*No candidate for ANY office is obliged to accept an election outcome if there's evidence * *that it was somehow rigged. Al Gore was right to contest Bush/Cheney's 2000 "victory" * *for 36 days, John Kerry was wrong to give up overnight four years later, Bernie betrayed * *those voting for him by swallowing his primary "defeats" in 2016 and this year, without * *a peep of protest, or any effort to investigate; and so on. (Jill Stein did the right thing four * *years ago.)*
*Although Republicans have, especially since 2000, stolen many more elections than the * *Democrats (who tend to steal elections from their more progressive fellow-Democrats), * *the fact is that both Trump AND Biden SHOULD refuse to cave if there's sufficient grounds * *for questioning the official numbers.* *Like every other urgent public issue, this one has been totally politicized, with Democrats* *attacking Trump for doing what they think Biden only ought to do. **Here's Hilary saying * *that he should not concede the election "under any circumstances"—**including, evidently, * *his actual defeat:* *https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/hillary-clinton-says-biden-should-not-concede-2020-election-under-n1238156 <https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/hillary-clinton-says-biden-should-not-concede-2020-election-under-n1238156>* *So where's the outrage over that? And do Hilary et al. believe that Biden, should he really* *lose to Trump, be carried into office by the military? And that would not be just the sort of* *coup that they, and "our free press," are bellowing that Trump intends? * *Who's standing up for radical—and, necessarily, nonpartisan—reform of our abysmal voting* *system? Not many activists, as far as I can see. I note with great sadness, but no surprise, * *that the Election Integrity movement, in which **I worked for years, has morphed into a one-* *eyed dump-**Trump operation. * *I say all this in full awareness of the likelihood that this is all pro wrestling, that the whole * *conflict is a propaganda show intended to divide/distract the people even more, so that we* *don't notice, and then make any effort to avert, the looming nightfall of totalitarian control, * *which will descend regardless of **which figurehead sits in the Oval Office, masked or not. * *Still, regardless of that urgent fact, we **need at some point to throw out our **rotten voting * *system, **replacing it with **one befitting a democratic republic, since, if we had faced the * *problem long **ago (that is, if "our free press" had not consistently pooh-poohed it as* *"conspiracy theory"), we **wouldn't be in such grave jeopardy today. Here's hoping we * *survive what's coming, **and with the civic spirit, solidarity and stamina to build American * *democracy for real. * *MCM* --- Support News from Underground: http://bit.ly/NFUSupport You received this email because you are subscribed to News from Underground. To unsubscribe from this email list, please go to: http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=pIdjNUgiG2h8yxbhC54SSy4SEskAoEMs For archives, please go to: http://archives.simplelists.com/nfu
