Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 17, 2011 at 12:01pm

Victoria,

 

Further thoughts...on follow up on E-Voting.  I do think TED Converstaions is the best place.huge membership and lots of interest in th etopic..many many diferrent conversations about it or touching on it. 

 

You pose the problem correctly.  How do you overcome mere opinion?  Well you have to begin with peopel who are interested enough to not just express an opnion and leave but to engage in a conversation about it.Miraclously  people do move along a line from rank opinion to more informed opinion.  At TED we have very srict rules of ciivility and very strict rules on staying on topic with every comment..also very strict rules  forbidding negative chararcterizations of the commenter.  Comments are deleted and members booted for repeated offenses.  TED thoughi stechie heaven..it i sth eperfect place to do what you say you wish to do..find a wider audience to bring these ideas to.

Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 17, 2011 at 12:05pm

Thanks for the reply, Lindsay.

I'm coming from a place of unusual understanding because my father and uncle spent 25 years investigating how our votes are stolen via computer, starting in 1970.

If you want to know more you can check out my website: www.votescam.org

If you want to see a taste of the evidence from us and other researchers: www.votescam.org/the_evidence

Let's put it this way. Hand counted paper ballots are what we need right now, absent any other acceptable system. I can't stop you or others from exploring the potential with e-voting, but right now all can agree that we do NOT have an acceptable e-voting system and the easily hacked, secretly programmed computerized voting machines (owned, operated and serviced by right-wing criminals) MUST be outlawed.

If we could rally around that idea together and spread it like wildfire in 2012, we would be doing a great service to humanity.

Then we can talk civilly about whether voters indeed have the right to witness their ballot being counted, and verify themselves whether or not there was an accurate tally.

In my experience, most new techies who are greatly enamored of the possibilities for Internet democracy are as angry and petulant toward people like me as a child who finds out he can't get what he wants for Christmas.

This is not dissimilar from the proponents of genetically modified foods who truly believe technology is the future of agriculture and anyone who disagrees is a Luddite.

I like to know what's in my food, and I like to know who's counting my ballot!

Organic food, organic democracy.

With that in mind I'd love to know how to have a dialog and bridge the gap with the technological community. Mostly we're all just at terrible odds with each other, and it has split the election integrity activist movement right down the middle.

Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 17, 2011 at 12:13pm

Mark, the day may come when the Supreme Court is surrounded by torches and pitchforks. 

Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 17, 2011 at 1:11pm

Love that picture of the Supreme court Victoria..a great one..more important than the image of the american flag with corporate logos in place of stars...

Thanks for your post and I will follow up..I promise..take it that's  a"no" on my invitation for you  to open a conversation at TED?  If that is the case I will open one soon..after I have reveiwed all your links, of course and after I finish my current conversation at TED which is on constitutional reform.(thank you Mark..you were the final catalust for that through your sharing of the Ecuador Consitution)

Just wanted to update you.on my further news/actions on Americans Elect. I think it is possible the writer at Huffington Post deserves scrutiny as well.  What Americans Elect says it is about is very threatening to the staus quo if they are what they say they are.  In the same way that evryone wanted to disparage and marginalize Occupy and Occupiers, the staus quo wowuld of course want to discredit Americans Elect or any effort like that that seeks to end party politics..

One of the people on the Board is someone I and thousands of other mainers trust very much..Eliot Cutler.  He ran as an independent for Governor against Tea Party candidtae Le Page and lost in Maine archaics first one over the line system by a handful of votes that would have generated a recount or run off anywhere else.

Mr. Cutler is heading up a PAC called "OneMaine that is a tent for advancing non partisan politics and recruiting and supporting non partisan candidates

http://www.onemaine.com/

Looks like  a good model and I have contacted him directly with my questions about Americans Elect.  I also wrote directly to the Board at Americans Elect.

One Maine looks straight up and true to me...a very commendable effort.

I'll let you know what I find out further about both if you if you are interested.

 

Best Regards

 

Lindsay

 

. 

 

Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 16, 2011 at 11:18pm

If you guys haven't seen this yet you NEED to watch it. Coming to a neighborhood near you as the militarization of our police escalates, and we no longer have ANY Constitutional protections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKv-5t0t4E&feature=player_embedded

Please spread this around because I think a lot of people haven't seen it. This is exactly what will grow and spread. Look at it really closely. 

