You Can't Win a Fight When You Won't Open Your Eyes and Look at Your Opponent

Prior Aelred sent this Smirking Chimp article to me. You've got to go read it right now. Everyone in America needs to read it. The bottom line is that the Republicans have undoubtedly STOLEN the last two elections and the Democrats seem to want to just close their eyes and pretend that this isn't happening. Which, unfortunately, assures that the Republicans will continue to steal elections.

It makes people uncomfotable when you say that the Republicans are stealing elections. They act as if you've just farted, or just announced that you were abducted by aliens who kept you in a spaceship and made you bear their alien babies. The Republicans count on that.

The article notes that, "the Bush campaign was aided enormously in this thievery because their campaign co-chairs in key states were also the Secretaries of State -- that is, the officials in charge of conducting elections and certifying the vote results: Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000 (with brother Gov. Jeb Bush overseeing her work), and, in 2004, Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, Terry Lind in Michigan, Matt Blunt in Missouri, Glenda Hood in Florida, et al." I've been saying for a year and a half that I won't give any money to any Democratic presidential candidates until the Democrats figure out a way to elect Democrats as SoS of Ohio and Florida. What's the point? So far, I can't see any evidence that the Democrats have made this Job One. They're now busy fighting over whether to give their money to DC consultants (NO! For the love of God, NO!) or local efforts in all states. As if this were going to be some normal election and we just need to figure out where to best spend our money. It's not and that's the least of what we need to do.

The article continues, "One can't escape the conclusion that the Democrats in general still don't know how to respond to cutthroat aggressiveness and criminality on the part of the Republicans. The Dems never knew what hit them in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004 and don't really have their oppositional act together now in 2006, with the midterm election just six months away." This is what really scares me. And, I think it relates to my earlier post on integrity. People are afraid to admit that we're dealing with a group of out-and-out criminals who are willing to break all the rules, because admitting that forces us to face some scary questions about how to deal with those people. It takes us outside the realm of the known, where there are rules that work, and dumps us into an alternate, and frightening, new reality.
We're not going to just get better funded, better organized, and elect better people. I knew when I heard about the NSA phone database that these crooks NEVER plan to leave office. They would never create a tool like that and then turn it over to, say, Hillary Clinton.

I'm not sure what -- other than massive civil disobedience -- will work with the power-mad fascists who have stolen control of America. I am sure that continuing to squeeze our eyes shut and pretend that we're not dealing with a real crisis -- in short, continuing to do what we've been doing but hoping for different results -- will only result in more stolen elections.

In 2004, I hoped that Kerry could pul off a landslide and that a landslide would be more difficult for the Republicans to steal than the close election we'd had in 2000. I still hear people heartened by Bush's low poll numbers who hope the Democrats will pull off landslide victories this fall that will be too big for the Republicans to steal. I don't buy it. In 2000, they had to scramble to steal the election, get help from the SCOTUS (fuck you, Sandra Day!) Again: "One can't escape the conclusion that the Democrats in general still don't know how to respond to cutthroat aggressiveness and criminality on the part of the Republicans. The Dems never knew what hit them in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004 and don't really have their oppositional act together now in 2006, with the midterm election just six months away."

The Democrats are the only hope we've got. We have neither the time nor the resources to organize a third party with any realistic chance of taking control. So we've got to wake the Democrats up, no matter how difficult a job that may be. I'm open to suggestons on how that might be done.