What if the elections really are fixed?

[Onlooker]

What if Gore won in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, but were defeated by a corrupt Republican machine? What if our inaction and the inaction of our leaders is entrenching the corruption? Is the reason that the RFK, Jr. story is generating so little excitement that we don't want to deal with the what ifs? What would you do if we were no longer a democracy, but just had the trappings of democracy as a front? Would you face up to it? Would you take action? What kind of action?

[paparush]

1. General Strike. No one pays taxes. DC becomes an occupied city

We beg the UN to come in and take over....hell I dunno. I pick up my family and move to Belize.

[TahitiNut]

49. Moreover ...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/293

[cantstandbush]

51. What do you mean by "what if?" n/t

[Scoody Boo]

2. It doesn't need to be fixed...

it is lost if all we are going to run on is "stolen elections."

[SmokingJacket]

9. Have you read the Rolling Stone article yet?

I would be interested in hearing your responses to his specific allegations.

[Scoody Boo]

I have read excerpts...

but I still do not think that "stolen elections" is the issue that is going to win it for us.

[Minstrel Boy]

39. And doing nothing will?

2000, 2002, 2004...

I've been reading for years remarks like, "If they steal another one, I'm gonna -" do something. Anything. And now it's 2006, and nothing's been done.

Enough people know the system is broken. It's not awareness that needs to be raised, it's some righteous fists.

[Scoody Boo]

46. No doing nothing...

but running the same election campaigns we have in the past will garantee that we keep losing.

[petgoat]

48. I'd like to hear some ideas of what we do if there are indications

of election fraud in November.

Since the races are atmost statewide, any protests would mean people in
(for instance) Wisconsin organizing to protest crooked elections in
(for instance) Tennessee. That's a problem.

[BeFree]

12. We did not lose...

...that is what we are running on. Gore did not lose. If one can't see that the presidency was stolen from him, and us, that goes to show that one is ignorant as can be and is one that can be persuaded by the republican'ts to believe whatever they are told.

Kerry: the evidence is overwhelming that his election was also stolen. But there are people who say we should get over it. Well, getting over the election being stolen is like asking someone to get over being raped or to get over their car being stolen as they watch the crooks drive it down the street.

The people who perpetrated the stealing have to be brought to justice. They committed a crime, and until they are treated as criminals they will continue to steal our country. Until justice is done we are losers.

[Scoody Boo]

16. Keep telling yourself that...

Keep beliving that the Democrats ran completely mistake free campaigns. Keep believing that nominating a candidate who the South would not vote for under threat of death was the way to go.

Keep believeing that run the exact campaign that lost LAST time will win this time.

I invest little emotion into politics. I vote, my guy does not win (or deserve to) I shrug, go to bed and the next day continue on with my life. I can see past the emotion because it is not there. And, there is no way anyone is going to convince me that the Democrats won or we had a winner in John Kerry.

Getting back to Al Gore, that campaign was the biggest disaster and blowing of a lead since the Buffalo Bills came back on the Houston Oilers. We had a candidate, who was the Vice-President under a wildy popular President, a decent economy, no war to speak of.

Even if Al Gore had it stolen, it was a lousy campaign to have such an advantage in a candidate get whittled away to where it all depended on recounts in one single state. It never should have come down to that.

You know why we lose elections? Because the people who Democrats hire to win elections and wind up losing them, get hired to win elections again.

[BeFree]

31. Good Gawd

Blame the victims. That got us nowhere but eight years of bush. Keep believing the crooks didn't crook things, and they'll bury you.

Why in the world anyone would let them off the hook for their criminal acts is beyond me. Oh, there is one theory that explains it, but I don't like to think that anyone here is on that side.

Otherwise you suggest that we just forget the slanted press, the voting machines programmed to be open to any hacker close by, and the fact that the republican'ts ran the elections in Florida, Ohio and elswhere, and the republican'ts do a damn thing without lying, cheating, and stealing?

Hmmmmm. I see where you are coming from. Yep, I sure do.

[Scoody Boo]

45. So the Democrats have been running flawless elections...

since 2000? You honestly believe that? You think that the south was stolen, also?

That is where I think the problem the problem is and why we can't win. To me, the whole "stolen election" thing is an excuse, a cop-out so we don't have to face the real reasons we can't win.

To me, our problem is we don't look to see why our message is not resonating in the red states and see how we can address that. I think in 2000 we thought that people were so pissed off at Bush that they would vote for our guy no matter who it was.

That is my opinion. That is all it is. Apparently having an opinion is okay with you if it is the same one you have.

