That question will be easy to answer...
Buzz Flash just posted a great interview with Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again: How the Right stole the 2004 election and why they'll steal the next one too (unless we stop them).
You can read the whole interview here.
Are you tired of hearing about stolen elections yet? Get used to it. It's not going away nor am I. I've already leaned on Mark Crispin Miller a bit and may have convinced him to set up an account here at dKos. He would be a great addition to the site.
More below the fold
Jon Stewart had Torie Clark, author of
Lipstick on a Pig on his
Feb. 7 show. She was a Pentagon Spokesperson. Yet Stewart has not had Mark Crispin Miller on. And Miller has tried. Why not?
Miller answers this question in the Buzz Flash interview,
All these cases illustrate the vast repressive impact of denial. Somewhere deep inside (or maybe not so deep), Hertsgaard and Manjoo and Nadler all know better. But they don't want to know. And it seems to me that that disinclination on the part of reasonable people is more dangerous than all the fervor of the Christo-fascist right. I hate to say it, but this is also how Nazism prevailed in Germany. Anyone who doubts this ought to check out Martin Mayer's "They Thought They Were Free," which was published in 1955. To read it here and now is an uncanny experience.
Denial is powerful. How many of you have told yourself, "I'm not fat, I'm pleasingly plump." |
Miller makes a great point, the liberals and progressives are doing the right's dirty work:
Yes. The liberals and progressives who reject the "theory" of Republican election fraud have tended to deploy the same rhetorical technique. We can't call it a counter-argument because it's really not an argument at all, but mere ad hominem attack: "Anyone who says this is insane."
What's especially disturbing about that reaction is that it repeats the primary talking point of the Bush Republicans, who from the start have changed the subject by smearing those who try to talk about it.
Question: Am I insane? Will Ad Hominem attacks follow in the comments? For what it's worth, I'm sane. (Rational even :-) |
Even worse, Our congressmen and women are clueless:
The Bush Republicans relied entirely on ad hominem attack in their highly organized response to The Conyers Report on Jan. 6, 2005. That was the day the Congress formally recorded each state's electoral votes, and there was a Democratic challenge to Ohio's numbers, thanks to Barbara Boxer. Following that challenge, each house retired to debate the challenge--which meant debating the abundant evidence compiled by Conyers and his Democratic colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee. It was a remarkable debate, although it wasn't really a debate, since there was no exchange about the evidence. The Democrats kept trying to focus on the evidence in the report, while the Republicans would just deny that there was any evidence in the report, and heap abuse on those who had the gall to note the evidence. As I point out in Fooled Again, the House "debate" was very tightly scripted, with the same incendiary phrases popping out of different speakers' mouths, to make the point that anyone who tried to talk about the evidence was a "conspiracy theorist," "paranoid," "sore loser," etc. To all the evidence in the report the Bush Republicans replied by shouting that there wasn't any, and that whoever said there was, should be on medication in a padded cell.
Who said it? "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."
That would be: Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels (October 29, 1897 - May 1, 1945). He was Adolf Hitler's Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany.
Goebbels was known for his zealous and energetic oratory, virulent anti-Semitism, and perfection of the so-called Big Lie technique of mass propaganda. (From Wikipedia) |
On Why John Kerry backed down? Good ol' political ambitions:
But he is too intimidated to take so bold a step. I'd suggest that what John Kerry fears is not the people's disapproval, but the odium of the political establishment--the national parties and the press, and their corporate paymasters. If he wants to talk about election fraud, he hasn't anything to fear from the grass roots. I sampled plenty of grass-roots opinion on my book tour. I went all over the country, and the crowds showed fierce enthusiasm for some truth about the last election, and for blunt talk of the need for thorough electoral reform. These were very mainstream crowds.
And this is the guy with the Purple Heart? No wonder progressives are angry with Kerry. I didn't know you earned Purple Hearts for backing down. |
How important is this issue?
The issue is far more important than John Kerry's political career, or the future prospects for any other over-cautious Democrat. It has everything to do with the enormous crisis now confronting this--I was going to call it a "democracy," but that's the problem, isn't it? The US isn't a democracy. It's something else. Today, both parties and the press comprise a single entity that's floating miles above the surface of the earth, where all the rest of us are trying to get by. It represents an absolute perversion of the system as envisioned by the Framers.
Oh, it all rests on "faith." Faith that our "president" would not steal an election. Can you hear the faitful?
"I don't believe such a good man would steal an election. That would be like saying he spies on us or tortures people or outs CIA agents or lets people drown in hurricanes. |
BuzzFlash: We saw it. We saw it happen in 2000, and again in 2004. It happened in broad daylight. You'd have to have been fast asleep, or blind, or crazy, not to notice it. It's all meticulously documented in your book, but anybody who was paying attention at the time would have to see that something very bad was happening.
Let me repeat my earlier question: If they could get away with stealing their "election" in the first place, from Al Gore, why would they not do everything they could to steal their "re-election" in 2004? Did they have a change of heart or something?
Mark Crispin Miller: This idea that Bush/Cheney surely never would protract their rule through fraud--talk about a faith-based notion! Look at what we now agree they've done! We concede that they lied us into a losing war. We concede that they did nothing after many warnings prior to 9/11. They didn't even quietly arrange the reinforcement of the cockpit doors on US airliners. We concede that they did nothing to prevent the devastation of New Orleans by Katrina, and that they then did nothing after the deluge. We concede that they plotted to expose a secret agent who was working to protect the USA from terrorist attacks. We concede that they insist on torturing anyone they like. We concede that they have countless numbers of us under surveillance, and that it's illegal, and that Bush thinks he can do it anyway. We concede that they are packing the Supreme Court with far-right extremists who would give this president the powers of an emperor.
Had enough yet? Not me... |
How does the right do it? How do they stay in power?
BuzzFlash: Which both parties and the media have suppressed. Meanwhile, they out-shout us. They have more media outlets, and they lie relentlessly.
Mark Crispin Miller: They have to, because they can't take power honestly. They're trying to impose an alien agenda on the people of this country. A movement that attempts to win legitimately, by building mass consensus, does not need to buy the media, does not need to stun the nation with big lies, does not need to neutralize its critics and dissenters with outrageous smears, does not need to gerrymander states, and does not need to win elections through the systematic use of dirty tricks.
There is no other way for these Republicans to win, because they don't appeal to anyone but billionaires and theocratic lunatics. The current situation may be bleak, but it would be a whole lot bleaker if this regime had the popular support that it pretends to have, and that the Democrats and press imagine that it has. As Fooled Again makes clear, the people of this country did not vote to re-elect this president, any more than they elected him four years before. I think that's damned good news.
What should we do about it?
Only in times of extreme terror and anxiety--times of general paranoia--do majorities become irrational; and that lasts only for a while. It's what happened after 9/11. That national mood has long since passed; and now it's time to face the facts, marshal all the evidence of what is really going down, and fight it as we must.
This means that the political establishment must face the facts. It means we should tell people the truth instead of trying to spin them, trying to figure out what they would like to hear so we can feed it to them. We should just face reality, and speak out publicly. If our fellow-citizens are grown-ups, worthy of democracy, then they can handle it. If not, then there's no point in even trying.
I see the point in trying. That's why I won't go away. Who's with me? |