Protecting Our Political Investment

Published by OpEdNews.com


Post-election analyses have swung between two positions: some see the resounding defeat as a call for the Democratic Party to change positions – perhaps towards more conservative policies or a more spiritual/religious orientation. The other main stance is to encourage us to keep our chins up and focus our attention on the next stage, working harder and organizing even better for the next round.

Both of these positions are naïve because they rest on a crucial assumption: namely, that the results that we were given are the actual results.

Historically, there is no reason to assume an election is clean, in this country or elsewhere. This isn’t even a partisan charge. The Democratic Party has often been a perpetrator of election fraud, though the preponderance of cheating now seems to have swung to the Republicans. Where there is power, there is corruption and when the reins of the most powerful country on earth are involved, we can count on attempted corruption of the voting process.

The real question about an election is not whether it was clean or not. The question is how much any particular election was tampered with. Did cheating involve only local corruption or were there more widespread, coordinated efforts? Was the cheating widespread enough to change the outcome?

The Internet has been a great blessing in this election because it has allowed the rapid dissemination of evidence of fraud. This has sometimes resulted in hysterical over-reactions that proved groundless. In many other cases, though, the data has proved remarkably resilient and well-founded in truth.

The first thing a clear-thinking person needs to do in this environment is to look for signs of systematic fraud. This year, we have a very simple and, to date, unexplained discrepancy between exit polls and final tallies. In some of the key battleground states, there was greater than a 5-6% swing between exit polls and final vote counts. Oddly, all these “errors” slanted towards Bush. University of Pennsylvania professor Steven Freeman performed a careful statistical analysis and concluded that the odds of the composite discrepancies from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida occurring due solely to chance were about 250 million to one.

And that’s only one piece of evidence –the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team reported irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm

These two studies are the tip of an iceberg of data and attempts to cover up evidence. The suspect nature of the results are bolstered by the fact that Karl Rove immediately began dismissing exit polls as unreliable, though exit polls have traditionally been used as a way to detect election fraud. His behavior fits with an attempt to cover up clues that might lead to discovery of more systematic corruption.

These facts alone are enough to warrant massive investigation, especially in light of the warnings of dozens of organizations before the election about how remarkably easy fraud now is with electronic voting. Strangely, the Kerry campaign has been mostly quiet on the matter.

The relative absence of a serious investigation by the Democratic Party is a betrayal of the trust that supporters placed in them. Every person who contributes money or time to a political campaign is, to some extent, an investor. We are each investing our assets into specific candidates who promise to produce the kind of government and country we want to live in. When a party fails as badly as the Democratic Party did in this election, especially given the massive investment of time, money, and energy, the investors have a right to understand why they did not get a return on their political investment.

If the Democratic Party were a company that launched a product line that flopped, and we were investors in the business, we would make sure the company knew exactly what went wrong before investing another penny. Part of the Democratic Party treating our investment honorably and respectfully, then, is to take seriously the process of post-election examination of voting fraud. It’s a necessary and important audit, especially in a situation where we have strong statistical signals pointing to fraud, demonstrated opportunities, and a clear motive.

Investigation of fraud is important for two reasons. First, if the fraud is systematic, it may well affect the outcome of the election as a whole, in which case we might even end up with a President Kerry. Second, if fraud is present but less severe, exposing the individual nonetheless acts as a crucial safeguard for future political investments and exposes flaws in the system.

There are many ways to corrupt voting results, and evidence abounds of cheating at all stages of the process this year. This problem is compounded by the presence of Republican-dominated companies at all stages of the balloting and counting process, often operating in secret, typically with no paper trail, on machines that have been shown to be easily hackable.