Me, I don't think that you having a different opinion on this bespeaks a low IQ, a heart "full of hate," or anything for that matter. It is your opinion and you are free to have one, free from any judgements from me.

[BeFree]

63. Did I say flawless?

No. I say we won. We WON. You say we are losers, I say we are winners, but have been frauded. I see the proof of the fraud. It is not my opinion, it is fact. You have just an opinion. I have facts. You can't prove the vote was counted correctly, I can prove it was counted incorrectly.

There have been many erors made in campaigns, but Kerry done good. You didn't see much of the good on TV, or read it in the papers, so I can see why your opinion is what it is.

But the facts are - the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen. if you'd take the time to look over the facts you too will believe. That is my opinion -that you too will believe- and I aim to convince you to look at the facts. Thats all.

That, and people who call us losers, when what we are, are victims, piss me off.

[Bitter Cup]

50. Don't have to believe that Democrats were Mistake Free

in order to believe that the elections are rigged. All our screw ups in the world don't create a justification for vote tampering. And all the perfection in the world doesn't guarantee a win if you aren't counting the votes.

Could we run better campaigns and advance better candidates...hell yes. Does that mean the system isn't a total setup designed to rig a loss now? Nope. I like to HOPE we can win if we run strong enough and I'm willing to fight to improve things on that plank. But I don't kid myself for a moment thinking that even a stellar performance will get us the win if the ref has been paid off.

Give us paper trails, then we'll talk.

[mopinko]

55. NOT PAPER TRAILS, PAPER BALLOTS

toilet paper rolls on vote stealing machines will solve NOTHING.

[H2O Man]

17. You are right.

And you hit the nail on the head about people who say "get over it." I like how you compare it to someone saying a victim of a violent crime should just get over it. The proof that you are right is that they often expose themselves by blaming the victim. Blaming Gore for having the election stolen makes as much sense as blaming the victim of an assault. Maybe it was the way Gore dressed?

[helderheid]

23. "maybe it was the way Gore dressed?"

You rock H20 man!

[Scoody Boo]

24. Okay, don't get over it...

keep harping on it six years, eight years later and see how many seats we win. See who gets sworn in in 2009.

[H2O Man]

26. The thinking that limits

the choices to only "get over it" and "keep harping on it" is what we refered to as concrete thinking in mental health. It's similar to in post #2, where you say that "it is lost if all we are going to run on is 'stolen elections'." In truth, there is an entire range of thinking available to citizens in America, and our best bet is to encourage people to think in terms of life holding far more than two choices.

The two options that you describe are not "wrong" -- and I recognize that you are fully entitled to them. I would suggest, however, that limiting choices of thought creates citizens who are more easily fooled, exploited, and taken advantage of. Thus, respectfully, I would think people would do well to simply compare your beliefs on this topic with Vince Bugliosi, who documents the theft of the 2004 election in "The Betrayal of America"; and RFK Jr's work on the 2004 election.

The subject at hand is, of course, the disenfranchisement of a specific population in the United States. That population tends to be easily identified: black Americans. There were those who advocated not addressing the same problem in the 1960s. There were many people who blamed black citizens for the crimes being systematically committed against them then, too. This included those who felt that the democratic party might lose elections if they kept "harping on it." I had no respect for that type of closed-minded nonsense then, and I have none for it today.

As Nelson Mandela said after he emerged from 27 years of incarceration in South Africa, "Universal suffrage on a common voter's roll in a united, democratic, and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony."

[annabanana]

59. I think even ScoodyBoo

has been convinced that the questions must, at least, be asked.

[helderheid]

28. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results

is the definition of insanity - if we don't address what happened, it will happen again.

[BeFree]

32. What planet do you live on?

The people who are 'harping on it' are involved in all aspects of taking back our country. We just see this part as a crucial piece of the puzzle, and are not going to get over our democracy being stolen.

Thanks for your help and encouragement. With friends like you.....

[Jackpine Radical]

33. I guess those earth tones just bring out the mugger in Everyman.

[H2O Man]

58. Like waving a red flag

in front of a bull, or wearing a pheasant-print shirt while hunting with Dick Cheney.

[Jackpine Radical]

64. --or, for that matter, an orange vest while hunting with Cheney. (nt)

[cascadiance]

54. I think you might be right if all we do is "whine" about it...

But I don't agree that it isn't an important issue to deal with. It is the FUNDAMENTAL issue to deal with to ensure that we have a Democracy in place and aren't just fooling ourselves about everything else this government spews out to rationalize that it is a Democracy.

