The tumultuous, resoundingly disappointing week behind us - due to a blend of misinformed voters, single-issue voters, and problems in the voting system (certainly many systemic ones, and perhaps fraud and manipulation) as it stands - have pushed some into silence and some into rash statements. I've been inclined in the post-election days to lean slightly towards the latter by way of endorsements.
Having read a mix of perspectives and analyses over the past several days I've finally come to the conclusion that as we have to take a long view of what's to come we have to simultaneously put pressure to have the problems reformed while being careful not to lose the gains made in political awareness and voter turnout. Remember that even through this flawed process some 56 million votes were cast against George W. Bush. That's all the more important when one considers that he ran as a "War president", a situation that was bound to rally many of the fearful and otherwise cause the knees of many well-intentioned patriots to jump.
56 million is a staggering sum. It should be a humbling sum, but we're not dealing with a humble group except when they're pretending in church.
The piece that finally saw me turn a corner on the needed approach was this one.
While I sincerely believe that there is strong circumstantial evidence for a case of voting fraud, that this should be investigated during the course of every vote being counted, and that it should be among the things dogging this administration's every step, it shouldn't truly take center stage. Center stage must be reserved for something positive. Something hopeful.
As noted in the above link, pressing the Fraud button without iron clad proof will likely do us more harm in the long run than any good. It will discourage some voters by encouraging the mindset that the game is fixed and cannot be made fair, while marginalizing us in the eyes of many others we will eventually need to convince. It is with that in mind that I've now removed the Kerry Won link to Greg Palast's piece of the same name from the prominent place it's been on my sidebar since Friday. While I still find Palast's points to be worthy of attention, they cannot be the standard beneath which we march.
Indeed, there are signs that the fear of throwing away votes in a rigged game hurt our side before it had really begun. Reports of people being encouraged to use provisional ballots instead of using the machines - a process that doesn't merely delay the vote being counted but subjects it to additional challenges - are disheartening. Such a move was probably done with the best of intentions, but that doesn't make it any better.
The primary focus has to remain on the present and future.
Fixing the machines by insisting on a paper trail - this can be done legislatively, where anyone who opposes it will be exposing himself as standing against a free and open process. Particularly any GOP senator who was elected or re-elected this time.
Also, look ahead to 2006 and 2008. What can be done to unseat the opposition in 2006 and take away the near rubber stamp Bush will have once the new House and Senate is seated. If your were involved in the fight this time, a good place to start is by letting the DNC know how you helped and how you'd like to help the fight in the future. Now is the time for input.
I've come to realize that if we stay too focused on looking backwards we could find ourselves in 2006 looking at Democratic candidates that are nominal Dems at best - a charge that could easily be levelled against many who ran this time. I don't want to be looking at a field where it's a choice between Raging Right-Wing Social Conservative Fundamentalist Christian Republicans and a Republican-Lite Democrats who spend half their time trying to out-church their opponents. We need government officials leading with Reason, not Religion. If their faith sustains them as individuals, that's no bother to me, but it shouldn't be the basis of their decisions as an elected official. The moment scripture becomes a substitute for human reason is the moment we may as well return to the days of a monarchy. Being able to claim Divine Right cut through so many problems, didn't it?
Oh, I'm all but resigned to hearing "God" dropped in nearly every political speech for a while to come -- I find it to be personally sad, but I expect politicians to play all the angles as they have for millennia. It's an easy ploy and even Hitler saw the value in claiming a seal of approval from God. I can ignore that part providing what I hear otherwise makes good and practical social sense. After all, I believe that's what most of the founding fathers did, too.
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