-Caveat Lector-
RadTimes # 93 November, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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Contents:
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--Your Stolen Vote: The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle
--Arrogance Of TV Networks: Compounding A National Crisis
--The honorable course in Florida
--The world mocks as America squirms
Linked stories:
*U.N. Film Depicts World Flooded with Small Arms
*Clinton Concerned about Ecstasy Imports
*Bush tells Gore "Give up"
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Begin stories:
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Your Stolen Vote: The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle
<http://www.votescam.com/stolen.html>
by Victoria Collier
History has taught us that to seize political power in a country, one has
only to control the army and the police. That was before television. Today
everyone knows that a country belongs to those who control communications.
However, 99% of Americans do not know that those who control our
communications also control our vote. Quite literally. In other words, we
control nothing. Our vote is not even a meaningless piece of paper, because
there is no longer a paper ballot. There is only the Kafkaesque reality of
the computer voting machine, and the Major Media. The following information
is for those who are ready to learn the facts about the theft of the
American vote: how, when and why it became the property of corporate America.
If you're one of the 40% of Americans who still bother to cast a ballot,
it's because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you think you
can vote the bastards out. You retain this faith in the elections system
for one reason: you believe your vote is counted fairly. Otherwise you
would join the growing number of citizens regularly taking to the streets
in massive protests against the government. That day may yet come. As a
die-hard voter, you have yet to ask yourself why, in a democratic republic,
should it be necessary to take to the streets at all? Why, in a society
of, by and for the people, are citizens faced with police-state brutality
when demanding their Constitutional right to gather and to speak freely?
Refusing to abandon hope in the system, you vote, then rush home to get on
with your life, trusting your vote is counted fairly by the government with
citizen groups keeping a close watch. And like the majority of voters, you
never bother to check how your vote is counted. Why should you?
Stalin, a man with an irrefutable understanding of power, put it this way:
"He who casts the vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote decides
everything."
So my question to you is this: Who counts your vote?
You cannot answer because you cannot know how your vote is
counted. An easier question is, who stole your vote? That answer has two parts.
Part one: The Corporate Computer
Hand counted paper ballots, the only completely verifiable vote counting
system, have been nearly eradicated in the United States over the past
thirty years. This wasn't an accident, or the benevolence of progress. The
new punch-card system widely instituted across the country was remarkably
easy to rig. But documented evidence of massive vote fraud, shaved wheels,
pre-printed internal voting results, forged canvass sheets, broken ballot
boxes with replaceable seals created the need for a more subtle approach.
Now the punch-card is being replaced by the computer voting machine, the
most unverifiable, riggable voting system ever created.There is no longer a
paper trail, no way to go back and recount if fraud is suspected. All the
workings of the machine are hidden from the public eye, and the eyes of
election officials. The corporations that write the vote-counting software
don't consider themselves accountable to the public and refuse access to
the source codes that program the machines, claiming they are "trade
secrets." These corporations are paid big bucks pedaling their wares to
compliant elections officials who willingly step aside, abdicating their
responsibility to oversee the safety of the vote count.
According to Dr. Howard Strauss, Princeton University computer scientist,
"The computerized voting machine is not a door with no locks, it's a house
with no doors." No candidate or voter can get in, and the possibilities for
rigging an election are as varied as the programmer's skills. Where the
punchcard system is still in use, the cards are counted by computer.
Citizens who, for the past thirty years, have attempted to videotape the
punch-card counting process in their counties have been threatened with
arrest. In many counties new election officials are trained to believe it
is illegal for citizens to watch the vote count!
We are locked out. We now have no way of knowing how our votes are
tabulated, we must simply take the word of these corporate computer
programmers that they're not accepting bribes to program their software to
commit vote fraud, a temptingly simple process, impossible to detect,
impossible to get caught. We must, in other words, trust them.
Do you trust them? Do you know who they are? Would it surprise you to learn
that Ransom Shoup, the owner of "Shouptronic," a major voting machine
company, was twice convicted of vote fraud in Philadelphia? He's one, who
are the rest?
No longer is your neighbor, your grandmother, you or your brother able to
take part in the essential democratic process of counting paper ballots and
tallying the votes. Even this process has historically been rife with
attempted fraud, such as "stuffing" the ballot box. But fraud on this human
level is foreseeable and community oversight, if not easy, is certainly
possible. Not with computers. We can no longer even watch the vote count,
let alone count it ourselves. Because of this, the results are rendered
immediately suspect and worthless. But a surprising number of Americans are
willing to accept the corporate computer take-over of our voting system as
easily as they accept the technological take-over of everything else. The
rest of us will have to do better. Let's follow our vote to the next step.
