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Even as they inflame public dread over allegedly inevitable terrorist attacks, and even as their hastily cobbled-together puppet regime in Iraq is being swamped by a scarlet tide of violent reaction, it is becoming clearer by the day that the enemy most feared by the Bush administration -- not to mention the shadowy puppeteers who control it -- is the American voter.
It makes a demented kind of sense when you think about it. The new Washington conservative establishment -- whose decades-long conspiracy against liberal democracy crossed the Rubicon with the theft of the White House in 2000 -- cares only about one thing: asserting supreme, unrivaled and unaccountable control over the most powerful state apparatus in the history of history itself.
There is nothing North Korea can do to hinder the half-hidden agendas of the Powers That Be. The coven of Ayatollahs who rule Iran are similarly impotent. And if there was some kind of radar device capable of tracking threats to their grip on power, rebel cleric Morqtada al-Sadr and the rapidly-expanding Iraqi resistance movement wouldn't even register as a blip.
Even if the ludicrous scenario conceived by the ridiculous David Frum for Preznit Dubya's 2002, "Axis of Evil" State of the Union address came to pass, and these disparate fringe-dwellers somehow combined forces, they would pose no threat to this administration and its world historic mission. In fact, BushCo would most likely welcome such a development. It is now painfully obvious that Osama bin Laden is the best friend the conservative movement ever had.
Consider the official reaction to the threats mentioned so far. When the blithering Muppet dictator Kim Jong-il recently began squawking and flapping his wings, the Bushies announced plans to reduce conventional forces in the region. The Middle East is boiling over, and the Pentagon is scrambling to deploy theoretical and astronomically expensive anti-missile technology.
At home, the threat posed by wide-open ports, borders and coastlines -- through which terrorists could easily sneak all manner of WMD -- is all but ignored. Worse yet, this administration continues to conduct foreign policy in a way that is guaranteed to motivate -- and, to a growing segment of the global population, legitimize -- terror tactics of last resort.
Now, compare their lackadaisical, half-assed approach to the so-called War on Terror with their focused, full-spectrum assault on American voters, the people who pose the single greatest threat to their Brave New World Order at both the individual and movement levels.
Today as in 2000, the swing-state of Florida is being targeted with especially egregious Republican tactics. The list of the Bush Machine's crimes against democracy in Florida since brother Jeb took office there could fill volumes, but for the purposes of this rant, a quick overview of the most recent developments will suffice:
Jeb Bush's strenuous efforts to block media scrutiny of his state's infamous, privately compiled voter blacklist (or Black Voter List, as it turns out) is a case in point. When CNN finally got their hands on a copy, they made a startling discovery. Among the 48,000 "felons" slated to be purged from the electoral rolls this year, there were 22,000 Blacks and only 61 Latinos. I probably don't need to tell you that the ratio of Black to Latino felons in Florida is nowhere near two thousand to six. And for an explanation as to why Jeb might want to exempt Latino felons from the disenfranchisement he seems all too eager to visit on Blacks, one need only remember that Florida's substantial Cuban population mostly votes Republican. Caught red-handed, Jeb lamely blamed this clear-cut evidence of attempted election fraud on "computer error." Only in Jeb Bush's Florida could you find a computer that hates Black people.
Of course, the best way to keep prying eyes away from the kind of inconvenient evidence is to destroy that evidence. And when you're dealing with a technology as severely compromised and fraud-prone as touch-screen voting, destroying evidence is as easy as flipping a switch. That's what happened in Miami-Dade recently, where all the electronic records from the 2002 gubernatorial primary were lost without a trace in a "computer system crash." See the pattern developing here? The loss of this information was only discovered when a citizen's group demanded to review audit data from that election. Could this information have held evidence of fraud? Thanks to the miracle of inauditable electronic voting, we don't have to worry about it.
Everybody hates ex-felons, right? Of course they do. That's why Jeb could erect even more electoral roadblocks in the path of ex-felons petitioning for their right to vote. he knew his sleazy move would go unnoticed. Nobody hates ex-felons more than the state of Florida… except maybe the five other states that deny ex-felons the vote.
