalized, trying to bring sometimes uncomfortable issues into the mainstream consciousness on various sites, even if this is sometimes not well received, and for that I give you big kudos.
That said, I haven’t done more than skim this particular article, so I have no comment on it ;). I just thought I would take this moment to say the other stuff, though. Thanks.
Thank you.
I speak in polyrhythms sometimes.
Comes from being polycultural, I guess.
Glad you can decipher the beat.
Really.
No sense playing if no one gets the music.
Later…
AGH
and I really, really, really do so appreciate your way of cutting to the chase.
No matter the cause, the case, the gig, you go at it full tilt.
“No sense playing if no one gets the music.”
I get it because I despise the the same herd of “clomp,clomp, clompers” that have run rampant in the blogosphere (little b cuz it’s weird) don’t really know what the hell it is yet. Ya know? Whatever “is” “is”.
Warner? Please.
Gore? Jesus.
McFuckingCain!? Belongs on a shrimp boat (I’ve no idea where that came from.)
Biden? His teeth are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too white to be taken seriously.
Edwards? Nice kid but he just ain’t got it down.
Yeah, I wonder too sometimes if most of the youngins know about Hillary back in the day…she was a fury to be reckoned with.
Now she knows the game. Hell, Arthur, I wish I could believe in something, anything, anyone just now.
Please keep the drummer busy…I think you need your own blog, whatever that means. Wonder if you realize there are so many who would dig your thang?
You are unique, a living, breathing, american beat poet, a national treasure as far as I’m concerned.
Miles ain’t got nuttin’ on you.
Thanks.
Miles had a LOT on me.
Believe it.
But I DO keep trying.
Which stops me at the moment from having my own blog.
Not enough time in the day now to do what I must.
Keep dancing…
And thank you.
Later…
AG
What Nanette said….
I, too look forward to your diaries, although they sometimes prickle — no, BECAUSE they they poke around uncomfortably and occasionally draw blood. I can’t get too complaisant when AG is darting in and out, feinting with a bare bodkin.
I play bongo music when I’m reading Arthur’s diaries.
I’m not kidding.
It helps!
Arthur. You’re going strong. I love your last two diaries. What about exposing us to the Blog equivalent of Albert Aylor in your next diary?
My brother refers to people who are breaking up under pressure as being “on screech.”
Yup.
GRACE under pressure is my goal.
Sometimes I get there…sometimes I don’t.
Once in a blue moon I will take it out as a soloist. Right to the edge and then over. And mostly people just look at me going “WHAAA…???”
Like I said above…no sense playing if no one gets the music.
later…
AG
If you listen to Aylor enough at least for me the screeching goes away. I discovered in the last couple of years that I have a talent for dancing, free style. I can go beyond myself but still be aware of what is graceful. People indeed go AAAHH, but at parties they all ask me to dance.
” What she said, Art. I’d stand in line to read what you’ve got to say. It’s always a treat.
That is a very good and valuable connection to make, Arthur–between her comments about the attacks on her husband and he comments about elections. Thanks for connecting those two dots.
I guess I would just say that it doesn’t surprise me that a politician believes there was election fraud, just that she would say so in public. That’s what surprised me. Although, since seeing how you connected the dots, I am now less surprised. I suspect a whole lot of politicians privately believe there was fraud, and probably speak of it among themselves. They just don’t have the courage to say so out loud to us.
She has gone up three notches. . .no four. . .for me in the past couple of weeks since she: one, hired Peter Daou; two, said she’d back the primary winner in Ct; three, spoke of voter fraud; and–if it is Daou who advised her to do those things–then I give her the 4th notch for being wise enough to follow his excellent counsel. Of course, I have no idea if that’s what happened. Wait, five notches–somebody advised her hire to Daou, and she followed that good advice, too.
Thanks.
Don’t forget…SHE’S the advisor.
You remember that “joke”, don’t you? From the early Clinton years?
Suddenly Hillary says to the driver “Pull over!!! Right NOW!!!”
He does so and the motorcade screeches to a panicked halt.