Part Two: The Corporate Media.
Once the vote is cast and counted by computers, the unverifiable
results are then transferred to Voter News Services (VNS). This
little-known private media conglomerate located on 34th street in New York
is one of the most powerful corporations in the world. Comprised of all the
major networksNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, AP, plus the New York Times and the
Washington PostVNS is the only entity tabulating the nation's votes and
disseminating the results to the public. This means that that the dramatic
election night "competition" among the Networks to be first with the
results is nothing but show business. They all get their numbers from the
same place, including the vote "projections" supposedly based on enterance
and exit polls also conducted by VNS, though hardly anyone has ever seen
VNS pollsters in action. Those vote projections allow the Networks to
declare a winner before the polls even close, with an accuracy approaching
the metaphysical. Most people watch television on election night simply
until they hear the projected winner. That's enough to convince them and
they go to sleep. The trust of the public is unprecedented. So let's take a
closer look at VNS.
VNS has co-opted the American vote count with no public knowledge, no
public bid, and remains totally exempt from anti-trust laws. They have
absolutely no literature, no brochure, no fax-sheet, and most astoundingly,
no Website. They have changed their name three times, yet retained the same
public relations secretary. Her name is Lee C. Shapiro. The Executive
Director of VNS is Bill Headline, and indeed, headlines are his specialty.
But the most interesting thing about VNS is that they will not tell you
anything about what they do. They are so scrupulously secretive that they
might easily have been formed behind the doors of the KGB, or for that
matter, the NSA. They are so powerful that they make no pretenses. No, you
cannot watch their operation. No, you cannot get in the door on election
night. No, you cannot work for them. You also can't get a straight answer
from them over the telephone as to exactly how they count the vote, where
they do it, and who does it for them.
They do not expect to be questioned. A simple telephone call requesting
information evokes immediate suspicion. They become hostile and
surprisingly nervous. They stammer, stutter and mumble vague
contradictions. Then, if your question become too pointed, (example:
"Can I bring a videotape to your headquarters on election night to watch
you count the vote and tabulate exit polls?"), they will simply hang up on you.
Somewhere, Stalin is laughing.
In light of the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO, it shouldn't surprise us
that the vote, like the rest of the world, is in the hands of a few. The
major media has carte blanche to manipulate it at will, and the computers
guarantee no paper trail. The media for at least half a century has
functioned as an effective mouthpiece for corrupt government, for the
prison-industrial complex, for the corporate elite, vigorously censoring
vital information on ecological destruction and social injustice. We know
now that when it comes to elections, despite their "competitive" front,
they are truly one organism. If there was any fraud in the VNS vote count,
who would report on it? Who is the watchdog? There are none. Not even the
alternative press can get their hands on information regarding the count,
because VNS simply will not let anyone in the door on election night. It is
a secret ballot count.
A number of well known independent investigators have been courageously
exposing massive, nation-wide fraud for the past thirty years, including
rigged voting machines; an epidemic of corrupt elections officials, League
of Women Voter members, and state and Federal judges; and a treasonous
Attorney General Janet Reno, who won her long-held powerful post by single
handedly burying vote fraud evidence for over 25 years. But the iron
curtain of the major media has slammed down on these investigations despite
the FBI documented evidence, making it impossible to bring the truth to the
public. The only thorough, reliable source of information has been a book
titled "Votescam: The Stealing of America," by James and Kenneth Collier.
Published in 1992, the book has been banned by all major book chains.
Nevertheless, it has sold over 30,000 copies by word of mouth. The
Collier's, America's lead investigators into vote fraud, were not afraid to
name the thieves and shed light on a black moment in history: when the
government gave up the right to count the vote.
Often told by Barnes and Noble that Votescam is out of print, many have had
to search long and hard to find it, until now. The Internet, largely
responsible for the success of Seattle and Washington D.C. protests, has
emerged as the people's most powerful weapon; free press. Global and
instantaneous. All of the vote fraud evidence has been recently posted on
two important Websites: <www.votescam.com> and <www.votefraud.org>. These
are the Websites of two very different groups. One is a liberal publishing
company and the other a conservative political organization, illustrating
that fair elections are everyone's responsibility, there are no party lines
in this battle. Both these groups are deeply involved in vote fraud
investigations, and demand the return to the paper ballot and citizen
control. These new sites are already receiving hundreds of visitors each
month. Every day more Americans are learning the truth: That the vote count
is kept under lock and key by a small group of arrogant people who can be
brought down.
