And Then What Are You Prepared to Do – Thoughts On November 8
If this election is stolen, what are you prepared to do?
If control of our government is usurped by those that have no true belief in constitutional democracy, what are you prepared to do?
Will you be ready, willing and able to join a general strike by Monday, November 13?
We have watched as two national presidential elections were stolen – and the people did nothing.
We have watched as the benefactors of those thefts took control of our government, and then watched as these usurpers steered us into war, coerced us into giving up our rights, and frightened us into submission with the boogie men of ‘terrorists’ and ‘illegals’.
We have watched as the consequences of those elections played out on the television, in our neighborhoods and on our families.
We have watched as the corporate media carefully managed our intake of information through what they refer to as “news” and kept us just agitated enough to keep on watching but not too agitated to stop our reckless consumption of our future.
So now, we face yet another “key” election. The money is flowing as thick and as heavy as oil into our televisions and our daily mail – using tried and true methods of governing through fear and hate of the “other”.
The lies are flying dark and fast – so much so that amidst the clutter, truth is rarely visible unless you can reach out and touch it with your own two hands. There is a chance we may this time beat the margin. There is a chance that even thieves as bold as these will find the gap between victory and garbage numbers too great to span without showing their hands.
But with the amount of power – the amount of money -at stake can we doubt that they will still try to pull one more stuffed ballot out of the hat to keep their power and maintain the tidal gravy train?
We are a democracy. We are America. But neither of these facts grants us immunity from the dark urges of the human soul or from the lessons of history that tell us that in every time and in every nation there are those that believe they are uniquely, exclusively, suited to govern – to rule.
So between now and November 7, we will work with all that we have and all that we are to achieve change through our system. But we will also prepare.
Because in looking forward to November 8, if the election is stolen yet again, if control of our government is usurped by those that truly oppose constitutional democracy, we will not again go silently into that dark night.
Warnings that we must respect the process and let the system work will have shown themselves to be both futile and false. Warnings that refusing to let it go will bring harm greater than allowing it have already proved a betrayal not just of us as a people but of the constitutional democracy preserved for us and handed to us by our mothers and fathers – and their mothers and fathers before them.
If our government is usurped on November 7, 2006, we must be on the streets on November 8. We must be ready this time – so that by Monday November 13, a general strike can be joined by all people still true to our country.
I say this as dispassionately as I can. This is no joke. This is no rant. This is the business of preserving our democracy.
We have been given something precious and unique and we have mishandled it, neglected it and allowed it to be abused by those that value it only as it can be used for their own vile and selfish pursuits. This cannot continue.
On November 8, we must be willing to say ‘this far and no further’ or we risk losing all that we have fought for and all by which we can ever hope to “keep this Nation great – to make this Nation greater in a better world”. (FDR)
So now, before we are surprised and caught flat-footed again. We need to watch for it. Is it one if by sea and two if by land?
We need to talk about it. I have retired “inconceivable” from my vocabulary and am steady in my belief that if they have done what I already know – they may do almost anything when cornered.
And we need to prepare. Because on November 8, we may be asked, “Now What Are You Prepared to Do?”
What will you be willing to do?
What will you be ready to do?
What will you be able to do?
What will you have made plans to do?
On November 8 we must begin to hold the line.
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
Judge William O. Douglas (1898-1980)
There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country – if the people lose their confidence in themselves – and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.- Walt Whitman
“One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence.””
Charles A. Beard, historian (1874-1948)
we should certainly be putting some thought into what we would do if we feel this election has been stolen.
Not to at least anticipate the possibility is to live in a denial mode. As we’ve seen in the past, simply hoping for the best has not produced democratic results.
Pity we don’t have a strong non-violent movement, as in that case we’d already have a plan, not just be discussing, thinking about a plan.
And if the Democratic Party had any balls, we might expect something out of them, alas.
As I read somewhere, if the leaders will not lead, the people must lead the leaders.
Hope folks will spread the word to at least be watching for what happens and what we can do.
It will only take a spark this time – fool me twice etc.
have been so compelling is confirmation of your line “if the leaders will not lead, the people must lead the leaders.” It is like pushing string. A vast majority sincerely want to believe in their leadership. But listening to Taibbi talk about how the repubs have treated the dems in congress leads me to believe that the dems really have the battered wife syndrome at the moment. That handicaps them and us terribly. Taibbi told of how the repubs would have a moment with the full committee and then they would cut the meeting short and convene somewhere with just repubs. They would not tell the dems where they were. Taibbi related how Charles Rangle literally walked the halls knocking on doors. He finally found the room, but the repubs hid behind the door acting like children being found doing something awful. They they rushed out the door and convened somewhere else in their exclusive little club! I think if Taibbi’s story was set on the front page, no repub would be elected this fall. No one would cast a vote for any of them. But the MSM is silent. Only the blogs and a few radio stories resonate with anything remotely anti establishment. (I heard Taibbi’s interview on Democracy Now and his report is in the Rolling Stones Mag. We are somehow forced to the very edges to find anything remotely resembling truth!