For every avenue of voting fraud that is available, there is at least one major story chronicling the use of that method. Seen as a whole, this may well have been enough to tip the election unjustly to Bush, which means they all must be fully investigated. Here are some common ways to cheat:

1. Voter roll purges – often focused on supposed felons who happen to be black, widespread in Florida, resulting in the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legitimate voters.
2. Discarded voter registrations – this was exposed in Nevada in advance of the election, where Republican operatives in a voter registration company instructed workers to dispose of Democratic registrations.
3. Deception tactics – such as fliers stating that those in long lines could come back the next day to vote. Common in Ohio.
4. Underprovisioning of districts – especially widespread in Ohio, where lines in primarily Democratic areas stretched to eight or nine hours because of gross underprovisioning of poll stations while neighboring Republican counties had ten minute waits.
5. Ballot “spoilage” – These are ballots that dismissed for being filled out “incorrectly,” and there are often ten times the number in minority-dominated counties. Estimates are that 2 million were thrown out in the 2004 election, with a high percentage of those from African Americans.
6. Higher usage of provisional ballots in certain precincts – Provisional ballots are generally not counted until the election winner has already been declared, if ever.
7. Software problems – resulting in machine totals running in reverse, vote dumping, and sometimes systematic bias towards certain candidates. The Diebold software running electronic voting machines, for example, is so easy to hack that some experts question whether it was intentionally designed for manipulation.
8. Manipulations of county totals at central tabulators – this is very easy to accomplish, as demonstrated by Black Box Voting on a nationally-aired special. The question is not whether it is possible but how widespread this form of manipulation was.

After reviewing the information that is emerging, anyone who assumes this election was clean is naïve. The only real question is whether the fraud was systematic enough to change the results and elect the wrong man. Given that defeating Bush was the entire point of the hundreds of millions in Democratic investment this year, I suggest that until the Party addresses these issues rigorously, they do not deserve our future support. Exposure and analysis of voting fraud is a pre-requisite to earn our trust that future investments are well spent.

For a clearinghouse of information on voting fraud, see www.nov2truth.org

Draft Dean

As evidence mounts that this election was likely stolen, it becomes imperative that the unleashed outrage is channeled into effective political action. I submit that the most important next step for this work is to unify around a nationally-recognized and credible spokesperson who also has access to elite Democratic circles.

We owe a great deal to people like Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, who have led the charge to this point. She will be a key player as this scandal unfolds. But for the full power of the outrage to be harnessed, we need a political leader who is already established on the national stage, especially one with an organizational infrastructure that can be activated. I believe that person is Howard Dean.

I say this not because I supported him in the primaries (I backed Kucinich) but because he has exactly the right assets to turn the undirected outrage of the moment into an unstoppable movement. He ran as an outsider to the Washington establishment but he has access and respect within the halls of power. He effectively channeled the anti-war sentiment into a political force. He has a fighting spirit and balls of steel. He had the courage to air a national special on electronic voting with Bev Harris, so he knows how easily fraud can be accomplished. And he has a loyal base of support that can be re-activated.

Right now, the Democratic establishment is playing this issue very conservatively and that is unlikely to change until the movement reaches a certain level of power. That means the Kerry campaign structures and DNC are effectively out of play. They will be brought online once the movement reaches critical mass, but until that moment, we can’t utilize the vast infrastructure or money the Kerry campaign has at its disposal. We need to build momentum with an “outsider’s” structure until the “insider’s” structure feels safe enough to activate. That’s why we need to focus energy on drafting Dean – he’s the best bridge between the outsiders and the insiders.

Dean himself may start out resistant to the process, but that’s ok. Looking back, it as if the anti-war movement drafted Dean rather than Dean harnessing the anti-war movement. The massive sense of unrest about the war needed to find a focal point within the Democratic Party, a way to exert leverage. And, despite all the other ways that he didn’t carry a strongly progressive message, Dean was drafted for that duty, surprising everyone with the power of his run.

I believe that if we start a strong national movement to re-activate the Dean networks and put positive pressure on Dean himself, the election stealing issue will quickly become front-page news. It takes time to develop relationships of trust and accountability, which is why it is best to mobilize people who have already worked together and learned to become efficient. We don’t have time to cobble together a whole new infrastructure.

Other political leaders will play a role, of course. Representatives John Conyers of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida have all started an investigation into irregularities, although they say they are not seeking to overturn the election results (http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65623,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2)
Ralph Nader has come out as a vociferous critic but his credibility is at a lifetime low. As momentum builds, many others will take a stand.

