Friday November 16, 2007, 8:00 pm
Wow, Mark! That should be disseminated widely! It goes right along with debates that aren't debates, Democrats who won't impeach Republican criminals, people who will say anything to get elected and sell their constituency down the river as soon after swearing-in as possible... etc., etc., etc. How I miss the old smoke-filled rooms! Then you knew what kind of crook you were getting!

Friday November 16, 2007, 8:19 pm
LOL! You're right, Lisa. Things have gotten much worse than the smoke-filled rooms days, and those were plenty bad enough. ;)

Friday November 16, 2007, 11:38 pm
Great writing. Sad state of our country. The phrase "I love my country, but I fear my government" is apropos. They know that less than half of the country even votes, so that adds to free reign of changing the whole basis of what the country was, to what will benefit the Players the most, forget the real citizens. And there is so much to watchdog, they can slip some stuff in anywhere. It should be illegal to tack on various legislations to bills up for vote that have nothing to do with the issue being reallly addressed. It's a total manipulation of our rights we are guaranteed as taxpaying citizens.. How can we have a democracy without representation of us all. I disliked Gov't class in high school, but should have been paying attention more. The responsiblity of voting has to be instilled at a young age, so it will be a personal responsibility of each person to learn the issues and vote. Otherwise, it will continue to be true that generally Rich People vote more than Poorer People, and we regular people will just continue to have our freedoms, protections, and rights stripped away. Noted!

Saturday November 17, 2007, 12:05 am
Knock me over with a feather, or, in this case a well written essay Mark!
I knew there was election fraud in the US, however, I was unaware how deep it went. So discouraging to know that the people really have no power when it comes to electing those they wish to see in govt.
After reading your essay Mark, I find it hypocritical for the US to demand Pakistan (as well as other govts.) to hold "fair" elections.
We the people... are nothing more than suckers it seems!

Saturday November 17, 2007, 12:10 am
Sandra, the responsibility to vote only applies to honest elections in a democratic form of government.

To vote in rigged elections in an undemocratic form of government is much worse than taking your paycheck and flushing it down the toilet. It tells the corporations that you don't really care if your vote counts or not, you don't really care if your government is democratic or not, that so long as they continue to let you vote for the war profiteer of your choice, you'll believe that you're free. Is that the message you want to send?

Your country and your freedoms are even more important than your paycheck. If you wouldn't flush your paycheck down the toilet, why would you throw your country and your freedoms away by voting in rigged elections?

It is BECAUSE you only get to vote for a greater war criminal or a lesser war criminal, a greater human rights violator or a lesser human rights violator, a greater job outsourcer or a lesser job outsourcer, and BECAUSE nobody who is against war crimes, against human rights violations, and against job outsourcing has any chance of winning an election in our rigged system, that unless you happen to like war crimes, human rights violations, and job outsourcing, it is your responsibility, if you have a conscience and care about yourself and the children of the world, that you cannot responsibly vote. To vote in rigged elections when you are only given a choice between greater and lesser corporate criminals, is to say that you don't care about yourself, your country, your freedoms or the world.

Someday, if we ever get publicly funded elections, where everyone has a chance of winning, not just rich people, and honest elections where people count the votes in full public view, not machines counting or miscounting the votes so that nobody can ever know for sure if their vote was really counted, it will be important to vote and to educate others to vote. But until we have honest elections and good people to vote for, we might as well be flushing our paychecks down the toilet, because if we don't, the rich people who are "elected" in these rigged elections will do it for us, either by spending our money on more war crimes, or by outsourcing more of our jobs.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 12:13 am

Thank you, Kim. Some of us are suckers. Some of us, thank goodness, are wising up. ;)

Saturday November 17, 2007, 1:01 am
did you offer this to strike the root Mark.?.excellent writing ..and nothing surprises me any more.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 1:57 am
Excellent expose'. I hope as many people as possible, read it.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 8:52 am
Very informative story. Noted. Thanks Mark.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 9:19 am
Nice work Mark -- Again I can only think that the Democrats are happy with the rigged system because they believe they will be the ones running things in 2009. However, I don't see what they could possibly do if the republicans stole another election. I don't think anyone will be able to prove one way or the other who got the most votes.

Hey -- how about canceling the elections and giving everybody a $300 tax refund instead? Or better yet make it legal to buy & sell votes. I'll sell my vote to the highest bidder -- just like the politicians do!

If eBay had auctions that lasted til November 2008 I'd post my vote as an auction item right now. Or maybe I'll just email all the campaigns and see what they are willing to pay me.