Man of the House, by Tip O’Neill
Paraphrase: Although Congress is supposed to lead, occassionally Congress has to be led. (That one really stuck out in my mind.)
Will this be the point at which revolution becomes to only viable option available…one if by land, two if by sea…how many stolen elections are enough?
Are we at (or over) the edge. I believe this election may give us that answer.
If we have already passed over – the only viable option? No.
There exists in this fight a continuum of actions, a menu of tools, from which we have been using only the smallest and least potent.
We have been whispering when we should have been commanding. In saying so, I do not mean shouting or screaming. I mean the same calm and authoritative tone you need to get your schnauzer off the couch – carrying not only the right but the power of command.
For years now, the polite whispered voice of the American people has been smothered by the few loud and insistent voices with enough money and power to amplify their demands to positions of preference.
There is still much to do and that can be done to pursue the revolution spoken of by RFK 40 years ago.
“Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression,
do not make revolutions. It is when expectation
replaces submission, when despair is touched with the
awareness of possibility, that the forces of human
desire and the passion for justice are unloosed.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Berkeley, 10-22-1966
“A revolution is coming–a revolution which will be
peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we
care enough; successful if we are fourtunate enough–
But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or
not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its
inevitability.”
Robert F. Kennedy, US Senate, 5-9-1966
The levy has been breeched…many times, and not by just this administration BTW. They are only the latest to have blatantly, and arrogantly abrogated the rule of law and dared the opposition…[Democrats, Ha!]… to do something about it. I have personally been involved in politics, and sadly watched this scenario play itself out, for over 40 years. You may spout all the pleas and call to alternative action that you wish, but, if, as the result of unknown circumstances, this election goes south, ie: is not a major sea change in control of congress, it’s over. The Great Experiment will be a footnote in history, a nation founded on high ideals and hijacked by complancy, hubris and misinformation, merely acting out it’s final throes upon a stage set by it’s own hubris…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…and we know how Macbeth turned out.
The powers that be paid attention to the prescient writings of Marshall McLuhan…The medium is the message…and have systematically applied them for the past 50 + years. Without a viable media, or at a minimum an extremely wide read alternative media…blogs?… the soft solutions have been proven ineffective.
I would also posit that John Stuart Mills’ writings, which many Libertarians and Conservatives are fond of referencing, presage the situation we now find ourselves in:
I know exactly what I am prepared to do…do you?
Gotta go
Later
Excellent questions ITW.
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
– George Bernard Shaw
Right now I’m committed to helping Grandma M get up the Capitol steps so we can camp out in the halls of Congress.
Seriously,I think that many of us will show up in DC or at our state capitols to protest on the 8th. At least I’m confident a good number of us here at BT will. The problem is organizing a nationwide protest. Big DC protests don’t get the coverage they deserve because they’re too localized and easily dismissed. If there were mass protests all over the country simultaneously it would draw a lot more media attention. Even smaller protests uniformly spread would be noticeable. But the kind of commitment that’s needed, like the election protests in Mexico City that have lasted for months, or the ones in the Ukraine in 2004,…it’s hard to see that happening here. And as far as I know none of the larger peace and antiwar groups are organizing anything. I guess it’s up to each of us to tell as many as possible and make sure we show up ourselves.
I’m pessemistic though. I’ll bet if I just started randomly asking people on the street what they were prepared to do in the event this election was stolen I would be looked at like I was an alien from another planet. Or a conspiracy theorist. The vast majority of people probably sense that’s something’s not quite right, but they just aren’t ready to make that leap.
What are you prepared to do? And how will we get the numbers we need?
We will not be able to do anything unless we prepare. At the very least, what I would like to have widely dispersed is a basic network of people and organizations that would be at least likely to respond and get the word out to their members of any potential action.
How will we get the numbers of people? There are a world of federal, state and local campaigns that have a large universe of email and phone lists. The same activists that belong to the likely organizations are also staffing and volunteering for these campaigns.
I still believe that there are enough ordinary people from all walks of life to make an extraordinary showing that cannot be ignored. It may not start that way on the 8th, or the 9th but we can start it there and keep on building.
