Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) – Mark Crispin Miller

Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) – Mark Crispin Miller, Basic Books/Perseus Books Group (2005) 364pp. (S) ****

Three days after the 2004 election, this reviewer wrote the following regarding some of its prominent features:
1) A large turnout during an incumbent's "re-election" bid (I still use the term loosely, but cautiously when addressing the 2004 election), historically is an indication of voter dissatisfaction with the incumbent's first term performance.
2) Wide discrepancies between exit polls and final vote tallies in critical precincts are a red flag to the possibility of vote manipulation and fraud. (Yes, and the media assault on the validity and accuracy of exit polls, I believe to be part of the on-going effort, inspired by the administration, to sow the seeds of doubt in any mechanism that challenges the results they don't like [i.e. an iconoclastic endeavor that's target has been the "liberal" media, and is now the integrity of the elections infrastructure itself, the last stumbling block to fully realized, un-checked power]).
3) The "moral character" (and remember who we're speaking of here) factor is a fabricated myth designed to inform/instruct the American public how we are SUPPOSED to now perceive our "leader". When did you hear of the "character/morals" issue being polled PRIOR to the election? In an economic downturn, wartime where the draft looms on the horizon, worsening domestic conditions w/ re. to health insurance access, diminishing education funding, and eroding environmental protections, not to mention the barge loads of lies, disingenuousness, dissembling, and out right deceit that's been all par for the Bush course, in a country where voters typically vote their "pocketbooks," leaves one just a bit incredulous when hearing of the twenty percent "morals character" vote. The "morals" vote makes about as much sense as Bush having a "mandate" when his challenger captured more votes of any presidential candidate, second only to Bush. Of course, I can not discount the possibility that there may be strange a-doings in Dixie, indeed.
4) Ohio has been one of the hardest hit states with re. to job losses under the Bush agenda (I think to the tune of a quarter million lost). Gut intuition tells me that in the manufacturing belt, where most of Ohio's neighbors went blue (with the exception of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana, where for whatever reasons [cultural taboos, Christian fundamentalist irrationality, a poor education infrastructure that makes the populous vulnerable and susceptible to disinformation campaigns], wedge issues reign supreme), and where more of the population resides in the manufacturing, union based north, and where people were waiting in line for up to ten hours to vote, Ohio went to Kerry. But then add to the mix the fact that the Governor of Ohio, Bob Taft, is a Republican, that his Secretary of State (Kenneth Blackwell) was a member of the CHENEY/bush re-election apparatus, and that a year and a half ago CEO of Diebold and CHENEY/bush fund-raising pioneer Walden O'dell pledged his intent to "deliver Ohio for Bush," and you have just a few cases of rank conflict
of interest - to put it nicely. It stinks, it stinks bad.
5) This one is the real kicker. Upwards of 45 million American voters (of a total of 115 million) voted on touch-screen, paperless voting machines - no physical confirmation, no paper, no trail, no fingerprints, no sanity, just, what has become the key-note of the Bush era, "faith". It's the perfect crime. These machines were employed in thirty states.
So given all this, with all the indicators against him that have proven historically accurate, Bush captures an unprecedented "victory" (i.e. gaining more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history). I guess this is more of the "up is down, black is white, earth is flat" type of inverted, anti-Enlightenment "thinking" we've come to expect in the post Florida 2000, Bush era. I'm not buying it, and those of you who still believe in the integrity of science, in reason, logic, and truth - the bedrock of Western civilization, shouldn't either.
The good news is that Bev Harris at www.blackboxvoting.org is leading the charge with one of the largest FOIA actions in history, to get access to these machines, crack them open and get a good look at those unseen, internal "irregularities". If I weren't so broke myself, I'd be soliciting contributions on their behalf, but I thought just by getting the word out, this may give some of you solace.
Of course, things are very serious (yes, it is textbook fascism, as I've been saying since the 2002 mid-terms, or "theocratic fascism" if you prefer, when you allow for the fundamentalist fanaticism of "Christian reconstructionists" [Mike Malloy's term] - or is it deconstructionists?, or perhaps more accurately, revisionists), but I thought I'd try to get out some good news, especially knowing that one of the left's tendencies is to beat up on itself with recriminations and "what ifs" (I find counterpunch.org to be one the most insidious, perpetually negative, and unhelpful examples of this, enough so for me to seriously question their funding base). In my opinion, John Kerry and John Edwards ran a fine campaign, honorable and gentlemanly, especially when given they were up against some of the most shameless, loathsome, tactics I've ever witnessed (hey, the cat's now out of the bag, the "architect" was finally acknowledged and saluted, PUBLICLY), and all of you who volunteered with the campaign or the GOTV effort can feel very proud. To quote again Mike Malloy on Air America, "IT'S THE MACHINES!" We did nothing wrong and gave our best. Fifty-five million Americans can't be wrong!”(11/04)
Today, the only addition I’d make is that like Florida 2000, Fox News was the first to call Ohio for Bush. Déjà vu all over again, indeed. A year later, much of the above is recognized by Miller as well as his making additional observations. In his first chapter, “The Miracle,” Miller cites Bush’s low approval ratings, polling lower than Kerry, prior, and for sometime, to election day. He also notes that several prominent Republicans, like the genuine, fiscal conservatives that are nowhere to be found in the Bush II administration, publicly endorsed Kerry in many of the nation’s editorial pages. Additionally, many newspapers that had endorsed Bush in 2000, changed their position in 2004 by backing Kerry. Lastly, Miller notes the strong unity within the Democratic party, especially when compared to a fractious right where “cultural” evangelical rightists uncomfortably sat next to more moderate, fiscal conservatives, the kind, as just stated, that was more likely to back Kerry, having absolutely no representation within the Bush administration. Given this, could Kerry really have lost a fair election? If anything, the 2004 presidential election can be best characterized as an aberrant event, and as Miller declares, oddly, all the anomalies seemed to singularly favor Bush.
A part of Miller’s approach is to explore, for lack of a better word, the “cultural” elements of what is known to most people as the neo-conservative right. In this breakdown, he notes two examples; the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings to the Supreme Court and the personage of Tom Delay. “The ‘defensive’ drives for Thomas and Delay anticipated the Republican campaign to deny the party’s theft of the 2004 election – in its vast subversion of American democracy, the culmination of the party’s prior paranoid campaigns.”(p.79) A large part of this denial, is the psychology of victimization that prominently plays in right-wing circles, so that whatever is done in the name of politics, it is justified because the self-conceptualization is of being of the lesser party. The other psychological aspect in play here is “projection.” “Here [is] Republican projection at its purest – for as we have seen, the disingenuous ‘pre-emptive strike’ was, is, and will always remain the central tactic of the regime’s military policy and domestic politics, the two being therefore often difficult to tell apart.”(p.111)
Then there is this master stoke from Miller: “The aim [of the evangelical right] is not to master politics but to annihilate it.”(p.81) This is the iconoclastic mission as noted by this reviewer previously. The idea is not to play within the rules of ordinary political discourse, but to exceed the boundaries of propriety and in so doing, cast doubt on the very legitimacy of the political structure itself. One example of this is how Bush himself is perceived by his fanatical base. Surely, he is not viewed as a mere mortal civil servant, pulling a check supplied by the taxpayer, but instead he is seen as someone other than, be it someone divinely appointed to office, as Bush himself has hinted, or as someone whose role approaches that of the demagogue who can do no wrong. This fact alone, that a fanatical base by definition in any democracy, will always have no more than a minority status, informs the reasoned reader that Bush could not have possibly legitimately won the 2004 election. It is only when this fanaticism, seizes power and maintains it, that history informs us a democracy is transformed into something else, i.e. theocracy, autocracy, fascism.
Miller has put together and written an excellent book. He has assembled many examples of Republican abuse, far too many to cite here in a cursory review. In his book, he is performing an invaluable service to a public that needs to wake up soon if America is to be prevented from descending into the hellish throes of totalitarianism. Few writers today have the guts to call a spade a spade, fearful of the possible repercussions what a spineless group of chickenhawks, in their sadistic, powermad imagination might decide to mete out against him. By going to the root of the matter, Miller doesn’t mince words. I’ll end with this: “ . . . [the Bush] regime is essentially anti-secular, anti-rational, anti-republican, anti-democratic, ironically posing as a champion of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ throughout the world.”(p.198) Irony can kill; what else needs to be said?