Yes, brought down. Like the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, like any
system contrived without us, run by a handful of criminals. Indeed, until
we take control of our own election system, the above mentioned global
organized crime rings will have to be fought by very unpleasant means.
Strikes, shut-downs, lock-downs, protests, brute force, and the gassing,
beating, jailing, and possible imprisonment of thousands of Americans.
This, at the very least, is what any radical progressive movement can
expect. Because as long as the control of the democratic machine in America
is in the hands of the corporations, we the people will have NO ACCESS to
the workings of the system. We will not be able to elect our own
representatives who will clean up the mess the corporate criminals have
created. We will be forced to gather outside their gates and scream for
justice at our own expense. How long can we continue to do this, and where
will it end?
Even after Seattle, it's business as usual at the WTO. China is in, despite
the rallying of hundreds of thousands of American workers to oppose the
trade deal. Our "elected" representatives certainly aren't worried about
not getting enough votes the next time around. Let's free ourselves from
the paralyzing confusion of believing we asked for our problems by
reelecting the same corrupt leaders who caused them. We've got to take the
system back. Let them know we're not going to sleep through the elections
any longer, we're going to start organizing. We're going to be running our
own candidates, we are not going to accept candidates who are financed by
multinational corporations, and we are not going to accept the results of
an election counted by corporate computers and the major media. We are
going to hand count our own recycled paper ballots. And it's going to take
a good goddamned long time to count them, and we won't worry about making
the seven o'clock news, because that's the only way we'll know it's fair.
Come on, let's vote the bastards out!
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Arrogance Of TV Networks: Compounding A National Crisis
By Norman Solomon
A few hours before dawn Wednesday, the nation's TV networks
foisted their second outrageous blunder of the night on the American
people. After "calling" the state of Florida for Al Gore earlier in the
evening, the same networks announced that George W. Bush had won Florida --
and the White House. With a typical flourish, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw
declared: "George Bush is the president-elect of the United States."
But before the sun rose on the East Coast, the networks were
correcting themselves again, acknowledging that Florida was too close to
call. By then, the arrogance of the television networks had compounded a
distressing specter: The Electoral College might end up giving the
presidency to someone who came in second in the country's popular vote.
Twenty-four hours after the polls closed across America, the
reporters and commentators on the airwaves and cable channels seemed to be
reeling from the succession of extraordinary events. Surely, millions of
Americans were also stunned, as if the previous long night had been a vivid
and protracted bad dream.
In effect, the TV networks made a bad situation worse. They added
to the night's quickly escalating sense of confusion, disorientation and
uncertainty about the election results.
Despite their vast resources and profuse assurances that they knew
just what they were doing, the biggest television outlets -- ABC, CBS, NBC,
CNN, Fox and PBS -- incorrectly proclaimed that the winner of the
presidential race had been determined. The list of those networks is a
dishonor roll for American media.
Like most busy people, the executives and journalists who run the
news operations of the TV networks don't have much time to spare for
soul-searching. And it's unlikely a lot would change even if some genuine
introspection took place. It's not a good sign that top execs are treating
the networks' election-night madness as a public-relations problem.
The rushed and faulty projections for election results were
dramatic manifestations of the kind of intrinsically flawed coverage of
politics that goes on all the time in national media. Major outlets cast
huge shadows across political landscapes, from campaign trails to
gubernatorial offices, legislative bodies and the White House. But even the
most influential reporters and pundits are in the habit of acting like
they're mere observers.
Although journalists at key media institutions pose as flies on
the walls of national politics, they're apt to function more like movers
and shakers. Far from just telling us what's happening, the biggest-name
journalists -- the ones holding forth on the networks throughout election
night -- are always shaping the media terrain through which politicians walk.
Meanwhile, journalists and the politicians they cover are
routinely financed -- one way or the other -- by many of the same business
interests. Numerous firms that own powerhouse media outlets or pay for
extensive advertising also spend gobs of money on lobbyists and campaign
contributions. And the phenomenal amount of lucre that went into the 2000
elections is just a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions of
dollars in corporate profits riding on future government policies set in
Washington.
So, where are we now? After a year filled with denunciations of
the pernicious roles played by money in politics, the big money has as
tight a grip on the electoral process as ever. Not coincidentally, whether
Bush or Gore prevails, the man who'll move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. next
January has long been cozy with economic elites of the nation.
After bringing us the fiascos of last Tuesday night, the TV
networks assure us that they'll quit being so arrogant. And actually, it's
easy to stop. They've done it hundreds of times. Periodic self-critiques
and public shows of repentance are ingrained rituals for news
organizations, which tout only corporate-friendly presidential candidates
as serious contenders.
