Here We Go

Written on 10/24/08

Before I go into my usual rant let me say right up front that I would give anything - well, almost anything - for someone to say that "you're wrong Larry, you don't know what the hell you are talking about" re the following.

I have written before that the Republicans have three game plans to turn to in ensuring a victory in this year's presidential election ( there must be a reason that John McCain is smiling). The first was voter suppression currently being challenged in as many as nineteen states and is a plan concocted as long ago as 2000. Remember that fiasco?

The second is just now getting national attention - voting machine/ballot manipulation.

Early balloting is underway in twenty-nine states. And if the complaints and horror stories that have been recorded so far is any indication of what to expect in this election, which is projected to be a record turnout, the 2000 balloting mess will seem like child's play by comparison.

Voting machines misalignment, voting machines not recording the vote correctly, if at all, casting votes for Democrats recorded in the Republican Party's column, many machines not functioning at all, long lines to cast a vote of three hours or more, untrained poll workers, are just some of the complaints so far.

On and on and on and where will the merry-go-round stop? Only the Republicans know for sure.

Remember the old catch phrase "we can send a man to the moon but we can't - " (you finish the sentence)?

Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969. Almost FORTY YEARS ago.

We can do wondrous things with our computers, we can do incredible scientific and medical research, we can do so many things that are seemingly impossible (except to provide affordable health care for everyone and to ensure that the bank/stock brokers are playing the game fairly, but those and many other stories are for another day) that it stretches beyond our imagination.

We have more power in our cell phones than what was available for the computers that guided us to the moon.

And we can't design and build a voting machine that works properly?

Because we don't want to. I say "we" loosely because the contracts are controlled by the government (Bush and his clownsmen are still in charge last I looked) and are given to corporations that support the Republican agenda.

So until some Democrats grow some testicular fortitude this will continue to be a problem.

Or until Barack Obama's lead becomes so large that it would be impossible for anyone who has any brain matter about him or her (I guess this rules out the Republicans) to even think that such a large lead could be overcome without the voting machines being tampered with.

I believe that it is imperative that if Obama and his supporters want to feel "comfortable" (oh how I hate that word in such an important election) his poll numbers must reach double digits and continue to climb unabated.

Why can't we have an honest and fair election? And we call ourselves a democracy? And we are intent on spreading our "democracy" to the rest of the world?

Some example we are setting.

Peace.

Larry