Secrecy and Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty From Watergate to Iraq – Robert Parry

Secrecy and Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty From Watergate to Iraq – Robert Parry, The Media Consortium, Inc. (2004) 359 pp. (S) ***

If there is an expert on U.S. foreign policy during the 1980s, particularly as it pertains to the Iran-Contra scandal, then Robert Parry would certainly qualify as a front-runner. His past works (Fooling America, Trick or Treason, and Lost History) have focused primarily on illicit foreign policy practices of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations and how these interact with the “corporate media” and what has come to be known in Washington as the “conventional wisdom.” In other words, how the right shields itself by mitigating negative repercussions for actions of gross criminality, both domestically and abroad. So naturally, in Secrecy and Privilege, we find a combination of these interests with the focus of analysis on a thirty-year period of recent history (from Watergate to the Iraq war).
For those familiar with some of Parry’s earlier works, you may find some repetition in Secrecy and Privilege that can make for slightly frustrating reading. Parry knows his subject well, so well that at times he seems to stray from the purview of the title to his book. For instance, there is plenty of ink devoted to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his peculiar organization, the “Unification Church.” While Moon’s mysterious flows of cash are an important tool to the financial backing of right-wing causes, Moon is certainly not the only wealthy backer of the right. Richard Melon-Scaife and Joseph Coors come to mind, figures that are given only cursory mention by Parry. And while there are direct ties of Moon to the elder Bush (in the form of payment for speaking engagements), it is less clear what if any relationship Moon has to the “born again” Bush Jr., something Parry does not elaborate on.
Another glaring omission of Parry’s focus is the 1980s U.S. covert policy (in its day, the largest in terms of devoted resources) to back the Afghani mujihadeen. One can draw direct links form this misguided policy to the 9/11 attacks, yet Parry gives it all a pass, as he does mostly for the 9/11 attacks themselves. Parry must be aware of the numerous discrepancies in the 9/11 official story, and in fact, points one out himself: (Bush’s statement that he saw on television on the morning of the attacks the first plane hit the North Tower, when no such footage was available to broadcasters at that time). 9/11 is indeed a formidable subject, but it is surprising given Parry’s wholesome skepticism with regards to Republican policies, that he hasn’t dived in to take on what has essentially become the contemporaneous Republican platform.
Parry also takes a focused look at the 2000 U.S. presidential election and campaigns, noting particularly how Al Gore was repeatedly singled out with misquotations of his actual words, to paint him as a serial exaggerator and liar. Comparably Bush, whose speech is far less eloquent and even often grammatically challenged, got a free pass from the press, who were far too sycophantically ready to indulge his many misstatements as that of an innocuous simpleton. This example really shows up the real bias in the media and would seem to indicate, given Bush’s even more dubious past (i.e. drug use and the desertion of the Air Guard) that when it comes down to brass tacks, money talks. The candidate who has more of it, is more apt to get a free pass from a pliant press core, too sensitive to step on the toes of someone from the moneyed class.
But for all the other times that Parry disappoints, credit has to be given to his sheer tenacity in refusing to back off from the questionable Republican practices of the 1980s, from the “October Surprise” plot to drug-running in Central America to fund the Contras. Parry is a master of his subject matter, and credit must be given to a journalist who was among the first to have introduced Iran-Contra to the American readership.

