CONGRESSMAN JOHN E. SWEENEY� -� GOP'S THUG.
http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Florida.recount18.html
Further details are emerging about the riot in Miami on Wednesday that
preceded the Miami-Dade County election commission's decision to give up
recounting the votes in the presidential election. As election workers sat
counting votes, a mob screamed outside, pounded on furniture, tried to force
its way into the building, surrounded a Democratic Party official, knocked
two television cameramen to the ground, and kicked and punched several
people, including a Democratic spokesman as he attempted to hold a news
conference (New York Times 11/23/00 and 11/24/00).�
The Republicans initially asserted that the riot was nothing but a
spontaneous outburst, but it soon became evident that this was not true. In a
report that is almost too bizarre to believe, ABC News (11/24/00) reports
that the riot in Miami "was an organized Republican Party protest, run by 75
party operatives out of a headquarters in a motor home". One operative
claimed that they were there to help the media. But, ABC News reports, "they
also got directly involved in leading demonstrations, and were even willing
to dress up in seasonal outfits to provide so-called protester color for
local news reports".�
The protests were clearly organized in some depth. Some participants had
heard about them from a Republican phone bank, and others in the
Cuban-American community had heard about them from radio interviews with
Republican members of Congress. A lawyer for the Republican Party incited the
rioters by asserting that the election commission would not be counting
predominantly Hispanic districts (New York Times 11/24/00).�
Now, one might imagine that the Republicans had organized a crowd of
protesters that had simply gotten out of control. Some of them even claimed
as much. But an op-ed column by Paul Gigot in the 11/24/00 Wall Street
Journal column, which openly supports the riots, gives this account of how
they started:�
Then the Three Counting Sages repaired to semi-isolation, forcing TV cameras
to watch through a window and keeping reporters 25 feet away. That did it.
Street-smart New York Rep. John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, told an
aide to "Shut it down", and semi- spontaneous combustion took over.�
This is the most astonishing thing that I have ever read. The Wall Street
Journal is reporting that a United States Congressman explicitly ordered a
gang to attack the offices of an election commission with the express purpose
of shutting down the counting of votes in a presidential election.�
What is going on in these people's minds? Some Republicans tried to justify
the violence by comparing it to protests that have been organized by the
Democrats. The same lawyer who had helped incite the crowd in Miami asserted
that "[i]t's the same type of democracy in action when Jesse Jackson
parachutes in and starts a protest in the black community. People have a
right to express their opinions" (New York Times 11/24/00). But this is over
the top. Jesse Jackson organized peaceful protests in Florida until he was
heckled off the stage by Republican counterprotesters. The NAACP organized a
civilized public hearing and submitted a report on its findings to the
Justice Department. That is indeed democracy. Violence is not.�
Representative Sweeney, who ordered the attack on the government building
where the votes were being counted said this: "thugs in that building are
trying to hijack this election". This utterance is very disturbing. It's
totally backward. Representative Sweeney commanded a mob that violently
attacked people in the election commission's building, yet he asserted that
county workers who were counting votes under the supervision of Republican
and Democratic observers were "thugs". And he explicitly ordered his violent
followers to shut down the counting of votes, yet he asserted that the
election commission was "hijacking" the election. This is called projection:
attacking people while falsely accusing them of accusing you.�
Projection is also at the core of Paul Gigot's staggering column in the Wall
Street Journal. His argument, in brief, is that the rioters -- he uses the
word "riot" explicitly -- had been provoked to their marching and chanting by
the supposed injustices of the vote count. He does not dwell on the details
of kicks and punches and tramplings and menacings and false accusations,
playing the whole thing as mild comedy, even though Video of the riot at the
ABC News Web site makes plain what a distortion this is. These genteel
rioters, he says, "let it be known that 1,000 local Cuban Republicans were on
the way" -- an assertion that could not have sounded very peaceable to
election commissioners who were already faced with a screaming mob. It was
then, he says, that the commissioners "caved", and he makes clear that, in
his view, the commissioners' decision was largely a result of the protests.
At no point does he express the slightest disapproval.�
Like Sweeney, Gigot manages his equanimity through projection: the commission
proceedings, he bemusedly tells us, were "bad enough to inspire 50-year-old
white lawyers with cell phones and Hermes ties to behave, well, like
Democrats". Like Democrats. Perhaps readers of the Wall Street Journal regard
it as a commonplace that the Democratic party organizes riots to shut down
the counting of votes in a presidential election. No. What's really going on
here is a cycle of projection that has escalated to the point of insanity.
The Republicans are delaying the vote count and complaining that it is taking
too long, disrupting it and claiming that it is chaotic, claiming to
represent the will of the voters will preventing the many ballots which were
not successfully read by the machines from being counted, and generally
accusing their opponents of everything that they are doing. Even if something
was legally wrong with the proceedings at the Miami Government Center, the
way to resolve the problem is not by kicking people, punching them, knocking
them over, and issuing threats. This is a democracy. And it should stay that
way.�
References:
Dana Canedy and Dexter Filkins, A Wild Day in Miami, With an End to
Recounting, and Democrats' Going to Court, New York Times, 23 November 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23DADE.html Dana Canedy and Dexter
Filkins, Protest Influenced Miami-Dade's Decision to Stop Recount, New York
Times, 24 November 2000.�
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/politics/24MIAM.html Party Operatives Start
"Spontaneous" Demonstrations
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ELECTION_protests001124.html
Paul A. Gigot, Burgher rebellion: GOP turns up Miami Heat, Wall Street
Journal, 24 November 2000, page A16.
