comments_image -

Resisting President-Select Bush

Sometime very soon, major media recounts of the Florida vote will show that the election was a fraud; that Bush lost the state and thus the nation. The question is -- how shall citizens respond?
 
 
LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.

 
 
 
 

Steve Cobble is an expert on a wide range of election and government issues and has served as a campaign advisor to many candidates, including Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader. He is currently a consultant on democracy issues with the Institute for Policy Studies.

Sometime very soon, it is extremely likely that the major media are finally going to demonstrate what most of us have known all along -- that the Florida vote count was a fraud; that President-Select Bush really lost both that state and the nation; that the voice of the people was gagged.

width=1

width=1

How Shall We Respond?

When the results of the media recount are released in April or May, a coalition of groups -- including the Institue for Policy Studies (IPS), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Independent Progressive Politics Network (IPPN) -- are calling for National Days of Action. (Stay linked to www.ips-dc.org for details.)

Join the coalition at the Supreme Court when the results are announced, or at your local courthouse or favorite demonstration site. Call a press conference. Before then, wherever you live, gather people together to fight back. No justice, no mandate.

Get out your old armbands, to symbolize the thousands of African American voters falsely purged and abused by the Florida authorities. Put on a ribbon. Have a mock funeral for democracy.

Even better, use humor, as www.democrats.com and Citizens for Legitimate Government and many others are doing. (When the Nation magazine gets done with its naming contest for "His Illegitimacy," maybe we can have a slogan contest -- we need hundreds of thousands of tasteful, but funny, bumper stickers ... )

Pass on this essay, and the details about the National Days of Action to everyone on your e-mail list. Support real electoral reform, that counts every vote, and insures that every vote counts. Give your Senator and House member the support they need -- or the attention they fear -- to make sure they "just say no" to right-wing judges and retrograde public policies.

Mandela, Havel, Aquino, Walesa. Recent history is filled with examples of nations that won their democracies only because the masses of their people refused to give up when confronted with violations of voting rights, fraudulent elections, and illegitimate rulers.

They sat in. They took to the streets. They faced down dogs and fire hoses. They rallied in the town squares. They lit their candles, rang their bells, wrote and sang their songs, marched and picketed, until justice was won. Perhaps we can draw strength from their examples, as we try to revive our democratic rights.

So, wherever you live, whatever the group you're connected with, please send us your suggestions for actions. We'll post them, as a step in resisting the illegitimacy of this President-Select, and turning outrage into action.

      -- Steve Cobble

width=1

width=1

The question is -- how shall we respond? How will we collectively speak truth to power about "His Illegitimacy?"

Though the exact time is still undisclosed, in the coming days eight news organizations will complete their exhaustive review of the 180,000 Florida "undervotes" and "overvotes." One partial recount has already been released by the Miami Herald/USA Today, which only dealt with a select number of "undervotes" and had inconclusive results (depending on how hanging chads were counted, the results ranged from Bush winning by 1,655 votes to Gore winning by 393.)

The eight other news organizations -- the New York Times, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Palm Beach Post, St. Petersburg Times, the Tribune Co. (which owns the Los Angeles Times), and CNN -- are expected to release their results and initial analyses all on the same date. We should note that this is not the partial and biased count recently released by Judicial Watch, in an obvious attempt to undercut the media analyses.

submit to reddit

-
Email
Print
Share
LIKED THIS ARTICLE? JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST
Stay up to date with the latest AlterNet headlines via email
Alternet Special Coverage - Occupy Wall Street
Advertisement
Most Read
Most Emailed
Most Discussed
On REDDIT
On DIGG
 
loading most read content ..
Advertisement
Occupy Protesters Mic-Check Palin During CPAC Speech

By Adele M. Stan | AlterNet

 
 
Apple, Accustomed to Profits and Praise, Faces Outcry for Labor Practices at Chinese Factories

By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez | Democracy Now!

 
 
Could Santorum Actually Beat Romney? And Would the Obama Campaign be Ready?

By Steve M. | Booman Tribune

 
 
Bill Moyers: The Economy Has Been Engineered to Screw Over Millennials (With an AlterNet Shoutout!)

By Staff | AlterNet

 
 
Maher: Conservatives Are the Ones Dividing the Country

By Sarah Seltzer | AlterNet

 
 
In Kansas, Is Catholic Church Trying to Destroy A Victim's Advocates Organization?

By Julie Cain | Ms. Magazine Blog

 
 
Obama vs. the Concern Trolls on Nonsense "Religious Liberty" Issue

By Digby | Hullabaloo

 
 
At CPAC, Santorum Surges Despite Idiotic Claims; Romney Poses as 'Severe' Conservative; Gingrich Makes War on GOP

By Adele M. Stan | AlterNet

 
 
Wisconsin's Gov. Walker Appeals to CPAC Crowd for Help Fending Off Recall

By Adele M. Stan | AlterNet

 
 
In Birth Control Debate, Cable News Disproportionately Asked Men What They Thought of Women's Health

By Faiz Shakir and Adam Peck | Think Progress

 
 
 
Reverend Billy Talen
 
 
 
loading ...
POWERED BY DIGG'S USERS
 
[ page served from web 2 ]