Hillary gets out of the limo, walks up to a homeless man sitting dejectedly on the curb, kneels down next to him and says a few words, reaches into her purse and gives him a card, and then gets back in the limo and says “OK, we can go now” and they start back up.
Bill turns to Hillary and says “What was THAT all about?” and she answers “Oh…I recognized that guy. I used to go out with him before I met you and I hated seeing him in that state, so I figured I’d see if there was something I could do to help him. He was an alright sorta guy…just down on his luck a little, I think.”
Bill swelled up a little (as he did so well, so often…) and said “Hillary, I’ll bet you’re glad you married me instead of him. Now you’re married to the President of the United States!!!”
And Hillary patiently answered him.
“Bill…you still don’t understand, do you? If I had married him, he’d be the President of the United States.”
Yup.
Bet on it.
SHE’S the boss. For better OR for worse.
Later…
AG
lol!
Arthur, I don’t think I’ve responded to any of your diaries before, but I have to tell you that you are right about this. Hillary has been fighting the fight a long time and we do her a disservice to forget that. And we do ourselves a disservice to forget what a good strategist she is.
Yes, part of her strategy is to (appear) to alienate the left. Maybe she’s succeeded a little too well in that.
But, then, she’s always been an over-achiever. 🙂
We do ourselves a disservice every time we surrender to groupthink.
We are immured to it at an early age as MediAmericans. The TV tells us that John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara types…fill in the generational blanks, because it’s always the same…are the heroes and heroines. That eggheads are not to be trusted. That Blacks ARE violent, Jews ARE tricky, Puerto Ricans ARE feckless, men ARE the boss, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
So that even when we think that we are pulling AWAY from those archetypes, we are merely achetyping on another level. Still groupthinking all the while, because that is how we have been meta-TAUGHT to think.
That is one reason why I have pushed the NEWSTRIKE!!! and MEDIASTRIKE!!! ideas so strongly.
We have lived unconsciously within that programming for so many years…impressionable, pre-conscious years… that we can no longer think outside of it. We just end up in smaller and smaller boxes, each the same kind as the ones that we think we have successfully abandoned.
And only media de-programming can bust us loose. When you step away from the TV, pop movies/culture and groupthink news…and stay away long enough…everything looks different.
Trust me.
Everything looks different.
A Zen saying:
During Zen, everything is confused.
After Zen, a tree is once again a tree. Only different.
Yup.
Zen is not just sitting.
And the concept of “As above, so below ” holds true here as well.
The same system functions in regards to awakening from our media dream as it does on a larger, deeper level of awakening.
Another way to escape from groupthink…involve yourself in a group that has not been so infected by it. As a subordinate or at the very least as an equal. Nothing will so open one’s mind to the ingrained groupthink of white American middle class culture than being spoken to plainly and in full trust by people who have been isolated by that groupthink as outcasts, as inferiors.
Nothing.
Left blogworld groupthink has it now that all politicians are brainless turds, run by others. (Admittedly on some fairly good evidence.) And mainstream groupthink casts women in the same light. Thus even in the most progressive of spaces we see Hillary Clinton being considered…quite unconsciously and without real malice…as someone who needs to be “managed” into making good choices.
And no one says a word, because almost all of us have bought INTO these ideas. Or better stated, almost all of us have been bought into those ideas.
What to do?
Like any junky…one day at a time.
One idea at a time.
One awakening at a time.
Peace.
AG
… about one of my brothers saying we on the left are “tottering on the edge of fascism” because we promote groupthink. Ironically, he had also just lectured me on how the Democratic party is too fragmented to get anything done. Huh? Fragmented groupthink… how’s that for an oxymoron?
But I do get your point, as it relates to the blogs. There is often an orthodoxy of thought that emerges from the major lefty blogs. When you contradict that orthodoxy, you get seriously flamed (especially over at Big Orange). It has happened to me more than once.
But I’m not sure a consensus has emerged on Hillary. I still see a lot of people who support Hillary whole heartedly. Compare the attitudes toward Hillary to what you see toward Lieberman. There is no comparison.