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century – Kevin Phillips

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century – Kevin Phillips, Viking/Penguin Group (2006) 462pp. (S) ***

For those familiar with Kevin Phillips last work, American Dynasty, what will strike such a reader most about his most recent book, American Theocracy, is its breadth in scope. Phillips’ analysis provides a strong historical context, bolstered by a dizzying array of statistics, so much so that some readers may become overwhelmed. In fact, Phillips’ scope is so wide that it is a marvel just to see how he pulls everything together. And what Phillips must be fully respected for is his bold initiative in introducing “theocracy” into the popular lexicon. For the line separating the Taliban and Christian Reconstuctionists is very fine indeed. The principle thrust of his argument is threefold, as spelled out in the subtitle: the impact of radical fundamentalist religion, imported oil, and national debt, both on the modern day Republican party and upon the nation, and even the world as a whole, in general. Given the historical precedents he cites, principally that of the Dutch, the British, and the Spanish, Phillips demonstrates that there’s real cause for concern in the debt load currently being shouldered by the U.S. (and those internationally, who are forced to buy U.S. debt in the form of bonds and the like). What this portends for the future, perhaps only China will tell.
At one point, Phillips succinctly captures the notion of the evangelical information cocoon. His words are as follows: “Many of the evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal churches, especially the megachurches, become the principal source of both belief and information in their congregations’ lives. Broadcast, publishing, and direct-mail empires have grown up around these fellowships and communities, creating umbrellas against the effects of secular communications. The viewpoints of so-called sophisticates have little access to the minds of the faithful.”(p.385)
While Phillips’ argumentation is often full-bodied and dead-on target, there are however, a few things missing. Readers of other reviews by this writer may find this point tediously belabored and redundant, though in reality it really can’t be iterated enough. Two words: election fraud. Any serious analysis of Republican success at the polls over the past five years, can not overlook the reality of election fraud perpetrated by the Republican party. From purged voting rolls in Florida, to the criminal machinations of Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, George W. Bush would not be president, were it not for the ready assistance he received from corrupt campaign cronies, willing to go that extra mile, even if it took them into territory of the illegal. To this reader’s disappointment, Phillips mentions none of this. For while as much as 40% of the U.S. population may call themselves religious fundamentalists, 40% will never make a majority, no matter which way you cut it. But it is the zeal with which this 40% backs and supports George W. Bush, not as president, but as something akin to being God sent, that must be watched closely. For it is exactly this zeal, and perception of George W. Bush not as a public servant, but as something other than – as in of a divine nature, that carries some of these people into adopting illegal measures that helped to usher in their Highness into office, and re-select him to keep him there.
The other area where Phillips is a bit weak in, is in regards to “peak oil” and the 9/11 attacks. In his opening pages, he gives only passing mention to Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon with respect to peak oil, and then in a spattering of spaces throughout the rest of the book. What is really lacking is any closer investigation into the event of 9/11, territory that Ruppert has fearlessly navigated, and for so doing, is oddly not recognized by Phillips. For the sake of brevity and to prevent further redundancy, this reviewer will not explore the many facets of the irregularities of that fateful day, here. Suffice it to say, Phillips has dropped the ball by assuming the standard interpretation of the 9/11 attacks (i.e. that foreigners, and foreigners alone, without any stateside assistance, planned and executed the attacks). But, we can’t have it all in a single book, can we?

What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heat of America – Thomas Frank

What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heat of America – Thomas Frank, Henry Holt and Company, LLC. (2004 & 2005) 322pp. (S) ***

A third into his book, Thomas Frank writes this: “ . . . the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below. All claims on the right, in other words, advance from victimhood.”(p.119) Here, and in several other places in his book, Frank has exposed an important truth about the psychology of the right. They perceive themselves as the dispossessed, worn down by the repression of an omnipotent liberal elite. Oddly, this psychology prevails even when the Republican party currently dominates all three branches of the federal government. Why is this?
For answers, Frank later in his book, levels direct criticism at the Democratic party for having lost its moorings in pursuit of corporate dollars and hence adopting a center-left ideology. In this development of the 1990s, Frank sees a lower-class of voters whose interests have gone completely ignored by the Democratic party, thus making it ripe for right-wing exploitation, via cultural “wedge issues” or other shenanigans. According to Frank, lower-class voters confuse the domineering machinations of big-business which they are the victim of, and which by continually voting Republican, are only furthering their suffering and low economic status, with an imaginary cultural elite, created and propagated in popular media. But what Frank fails to recognize, that even as the Democratic party shifted right under the tutelage of organizations like the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), Al Gore won 500,000 more votes nationwide than Bush did in the 2000 U.S. presidential election and that in 2004, had it not been for massive and widespread election fraud, John Kerry would presently be president. This proves one of Michael Moore’s main points. That when it comes down to basic issues; healthcare, the economy, the environment, the American electorate is much more progressive than the rigid conservative model by which the corporate media seeks to instruct and inform the U.S. voter that he/she should conform to. In other words, while the left may be losing in places like Kansas, overall it has been winning elections, elections that have been wrenched from the jaws of victory due to the corrupt maneuverings of a ruthless and shameless foe.

