“I came here to see a country, but what I find is a theater … In appearances, everything happens as it does everywhere else. There is no difference except in the very foundation of things.” (de Custine, writing about Russia in the mid-19th century)
Four decades ago, the Polish-American-Jewish author, Jerzy Kosinski, wrote the book “Being There.” It describes the election to the presidency of the United States of a simpleton, a gardener, whose vapid and trite pronouncements are taken to be sagacious and penetrating insights into human affairs. The “Being There Syndrome” is now manifest throughout the world: from Russia (Putin) to the United States (Obama).
Given a high enough level of frustration, triggered by recurrent, endemic, and systemic failures in all spheres of policy, even the most resilient democracy develops a predilection to “strong men,” leaders whose self-confidence, sangfroid, and apparent omniscience all but “guarantee” a change of course for the better.
These are usually people with a thin resume, having accomplished little prior to their ascendance. They appear to have erupted on the scene from nowhere. They are received as providential messiahs precisely because they are unencumbered with a discernible past and, thus, are ostensibly unburdened by prior affiliations and commitments. Their only duty is to the future. They are a-historical: they have no history and they are above history.
Indeed, it is precisely this apparent lack of a biography that qualifies these leaders to represent and bring about a fantastic and grandiose future. They act as a blank screen upon which the multitudes project their own traits, wishes, personal biographies, needs, and yearnings.
The more these leaders deviate from their initial promises and the more they fail, the dearer they are to the hearts of their constituents: like them, their new-chosen leader is struggling, coping, trying, and failing and, like them, he has his shortcomings and vices. This affinity is endearing and captivating. It helps to form a shared psychosis (follies-a-pleusieurs) between ruler and people and fosters the emergence of an hagiography.
The propensity to elevate narcissistic or even psychopathic personalities to power is most pronounced in countries that lack a democratic tradition (such as China, Russia, or the nations that inhabit the territories that once belonged to Byzantium or the Ottoman Empire).
Cultures and civilizations which frown upon individualism and have a collectivist tradition, prefer to install “strong collective leaderships” rather than “strong men.” Yet, all these polities maintain a theatre of democracy, or a theatre of “democratically-reached consensus” (Putin calls it: “sovereign democracy”). Such charades are devoid of essence and proper function and are replete and concurrent with a personality cult or the adoration of the party in power.
In most developing countries and nations in transition, “democracy” is an empty word. Granted, the hallmarks of democracy are there: candidate lists, parties, election propaganda, a plurality of media, and voting. But its quiddity is absent. The democratic principles are institutions are being consistently hollowed out and rendered mock by election fraud, exclusionary policies, cronyism, corruption, intimidation, and collusion with Western interests, both commercial and political.
The new “democracies” are thinly-disguised and criminalized plutocracies (recall the Russian oligarchs), authoritarian regimes (Central Asia and the Caucasus), or puppeteered heterarchies (Macedonia, Bosnia, and Iraq, to mention three recent examples).
The new “democracies” suffer from many of the same ills that afflict their veteran role models: murky campaign finances; venal revolving doors between state administration and private enterprise; endemic corruption, nepotism, and cronyism; self-censoring media; socially, economically, and politically excluded minorities; and so on. But while this malaise does not threaten the foundations of the United States and France – it does imperil the stability and future of the likes of Ukraine, Serbia, and Moldova, Indonesia, Mexico, and Bolivia.
Many nations have chosen prosperity over democracy. Yes, the denizens of these realms can’t speak their mind or protest or criticize or even joke lest they be arrested or worse – but, in exchange for giving up these trivial freedoms, they have food on the table, they are fully employed, they receive ample health care and proper education, they save and spend to their hearts’ content.
In return for all these worldly and intangible goods (popularity of the leadership which yields political stability; prosperity; security; prestige abroad; authority at home; a renewed sense of nationalism, collective and community), the citizens of these countries forgo the right to be able to criticize the regime or change it once every four years. Many insist that they have struck a good bargain – not a Faustian one.
West Virginia voters say voting machines are switching votes. In several cases, Democratic votes flipped to GOP. An electronic vote for “Barack Obama” flips to “John McCain”.
Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes — Jackson County touch-screens switched votes, 3 residents say. At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
By Paul J. Nyden Staff writer
At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk’s office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
“When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain,” said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.
When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge “responded that everything was all right. It was just that the screen was sensitive and I was touching the screen too hard. She instructed me to use only my fingernail.”
Even after she began using her fingernail, Matheney said, the problem persisted.
When she tried to vote for candidates running for two open seats on the Supreme Court, the electronic machine canceled her second vote twice.
On her third try, Matheney managed to cast votes for both Menis Ketchum and Margaret Workman, Democratic candidates for the two open seats.
Calvin Thomas, 81, who retired from Kaiser Aluminum in Ravenswood in 1983 and now lives in Ripley, experienced the same problem.
“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.
“The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican,” Thomas said.
“When I hollered about that, the girl who worked there said, ‘Push it again.’ I pushed Obama again and it stayed there. Then, the machine did the same thing for other candidates.
