From an on-line dictionary:
[1] the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group
[2] the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives
[3] a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them
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Dictionary definitions don't always provide the greatest understanding. At least, that has been my experience.
The word democracy has been used quite a bit by members of the most influential, arguably, political organization on the planet. In this context, democracy is alleged to be the magical elixir which can heal the ails of any suffering people, as well as being the crucial tool which can replace war with peace. Others have noted the irony regarding certain methods for securing democracy, particularly war, which seems to suggest a new chicken-and-egg type problem, but I'll leave that one for the stand-up's to play with.
I, like many others, did not pay much attention to the controvesry surrounding the 2000 U.S. election results until well after the dust had settled. The prize was quite great, so the courts involvement with the final decision seemed warranted. It was, after all, a rather close result.
The story of the 2000 election did not really become a capital 'C' controversy until well after the fact, once those who took the prize began to exhibit behavior deemed, by some, to border on the psychopathological. Undoubtedly, great sums of money were invested in an attempt to ensure that the results would be less ambiguous the next time around. Granted, this is quite a task as nearly 300 million people cannot easily be described as an organized group (from definition 1, above).
Early indictations (or more precisely, allegations) in the current election suggest that controversy will again plague any declared results. Perhaps this will be a new trend in the game of politics, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. Indeed, I have heard several stories about disputed election results from elsewhere on the globe, particularly over the past couple of years.
Of the several allegations that I have heard over the past 3 days, the following is the most recent, given merely as an example...
Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote. He quit after two hours.
"They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you'll be fired," Banse contends. "At that point, I said, `Whoa. Something's wrong here.'"
He isn't alone. In several battleground states across the country, a consulting firm funded by the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) has been accused of deceiving would-be voters and destroying Democratic voter registration cards.
Arizona-based Sproul & Associates is under investigation in Oregon and Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms completed by Democrats.
"We treat these complaints very seriously," said Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. The Democratic office-holder said three complaints were filed with election officials throughout the state. He declined to provide details, citing the continuing investigation.
Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona's Republican Party and the state's Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses Democrats of making things up.
"This is all about making accusations," Sproul said Thursday. "They allege fraud where none exists and get the media to cover it."
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Heather Layman responded that her party accepts all voters, and she accused the Democratic Party of operating under this mandate: "If no sign of voter fraud exists, make it up, manipulate the media into covering baseless charges and spread fear."
Sproul declined to name the states in which his company conducted registration drives. His political consulting firm was founded last year and has received nearly $500,000 from the RNC since July, according to federal election records.
Former canvassers such as Banse have come forward in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon in the past two weeks alleging they were told to register only Republicans and to "walk away" from people who said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites).
Some said Democratic registration forms had been thrown out or ripped up.
It is illegal to tamper with voter registration cards, which are numbered and issued by local election officials. In some states, including Oregon, such acts are felonies.
Eric Russell of Las Vegas told The Associated Press that he watched a Sproul supervisor tear up eight to 10 registration forms completed by Democrats and managed to grab some of the shredded documents as evidence. State officials are investigating his claim.
Russell said that Voters Outreach of America, the name under which Sproul employees operated in Nevada and other states, owes him hundreds of dollars for registering residents but refuses to pay him.
Sproul called Russell simply a disgruntled employee.
Prompted by Russell's accusations, Clark County Democrats unsuccessfully went to court last week to try to persuade a state judge to reopen voter registration in their county, which encompasses Las Vegas.
In West Virginia, Lisa Bragg said she refused a sorely needed $9-an-hour job to register voters after attending an orientation session conducted by Sproul employees.
Like Banse in Minnesota, she said canvassers were discouraged from registering Democrats and were told to misrepresent themselves as poll takers.
Bragg, who filed a complaint earlier this week with the West Virginia secretary of state's office, said Friday that canvassers were given a script that read at the bottom, "Our goal is to register Republicans."
She called the registration drive dishonest, adding, "I believe everyone has the right to vote. Even though I'm a Democrat, I would have registered Republicans to vote."
