The Missed Message of Reverend Wright

Well, they finally got him to do it. It really is a shame when “they” get what they want, and Barack Obama’s disassociation from Reverend Wright was exactly that. It’s more than a little unfortunate that Obama does not recognize this age old tactic to divide the Black populous. Repeatedly Obama has been asked to renounce one thing ( or person ) after another, and Obama continues to oblige… Whittling away at the people who are truly on his side.

A month ago Obama said he couldn’t give up Reverend Wright any more than he could give up the black community, yet yesterday he gave up Reverend Wright for speaking the truth about the black community. You can be sure he hurt a lot of people by disowning their reality in such a fashion.

I’ll start by saying this. Reverend Wright’s speech was probably the most truth I’ve heard on MSNBC… Ever. As always, I encourage you to watch it in its entirety. That half an hour primer on understanding the Theology of Liberation was actually quite fascinating, and the American people should have learned and benefited from those insights.

Of course, nothing of the kind occurred. The media’s abrasive response only reiterated their inability to accept the truth about a great many things, and their determination to make sure no one else learns anything either. In fact, the media paid no attention to his speech at all, and instead focused solely on the specious “question and answer” period following it. With total disregard for the foundation the Reverend had laid for an actual discussion, the “moderator” proceeded as if she hadn’t heard a word of it.

The questions were uninformed, leading, divisive, and insulting - and the Reverend fielded them accordingly. Just as they’ve been doing to Barack Obama, the questions were designed to pit black man against black man - but the Reverend would not take the bait. Getting Black people to turn on each other is a control mechanism that has been used throughout this country’s history, and is currently being used in every “conflict” we are involved in from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

Because of that, the good Reverend would not “give up” Minister Farrakhan ( as all Black “patriots” are supposed to do ) in order to appease the frightened and misinformed public. Because of that, the good Reverend would not shy away from the truth of the terror the United States inflicts on the rest of the world during our resource and empire wars. Because of that, the good Reverend would not deny the truth of United States instigation and involvement in the South African biological weapons program Project Coast.

But Barack certainly did. To my continued amazement, Barack Obama keeps demonstrating his lack of awareness in these areas. It becomes more and more evident that he actually believes that this country ( or this world for that matter ) is somehow “past” these things that have never even been addressed to begin with. Personally, being a half-black / half-white man who is about the same age as Barack, I find that simply astounding.

So Obama took the bait… hook, line, and sinker. Barack Obama, who has rightfully championed the cause of unity and understanding, chose to cast out the voice and validity of the least represented and most abused segment of our society. A segment that he is also a part of. It would have been nice if he had a little more respect for the past and current sufferings of people of color all over this planet, and an awareness of the fact that they suffer solely because of the color of their skin.

This self-flagellating, self-denial, and self-nullification of the true history of Black people in this country ( and around the world ) is the fundamental method of keeping us “under control.” I assure you, the master’s are petrified that the actual history will become known and accepted, and they will be exposed as the monsters they are and have always been. That is why the myth of “the United States would never do such a thing” is such an important myth to perpetuate.

But again, the Reverend’s message was what was completely lost. What could have been constructive was instantly torn asunder by the elitist and narcissistic punditry that dare cast the same aspersions on the Reverend. His message was intended to give context to a forbidden topic that as you can see, still tears at the core of this society.

“Isaiah 61: Preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty those who are held captive. Liberating the captives also liberates those who are holding the captives. It frees the captive and frees the captors. It frees the oppressed and it frees the oppressors.”

“The prophetic theology of the black church during the days of segregation, Jim Crow, lynching, and the separate-but-equal fantasy, was a theology of liberation. The prophetic theology of the black church, during the days of chattel slavery, was a theology of liberation. It was preached to set free those who were held in bondage spiritually, psychologically, and sometimes physically. And it was practiced to set the slaveholders free from the notion that they could define other human beings or confine a soul set free by the power of the gospel.”