Intelligence Matters: The CIA, The FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War On Terror – Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum

Intelligence Matters: The CIA, The FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War On Terror – Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum, Random House (2004) 296pp. (S) ***

Like Robert Byrd’s Losing America, it’s always interesting to get a view from the inside when it comes to congressional activities. Also like Byrd, Graham (Democratic Senator from Florida) seems to in part be writing out of his frustration in his dealings with the current administration. Hence this in his earliest pages: “[Bush’s failures in office] constitute an indictment of president Bush’s leadership so serious that it warrants his removal from office.”(p.xvi) Indeed!
Much of Intelligence Matters is devoted to Graham’s work on the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 and his work as chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. From this vantage point, the reader is directed to a February 19,2002 meeting that Graham had with general Tommy Franks, the head of “Central Command,” in which Franks confides that war materiel was being moved out of the Afghan theater, to positions closer to Iraq. This is a stinging indictment of an administration that long before it publicly said so, was preparing for war with Iraq. Later, Graham writes of a phenomenon known as “incestuous amplification,” which he defines thusly: “People with the same point of view are invited to the table. They reach a conclusion. Their views are then vetted by people who hold the same beliefs. As a result, the original conclusion in endorsed and amplified.”(p.243) What better description of the aim and purpose of the Pentagon’s secretive “Office of Special Plans?”
There are other reasons as well that Graham cites for having a skeptical and cautious eye when it comes to hearing what the administration has to say. For instance, when the State Department released its statistics on international terrorism in April 2004, citing a thirty year low in incidents, only to be later called out and corrected, so that acts of global terrorism had indeed actually increased over the previous year. There was also the stonewalling by the FBI to not permit an informant, who had known two of the 9/11 hijackers, to speak to the Joint Inquiry Committee. Grahams’ hunch was that such uncooperativeness was being directed at a higher level than simply the FBI alone. Such is also his suspicion when a “leak,” apparently attributable to the committee, is disseminated widely in the press, it causes Graham to reflect: “I am not by nature a conspiracy theorist, but the fact that we were hit with this disclosure [leak] at the moment we began to make things uncomfortable for the Bush administration has stuck with me.”(p.140) Such is life in the era of Rovian dirty tricks.
If one is looking for a perspective from the inside of government mechanics, then Intelligence Matters if for you. Graham is both thoughtful and incredulous in the face of an administration that more often than not perceives Congress as an obstacle its megalomaniacal ends. While the title is Intelligence Matters, it could just as well be “Congress Matters.”

Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate – George Lakoff

Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate – George Lakoff, Chelsea Green Publishing Company (2004) 124pp. (S) ***

Why has the right as of late, been so successful at the polls? According to George Lakoff, the answer lies in the left’s inability or unwillingness to adequately “frame” its ideas (i.e. provide its arguments with a linguistic context). If you ask Lakoff, facts and truth are all well and good, but absent a “frame” by which to present them in, are pretty much meaningless. In other words, it is only through frames that people are able to relate to unfamiliar ideas.
Of course, in political contexts, it is the media that is most responsible for “framing the debate.” Politicians can enforce strict discipline for “keeping on message” which indeed can shape the debate, but in the end it is the corporate media that is the lens through which the broader public interprets events. The examples are endless, but here is one for elaboration: the reader will recall the “Dean scream” which the media latched onto and within the period of a 24 hour news cycle, the media single-handedly sunk his campaign, by continuously rerunning the “scream” footage. Now if one compares the scream to George W. Bush’s notoriously poor oratory, it is quite plain to see that the candidate with the deeper pockets gets the pass from the media.
While Lakoff recognizes the massive Republican machine that since the Watergate era, has sunk billions into think tanks and media outlets, he fails to appreciate just how much weight this fact carries. That the left is consistently and thoroughly outspent, is no secret, yet goes a long way in explaining why a poorly informed public, prone to the exploits of propaganda, turns out in numbers to vote again and again against its own personal interests. Lakoff sees another aspect to this inequity: “But what has happened as budgets and taxes get cut is that the right is privatizing the left. The right is forcing the left to spend ever more private money on what the government should be supporting.”(p.29) So is there an end to this gross imbalance? Lakoff offers no answers. Reframing is all well and good, but if you don’t have the airwaves and the resources to get your message out, then framing is not the issue. Surprisingly, Lakoff only mentions Air America in passing. What Lakoff seems to fail to appreciate is that it is on the airwaves where the rubber meets the road. Reframing is fine as a personal virtue, and may make modest victories in one on one settings, but when you’re talking about millions of people, it is ludicrous to think that every voter will get a personal consultation.
Lastly, Lakoff fails to recognize that in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes. In the last presidential election in 2004, there is strong evidence that due to may electoral irregularities and coordinated Republican interference, the election was likely stolen. What can be concluded from these facts? A) The American populace is already much more progressive in spite of media attempts to mold it to the contrary and B) The greatest threat to American democracy are paperless electronic voting machines, which in most cases have manufacturers owned by persons on the right. Given these realities, the left should forget about “gay marriage” and other cultural “wedge issues” of the right and focus like a laser on the voting apparatus that threatens the most fundamental aspect to democracy: the right to a free and fair ballot.