A few thoughts on effectively coalescing a movement:

1. Evidence gathering - We should channel our support for the legal groundwork to Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, which is doing the largest filing for information under the Freedom of Information Act ever, demanding the computer logs from over 3,000 voting machines around the country. That effort can serve as an important legal wing of operations (www.blackboxvoting.org) as momentum builds
2. State Focus - We should focalize our energy on Ohio and Florida, because those two states are the key to overturning the election results and have some of the strongest evidence of vote stealing and manipulation. There is evidence emerging in many other states but Ohio and Florida are key to overturning the election itself.
3. Language – George Lakoff has written about how masterfully the right wing has used the framing of issues, a lesson we need to learn. Every time you refer to the election, I encourage you to use the word “stealing.” Stealing is more personal than fraud and hits people on a visceral level. It takes time for ideas to penetrate the dominant culture, so hammering away with the same terms is good strategy. Think of how the Bush campaign smeared Kerry with the term “flip-flopper” No one could escape it. Ideally, every time you refer to the election, refer to it as the “stolen election.” If you’re less sure, then phrase it as a question, as in, “Do you think the election could have been stolen?” Fraud is vague and impersonal; stealing is very personal.
4. Repetition – To build an idea in the public consciousness takes many, many exposures. The more times that people get information in their inbox and the more sources they hear something from, the more credible it becomes. Don’t be shy about sharing your suspicions and forwarding the best material.
5. Foreign media – One of the best ways that our allies in other countries can help is to put heavy pressure on their own media to cover the evidence that America’s election was likely stolen. As news reports build around the world, it will force American media to start covering. Right now, the American media is so compromised that I don’t think we should focus on it first. England might be the best place to start.

If people in this country rise up powerfully on this, we can create a historic victory. I want to make my prediction right now: this election’s results will not stand and Bush will not serve out four years.

Here are some resources to get you going. At the bottom, I’ve included an analysis by esteemed sociologist Paul Ray of how to go about building an airtight scientific case for fraud that I don’t believe is published anywhere:

Best 30-minute introduction: www.votergate.tv
Other good orgs: www.verifiedvotring.org, www.votewatch.us

Key articles:

Evidence Mounts that Vote was Hacked, by Thom Hartmann
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy, by Thom Hartmann
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm

Kerry Won by Greg Palast
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm


More In-depth Article List – Thanks to Prof. Hugh Urbana from Ohio State University for this list.

Pre-Nov. 2 articles warning of the possibility of Electronic voting fraud and other problems:

Computer Voting is Open to Easy Fraud, Experts Say (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/technology/24VOTE.html

Black Box Voting Blues (Newsweek)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3339650/

How They Could Steal the Election this Time (The Nation)
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger

Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/810

Voter Fraud and Disenfranchisement
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/31/192155/73

See also http://blackboxvoting.org/

Evidence of Voting problems in the Nov. 2 Election

Massive Voter Suppression and Corruption in Ohio (Global Research, Canada)
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SOL411A.html

Russian Observer Shocked by U.S. Election Procedures
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/11/03/russianobserver.shtml

Black Box Voting declares 2004 Election a Fraud
http://blackboxvoting.org/

Voting Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes (NBC)
http://www.nbc4i.com/politics/3894867/detail.html

Michael Moore's Election Watch, 2004, with reports of fraud from every state
http://www.michaelmoore.com/electionwatch/

Evidence Mounts that Vote was Hacked
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

Florida Rigged the Optical Scanners
http://blog.democrats.com/florida

Votes Lost and Extras Counted in E-voting Errors
http://www.thestandard.com/internetnews/000563.php

Kerry margins: Exit Poll vs. Actual Vote
http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Was the Ohio Election Honest and Fair?
http://www.rense.com/general59/wastheohioelectionhonest.htm

Exit Polls and Actual Polls Don't Match
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388

Fixed: The Stealing of Another Election
http://www.rense.com/general59/steI.HTM

Voting Machine Controversy
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm

Lists of other articles on the subject:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/archives/cat_vote_fraud.html

Insights from Paul Ray, Ph.D., sociologist and author of The Cultural Creatives

We don't need an impossible vote recount from no-paper-trail-machines
to show that the vote was probably stolen. There's another way--and
it's not even hard.

