Things Consumed

 

The Other Turkey Day

Yes, election day, when we get to play democracy by choosing between two corporate-owned turkeys. Luckily, we also get to vote for some significant state and local elections.

No, I couldn't resist the turkey comment. Yes, you really should get out and vote.

Turkeys and any November feast-oriented associations you may have aside, election day will likely be more stomach-clenching than anything else. Especially because the election is likely to showcase more heinously undemocratic fraud designed to disenfranchise voters, especially non-white voters.

Even if I were completely white, which I'm not, I can't believe that a democratic nation would tolerate what happened in Florida to black voters in 2000, and what is poised to happen again in a more widespread fashion.

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Most people I know don't have the greatest faith in the election procedures currently in place. For the best compilation I've seen of voting machine disasters, read Sum of a Glitch: Evidence shows that machines might be the real swing voters this November, by Bev Harris (inthesetimes.com, 08/24/04). Harris' article is full of harrowing examples of voting machines changing the results of elections in which they were used, such as these:

# In the 2002 general election, a computer miscount overturned the House District 11 result in Wayne County, North Carolina. Incorrect programming caused machines to skip several thousand party-line votes, both Republican and Democratic. Fixing the error turned up 5,500 more votes and reversed the election for state representative.

# This crushing defeat never happened: Voting machines failed to tally ?yes? votes on the 2002 school bond issue in Gretna, Nebraska. This error gave the false impression that the measure had failed miserably, but it actually passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Responsibility for the errors was attributed to ES&S, the Omaha company that had provided the ballots and the machines.
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# An Orange County, California, election computer made a 100 percent error during the April 1998 school bond referendum. The Registrar of Voters Office initially announced that the bond issue had lost by a wide margin; in fact, it was supported by a majority of the ballots cast. The error was attributed to a programmer?s reversing the ?yes? and ?no? answers in the software used to count the votes.

Yes, there's a lot more. Yes, it is interesting that you haven't been hearing about these incidents in the mainstream press. Go read it.

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By the middle of this week's fabulous episode of the radio program This American Life, which was devoted to undecided voters and is titled "Swing Set," my hair was already standing on end. An undecided, well-educated, Bush-loathing Republican kept flying back to Bush on the flimsiest of whims based on the propagandistic ads on TV. (At one point, he asks why the Bush ads keep saying things about Kerry if they're not true. And I wondered where he thinks he's living. They are ADS. They are as accurate as those advertising light beer, and worthy of similar consideration.) But then they reached their special report on voter fraud (Real audio file), and my hair almost fell out.

Listen to it. Listen to it now.

I had been mystified by general radio reports on voter fraud. For some reason, when the Dems have pointed out efforts by the Republican Party in Florida, with the help and knowledge of its elected governor, to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters by falsely labeling them as felons, the Reps have come back with a recorded radio confession of some old Democrat guy who registered to vote 35 times. And the media reporters have been treating these crimes as if they are equal.

This audio report explores that issue in more detail. I HIGHLY recommend the entire program. It's extremely informative.

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By allowing people to speak for themselves, the program manages to illustrate that Americans are often irrational actors in their decision making. They want something to be true, and so they pretend it is with sincerity, leaving those of us in 'the reality based community' to marvel at their delusion. This allows all sorts of odd behavior, from preachers in wild sex scandals, to soldiers insisting that women and children they bombed were complicit in distant violent political crime, to anti-abortion protesters getting abortions at the same clinics they picket (they consider their own situation to be 'special' and 'different'), to people who clearly are self-serving and wicked being defended and prayed for by people who are very nice.

And it all seems like such a shame, because we'll never be able to make the world better if we're not acknowledging the world that we're actually in.

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Denial of reality has its uses. Denial can be useful in personal politics, when actively applied. You never hear Americans bragging about the high rates of child poverty, the high number of working poor, or the vast numbers of uninsured. Because no one wants to acknowledge responsibility within the 'richest nation on earth' for caring for its people. If you say everything is fine, than you don't need to act - nothing needs to be done. I hear people all the time saying everything is fine. Which means they are preventing the situation from improving. If something isn't broken, it can't be fixed. People trying to help improve care for children can't get far when the official word is that kids are all fine.

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This denial also applies to social politics. I know a few Republicans. They have friends who are gay and wish to marry, but feel no shame at supporting a party that wishes to deny them even domestic partnership rights. They have friends who have had much needed abortions, yet feel fine supporting a party that would outlaw them. (This especially riles me, as that someone dear to me would have hemorrhaged to death without an abortion. Yet many who oppose abortion happily approve surgery for vain things, like getting fat liposuctioned off or getting a chest enhancement, because that surgery is acceptable within their view of religion. Which suggests some very poor values.) They don't make enough to benefit from tax cuts for the wealthy, but continue to support a party that benefits those richer than their own friends and family. And, awkwardly, they're supporting a party that is attempting to disenfranchise people of my own ethnic background in a variety of states.

Yet it would be awkward to have an honest discussion on the topic.

R: So, it's a shame my party is screwing over your people this month, isn't it? Don't worry, we're not being racist -- we just figure you won't fight back.
Me: Gee, thanks for your honesty.
R: What should I wear to our girlfriends' wedding? Oh, wait, my party will outlaw legal recognition of their relationship. Does that mean I shouldn't bring a gift?
Me: [falls down and pretends to be unconscious, hoping R will leave.]

The best fantasy for this particular situation is to claim to be a 'fiscal conservative,' and to be voting for candidates solely based on nonexistent fiscal policies which will never manifest. That way you can pretend the well being of you immediate friends and large groups of other people isn't really working into your personal calculation. It also helps not to discuss politics with the friends you are screwing over. But unless we're all participating in the denial, it doesn't really work.

I'm not a Democrat, but it seems the list of crimes by Democrats against others generally involve putting corporate priorities ahead of the nation's good, and they seem to do that best in bipartisan efforts. Democrats have never tried to deny anyone I know life saving surgery or prevent anyone I know from having a legally recognized relationship. So my criticisms have more to do with mismanagement and corporate coziness than the social persecution I perceive with their opponents.

If Catholics can denounce child abuse in their institution without denouncing the religion itself, surely partisans can denounce the shameful "values" of their parties when it matters? I suppose that remains to be seen...
posted by Arlene (Beth)11:00 AM