And for anyone still entertaining the notion that the USA is governed, in reality, by a government "of the people," I refer you to Michael Moore's recent book, "Stupid White Men," on the 2000 election and its aftermath (and much more). Of course I realize that Moore has a specific agenda that some folks may or may not agree with, but what he reports are facts that can easily be corroborated. (To start, try http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html)
I had already posted about the disenfranchisement of thousands (more than enough for Gore to win *without* any recount of the existing votes, regardless of chads -- intact, hanging, or otherwise) of perfectly eligible (mostly black) voters in Florida courtesy of President Bush's brother, aka Governor Jeb Bush, and President Bush's Florida campaign manager, aka Secretary of State Katherine Harris, but I was unaware of some additional details that make this travesty all the more insidious. The state of Florida contracted the firm DBT Online to "cleanse" the voter rolls of felons (Florida is the only state to do so, in fact, it mandates this in its voter fraud law). But they were instructed to include not only the names of felons (including many law-abiding citizens who happened to have the same name as a felon), and not only those with merely *similar* names, but those with the same birthdate (but not necessarily the same name) or a *similar* social security number (regardless of name). The firm advised that this might yield flawed results, but was told to do so anyway. They did, and many perfectly eligible, mostly black, voters had their right to vote taken away, voters who would have surely voted 90% for Gore (as did those black voters who were able to vote), voters who would have changed the direction of our government in significant ways. So much for self-determination. It's a fucking shandeh. -Fred