Odds are very high the election was stolen, judging from just the
initial "evidence" being offered all over the internet. I say this as
a social scientist who has done innumerable surveys. I have a Ph.D.
in sociology, and I have done statistical modelling for over 30
years, and I say this is an easy research design to make a convincing
case.

Your best rhetoric should be to use "the odds" to set up a legally
binding re-examination of the vote in the swing states: Having really
objective researchers calling voters to see who they voted for. Even
the dumbest mouth-breather can get the idea that the election might
have been stolen, and that experts can give the odds that it was.

The best thing you can do to advance the progressive cause is to
participate in the detailed examination of the discrepancy in
percentage vote between exit polls and recorded vote. Exit polls are
remarkably accurate, historically in the US, and elsewhere, say in
Germany. Hire some top experts in political science methodology RIGHT
NOW and put them to work on this.

It simply takes a 2-stage strategy to set up the third and final
stage of a challenge to the election, i.e., legally binding
contacting of those who are listed as voting:
1) Do an initial analysis, state by state, and precinct by by
precinct of the publicly listed discrepancy between exit polls and
the recorded vote. Not just for Kerry vs. Bush, but also for
contested Congressional seats. That will tell you if you have
something suspicious. There's lots of yelling going on on the
internet, and some of it is very suggestive. This stage would say if
it's worthwhile going on.

2) Do a random sampling of people listed as having voted in those
counties you detected as having suspiciously large discrepancies in
key states. Ask who they voted for, for Congress and President. You
need a good survey house, like Zogby, to do this right. It will take
a big sample size, so it won't be cheap. Doing this quickly may
overwhelm single firms, so you may need to hire several, with a
single political scientist controlled methodology giving them
directions.
(Note: A lot of the polling firms will want to rescue their damaged
reputations, and may be glad to participate for reduced profits.)

For both stage 1 and stage 2 your researchers are looking for two
kinds of discrepancies, not one:
A) Electronic Vote Recording Fraud: in the swing states, all you have
to fund is studies comparing that discrepancy for districts where
there was electronic voting without a paper trail to where there was.
Any competent statistical program will give you the odds whether the
result appeared by chance.
We can mobilize Democrats and progressives around voting fraud.
Here's how to set it up so scientifically that it supports a legal
case for a full blown challenge:

If it is true, as it now appears, that "exit poll failures" occurred
mostly where there's no paper trail, then there's a prima facie case
that the recorded voters need to be systematically polled by phone
and by mail, by truly impartial researchers to say who they voted
for, for congress and for president.

B) Spoiled Ballots and Ballots Never Recorded: For example: It
appears that Blackwell in Ohio is refusing to give the legally
required spoilage numbers. Odds are high that too many votes were
thrown away, simply unrecorded. Greg Palast is claiming loudly that
this happened in a number of states, and was done systematically by
Republicans. This was once the norm in the South, and may simply have
come back in more sophisticated form. This can be detected
statistically from examining exit polls as well, though it's probably
a little more complicated.

Notice that the statistical tables are only a little more complex if
both vote spoilage and electronic voting machine fraud were going on
simultaneously. You simply have to control for both kinds of
tampering, and compare a good sample of what people say they did with
the outcome. It's a big sample size, but it will set up the later,
full count.

Again, the second stage will say whether you have a good basis for
Stage 3: to go to court to demand a full and complete recontact of
people who are listed as voting.

Kerry has $45 million for legal challenges. We need to persuade him to use it.
We also need to contact major donors to the Dems, who should want to
protect their investment.

Best regards,

Paul H. Ray, Ph.D.

Divinely Perfect Disaster

In the midst of election anguish, I want to offer an alternative perspective on Tuesday. What if we sink beneath the hot stream of rage, fear, and dread to a subtler current in us, one that understands life as an unfolding, evolutionary journey in which each step is mysteriously contributing to some larger plan? This is not a plan to which we are merely subject but one that we co-create. Seen through this lens, outer events are the curriculum that our soul engages in an alchemical process of purifying, transforming, and elevating this world.

