Reply #1: Pay attention! This is the future. The South Americans are showing us the way back

[Peace Patriot]

to democracy, to decency and to good government.

How are they doing it? I've been watching this awesome, peaceful, democracy and social justice movement for some time, as it has won election after election in South America, and has profoundly changed the face of South American politics--and U.S./South American relations. Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile--and, to the north, Nicaragua--all with leftist (majorityist) governments; and soon (possibly this year) in Paraguay. Here are three broad lessons I've gleaned...

1. Transparent vote counting! (U.S. voters, take note!)

2. Grass roots organization.

3. Think big.

As to the latter, don't just think of overturning the Bush Junta. Think of electing a modern FDR and implementing a 21st century "New Deal." Tepid thinking leads to tepid results. Think big. Think bold. Think of justice and fairness for all. Don't just think of a saved planet. Think of a thriving, healthy green planet--as we once had, before global corporate predators took over.

Here in the U.S., we don't even have the fundamentals of democracy. Fascist corporations have taken over our vote counting system, with voting machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. We wonder why we have shit for government. This is why--or, rather, it's how they locked their power in, so we can't change it. There are many reasons why--including our filthy campaign contribution and lobbying system, and our war profiteering corporate news monopolies. This, the 'coup de grace' (corporate-controlled electronic election theft) was a recent coup, that occurred in October 2002--same month as the Iraq War Resolution, and closely related to it--with the "Help America Vote Act"--a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle to convert all our voting systems to NON-TRANSPARENT, corporate-controlled vote fiddling. And it can be undone fairly quickly, as the grass roots movement for election integrity is showing. Until we undo this corporate lock on vote counting, we can't begin to address all the other things that are wrong.*

Do your democracy homework. That's what the South Americans have done. And if they can do it--after all they've suffered at the hands of brutal fascist regimes--so can we.


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*Example: In Venezuela, they use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are counted. And they handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud. We not only have a closed, corporate 'TRADE SECRET' system, many states do a ZERO handcount. There is NO check on electronic fraud at all. And even the best states have only a 1% count (extremely inadequate for voting machines run on 'TRADE SECRET' code). It follows--and, indeed, it's a no brainer--that Venezuela has a president who is a passionate advocate of the poor and for South American self-determination, and we have the Bush Cartel's idiot son for president, and a Congress that can't give him enough billions and billions of our tax dollars to kill Iraqis with and steal their oil. I don't know about Bolivia's system, but I do know that the OAS, local civic groups, the Carter Center and others have done extraordinary work in South America (not so good in Central America) on honest and aboveboard elections. So I presume they have a paper ballot system (the most transparent) or a system comparable to Venezuela's (high level of transparency), and that is one of the main reasons they have a good president--Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia, a country with a majority indigenous population.