Thanks to Sarah Lane at EENR for supplying the links in this entry.

When the Supreme (Kangaroo) Court upheld an unconstitutional poll tax last week that was passed in the form of a voter suppression law in Indiana, some people (like Injustice Antonin Scalia) were quick to dismiss the horrendous effects. But as that state held its primary yesterday, reports about voters being turned away because they did not have the poll tax began coming out.

Twelve elderly nuns—NUNS, for crying out loud—were told they could not vote because they didn't have the required state or federal ID card. They are all in their eighties and nineties. Vietnam and Gulf War I veteran Russell Baughman was denied his right to vote, because his identification wasn't considered good enough.

I've been trying, in my humble way, to help jump-start a renewed Progressive Party presence. But a question that is often asked of me is why not just join the Green Party. I could go into a long and detailed explanation, but the short of it is that I don't think they're very organized and some of their campaigning methods rub me the wrong way. (For the record, the reason I don't say much about the Libertarian and Socialist Parties is because I don't know enough about their organizational structure or their methods of campaigning to make an informed assessment.)

First, my distaste for the Green Party's methods in campaigning. As reported by CBS News, they accepted money and assistance in 2006 from then-senator Rick Santorum of the Republican Party in order to get on the ballot. The state's high court threw candidate Carl Romanelli off the ballot citing insufficient signatures, but the story exposed an even deeper rot within the Greens' political machine in Pennsylvania: the willingness to be compromised just to try to stick it to the Democrats, whom Greens consider little or no better than the GOP.

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

Imagine Hillary Clinton's luck.

When she needed to win a primary in New Hampshire, the machines glitched up, and she emerged with an unexpected margin of victory. Whether it was due to electronic voting breakdowns is not clear. But there was never a a full recount or a thorough investigation of the serious problems that plagued the vote count in that state.

When she needed a victory in Ohio, Republican voters -- urged on by Rush Limbaugh -- crossed over in droves and helped give her one. Cross-over voting may also have been a factor in her critical victory in Pennsylvania. There were also numerous instances of computer tabulation glitches in the Pennsylvania secretary of state's office.

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters' rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic.

By 6-3 the Court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.

Cross-posted from my blog at Campaign for America's Future.

In my previous entry I laid out the differences between liberals and progressives, movements and political parties. For those of you who haven't time to read through it, a brief recap: Liberals believe in socio-economic justice, whereas progressives believe the same thing but also in taking it to the next step—using government as a powerful tool with which to achieve it by making Big Business behave. The Progressive Movement, much like movement conservatism, has a definite set of goals, and the Progressive Party is the political force through which we can reach them.

So, I confess that I did not watch all of the last debate between Clinton and Obama in Philadelphia. I had watched the other debates and didn't feel that there would be anything to be learned by watching. Boy, was I wrong. Apparently, George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson put on quite a show. I gather it wasn't the show they were intending to deliver but the structure of this debate seems to have captured far more attention than the candidates themselves.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by how lame our pundits are but they really tossed out a curveball this time. Asking questions suggested by Sean Hannity is an interesting and novel approach. I suppose George thought it would somehow prove that he wasn't biased by taking direction from a right-winger, but in reality, he shouldn't have been involved at all. His past ties to Bill Clinton taint anything he’s involved in concerning Hillary Clinton. He is either going to be seen as too tough or too easy on her campaign and should have avoided the entire situation in order to preserve some sense of journalistic ethics.

Bluestockings presents:

Mickey Z.
(http://www.mickeyz.net)

Saturday, May 3
7 - 9 pm

"Myth America: War, elections, and our way of life"

Come join the author of The Seven Deadly Spins, 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know, and the forthcoming novel, CPR for Dummies, to discuss the anti-war movement, the 2008 election, the state of activism in America, and MUCH more.

FREE

---

Bluestockings
172 Allen Street
(between Stanton and Rivington)
212.777.6028
http://www.bluestockings.com

Directions
By train: We are 1 block south of the F train's 2nd Avenue stop and just 5 blocks from the JMZ-line's Essex / Delancey Street stop.

The ground feels a little soft, but we're going to stand it.

Premise one: Having a fair election -- all votes counted, all who are eligible and want to vote allowed to vote -- is far, far more important, even in 2008, than who wins.

