WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT ?
Richard Hayes Phillips, Citizen
September 30, 2006
Six years ago, in
experience of a stolen presidential election. The Democrats were
caught off guard. For five weeks the vanquished candidate contested
the results, but he was outlawyered and outmaneuvered, and in the end
he acquiesced to the dictates of the
under the Constitution, had no jurisdiction in the matter.
Two years ago, in
election was stolen, this time with greater sophistication. The margin
of victory appeared too large to be attributed to fraud. On the very
next day, the vanquished candidate capitulated. Those who questioned
the results were demonized as sore losers, or marginalized as
spreadsheet-wielding internet conspiracy theorists. A legal challenge
to the results was dismissed by the
who brought the challenge were threatened with sanctions.
During the past few months, a small but dedicated band of patriots has
gathered the forensic evidence necessary to prove that the
election was fraudulent. Public records requests have been submitted
to eighteen suspect counties. Ballots, poll books, and voter signature
books from hundreds of targeted precincts have been photographed or
photocopied. Preliminary findings have been filed against eleven
counties in
has been issued protecting the ballots from destruction.
Some of the same methods that worked so well in
in
targeted for selective purging of tens of thousands of voters from the
rolls. In heavily Democratic precincts in
Cleveland, Canton, Warren City, and Mansfield, ballots were punched in
advance for third-party presidential candidates, causing tens of
thousands of voters to spoil their own ballots by casting overvotes.
The unused ballots could have told the tale, but they have been
destroyed, in violation of records retention laws. That is a felony.
Other methods were developed especially for
deliberately withheld from heavily Democratic precincts in
creating long lines at the polls that disenfranchised tens of thousands
of voters who could not stand in line for the duration. Voters in
machines for the wrong precincts, so that votes intended for Democratic
candidates were counted as votes for their opponents. Ballots were
shifted from precinct to precinct in
intended for Kerry were counted as votes for Bush, causing Kerry to
receive fewer votes than down-ticket Democratic candidates, and similar
patterns appeared in the election results of eleven other counties.
Stacks of ballots in
been sorted according to candidate, with hundreds of consecutive
ballots for George W. Bush, indicating that fake ballots could have
been substituted for real ones. Ballots in
white stickers pasted over the Kerry-Edwards mark, with the Bush-Cheney
oval filled in. In
failed to match the numbers in the poll books in every single precinct.
Electronic tabulators in
without consent of the Boards of Elections. Electronic voting machines
in
Even now, the Diebold tabulators in
sets of numbers for ballots cast, one of which is derived by counting
absentee ballots twice.
These new-fangled electronic voting machines were introduced as an
improvement, a technological advance, to replace the punch cards that
had gained such a bad reputation in
watching as partisan lawyers inspected and challenged every hanging,
dimpled, and pregnant chad. But undervotes were not the real story.
There were three times as many overvotes as undervotes in
Nearly all of the double-punched ballots contained a punch for a third-
party candidate, and three-quarters of those were punched for Gore.
That is exactly what we found in
identity of the victim.
Now the electronic voting machines are spreading across this great
nation like a cancer. If there is no paper trail, there is no
accountability. All we can do is audit the voter signature books to
see if the total number of ballots cast is correct; we will not know if
votes have been shifted electronically from one candidate to another;
and some states are moving to electronic signature books which,
together with electronic voting machines and electronic tabulators,
would make any meaningful audit impossible.
Even if there were an accurate paper trail on every single voting
machine, there is no way to know if the numbers reported by the machine
on Election Night actually match the paper trail, without examining the
paper in other words, counting the ballots. A partial audit will not
suffice, because we know from the
precincts will not be chosen at random. This is why more and more
election observers are concluding that we must have paper ballots,
counted by hand, on Election Night, at the precinct level, in full
public view, no matter how long it takes, as is the procedure in most
of the great democracies of the world.
Why? Because our elections are rigged! It matters that our elections
are rigged! We have no hope of changing anything through the ballot
box so long as our elections are rigged!
The question is this: What are we going to do about it?
What if the Congress does not grant us the paper ballots that we ask
for? What are we going to do about it? Are we going to try to vote
them out of office on the very electronic voting machines that we
already know are not to be trusted? Are we going to try to register
even more millions of new voters than the millions who will be
disenfranchised? My friends, we are running out of options.