From this perspective, our soul intentions are linked with the intentions of intimate allies, as well as, more subtly, with those we perceive as enemies. We are creating a school and a curriculum, together. Sometimes it is a brutal school filled with suffering and grave injustice, but even in the darkest moments, I believe there is a higher purpose that our ego cannot grasp, a purpose only glimpsed from the scope of centuries rather than days. We are each being initiated into spiritual maturity through a long and challenging journey.

When I tap this subtler current, I am infused with trust, sensing that the rhythms of life have their own timing and that we complete certain cycles only when we are done with the lessons. The simple question about November 2nd, from my perspective, is what have WE not learned yet as a progressive political movement that is necessary for us to lead America to the next stage of development?

I believe the answer has to do with our willingness to really understand and integrate the shadow. Not to fear it and fight it, to rail against it and deny it, but to begin to look at it in a curious way, with wisdom and understanding. When still in denial of the shadow, we might say, “Bush is a bastard.” When more integrated, we might say, “Hmmm. This is what happens when people are terrified, addicted to power, or caught in spirals of deceit.” That is not the same as excusing, permitting, or condoning regressive policies. There we need our fiercely protective love. But underneath, at the root level, there’s a lesson about the shadow side of American power that is asking to be learned.

That is the job of those of us who want to carry the torch of progressivism now – to really understand and integrate the shadow until we learn the lessons it has to teach and we are able to look unflinchingly and lovingly at the reality of our current situation. When we merely hate the shadow side, we will keep losing politically. Indulging in hatred of the shadow for long periods tends to keep our understanding shallow – over-rehearsed emotion prevents the deepening into wisdom. The shadow is better approached like a martial arts master, honoring its power to be either a ruthless killer or a noble warrior in service to higher ideals. By honoring the gifts of the shadow, we begin to reclaim the noble warrior in us as well.

To ground this discussion in the events of this week, let’s look at the vote stealing from Election Day. A wide variety of sources predicted that the Republicans would manipulate vote tallies through electronic chicanery as well as more classic voter intimidation strategies. And sure enough, they did, in a massive number of ways that are being documented as quickly as activists can. Was this enough to steal the election outright? The answer is “Quite possibly.” The buzz is building demanding deeper investigation.

Beyond the outrage, the simple truth is that power-hungry forces have been taking over the Republican party (and to a lesser extent the Democratic party) and undermining democratic processes through whatever means they have available. One of those means is electronic voting, which makes vote stealing as convenient as pushing a few buttons, provided you have access to the machines. Other means include voter roll purges, trashing registrations or spoiling ballots in minority districts.

To expose the level of corruption that has become commonplace means getting beyond naïve notions of “democracy.” Right now, we have a lot of proud ideals about American democracy but the fact is that our election process is deeply flawed, rigged, and abused. Our media are heavily compromised and have lost much of their power as watchdogs. American democracy is less of a democracy every year. Seen objectively, when compared to historical parallels, we are trending towards fascism.

Progressive folks tend to be naïve about this and often assume a level of basic decency and morality amongst political players. Until the last 18 months of reading and study, I certainly fell in that camp as well. Now that I’ve gotten up to speed, I see that a much more accurate assumption is that the people in power will do literally anything to keep it. If we start there rather than with naïve optimistic ideals and assumptions, we can look more objectively at the evidence, which often has shocking implications.

Did Chuck Nagel, former CEO of ES&S, rig his own election in Nebraska? Was Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died right before his probable re-election in a suspicious plane crash, assassinated for political reasons? Were the anthrax attacks a political intimidation tactic focused on Democratic leaders? Was 9/11 encouraged or even facilitated from the inside? Who made off with the $1.3 trillion in undocumented transactions from the federal budget in recent years?

I believe that we need to start with the assumption that the Bush administration and their friends are capable of literally anything – from assassination to vote stealing to lying to crimes against their own people. Historically, political leaders have done all those things and there’s no reason after four years to suspect the Bush administration is operating on a higher moral ground than those historical leaders. If we strip away our rosy assumptions, our naivete won’t color what we are able to look it. This is important because we must examine the full extent of the shadow before we can learn from it, integrate it, and transcend it. Otherwise, we’ll keep trumpeting proud ideals and wondering why we keep losing.