“Theology of liberation. It was preached to set Africans free from the notion of second class citizenship which was the law of the land and it was practiced to set free misguided and mis-educated Americans from the notion that they were actually superior to other Americans based on the color of their skin. The prophetic theology of the black church in our day is preached to set African-Americans and all other Americans free from the misconceived notion that different means deficient.”

“God’s desire is for positive change, transformation, real change, not cosmetic change, transformation, radical change or a change that makes a permanent difference, transformation. God’s desire is for transformation, changed lives, changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders, and changed hearts in a changed world.”

“This principle of transformation is at the heart of the prophetic theology of the black church. These two foci of liberation and transformation have been at the very core of the black religious experience from the days of David Walker, Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen, Jarena Lee, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, and Sojourner Truth, through the days of Adam Clayton Powell, Ida B. Wells, Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Barbara Jordan, Cornell West, and Fanny Lou Hamer.”

“Our congregation, as you heard in the introduction, took a stand against apartheid when the government of our country was supporting the racist regime of the African government in South Africa.”

“Our congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while our government, through Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, was supporting the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries.”

“The prophetic theology of the black church is a theology of liberation; it is a theology of transformation; and it is ultimately a theology of reconciliation.”

“The Apostle Paul said, “Be ye reconciled one to another, even as God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self.” God does not desire for us, as children of God, to be at war with each other, to see each other as superior or inferior, to hate each other, abuse each other, misuse each other, define each other, or put each other down.”

“Reconciliation, the years have taught me, is where the hardest work is found for those of us in the Christian faith, however, because it means some critical thinking and some re-examination of faulty assumptions when using the paradigm of Dr. William Augustus Jones.”

“Dr. Jones, in his book, God in the ghetto, argues quite accurately that one’s theology, how I see God, determines one’s anthropology, how I see humans, and one’s anthropology then determines one’s sociology, how I order my society.”

“Now, the implications from the outside are obvious. If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means “God with us,” if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens. My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior.”

“To say “I am a Christian” is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray as they ride on the decks of the slave ship is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying as they ride beneath the decks on that slave ship.”

“How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same. And what we both mean when we say “I am a Christian” is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God’s children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals in order for us to walk together into the future which God has prepared for us.”

“Reconciliation does not mean that blacks become whites or whites become blacks and Hispanics become Asian or that Asians become Europeans. We root out any teaching of superiority, inferiority, hatred, or prejudice. And we recognize for the first time in modern history in the West that the other who stands before us with a different color of skin, a different texture of hair, different music, different preaching styles, and different dance moves, that other is one of God’s children just as we are, no better, no worse, prone to error and in need of forgiveness, just as we are.”

“Only then will liberation, transformation, and reconciliation become realities and cease being ever elusive ideals.”

 

Not This Time…

It’s difficult for me to stay angry these days. Not because there aren’t thousands of perfectly good reasons to be furious at any given moment, but because there are two very good reasons not to be. For one, anger ( in most cases ) is not productive, is self destructive, and is generally divisive. And two ( regardless of what you see on television ), this world is evolving rapidly and exponentially on a variety of levels.

In spite of the encouraging signs of progress however, the scope of American denial regarding issues of race still never ceases to amaze me. Time and time again we are presented with opportunities to face the real reasons for division, inequality, and strife on this planet, and time and time again we choose to ignore the truth and look the other way. As we commemorate forty years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, we find ourselves still facing the very same dilemmas.

First of all, let me make one thing clear. There is no situation on this planet that the populous faces that is not by design. Eons of effort have gone into creating this society ( and the burdens that control the people ) with great attention paid to every detail. The global / industry wide sub-prime “meltdown” ( or operation ) for instance, could not have occurred without a great deal of coordinated criminal effort and government complicity. No thinking individual could possibly be convinced that all of these banks ( worldwide ) coincidentally decided to give out all of these fraudulent mortgages - the majority to “minorities” - that just happed to balloon at the same time.