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on December 17, 2011 at 12:12am

Homeland Security has given billions of dollars in weapons and training to local law enforcement, and they have to use it to justify their budget. Any excuse or no excuse at all will do.

As for warrants and Constitutional protections, they were all scrapped a long time ago.

A shame that so many people think that the Constitution which enslaves them, actually protects them. The Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is, and the Supreme Court believes that anything a President does is Constitutional, so therefore anything those under the command of a President do, would also be Constitutional. Remember Obama saying that those who were merely following orders from their superiors should not be prosecuted? That's the old Eichmann defense--that was when Obama renounced the Nuremberg Principles, before he announced his assassination hit list and renounced the Magna Carta.

Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 17, 2011 at 9:38am

Right.Victoria I am looking with apprehension to this being the norm for all ordinary and even peaceful protests..like Occupy protests.  It is obvious theye are deemed "belligerent", a key word at issue in the two provisions  at issue in the NDAA bill just passed by the senate.

I haven't had time to do any in depth research but I do see that there has been a move afot since 2008 to go beyond homeland security and the patruots act to have an armed and trained militia in place in the prsenet of complete economic collapse in the U.S. giving rise to widespread citizen panic, rioting and vandalism..   It is obvious especially in NYC that police have been gearing up for this as well..crowd contrl has obviously been a center piece of post 2008 "preparedeness"  They expect an economic collapse ( so do I) and they expect widespread riots looting and vandalism.of the scale and order that gave rise to the first "pacifier" of democracy in Greece all those years ago..

 

By the way..the supreme court will uphold thee provisions..I am told there are no consitutional impediments to the language and intent of the controversial provisions.

Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on December 16, 2011 at 11:24pm

Victoria, I think of Congress as a con game. A good confidence game can't run without shills. But if you don't have a shill, you could just let an ordinary player win once in a while so that people don't know for sure that the game is rigged, the way they'd know if nobody EVER won.

There are lots of ways to get out the vote when there are no popular candidates at the top and people have grown disillusioned with the major parties.

Start with the knowledge that voting is the consent of the governed. That's from the Declaration of Independence, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

The way that governments demonstrate the consent of the governed is by holding elections. If people vote, they claim consent. If nobody votes, they can't. They can rule by force, but they can't claim consent.

It is much easier for government if they can claim consent. 

Now there are times when people knowingly consent to corporate rule. When times were good, people in the US didn't care how many Latin American countries we overthrew and how many brutal dictators we installed, as long as times were good. When things are bad, the other half of the capitalist boom/bust cycle, people no longer want to vote for corporate rule. So how do you get out the vote?

What can you give people that will interest them enough to get and consent to continuing corporate rule?

How about a few good candidates?

What about a few very important issues?

What if they could gain a few local victories?

Or let's put it this way, Victoria. You're imagining that I want the same thing that political activists want, to engage people so that they'll get out and vote. Obviously I want people engaged enough to stop voting. But why?

Because there is nothing, absolutely nothing that I could gain that would induce me to consent to continuing corporate rule, continuing atrocities, and continuing tyranny. 

So they recall Walker. The corportions keep stealing the country blind, the federal government keeps defunding the states so it can divert money to more wars, and the angel saint who replaces Walker finds that Wisconsin no longer has any federal money and can barely afford to maintain state services.

So they elect Warren and Solomon. That would mean two more votes against something like the NDAA. Not enough keep it from being veto-proof, but perhaps someday, if enough good people are elected, maybe not in our lifetimes, but someday, etc.

So we get GMO labelling. And the Supreme Court grants cert to an appeal filed by Monsanto and rules that non-GMO foods violate Monsanto's Constitutional rights.

What I tried to point out about Venezuela is that they had a system where the votes had to be counted and were verifiable. Those are two major preconditions for being able to bring about change by voting. We have neither.

Every election I see activists getting excited about all they're doing. Many of them don't even know that their leaders, the most inspiring, charismatic people in their movements, were carefully selected by the big corporate think tanks and sent out to galvanize voters around issues that wouldn't disrupt the system, so as to get the vote to gain consent for continued corporate rule.

When people were telling me that Obama might defend gay rights, I asked them how many innocent children in Afghanistan were they willing to allow Obama to kill so that they could have gay rights? Of course they hated me. And guess what? Not only did Obama kill little children, but he failed to defend gay rights. Hey, once they've got your vote, they don't need you for anything else.

