GET OVER IT? NO, GET INTO IT! RALLY TO CHALLENGE THE TALLY! Sat. noon, Powell/Market, SF

Ohio is certified. Please move on. And don't go bothering the people at the craft fair - they don't want to hear it either.

Yah, Relcaim the Commons did not endorse this as a group afaik.

People of color were suppressed and intimidated from voting in Ohio and throughout the country.

There's a long history of this. We have to get LOUD, and make it clear that it's despicable and unacceptable.

To people like Tim: Shake off your depression. We should be not just at the crafts fair, but everywhere in the next few weeks.

It goes way past who won this particular election.

but not the entire Reclaim the Commons organization.

I don't think the organizers of the RTC G8/Biodev 2004 Mobilization have a copyright on the name Reclaim the Commons; if we did, we'd be defying our own principles! I believe that Bill Simpich, who organized the RTC G8/Biodev 2004 Mobilization's wonderful and successful Really REALLY free market (Union Square, June 6) is part of this ad hoc group, if not instrumental in its creation: THANK YOU, BILL!

An article on commondreams.org stated that our civil rights are part of the commons, and usurping the vote is the latest attack on the commons by the power elite. I think the statement is right-on myself!

I hope the RTC DDC will put me on their emailing list (I thot I was, but didn't get this action announcement).

Cheers and get over it!

Mary

[*** Petition Senator Barbara Boxer to challenge the legitimacy of this election on January 6!]

during the campaign, it was unacceptable for people to go against the Anybody But Bush line by voting for Nader, discussing Nader's ideas, or even supporting Nader's right to be on the ballot

if you did not shun him, ostracize him, you were cohabitating with the enemy, even if you voted for Kerry

as someone who begrudingly voted for Kerry, I emphasized the importance of Nader's values, and his right to present them in the American political system, in the face of Democratic opposition

and, it is certainly true that Kerry's abandonment of his own voters pretty much confirmed everything Nader had to say about the political system

but, I am beginning to digress

given the nature of the campaign, what is the criteria by which it is OK to confront the Democratic establishment? after all, Pelosi (the target of an earlier protest) and Boxer are pretty clear that they have no interest in this effort (as is Kerry, but naturally, no one is directly protesting him, just as no one confronted him on his retrograde politics during the campaign), and yet, people are breaking ranks and challenging them

do we get to decide as individuals, or is this some kind of top down effort, where we are told when confrontation is acceptable and when we are supposed to fall in line?

and, I assume that we will see a similar willingness to confront Boxer, Pelosi and the Democrats if they continue to support the war, compromise social security and abandon gays, lesbians and even, possibly women?

otherwise, it would prove that this is just an attempt to breathe life into the moribund "Anybody But Bush" effort, a personality based, content free style of politics that only fights for the right of people to have their votes counted for Kerry, while ignoring their issues, with Democratic operatives and activists pulling the strings as the puppetmasters

--Richard Estes

Does that make it clear?

many white radicals oppose the very right so many black radcicals have fought and died for: the right to cast a ballot. thus, not prepared to take on disenfranchisement issues, the hands of the american far left are rather tied as regards an emergent right wing ballot kleptocracy based in obvious part on the age old strategy of black disenfranchisement. but we like it out on the margins of relevancy, right?

meanwhile, funny how the republicans picked up on that when they absorbed the southern democrats, huh? makes ya wonder about that old liberal "coalition," which was always so sketchy to begin with.... because of the white southerners, frankly.

contradictions mean opportunities, if they're faced without fear of change.

[african americans not being allowed to vote is the issue
by not the anybody but bush movement Friday, Dec. 10, 2004 at 1:59 AM

Does that make it clear?]

actually, it doesn't

because, first of all, it doesn't respond to anything I said, which is typical when the effort is really about reflexive support for Democrats, and evasion of more profound issues relating to the electoral system, such as ballot access

as, for example, if it's about the right of African Americans to vote, shouldn't they, and the rest of us, be given more opportunities than just voting either Republican or Democrat?

after all, you'd think that the refusal of the congressional Democratic party to do anything, with the exception of a few iconoclasts like John Conyers, would prove the need to challenge more than just the vote count

but, of course, that's off-limits

furthermore, this explanation is not universally accepted, because I see a number of posts here and get a lot of e-mails privately about this issue that emphasize e-voting machines, and only tangetially, if at all, address the historical disenfranchisement of poor people and people of color, which has been done for decades before anyone ever imagined the possibility of an e-voting machine

it may also be useful to go back in time to the 2000 election

civil rights groups and others implored the Democrats to aggressively confront the Florida result on a racial and class basis, and they didn't, and Bush became President

more ominously, they also pretty much abandoned these people once the effort failed, leaving voter registration and voter turnout to non-profit groups and others such as ACORN, while spending most of their money on polling swing voters, and developing ads in an unsuccessful attempt to get their votes, with Robert Shrum allegedly making $5M alone

recall that tens of thousands of predominately African American voters were disenfranchised in 2000 by being falsely designated as "felons", and that, even by the time of the 2004 election, many of them still could not vote because they had not gone through the complex legal process required for them to recover their voting rights

where were people back then? and where were the Democrats? I have frequently asked if anything was done to assist these people in getting their voting rights recovered, and there has been no response

and, as a result, a lot of people are still, to this day, deprived of their right to vote in Florida

to put it bluntly, I really hope that this is not another one of these efforts to expropriate the political experiences of poor people and people of color to support some other agenda, and that's why I posted my question, which remains unanswered: will the same people who are protesting Boxer, Pelosi, Feinstein and Co. because of the vote count issue, confront them again publicly when they support the war, the curtailment of Social Security, civil rights and labor rights, and facilitate the appointment of right wing judges?

because, if they don't, that reveals what it's really about

for an ongoing, excellent discussion of the impact of the election, and Kerry's failure to demand a fair vote count, upon African Americans, I recommend the following:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/

they have posted several articles that go beyond the facile focus upon the vote count in regard to the political future of African Americans in this country

for now, it suits the purposes of the Democrats to have an effort challenging the result with which they can engage, Iran-contra style, with plausible denialability, but once January comes around, and they want to start getting bills passed, and money delivered to their districts, even this level of interest will disappear, and then, as usual, it will be left to the people who have toiled in obscurity for many years in support of civil rights to continue the fight

if you are one of them, despite my comments here, you have my support and respect, and I hope that you keep at it, regardless of the outcome of this effort


--Richard

>>furthermore, this explanation is not universally accepted, because I see a number of posts here and get a lot of e-mails privately about this issue that emphasize e-voting machines, and only tangetially, if at all, address the historical disenfranchisement of poor people and people of color, which has been done for decades before anyone ever imagined the possibility of an e-voting machine

Nessie must have some debate term for this . . . trying to take down the relevance of e-vote fraud by saying that poor people's needs haven't been addressed . . . so nothing else can move forward. I know lots of poor and people of color who voted for Bush and the Gropernator. And labor, too, voted for them.

The person sending you an email about vote fraud is working for the rights of all people, regardless of color or status.

The sad fact is, the ability of e-voting to change such massive numbers of votes with a single line of code, and take an entire state in the one act, will very rapidly meet and exceed the excess numbers of poor and people of color disenfranchised in most previous years.

But the difference now?

They, and we, won't even know it.

how many people would have to know?

i consider it unlikely, because such a secret is explosive, it would never be contained.