Nor could any reasonable person believe that all of these banks ( worldwide ) could have so outrageously lied about the actual “value” of these mortgages without the governments of the world ( particularly ours ) knowing all about it. They certainly managed to come up with 30 billion dollars in the blink of an eye ( the same amount that Bush vetoed for children’s healthcare for ten years ) to prevent the make-believe market from crashing for a few more days. Mind you, that was in addition to the ( no legislation necessary ) 200 billion the “Federal Reserve” pumped into the market only one week before.

The same reality applies to all of “society’s” dilemmas. The unending wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Darfur, Somalia, etc, are equally intentional as is the death, disease, homelessness, and hopelessness that grip the majority of this planet. If someone is suffering anywhere in the world, the reason is because someone can profit from it. I’m continually amazed that there are so many places without food but none without bullets. One would be hard pressed to find a conflict anywhere in the world that the United States is not funding, arming, or inciting in some fashion or another… and I do mean all sides. After all, wars ( and the weapons to fight them ) have been the primary export of this country for quite some time.

The objective of the rulers is very simple. Prevent the populous from recognizing and demanding their God given human rights through a policy of dehumanization, enslavement, and fear. The people of this planet have been so consistently beaten down that most consider themselves “lucky” to have any wage or food at all, while their natural resources make billions for foreign corporations. This policy of theft, oppression, and deception has been the foundation of global commerce for about as long as “recorded” history, and the reasons it can continue should be apparent. If freedom, sovereignty, and equality were actualized things, the rulers wouldn’t be the rulers anymore and they would be faced with lifetimes’ of crimes against humanity.

Anywhere you look in our society ( if you actually open your eyes ) you will find the obvious truth of this. The power base in this country became so ( and remains so ) through it’s ability to take from those less powerful, conniving, or ruthless than they are. We live under a system of organized crime that has deemed itself “legal,” extorts protection money in the form of illegal taxation to fund its various, impediments, obstacles, and operations against the people, and demands that either we surrender our souls and “get with the program” or become the slave-fuel that feeds the machine. Take advantage, or be taken advantage of… It’s the American way.

“When you lie, cheat, and steal to get something you have to lie, cheat, and steal to keep something.” C-SPAN viewer.

The reality that this country was founded on genocide, ethnocide, and slavery ( which evolved into the institutionalized forms of racism at the core of our society ) is something that your “typical” American still refuses to accept. Of course, there’s a very “practical” reason for the refusal to recognize this unpleasant reality. If you recognize the reality of the formation of this country and the genocide of 12 - 112 million Native Americans, then you have to recognize that this land was stolen. If you recognize the enslavement of millions of Africans who had their lives, families, religions, and even their names stolen from them to create the wealth of this country, then you have to recognize that that wealth was stolen. The “White House” for instance, elicits an entirely different image when you consider the four hundred slaves that built it.

This attitude is not uniquely American of course, and you can find it anywhere in the “modern” world. The astonishingly racist behavior of the Israeli government is another stark example. The same denial that precludes the U.S. from acknowledging its origin precludes Israel from acknowledging the reality that their country is founded on the land and bodies of the Palestinian people, or that they have stolen their resources, or that they have imprisoned the Palestinians in their own country. We are all just supposed to forget there was ever a history before “they” arrived. The 60 years since that land was taken is the only time period we are allowed to recognize, and even then only if we accept the Nazi extermination of six million Jews as justification for oppressing the Palestinians.

There are any number of examples of this kind of oppression evident even in 2008. Our chocolate, coffee, precious metals, etc, have always come from slaves and do to this day. Over six million people have been killed in the last ten years during the continued pillaging of the Congo and I certainly don’t see the Israeli or American governments saying “never forget” that atrocity every ten minutes… And it didn’t happen over 60 years ago, it’s happening right now. The reality is that for centuries on this planet, every conceivable ( and inconceivable ) advantage has been engineered into a hierarchical society with white people at the top ( masters ) and black people at the bottom ( slaves ), whether white people are willing to accept that or not.