I think the point of this thread is what can we CONSTRUCTIVELY do, rather than just whine about it, to combat what we might discover are stolen elections. Something does have to be done if that is the case. What should we do then that will be effective. It might be going into Washington, Ukranian style, and seeking to shut it down as much as we can and have a general strike as proposed. Perhaps there are some other ideas which might give us more effective clout too, without hurting people, etc.

I think some folks here say let's have a revolution. At some point it might come to that, but I'm not sure that a) we have much of a chance with directly confronting the government in that instance, and b) there's got to be a lot of other ways that we can confront this government and bring it to its knees without extreme bloodshed that might forever damage the civilized communities we've had. I do think that some extreme measures may need to be taken, and perhaps lawbreaking involved (at least breaking the newer laws this right wing SCOTUS seems to be "creating" like the whistleblower law it had the other day). Our point isn't to brutalize and get revenge on those in power that our doing so much damage to our system and the society that depends on it. Our point should be to take them out of power and that those that have either lead or have been complicit in this criminal wrongdoing be PERMANENTLY removed from the political scenes. No Iran-Contra style pardons, etc. They should have put Ollie North in jail then. Just like they should be putting others that have been in these situations over and over again in prison with no pardons too. Perhaps even sent to the Hague for justice where appropriate, as that might be necessary to regain our stature in the world community at some point.

[Skink]

3. They're going to let us win this time around.

A temporary repriese to blame everything on us.

[Sadie5]

10. I'm with Skink on this

They might just allow us to win this time. Then they will pull their dirty tricks again. Makes me wonder if Clinton was allowed to win two terms.

[W_HAMILTON]

19. If they "pull their dirty tricks again"

that means the Democrats didn't use their time as majority in Congress too wisely. If "they" "allow" us to win this November, then those damn Democrats better do all they can to ensure the votes are legitimate. Repeal the "poll taxes" that some states have put in place; put forth a bill saying that electronic voting machines must be completely tamper-proof to be used in elections. Whatever it takes.

If Democrats regain power in Congress, and they do nothing to address issues like these in the next two years, then they deserve to get screwed over in the future. That would be completely idiotic for them not to push their own agenda when it comes to voting.

If the Democrats win, put in laws that make it so they can't "pull their dirty tricks again."

[Onlooker]

25. They can't let us win

If the Democrats win the House or Senate, they will launch investigations which will uncover the whole mess. The Republicans are in this game for keeps, and they will not yield one inch. They can't afford to.

[Vincardog]

53. If they will not "Let" us Win. We HAVE TO TAKE IT

We have to win too big to STEAL. If they try to steal it again we have to take it to the street. The government gets its' power from us 'the people'. We must stop the abuse that is being done in our name.

[helderheid]

22. crossed my mind too

[conflictgirl]

43. Unfortunately I think you're right.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

56. "Us" = Hillary? Bayh? Other DLC member? Think they'll let Gore win?

[babylonsister]

4. I think we've gone beyond the 'what if' stage. It seems pretty

definitive they have been imo. JFK Jr's story just hit the newsstands today, so I'm hoping we'll be hearing much more about his article.

[Onlooker]

8. I don't think we will hear much more if it's up to the media

If the story has legs, then it could affect our economy, which in turn would affect the media itself. It's not in the stockholder's interest to stir this pot, so it won't be stirred, except if the public forces their hand. Isn't it interesting that none of the Ohio papers have bothered to go after this story with a frenzy? I think it's all about protecting shareholder wealth.

[SharonRB]

5. What if?

There's no doubt in my mind and hasn't been for a long time.

[Union Thug]

6. I second General Strike... Shut down the country. n/t

[StellaBlue]

27. Sadly, I think most people no longer know what a "general strike" is

Certainly not the people in my generation. :shrug:

Too complacent, with their Playstations and Spring Breaks and brand-name jeans and ...

[KingFlorez]

7. It won't happen

[Semblance]

11. Machines

The biggest reason to think that there is not a large machine-based conspiracy is that it becomes too easy for your opponent to corrupt the same machine.

MYDD has more thoughts as well:

Demand Election Reform, But Only If You Mean It
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/6/2/03054/30248

[democraticinsurgent]

15. eh, yeah, but who OWNS the machines?

not the D's that's for sure. Try, uh, the other party.

I for one am a little weary of the Kos-Bowers-Jerome axis of unbelievers. If you cede the power to control election tallies to one party, what then do you have?

They have the means, the motive and the opportunity.

