We Do Not Consent

Manifest Positivity - Launch of new book and video blog

2009-06-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

I have posted my new e-book, We Do Not Consent, Volume 2 (free .pdf) and launched my new video blog, Manifest Positivity (http://ManifestPositivity.blogspot.com). WDNCv2 is made up of essays previously published here at the WDNC blog, book-ended and given context by a previously unpublished intro and epilogue (both reprinted below), as well as a glossary that now also appears at Manifest Positivity (please click the book or new blog to read that, a frame of reference for terms cultivated and simply used a lot in my past and future public service work).

This is the same combination of steps I took three years ago when I launched the WDNC blog in conjunction with publishing the first WDNC book (free .pdf) as a collection of essays from my previous blog, GuvWurld. There is a strong sense of continuity through all these projects, as summarized in Manifest Positivity's statement of purpose:

The Manifest Positivity blog exists to: help people and groups achieve their public service goals; promote the general idea of transparently using media to do this whenever possible (advocacy journalism); and create a web-based TV talk show dedicated to this approach. There is an emphasis on changing the relationship of power between We The People and the corporate/military/government/media juggernaut. Such change is, by definition, peaceful revolution. We do this from a place of love, not anger, practicing presence and pronoia (terms linked in this paragraph point to their respective entries in the glossary).

Though there are already a few posts at Manifest Positivity, I will make just one more entry here at WDNC in the next few weeks when hard copies of the new book are available for purchase. Between now and then I will be looking for some testimonial quotes for inside the book's back cover, as well as for the sidebar of the new site. Please contact me if you'd like to contribute your thoughts. Meanwhile, the new blog has separate (and more varied) subscription options from WDNC, so please pick your favorite method and be sure to sign up to receive updates from Manifest Positivity.

I'm tempted to call this a bittersweet moment, but really it is entirely a good thing. Thank you to everyone who has read any of my work over the years. This is far less an end and much more a new beginning.

* * *The new book, We Do Not Consent, Volume 2 is a free .pdf download here: http://tinyurl.com/d6cenj featuring essays from the WDNC blog. Below are the newly written introduction and epilogue.

Introduction
It seems I have been making media content my entire life, beginning as a small child in the mid 1970's when my Grandpa Jimmy used to interview me and coax me into singing songs on his tape recorder and home movie camera. Through elementary school and junior high, my friends and I expressed our creativity in similar forms, narrating our own episodes of The Twilight Zone and orchestrating the Froot Loop Ballet. In high school I was the editor of my school newspaper, a stringer for the local PennySaver, and a contributor to a monthly newspaper by and for teenagers. At Cornell University I earned a B.S. in Communication and started what became a ten-year stint as a radio DJ at various stations in upstate NY.

I moved to San Francisco in 1999. It took a while to find my new voice as I began to dabble in what I first thought of as activism and later reframed as public service. Starting in 2002 I engaged in what I defined as advocacy journalism: working for change in the world and then writing about those efforts in a way intended to transparently support the achievement of these goals. I recently learned that Wikipedia has an entry for advocacy journalism that uses my definition and cites a 2004 essay of mine as the first reference source.

Also in 2004, shortly after moving to Humboldt County, CA, I began focusing on election integrity. I launched the GuvWurld blog (http://GuvWurld.blogspot.com) and promoted the Voter Confidence Committee, which I co-founded. In 2006 I published We Do Not Consent, a free online e-book like this one, comprised of 20 essential essays from the GuvWurld blog. The focus then, as now, was to showcase advocacy journalism with a twin emphasis on the nature of corporate media and how our so-called "elections" are conducted.

Through countless public speaking appearances, media interviews, and letters and op-eds published in various newspapers, it became a common experience for me to be approached by people wanting to tell or ask me about the latest outrage related to unverifiable, secret vote counting. I recently retired from the VCC and hope that my future work will bring similar or greater recognition to the advocacy journalism approach itself. And from here we have the jumping off point for this second volume of essays.

When I published my first book I used the occasion to suspend the GuvWurld blog and launch a similar one called We Do Not Consent (http://WeDoNotConsent.blogspot.com). As I write this, the WDNC blog is about to become a completed project, with this collection of its most important essays creating a bridge to my next blog, Manifest Positivity (http://ManifestPositivity.blogspot.com). The new site will rely heavily on videos and document my intention to launch a web-based TV talk show using what I have been calling the Project-Based Format. This will bring advocacy journalism much more to the foreground and place election integrity into a broader range of causes that will be addressed and advanced.

So thank you for opening my book. If you are looking at a computer, you will notice underlined phrases throughout this document. Some of these links are internal navigation for the book, and some will take you to the original source on the Internet. If you are holding a book in your hand then these underlined phrases are more like flags for things you could research further by calling up the free online version of the book (http://tinyurl.com/d6cenj) or by visiting the original WDNC blog posts whose URLs are included at the start of each essay.