Only way to find out what one vote is really worth ; )

Saturday November 17, 2007, 10:01 am
Hey Mark buddy....great article and well written my friend.
Noted and passed on in personal email. Sorry, I am still real ill with this flu and have not been on much...will message you to catch up a bit soon, hopefully.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 1:43 pm
Mark, I agree - we should put corporate America out of business! Boycott the multi-national oil conglomerates. We need to start a 'People's Petroleum'. Anyone interested write me.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 1:53 pm
Noted with thanks, Mark.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 3:54 pm
Excellent expose; so what is the solution?

Some of the problems are outlined... It is easy to rig an election with a Diebold machine. It only takes about 2 minutes to completely change the results, and no trace remains of what was changed. The results can even be printed out and match up all votes.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 5:04 pm
We can't wait til 2008!
Dennis in '08 - Kucinich is the true voice of the people!:
Kucinich has done this:
(1) co-sponsoring with Rep. John Conyers HR 676, a universal health plan;
(2) voting AGAINST the Patriot Act;
(3) voting AGAINST invading Iraq;
(4) promising to withdraw from the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, & standing opposed to weapons in space;
(5) voting against a flag-burning amendment;,
(6) advocating a 12-point plan to get our troops safely out of IRAQ;
(7) voting to cut off funds for prosecuting the Iraq war;
(8) urging the signing of the Kyoto Protocols to cut down on pollution;
(9) advocating education for all, from kindergarten through college;
(10) urging the creation of a Department of Peace,
(11) ending the phony "war on drugs”;
(12) urging renewal of the environment;
(13) sponsoring H.R. 799, previously known as HR 333, to IMPEACH Vice President Dick Cheney; and
(14) abolishing the death penalty.
All of these positions favor the people over the wealthy and well-connected.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 5:06 pm
Thank you Mark. Very well written essay. Hope to see more of your writing.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 6:07 pm
Thanks, Elizabeth. I hope everyone will feel free to reprint and circulate the essay as widely as possible.

Yvonne, my essay attempts to make two major points:

1. We do not have a democratic form of government in this country.

2. We cannot bring about change by voting in rigged elections.

Dennis Kucinich has a website set up to stream live TV kucinichtv.us and when it is going to broadcast, advance notice goes out by email to all his supporters. I've yet to see more than 500 people tune in.

In his most recent broadcast, he referred to Hillary Clinton as his friend.

Do you oppose the war, Yvonne? How many people who support the war do you call friends?

When Dennis fails to get the Democratic Party nomination, he will urge his supporters to throw their support to his friend Hillary, so as not to split the Democratic Party vote. It is very important to him to have a Democratic war profiteer in the White House instead of a Republican war profiteer. While it is true that they both usually vote the same way (except for Dennis, the shill whose job it is to convince decent people that there is still a place for them in the Democratic Party), the one whose turn it is to run the corporatocracy from the White House gets more money from defense contractors than the one temporarily out of power.

The reason that the Democrats in Congress (except for Dennis, who is the only thing keeping 100% of Democratic voters from leaving the party en masse), vote for war and refuse to impeach Bush and Cheney, is because if they were to vote against the war or to vote to impeach Bush and Cheney, the Republicans won't rig the Nov. '08 election to favor the Democrats. With less than a 25% approval rating among their own voters, nether party could win an honest, unrigged election.

Dennis is in sync with every issue voters care about. Can you name another Democrat in Congress who is? His friend Hillary disagrees with him on most of those issues, but they're still friends because politics is just a game that the rich play to fool the poor into thinking that somebody, somewhere in government might represent them someday. Dennis has the support of the people because he cares about what we care about. But his party does not. And without the support of his party, he cannot get the nomination and even if he was President, he wouldn't have more than a handful of votes in Congress for his policies.

Wake up, Yvonne! Any friend of Hillary's is no friend of mine.

Saturday November 17, 2007, 6:21 pm

Hillary Clinton isn't stupid. When Bill was President and was pushing through GATT and NAFTA, Hillary knew that these globalization policies would cause millions of people to suffer all over the world, degrade the environment, and cause the quality of life to decrease. So did Hillary say, "Bill, that is inhumane, and if you do that, I'm leaving you"?

Of course not. Hillary also supports globalization, has voted for it, and if elected President will push through even more free trade deals and cause more suffering than Bill did. That's Dennis Kucinich's friend. You want to see more environmental degradation? Vote Hillary. But it might be less environmental degradation than a Republican President might cause. So why not vote for the lesser war criminal, the lesser globalist, and the lesser polluter? You can't have Dennis, so settle for Hillary. Hillary is his friend. Dennis will be head of the Democratic Party and will have Hillary's ear. And Santa Claus is going to bring every good little voter a foreign made car for Christmas, because there aren't any more American made cars. Just squeeze your eyes shut real tight, clasp your hands in front of you, and say, "I believe in Dennis" three times and everything will be okay. *__*

Saturday November 17, 2007, 8:35 pm
I enjoyed reading your essay very much, Mark. You get a lot of information across, while maintaining a conversational tone, as the plot thickens and then we're hooked on the drama of it ! I was surprised because I truly had not imagined how rampant ...or should I say, usual ? rigging elections is !

