Reply #19: Welcome to DU, Vickitulsa! It isn't over yet, so we don't yet face the

[Peace Patriot]

decision of whether to be magnanimous or not. But it's interesting that I was thinking today: We need a national TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION committee, like they did in South Africa--to heal the wounds of decades of "apartheid," and to provide forgiveness for those willing to admit their crimes. I've always thought that idea was brilliant! What an extraordinary thing for a society to do--not to seek vengeance and retribution, but to seek truth and forgiveness.

I think we also need to realize--and there is simply overwhelming evidence for this--that the majority of Americans are progressive, peaceful, tolerant, justice-loving, lawful, cooperative and generous, and that the Bushites DO NOT REPRESENT THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS.

I could rattle off an armload of statistics on this, but I will just cite one, my favorite: 63% of Americans oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. That's the America I know and love--a people who are not easily scared and not easily fooled, and who stick to democratic principles and lawful procedures even in the face of non-stop fear-mongering.

Okay, I will cite one more: 58% of the American people opposed the Iraq war BEFORE THE INVASION! --that is, before all the lies got exposed. I will never forget that stat. (About half opposed the war outright, and half would only approve it if it were a UN operation.)

These people did not re-elect George Bush. Diebold and ES&S did so, with their secret, proprietary programming code in the electronic voting machines, owned and controlled by Bushites. So things are not right. They are very, very not right. This government never had "consent of the governed," and doesn't have it now.

It is not going to be easy to turn this around. The Bushites are desperate to keep control--because they are the filthiest crew who ever ran a government and they are guilty of terrible crimes. Their theft of the election is a measure of their desperation--as was their outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. They have caused deaths (over 100,000 in Iraq alone), and have ordered deaths and torture; they have stolen billions and billions of dollars; they have run illicit WMDs around the world; and have stoked "terrorism" in others and have committed it themselves. They fear the ire of the American people--and the inevitability of justice--if they should ever lose control of the levers of power.

This is a very dangerous situation, and the crisis in our government is far from over.

And if we are able to restore democracy here, it is not going to be easy to learn from this experience and to create a better country from it.

But there is one thing that I learned on November 2, 2004, and that is to have faith in the people of this country. I saw what they did on that day. They rose up! They stood in ten hour lives to vote! They were determined to oust this bunch of liars and criminals. And I know that a whole bunch of Republicans were also voting to oust Bush. And all of our votes got stolen that day. We were disenfranchised--and that is not the fault of the voters, but of the political leaders who let it happen.

It is we, the people, however, who have to fix it. Our leaders are not going to. And it's very simple, really: Get rid of these Bushite election machine companies NOW! What business do they have counting all our votes in secret? That's ridiculous! Paper ballots/ hand counts, or, open source code machines with paper ballot backup, and strict auditing and security.

And we have to get this done at the state/local level, where the power over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some say. The movement for honest, transparent elections is happening. Join up with whatever local group is working on it, and help out. It's a peoples' movement. It's real. And it's the only way that we can recover our right to vote, and restore order in this land.

Then...THEN we can decide about magnanimity, when this nutcase rightwing minority that is destroying our country, and threatening worldwide holocaust, has been removed from power. I am wholeheartedly in favor of Truth and Reconciliation, once democracy has been restored.