Election Season Begins… break out the popcorn

freeacre

So, the nice white people of Iowa who are happily bringing us higher food prices now that they are all getting rich converting corn to ethanol, are going to the voting booths today. Well, er, not exactly. The Republicans are going to talk amongst themselves in caucuses that could be held in homes or schools or firehouses or whatever and discuss the candidates. Then, they will write the name of their favorite on a piece of paper. The papers will be counted, and the winner will win. That means that the one who gets the most votes will be the candidate who the delegates to the Republican National Convention from Iowa will be expected to vote for, at least on the first round. It’s a fairly straightforward procedure.

However, on the Democratic side, the people will gather. Groups will form in clusters – Kucinich supporters, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, and so on. If there is a candidate with less than 15% support, those people’s choice will not be counted. They will have to merge with some other bunch, or go home. Anti-war candidates like Kucinich, Gravel, and Dodd will be dropped like a hot rock. That’s why Kucinich is telling his folks in Iowa to merge with Obama supporters if he is hosed right off the bat.

Speeches will be made, caucus goers will be exhorted by neighbors and friends (and perhaps bosses or wives of bosses, pastors, etc.) to vote for their candidate. Then, they will have to physically stand with the group they want to vote for. So much for secret ballots. Everybody knows who you vote for. This pretty much leaves out those who don’t want to offend the boss or the neighbors by voting for someone less popular. No wonder a lot of people choose not to be a part of this cockamamie system and won’t attend the democratic caucuses. Anyway, the votes are counted by a raising of hands, I guess, and the winner is declared. Now the delegates to the Democratic convention are supposed to vote for that candidate.

What about the support for the other candidates? Or other parties? I think it just evaporated, at least as far as the media is concerned and the money machinery that backs it. Given the fact that a paper ballot could easily be sent to every registered voter and they could send it in to the state, is this fair? In fact, do we even need the stranglehold of the two political parties?

I think not.

Oh, yeah. And, just to add to the high weirdness, the Democratic votes will be tallied by the Israelis. What?? Yes, apparently an Israeli Defense company located in Orlando, Florida will tally the votes by this process:

1. Final body counts from each precinct are sent to a central state Democratic Party headquarters. These numbers are never revealed, either to the press or public ... or, one assumes, the Secretary of State. Remember, the Iowa caucuses are not government-run elections, but party-run. 2. A formula is applied to the results in each precinct that yields a number of delegates assigned to each candidate. It is weighted via a formula based on precinct turnout (Democratic) for the previous two general elections. Confused enough yet? 3. The results reported--i.e., the percentages--are percentages of delegates that each candidate has received, based on the body count adjusted by the formula. This seems like a very opaque process, with two uncomfortable contingencies: (1) a candidate could win the "popular" vote (i.e., the body count) but fail to come out on top in delegates, which is what is reported; (2) the assignment of final numbers is not transparent--in fact, it is done totally in secret--so we could have questions as to what goes on in the closed rooms. Maybe each precinct can confirm or deny the eventual result. But it's hard not to feel that hanky panky could possibly go on at the state party level, if so desired.

“Isn’t that special,” as the Church Lady would observe. Hummm….

But, in case you think the process is only egregiously manipulated by the Democrats, you could look into what the Republicans and the media are doing to squelch Ron Paul.

There is a virtual blackout of coverage of Ron Paul’s run, despite the fact that he keeps winning straw poll after straw poll, and he’s raised more money than anyone from individual citizens through grass-roots efforts over the internet. If he manages to muster a decent amount of votes in the caucuses, it really will be a “revolutionary” event. His appeal is to the independent voters, the ones who usually don’t vote at all, and those who are serious about ending the war and the military empire that the republicans as well as the democrats have created. Both he and Kucinich are their party’s worst nightmares.

Ron Paul wants to get rid of the Patriot Act, bring the troops home from not only Iraq, but all the 130 military bases we have all over the world and dismantle the empire. This is because he actually supports the constitution of the United States of America which all those congress people have sworn to defend. Horrors! He wants to get rid of the departments like Education that has systematically dumbed down the schools of the nation and others that the framers did not envision, and transfer a lot of the power of the central government to the states, where there would be more hands-on involvement by the local citizenry. He wants to end the Federal Reserve and the income tax which basically goes to pay the interest we are charged on the money created by the Federal Reserve!! He would fund the social security program from money saved from the bloated military, the bogus “War on Drugs” and the demonic “intelligence” services renditioning prisoners and provoking everyone to hate us (except the globalists).

I have reservations about several of his views, but they are minor in comparison to the support I give to the rest. Also, the real power of his program is in the grassroots supporters. His official staff is hopelessly inept in terms of the slick, professional marketing teams the other candidates use. I think that he is enough of an advocate for a weak executive branch that there is a lot of wiggle-room on his policies that could be dealt with later. He is also aware of resource depletion and will fight the creation of the North American Union. That’s plenty to chew on.

Kucinich is big on peace, but lax on individual liberty. Once in office, the first thing he’d do is end the war. The second thing, I fear, would be to disarm this country’s citizens so they have no self-defense against the forces of fascism. Maybe that’s just a fear of mine that is unfounded. He is innovative, though, and seems to genuinely be motivated with a concern for the people, not the financiers. He also is aware of resource depletion and the environment, and does not seem to be in the pocket of Big Business. I don’t know for sure, as I have not kept up with his campaign much. One thing I do know is that he’s about as popular with the Democratic establishment as a tick at a dog show and they will do just about anything to get rid of him. I have more hope for Edwards.

Anyway, this nominating process will prove to be about as satisfying and hard to ignore as picking a scab, until the official candidates are chosen and the real race begins. By that time, serious shit will have come down that can no longer be avoided – like the perfect storm (sorry to use such a by now hackneyed phrase) of inflation (outrageous food prices), energy crunch (gasoline at $4 per gallon), serious climate change related problems (hurricanes and floods), the real estate melt-down (foreclosures), and the wars (endless) – all of which will be at the forefront of the voters minds, as they lose their jobs as well as their homes and their neighborhoods start to look like Baghdad. Candidates won’t be able to babble about “change” vs. “experience” and ignore the suffering all around them. Well, maybe the Republicans will just continue to focus on the Apocalypse and the “family” (a rich white banking family, with no gay kids.)

If people don’t hit the streets this summer and demand that their liberties be restored, protest against the loss of privacy, the threat of military cyber weaponry poised against them, the domination of the corporations and advertising invading their lives, the lock-down of the media’s hold on information, the complicity of the Food and Drug Administration with Big Pharma, and the corporatization of the government as a whole, then I think it will be too late. The long range tazers, the robotic listening devises, the micro-wave ray guns, the detention camps, and all the horrifying new weapons and rules that have been created to force us into submission will be in place to insure that the vision of the neo-cons is established. You might want to counsel your children to learn Chinese.

We will be sharing the conditions of the Third World people and the animals on the Most Endangered Species List that we have been complicit in exploiting and exterminating, and we will begin to know the truth of the slogan, “What comes around, goes around.”

Far be it from me to advise who to vote for or whether to vote at all. Carolyn Baker suggests that voting only lends itself to the illusion that voting matters. Perhaps voting for a third party, like Cynthia McKinney running for president from the Green Party has merit. At least, it would demonstrate dissatisfaction with the two party death grip. As an anarchist, I truly believe that one should look within and do what is in keeping with the truth inside. Collectively, all those truths taken together will probably be the wisest way to go.