Way to go, Ohio
This month's article in Harper's (summarized here) about the 2004 election antics in Ohio is just a bit more than a cataloging of previously-known and reported (though, to my knowledge, not all in one place) suspected voting irregularities in the state. The article bring some ideas to the surface again:
1. Why did the media give such a weak smackdown (one example) to the "conspiracy theorists" who thought that the vote may not have been legit last November in Ohio? It's not like the people who were driven to apoplexy by Bush's reelection couldn't deal with yet another dose of bad news. I guess the conspiracy theorists didn't do a good enough job pressing their case. Plus, the story just didn't have any legs; it lived and died in the poor urban areas of the state, and of the country. You could probably conduct open-air nuclear tests in parts of inner cities, like Cleveland, and it would spark little more than rumor.
2. How would we deal with a stolen election? Could we deal with it? JFK probably stole the election in 1960, when we assume that corruption, driven by the urban political machines, was rife in American civics. People obviously moved on, no pun intended. But I don't think that Americans would ever want to face the notion that the most basic form of political expression could be taken away by cheaters. That would be tantamount to admitting that we have a faulty political system, one that is not immune to the human weaknesses that have plagued each and every preceding model, or so we're conditioned to think.
These aren't original ideas or thoughts, but we have to understand that there are people out there who don't want some votes to count, whether we're voting for the puffed-up buffoon who likes to take afternoon naps and chop wood or for the blow-dried wart who misses Senate votes and mispronounces the names of football stadiums. For me, the good news is that I won either way. But the bad news is that I lost either way.
Oh, well, at least Pat Sajak still has his sense of humor. Fucker...
1. Why did the media give such a weak smackdown (one example) to the "conspiracy theorists" who thought that the vote may not have been legit last November in Ohio? It's not like the people who were driven to apoplexy by Bush's reelection couldn't deal with yet another dose of bad news. I guess the conspiracy theorists didn't do a good enough job pressing their case. Plus, the story just didn't have any legs; it lived and died in the poor urban areas of the state, and of the country. You could probably conduct open-air nuclear tests in parts of inner cities, like Cleveland, and it would spark little more than rumor.
2. How would we deal with a stolen election? Could we deal with it? JFK probably stole the election in 1960, when we assume that corruption, driven by the urban political machines, was rife in American civics. People obviously moved on, no pun intended. But I don't think that Americans would ever want to face the notion that the most basic form of political expression could be taken away by cheaters. That would be tantamount to admitting that we have a faulty political system, one that is not immune to the human weaknesses that have plagued each and every preceding model, or so we're conditioned to think.
These aren't original ideas or thoughts, but we have to understand that there are people out there who don't want some votes to count, whether we're voting for the puffed-up buffoon who likes to take afternoon naps and chop wood or for the blow-dried wart who misses Senate votes and mispronounces the names of football stadiums. For me, the good news is that I won either way. But the bad news is that I lost either way.
Oh, well, at least Pat Sajak still has his sense of humor. Fucker...
posted by Bloggalicious at 23:13
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