The real key is to be able to say when (if) we go into action. What is the trigger, the threshold. I am afraid that is something we will only be able to tell on the 7th, 8th or 9th.
But collecting the urls of the key vote watching organizations would be a start. Monitoring them throughout election day and the days immediately following would be the next step. Then pulling together the highlights of what we know and getting that information out.
I don’t not know what it will take, or what we can do if we hear quickly that the election was stolen, but we need to take steps to be ready.
Don’t know if you all follow TruthOut, but this is from a current posting, and the list is by Mark Crispin Miller, professor at NYU.
I am prepared.
Peepared to do exactly the same thing that I have been doing in a progressively stronger and stronger manner ever since the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X.
This has been a mean 50 years. The forces of…and let’s not pull punches here, OK?…the literal forces of evil have taken over this country.
And I have said, in every way available to me short of self-destruction
“Get thee behind me.”
We CANNOT beat this system in the streets, although there will most certainly be some sort of armed resistance arise should a real, identifiable coup occur.
But we CAN beat it by denying it the very sustenance upon which it feeds.
Our work, our money and our attention.
If the Ratpubs succeed in remaining in power…DENY THEM YOUR COOPERATION ON ANY BUT THE MOST BASIC, NEED-TO-SURVIVE LEVELS.
If the DemRats do manage to take over and (inevitably, in my own view) try to continue the same sleight of mind game under different cover…DENY THEM YOUR COOPERATION ON ANY BUT THE MOST BASIC, NEED-TO-SURVIVE LEVELS.
General strike?
Ain’t gonna happen.
Not hard enough, for SURE.
No left party structure to organize it.
No left media structure to encourage it.
This ain’t Italy or France, y’know.
It’s Mediamerica.
CORPORATE Mediamerica.
It is the corps against which a general strike would be called.
That would be bad for business. REALLY bad, so you would not hear much positive about it on ANY network.
Including MSNBC.
Bet on it.
General strikes are unamerican and all, don’tcha know.
But if the brains of this country…and that’s who is populating these blogs, for better or for worse, the brains of this country…if the brains of this country stepped away from the corporate vehicle in every way that they possibly could, the country itself would literally fail within 5 years.
Reject the media. Turn the shit off, off, OFF!!!
Reject the money machine. The usury machine. The corporate machine. The educational machine. The hype machine. The healthcare machine. In every way possible.
If we (WHOEVER the hell “we” are…the ones who have realized just what is going down here, for starters, who have spent relatively long periods of time trying to figure out just what the fuck to do about it, have generally failed, have generally shrugged our shoulders and said “Well, I guess that’s just the way the world is.”)…if WE managed to deny the Great Corp Machine 10% or 15% or 20% or 80% of the fruits of our labors, it would fold like the house of cards it really is.
WE have been the glue holding it together. In fact. we have been the CARDS THEMSELVES.
Deal yourselves out.
make revolution on a personal scale.
Don’t be afraid.
You be bettah off.
Come join me outside.
It’s NICE out here.
Come play, and let all the drudges worry themselves into failure.
Bye now.
Gotta go work outside the system.
40+ years and counting.
STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE, WITH YOUR BRAINS IN THE AIR!!!
Yup.
Like that.
Now, don’t you feel…better?
Later…
AG
I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
I can’t help, I am Canadian, and I hope deeply that it won’t come to it, but Americans must be ready to demand justice if necessary.
I’ll be here for any moral support I can offer though (including rants or snark if need be).
This should have been written months ago, after RFK Jr’s article re: the 2004 Election being stolen came out, not the week before the mid-terms.
The problem is we (including yours truly) keep waiting for leaders to lead.
There are leaders of advocacy groups around the nation and while I don’t routinely browse their websites, I have heard nothing about any kind of preparation.
Yes, it should have been written long ago. It should have been done in 2000. It should have been done in 2004. It should have been a lesson learned by us after our elected (or not) leaders sat on their hands and for the most part did nothing to protect our democracy because they feared what it would do to their careers.
It should have been a lesson we learned after all of the 527s and all of the other advocacy groups failed to mobilize after 2000 and 2004.
But they did not and we did not so here we are.
We can sit and watch and despair if another chunk of our democracy is chopped up and whisked away, or we can say NO.
We can wait no longer. No one else is coming. We either do this or it will not be done.
We can say to everyone who will listen that we can not let this continue.
We can hold the line. We must hold the line.
What we lose if we fail…..is possible to lose and yet unthinkable in its consequences for not just us here but others that gave us this from the past and still others that look to us for the future.
