After reading calichick's little discussion about
Palm Beach, FL voting, I have come to the conclusion that, to coin Jon Stewart, the Weapons of Mass Documentation need to be in full force this election. What do I mean?
I'm calling on every person who has a digital camera to begin a massive catalog of images at the polling booths, the long lines, the stress some voters are enduring, the intimidation methods upon the voters, the whole damn thing!
We can talk and talk and talk about this until we are blue in the face or our fingers are bruised from typing so much. But, that won't mean crap in a world dominated by images, by visual media. A simple comment and declaration can be consider heresay, but not a picture.
I would like to make a formal, public request to Kos, or to whomever has a popular blog, to establish a gallery of images collected by people who send in their digitally captured images of the 2004 Election.
We need to visually show the media and the world if there are widespread intimidation tactics, if the ballots are faulty, if the touch screen machines aren't working correctly. We need to document this like nothing else, because the media won't do its job to protect the American people and their right to vote unless we MAKE them, and fellow community members, as much as we don't like it we must face it - the media is the carriage that we push to make it move.
Nothing like a couple thousand images spread throughout the web and filling up the email boxes of the mainstream media to get everyone's attention! Michael Moore says he's bringing his cameras down to Florida (he should also save some for Ohio), but why should he be the only one documenting this?! If the Sinclair Cave-In proved anything, it's that you and I hold immense collective power to create change when it is needed. People may have forgotten that almost the majority of Fahrenheit 911 was footage by news crews and home video cameras. We have a tremendous piece of power in our hands, the digital camera, and it's high time we use it to advance, and save, this nation.
So again, I'm calling on everyone to digitally capture this fiasco that is already brewing in our communities around the country, post their images to their diary, send them to Michael Moore, and get them out as much as possible. One photo of a hooded, tortured Iraqi with electrodes attached to his hands and genitals changed how the whole world saw the Iraq War. What one photo of this election can you provide?