Premise two: Fair elections are not a given. They never have been, but things are worse now than ever before because of a perfect storm, you might say, of factors that have converged in the new millennium: officialdom's seduction by unsafe, high-tech voting systems; the seizure of power by a party of ruthless true believers who feel entitled to rule and will do anything to win; a polite, confused opposition party that won't make a stink about raw injustice; and an arrogantly complacent media embedded in the political and economic status quo.

Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many, they are few.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

My friend Bernie says he can't believe the American people haven't figured out what it's all about. "The whole damn political scene is nothing but a corporate media freak show," he said. "There's no breathing room between elections -- no time nor interest in investigating, or even addressing, issues that are critical to our survival as a nation. The minute every last dollar is sucked out of the competition, the candidate who bought the most attack ads -- the most face time -- wins, and the election is over. Then," Bernie said with disgust, "it's time to start raising money for the next election, because the media is already out there campaigning."

If America wants to dominate the globe in the name of spreading democracy (sic), how about giving some love to the subjugated? For example, let’s extend the ballot to the citizens of occupied Iraq. Their daily lives are inescapably intertwined with US foreign policy so what better way to teach them about democratic values than to give them a say as to which millionaire is the next figurehead of empire? As Rosemarie “RMJ” Jackowski sez: “No occupation without representation.” (Why am I positive that such a plan would result in a landslide for Obama’s pastor?)

Speaking of Rev. Wright, Senator Obama is taking a lot of heat for things that genuinely shouldn’t matter. It’s quite an illustration of how backward, blind, and racist America is that the worst thing the right wing can manage is Obama’s middle name or what his pastor says. The end result is a general public that sees Obama as a liberal (sic) who wants to change (sic) things. The issues, as always, are ignored. The richer get richer, the sick get sicker, the bombs continue to fall, eco-systems decline and vanish, and American Idol is down to its final 10 contestants.

I have been at this a long time. Lately I have no desire to write about what I see happening in the world because I’ve already talked about it. I saw the Zeitgeist movie this evening and there was nothing in the movie that I have not already written about. Yes we have been taken for a ride by the people that control this country and that are the International Bankers. Yes the Federal Reserve is robbing us blind and we have known that since Woodrow Wilson told us so. Yes, our education system in this country is producing sub-par graduates without the capacity for critical thing; you know that by just talking to them. We know that the media is controlled by the corporations that are controlled by the bankers who control our government. I know all that.

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio's 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony "Homeland Security Alert" used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush's 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny.

The touch-screen machines were locked up after Ohio's new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, tried to vote last fall. On November 6, she spotted a gray bar with the words "candidate withdrawn" in a slot where the name of Democrat Jay Perez should have appeared. Her husband, voting nearby, told her Perez's name did appear, as it was supposed to, on his machine.

I watched Bill Moyers Journal last Friday night, where he covered the growing influence of John Hagee, a "Christian" fanatic who is promoting military action against "Iran," the "Rapture," condemnation of the "Catholic" Church, and the presidential candidacy of John McCain.

There was a lot of talk on the show about McCain and his relationship with Hagee, the influence of Christian fundamentalism on politics, and about how various "conservatives" curry favor with religious fanatics.

I tuned out on most of this talk. What interested me were the scenes of the followers of Hagee. They were waving "U.S." and "Israeli" flags, singing hymns, and generally looking vacant and blissfully identified with the ultimate truth of Hagee's message. My impression was that these were people who are desperately in need of self-esteem, of a feeling of importance, that their lives were significant. They looked like the kind of people who were ignored, demeaned, and dominated by others.

Hagee's message is false, of course. Fanatical leaders like him are interesting to me only in how they are able to manipulate the gullible and use various methods of deception to enrich themselves and gain influence. Somehow, in this fragmented, conformist mass society, the vulnerabilities and prejudices of great numbers of people are easily played upon by the clever, convincing them of silly, paranoid, and dangerous ideas that can result in great harm to themselves and to society.

It isn't just "Christian" fundamentalists who are fundamentalists, though. There is another form of fundamentalism that is as entrenched as the psychotic proliferation of low-level "Jesus" fanaticism. It is largely independent of deistic religion, but is not necessarily "atheist." What I call this fundamentalism is the religion of the "left" to "right" paradigm or model of reality.