Everybody loves immigrants, right? Of course they do. That's why Jeb's GOP sent operatives to naturalization ceremonies -- at the swearing in of new citizens -- with armloads of voter registration forms. There was one tiny problem, however. The place on the form where you're asked to choose Democrat, Republican or Independent was already filled out. I won't insult your intelligence by telling you which party was the beneficiary of this "gaffe," which Jeb has so far refrained from blaming on a computer.
Oops! That can't be right! Even as Jeb was going out of his way to reassure Florida voters that their electronic voting system was perfectly safe, the Florida GOP was sending out flyers urging Republicans to "make sure your vote counts, order your absentee ballot today." The flyers, featuring Jeb's signature and two full-color pictures of Preznit Dubya, also warned that "the liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount." Folks, this is like killing your parents, then pleading for mercy because you were recently orphaned.
As long as we're on the subject of absentee ballots, check out the story about ballots mailed to voters with obsolete and vaguely threatening instructions. Twenty-two thousand Palm Beach County voters were recently sent absentee ballots telling them that their signatures must be "witnessed" -- whatever that means -- or else their votes would be thrown in the trash. The person responsible for this cockup is none other than Florida elections supervisor Theresa LePore, who approved the infamous "butterfly ballot" that caused thousands of Jewish Floridians to cast their vote for Pat Buchanan in 2000. The fact that this wretched, democracy-subverting cow is allowed anywhere near the electoral process stinks like a septic tank full of corpses.
I can't think of a better way to cap off our quickie tour of the Sunshine State than by shining a little light on the disturbing behavior being engaged in by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. In a recent article for the New York Times, Bob Herbert reports that heat-packing plainclothes officers have been going door to door in Black neighborhoods, entering dozens of elderly voters' homes and intimidating/interrogating them as part of an investigation into claims of voter fraud. Never let it be said that fascists have no sense of irony.
Anyhoo, the filthy pi- I mean the officers in question have so far refused to provide any details about these alleged crimes, except to say that they should be wrapping up their investigation by, oh… let's say mid-November. Net result so far: "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."
Florida isn't the only state where the Republicans are using questionable means to ensure victory in the coming elections. In Ohio, some are claiming that a Florida-style voter purge is underway. In Hamilton County, ex-felons are being provided "misleading and erroneous" information by the state, so that many of them are now unaware that they are eligible to re-register to vote. Others seeking to be re-enfranchised are being made to jump through legal hoops not required by Ohio law. And in Hamilton County -- one of the most critical counties to Preznit Dubya's election efforts in the state -- there has been a dramatic and unexplained decrease in the voter rolls, dropping from over 585,000 in 2000 down to 519,048 today.
There are other stories. Stories like the one about Cheney campaign officials insisting on being told the "race" of Arizona Daily Star journalist Mamta Popat before allowing her to photograph a rally. The Star's managing editor, Terri Hayt, says that this is the first time he's been asked to divulge a journalist's race in over a quarter century on the job, adding: "It was such an outrageous request, I was personally insulted." Popat is of Indian heritage, in case you're curious.
These rallies, by the way, are pretty incredible in and of themselves. Even for a paranoid and pessimistic think-the-worst-of-them cynic such as yours truly, some of the stories emerging from recent Republican gatherings are difficult to believe. People being forced to sign an oath that they will vote Republican before being allowed to attend events for which they had purchased tickets. People having their tickets ripped up for being insufficiently worshipful of the Preznit, then being shoved to the ground and arrested on a whim for protesting this destruction of their property and fundamental civil rights. Shambling, cadaverous Bush zombies physically assaulting protestors without any sense of shame or self-consciousness. National Guardsman Tim Walz, recently returned from overseas, being subjected to aggressive interrogation by campaign workers because one of the teens he was escorting to a Bush rally had (GASP!) a John Kerry sticker in his wallet. After playing the military card, Walz was allowed to attend the rally, but the kids had to wait on the bus.
This is getting way too long, and I haven't even touched on the LRAD "crowd suppression" weapons being deployed at the Republican National Convention in New York. Basically they're giant megaphones bolted on top of Humvees, and they were originally designed for such military tasks as "fending off insurgents, dispersing crowds, flushing out buildings and telling people not to come any closer." These devices are capable of blasting a directed, head-splitting, 150db shriek guaranteed to send folks running for cover.
Developed by the Powers That Be using taxpayer funds, the LRAD and other Weapons of Mass Discomfort are now being turned against the American people.
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