The examination of the shadow side of American power is part of our initiation into spiritual maturity. In fact, I believe that it is the single most important key to unlock the greatness of our country because it will allow us to complete the curriculum around power and allow us to undertake the curriculum of the heart in a more substantial way.

If you choose to take this journey, I warn you that the rabbit hole goes very deep. It is not a journey for the faint of heart. But it’s a crucial one and will allow us to approach the current situation more strategically after we have each gone through the stripping away of our illusions.

Right now, the people who are supposed to be our political leaders are either in denial of their own shadow and therefore unable to contemplate it in others, or they are too vested in the perks and privileges of their place in the system to take on the real shadow work. Kerry, for example, accepted the official poll results uncritically, and when given an opportunity to fight and challenge, simply folded his cards. In a Berkeley speech last night, when asked point blank by a ten-year-old questioner whether the election was stolen, Dennis Kucinich, who has often been a hero to me, said he “hoped” that the election was not stolen and tip-toed around the question. That’s as far as our political leaders seem willing to go. Almost none of them will take on the truly sinister stuff.

So it’s up to us – the grass roots, the people who have embarked on the journey of personal transformation and are now attempting to create deeper, systemic change. To become effective agents of that change, we each need to go through a profound disillusionment – to pull away the reassuring blankets that insulate us from the naked truth. When enough of us have done this work, our political leaders will follow.

The only way to deal effectively with the shadow is to not to shrink from it, run from it, or hope it will go away. It takes study to understand the face of corruption, deception, and greed and see the desperate, addictive hunger that lies underneath. After we’ve done our own study, we can expose it in such a way that others can hear. If our exposure comes out of hatred, we are still not learning the lessons.

The initiation into America’s shadow is still incomplete, which is why November 2nd was a dark day for so many people who opposed Bush. There is another level of stripping that we must be willing to undertake, a peeling away of the veils of illusion to see things as they truly are. That is why I see November 2nd as a divinely perfect disaster – it can catalyze our collective awakening. It is a powerful moment in our shared curriculum, one that is forcing a deeper maturation than if Kerry had simply won and the shadowy truths were never forced to the surface.

In undertaking this initiation, a key learning for me has been that there is nothing that Bush, Cheney, or his team have done (or any Democratic president, who have often engaged in similar deeds) that is unthinkable for me. As Goethe said, “There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.” In one meditation retreat two years ago, I spent several days being taken over by the shadow, just breathing in the intoxicating power of my dark side, feeling how it inflated me. I wanted to conquer, control, and kill. I was gleeful over scenes of slaughter and mayhem. I wanted to rule the world. It was disturbing and profoundly tempting, leading to a deeper understanding of what evil really means, not from a perjorative sense but from an experiential understanding of that force in my own psyche. On the other side of that immersion, I found myself able to understand those who live out the shadow side and even appreciate their essential role in our planetary evolution

When I look at Bush, Cheney, and their cabal, I see people who, by virtue of their own power drives, hungers, and fears, have allowed themselves to be taken over by shadow forces. They have drunk the intoxicating elixir of power and they are distorted by it and controlled by it.

And that is their gift to all of us, a full demonstration of what unconscious power does. Our task is to look at it with clear eyes and an open heart and undertake the fiercely loving actions necessary for us to outgrow this level of development as a country. They are teaching us about the shadow side of American power, a lesson we need to learn to wield our growing global power with greater wisdom and love. May more of us learn the lesson.

For those of you who want to take the next steps on your journey into facing our collective shadow, I highly recommend two books: David Ray Griffin’s New Pearl Harbor and Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon. Together, they will open your eyes and lead you deeper, although they will not provide the spiritual, redemptive context.

I also strongly encourage you to get involved with exposing the vote stealing in this last election, since that is the biggest opportunity of the moment. Start with www.votergate.tv (which was hacked today, so you’ll have to wait until they get their excellent movie on Electronic Voting back up) and www.blackboxvoting.org, which is organizing massive challenges under the Freedom of Information Act.