On the surface, the willingness of the TV networks to "call"
elections prematurely and inaccurately may seem like an unfortunate quirk.
But it's a reflection of what constantly happens when news operations --
bent on outdoing competitors -- put the drive for profits above public
service. The people calling the shots at the major networks are acutely
aware that they must strive to boost the bottom line of the parent company.
It's a metaphor for the profound ways that Campaign 2000 has left
democracy in the dust.
----
Norman Solomon is a syndicated columnist. His latest book is "The Habits of
Highly Deceptive Media."
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The honorable course in Florida
<http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2000/11/09/3.html>
THE STAFF OF TOMPAINE.COM have published the following article:
SO GORE SHOULD CONCEDE?
November 9, 2000 - The Republicans have insisted that Al Gore should
gracefully concede defeat and allow the nation to move on.
That's certainly one way of looking at things. But why is the burden on
Gore? Just as good a case can be made that Bush is the one who should
gracefully concede defeat.
Here's how the case could be argued. While a recount may well give Bush
more votes in Florida than Gore, an abundance of evidence has surfaced in
the last thirty-six hours to suggest that Gore actually was the candidate
Floridians thought they were voting into office.
A reverse of logic is required to believe that democracy is honored by
ignoring the will of the people in deference to a strict adherence to
municipal regulations regarding the punching of small holes in a slip of
paper. To follow such a course is to mistake the form of democracy with the
actual thing.
Evidence is mounting by the hour that these regulations are being used by
the Bush camp to hide behind, and rather ungracefully.
As has been widely reported, there were many irregularities in Palm Beach
County. Over 19,000 ballots were thrown out because voters allegedly
punched holes for two candidates. And the ballot design may have led people
to accidentally vote for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan, who
received an unusually high tally, though he neither campaigned nor
advertised in the area. Buchanan himself has remarked that the votes he
received in this liberal community apparently went to him unintentionally.
He concludes: "I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't
want to win any votes by mistake." He added: "It seems to me that these
3,000 votes people are talking about -- most of those are probably not my
vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore."
Were these votes to be added to Gore's column Gore would be the universally
acknowledged winner of the election at present.
That the election in Florida has been marked by numerous instances of fraud
and irregularity is by now well established.
The NAACP chairman Julian Bond says he has collected evidence that the vote
of minorities, presumably more inclined to vote for Gore than Bush, was
suppressed in several places through unwholesome means. In communities
outside Orlando, for instance, voters were given pencils instead of pens,
which gives rise to the suspicion that their votes may possibility have been
altered later. (State law requires that pens be used.) In Hillsborough
County some officials apparently denied some citizens access to the polls,
claiming that the race on their voter cards didn't match state records. And
in the same county, a sheriff's deputy allegedly asked black men for
identification, turning them away on the unproven grounds that they were
convicted felons.
CBS's Dan Rather has reported voting irregularities in Volusia County,
Florida, where James Harris, a Socialist Workers candidate, won 9,888 votes.
He won 583 in the rest of the state. State Democrats are concerned that the
outcome may be attributable to a computer error, and wonder whether such an
error impacted Gore's returns. United Press International reported that at
one point Tuesday evening, Gore had registered minus 16,000 votes on the
county's computer, an error that was later fixed. Huh?
Questions are also being raised, by FEED Magazine, about the involvement of
Xavier Suarez in the Florida Republican's absentee ballot drive. Suarez was
ousted as the mayor of Miami following an investigation of fraud involving
thousands of phony absentee ballots. Remarkably, he now sits on the
executive committee of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party. He told Feed
that this year he "helped fill out absentee ballot forms and enlist
Republican absentee voters in Miami-Dade County."
If Bush ends up winning the Florida recount, and if investigators find truth
to the allegations, that will mean that Bush -- having lost the popular
vote -- will have a dubious mandate, based on questionable election results
in a state where his brother is governor. That sounds too Yugoslavian to be
from the nation that sees itself as the pillar of the free world.
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The world mocks as America squirms
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003791872820752&rtmo=qx9KseK9&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/00/11/10/wpres110.html>
By Anton La Guardia
Gore refuses to accept vote recount
THE world's newspapers revelled in the embarrassment of the American
political system yesterday, making comparisons with "banana republics",
"spaghetti westerns" and the endemic corruption of Indian and Italian
politics.
