Good evening everybody. Inbetween TiVo'ed recordings of the 24 Season 5 premiere, I decided I would post this poem that I wrote. A little background: On the first day of Thanksgiving break, I was on my way to pick my brother up from college and bring him home. On the way, I passed a Diebold van on I-90. The slogan under the logo?
"We won't rest."
Yeah, well you better believe I won't, either. This poem is about the fictional repairman that inadvertently circumvents his freedom by repairing dangerous, criminal voting machines. I'm releasing this poem under a Creative Commons license. What does this mean for you? Check out the link for information on what you can do with this poem. In short: do whatever you want with it! Voting irregularities MUST be resolved before Nov. 2006, and I feel that art is our only possible entry point to the distracting right-wing noise machine. Let's make the intrusion as creative as possible. Without further ado, "Bold Crimes".
Please,
please recommend this if you enjoy it. I'm trying to give it as large a footprint as possible, in order to raise at least
some sort of discussion on the future of our democracy. Art is how we can make people think, instead of argue!
BOLD CRIMES
By: Chris Mahoney
chris@stoptheinternet.org
All input appreciated!
---
The man in the Diebold voting machine repair van
is entirely content to make cash and feed his family
repairing electronic boxes that will bind them to slavery.
Why such a man is so intent
on transferring the fate of his kin to a police state is beyond me.
I contend, these are our most troubled times.
The apathetic stand by and ignore the sign
of a Congress of bribed members,
of the monoliths wheeled forth on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,
ready to stand ground and change our minds.
We are the unwilling conspirators
in a lazy conspiracy of self-imprisonment.
As Microsoft Access takes hold of public control
and quiety returns all assets of our households
to the companies that paid us to buy them.
Resold at a price higher than that of indifference,
we have no choice but to concede
and labor toward death for the mouths that we feed.
Why use paper that's so verifiable
when the logic inside these hamburgular vote-stealers is so undeniable?
"The computer cannot tell a lie," corporation testifies
as testimony is falsified
and democracy bleeds from an open wound that makes hanging chads look like a Disney ride.
CEO quote, and note the arrogance inspired by his royal highness
writing a letter to a group on the right:
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver it's electoral votes to the President."
Foreshadowing confusion that exit polls easily foretold.
As the man in the Diebold voting machine repair van drives to the work site
he's entirely content to listen to Limbaugh
and program the ones that cancel our zeroes completely.
----
(Note: I wrote this right before Wally resigned. Thanks for reading!)
UPDATE: I'm including a few links to information regarding Diebold's hackable voting machines, since I'll be sending this to people that don't frequent the site.
Video of a monkey hacking the vote. You got served.
Computerworld - Hacking voting machines
CEO of Diebold resigns
If you provide me with more links, I'll put them here.