Bernard Weiner
(Cont'd) 22. We know that more and more,
Tue Aug 19 03:58:45 2003
64.140.158.34

22. We know that more and more, the permanent-war policy abroad and police-state tactics at home -- with the shredding of Constitutional rights designed to protect citizens from a potential repressive government -- are taking us into a kind of American fascism domestically and an imperial foreign policy overseas. As a result, we are beginning to see more alliances between liberal/left forces and libertarians/traditional conservatives horrified that their party has been hijacked by extreme ideologues.

23. We know that the response to the 2000 Florida election debacle -- going to touch-screen computer voting machines -- may turn out to be even worse. Three outfits dominate the computer-voting market, all companies owned or supported by Republicans, and that they refuse to permit their software to be examined by outsiders, even though tests have revealed major flaws in their systems: The votes can be manipulated easily without any evidence that the count has been tampered with, and with no verifiable paper trail to check against the final tallies. (There are suspicions that this may actually have happened in the 2002 elections in a number of states, where Democrats were leading in the last-minute polls going into the election but lost when the computer votes were added up.)

Given what happened in Florida, the 2004 vote must be honest and fair and, perhaps even more important, must be SEEN as honest and fair by the citizenry at large. Another disputed election and democracy in America may well die a quick death -- or lead to revolutionary discontent about the need to restore our Constitution.

24. We know that the Bush Administration continues to nominate ideologically-minded conservative judges, especially for the all-important appellate courts. The Democrats fall for the bait -- opposing the handful of nominees who are truly repellant extremists -- and, to show how fair they are, approve the 100+ others. Thus, the neoconservatives lock in approval for their HardRight policies for years, maybe even decades, to come.

25. We know that after a long, quiescent snooze, where the ostensible opposition party, the Democrats, played obedient lap dog to Bush&Co., things are starting to shift. Many Democrats have suddenly discovered their spines and are opposing HardRight initiatives, though not as consistently and as firmly as they should (Daschle, for example, is a notorious wimp). The Democrats see the Bush Administration as more vulnerable with the voters today as a result of the disastrous and duplicitous way they bamboozled American citizens and Congress into approving the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Having a number of tough-speaking presidential contenders aim their darts at Bush&Co. policies certainly helps generate more opposition.

Well, those will do for starters. No doubt, you have plenty more to add: The possibilities seemingly are endless when it comes to Bush&Co. misdeeds, scandals, incompetencies, lies and crimes.

As the presidential election run-up approaches, and if we do our jobs correctly, more and more citizens will add up what has happened to their country since the terror attacks of two years ago, and decide that Bush&Co. has to go -- preferably by resignation, but, if not, by impeachment or by the voters.


Copyright 2003, by Bernard Weiner
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