Occupy San Diego and Canvass for a Cause told me that they're registering voters because only voters can sign petitions and they have lots of petitions for all sorts of worthy causes. That's strange. Only voters can petition? King George didn't let the colonists vote, but they were allowed to petition him. In a tyranny, anybody can petition the tyrant, but in a democracy or a republic only registered voters can petition the government? Isn't the government supposed to represent everyone, not just those who voted for it?

No, I'm not trying to get people engaged and excited. I'm doing the equivalent of going from mud hut to mud hut telling people that there's another way and that they don't have to live under corporate rule. If they're desperate enough, they'll listen, but if they're comfortable as things are, they won't. They might petition for a few reforms here and there, they might want to try to get a few better people elected, but if they're comfortable with the system, believe in the Constitution, salute the flag, and vote, they don't want change.

I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing for the past five years. Warning people, then telling them, "I told you so," when they don't listen to my warnings, rinse and repeat. 

I'm not going to support election integrity activists who have collected literally tons of documentation about insecure elections but who don't want people to stop voting because then they couldn't raise money to keep collecting more tons of useless documentation. It is no longer an election integrity movement, Victoria, it is an election integrity industry, just like the big charities in Africa raising money to combat genocide but who turn a blind eye to, and sometimes even aid and abet in genocide, because without genocide they wouldn't be able to raise money to combat genocide. keith harmon snow calls them the misery industry.

"Election integrity activists" who encourage people to vote in rigged elections are unethical, Victoria. If I know a vending machine is broken, I won't encourage people to put money in it. If I know a card game is rigged, I won't encourage people to gamble money in it. If I know the bridge is out, I won't encourage anybody to drive across it. If I know that an electoral system isn't secure, I won't encourage people to vote in it.

If everyone else in the country decides to vote and to register voters and encourage everyone else to vote, and they're all rejoicing and dancing in the streets, I'll still be here at my keyboard warning people it's a bad idea, and saying, "I told you so," afterward when they wake up with horrible hangovers in some secret prison they'd authorized the government to put them in.

I'm not a politician trying to get everyone to like me. I'm not a teenager trying to win a popularity contest. I'm just old Mad Mark, warning people, shaking my head when they ignore me and come crying to me that they got screwed again, warning them that the same thing will happen next time if they do it again, shaking my head when they do it again and come crying to me again, and over and over and over. 

Peer pressure is strong in this country and most people tend to succumb in order to conform. I don't know how it happened that I'm not one of them, but I'm not, and I'll go to my grave saying what I know is right, even if nobody listens, nobody likes me, and everyone else thinks I'm wrong.

I've been this way all my life. There's a true story from my childhood when my parents used to make fun of me for not being a conformist by saying, "Yeah, yeah--they're all out of step but Johnny." I think it must have referred to some old joke about a guy named Johnny marching with his military unit and being out of step, and his mom saying to his dad, proudly, "Look--they're all out of step but Johnny." Must have been something like that. 

Anyway I heard that a thousand times growing up. So one day I'm in gym class, must have been grade school, because we were getting our very first lesson in marching in formation. The teacher lined us up in ranks and explained the commands and what we were supposed to do. Left, right, left, right, forward march, column left, about face, etc. And then we tried it. The teacher called out the commands and we marched. But because all the other kids were watching each other to see what to do, particularly watching the most popular kids, and I was listening to the teacher, the teacher suddenly blew his whistle and said, parade halt, one two! You're all out of step except Mark."

Well, my face turned red and I walked home from school that day in a state of confusion. It actually happened. Everyone was out of step but me. Of course I didn't tell my parents because I didn't want to get whopped (which was legal in those days), but it happened. And I never did start conforming and never will. A lot of the time everybody will be out of step except me, but that's the life I was given so that's the life I lead. 

Sometimes a funny thing happens. I'll say something, everybody will make fun of me, and it will go on for about ten years or so. And then suddenly everybody starts saying what I'd been saying all along. When that happens, people tell me that I was just ahead of my time. Okay, so maybe I'm mad or maybe I'm just ahead of my time. Maybe I'm not a problem-solver, maybe I'm a pioneer. That's cool too. In fact it's a lot better than not having any role or part to play at all.

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 16, 2011 at 11:48pm

You ARE ahead of your time.

Way ahead.

I guess there's benefit to you holding the line. But I used to hold the same line and I ended up living out in the fringes of society with other line-holders. It actually got boring.