Unfortunately, most Americans suffer from a common problem. That problem is the selective memory that comes from being raised in American society and endlessly exposed to American media. Because of the utter denial regarding our origin the “history” that is taught often bares little resemblance to reality at all, and creates a great many false beliefs. This is why George Bush says “when history is written, Iraq will be viewed as a success.” He believes that just as it has been throughout our history, the “writer’s” will distort reality in the American white man’s favor and turn invasion into liberation.

“We have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being - the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America. And it is time for the Iraqis to demonstrate that they understand.” Hillary Clinton - Pittsburgh 03-16-08

Only an American white man ( or in this case woman ) could continue to make such an astonishingly arrogant, ignorant, and utterly racist statement after all that has been exposed about this horrendous war crime of an occupation. Only an American white man / woman could completely discount any civilization at all having existed before the “white man commeth” and bestowed the “gift of freedom.”

How “generous” of us it was to level their country, litter it with depleted uranium, kill a million and a half of them, displace four million of them, and appropriate ( at least ) 45% of their resources while forcing them to live in rubble without power, water, or employment. It’s the kind of “generosity” we have come to expect when “freedom” comes to your land. Hillary honoring the blood of thousands of Americans while dishonoring the blood of millions of Iraqis illustrates yet again the lesser value of “dark-skinned” life.

This is the same kind of awareness and sensitivity Barbara Bush demonstrated when confronted with the horrific Superdome conditions after Katrina.

“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is ( chuckle ) working very well for them.”

Only an American white man ( or in this case, again a woman ) could make such a statement after seeing these desperate starving people ( who had lost everything ) jammed into a football stadium overflowing with feces, garbage, and bodies. Once again, we see that from this unique perspective “these people” are understood to be “doing well” in conditions worse than livestock receive.

“All Men are created equal, but not all men are treated equally.” C-SPAN viewer

So here we are, right where we’ve always been… Lying to ourselves about our origin, lying to ourselves about our behavior, lying to ourselves about our freedom, and lying to ourselves about our system of inequality. While we continue to falsely proclaim ourselves the self-appointed saviors of the world, we demonstrate repeatedly that we don’t have the courage to face the truth about ourselves.

Obviously, this is not the conversation about “race” that the rulers want us to have. The rulers would much rather ( as they have spent three weeks proving ) feign outrage over Barack Obama calling his grandmother a “typical” white person. Of all the crimes against humanity occurring at any given second on this planet, we are expected to accept the outrage of the white man over a black man calling a member of his own family “typical.” For weeks now, Morning Joe has found a new reason to be upset about this virtually every day.

They would rather loop the soundbytes of a preacher that tug at the hate strings of various parts of America, than face the daily atrocities committed by the rulers against man and God. In their endless endeavors to steal resources and bomb the rest of the world “back to the stone age”, the weapon’s makers that own our media would rather direct the mob with torches and pitchforks at the man of God who dares to suggest that America isn’t perfect.

Just as IBM thought the mainframe would be the permanent computing environment, just as the oil companies think oil will be the fuel for all time, the rulers also think that American racism is a permanent and reliable part of this country and the world. Easily exploitable at any time to play to the fears of the mal-educated, under-exposed, poor and middle classes of America.

Fortunately, these old and tired methods of diversion are rapidly loosing there effectiveness. A new generation and a new information medium ( the internet ) has broken the hold of the mainstream media, and allowed people to find the truth on their own. More and more, the old world pundits are finding that they are only talking to themselves, and that no one is jumping when they say “boo.” This morning, even Joe had to recognize that “the revolution will not be televised.” At least not while he and his clan are the ones deciding what gets televised.

The mainstream media chose to only show Barack Obama’s powerful ( but lenient ) speech one time during the middle of the day, yet they have played the misleading Reverend Wright clips literally hundreds of times over the last three weeks. For one or two days, they managed to play a couple of ten second clips from the speech and then it was never to be heard from again. All of that tremendous effort exerted by Barack Obama to respond to the unwarranted and vile media attacks, and these white commentators just dismissed it out of hand without any critical analysis.