I don't think I'll forget the name Michael Vu, either !

That the two offenders had their punishment conveniently interrupted and the whole record of the trial erased is really disgusting. You write enough stories like that and people'll become too discouraged to feel any indignation anymore !

Saturday November 17, 2007, 8:39 pm
Oh, and I forgot your reply to Yvonne, that's good, too; very good, very demoralizing. Gee, Daddy, is Truth always demoralizing ? No, I'm kidding ! I agree with you about Hillary.
Is she friends with Barack Obama, too, or rather, is he friends with her ?

From France, Obama seems like a great guy. Tell me why I'm wrong, Mark !

Saturday November 17, 2007, 11:32 pm

You're not wrong, Jill. Obama is a great guy. Hillary is a great person too. They are all wonderful, charming, charismatic people and they are all friends. Unless you happen to be one of the people suffering from globalization, wars of aggression, torture, lack of affordable health care in the U.S., or any of the other policies they've voted for, you'd probably find them delightful company. Kucinich does.

Just because somebody is a fascist, a torturer, or a supporter of genocide, doesn't mean that they're mean and nasty to their friends and family. If you were a member of their elite circle, you'd probably enjoy being around them. If you're a member of their party, you probably will vote for one of them. It is only if you happen to be one of the victims of corporatism, fascism, neoliberalism, or whatever you want to call it that is causing so much human suffering and such global devastation, that you might find them repulsive and think that anyone who is a friend of theirs has very poor taste in friends.

Sunday November 18, 2007, 2:13 am
You write well Mark, noted and thanks!

Sunday November 18, 2007, 8:37 am
noted and Thanks Mark.
I am however not so sure your right on the money with Kucinich .
He may have called Hillary his friend just because he is polite and a nice guy .That is a possability .
I don't want to get so cynical about government that I can't believe a person could be honest when their record shows they are empathetic about the issues that are important to us average American's.
Maybe I am wrong but I would like to give this man the benefit of the doubt and cast my vote for him in the primaries.

I do have a question for you though Mark because it contradicts your statement about Kucinich .
I once read you say you gave a contribution to the Kucinich campaign .Why would you do that if you have no confidence in him as an honest candidate ? Was it just the fact that he called Hillary his friend ?
Just curious !

I would never vote for Hillary because I see her as a corporate shill ,so if she does win the primaries I refuse to vote in the presidential election.
If she is elected then I think its time we decided to have a mass revolution and take back our country from the highjackers in this government.

Sunday November 18, 2007, 9:41 am

I did donate to Kucinich, Linda, and I did give him the benefit of the doubt. But now that he is calling his candidacy a long shot and telling people that Hillary and Barack are his friends, it is clear to me that he will not run as an independent if he doesn't get the nomination. He cares about the same things we do, but he doesn't care enough to be willing to work outside the system when the system fails. I do.

I applaud your courage and strength of character in having decided not to vote for Hillary. But if you look on some of the Democratic cheerleader sites like democraticunderground.com or dailykos.com you will find that many Democrats will vote for whoever gets the Democratic Party nomination, regardless of their position on the issues. And they mean it. If Hitler or Stalin or Frankenstein got the Democratic Party nomination, they'd vote for them and insist that it would be better than having a Republican Hitler, Stalin, or Frankenstein. The difference might be subtle, and to the victims it might be undetectable, but to many Democrats it not only exists, it is the only thing that matters.

When we get close to November '08, there will be a lot of pressure on you to vote for Hillary, and you'll be told that if you don't, the Republican will win. People will try to panic you into voting for Hillary. That's when your character will be tested. Democratic war crimes are no better than Republican war crimes. Stay strong!

Sunday November 18, 2007, 9:47 am

And remember, the way that our system works, if the winning candidate changes their mind, we don't get to hold a new election. So even if Hillary won by a landslide, Hillary could simply say, "I've found that I need to spend more time with my family. I know that my opponent will do an excellent job, so for the good of the country, I've decided to concede to my opponent," and then we'd have another Republican President again, after having elected a Democrat for the third time in a row, and there would be nothing we could do about it except beg Congress to impeach them, which they won't.

Monday November 19, 2007, 9:10 am
Noted! Thanks mark