Bowers moans about how there's no way Kerry could have won the pop vote because Bush's gains were in places like NY and CA. Yes, that's true, his totals went way up there. But that's been addressed and addressed by TIA and Autorank and many others. No way that Bushco wanted a repeat of 2000 where Gore won the pop vote. He HAD to steal the pop vote as well as the electoral vote.

So what did they do? They stole it subtly, by dumping hundreds of thousands of fraudulent Bush votes in to inconspicuous D strongholds, that's how.

I agree, though, that the D's may be complicit in vote rigging schemes, both past and present. How else to explain the rollover on HAVA and the lack of anyone standing up (save a handful of brave souls) after the 2004 election?

That said, I do agree that everyone needs to take on their local precincts and the local process. But that still doesn't stop Big Brother from tampering with the tabulators.

I'm for a two-fold approach. Embrace the Dean 50 state strategy, it's brilliant. Be an activist along with him. But we cannot ever know the vote count is fair unless and until the machines are addressed and neutered, whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes.

[GregD]

20. Look at Hillary's record on e-voting

Flame me if you will, but she is as complicit in regard to the corrupt machines as the R's. If you don't know the actual details of her legislation, look at the following reviews of Clinton's S. 1986 and explain why she allows such loopholes in what was arguably a bill as bad or worse than HAVA itself.

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5038

http://www.wheresthepaper.org/PADAproblems.htm

[democraticinsurgent]

41. i agree with you on hillary

she is no friend of our democracy. once upon a time i thought she might be a good one, but no more.

you are absolutely right. she and many like her have sold our country down the river.

[Stevepol]

21. Access to the machines comes thru the elections officials and the vendors.

I'm afraid Dems are out of the loop now in GA, FL, AL, MS, and it's coming to an election commissioner near you.

But that's not the real point. The point is that when the vote is counted by extreme partisans of one side using trade secret, proprietary software that nobody is allowed to look at (and even if they could they wouldn't be able to understand where the corrupt line of programming is, as Avi Rubin said finding a few lines of programming in a million lines of instruction is harder than finding a needle in a haystack even for a computer scientist), and basically without audits or any meaningful way of checking the validity or accuracy of the counting, whether actual fraud is committed or not ....

YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE A DEMOCRACY!!!!!

Why is it we can recognize this when Stalin is counting the votes or Saddam or the Imams in Iran but when it happens in this country and is as obvious as the nose on our face, nobody seems to know what's going on. Duh? Or they say, let's move on and win the next election. But I'm afraid the next election is going to be the same sham whoever is proclaimed winner. When you have a fake election, you don't have a democracy whoever gets elected.

[Minnesota Libra]

13. Enough necons/fundies are fed up with Bush and Buckshot Cheney that.......

....we will win this time around and that will put the "stolen elections" to rest for the minions. So fair and open elections will have to be a grassroots slow but continuous effort on all of our parts.

[H2O Man]

14. There is no doubt that

there were dirty tricks in both 2000 and 2004. To pretend otherwise is foolish. It is something that is important to focus on, in order to try to make sure that future elections are not stolen.

The first step is to take a close look at the extent of the cheating. The single best source of information on the 2000 election remains Vince Bugliosi's "The Betrayal of America." Vince does not approach the topic as a democrat, or as a sore loser. He approaches it objectively, with a fascinating level of understanding of the criminal actions that were taken to put Bush-Cheney in office. His book is a perfect answer to the republicans who pretend they are looking out for democrats' best interests by warning us that we will offend the American public if we tell the truth about the stolen election.

There are a number of extremely important studies of the theft of the 2004 election. I think that RFK Jr's new article is very valuable. There are others.

DUers may remember that in the fall of 2004, during the "final stretch" of the campaign, I wrote about a break-in at a campaign headquarters in Pennsylvania. At the time, I had sent information to Robert's office. I also spoke with the head of Kerry's PA campaign; we had 3-way phone conversations with a campaign worker who discribed the theft of their computer hard-drives. Though there was cash laying out in the open, it was not taken.

The Kerry representative told me about "dirty tricks" in ten hotly contested states. I told him that it reminded me of the Watergate era.

People who pretend we should just keep quiet about this are simply wrong. It is as if they would have advocated just keeping quiet "for the good of the party" during Watergate. Balony. We should not listen to such nonsense. As Gandhi said, "When it is relevant, truth has to be uttered, however unpleasant it may be."

[Jackpine Radical]

36. It was the Communists who burned the Reichstag, I tell ya.

Marinus van der Lubbe was NOT a Nazi pawn.

