TV on BBC America: "Set up to steal [your vote] again."

As I have said previously, although the Democrats are working to win the presidential election, the Republicans - although they would like to win - really only need to be close enough to steal the election. That is, after all, what they did in 2000 (after juggling votes in Florida, they still needed a Supreme Court coup) and 2004 (particularly vote stealing in Ohio). So here is a BBC America TV show about the Republican plans to steal the 2008 election. How far advanced are these plans? And what can we do to protect what's left of democracy in the U.S.?

Today (Friday), 6PM and 10PM (The show will be repeated 8am Eastern on Sunday.)
BBC-TV: "Set up to steal it again."
Is 2008 already fixed?

A lot of Europeans wonder: Why are Americans so crazy, they keep reelecting this guy?” Well the answer is, we don’t! They keep stealing these elections! And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they’re all set up to steal it again! - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on BBC Television Newsnight.

On Friday at 6pm and 10pm Eastern Time, BBC America will bust open the story of the systematic attack on U.S. voters that could easily cost Barack Obama the White House. (Watch the promo below/if you are seeing this on FaceBook click here)

Stealing the Vote - BACK

If we've learned anything over the last two presidential elections, the Republicans want to win, but are really just trying to keep the election close enough so that they can STEAL IT, if necessary.

There is already evidence that the Republican Party in Michigan - a key state - is planning to exploit the current mortgage crisis to keep Obama voters from being eligible to vote.

In response to this Robert F. Kennedy and Greg A. Palast have created a graphic comic book Take back Your Vote. This is a timely follow up to Kennedy's Rolling Stone article, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" It will be available soon. More info coming.

Why are we so insecure about our country?

On this the birthday of our country I have but one question: Why have we become so insecure? Why are we so afraid of possibly negative truths? Why can't we talk about real issues and not just reject them out of hand? Now I know that the media (in its obsession for political gossip) highlights and treats real questions as sound bites. For example, last week when Gen. Wesley Clark raised a perfectly legitimate question about how McSame's experience in Vietnam (heroic as it might have been) prepares him for the presidency it becomes the meat of political gossip. In any sane world it would have been treated as a legitimate question. The pundits could only focus on how the comment would affect the campaign. Not on whether his Vietnam experience prepares him for the presidency or, in fact, combined with his personality makes him the absolute wrong person for the job.

The same is true of Michelle Obama's saying that her husband's winning the primaries was the first time she was proud of her country. As a Black woman, how much was there for her to be proud of. Why can't we treat it as a legitimate heartfelt comment instead of a negative sound bite? Can we learn anything from the questions raised by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or must we treat him only as a loudmouthed racist?

I can't explain our insecurity - but somehow we have to face it.

A Native American activist we used to know would say that when we paved over the land we lost touch with what was real. Or maybe independent journalist Greg Palast has part of the answer:

Bush is so far away from his refugee loser roots that he just doesn’t get what it is to be American. So he steals the one thing that every American is handed off the boat: a chance. When they take away your Social Security and overtime and tell you sleeper cells are sleeping under your staircase, you don't take a chance, you lose your chance, and the land of opportunity becomes a landscape of fear and suspicion, an armed madhouse.

Whatever the reason for our insecurity, we have to deal with it. Under the present circumstances our political candidates can't be honest with us. And as I have said before, without truth and honesty on the part of our leaders democracy is impossible.

The New York Times and Mr. Kristol

I certainly wouldn't hazard a guess as to why the powers that be at the New York Times chose this moment in U.S. history (on the cusp of the most important election in years) to hire an extreme right-wing ideolog to write a bi-weekly column. Well maybe I would but for the moment I would rather take them at their word.

Ernest Partridge quotes Op-Ed page Editor Andrew Rosenthal's explanation of why they hired William Kristol:

Mr. Kristol ... is a columnist and magazine editor, with views that clearly bother you. I disagree with many of his views, as well as many of the other views expressed on our Op-Ed page. It is not my job to print only those with whom I agree. It is my job to give readers [as] broad a spectrum of views to read as we can manage.

So Mr. Rosenthal opens up the question of how we can broaden the spectrum of views the New York Times can manage. Let's start a canpaign to persuade the paper of record to hire a columnist who would balance Kristol. Well perhaps there is no one not institutionalized who can actually balance Kristol but right off the top of my head I can suggest several very good journalists who would broaden the political spectrum of views available to Times readers (that would be "fit to print"). How about Democracy Now's Amy Goodman? Or perhaps Air America's Rachel Maddow (who often appears on Countdown with Keith Olbermann)? Other possibilities are Media Beat author Norman Solomon or independen journalist Greg Palast. I haven't spoken to any of these people and have no idea if they would even be interested in a Times' column. But they only scratch the surface of "broadening the Times spectrum of views" unless Mr. Rosenthal doesn't really mean it and "broadening the spectrum" is just an excuse to extend the Times spectrum as far to the right as is humanly possible.

But the problem with Kristol isn't that he is on the extreme right, but that he was one of the key neo-con artists who constructed the ideological justification for the Bush Doctrine. Now he is using the column to attack all critics of Bush foreign policy and justify the fantasies of the neo-con led Bush foreign policy. So what does Kristol actually say about our occupation of Iraq and his sworn enemy the Democratic Party.

Obama has been pretty consistent in his opposition to the war. But Bill Clinton is right [I can just feel the pain in Kristol's face as he wrote out those four words]...:Obama's view of the current situation in Iraq is out of touch with reality. In this, however, Obama is at one with Hillary Clinton and the entire leadership of the Democratic Party.

Would that that were true. If it was, I would register as a Democrat tommorow.

What is Kristol's version of reality with which Obama is "out of touch?" The Democrats refuse

to admit real success because that success has been achieved under the leadership of...George W. Bush.

But what is this success the Democrats won't admit?

The Democrats were wrong in their assessments of the surge. Attacks per week on American troops are now down about 60 percent from June. Civilian deaths are down approximately 75 percent from a year ago. December 2007 saw the second lowest number of U.S. troops killed in action since March 2003.

So we've gone from "Mission Accomplished" to measuring "real success" in Iraq in terms of less of our troops being killed.

Kristol has one more piece of evidence for Bush success:

...Now Iraq's Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law - one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground [less U.S. forces being killed] by harping on the failure of the Iraqui government to pass the benchmark legislation. They are being deprived of even that talking point.

Kristol's desperate rush to judgement of the Democrats is unfortunately undermined by the Times "harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation" in the very same issue in which Kristol's column appeared. Here's Solomon Moore's analysis:

...the legislation is at once confusing and controversial, a document riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baaathists than it lets back in, particularly in the crucial security ministries.

I don't think this is actually what Congress had in mind. It's not that Kristol could have seen this article when he wrote his column, but it demonstrates his premature self-justification and rush to attack his enemies.

It would seem to me that New York Times' readers deserve better than William Kristol's self-serving screed, but, if Rosenthal really wants to broaden the spectrum of views available on the op-ed page, there are many excellent ant real journalists avilable.