The Correction Column

Madame:

And she’s a senator!

The plutocratic masters intensely want the public to feel cynical and powerless.  They foment it at every turn.  Because the thing they fear most is that the people will awake and mobilize and take back their creature (government) the plutocrats have weakened and ensorcelled.

It is why they go to extraordinary lengths to deny, obstruct, or make hard the vote to those who would use it to strike back at them.  They fear the vote of the majority.  More on that in a bit.

“I can’t do that.”  Well, what someone who says that really usually means is that they won’t do that.

Ok, Lao Tzu said begin with where the people are.  If someone can’t “get involved,” they should at least end the silence.

That’s right, readers and friends the readers talk to.  All these things you learn about here and elsewhere, share them.  Even snippets.  Talk.  Silence implies consent with the status quo. 

Inform first.  Persuasion can come later.

At least you will know, and will be able to tell yourself and your loved ones: “I spoke up.  I told people.”  So keep hammering.  I am detecting some faint cracks in the ranks of those who traditionally follow the plutocrats and their lackeys.  Even when you think they are not listening to you at all, some actually are.  Truth, like water, has a way of making itself in despite all the deflections and obstructions.

I must make a correction to my post here on November 9^th, where I said: “Voter suppression, while alive and well in far too many places, was not a deciding factor in hardly any of them.”

It appears my statement about not being a deciding factor in very many of them was off the mark.  Nate Silver, the highly accurate analyst who is coldly analytical about polling data, with no sensitivity toward Democratic or Republican feelings,  was puzzled at the voting results.

They were off almost consistently 4% or more from his turnout predictions. Off in that 4% of the Democratic turnout was missing. 

The plethora of voter restrictions and repressions in various states and localities—prompted by the plutocrats and their fearful white Repub allies—takes on many forms, from onerous ID requirements for even the elderly, restricted registration, reduced registration and voting sites (causing some lines in minority areas to be half a mile long), etc.  The most insidious is the new “duplicate voting” cross-check lists devised and disseminated by the Katherine Harris of Kansas—Kris Kobach, who is the Republican Secretary of State.  These lists delete voters with common last names—and thus are heavily weighted against African-American, Latino, and Asian-Americans, on the ridiculous “suspected crime” of double voting.  The middle names can be different, the ages can be different, but if first and last names match, they are removed from the registered voter rolls.   Even though duplicate voting even across precincts, let alone across states, happens almost never (statistically, effectively not at all).

People who are removed from the rolls can be given a “provisional” ballot when they show up at the polls.  Provisional ballot.  That palliative placebo-deception foisted on the poor and less educated.  That’s assuming one is even told of the option voting provisionally, which is many times not even mentioned.  And good luck getting it actually researched and counted.  Each state, and oftentimes, each voting precinct, has utter discretion on if, how, when, etc.  to make determinations on provisional ballots. 

The data is still being analyzed, but the number of voters—and who those voters were likely to vote for—impacted by restrictions/suppressions apparently made a potentially determinative impact in senate or governor races in at least Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Don’t get depressed, cynical, disillusioned, disengaged, America.  Get infuriated.  You should be.  Your on-life-support democracy is only that way because of your inattention.  Apply better care, citizen-doctor!