*sigh*

[ravan]

I read an article today about the election, and the statistical odds of bush winning the actual count without fraud given the exit polls. You have a better chance of winning the fucking lottery. The mainstream press is ignoring it, the rethuglicans are saying it's just 'sour grapes'. Fuck.

We have now had three elections (200, 2002, 2004) with mounting evidence of major fraud and/or malfeasance by election officials and election equipment vendors, and only the "conspiracy theorists" and "sore loser liberals" give a damn?? What the fuck is happening in my country? Why can't any of us say or do anything to fix this shit? Why are they getting away with it? Why can't I do anything to stop it?

This shit is seriously scaring the crap out of me. I can't ignore it, or crawl into some nice safe little consumer fantasy like so many others. It really bothers me, because I care, about real freedom, the constitution, and the future.

At least Bin Laden and his band of thugs are blatant, and do shit that we can recognize as an attack and deal with the damage. But the erosion of the basic principals of our nation from within, without any meaningful protest, makes your garden variety terrorist acts seem almost benign.

I am beginning to believe that 9/11 was allowed to happen (maybe even encouraged) by the rethuglicans, for political gain. I guess I've joined the tinfoil hat brigade. Or at least the tinfoil lined passport case brigade...

Comments

[weofodthignen]

On the exit polls--there was even an AP story not long ago about how woefully inaccurate the exit polls have been in the last 3 elections. The story emphasized Republicans refusing to answer the pollsters, which is a new one on me. But apparently the networks had to withdraw judgments about who had won in all 3 elections, and there is apparently general consternation there that the exit poll system has broken down.

I will not comment on the argument that 4 more years of Bush could in any way, shape or form be seen as the lesser of two evils.

I will, however, comment on the notion that New York and California are somehow "out there." Not only did California recently elect a Republican governor after firing a Democratic one--and California has always had a large number of solidly Republican voters, Berkeley does not define the whole state any more than Greenwich Village defines New York State--but I refer you to all the cute "red and blue" maps. Have a look at Minnesota and Wisconsin, for a start. The states that voted for Kerry are not just on the "fringes" on the two coasts--even if it were advisable to marginalize huge states like California and New York in the first place.

That's the propaganda of an anti-democratic leadership.

Better yet, look at one of the many maps that broke it down by county. The country is divided right down to that level--below it in some places. My own county went 66% for Kerry. Some other urban counties in this state went 70% for Bush. The "other side" is your neighbors. Everywhere except possibly Utah. Couldn't you tell that from the yard-sign battle? That was what the pre-election statistical dead heat in the polls was all about. America is deepky and fundamentally divided and it is not a geographical division, or even a Xian/immoralist division as the Republican propaganda machine would like to depict it.

Nor is it an intellectual/non-intellectual division. Intellectuals voted both ways. There are right-wing intellectuals, too, you know . . . and people who made the same decision about "security" that you evidently did . . . and all those union members who voted for Kerry out of party loyalty, are you going to argue they are of higher average intellect than the workers who went for Bush?

M