Confessions of An Economic Hit Man – John Perkins

Confessions of An Economic Hit Man – John Perkins, Berrett-Koehler Publishing, Inc. (2004) 250pp. (S) ***

Like Philip Agee (Inside the Company), Victor Ostrovsky (By Way of Deception), and Robert Baer (See No Evil, Sleeping With The Devil) before him, John Perkins, as a former insider, has decided to spill the beans in a memoir of his own. Perkins has traveled to many parts of the world (Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran) as a self-professed “Economic Hit Man” (known as an EHM in the industry), giving him a view to the common themes of economic exploitation in the service of empire that permeate and afflict each country. While a more commonly known and understood “hit man” would wield a gun as his favored tool (persons Perkins designates as “jackals”), the economic hit man carries a brief case with documents and a calculator to help produce the inflated numbers that over-optimistic – some would say, avaricious – development firms are so eager to chomp on. This was Perkins specific role, to supply the numbers that projected wildly over-rated future growth projections, because that is what his superiors wanted to see. These numbers would then be used as the foundation for mammoth investment programs and infrastructure projects, all financed by borrowed monies at usurious rates that were sure to keep the target countries in a state of indefinite indebtedness for years to come. It is from just such a weakened position, that the U.S. would then be able to get economically advantageous concessions, be it rapacious access to raw resources or more favorable business conditions for U.S. multinationals.
Ten years into such a life, Perkins’ conscience eats away at him, so that he begins to make a gradual break from the industry he believes to be so corrosive to life on the planet. Even though Perkins’ profession is in economics, readers will be pleased to know that Perkins’ style is easy to read, unencumbered with technical jargon, perhaps even to a fault. Perkins’ book is more about a man’s struggle with his afflicted conscience, than a brass tacks expose of his less than savory trade – so much so that the text often becomes needlessly redundant. Nonetheless, Perkins must be given his due for breaking the sound barrier and bringing the subject of international, extortive economics and its unpleasant underside, to the fore.

How the GOP Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 – Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wassserman

How the GOP Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 – Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wassserman, CICJ Books (2005) 103pp. (S) ****

Both Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are tireless muckrakers in the finest sense of the word. They have provided an illuminating look into the 2004 presidential election and its numerous irregularities, principally in Ohio, but in other states like Florida, Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico as well. As among the first to blow the whistle on election corruption and fraud, Fitrakis and Wasserman had been following the 2004 presidential election from its infancy. From their work, we see how history and conspiracy collide, and how the powerful incumbency of George W. Bush is undeterred in employing nearly every underhanded tactic at their disposal, in order to maintain and expand their power-base.
Among some of the many electoral “irregularities” observed by the authors are what follows. International election observers were banned from entering precinct voting areas by Ohio’s Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, while election “challengers” were allowed free reign to harass and intimidate voters. “ . . . [T]he [Republican] challengers also served to confuse the voting process and to lengthen already very long waits for inner-city residents hoping to vote.”(p.43) In Ohio’s Lucas county, there was a burglary of democratic headquarters where several computers were stolen on the night of October 11, 2004. In some instances, there were spoiled absentee ballots that had already been marked for Bush that were sent out to prospective voters. Perhaps the most incriminating evidence is the wide discrepancy between exit poll results and final vote tallies, in states like Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico. In each of these states according to exit polls, Kerry was expected to win, only to have the votes go the other way as the night wore on. In New Mexico, regardless of demographics, Kerry lost in every precinct where paperless electronic voting machines were used. Kerry himself recognized this peculiar statistical anomaly.
And according to Fitrakis and Wasserman, the Republican majority in Ohio is just warming up. Among policy proposals being made is the display of picture identification as a prerequisite to having the right to vote. Also the Ohio legislature is considering expanding the level of corporate and individual contributions that can be made to candidates. These and other restrictions to the right to vote are possibilities for the near future, ensuring that single-party rule continues indefinitely into the future.
Thankfully, Fitrakis and Wasserman offer a few suggestions for averting so dark an outcome. Have international monitors deployed at every polling station while banning partisan “challengers.” Have a constitutional amendment ensuring every American’s right to vote. Have uniform federal laws, like the requirement that all DREs (direct recording electronics) provide a paper verification of each vote, so that states and municipalities are all on the same page. These are good ideas for a good start, but until the “big money” is reigned in and properly regulated and restricted in its access to candidates, it is this reviewer’s mind, that little else will change for the better.
In the meantime, the efforts of Fitrakis and Wasserman (and before them, Bev Harris and Black Box Voting and before her the Collier brothers with Votescam) must be fully applauded. By calling out nasty GOP electoral practices, they are performing an invaluable service to the public: exposure of what otherwise seeks to succeed by surreptitiousness and secrecy. If there is a common theme to be found in the Republicans desperate efforts, it is the insolence of power that believes it can fool the masses, while those it can’t fool, it can buy, or even yet deal with in a less savory fashion. Part of the nationwide Republican reelection strategy in 2004 was to widely disseminate disinformation in minority (i.e. mostly democratic) communities, attempting to sow the seeds of doubt as to the day of the election and as to whether certain persons will be eligible to vote, or even, if they erroneously are led to believe, they are not, that some legal repercussions may be the result should they attempt to vote. As a student of the 9/11/01 attacks, this reviewer sees an interesting parallel. On the morning of 9/11/01, the FAA and NORAD were engaged in military exercises, or “war games,” as they are sometimes known. But by pure coincidence, four planes were actually hijacked (a hijacked aircraft was the very scenario they were training for), so that confused personnel were at some point unable to distinguish reality from virtual reality. So we see the common strokes. Whenever possible, whenever too many questions are being asked, whenever popular resistance becomes too threatening, sow the seeds of confusion and exploit the uncertainty that ensues. “Divide and conquer” is as old as civilization itself. This is their cowardly m.o. and a tired public should by now be getting wise to the game. If not, we can only blame ourselves if we get more of the same in 2006 and 2008.