It didn’t stop millions of people however, from going to the various postings and watching the forty minute speech ( A More Perfect Union ) for themselves, or watching the Reverend Wright sermon in its entirety - you know… to actually decide for themselves what these men were saying. That may be a foreign concept for the “soundbyte” aficionados, but it’s the future of information acquisition nonetheless.

In a glorious demonstration of evolution in action, people of all ages, shapes, colors, and sizes have been flocking to the Obama camp despite the color of his skin or the efforts to demonize him. Although the mainstream media ( owned and operated by the beneficiaries of hopelessness ) has continued its campaign to paint Barack Obama as the “black man” that “typical” white people have historically feared, there efforts have proven largely ineffective. The people of this country and this planet are “growing up” and the rulers can’t just scare them into being stupid anymore.

Bear in mind, igniting racial hatred is their only option… pathetic as that may sound. It is their only perceived chance to maintain the status quo and to stop an irreversible change in American and Global consciousness that would elect a black man to the highest ( public ) seat of power.

“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against,” she said. “For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.

“I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he’s going to be able to put an end to partisanship,” Ferraro said, clearly annoyed. “Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that’s the way our country is.”

Yes, that’s the way our country is, isn’t it. And it is exactly that kind of old-world ignorance that this country desperately needs and wants to get away from. I couldn’t be anymore ecstatic about Republicans ( young and old ) having the same desire to see a new path for America. “Partisanship” is division… Republican against Democrat… Rich against Poor… White against Black… That period of this country’s history is drawing to a close and we would be hard pressed to find a better representation of that than a half-black / half-white president of the United States.

So obviously we should be prepared for the barrage of racially motivated commentary designed to appeal to the most primitive aspects of humanity. If Pat Buchanan has the audacity to question whether “nature or nurture” is responsible for Obama’s ability to relate to “white” people, we can surely expect uglier aspects of the racist core elements to surface. The unfortunate people of Trinity church are already receiving bomb threats, so ask yourself just how far we have come from the days when they bombed Martin Luther King house.

But like I said at the beginning of this writing… this world is changing. The behavior of the rulers and their surrogates just continues to produce mountains of evidence of their obvious deception and malicious intent. No longer do they control the dispensation of “truth” and their days of controlling the Mind of Man are quite obviously coming to an end. Because of this, I couldn’t be happier. The population of the world - that has been anesthetized for so very long - is finally waking up. The same old ploys will not work this time, and we can finally begin the task of building the world that God truly intends.

 

Clinton Comeback: Courtesy of Diebold

It’s unfortunate that the American people still just don’t understand. It’s hard to watch them be so easily swayed by the endless mainstream nonsense while the truth is right in front of them. It’s by design of course, and the perpetrators have had a lot of practice at this.

Granted, this has been an ugly Democratic Primary season. I’ve seen things come out of the Clinton campaign that I would have never expected, and surely I’m disappointed. I would have hoped that the Clinton’s would have had more respect for the positive direction that the majority of the country is determined to take, rather than the pursuit of “winning” by any means. The fact that the Republicans have gleefully done all they can to ensure Hillary continues this behavior should be a clear indication of what side she is benefiting.

However, this is not why she won three of the four March 4^th contests. Once again we are supposed to believe that it was the leaked memo, or the red phone ad, or buyer’s remorse or some other such nonsense. In reality however, she won for the same reason George Bush has been president for eight years. She won because this country still uses Diebold and ES&S voting machines that have time and again altered the outcome of our elections. I don’t think I can say it any clearer than that.

The challenge in demonstrating this reality is finding some kind baseline or control factor for comparison. These machines have all but replaced actual vote counting in this country which makes it incredibly difficult to find any measure of truth. In my last writing on Diebold ( which I suggest you read ), the fact that so many hand-counted districts were right next to Accuvote districts made the discrepancies glaringly apparent.

