[Winona Online Democracy]
The content of this "editorial" is a clever, amusing, and in it's own way,
accurate description of the events unfolding in Florida.
However... unless we're sure it's from Zimbabwe, let's not credit it as
being from Zimbabwe... lest we run the risk of being present at the birth of
yet another urban legend.
There's nothing in the piece that couldn't have been hammered out by clever
WSU sophomore.
Anybody have time to track this down, straighten this out, find out if it's
really from Africa or Prentiss-Lucas?
Enquiring minds want to know...
Jerome Christenson
-----Original Message-----
From: Dwayne Voegeli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, November 20, 2000 10:55 AM
Subject: [Winona] Zimbabwe Newspaper Perspective
>[Winona Online Democracy]
>
>Hello,
>
>This is from a supposed Zimbabwe newspaper editorial.
>
>I haven't been able to track down the original citation yet.
>
>Even so, it provides another interesting perspective on our elections.
>
>It's sad how little Americans are aware of how other countries view the
>U.S. and the world in general. It's true that other countries have biases
>but so do we. The more biased viewpoints we consider, the better view we
>will all have.
>
>Dwayne Voegeli
>
>P.S. I did not vote for Al Gore. I am not forwarding this e-mail to
>further the case for or against Mr. Gore or Mr. Bush. I consider many
>aspects of our current election process corrupt. No matter who ends up
>with more votes, the word "winner" is relative.
>
>
>================
>>
>> Subject: More foreign perspective
>>
>>
>> This is what purports to be a Zimbabwe newspaper article about our
>>current electoral difficulties.
>>
>>1. Imagine that we read of an election occuring anywhere in the third
>>world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former prime
>>minister and that former prime minister was himself the former head of
>>that nation's secret police (CIA).
>>
>>2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won
>>based on some old colonial holdover (electoral college) from the
>>nation's pre-democracy past.
>>
>>3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's 'victory' turned on disputed
>>votes cast in a province governed by his brother!
>>
>>4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district
>>heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands of
>>voters to vote for the wrong candidate.
>>
>>5. Imagine that that members of that nation's most despised caste,
>>fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to
>>vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's
>>candidacy.
>>
>>6. Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were
>>intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating under
>>the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.
>>
>>7. Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province and
>>that the self-declared winner's 'lead' was only 327 votes. Fewer,
>>certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.
>>
>>8. Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party
>>opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the
>>ballots in the disputed province or in its most hotly disputed district.
>>
>>9. Imagine that the self-declared winner, himself a governor of a
>>major province, had the worst human rights record of any province in
>>his nation and actually led the nation in executions.
>>
>>10. Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared winner
>>was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime positions
>>on the high court of that nation.
>>
>>None of us would deem such an election to be representative of anything
>>other than the self-declared winner's will-to-power. All of us, I
>>imagine, would wearily turn the page thinking that it was another sad
>>tale of pitiful pre- or anti-democracy peoples in some strange
>>elsewhere.
>>
>>(From a newspaper in Zimbabwe.)
>>
>
>
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