Finally, remember that we are not doing this to eradicate the opposition. Ultimately, we have created this collective moment with them as an opportunity to take an evolutionary leap as a country by facing the shadow side of power with unflinching courage and unbounded compassion.

A Winning Strategy

published by OpEdNews.com

You are faced with two options now: watch and wait for the seemingly inevitable conclusion or take real action that could still result in removing Bush from power.

The parties will be busy fighting over details, squabbling over votes, challenging results, and perhaps waiting on provisional ballots in Ohio. Bush will most likely declare victory but it will not be validated until all the votes are counted. The extended counting process does not look likely to result in a Kerry victory but it will buy valuable time.

The question is what to do with that time. You’ve tried all the normal political channels. You’ve registered voters, called friends, implored people with emails, tried to alert those who are unaware of the egregious violations of the public trust we have witnessed. That process is now over. Straight politics is not going to remove Bush from power. Street protests will not do it.

You are likely feeling desperate, knowing that a second Bush administration with a clear majority in both the House and the Senate and an ailing Supreme Court Chief Justice means drastic changes: expanded war, siphoning of wealth to an elite, a right-wing Supreme Court that overturns Roe V. Wade, the steady retraction of civil liberties, a steamrolling of what ‘s left of our environmental protections, and increasing corporate power. There will be nothing to prevent the erosion of democracy as we know it.

If we don’t use this time to do something powerful and unforgettable, we will not live in the same America in four more years. Moments like this call for boldness and heroic action. The question is “What action?”

There is only one thing that will change the outcome and result in victory – the breaking out of a major, criminal -level scandal that is enough to spark a national crisis of confidence in the President. It needs to be traceable all the way to the top. And it needs to be based on legitimate facts, or it won’t be credible.

I submit that the only way we can achieve real victory will be if a massive movement of people exposes the evidence for Bush administration complicity in allowing 9/11 to happen.

I know that may be challenging to stomach for many. But there is an increasingly powerful movement of respected leaders that is demanding immediate investigations into a wide range of incriminating evidence. On the eve of the election, ABCNews.com ran a front-page story about the 911 movement (http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=202754&page=2). New developments were covered on three major New York news channels last Friday. Air America has begun airing interviews with key leaders this week. 100 notable Americans from across the political and social spectrum, including three Presidential candidates (Nader, Cobb, and Badnarik); 40 authors; dozens of prominent change leaders; the Former Chief of Mission to Iraq, Edward Peck; and stars like Janeane Garofalo, Ed Asner, and Michael Franti stepped forward in an alliance with 49 family members of victims to demand investigation of unanswered questions (see http://tinyurl.com/5o832) . Families of victims filed a formal citizen’s complaint with the New York Attorney General’s Office last Thursday (http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=39128). And the CIA report on 9/11 has been illegally stonewalled until after the elections.

The 9/11 truth movement grows more powerful and legitimate every day. The serious and sober parts of it are based on undeniable facts from mainstream sources that show that the Bush administration almost certainly knew in advance the specifics of the attacks and allowed them to happen to advance political, economic, and military objectives. They have used the 9/11 attacks for every ounce of political leverage possible. The only question is whether they did so by design with advance warning. The evidence grows more compelling daily that indeed they did.

Michael Moore hinted at these deeper revelations in Fahrenheit 9/11. Remember the unforgettable scene of Bush in the classroom reading about pet goats after receiving the news? In your gut, you knew that was not the face of a man who has a received totally surprising report. There is something deeper going on. He knew.

It is time today to pull out all the stops as citizens, demanding the full truth, making a roar so loud that it simply must be addressed by every mainstream media outlet and pundit before the vote counting is complete.

And that is what will end Bush’s presidency.

