Please Read This

[volksdragon]

I'm normally a pretty politically laid-back kinda guy. I know what I like, but I don't usually get too crazy about it.

However, this article has made me so angry that I can hardly think straight.

Please read this article, everyone, regardless of your party loyalties. If you are a George Bush supporter, try to imagine if John Kerry had done (or arranged to have done) the things described in this article, and how you would feel today if he had won the 2004 election in this manner.

Feel free, hll, feel OBLIGATED to repost this in your journal and other forums. This was a total subversion of the American political process.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Comments

[musemom.livejournal.com]

arrrgh... you've got the link so big it is making me scroll sideways to read anything in my journal. I read it. Will you please make it just a litle smaller, just for me... please.

[scirocco.livejournal.com]

You got it.

[musemom.livejournal.com]

You're my hero!

[technoluddite.livejournal.com]

But the US has the best government money can buy!

[gala.livejournal.com]

It's infuriating. Oh yes indeed. But what, honestly, can we do about it? The machine is so big and we are so small (and unorganized). I think the lack of outrage by People With Voices is probably the worst part. And it makes it so much harder for us to 'Bring Democracy to the World' when we can't even conduct our own elections without rigging them.

I do love the idea of receipts from electronic polling machines, even though it would probably never happen.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

It really was fascinating to live in Ohio at the time around the 2004 election. It was SO frustrating to see people waiting in long lines at polling places in urban (read: Democratic) areas, and to hear about all of the other problems. So many people (myself included) worked SO hard to register inner-city voters, phone bank, etc. that to see what really ended up happening (after I'd moved away) was so disheartening.

A lot of my friends had broken hearts that day.

[metalliman502.livejournal.com]

ehh does it really surprise anyone? that's how he won his first election, so why change the winning formula? am i pissed about it? you're fucking right i am!!!!! Disturbed's song "Sacred Lie" comes to mind. politics just make my blood boil. this is the sort of shit that just makes me want to give up on voting.

[scirocco.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, giving up on voting is probably exactly what they'd like to have happen. Then they can go about making up whatever numbers they want. Don't give up on voting, FIGHT THE POWAH!

[uma-bella.livejournal.com]

That is a ridiculous article in my opinion. Rolling Stone is not a hard-hitting news publication, it's an entertainment publication. Republican or Democrat....it is all corrupt. It's all about power and money. The founding Fathers of this country have been rolling over in their graves for generations!

[oxlahun.livejournal.com]

I, too, felt a certain amount of "this has always been happening, we're just better at finding it now". But I think the problems have gotten out of hand in recent years—the corruption operates on entirely new levels. If Blackwell was not acting maliciously, as the preponderance of evidence suggests (but cannot, of course, prove), then he was acting incompetently. Either way, Ohio had a major problem a couple years ago.

Rolling Stone maintains journalistic standards as high as any "hard-hitting news publication", and should not be dismissed so handily. No one has ever called USA Today a hard-hitting news publication either, yet they managed to break the wire-tapping story. For that matter, an online nobody (at the time) named Matt Drudge set off the Clinton impeachment.

You're right. It's all about power and money. But the more sources we have saying there are problems, the more likely it is we can move the power and money around a little bit. The new guys, whoever they are, will be corrupt, too, but at least they won't be entrenched. As the bumper sticker says: governments and diapers should both be changed frequently, and usually for the same reason.

[uma-bella.livejournal.com]

Thomas Jefferson said, "Every generation needs a new revolution" and I believe that is true. We had not had that, the changing of the political party in power does nothing in this effort because both parties are steeped in corruption. The government machine is out of control. It isn't about the greater good of the people any longer. At this rate, America will end up like the Roman Empire and implode one day because the true ideals of democracy have been bastardized.