House of Bush House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties – Craig Unger

House of Bush House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties – Craig Unger, Scribner (2004) 370pp. (S) ****

Much of what is known about the circumstances surrounding 9/11 is in no small part attributable to books like House of Bush House of Saud. Where the major corporate media has failed us, these books have picked up the pace, or as Craig Unger puts it, “Media watchers noted that the book-publishing industry was serving as a surrogate for an aggressive Washington press corps that appeared to be missing in action. It was as if reporters were afraid to ask the tough questions because they feared losing access to exclusive interviews with the key players in the administration.”(p.285) The next logical follow-up question is why the “book-publishing industry” waited three to four years to begin its serious inquiry into the Bush II administration? Maybe this is because “when the presidential race got underway in 2000, however, no such statements about Iraq were forthcoming [from Bush].”(p.195) War, or even the talk of war, makes for much more sensational news than unearthing inconsistencies in a presidential candidate’s gubernatorial record.
According to Unger, “in all, at least $1.476 billion has made its way from the Saudis to the house of Bush and its allied companies and institutions.”(p.200) That’s the kind of money that can buy a lot of influence. No wonder Bush actively courted the Muslim vote in the 2000 election, especially in Florida, where it quite possibly paid off in the dividend of the presidency itself. This too may account for the reason that terrorism was far from a priority during the Bush administration’s first nine months.
It is also interesting to note and compare how the Bush Sr. and the Clinton administrations treated their lame duck periods. The former launched a full military operation in Somalia, while the latter sought restraint in countering the October 2000 USS Cole attack, but instead chose to council heavily the incoming administration about the importance of al Qaeda and terrorism, factors the Clinton team believed would play predominantly in the coming months and years. Too bad much of this advice fell on deaf ears
Unger also helps to clarify a few points that are skewed in the official 9/11 Commission Report. First, there is the matter of the private flights that ushered Saudis out of the U.S. ostensibly for the purposes of ensuring their own protection, during a period when the FAA had a ban that kept all private aircraft (numbering 200,000 in the U.S.) grounded nationwide. Twice in the 9/11 report, it is stated that part of bin Laden’s goal is to convert the United States to Islam. Yet, Unger writes “bin Laden’s jihad against the United States includes two specific goals: the complete removal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of the house of Saud.”(p.278-79) Add to this the cessation of U.S. aid to Israel and corrupt Arab governments, and that is about the extent of stated al Qaeda objectives. This is to say that al Qaeda’s grievances are more about our foreign policy than an existential opposition to “who we are,” (part of which is, admittedly, defined by our foreign policy).

Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War On Terror – Perter Lance

Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War On Terror – Perter Lance, Regan Books/Harper Collins (2004) 360pp. (S) ***

Sometimes when an author has success with a book, a follow-up isn’t necessarily necessary. 1,000 Years For Revenge happens to be one of the most comprehensive books on the years preceding the run-up to the 9/11 attacks and is a work that stands alone as Lance’s best. However, “the War On Terror,” an expression that I’m sure most Americans are sick of by now, is forever mutating as more information is found and discovered that either refutes or confirms earlier theses. In Cover Up, Lance is building upon the case he made in 1,000 Years For Revenge, that the U.S. government knew much more than it was letting on pre-9/11 about the prospective hijackers and their aims, and that if the government had just gotten out of the way of itself, the 9/11 plot may very well have been disrupted.
Central to one of the main themes in Cover Up is the assertion that TWA 800 went down as a result of an onboard bomb (not, as was determined by the NTSB, an electrical failure in the main fuel tank). In Lance’s words, “this book [Cover Up] further provides evidence that even while [1993 WTC bomber, Ramzi] Yousef was in federal jail he planned and triggered the downing of TWA flight 800 in order to effect a mistrial in the Bojinka case.”(p.210) Lance’s evidence is bomb residue similar to that used by Yousef in an earlier bombing, found in the plane’s midsection over the central fuel tank. It is further Lance’s contention that information regarding bomb making was leaked out of his prison cell via an adjacent cellmate, with the knowledge and cooperation of the FBI. (Yousef also made phone calls, which the reader must assume, were fully monitored.) So the big disconnect in Lance’s argument becomes how would Yousef articulate his plans to have TWA 800 bombed without the Feds knowing about it, and thus intervening? A more plausible theory, if one is to believe multiple eye-witness accounts, is that TWA 800 was shot out of the sky by a surface to air missile, either from a Naval ship that was in the area conducting “exercises” at the time, or by other means, such as a shoulder launched mechanism. (Another instance where eye-witness accounts are quite revealing, is in the instance of the shoot-down of United flight 93 over Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Again, while not discounting that UAL # 93 may very well have been shot down, Lance, for whatever reasons, does not refer to the eye-witness accounts that attested to seeing a low flying military aircraft, absent any markings, in the vicinity of flight 93’s wreckage.)
While focusing on some of the hijackers, Lance states that a program run by the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, called “Visa Express,” expedited visa applications by Saudi citizens, while greatly reducing oversight measures. How the State Department ever reconciled such a program with a country well known for its terrorism links is beyond this reviewer’s comprehension and credulity. In the same vein, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds claimed that indeed the FBI had enough information to prevent 9/11. Combine this with the “war games” known as “Vigilant Guardian” and “Northern Vigilance” that were scheduled for the morning of 9/11/01, as cited by Lance, and a fuller picture comes into view as to how the 9/11 attacks could have been so successful.
Overall, though, if one must make a choice between reading Cover Up and 1,000 Years For Revenge, the better bet would be for the latter.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century – James Howard Kunstler