To achieve victory, then, I strongly recommend 5 actions:

1. Forward this article to everyone you can possibly think of, especially to politicians, media, and potential whistleblowers who have not yet stepped forward. Do it multiple times until they take notice.
2. DONATE – To get the 911 Truth Statement in the NY Times as a full-page advertisement. Contribute yourself and urge friends to do so: http://rate.affero.net/911truth/
3. Support New York citizens and 9/11 family members by signing an online petition in support of their formal complaint to be filed with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Petition at http://www.justicefor911.org
4. Urge MoveOn through their member forums to focus on this issue immediately. http://www.moveon.org
5. Stay informed at http://www.911truth.org and get active in local groups at http://www.septembereleventh.org

The future of America hangs in the balance. Are you willing to look into the Bush administration’s darkest shadows if that’s what it takes to bring this country back from the brink? We need your bravery now.

For the best education on this subject, read these two books. Griffin’s book is an ideal place to start.

David Ray Griffin’s New Pearl Harbor:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1566565529/104-3125400-5670347?v=glance

Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/

America's Initiation

published by OpEdNews.com

There are moments when we are called to our greatness as a country. Tomorrow is one of those moments – Will we turn from our downward trajectory towards a brighter tomorrow? Or do we need a still more jarring wake-up call?

There’s an odd way that the Bush regime has been necessary for America. America resembles a teenager in a growth spurt – stumbling over itself in clumsy ways, flexing its muscles awkwardly, seeking approval and then showing off, acting impetuously, and often deceptively. With more than a dose of braggadocio, we have managed to gain more power in the world than we have learned to wield with wisdom, like a boy suddenly arriving into manly power. Raw power does not grant maturity and these last years have demonstrated that we are not a mature nation yet.

The Bush administration has illuminated the many ways that we still need to grow. For that, we should be grateful. We have needed George W. Bush and his administration to develop an intimate relationship with the shadow side of American power. This relationship is itself an initiation into something greater. Initiations in traditional cultures were often death-defying and terrifying, involving bodily danger and intense emotion. The psyche does not release its grip on yesterday’s roles easily – a shock is often required. An initiation, properly guided, is like a miniature death, as the old patterns give way to a new identity.

America has needed an initiation and Bush and Cheney have provided the opportunity.

Personally, I had always turned away from the political process, hoping like a child that closing my eyes would banish what I feared. For most of my adult life, I hoped that politics would rectify itself somehow, without my needing to spend time, money, and heart on trying to change it. I was wrong. Many of us were wrong.

Bush has been our initiation into political maturity, forcing us to recognize that we have a moral and spiritual obligation to steward our country wisely, not just for ourselves but for the sake of billions who are affected by our policies and our actions but cannot vote. If we do not engage politically, we are complicit in exploitation, war, environmental destruction and misdeeds. We betray our brethren abroad and we prevent our maturation as a country. We are also pulling the trigger.

As I think about voting tomorrow and the long trail of activities that preceded it, I find myself grateful for the awakening the Bush administration has provided for me, an intense training in how power corrupts and how fear paralyzes wisdom. Entering tomorrow, I feel less naïve and more open-eyed, having faced the shadow so fiercely for so many months. Oddly, I feel much more hopeful as the little awakenings that I have witnessed in myself and those around me ripple across this nation. The flame of understanding, once lit, is not easily blown out.

We are now ready, I believe, to step into greater maturity as a country. And as we vote for Kerry and pray for grace, let us also treat those who sleep lovingly, shaking them slowly from their slumbers. We want a better country for them as well, so we should treat them graciously, even in victory.

As I write this, my final political article of the season, I feel a satisfying fatigue in my fingers and, more significantly, a pleasant tiredness in my soul. I have done what I was capable of doing to contribute to America’s political awakening. And while I may never know the impact that I personally have had in this race, what I do know is that I have gone through my political initiation and will never be the same.

Beginnings and endings invite poetry, especially as we stand on the cusp of the unknown. So I will close with a poem:

A gentle wind rustles the leaves
Of autumn
Whispering its secret:
Change cannot be
Avoided.
The flush of summer
Has prepared us for the
Sobriety of
Winter’s chill.
As we enter
The world
Between seasons
May we drop our leaves
Gracefully
Letting our naked branches,
Stripped of cheery
Greenery
Welcome the
Blossoms of an as-yet
Unseen year,
May we sense how
Our branches link
To one set of Roots,
And are kissed
By the same Sun
The wind caressing
Tired leaves
Into a tender
Abyss.