09 September 2012

The Democrats demonstrate their contempt for democratic voting processes


The Republicans did it at their convention, suppressing and gagging the electors representing Ron Paul, who had every right to attend the convention and vote.  There was a possibility that they would not vote for Mitt Romney, so Ron Paul was taken off the ballot (the rule HAD been that if you won 5 states you were listed on the ballot, but the powerbrokers changed it to 8 states, so Paul coudn't be on the ballot.)  And they didn't even allow the Maine Ron Paul supporters to be seated, replacing them with Romney supporters.  This was done to give the appearance of party unity during the nationwide telecast, and it was done simply because they were able to do it, principles be damned.  BTW, I'm no longer a Ron Paul supporter (I was years ago, but he has become a bit too much on the fringe for me in recent years).  But I do think his delegates should have been allowed their inconsequential votes.

At least the Republicans were ashamed enough or sly enough to do keep their power play sort of behind closed doors, so the broad public couldn't see the voting suppression within the election process. The Democrats, by contrast, were even more brazen and in-your-face.  

It's all there in the video embedded above.  The electors at the Democratic National Convention are asked to vote on changes in wording in the Democratic party platform involving "God" and "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel."  A two-thirds majority is required to approve the change.  You can see for yourself what happened.  There is no way on God's green earth that the voice vote was 2/3 in favor, but that's what those in power wanted, and that's what they declared to be the outcome.  You almost feel sorry for the guy at the podium calling for the vote, but he is too spineless to stand in the way of the predetermined outcome.

This debacle was featured by Jon Stewart in a segement of The Daily Show, and the video he used showed the Teleprompter telling the guy at the podium what to say.   Stewart laughed that "the Teleprompter breaks the tie" and the audience laughs. But to me it isn't funny at all. 

Those naive electors sitting in the auditorium traveled to the convention actually thinking they would be voting on things, but they are just pawns in the hands of corporate and political forces many log powers more powerful than they are.  What scares me is the hubris of the party insiders doing this "in your face" on live national television.  That, and the relative silence of the media in not bringing it to people's attention.

This is a rant.  The danger of a rant is that I may be wrong and may be embarassing myself because of extenuating circumstances I'm unaware of.  If that's the case, I'm sorry.  But I'm pissed.  At both political parties.

Time to quit blogging and go watch football...

26 comments:

  1. What the heck? Where are the counters? How could this possibly be considered democratic without official ballot counters? I think American politics has become very tiring for many Canadians as your government's decisions affect our lives in profound ways and yet it all seems to be a farce completely outside our control. Both the Republicans and Democrats are so religiously zealous, anti-facts, and conservative compared to our most conservative party that it scares many of the younger well educated people here. I'm waiting for a crisis to change things. They just can't keep going on the way they are.

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  2. TYWKIWDBI for president.

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  3. You're dead wrong, Stan- Since when is pointing out an obvious wrong (that is both willfully committed and purposely ignored) demoted to a "rant?" If our citizenry responded as if they were awake and conscious to when they're blatantly getting repeatedly lied to, cheated and kicked in the groin- our so called leaders would not discharge so freely on our collective face. It's gotten to the point where they can expose themselves in public and get away with it without criticism, backlash or consequence.

    And we have only ourselves to blame. Everyone bitches about the economy, but how many at the very least bother to vote? It wouldn't be such a "useless exercise" if everyone bothered to do it- then we'd have other players involved who would actually challenge such blatant, in your face (and let's call it what it is) criminality. Candidates would have to take some measure of responsibility for their actions, and those of their party. The two party system is like an endless game of pong- forever entrapped in their linear box of two dimensional nonreality.

    But we'd much rather watch the football game, "read" about our favorite celebrity, or fantasize how we're gonna fix everything with our favorite gun of choice.

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  4. The media wouldn't make a peep because the same people that own the country and the politics also own the media. This whole process is just the illusion of choice.
    This link sums it up pretty well.http://youtu.be/wV1lZMTCqf8 Sorry you'll have to copy and paste.

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  5. Well said, and Stan B. capped it nicely. I'm a registered Republican, mainly because I want to help steer the party back to what it once was, but at heart I'm a middle-of-the-roader (whatever party we should belong to no longer exists, I think).

    The two-party system is killing our country, and each election the lines between the platforms blur just a bit more in most ways while the far ends of both are touted as if that's what most people worry about. Then, when whichever party gets into office, it's same-ol', same-ol' - meet the new boss, just like the old boss.

    George Washington cautioned about the party system, and the polarization that accompanies it, and more recently, Eisenhower cautioned against the military-industrial complex. Look what we have today. I'm not saying that those two things are the sum total of problems here, but they lay foundations for a lot of illicit corruption that happens out of the sunlight.

    Stan - thanks for your blog. I've said it before, but it bears repeating. You're a nicely-rounded blogger, one who will point out the idiocy of both major parties (and of course, the TYWK, too!), and I like that. Keep up the good work.

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  6. My thanks as well for an always-interesting blog with intelligent comments. I agree with you about the railroading, or blatant exclusion, of delegates' voices. As a former Republican who left the party when it sought to court the lunatic right fringes, I am now a fairly left-wing Democrat. The inclusion of the God thing and the Jerusalem thing in the platform, which was clearly against the wishes of the majority of delegates reminds me that we must be ever alert against the incursion of religion into government. The First Amendment is supposed to protect the government from takeover by religious factions.