Two hundred and thirty years ago, a small but dedicated band of patriots
decided that taxation without representation is tyranny, and is sufficient
cause to overthrow the government. King George and his ministers insisted
that the colonists had "virtual representation," because although the
colonists could not actually vote, the members of Parliament had the best
interests of the colonists at heart. That explanation was not good enough
then, and it would not be good enough now.
Today we seem to have the right to vote. We can go to the polls, and
go through the motions of voting. But our votes may not be counted, or
worse yet, they may be counted for candidates not of our choosing. We
simply do not know. Our elections are not verifiable. These are
virtual elections, in a virtual democracy, with virtual representation.
We have as much right to overthrow the government today as we did two
hundred and thirty years ago. Such actions are not to be taken for
light and transient reasons. But there was a long train of abuses
then, and there is a long train of abuses now. The threats to our
planet, to world peace, and to our civil liberties, are as grave as the
threat to our democracy.
On the eve of the First American Revolution, few colonists thought we
could prevail against the mighty
envy of the world. But the full force of the British navy could not be
brought to bear upon
defend. Most of her military forces were committed elsewhere in the
world. Also,
source of raw materials.
colonists to provide the very revenue that financed their own
enslavement. And so the colonists organized boycotts, and stopped
paying their taxes. These actions were organized by Committees of
Correspondence, which transmitted private communications to inform
trustworthy colleagues, on a need to know basis, of impending actions
and the reasons for them. In this time of crisis, we must learn from
their experience.
We are not going to overthrow this government through a military uprising.
That would surely bring about martial law, which would very likely subject
the entire countryside to armed occupation except for a few scattered
areas of resistance. But we do have the advantage of knowing that
American military forces are committed elsewhere, overextended as never
before in our history. Soldiers are being impressed against their will
for two and even three tours of duty overseas, with no formal draft to
replace them. The time to strike is now.
The American government is running some of the largest budget deficits
in its history, spending much more money than it takes in. It cannot
afford a steep drop in revenue at this time. Even if the Republicans
were to increase the tax rates in response, which they do not like to
do, recent history has shown that this never results in significant
additional revenue. It is cuts in tax rates, which stimulate economic
growth, that actually result in additional revenue. Provided, of
course, that everyone pays their taxes.
I can see no other way to bring down this government than for millions of
us to stop paying taxes. We must sap the government of its lifeblood.
They always say that the income tax is voluntary, so let us take them at
their word. We don't like how they spend our money anyway.
Those who are on payrolls, and are subject to tax withholding, may find
this more difficult to do, although there are ways to reduce the amount
of withholding and, with enough creativity, ways to become self-
employed. The rest of us have no excuse. We must act courageously in
the face of danger, because it is far more dangerous if we do nothing.
The safest method of tax resistance is to file an honest tax return,
but pay them little or nothing. We must do everything we can to reduce
our tax liability. We must make ends meet by reducing expenses, not by
increasing our income. We must volunteer our services to each other in
cooperative ventures whenever possible. We must engage in the barter
system whenever possible. We must become as self-reliant as possible.
We must boycott the corporations that have aligned themselves with this
government, and support local merchants instead. I have done these
things, and so can you.
Above all, we must stop preaching to the choir. We will not restore
the republic by communicating with each other about trivial
observations over the heavily monitored internet. We must learn to use
pen, paper, envelopes and stamps to communicate about matters of grave
concern among trusted compatriots on a need to know basis. We must win
this battle one convert at a time, by getting to know our neighbors.
We must have real relationships, not virtual ones, if we are to have a
real democracy, not a virtual one. What we need are numbers, millions
of us, displaying our righteous anger, not for one day but on a
sustained basis, enough to make them afraid of us, enough to make this
country ungovernable without our consent. Only then will they be
forced to surrender the reins of power and restore the government to
the people. They will not do it voluntarily. A mere display of
numbers in the streets will not suffice, because they know we cannot
vote them out of office, whereas forty years ago we could.
Most of us in this fledgling movement are getting on in years, and that
is no accident. We are old enough to remember the days of the
republic, when elections could be won by grassroots organizing. Now we
live in the early days of empire, with our beloved republic still a
living memory. Succeeding generations may understand how easy it is
to hack a computer, but they will have no first-hand memory of the
republic, and will be far less likely to fight for the restoration of
liberties they themselves have never known. My friends, it is up to
us, every one of us. Self-governance is our heritage, our birthright.
We must finish the work of our founders, give our last full measure of
devotion, testing whether the American government will allow a velvet
revolution to succeed, knowing that those who make peaceful revolution
impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
Heaven help us all.
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Please let us stay on topic and be civil.
OM
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