“Why didn’t she [the polling clerk] tell me before I even used the machine that might happen? And how many people, especially my age, didn’t notice that? …..[MORE]
More W.Va. voters say machines are switching votes — In six cases, Democratic votes flipped to GOP
Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.
By Paul J. Nyden Staff writer
WINFIELD, W.Va. — Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.
This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.
In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.
They also blamed voters for not being more careful.
“People make mistakes more than machines,” said Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright.
Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old nurse retired from Thomas Memorial Hospital, described what happened Friday at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.
“I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican,” she said. “I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.
“I asked them for a printout of my votes,” Ketchum said. “But they said it was in the machine and I could not get it. I did not feel right when I left the courthouse. My son felt the same way.
“I heard from some other people they also had trouble. But no one in there knew how to fix it,” said Ketchum, who is not related to Menis Ketchum, a Democratic Supreme Court candidate.
Ketchum’s son, Chris, said he had the same problem. And Bobbi Oates of Scott Depot said her vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller was switched to GOP opponent Jay Wolfe.
“I touched the one I wanted, Rockefeller, and the machine put a checkmark on the Republican instead,” Oates said of her experience Thursday.
She said she caught the mistake, called over a worker in the county clerk’s office and was able to correct her vote. But she worries other voters may not catch such a mistake.
When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, “I’m absolutely positive.”
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood said on Saturday that he is upset there are “so many negative stories out there and not enough positive ones. We want people to vote. People need to know the facts.
“But we haven’t had any major issues. We try to explain to voters how the machines work then they come in,” Wood said.
In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots — paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices.
Wood said some voters might not realize that touch-screen voting machines may take a few seconds to record their choices.
WINFIELD, W.Va. — Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.
This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.
In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.
They also blamed voters for not being more careful.
“People make mistakes more than machines,” said Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright.
Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old nurse retired from Thomas Memorial Hospital, described what happened Friday at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.
“I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican,” she said. “I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.
“I asked them for a printout of my votes,” Ketchum said. “But they said it was in the machine and I could not get it. I did not feel right when I left the courthouse. My son felt the same way.
“I heard from some other people they also had trouble. But no one in there knew how to fix it,” said Ketchum, who is not related to Menis Ketchum, a Democratic Supreme Court candidate.
Ketchum’s son, Chris, said he had the same problem. And Bobbi Oates of Scott Depot said her vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller was switched to GOP opponent Jay Wolfe.
“I touched the one I wanted, Rockefeller, and the machine put a checkmark on the Republican instead,” Oates said of her experience Thursday.
She said she caught the mistake, called over a worker in the county clerk’s office and was able to correct her vote. But she worries other voters may not catch such a mistake.
When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, “I’m absolutely positive.”
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood said on Saturday that he is upset there are “so many negative stories out there and not enough positive ones. We want people to vote. People need to know the facts.
“But we haven’t had any major issues. We try to explain to voters how the machines work then they come in,” Wood said.
In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots — paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices.
Wood said some voters might not realize that touch-screen voting machines may take a few seconds to record their choices.
“The reaction time [on the machines] may be different. And when you hit the screen a second time, it cancels your vote,” Wood said. “When you get in a hurry, if you go to fast and hit it again, you can cancel what you just did.
“The main thing people need to remember is that when you are done voting, make sure everybody you wanted to vote for has a check mark beside them,” Wood said.
Ketchum said, “I am educated person. I know what I wanted. I am anxious to see who wins.
“My son Chris said, ‘Mom, I didn’t vote for the people who came up on that machine. I wanted to go back and vote again. I called the lady at the polls and she said it was my fault because of the way I was punching the buttons.’
“I want a paper ballot. I think it was very bad when they did away with paper ballots. I wish you had something in your hand that is a record of how you voted.
“I never felt that way before. It was early voting, so we went over there to get it over with. We won’t do that again,” Ketchum said.
Last week, three Jackson County residents said they experienced similar problems when they cast early ballots at the county courthouse in Ripley.
Virginia Matheney, one of those voters, said Friday, “When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain.”
Retired factory worker Calvin Thomas of Ripley said he experienced the same problem.
“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude.
“After I finished, my daughter voted. When she pushed Obama, it went to McCain. It happened to her the same way it happened to me,” Thomas said.
Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright, a Republican, said 400 other people voted without reporting any problems.
Wood said he and Waybright are both very careful to guarantee people’s votes are recorded properly.
Wood said, “Voting machines are very reliable. I hate the fact that stories like this are printed. It makes everybody get scared.
“That is not good for anybody. Where the fault is, I don’t know and the voter doesn’t know. There needs to be good communication between the voters and the poll workers.”
Wood offered this advice to voters: “The best way to solve this whole problem is that before you leave the voting booth, make sure on the review screen that everybody you want to vote for is checked.”