For a long time I was the only person advocating for hand-counted paper ballots while all the rest of the election integrity activists were supporting "paper trails" that accomplished exactly nothing unless actually counted.

Anyway, purity of position is always poetic and works beautifully to make others feel inspired, or in awe of you, or guilty and therefore resentful of you. I don't find that it works for me. But, I do support providing solutions and steps people can take. I support pointing the way, not just giving a sermon. Anyway, Jesus gave sermons and look where it got him.

If you want to be a pioneer, you got to lead the way. 

If people don't want to consent, they will also have to stop paying taxes.

Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 16, 2011 at 11:56pm

So what do you think about the idea of an active voter strike?

Permalink Reply by Victoria Collier on December 17, 2011 at 12:33am

I'm thinking maybe the overall message of your campaign, Mark, is NO CONSENT. Voting is only one part of consent. Paying taxes is another. What are the other forms of consent?

Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on December 17, 2011 at 4:27am

Other forms of consent are buying corporate goods, using corporate banks, working for corporations, fighting and funding corporate wars. 

Other forms of withholding consent are producing local goods, using local banks and local currencies, working in cooperatives and collectives, refusing to fight or fund corporate wars.

In his book, Blood on the Tracks, S. Brian Willson says,

"....instead of fighting vertical power, and therefore legitimizing and strengthening it, a better way may be to ignore that version of "power" and move the struggle to spaces where self-rule can take root...."

The US government is a system of government. It is not a democratic system of government because people don't have power over government, government has power over people. It is, and has been since its inception with the genocide of Native Americans on behalf of foreign charters (corporations whose private owners were called kings), a capitalist imperialist system.

Both capitalism and imperialism are malignant in that they require constant growth. As they use up one host, they spread to another. They consume and destroy every healthy living thing in their paths and produce nothing but dead things. Most of what civilization calls "progress" is turning living things into dead things. Trees become tables and toilet paper. Oceans become dead zones clogged with plastic where nothing can live. Jungles are destroyed, their inhabitants killed or enslaved, and the minerals beneath them become computers and cell phones and ipods. 

I'm overjoyed at having a computer and being able to converse with you online, Victoria. You're somebody I've respected and admired. Getting to know you here at Occupy Cafe I've learned more about you and that has only increased my admiration and respect. But how many people in the Democratic Republic of Congo were murdered so that corporations could get the coltan for my computer? Many people don't have computers and are just as exciting and inspirational as those of us who do. They don't have our modern communications techniques and they may work at a local level, but some of them have won global recognition for their work building sustainable communities and blocking corporate predation. 

Transitional communities are noncompliance. Direct democracy is noncompliance. Anything that rejects corporate rule and values people more than profits is noncompliance with capitalist imperialism.

Accepting corporate rule while trying to reform it so that it would be a bit less greedy, kill fewer people, kill people farther away instead of where we are, pollute the planet a bit less quickly and drastically, and asking for or "demanding" similar reforms, is compliance. It accepts the system, agrees that capitalist imperialism is basically a good system, and asks only that it restrict its atrocities to other people and places and benefit us more.

Obviously I'm not going to get people engaged and enthusiastic by asking cheerfully, "Who does NOT want to be a millionaire?" At least not in this particular time and place. Yet there are many in the Occupy Movement who are or want to be organic farmers and don't aspire to being millionaires. There is great enthusiasm at Occupy San Diego for registering voters and trying to achieve some power within the system. If a corporate-sponsored TV show like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" came along and offered to do an on-site benefit production, I'm sure there would be even greater enthusiasm. You can't cheat an honest person, but greedy people are easily led astray.

Veganism is noncompliance. Freeganism is noncompliance. Working with Food Not Bombs or Food Not Lawns is noncompliance. Shopping at a Co-Op instead of at a big box store is noncompliance.

But what of the person who gets arrested for carrying a sign that says, "End corporate rule," but shops at Wal-Mart and banks at BofA? Isn't it self-defeating to support what you're protesting? What of the person who gets arrested for carrying a sign that says, "End the wars!" but pays taxes to support the wars because they don't want to simplify their lifestyle to where they can legally not pay taxes as it would require that they give up a lot of luxuries? What of the person who gets arrested and severely beaten for carrying a sign that says, "Stop police brutality," but votes to delegate to government the power to decide to use police violence against law-abiding citizens? Aren't such things self-defeating? 

How far can we get by working at cross-purposes? 

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