I would also like to point out that there is also an important distinction between the orthodoxy on the left versus the orthodoxy on the right. Our orthodoxy usually emerges from discussion/debate, while the right’s orthodoxy is handed down from on high. Diaries like yours that help people see when their opinions are running away from the facts would never be tolerated on the right.
In the end, I think consensus is inevitable and necessary. I believe it is human nature to seek consensus, because we are social creatures and we therefore all have a desire to belong to a group. And consensus is necessary if we are ever going to set group goals and accomplish them. I would rather have the consensus being reached through dialogue by a very large and diverse group, than being established by the media or the beltway establishment. Just my opinion.
Fragmented groupthink?
Not such an oxymoron. if you think about it. In fact, it perfectly describes one of the basic faults of left blogworld as represented by dKos. The groupthink is so solidly in favor of what it considers diversity of opinion that it distrusts ANY large or general agreements, and there are literally hundreds of posters there who can be counted on attacking such agreements.
Obsessive, compulsive argumentation.
In fact, that idea could very well be extended to explain the relative failures of the left and/or ANY attempts at “the new” in all of human history.
Conservative, centrist human movements are much more agreeable among themselves than are radical ones.
We literally argue ourselves into failure.
Fragmented groupthink.
An interesting idea.
Thanks.
Also…you say:
“Diaries like yours that help people see when their opinions are running away from the facts would never be tolerated on the right.”
The fact is, “diaries like mine” have been BARELY tolerated on the left. My year and a half of blogging has been an ongoing series of educational surprises to this 35+ years out of the loop radical. I stepped away from politics…indeed, away from MUCH of the mainstream white American culture…in the late ’60s/early ’70s. I was simply too absorbed in mastering a particular craft/art/call it what you will to GIVE much of a damn about a culture dominated by fools like Nixon, Reagan and their Bushbaby progeny. I remember walking down a Greenwich Village side street the night after Nixon completely crushed George McGovern in 1972 and feeling something literally break in my being. Here I was involved in the most American of all arts…jazz…and the America from which it sprang had just chosen the dark side in a a perfectly clear competition between darkness and light.
So I left the culture. I was in it but not of it. Didn’t actually think much about it one way or another, except in terms of personal survival. I looked in many other directions instead.
It wasn’t really until Butch II’s selection in 2000 that it began to dawn on me that the idea of “personal survival” was getting to a point where I had to either leave the country or start to fight this evil myself in whatever ways I could. And it wasn’t until 9/11 and the ensuing Iraq invasion that I TRULY realized the extent of the danger. That it literally would make no difference WHERE on this good green earth I moved as long as these people were in power because they were going to keep ramping up the stakes until we had a true world war.
A NUCLEAR war. Those other “world wars?” Sorry, baby. In 9/10ths of the world, there almost WAS no “war.” No shooting, anyway. No bloody death. But THESE people?
THIS version of the Nova Gang?
They are threatening to take the whole thing down.
You say that you think consensus is “inevitable and necessary”.
I agree about the “necessary” part, if we are to survive on this planet. On the evidence however, I am not so sure about the “inevitable” idea.
We shall see.
We shall VERY SOON see.
The 2006 election will be the harbinger of things to come. The left…the blogleft, anyway…is presently getting all het up about “the coming victory”. There are apparently perfectly rational people on the blogs talking about taking over BOTH houses of Congress in November, about a Democratic landslide, about a mandate for change, about impeachment, about Happy Times Are Here Again and a chicken in every gas tank, etc.
We shall see.
These are the same people who have started crowing every time some piece of damaging news about the criminals in power has surfaced over the past couple of years. The Downing St. Papers, Guckert/Gannon, Enron, Katrina, the whole Fitzgerald investigation, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
And every time BushCo has Teflon Donned itself right out of trouble.
So…we shall see.
On the evidence if what i have seen and personally experienced on left blogworld…we have got a long way to go before we can deal with these BushCo people effectively.
A LONG way.
Fragmented groupthink?
Yup.
That just about perfectly sums it up.
We shall see.
If we do not hang together we shall most certainly burn apart.
Let us pray.
AG
“So I left the culture. I was in it but not of it. Didn’t actually think much about it one way or another, except in terms of personal survival. I looked in many other directions instead.