Although we don’t have a comparable arrangement in this case, we do have similar components. We have touch-screen counted votes and hand counted votes, but we also have something entirely new. In fact this new factor is ( as far as I’m concerned ) the definitive evidence.

Let’s start with Rhode Island. Unfortunately, the state is entirely touch-screen voting. No real paper trail, and no chance of arguing with the machine. However I will point this out. If you exclude the imaginary results we’ve been given, this margin in Rhode Island coincides nicely with the margins we have seen consistently over the previous 11 contests. 58% - 40% is an Obama margin we’ve seen repeatedly.

To illustrate that point, let’s look at Vermont. Here we have an almost identical margin ( 59% - 39% ) except this time it is for Obama. The difference in this state - as you might expect - is that Vermont uses hand counted ballots in the majority of it’s municipalities.

The Texas two-step gives a look at both machine count and hand count. The primary in Texas is all machine count and it gives the win to Clinton 51% - 47%. However the caucus results ( hand count ) reflect the opposite and then some ( 56% - 44% Obama ).

But without question, the Ohio results are by far the most interesting. Although this superficially looks like an across the board win, there is a fascinating hidden story. It’s rare that I get to point to champions for democracy and I’m quite pleased to have the opportunity to do so here. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Jane Platten ( director of the Cuyahoga County elections board ) undoubtedly walked through the fires of hell to implement the paper ballot plan and I’m extremely glad that they did. Because of their incredible efforts there is some data about the Ohio elections that can actually be trusted, and I have something legitimate to work with.

The story of this plan is a fascinating one. As you may recall Cuyahoga County in Ohio has been the location of a number of election problems over the years. Just last year, two election workers were convicted of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election, and in May 2006, election results were delayed five days while absentee ballots were hand-counted due to a “printing error”.

The plan to abandon touch-screen and switch to verifiable paper ballots has been progressing since Dec. 21, 2007 when Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner broke a 2-2 deadlocked election board vote regarding the change.

In an effort to put an end to the horrific election problems of the past, Director Platten implemented several changes to the way votes are handled. To prevent absentee ballot problems for instance Platten had all of the absentee ballots counted and stored on hard disk prior to election day. To ensure the integrity of those ballots, the disk was stored in a safe, monitored by security cameras, and guarded by a Sheriff’s deputy 24 hours a day until polls closed on the 4^th. Contrast this with the embarrassing display of ballot custody in New Hampshire and the empty ballot boxes scattered on the floor.

“There are a lot more controlled environments now in place based on what we’ve learned from past experiences,” said Platten.

What is most interesting is who surfaced in opposition to this new system and their supposed “reasoning” for their objections. I can only imagine how many people this was upsetting to ( because of the totality of established vote control in Ohio ) but the surrogate used to stop this move to a real voting system was the ACLU.

CLEVELAND (AP) Jan 18, 2007 — The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge on Monday to block the March 4 presidential primary in Ohio’s biggest county if it switches to a paper ballot system that doesn’t allow voters to correct errors.

In a follow-up to a suit it filed Jan. 17, the ACLU of Ohio asked for a preliminary injunction against any election in Cuyahoga County if the switch is made.

The lawsuit argued that the proposed paper-ballot system would violate voters’ constitutional rights because it doesn’t allow them to correct errors on ballots before they are cast.

“The evidence is overwhelming that when voters do not have access to technology that notifies them of ballot errors, many more ballots are left uncounted,” said Meredith Bell-Platts, a voting-rights attorney with the ACLU.

What an astonishing argument for the ACLU to make. Here we have the American Civil Liberties Union claiming that voters are too stupid to tell if they are filling out the right circle and that the only resolution is a machine to tell them who they voted for. Yet over a concern for the voter’s ability to “correct” a ballot error, they ask a judge to prevent the county from voting at all.

Jennifer Brunner also noted this would rule out the use of absentee ballots period, since those voters wouldn’t have the opportunity to check their ballot before they were counted either.