We must hold the line. We will hold the line.
So has this writer.
In addition, the election WILL be stolen, as in 2005, Diebold replaced the MOTHERBOARDS in the machines that were used in Maryland in 2004 and this one is just coming out now.
One motherboard, I can see, but all? Doesn’t fly–ex-husband worked on computer hardware, and even though I’m not a computer geek, I’m not stupid. Diebold claims no votes were lost–RIGHT! And if it happenned once, it wouldn’t suprise me in the least if it happenned before!
One thing that jumped out at me right away is that you did not mention a thing about disability rights. Probably because I have a disability and am on SSD/I and Medicare D(isaster) and am constantly been treated as a second class citizen. I couldn’t even get a ride to a picnic when my car was not driveable, even though some who post here also live in the same area as I do and drove past a freeway exit 1/2 a mile away from where I live to get to where it was being held.
So, what am I going to do? The same thing that everyone did when I was researching and writing about Medicare D(isaster), the and repeatedly requesting some assitance in bringing this to the public’s attention (writing LTE’s or attending a Fix Part D hearing). NOT A DAMN THING!
Also relapsed from pneumonia that I had last winter and am still not over it. And if I have not completely recovered, I am NOT voting. I refuse to risk my health to go outside in this crappy weather, and vote for third party candidates (they are the only ones that even say what needs to be said) as opposed to the DINO’s that are running. Why am I online so late? The prescription that I was taking has me so screwed up and I am always tired, I am always falling asleep at odd times, and I don’t even know what day it is.
Democracy has already died. Why get all worked up and postpone the inevitable, only to be a candidate’s ATM at his/her convienience? (Suprised they don’t take food stamps, actually.)
Hell, I’ve made it thru one recession and traumatic brain injury rehab and too many other things to list. I can make it through another, if I recover from this relapse. Beat the odds more than once in my life. Do I care about its effect on anyone else? Again, about as much as others care about Medicare D and its effect on me and others.
The scare tactics being used to elect DINO’s are an insult, as are the constant guilt trips.
I stand up for what I say and have done a hell of a lot more than many realize or think I’m capable of.
Talk is cheap. Actions are not. I’ve proved myself.
Democracy is not dead. Your faith in its potential may be, but it is not dead.
I do not doubt your passion or your sacrifices.
I ask that you do not give in to despair.
Those that created this democracy faced much greater odds to make it than we do to keep it.
The question is whether we will give in before the fight is over.
Think about people with disabilities, living on SSD/I and Food Stamps, like myself, and others who are in worse situations than I am in.
Think of the odds that they face every day in a “democracy” that denies them the equal rights to employment, health care and other basic needs.
Think about how many times the needs of many with disabilities are put off until the next election or as a method of “cutting costs”.
Treat me as if I am really a valued person, whose thoughts and opinions matter. I heard more than enough repetitive attempts at motivation when I was in traumatic brain injury rehab, thank you very much.
Read allEVERYTHNG what have written, documented and posted.
And if that is not enough, there is also my Congressional testimony (submitted online) that spells everything out. (I still have not been able to find a link to it.) Post your email, and I will gladly send a copy to you. (Actually checked yesterday to see if it was listed, as I wanted to.)
Now, what are you prepared to do?
I offered no comprehensive laundry list of wrongs perpetrated by either or both parties, so leaving one or another off is no slight or oversight.
Your thoughts and opinions matter, but you don’t need me to say that. I just don’t agree with these, because I am not convinced that doing nothing is a productive strategy.
It is never all or nothing, never the “last chance” or the “final victory”, so people give what they can when they can. The only way guilt or fear moves you is if you decide to let it.
Choose your path and be content, but if I decide to sit out for spell, I don’t discourage those that still have it in them to persist in trying – especialy if they are working to make my life and my world better.
Political despair is as destructive as personal despair. It builds nothing and comforts no one.
My health is obviously not at all important, as you are not at all concerned w/anyone but yourself, as your words demonstrated your insistence that people with other things in their life that take priority, drop everything to make your life and your world better, and the hell with their needs.
Self-interest is your sole motivation, as you did not even bother to read about the most important issues that effect people with disabilities, as I linked to specifics, that you can’t be bothered with. Ever think that you might learn something?
No, instead you use fear and guilt, as you are repeatedly demanding that I risk my chance of recovering from this relapse. And as I said earlier, I had enough of the motivational/hynotic technices in traumatic brain injury rehab, but, do you show any concern or understanding about that or the pneumonia relapse? NONE!