The most caustic mockery came from countries whose democratic failings have
been criticised by Washington. For many writers America had received its
comeuppance for holding itself up as a model for others to emulate.
Nepotistic dynasties, a dead man elected and scandals over ballot boxes were
not just confined to the Third World, they said. A "great victory for
democracy, desi-style (India style)", is how the Times of India gleefully
described the debacle.
The Indian Express, noting the vicissitudes of the Bush and Gore dynasties,
urged readers to stop "moaning about how we alone in the world have been
loaded with politicians whose fathers or grandfathers, mothers or
grandmothers, uncles or aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts or plain cousins
also happen to be politicians".
La Reference Plus, published in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the
chaos in Florida only encouraged African dictators. It asked: "If this
happens in the United States, how do you want everything to be clean and
transparent in the poor African continent?"
Zimbabwe's state-controlled daily, The Herald, said: "Analysts questioned
whether the Americans would have accepted a recount in African elections if
the ruling party candidate had been beaten, as happened in Florida."
Iraq, which had previously dismissed both the American presidential
candidates as equally pro-Israeli and hostile to Iraq, yesterday took the
side of George W Bush. It said the delay in announcing the result was a
Jewish plot to control America through Al Gore.
Babel, a newspaper controlled by the eldest son of President Saddam Hussein,
Uday, said the Jews in America wanted Mr Gore to win in order to give more
support to Israel in its confrontation with the Palestinians. Babel said in a
front page editorial: "If they (the Jews) succeed in making Gore win the
election they will become the real leaders of America."
Italians, whose own politics have been compared to an "opera buffa" after 58
post-war governments, had a field day.
The Rome daily, La Repubblica, ran the mocking headline: "A Day worthy of a
Banana Republic". The columnist Bepe Severgnini wrote in Milan's daily
Corriere della Sera: "The other night when I went into a restaurant in Santa
Monica, there was one president - Clinton.
"When I ordered a pizza there was another one - Gore. When I paid the bill
there was a third president - Bush. When I walked out on to Ocean Boulevard
there was no president because Bill is now the husband of a senator from New
York."
German newspapers were more sanctimonious, with several arguing that
America's electoral system was outdated and undermined the legitimacy of the
eventual winner. Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the next president would be "a
king without a kingdom."
The conservative Die Welt said: "This is not a cheap novel, not a soap opera
but a debacle that may reach the level of comedy and will be, in hindsight,
an anecdote of a time in which politics had to painfully grasp how unfair it
is to voters.
"What a macabre spectacle: a giant empire with 280 million citizens sends
voters to the polls to decide who should be the next American president and
both candidates remain in a dead heat in a way we have not even seen in
elections in Uzbekistan or Switzerland."
In Moscow, an elections official said the disarray in America demonstrated
the superiority of the Russian system. Alexander Veshnyakov, chairman of the
Russian Central Election Committee, told the business daily Kommersant: "I
think we should never adopt their electoral college system . . . Russian
elections are more democratic and easier to grasp for the voters."
Cuba's President Fidel Castro did not pass up the opportunity to lampoon
America. State television showed him walking along the beach in his olive
green uniform and boots. He ran into an unidentified American tourist and
told him: "Like the majority of Americans, you have gone to the beach."
The Lebanese daily, Al-Safir, had to apologise to its readers for incorrectly
reporting that Mr Gore had won, but used the occasion to needle Arab
dictators who stage overwhelming election victories for themselves.
The paper's owner and editor Talal Salman wrote: "We offer our apologies to
our readers for deciding on something that was still under way. Perhaps it is
because of our deep-rooted experience of Arab democracy, particularly in
Lebanon, where results are given before the poll, which is then held only to
confirm the correctness of the declaration."
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Linked stories:
********************
U.N. Film Depicts World Flooded with Small Arms
>http://www.jointogether.org/jtodirect.jtml?U=83952&O=264975>
A recently released movie produced by the United Nations
shows a world saturated with small arms.
********************
Clinton Concerned about Ecstasy Imports
<http://www.jointogether.org/jtodirect.jtml?U=83952&O=264994>
In an annual report on drug trafficking to the U.S. Congress,
President Clinton expressed concern over the designer drug
ecstasy.
********************
Bush tells Gore "Give up"
<http://itn.co.uk/news/20001110/world/01uselection.shtml>
Republican George W. Bush's campaign is insisting that Florida's vote
recount confirms their man has won the presidential election. Bush's camp
is calling on Al Gore to give up, even though more postal votes have still
to be counted. Unofficial tallies from all 67 Florida counties indicate
that Bush has won by 327 votes.
********************
=====================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
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