The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century – James Howard Kunstler, Atlantic Monthly Press (2005) 307pp. (S) **

Recently in the past few years, PBS produced its answer to commercial television’s “reality” TV. If this reviewer recalls correctly, there were three different programs devoted to three different time periods – one, the turn of the nineteenth century in England, another devoted to the frontier of the American west in the nineteenth century, and lastly, one about the colonial times in a New England colony. (If memory serves, there was also another one called “Manor House” which relived the experience of masters and servants.) In each program, participants sought to live as authentically as possible in the proscribed time period. To see modern families struggle through these privations was indeed an eye opening experience.
What happens when all we have taken for granted is no longer to be relied upon? This is essentially what the Long Emergency is about. What will life in America be like on the distant side of the “peak oil” curve (the period when half of all global oil reserves have been exhausted). Kunstler provides a pretty dark rendering, indeed, enough so for this reviewer to come to the blunt conclusion: we’re pretty much fucked.
Prognostication is always a tricky art. While it is known that oil and gas reserves are running out and that alternatives are too weak to meet overwhelming energy demands (the one exception that Kunstler allows for is nuclear, though given the immediacy of the need, no new plants would be able to meet needs in the interval during their construction), it is perhaps too soon to see with any accuracy what a post oil world will look like. According to Kunstler, where the age of liberal oil supply was about large economies of scale, interstate commerce, and global trade, the post-oil era will revert back to the local level, where small is beautiful and resourceful Americans will have to look out in how to feed, cloth, and house themselves in the absence of supermarkets, department stores, and automobiles. (Speaking of the latter, Kunstler oddly makes no mention of hybrid automotive technology, that if applied more widely, would make for a steadier transition into an era defined by limited petroleum supplies. Also strangely absent is any reference to the work of Mike Ruppert, a journalist who has been on the peak oil beat for some time now. But that is another matter.)
Where Kunstler seems to go wrong to the greatest degree, is in his brief analysis of U.S. foreign policy. He seems to be of the belief that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a police action, with the intent of curbing Saddam Hussein’s access to his imaginative WMD being a valid reason to support war of aggression. “And so the eviction of Saddam became inevitable,”(p.87) he concludes. He also states, “The Iraq invasion was a desperate attempt by the United States to establish political stability in the Middle East . . . ”(p.89) Apparently Kunstler doesn’t listen much to the neo-conservative right, which envisions ongoing “democratic” revolution across the Middle East, a.k.a. the active fostering of political instability in the region being the explicit policy. What also goes amazingly over-looked by Kunstler is the role economics played in the invasion, where Saddam Hussein decided in 2000 to trade his oil in euros instead of dollars, an action that Iran is soon to mimic. Given these wider economic considerations, the entire Middle East could devolve into a state of permanent war, with the U.S. being the principle aggressor. Nor does Kunstler even consider how such a state of endless war might play out in his post oil America. It’s not hard to imagine how an increasingly totalitarian federal government might further exploit ongoing energy crises to solidify and expand its power, like, say, by ensuring that there’s plenty of conscripts for its war without end. The fact that members of the current administration have gone on record as saying “the war on terror” is a war that will not end in our lifetime, is a pretty good indicator that Iraq is just the beginning. While Kunstler’s approach is to take a long, historical look before jumping to his oil-less future dystopia, it would seem that what is lost is some basic analysis grounded in the present.

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic – Chalmers Johnson

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic – Chalmers Johnson, Owl Books/Henry Holt and Co., LLC (2004) 389pp. (S) ****

Chalmers Johnson, best noted for his book published in 2000, Blowback: The Cost and Consequences of American Empire, a book that predates 9/11 itself, perhaps the greatest example of “blowback” (i.e. the unintended negative consequences of U.S. foreign policy). Johnson’s latest effort, The Sorrows of Empire, picks up where Blowback left off, focusing mostly on the first two years following the 9/11 attacks. The reader will find that recent events, however unfortunately, segue nicely into Johnson’s blowback thesis, as exemplified by the vast increase in terrorist attacks, escalating every year by seeming multiples as the Bush Jr. administration affects its wars of aggression and hostile foreign policy.
Some of the statistics cited by Johnson are astounding. For instance, there are 725 foreign military bases belonging to the U.S.(p.154) compared to 969 bases domestically in fifty states.(p.188) Additionally, the U.S. has 44% of the global arms export market.(p.214) At other times, Johnson’s analysis is dead on. “Many [U.S.] garrisons are in foreign countries to defend oil leases from competitors or to provide police protection to oil pipelines, although they [the U.S. military] invariably claim to be doing something completely unrelated – fighting the ‘war on terrorism’ or the ‘war on drugs,’ or training foreign soldiers, or engaging in some form of ‘humanitarian’ intervention.”(p.167) Johnson has cut to the quick in this highly astute observation, that underlying U.S. foreign policy, one interest usually reigns supreme; that of access to and control of oil supplies.
One area that Johnson could’ve expanded upon, is with regards to the 9/11 attacks. He writes “ . . . the terrorist attacks of 9/11 came as manna from heaven to an administration determined to ramp up military budgets.”(p.64) Given such a convenient coincidence, the highly peculiar and anomalous events of 9/11 themselves warrant closer observation and analysis. In due fairness to Johnson, the reader can’t fault him for not getting into an issue that could easily consume an entire book in itself, as David Ray Griffin has discovered.
Johnson concludes with what he cites as the “four sorrows.” In brief, they are as follow: 1) the propagation of perpetual war and military escalation, 2) the loss of democracy and constitutional rights on the domestic front, 3) the growth of propaganda and disinformation dissemination by the state in its pursuit of deceiving the republic into backing unending war, and 4) the bankruptcy of the republic’s treasury in having to finance an imperialist agenda that overstretches the government’s financial resources. Once again, Johnson is dead on. These “sorrows” are observable today, and barring a radical retaking and reshaping of the U.S. Congress, Johnson only sees these trends as continuing unimpeded. Given how far and how quickly the Bush Jr. administration has moved the republic into a fascist direction, Johnson is fully justified in his pessimism. We can only hope that enough Americans wake-up and realize what is being taken from then in their name, and take action. Bush’s low poll ratings seem like fertile ground from which to begin such an endeavor.