In answer to your hypnotic question, I repeat,
STFU and deal with it.
I’ve been storing this pile of links just for this sort of situation. Let’s just say I’ve had a hunch…
The Trillian IM client provides support for encrypted Instant Messages. Both people have to be using Trillian and have checked the approprate boxes in set up…
Trillian home page
http://www.trillian.cc/
Trillian forum instructions on Secure IM
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=530866
Invisible IRC…
About the Invisible IRC Project
“The Invisible IRC Project (IIP) was originally created so that people interested in facilitating privacy and free speech could work to these ends in an equally secure and anonymous environment. It has now become a haven for anyone seeking anonymous, encrypted Internet Relay Chat. The project’s inspiration arose primarily from a shared interest in the Freenet Project and a desire to provide the real-time communications capabilities that Freenet could not….”
http://www.invisiblenet.net/iip/
Distributed anonymous data storage…
“The Free Haven Project aims to deploy a system for distributed, anonymous, persistent data storage which is robust against attempts by powerful adversaries to find and destroy any stored data. This model of decentralized system has been classified as peer-to-peer by recent popular media.
Main research goals of the Free Haven Project:
* Anonymity: We try to meet this goal for all parties: the publishers that insert documents, the readers that retrieve documents, and the servers that store documents. We are in the process of designing and developing a free, low-latency, two-way mixnet for forward-anonymous communication.
* Accountability: We consider methods for achieving accountability without sacrificing anonymity. In particular, we’re researching reputation and micropayment schemes, which allow us to limit the damage done by servers which misbehave.
* Persistence: The publisher of a document — not the servers holding the document — determines its lifetime.
* Flexibility: The system functions smoothly as peers dynamically join or leave….”
http://www.freehaven.net/
Anonymous file sharing…
“MUTE File Sharing is a peer-to-peer network that provides easy search-and-download functionality while also protecting your privacy….”
http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/
And this is a framework for a bunch of the above type of stuff that I’ve heard about that’s supposed to be great, but the discussion about it bluntly goes over my head at Warp 9. If you can figure Free Pastry out out, it’s supposed to be cutting edge…
“Pastry is a generic, scalable and efficient substrate for peer-to-peer applications. Pastry nodes form a decentralized, self-organizing and fault-tolerant overlay network within the Internet. Pastry provides efficient request routing, deterministic object location, and load balancing in an application-independent manner. Furthermore, Pastry provides mechanisms that support and facilitate application-specific object replication, caching, and fault recovery….”
http://freepastry.org/
All I ask is someone figures it out, please explain it to me in English 🙂
The best research source I know on anonymous communications…
Anonymity bibliography
http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html
Another resource for anonymous communications…
http://gnunet.org/links.php3
Trying to attempt to blog completely anonymously is pretty much a hopeless proposition. I know all the supposedly anonymous surfing utilities there are out there. However, who knows who actually runs these supposedly free public proxies out there?
Instead, you can put your blog up outside the US where EU digital privacy laws apply. Between EU digital privacy laws, and a history of less than ideal diplomatic relations between the US and Ireland, as long as there is no discussion of anything that falls outside the boundaries of non-violent political action, it would take years of direct US pressure to shut down a blog hosted there. The Irish like being told what to do by Americans slightly more than they like to be told what to do by the English.
http://www.blogsome.com/
Just for the hell of it, I sent a wtf? email re: freepastry.org to one a local geek. Got a two word reply: “Fuckin’ cool.” (We know that I won’t be hearing anything about it for awhile.)
As to your explanation re: the Irish, I am now wondering if I could have a tiny bit of Irish in me, as I don’t like being told what to do either!
“When the polls close, we propose that Democrats across the country gather outside their County Election Office for a candlelight vigil to Count Every Vote, all wearing the same color: Blue.
Imagine a Blue Revolution, every bit as joyous and historic as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution Lebanon, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the other democratic revolutions of recent years – right here in the United States of America.
Help us organize a vigil in your county – just create a new Forum Topic coded “Blue Revolution,” select “County,” post the location of your County Election Office, and spread the word to your friends. More details below…
Should we start a Blue Revolution across the USA on Election Night to stop Republicans from stealing Election 2006?
When the polls close, we propose that Democrats across the country gather outside their County Election Office for a candlelight vigil to Count Every Vote, all wearing the same color: Blue.
Imagine a Blue Revolution, every bit as joyous and historic as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution Lebanon, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the other democratic revolutions of recent years – right here in the United States of America….”
Much more at…
http://democrats.com/bluerevolution