A few days ago I read a post on Smirking Chimp, and the author's rant against the "right wing" ruined what I felt was an otherwise pertinent and well-written essay. I had an immediate response, and then another, to a comment on my remarks. They are reprinted below:

A question no one wants to answer

For about the couple of hundredth time in Smirking Chimp, I raise a simple question: Is there such a thing as "left" and "right?" Is there in physical reality a horizontal linear spectrum of people, and a corresponding horizontal linear spectrum of ideas, attitudes, beliefs, superstitions, and mythology that can be measured by gradations along its scale? Is there a symmetry to this spectrum, whereby principles, theory, policy positions, and even theology can be shown to be on one "side" or another on this imagined scale?

The simple answer is no. Even the terms "left wing" and "right wing" beg the question of what these wings are wings of. A great bird? Maybe it's the "American" eagle. Or the wings of a snow white dove, where "he" sends "his" pure sweet love? A sign from above.

The ideological "spectrum" does not exist, except in the minds of the ideologically addicted. Because of this addiction, we are pressured into conforming to one wing or another of this make-believe spectrum. Meanwhile, the "Republicans" and corporations are laughing all the way to the bank.

How about a different spectrum? How about one where criminal corporate and political behavior is looked at for what it is: criminal sociopathy. In a vertical model, there is such a thing as lower and higher realms of behavior and existence. Simple material gain and power, like in Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, would be seen as fulfillment of lower needs, which he called deficiency needs. They are needs to be transcended if a person and a society are to reach levels of meaning and happiness that can approach self-actualization and even enlightenment.

In the "left" to "right" model, there is no sense of value, or of rising above lower levels of existence - just a swinging pendulum. Woops. Another model. On the mere "left" to "right" duality, the struggle goes on forever, because you can't have a "left" without a "right" to be "left" of, or a "left" to be "right" of.

All there is in the "left" to "right" model is condemnation of "those guys over there." It doesn't go anywhere. As in my favorite movie, Life of Brian, all that is accomplished is endless nitpicking, bickering, and posturing. And again, the rich, the criminal, the corporate laugh all the way to the bank, when they should be crying all the way to life in prison without parole at hard labor.

This country is run by organized crime. Because its minions aren't necessarily of Sicilian or Italian descent and don't wear black pinstripe suits with black shirts and white ties, "intellectuals," for reasons of their own placement on the needs hierarchy, refuse to look at this organized criminal operation as anything other than what it actually is. Instead, they insist on the completely impotent paradigm of the "left" to "right" spectrum.

Part of this insistence is romantic - a remnant of revolutionary glories of past eras - the "Cuban" revolution, 1917 in Russia, The French revolution, why, even the "American" revolution. Patriots, comrades, compañeros, brothers and sisters, power to the people, and so on.

Part of it is conformity. You can immediately become part of a group by identifying with one or another "wing" of the mythical spectrum.

Part of it is laziness. You can do trite, simplistic "analysis" of the other guys, debunking their supposed "ideology," and gain some level of position in one or the other imaginary "wing" of the make-believe spectrum.

I think when Barack Obama finally becomes president, he will likely be the guiding force and inspiration for disabusing the planet of the completely useless model of reality so affectionately known as "the spectrum."

Then maybe we can call Bush, his cronies, their propagandists and hangers-on what they actually are: criminals. Once we start calling these people exactly what they are, maybe we can even take the next necessary step: put them all in jail for the rest of their lives.

Submitted by JAH on March 4, 2008 - 7:48pm.

Going from where we are

Well, at least someone else is not hooked on the fake paradigm of "right" and "left." The name-calling doesn't help. Referring to the Bush criminal regime as criminal is not name-calling. It is factual.

As far as having faith in Obama, he's a start. You go with what you have. I'm pretty much a phenomenologist as far as that goes. Obama is a phenomenon. He may not be up to the myth, but JFK wasn't either, and his myth got us the Peace Corps, the momentum for civil rights, Medicare, flying to the moon, and inspiration around the world. Of course, it was organized crime that got him elected, but that's another story.

The Beatles are another example. They were a phenomenon who came on the scene and changed Western culture. Among other things, they brought Indian classical music to the West, helping to inspire the World Music movement.

