Haven’t Had My Tin Foil Hat Out Since the Good Ol’ Days of 2000…

Posted by Freddie on June 1, 2006 under Uncategorized |

Mary’s favorite topic — election fraud on a massive scale — has returned to the table for discussion. But it’s not on somebody’s 18-month-old raving blog post. It’s in Rolling Stone. And it’s not by David Icke or Michael Moore (although he does prominently link to it). It’s by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Granted, I suspect Mr. Kennedy might be somewhat of a partisan, but that does not diminish significantly the troubling revelations of his heavily sourced piece of investigative journalism. I’m having a hard time finding a single quote to pull.

Considering how contentious the last two national elections have been (though less controversy has been raised at a mainstream level (till now?) regarding 2004), it’s not exactly comforting that our local governance is becoming starkly partisan. NashvillePost.com reported in February that Republicans are very nearly in control of not only the State Election Commission, but also every single county election commission in Tennessee.

Frankly, even with the William Jefferson’s of the world, the GOP has not demonstrated an ethical superiority in its conduct of affairs in the Bush era (I’m thinking here of Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Scooter Libby, Bob Ney, Tom Noe, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, each the tip of an iceberg of corruption). Granted, many of the big names in recent Republican corruption have been implicated in fundraising scandals (or outright bribery). But just a few weeks ago, a Senate inquiry involving direct election tampering in New Hampshire blew a bit wider open when it was revealed that the now-convicted James Tobin had made dozens of calls to the White House on the day before Election Day through the day after.

We can keep trundling down the slippery slope of apathy about the quality of our campaigns and elections in this American democracy until there’s not much of it left, or we can work together on improving the state of democracy. If you’re frustrated by a two-party system come election time, you can’t imagine how much worse a one-party system would be. There are a number of great (non-partisan) organizations working on improvements to our democratic process and protections for us as citizens. We keep a handy list right on the Liberadio front page. Please consider a donation or volunteerism. And please convince a friend or two to care.

Hat tip (for the Rolling Stone piece): Tyler Hall.

Mary said,

I ripped my tin-foil hat off in January ‘05 once I became convinced that the ‘04 election was stolen. I’m not going to position myself as “crazy” just because I believe there was massive systematic voter fraud.

All the info in Kennedy’s Rolling Stone article has been available for years. It’s nice that he’s gathered it all in one place, though, as it makes a handy reference tool to be used to fight back against those who want to paint those who know as the “loony left.”

Freddie notes that Kennedy might be a partisan but this issue should be extraordinarily troublesome for all of us, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. This has got to be fixed.