More than 1,000 voters from 48 local precincts in Putnam County cast early ballots in the past three days, Wood said. Putnam County has 36,000 registered voters….[MORE]
Xenophobia and far right-wing extremism in America, as in Germany….and so on, are strikingly similar patterns of hostility towards immigrants a.k.a foreigners — unfounded fears and a wild perception of relative deprivation driven in by extortionist politicians and TV and RADIO SCUM like the Anti-Immigrant Bigot and Neo-Populist Crusader, Lou Dobbs — the resident nativist dung-thrower at CNN, and author of: “Bigots Day: Awakening the American ‘Racist’ Spirit.”
The stink gets worse when BLACK UNCLE TOMS join in — for example, Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State.
The sight of this TADPOLE yapping maliciously against Obama at Fox New’s O’Hannity and Coward show, really riles me, because it gives credence to Syphilitic “Nazi” Scumbags like Sean Hannity, who is hell-bent on derailing Obama’s presidential aspirations by hook or crook.
Obama is head and shoulders above McCain in intellect, integrity and honesty. He is a good man, and to watch black “leaders” coalesce with the racist thugs at Fox News, to disparage other blacks, is appalling indeed.
Obama seeks entry into the most segregated institution in the United States — the presidency of the United States, therefore his candidacy should be a momentous happening to ALL BLACK PEOPLE, given that we may never see one like him in many years to come.
Mr. Blackwell was a key figure in the GOP push to disenfranchise black voters in Ohio, in 2004, and according to the current Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, “Accidentally.”
Of course — to hide the rampant election corruption under Blackwell’s reign of fraud.
The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.
The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio’s 2004 vote count, because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count anomalies apparently no longer exists….[READ MORE HERE] [AND HERE]
Republicans can’t win anything fairly — if it is not immigrant-bashing, its terror-mongering or just out-right racism.
Now that it seems they cannot break Barack Obama’s back with their old and rudderless candidate, partnered with the dumbest “VP cheerleader” since Indiana’s Dan Quayle in 1988, their only option is to sow malicious seeds of doubtand/or to try and steal the election outright.
They have done it before. They can do it again! Punks!
“Poor blacks caused this,” said Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s the 5th District congressman, scornfully. “That’s what we’re supposed to believe. Little ACORN caused this. The mighty captains of Wall Street got taken down by little ACORN and poor black people. That’s what you’re hearing on the right. The gall and audacity of this is beyond imagination.”
In fact, many, including 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann, seem to be saying that the demise of Wall Street can be traced to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977.
That’s right. In the eyes of some, today’s problems aren’t a product of greed, or lack of regulation, but instead can be traced to the Jimmy Carter era. That’s when Congress passed CRA, an act that encouraged commercial banks to invest in housing in cities that were facing both redlining and major decline. The idea was simple: Stabilizing neighborhoods, through home ownership, would stabilize cities.
The act had the support of a nonprofit organization, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). It survived two terms of Ronald Reagan, the Gingrich era and three terms of Bushes before apparently creating today’s crisis.
But now, a handful of economists and a lot of conservatives who are looking for a scapegoat claim that it was the CRA that encouraged risky lending that led to the defaults that have led to the mess we’re in.
Says Ellison: “To suggest that the greatest financial crisis we have faced since the Great Depression was caused by legislation that was created to help prevent low-income individuals from assuming high-cost, subprime loans that have caused the crisis today is absurd. To suggest that struggling families trying to keep their home brought down the Titans of Commerce, the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street, is ludicrous. To suggest someone who is raising three children while holding down two minimum wage jobs on a high school education was able to stall one of the greatest economic engines on Earth needs their head examined.” ….[MORE]
This book ought to be required reading for every teacher, educator, administrator, and parents who intereact with children of African descent.
Woodson’s work helps us understand that African peoples are truely mis-educated.
We largely receive an Eurocentric or White middle class, elitist education that by and large does not serve the needs of our communities. This mis-education creates a serious identity crisis on the part of African youth and it causes many Black “educated” middle class people to spend more time trying to reach the consumer American Dream rather than working toward a real self-determination agenda of African peoples.
Thus it’s of little suprise today that most African students never enroll in a course on African/African-American studies. In fact, these courses are becoming more rare in high school and colleges across the nation. Even with the current renaissance of Black literature in this country, the study of African/Black culture, politics, and spiritual life are rarely discussed.
In Woodson’s words: “Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better, but the instruction so far given Negroes [and still today] in colleges and universities [and elementary and secondary schools] has worked to the contrary.
In most cases such graduates have merely increased the number of malcontents who offer no program for changing the undesiriable conditions about which they complain.” Woodson’s book is clearly not out-dated. In fact, it reads as if it were published last year, instead of 1933.
I would like to close this response to Woodson’s work with another classic quote from him:
“If you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a person feel that he/she is inferior, you do not have to compel him/her to accept an inferior status, he/she will seek for it. If you make a person think he/she is a justly outcast, yoiu do not have to order that person to the back door, that person will go without being told, and if there is no back door, the very nature of that person will demand one.”
kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
presidential ballots and related election records, “Accidentally.”