Thankfully, U.S. District Judge Kathleen O’Malley denied the ACLU’s injunction request and Platten’s plan was allowed to proceed. In the short amount of time that was available before the primary ( and the amount of time wasted by the ACLU ) only two counties actually got the paper ballot systems implemented… Those were Cuyahoga and Franklin counties.

Franklin County was also under assault to prevent the use of paper ballots. Judge Eric Brown ( D ) from Franklin County Common Pleas Court lifted Judge Richard E. Parrott’s ( R ) restraining order against Brunner that prevented her from ordering the use of paper ballots.

So I retell all of this to illustrate a very simple point. Someone seriously did not want a system that actually counted and secured votes to be implemented in Ohio, and they tried very hard to prevent it… Let’s see why they went to so much trouble.

On the day of the primary, only Cuyahoga and Franklin County were actually prepared. The rest of the counties were instructed to also offer paper ballots but there are a number of reports indicating otherwise. During the day however, two other districts had significant machine problems and thus used a portion of paper ballots. Those counties were Montgomery and Delaware. Additionally Hamilton County already used paper ballots that ( previously ) were scanned locally instead of the new centralized system.

As you can see from the map, the only counties where Obama won are also the counties that had secured, centrally counted, paper ballots.

So here we are once again with a situation we’ve seen several times before. Underneath the smokescreen of the kitchen sink strategy we see the real problem. Once again ( when viewing all four contests ), the machine vote goes to Hillary and the paper ballot ( or hand count ) goes to Obama. The fact that Hillary’s actions and reactions have coincided so seamlessly with the Republican, Rovian, Limbaughvian philosophy and tactics, could actually lead one to question if it is coordinated.

I’m not suggesting it is. The people who are in control of our election system probably don’t want Hillary to be president any more than they want Barack to be. It doesn’t bother them one bit however watching the Democratic race degenerate into a hate fest and anything that will slow the vote momentum or make people feel “hopeless” is a good thing to them.

So before anyone questions whether I wear a tin foil chapeau, ask yourself why United Technologies Corporation is so determined to purchase Diebold ( a company currently under investigation by the DOJ and SEC ) before election day. You can bet Charlie Black ( McCain’s Campaign Director and lobbyist for United Technologies ) has a very good reason for this arrangement.

So once again, I beg you to pay attention to the puppet masters and don’t be lead astray by their fake arguments and explanations. Instead of playing into Republican hands and wasting energy on infighting, the Democratic Party needs to unite and ensure that these machines don’t steal another election from under the American nose. The world desperately needs us to wake up and take this country from rulers that have oppressed and lied to us all.

This article is also posted at Infowars Clinton Comeback: Courtesy of Diebold.

Updates: ( Last modified 03-17-08 )

Ohio’s voting machines are now an official crime scene ( FreePress article )

‘Brunner further announced that she’s banning the practice of so-called “sleepovers” where poll workers take the programmable and easily hackable voting machines home with them overnight prior to an election day.

Brunner succeeded Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell as Ohio’s Secretary of State. She has vowed to make sure the Buckeye State does not repeat the experience of 2004, when Blackwell choreographed the theft of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for George W. Bush, giving him a second term in the White House. Since taking office Brunner has vowed to shift the entire state to voting on paper ballots, a move being fiercely resisted by numerous Republican-controlled Boards of Elections throughout the state. Thus far Brunner has forced the resignations of BOE chairs in two of Ohio’s most populous cities, Cleveland and Columbus.

Matt Damschroder was removed as Franklin County Board of Elections Director on the Sunday prior to Ohio’s 2008 primary election. Damschroder was previously suspended for a month without pay for accepting a $10,000 check from a voting machine salesman at the BOE building. The check, made out to the Republican Party, was delivered on the day the state’s contracts for electronic voting machines were open for bidding. Damschroder was former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party and the state’s leading foe of paper ballots. “Damschroder was very opposed to paper ballots and was stoking the fire against them,” Brunner told WVKO.’