It wasn’t really until Butch II’s selection in 2000 that it began to dawn on me that the idea of “personal survival” was getting to a point where I had to either leave the country or start to fight this evil myself in whatever ways I could. And it wasn’t until 9/11 and the ensuing Iraq invasion that I TRULY realized the extent of the danger. That it literally would make no difference WHERE on this good green earth I moved as long as these people were in power because they were going to keep ramping up the stakes until we had a true world war.”
I hear you. I bailed too. After Kennedy got shot, I never came back…til now. Oh no, wait..I voted for Clinton, he wasn’t Jack Kennedy but close enough I figured to roll the dice. I began pokin’ around in this “Brave New World” of bloggery. What I found was disconcerting. But then, I’m so damned far left of the middle it’s hard to find much shelter anywhere.
Hell, AG you’re a teacher and we need you. We need all the sages that remember. Peace.
There are a lot of us coming back.
Have fun…
AG
“On the evidence however, I am not so sure about the “inevitable” idea.”
I wasn’t saying universal consensus is inevitable, just that consensus within each faction is inevitable. The left tolerates more factions within factions than does the right (which tolerates none)… hence our fragmented groupthink, I guess.
The psychological desire for belonging is tempered by the desire to be unique. Thus, we often form small groups of “counter-culture.” Even when you left the mainstream, you were joining a group of like-minded people, joining the world of jazz. You didn’t go live alone in a cave. When teens rebel, they select a counter-culture to join (I know… most of the teen counter-cultures are nothing of the sort because they are manufactured by the media, but the teens don’t realize that). It isn’t any fun to be a counter-culture of one (hey… I’m a poet and I’m not aware of it… or something like that).
Why do I, and I’m sure most others, come to the blogs? To find like-minded individuals. To belong. It is comforting to know there are so many other people who think and feel as I do. With the blogs, anyone who disagrees with the consensus can either find someplace they fit in, or start their own blog.
So that is why I think consensus is inevitable when it comes to the blogging factions of the left.
Could be…
We shall see.
AG
Authur,
I completely agree with the “group think” aspects of your post, and I believe that a culture brainwashed into religious dogma from their earliest years and beaten by constant, controlled propaganda on the TV box could hardly turn out any differently. What to do about it is another matter.
I will diagree with you, however, on the Hillary prediction. Let me sum it up in one name, John Kerry. Kerry lost in 2004 becasue of his history of being wishy-washy and changing directions radically for purely political gain. The truth is that this tactic can be easily exploited politically by the other side because Americans do not like indecision. Therefore, you description of how asute Hillary is as a politician may also be her achilles heel. She can be shown, like Kerry, to go with the political current of the moment, and Americans will reject her for that and rightly so, IMHO!
Could be…
And I said as much in the post.
Actually, the post was aimed at least as much at “groupthink” as it was at Hillary’s political position.
You write:
If she is rejected because of the perception of indecision, a great deal of the blame…if indeed blame is to be rightfully distributed…will go to the left blogworld groupthink that does not clearly differentiate between her tactical political decisions and her strategic social vision.
Over and over again we mistake tactics for strategy.
Strategy is the desired end.
Tactics are the means that are chosen to attain that desired end.
It is true that the ends do not sometimes justify the means, and it is EQUALLY true that the means sometimes obscure or even defeat the ends. I am just trying to clarify and separate the two concepts here, to the best of my own ability to understand them.
I mean, Hillary doesn’t call me at 2 AM and pour her heart out to me about what she REALLY wants.
Not very often, anyway…
So I have to rely on my own interpretation of what she has said and done throughout her public career.
I think that left groupthink often ignores her history in favor of a narrow interpretation of her actions over the past 6 years or so.
Which actions have undeniably put her in a position of GREAT power on the American political scene.
She’s good at what she does. You have to give her that. VERY good.
The question that must be asked of a woman who has spent roughly 80% of her public career on the right side of almost all issues…that is, the LEFT side…is whether she is playing politics in order to get things done or whether she has somehow been possessed by evil at this late date in her career.