[DemReadingDU]

47. But who is listening?

Even if we speak out, who is hearing us except for RFK,jr, Mark Crispin Miller, Greg Palast, and Keith Olbermann.

NBC, CBS & ABC are still not reporting on the massive election fraud. And if it isn't on MSM, people don't pay any attention.

[H2O Man]

57. I think that

what is important right now is "who is hearing Robert Kennedy, Jr?" I've noted numerous times before that there are always three groups: those who agree with you; those who disagree with you; and the undecided. Right now most of the corporate media are not going to be reporting on massive or minor election fraud. So what is important is to target group #3 with a message that they understand. I think Mark Crispin Miller is a good man, who reports the truth as he sees it. I agree with most of what he says. He does a great job of communicating the facts in an organized way to group #1. But he is not the person who will communicate the message as well to group #3 as RFK.

One of the things that is important is that Robert does very well with "mixed" groups. Though the corporate media doesn't tend to report it, he gets outstanding results with largely conservative audiences. Your concern that the corporate media will not allow him to speak to the national audience is, of course, key.

That brings us to the next step. It is our job to take RFK's message, to put it into letters to the editor, etc, and to bring it to that larger audience. We need to be able to speak in the language the folks that make up group #3 understand. Language is symbolic: RFK is an important symbol, as well as being among the finest individuals in the country today.

I'm also reminded of one afternoon, when Robert's father was with his friend Cesar Chavez, and a reporter asked Chavez how he planned to get his message out, when the major media ignored him? And I remember he said, "First, we'll tell the first person we meet, then the next person, and on and on." We need to use the examples of our greatest citizens, the Chavez and King models of democratic action.

[DemReadingDU]

60. Ah yes, Wise words, Thank you

Hence, RFK writing the article for Rolling Stone. Definitely an interesting magazine to target an audience and get the word out about the stolen election. You're right that more undecideds will see this and take notice.

[DrDebug]

18. If?

The elections really are fixed!

There. That's much better. It is why a lot of us are here. I would never have found this site if it weren't for Nov 3rd 2004 and if I did, I doubt whether I'd bother to post.

[leftofthedial]

29. 2000 was a coup

they won't quit just because a majority of the serfs "vote" them out. If a Democrat ever wins another major election, it wil be because the BFEE wants them to.

It is time for a revolution.

[titoresque]

30. you got that right!

It will be because the BFEE wants them too!
Revolution now!!!!!!!

[Tesha]

34. *SOME* of them are; count on it. (NT)

But, hey, the beer's still cold on and the TV's still on so
nobody is likely to rise up in armed revolt over a few fixed
elections.

Tesha

[Vidar]

35. If????

[in_cog_ni_to]

37. What IF? There's NO DOUBT IN MY MIND the 2000, 2002 and 2004

elections wer stolen!

I think the repukes know the truth too and just chalk it up to..."at least it was OUR GUYS who stole them and not the Dems." They don't give a shit. They KNOW the Democrats won, will win and have NO INTENTIONS of taking the machines out of service OR making a paper trail on them. It's up to the PEOPLE now. The only solution? A........ R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N. Unless the yellow-bellied Dems want to stop it and I don't see THAT happening. I think the Dems want to use the machines to pick OUR candidate for us in the primaries.

It's quite obvious to anyone who cares to see, the last 3 elections were STOLEN. Why aren't the Dems looking? Seeing? There's a reason for it.

[sinkingfeeling]

38. There are no 'what if's'. Both the 2000 and 2004 elections were rigged.

[rman]

40. whatdoyoumean "what if"?

One kind of action taking place is to try and fix the democracy. See the DU Election Reform forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

[ChiciB1]

42. I've Been Calling For Some Action For So Long Now... It's Old News!!

I rarely get more than a blip on the screen, even here at DU!

I don't care WHAT or IF they cover a march... we need to get something organized BEFORE 2006!

YES, I said it AGAIN!!! As long as we just keep sitting here blogging, we are SAFE to them!!

They've gotten away with more in this administration by way of corruption than I've seen in MY lifetime. THEY aren't going to stop, and we aren't going to make them!

[NoSheep]

44. What IF?

I don't get it; what if?

[slackmaster]

52. We'll say "What if the elections really are fixed next time?" again

:nuke:

[radwriter0555]

61. What "what if?" WE know THEY WERE STOLEN. We KNOW this.

There is absolutely not one shred, not one iota, not one SPECK of doubt in my mind.

What did the germans do when hitler took power?

And what did it take to remove hitler from power?

History is indeed repeating itself.

[ourbluenation]

62. put on orange and take to the streets - flat out