Has Votescam struck again? Has the Conspiracy Nation now gone mainstream? Did Elian Gonzalez get his revenge on America? Since the major television networks called the election early, did they distort the voting process? What impact will George W. Bush have if (probably) elected to the White House, and how will this change your life?

The (Slow, Sad) Sinking of the USS Republic

Although I am registered as a Republican, I have voted Libertarian in three of the past four Presidential elections. This time I went for Bush. I do not buy the Democrat-spun homily that it is evil to be wealthy; I do not believe that the wealthy should pay more in taxes than the middle class. In fact, if I had my way, I'd bring back a modified notion of alms-houses--treat the so-called poor as indentured servants, offering them job-training and education as apprentices, such that they might get their lazy, entitlement-oriented asses from off the sofa and fucking work for a living (and while I'm at it, I'd put them, these Red Diaper babies, on permanant Norplant, so they would not be able to spawn for the duration of their servitude).

The only reason Al Gore came as close as he did yesterday (he only won 21 of 50 states), is that the America has become a harbinger of gimme-gimme welfare mentality and a holding pen for illegal immigrants, most of whom (besides the industrious Asians, for whom I have profound respect) vote Democrat. Which is why, although I voted for Bush, I rooted for Buchanan. Take the black and other "minority" vote away from Al Gore, and yesterday's election wouldn't even have been close.

Should the human Sugar Daddy, Al Gore, steal the election away from Bush (looks now like Oregon has gone for Dubya, producing another seven Electoral College votes), let me invite all those Americans who own weapons and value the rights granted them by our Forefathers in the 2nd-amendment, to begin asking themselves what Thomas Jefferson meant, when he wrote, "The tree of Liberty must occasionally be watered by the blood of tyrants."

Todd Fahey
fargone@fargonebooks.com
www.fargonebooks.com
www.disinfo.com

Is there chicanery going on? Almost certainly. This election would be the first very close presidential election ever without it, if there wasn't any. The question is, who has the better chicanery?

Is the "butterfly ballot" legitimate? Of course not. It is a violation of Florida state law, which specifies that voters mark an X in the blank space to the right of the name of the candidate they want to vote for. Not the left. Ballot design has a long and sordid history of manipulated votes.

The worst bit though, is this: it still doesn't matter. Both candidates are terrible. That tens of thousands of people who call themselves radicals are squealing over a tight race between two people eager to march more blacks to the electric chair; over a race where the major foreign policy difference is the difference between a bomber flying over an apartment building full of sleeping Serbians or a cruise missile targeted at a apartment building full of sleeping Panamanians, and at a time when the welfare state has already been slashed to pre-Depression levels, is what is truly disgusting. No matter what the final vote count is, we still face a nightmare.

Nick Mamatas
laddertrick@gvny.com
www.softskull.com
www.nycny.com
www.disinfo.com

Earlier, Sky News was airing CBS Evening News, and I idly compared the images of Gush and Bore on, idly comparing their features, in the style of the Monty Burns school of Phrenology. If I was American, I would have voted for Gore. Bush, who recently called for more commitment from Europe in peace-keeping the troubled states of Kosovo and Bosnia, thus reducing the amount of US commitment, doesn't even seem to know that 80% of the KFOR troops are European! He seems little more than an automaton, George Bush Mark II, groomed by dark interests, a mouthpiece who sometimes fudges his lines. He makes Gore seems like such a nice goon.

On CBS there was this was this reporter - he signed off, telling us the that the re-count was to decide the 'next leader of The Free World'. Eh, no. The American president may be the leader of a 'free' country, but he's not the leader of my 'free' country. And over here, in Ireland (and in other European states), we limit the campaign expenditure of our candidates, we limit their TV time . . . of course, corporate interests seep in our politics too, of course money changes hands in the name of self-interests . . . but our small-time politics seem more, well . . . democratic than the tacky freakshow that's still trundling through a re-count over there in 'The Free World'. Bush or Gore? As Robert Anton Wilson pointed out, it's like choosing between cancer and AIDS.

Dave (daev) Walsh
daev@hellshaw.com
www.hellshaw.com
www.blather.net
www.disinfo.com

I spoke with Victoria Collier, publisher of the Collier brothers' book, Votescam this morning, to make sure Flatland Books has plenty of copies of this conspiracy classic.

For those who haven't read it, Votescam covers nationwide voting fraud and asks some basic questions about who is counting the votes. Their story begins in Florida where, one way or another, the election of 2000 will end.

As we divine the entrails of American democracy, we still don't know who has prevailed. I doubt we will for some time. Has George Bush really won?

Don't forget Janet Reno, who knows her way around the swamps of Florida ballot-box stuffing. She was in the thick of things in the Collier brothers' Votescam expose, and threw them in jail for "stealing voter materials" when they showed her boxes of manufactured computer ballots.

And who counts these computer ballots? Machines. Who verifies the tablulation? No earthly human hand. The Colliers also call into question the Voter News Service (VNS), a consortium of NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. VNS provides the "exit polling data" that has replaced the tedious process of waiting until all the votes are counted until declaring a winner.

I heard the "father of exit polls", a consultant for the VNS, on the radio explaining why the networks got it wrong last night, twice. He described the process by which early projections are issued to the press: a combination of polls of people who have already voted and actual tabulation of computer card ballots, weighted statistically. He said VNS was "fooled" by - get this - the interviews of actual voters and actual early vote counts, and projected Al Gore as the winner in Florida. But things, as we shall see, work a little differently in Florida.

Votescam is definitely one of those suppressed books that everyone needs to read. It's sold 30,000 copies by word of mouth. It raises important questions about the basic integrity of American democracy. Flatland Books has copies for $15 postpaid.

If, as the Collier brothers charged, you're vote doesn't count because no one is counting them, what lesson might we gain by how this all pans out? The biggest threat to the legitimacy of the government is declining voter participation. Is the big message here, with a narrow margin in the election, "See, your vote really does count!" Who is going to win the NFL-caliber loose ball dogpile in the Florida fumble recount? It's a delicious pause for America.

Politics, as the great American Frank Zappa said so aptly, really is the entertainment wing of industry. Enjoy the show!