As I wrote in my blog a while back, Obama will be a follower as well as a leader. We either solve the problems caused by climate change and reverse the damage, or we go extinct as a species. There is no "right" or "left" to this.

There is no criminal or law abiding to it either, for that matter, but it is the criminals who are killing the planet. They also will be extinct along with the rest of us. They just can't change because they are criminals. If you have ever known a criminal, you would observe that they are like children, immature, looking at a near-term gratification, completely inconsiderate of others except their cronies, and not so considerate of them either.

Is it time for a woman President? Sure! It could be good for the nation, and good for the world. And though I would back a woman candidate, it would have to be the right woman, a person in whom I could trust and believe, and of course, a person I’m convinced could win in the national election. I saw that person a couple of months ago, but I don’t see her now.

Just as I was beginning to suppress the gag reflex at the sight and sound of George Bush, along comes a new aggressive, insulting, “fighter,” Hillary Clinton, someone I had always liked, who is now making me cringe while doing her best Karl Rove impersonation. Any phone call she might answer at 3:00 AM in the morning, brings up the image of a “bait and switch” used car salesman – not a fighter, but a slick-meister, or political doppelganger.

Predicting the future is always tricky business, but I think it is safe to say that Barack Obama will be the next president of "The United States." He has the mojo, the energy, the thunder of the moment. Even the owners and managers of Diebold have to realize that to steal this election would likely cause riots, and maybe even a revolution, resulting in the end of Diebold.

On issues I supported Dennis Kucinich, but he had no hope of becoming president. People vote based on perception, and Kucinich doesn't exactly project leadership. It matters little. Obama can lead the nation, but he will be a follower as well as a leader. Global warming is now clearly recognized as a serious problem, and as recent weather, forest fires, and drought have shown, we either reverse the warming trend or we join the long list of extinct species.

The Obama administration will be replacing the regime of George W. Bush, the most brazenly criminal presidency in the nation's history. To have any meaningful credibility, Obama will have to remake the Justice Department, and will have to bring to justice the perpetrators of the crimes of the past seven years - Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Perle, Libby, Tenet, Chertoff, and many others.

A good place to start is to have a real investigation of the causes of the attacks of September 11, 2001. This could be followed by a real investigation of the reasons for the invasion and occupation of "Iraq."

Our infinite growth economic system is now breaking down. The criminality of our corporate and investment classes of course is accelerating the process, but the breakdown would be happening anyway as a long-term trend. One way or another, Barack Obama will have to form policies to deal with this breakdown.

He will find that trying to form a national health care policy by cooperating with the insurance companies will be a painful lesson. The only way to have a real, equitable national health care system is to establish what is known as a single payer system. My father, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, favored socialized medicine. When I asked him about it, he replied, "I don't care who pays me, as long as they pay me!"

He knew all too well the criminality of the medical profession - money grubbing, unqualified doctors pronouncing themselves "surgeons," splitting fees for referrals, doing unnecessary operations based on fake referrals, etc., etc., etc. - all so they could live the high life, pillars of the community, rolling in relative wealth.

Nowadays, of course, it is much worse. Patients are lucky if they get necessary surgery. The money has moved to the insurance companies, the HMOs. Doctors are still making plenty of money, but they are mainly in the various surgical specialties - neurosurgery, cardiac, cancer, cosmetic. The old-fashioned general practitioner has been transformed into today's "care provider," hostage to an HMO.

Barack Obama will have to reform the Department of Labor, making it actually do its job of acting in the interests of "American" workers. This includes reviving the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), so that the "American" workplace is not a life-threatening place to be earning a living.

The distribution of income in the "United States" will have to be made vastly more even than it is now. One way to do this, that no economist that I know of has ever proposed, is establishing an income and wealth ceiling - a maximum income. Gandhi once said that to have more than you need is to be a thief. We have a thief class running this country - corporate, political, personal. We can relieve them of their sinful ways by making it illegal to have, say, more than five times the average income in the country. Barack Obama is the man to get such a law established.

The only meaningful penalties for polluters of our air, land, and water are long-term prison sentences. Barack Obama is the man to make such penalties be a matter of law.

There are many more things our man of the hour, Barack Obama can do to save this country. In the coming days and months, many ideas will be expressed. For now, these few will do. The first order of business is to get elected.