What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election – Academy Chicago Publishers

What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election – Academy Chicago Publishers (2005) 142pp. (S) ****

The Conyers Report is an eye-opening look into the abundant amount of fraud committed in Ohio, before, during, and after the 2004 presidential election. Whether it be the shorting of the number of election machines in urban, typically Democratic precincts, the deliberate dissemination of disinformation as to the date of the election and/or regarding a person’s eligibility to vote, or the tampering with the election machines themselves, post election by service technicians of the manufacturer, for the purpose of ensuring that recount results would match, this report is shocking in demonstrating the breadth of criminality involved. Much of the focus centers on Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, this comment being typical throughout the text: “Secretary of State Blackwell has refused to answer any of the questions concerning these matters [of election fraud] posed to him by ranking member Conyers and eleven other members of the judiciary on December 2, 2004.”(p.47)
With focus squarely on Blackwell, the reader sees his transparent attempts to stifle new voters from entering the democratic process, by coming up with a seemingly arbitrary condition that new applications for voter registration, be written on a particular type of heavier paper, hence disqualifying the applications that had already been done previously on lighter paper. We also see how Blackwell held out certifying the initial election results to the last possible moment so that a recount would not be able to be conducted in time to have a bearing on the electoral college tally. Someone was even audacious enough to call in a terrorist threat into one of the precincts, thus restricting access to votes and voting equipment. But again and again we find Kenneth Blackwell at the center of the storm. Conyers recognizes that as a member of the minority, he is powerless since only the majority has subpoena power. Given the long list of abuses articulated in this report, it would be a true travesty of justice if Kenneth Blackwell doesn’t get his day in court. As a member of the Cheney-Bush election apparatus, the conflicts of interest for Blackwell could not be more blatant. Like Katherine Harris before him in Florida 2000, together their responsibility for doing the country a tremendous disservice amounts to a contribution to a stench of corruption that only grows as time goes on. Thanks to Conyers and his report, there is a record of their misdeeds and malfeasance, so that while the majority of Americans may still be oblivious to the shenanigans of the 2004 election, there is indeed a document that hopefully some day many in this country will look upon with gratitude as one of the saving graces of the republic.

The Dirty Truth: The Oil and Chemical Dependency of George W. Bush – Rick Abraham

The Dirty Truth: The Oil and Chemical Dependency of George W. Bush – Rick Abraham, Mainstream Publishers (2000) 193pp. (S) ***

Though this book has all the hallmarks of a hastily put together publication (i.e. more grammatical errors than there should be), one can not refute the urgency of the subject matter. Like J.H. Hatfield, author of Fortunate Son, Abraham understood that timing is everything, and that if his work was to have any bearing on the 2000 U.S. presidential election, his book had to go to print before an event that has now become renowned for its contentiousness and irregularities. Abraham attempts to envision essentially the “Texification” of America, a most unpleasant exercise indeed. By blowing the whistle on Bush Jr.’s disgraceful gubernatorial record with regards to the environment, Abraham seeks to raise reader consciousness as to the very real threat Bush posed to the country at large.
In these pages we learn of the deep-pocketed moneyed interests that fuel the George W. Bush electoral machine and which buy influence, influence that does not go un-rewarded. The usual culprits are big business, and their interests come at the expense of the welfare of the general public. The examples are myriad. From the small west Texas town of Sierra Blanca where imported sludge from New York City was spread out in the open to stew and stink in the hot sun, to Bush’s neglect of the state’s park system. We learn the origins of insidiously titled legislation like “the clear skies” initiative, with Bush backed ideas like “water quality protection zones,” which channeled public monies to private interests.
Kudos to Rick Abraham for having the courage and initiative to take on the Bush electoral machine when it really mattered, not two or three years into the administration by riding a wave of anti-Bush publications, when numbers brought safety. If only more had followed his example, just maybe we wouldn’t be in the mess we presently face today. Though given the difficulties faced by the publication of Fortunate Son, there is likely a reason that not more persons dared come forward with their criticisms in the months preceding the 2000 election. The Bush team was playing hardball, long before it seized office in a judicial coup. This makes Abraham’s work all the more remarkable and commendable.