    As far as changing the two-party system, I sincerely doubt that I will see that in my lifetime, and wonder if my youngest grandson (9 1/2) will even see it in his lifetime. A large part of the answeer answer is finance reform, so that the super rich can no longer buy politicians, IMHO.

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  7. Partyy shenanigans aren't the general election...unfortunately the press and the general public has forgotten that.

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    Replies
    1. very wise comment! look at the real choice offered on so many issues!

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  8. Rant away more, please. I'm pretty disgusted with them all too. I feel more and more hopeless each and every day watching the pageantry of decay. And the Saints lost... --A.

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  9. You open-minded, even-handed honesty appeals to me very much!
    Both parties DID do just what you describe; other than that,
    one of the two did speak to my heart with hope - the other kind of scared me.

    Here's hoping our great nation continues with liberty and justice for all.
    Hope you football team wins!


    Have a Great Week
    Aloha from Honolulu
    Comfort Spiral
    =^..^=

    > < } } ( ° >

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  10. That video is terrifying. And you're not ranting, you're sharing facts we all need to to know. Thank you.
    Meanwhile, given I think my beloved country is beyond saving in my lifetime, preparing to figure out how to immigrate to Iceland ;-)

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  11. Very poor stagecraft indeed. Why anyone takes all this bullshit seriously is beyond me, but that's a question for another day, I guess. Step away from the crack pipe, folks. You'll feel a lot better in the long run.

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  12. I used to laugh at the conspiracy theorists, now I’m scratching my head……… It seems to me that there used to be two political parties in the United States. I don’t think there has been since November 22nd, 1963. Am I naive?

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    1. Not at all. You are just starting to see things "with new eyes."

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    2. JFK was far more in the mold of this post-partisan oligarchy we have now than LBJ. I would say the two parties became one on key issues sometime in the 80s when Democrats panicked at Reagan's success at unifying the corporate elite with populist support, and mimicked them. We haven't had a party truly representing the majority since.

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  13. Oh my. We use Robert's Rules of Order all the time at our church business meetings. After a vote like that, any moderator I have ever seen would have switched to a show of hands at the very least, if that could not confirm the vote, then a ballot vote is the only fair way to do it.

    I have been a moderator many times, and I have only ever called for an "Aye/Nay" vote like this when I was certain the motion would carry. I think that the moderator was shocked at the forcefulness of the opposition, and then he simply failed to do his duty as moderator.

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  14. "And we have only ourselves to blame. Everyone bitches about the economy, but how many at the very least bother to vote?"

    Do we have only ourselves to blame? Perhaps we've been encouraged to see it that way:

    "The mainstream ideology that works best as capitalism's crutch is blame the government. This interpretation of modern society insists that the ultimate root and cause of economic problems is the government, not capitalism nor capitalists. If you are unemployed, foreclosed, or underpaid, the problem is not the capitalist who refuses to employ you, evicts you, or pays you poorly. It is instead partly your own fault, but mostly that of the government: the politicians and the bureaucrats."

    That is from Richard Wolff, an economist I am just starting to find out about and I find his views *fascinating.* Perhaps the lovely folks at TYWKIWDBI will too.

    http://rdwolff.com/

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    1. We have to initiate the change-we can only fight big money with numbers...

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  15. To those of you worried that the democratic party is being taken over by religion, you missed the real reason the vote was made to re-include "God" and "Jerusalem" in the party platform - without the magic words, it would become a lot tougher for democrats campaigning in certain portions of the country. It has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with politics (a religion unto itself, to be sure). The Republicans are just as manipulative, of course.

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  16. "You almost feel sorry for the guy at the podium calling for the vote, but he is too spineless to stand in the way of the predetermined outcome."

    That guy at the podium is the mayor of Los Angeles. :/

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    1. Thank you, anon; I didn't know that. That fact also says something, because he doesn't have the excuse of being a novice in the "democratic" process.

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  17. Who cares?

    I'm a Blue Dog Democrat. I'm an atheist and don't care where Israel has its capital as long as there is peace in the Middle East.

    If the GOP wants to say Democrats are unGodly for having the word "faith" in several times, but removing "God-given," I say put the term "God-given" back in and throw the stuff about Jerusalem back in, since it is Obama's stated opinion anyway.

    There are real problems facing this country, and these are not any of them. The difference in the GOP platform and Democratic party platform define which party is on the right side of history. All that matters is Romney doesn't get elected.

    The mainstream media is the problem because "balanced" reporting means taking stories like this and running them all day because you don't want the GOP to call you biased.

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    1. The problem (as far as I am concerned) is not the words. I could care less whether they mention God in their platform or what their position is on the Israeli capital.

      What is important to me is that they asked the duly-elected electors to vote on the matter, then ignored the way they voted, and approved something that had been decided on ahead of time by party organizers.

      I care about that. Not the words.

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  18. It seems to me the tricky way the Republicans kept Ron Paul out was a serious wrong. By comparison the tricky inclusion of some words and phrases in the Democratic platform is small potatoes.

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  19. I think the USA is being controlled by people who would accuse me of antisemitism if I expressed my own personal opinion.

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