The smartest thing Barack Obama can do to get elected is to select a female to be his running mate. I don't think Hillary Clinton would be suitable, but I have someone else in mind who would be a perfect choice. Barbara Mikulski, senator from the state of "Maryland." She has a spotless and honorable record as a true democrat, advocating for the well-being of all people for decades. Her age, 71, could be seen as a drawback, but she's a month older than the likely "Republican" candidate, John McCain, and would take votes away from him among older voters.

Speaking of McCain, I believe he has little, if any, chance of being elected, Diebold be damned. A former tortured prisoner of war would be a great risk to put in such a position of power. The post-traumatic stress of his years of torture would manifest in the first national crisis he would face, a near-certainty. He also is a survivor of the fire aboard the USS Forrestal in 1967, another source of traumatic stress.

If you ever have wondered why his left cheek is swollen, it is because of his treatment for Melanoma - a very serious form of cancer. It is extremely unlikely that he has been "cured" of this disease, and if he were "elected," his tenure would not likely be for very long. He's 71 years old, and the post-traumatic stress and cancer histories, added to the pressures of the job of president, would tend to make his time in office a short one.

Then, of course, there are his "policies." War, war, and more war. "Conservatism," a free-floating term, really means a free ride for the rich, bigotry, destruction of the ecosystem, empire, and movement towards police state. All of this is under the guise of "free enterprise," "personal freedom," and "family values." It's all B.S., but it's been a "successful" "movement" since 1980. Its days of "success" are over.

The curtain has now been pulled back, thanks to the Bush criminal regime, but "Conservatives" still have a few tricks up their collective sleeves. McCain is the perfect last trick. An ill-tempered, ethically tarnished, intellectually weak politician, he is an appropriate choice to lead the comprehensively criminal "Republicans." He has no charisma, no thunder, no ideas, and little ability to lead. With the legacy of "Conservatism" in tatters, he would find his short tenure in the presidency a form of torture, with results most would not care to contemplate.

It's all pretty moot. McCain is not the man of destiny. I predict - with the caveat that he who thinks he knows, knows not - that Barack Obama will defeat McCain by the largest margin in "U.S" history - 70% to 26%, with the other 4% going to Ralph Nader and other minor candidates.

One piece of advice I would offer to Barack Obama is this: Stop rounding off your words, and stop stretching out your vowels ala Dr. Martin Luther King. Your only roots in "American" slavery are from your "white" ancestors, who likely owned a few. JFK and FDR felt no need to "commonize" their public speaking, and you shouldn't either. Best of luck. I don't envy you the task ahead.
___________________________________________

Here's something for a little inspiration.

Tell A Friend

Almost everyone of us bemoans the facts that we don’t have free press, that our government lies to us, that the two major political parties we have in this country are bought and paid for by the boys in suits (the corporate oligarchy and their lobbyists) and that our democracy is gone.

Yet, when it comes time to vote, what do we do? We run down to the polls in record numbers to vote for the corporate shill of their choice. It won’t be the person of our choice mind you, it be the one that has managed to be on the “right” side of all the issues, and the one that has managed to avoid the ire of the Mainstream Media. Those that have gone against the status quo have all been “purged” from the public eye by the same people that tell you whom to vote for. We saw this first with Senator Mike Gravel and we were astonished that the MSM could do that to a legitimate candidate. Then we saw it happen to Dennis Kucinich and we were less shocked. Then we saw them virtually ignore John Edwards and by this time, it was old news.

Certainly the outlook for democracy seems pretty bleak-and how could it be otherwise? The surest way to make a problem worse is to pretend it isn't there, which is exactly what our press and politicians have been doing; and the rest is, unfortunately, history.

But history can be changed, as We the People have continually learned, from our refusal of colonial subjection, to our (partial) establishment as a democratic republic, to the abolition of slavery, to the enfranchisement of women, to the end of formal segregation and the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

After that, our progress seemed to stop, and it must now resume: for history can be changed, and for the better, but only through our own unbreakable commitment to, and action for, enlightened policies for the renewal of our democracy. Based squarely on America's first principles, such policies would not be wholly new, however revolutionary they must sound in these bad, backward times. As it was certain policies that got us into this horrific situation, certain other policies can get us out.