In Pennsylvania this week, former Sproul canvassers said they had been instructed to not register Democrats. About 40 to 50 also complained they had not been paid.
In Pittsburgh, library patrons protested that Sproul employees were pressuring people to register as Republicans at tables set up outside a Carnegie Library branch.
A similar incident was reported in Oregon in September, when the manager of Medford library headquarters refused a Sproul request to register voters after learning the firm was affiliated with Republicans.
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Obviously, by my geographical (make that native) exclusion (Canadian, aye), I am neither, technically, a Republican or a Democrat. I do not wish to take sides here, either. The fact that the above story implicates one side is something that should be taken with a grain of salt, in the context of the current ramble tamble.
I sense that I am going to have to speed things up here.
The current situation in the world is one which suggests that we will face greater adversity in the coming years (thank Hendrix for MLB&NFL). I will avoid any alarmist hogwash here, and merely suggest concerns such as population, energy resources, food, pollution, splintered ideologies, ad ridiculium, have been argued as important concerns for our species' well-being in the coming years.
That being said, I wish now to propose that any potential benefits of democracy may be illusory.
We have several key decisions to make in the coming years; decisions which will greatly influence the direction and continuaton of our species. Perhaps it is time to turn the decision-making power over to those who are in the best position to do so; call them the educated, the elite, the wealthy, the smartest, the go-getters, or what-have-you. Do any of us want John Schmuck having a say in policy-making that may determine the course of human history? Should we now turn our lives over to the whims of the masses merely to satiate an alarmingly illiterate populace?
A number of years back, some dude named adulf (I think it was) made a famous speech in which formulated the above suggestions into a coherent argument for the same, a speech which won many converts on both sides of the Atlantic. His (and others, similar) views of Democracy are still held by a great many people today, people who are currently in positions to enact whatever changes may be needed to get us out of this democratic funk which we are in. The keys are in place. They just need to be turned. Perhaps the current generation will be the ones to throw up their hands and say 'go on, take it...I wanna watch the Trailer Park Boys.'
If not (or perhaps if), we could be in trouble.
Jimi save us all.
Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.
[1] the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group
[2] the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives
[3] a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dictionary definitions don't always provide the greatest understanding. At least, that has been my experience.
The word democracy has been used quite a bit by members of the most influential, arguably, political organization on the planet. In this context, democracy is alleged to be the magical elixir which can heal the ails of any suffering people, as well as being the crucial tool which can replace war with peace. Others have noted the irony regarding certain methods for securing democracy, particularly war, which seems to suggest a new chicken-and-egg type problem, but I'll leave that one for the stand-up's to play with.
I, like many others, did not pay much attention to the controvesry surrounding the 2000 U.S. election results until well after the dust had settled. The prize was quite great, so the courts involvement with the final decision seemed warranted. It was, after all, a rather close result.
The story of the 2000 election did not really become a capital 'C' controversy until well after the fact, once those who took the prize began to exhibit behavior deemed, by some, to border on the psychopathological. Undoubtedly, great sums of money were invested in an attempt to ensure that the results would be less ambiguous the next time around. Granted, this is quite a task as nearly 300 million people cannot easily be described as an organized group (from definition 1, above).
Early indictations (or more precisely, allegations) in the current election suggest that controversy will again plague any declared results. Perhaps this will be a new trend in the game of politics, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. Indeed, I have heard several stories about disputed election results from elsewhere on the globe, particularly over the past couple of years.
Of the several allegations that I have heard over the past 3 days, the following is the most recent, given merely as an example...
Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote. He quit after two hours.
"They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you'll be fired," Banse contends. "At that point, I said, `Whoa. Something's wrong here.'"
He isn't alone. In several battleground states across the country, a consulting firm funded by the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) has been accused of deceiving would-be voters and destroying Democratic voter registration cards.
Arizona-based Sproul & Associates is under investigation in Oregon and Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms completed by Democrats.
"We treat these complaints very seriously," said Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. The Democratic office-holder said three complaints were filed with election officials throughout the state. He declined to provide details, citing the continuing investigation.
Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona's Republican Party and the state's Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses Democrats of making things up.