I know which way I see things.
And it is not in agreement with much of left blogworld groupthink.
So it goes.
That’s what makes horseraces.
We shall see…
Later…
AG
But again, Authur, look at the John Kerry from 1971. You could not ask for a more progrssive man, and personally, I believe if that type of clear vision had been Kerry’s signature throughout, he would be president now! So it does matter how you are perceived over your career on important issues. There are many polticians to choose from who can be chameleons for the public whim vote of the day, but there are damm few politicans of constant conscience to choose from. I think the public detests the former when these politician’s floppiness is documented, and the public will give some credit for personal truthfulness, consistency, and insight over time!
What planet are you people on? “Kerry lost because–“
Christ on a crutch, we’re talking about frigging ELECTRION FRAUD and you guys are still making your arguments based on the ASSUMPTION that Kerry actually lost! Kerry shellacked that syphilitic chimp!
“Kerry lost because wah wah wah … ” PLEASE. I cannot believe we’re talking about a woman discussing the FACT of election fraud for the last two presidential elections, and I’m still hearing this “Kerry lost because he was wishy-washy” crap.
KERRY DID NOT FRIGGING LOSE. Christ. STOP USING ELECTION RESULTS AS AN INDICATOR OF ANY DAMNED THING.
Stop acting like the vote MATTERS. What matters now is cleaning up the system — until and unless that happens, pointing to votes as an indicator of anything whatsoever is WORTHLESS.
“Kerry lost because–” Jesus CHRIST.
You say:
“Christ on a crutch, we’re talking about frigging ELECTRION FRAUD and you guys are still making your arguments based on the ASSUMPTION that Kerry actually lost! Kerry shellacked that syphilitic chimp!
“Kerry lost because wah wah wah … ” PLEASE. I cannot believe we’re talking about a woman discussing
the FACT of election fraud for the last twopresidential elections, and I’m still hearing this “Kerry lost because he was wishy-washy” crap.
KERRY DID NOT FRIGGING LOSE. Christ. STOP USING ELECTION RESULTS AS AN INDICATOR OF ANY DAMNED THING.”
Dang, I don’t know how to get quotes in that pretty little box.
See? THIS is the THING! The THING IS Election Fraud! THIS is the why of so many, many people’s “apathy”?
Try this one:
They know the friggin’ truth, know the vote really doesn’t make a damned bit of difference, people working two and three jobs don’t wanna stand in line at the Kool-Aid stand to “vote” when they gotta get home and feeds the kids. They feed them lots and lots of macaroni and cheese, the three for a buck kind in a box
and they sure as hell don’t have the time to read “blogs”.
Until this is fixed by whatever means all our posturing about this candidate or that candidate is so much wishful thinking.
The REAL question is, how do we stop third world election practices and expect a godammned thing to change???
AG? Would love to hear you on this one. What do we do about this? And will if be fixed by ’08? I doubt it.
We must stop talking about the next election like it matters…until it really does.
Yeah, Hillary spoke out and I love her for it…but can she really make it happen before ’08?
Sometimes I just want to go screaming into the woods…lol
You may well be correct, as I do not have any inside info to tell me whether significant vote fraud took place in red states or not. I will tell you that in conservative central PA where I live, most folks were against Kerry and not for Bush. They did not trust him.
It is true that PA went for Kerry, but if my experience in a mainly conservative area is any indication of what happened in red and almost red states, then I think the fraud charge may have minimal impact on any election but a super close one. Even in a super close election, one would have to THEN ask why was is so close that fraud could make the difference? In a landslide, I really doubt that much fraud could exist and be gotten away with. So maybe the question should be, how the hell could Kerry have even been in a close election with this current presidential clown?? Answer is his Wishy-washy record on major political issues , IMO!
Precisely.
Hillary is angling for a win so big that it CANNOT be stolen.
Will she succeed?
Dunno.
But it looks to me like that is exactly what she is trying to do.
People say that we must clean up the voting system.
True.
But we cannot do so if we are not in power.
Catch 22 and goodnight.
Only an end run and some FANCY footwork will change THAT problem.
Later…
AG