Bush vs. Gore Returns to the Fore





...or does it?

If you read about the Bush/Gore election debacle in 2000, you probably already know that the butterfly ballots and hanging chads were just red herring issues and that the election was actually stolen due to the state of Florida purging tens of thousands of voters from the voter rolls. Since convicted felons are not allowed to vote in Florida—even after they’ve served their time in prison and have been released—the voter purge was ostensibly done to ensure that ineligible voters did not attempt to vote.

Katherine Harris was the secretary of state for the state of Florida and she oversaw the voter purge. She also happened to be George W. Bush’s campaign chairman [gee, no conflict there!]. The conflict of interest should have been criminal but it is not in this deluded country. But the conflict of interest certainly turned out to be beneficial for Bush. Of the 90,000 voters that were purged, approximately 80% of them were Democrats, a dis-proportionate amount were black and 15% of them (over 57,000) had never committed a crime.

This all could have been an unfortunate mistake, but it seems that it would be difficult to overlook the fact that the data for many of the purged voters showed that they had committed crimes several years in the future. Call me cynical but I find it much more likely that Choice Point, the company hired to conduct the voter purge, at a cost of $4 million (with no competitive bids), intentionally purged legal voters to give Bush an edge in the election.

When Greg Palast uncovered the scheme, he blew the whistle to our ineffectual news media who “investigated” the incident by calling the Bush campaign to ask if the voter purge story was true. The response from the campaign was “No.” End of investigation.

If you’re wondering what prison Katherine Harris ended up in, you may be surprised to know that she never went to jail. Instead, she got support from the Republican National Committee to run for Congress. She later got RNC support to run for the Senate but failed to win her election there.

Bad behavior that is not punished will certainly be repeated. That brings us to the 2012 election. Now, I don’t think that Gore would have been a much better president than Bush, and similarly, my preference among the two current candidates is a non-issue. You can call me idealistic but I still believe that the will of the people should be served. Otherwise, why have elections? So if you’re curious about how the will of the people is faring in our current election cycle, listen to this episode of To the Point with Warren Olney (link pasted below). It is one of the few news shows in this country where you will find an honest discussion about what’s going on.
 
The news story (begins at 23:17):
 http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp120604final_stretch_in_wis

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/