"This is all about making accusations," Sproul said Thursday. "They allege fraud where none exists and get the media to cover it."
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Heather Layman responded that her party accepts all voters, and she accused the Democratic Party of operating under this mandate: "If no sign of voter fraud exists, make it up, manipulate the media into covering baseless charges and spread fear."
Sproul declined to name the states in which his company conducted registration drives. His political consulting firm was founded last year and has received nearly $500,000 from the RNC since July, according to federal election records.
Former canvassers such as Banse have come forward in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon in the past two weeks alleging they were told to register only Republicans and to "walk away" from people who said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites).
Some said Democratic registration forms had been thrown out or ripped up.
It is illegal to tamper with voter registration cards, which are numbered and issued by local election officials. In some states, including Oregon, such acts are felonies.
Eric Russell of Las Vegas told The Associated Press that he watched a Sproul supervisor tear up eight to 10 registration forms completed by Democrats and managed to grab some of the shredded documents as evidence. State officials are investigating his claim.
Russell said that Voters Outreach of America, the name under which Sproul employees operated in Nevada and other states, owes him hundreds of dollars for registering residents but refuses to pay him.
Sproul called Russell simply a disgruntled employee.
Prompted by Russell's accusations, Clark County Democrats unsuccessfully went to court last week to try to persuade a state judge to reopen voter registration in their county, which encompasses Las Vegas.
In West Virginia, Lisa Bragg said she refused a sorely needed $9-an-hour job to register voters after attending an orientation session conducted by Sproul employees.
Like Banse in Minnesota, she said canvassers were discouraged from registering Democrats and were told to misrepresent themselves as poll takers.
Bragg, who filed a complaint earlier this week with the West Virginia secretary of state's office, said Friday that canvassers were given a script that read at the bottom, "Our goal is to register Republicans."
She called the registration drive dishonest, adding, "I believe everyone has the right to vote. Even though I'm a Democrat, I would have registered Republicans to vote."
In Pennsylvania this week, former Sproul canvassers said they had been instructed to not register Democrats. About 40 to 50 also complained they had not been paid.
In Pittsburgh, library patrons protested that Sproul employees were pressuring people to register as Republicans at tables set up outside a Carnegie Library branch.
A similar incident was reported in Oregon in September, when the manager of Medford library headquarters refused a Sproul request to register voters after learning the firm was affiliated with Republicans.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Obviously, by my geographical (make that native) exclusion (Canadian, aye), I am neither, technically, a Republican or a Democrat. I do not wish to take sides here, either. The fact that the above story implicates one side is something that should be taken with a grain of salt, in the context of the current ramble tamble.
I sense that I am going to have to speed things up here.
The current situation in the world is one which suggests that we will face greater adversity in the coming years (thank Hendrix for MLB&NFL). I will avoid any alarmist hogwash here, and merely suggest concerns such as population, energy resources, food, pollution, splintered ideologies, ad ridiculium, have been argued as important concerns for our species' well-being in the coming years.
That being said, I wish now to propose that any potential benefits of democracy may be illusory.
We have several key decisions to make in the coming years; decisions which will greatly influence the direction and continuaton of our species. Perhaps it is time to turn the decision-making power over to those who are in the best position to do so; call them the educated, the elite, the wealthy, the smartest, the go-getters, or what-have-you. Do any of us want John Schmuck having a say in policy-making that may determine the course of human history? Should we now turn our lives over to the whims of the masses merely to satiate an alarmingly illiterate populace?
A number of years back, some dude named adulf (I think it was) made a famous speech in which formulated the above suggestions into a coherent argument for the same, a speech which won many converts on both sides of the Atlantic. His (and others, similar) views of Democracy are still held by a great many people today, people who are currently in positions to enact whatever changes may be needed to get us out of this democratic funk which we are in. The keys are in place. They just need to be turned. Perhaps the current generation will be the ones to throw up their hands and say 'go on, take it...I wanna watch the Trailer Park Boys.'
If not (or perhaps if), we could be in trouble.
Jimi save us all.
Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.