It is my hope that you will be inspired to act in the spirit of public service using the concepts, strategies, and theories presented on the pages that follow. Most importantly, I believe our future survival requires that we protect ourselves from the Weapons of Mass Deception that the corporate media have become, and that we do this by turning the weapon itself into a tool for our collective benefit via advocacy journalism.

--Dave Berman, May 2009
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Epilogue: The Next Chapter
As mentioned in the introduction to this book, at the same time this book is becoming available I am launching the Manifest Positivity blog (http://ManifestPositivity.blogspot.com) and acting to breathe life into the Project-Based Format idea for a talk show. This will allow my advocacy journalism to highlight and promote a broader range of public service and a deeper connection to personal and spiritual growth. I will recommend and continue to reference two books that have greatly benefited the evolution of my own path.

First is Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," a very popular book that has helped me view ego in a new way, separating my sense of self from the thoughts and emotions I have, ultimately leaving me happier, more loving, grounded in the Now, and better able to calibrate the intensity I project (in a word, present). I have discussed this book with dozens of people, one of whom recommended another powerful paradigm changer, Rob Brezsny's "Pronoia," which essentially is the belief that the universe is conspiring on your behalf.

I have noticed repeatedly throughout my life that when a big lesson comes along, and I think I've got it, other examples appear as reinforcement. At a recent concert, I heard Spearhead singer Michael Franti say that the change we want to create must come from a place of love and not anger. This same week I am reading "Strength to Love" by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit. The transformed nonconformist...recognizes that social change will not come overnight, yet he works as though it is an imminent possibility.

In some ways, you could say the way I view the world has been changing. At the same time, the glossary that follows commits me to continuing to work within definitions summarizing the worldview found in the essays you've just read. I am no less convinced of the myths of democracy and capitalism in America; just as certain that all the classic traits of fascism exist here now; and only more sure that Peaceful Revolution is STILL necessary, NOW! I'm not even looking to change what I'm going to do about it so much as how I'm going to go about it. Commencing video blogging and at long last directly pursuing the talk show represent what would be better. Aspiring to pronoia is the least I can do. It has inspired my latest meme:

Live to love as much as possible.
--Dave Berman, May 2009

(A portion of this essay is excerpted from "My Present Path Toward Advocacy Journalism (aka Reflections On Independence, Volume 6)," originally blogged on April 9, 2009 at
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-present-path-toward-advocacy.html).
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It Takes Courage to Resist, and Stop Pretending

2009-05-31T23:14:00.000-07:00

Since there haven't been any updates to the We Do Not Consent blog in May I want to share two pieces I had published elsewhere this month, as well as ask for help with my new website. Below is an article from the latest Vets For Peace Chapter 56 newsletter, The Foghorn, describing a recent encounter with a US soldier refusing to return to duty in Iraq. Beneath that is a letter I wrote to the Eureka Times-Standard in response to an editorial that has since disappeared from its website. It doesn't come up via various cache searches either, which is very lame. This is why the GuvWurld News Archive exists, though unfortunately I didn't save this particular editorial. (On the plus side, last week contributing editor Jane Allen restored more than 1500 articles to the archive. These have been missing since last year's hosting migration and represent nearly 25% of the current site.)

But first, as mentioned here last month, I'm soon going to stop posting at WDNC. I have finished assembling my new free e-book, We Do Not Consent, Volume 2, containing 20 of the most essential WDNC blog posts. The release of the book will coincide with the launch of my new video blog, which needs help! Web design is not my greatest strength. My ideas for the new site go way past what you see here at WDNC, and need to support the seriousness of the Project-Based Format talk show proposal.

All of this is explained in great detail in an interview I recently did with Tom Pinto that will be published in the Steelhead Special in July. So while I've been traveling through most of this spring I've been pretty relaxed about moving this all forward. Now the new site has become somewhat of a bottleneck for a lot of the related projects and the Steelie's publication has begun to loom as a deadline. Please contact me if your web design skills can help take this all to the next level. Is it the least you can do?

* * *
http://www.vfp56.org/Newsletters/VFPNews_June09.pdf
Veterans For Peace Chapter 56
June 2009 Foghorn
Page 6

It Takes Courage To Resist
By Dave Berman

Everyone who attended the May 2009 meeting of VFP-56 will long remember the guest who joined us that night. "Hugh" (a pseudonym) was recently back from serving in Iraq. Clean cut and well dressed, when asked for his story, the soft spoken man told us he was 29 days AWOL and would technically be considered a deserter the following day.

Seemingly without hesitation or reservation, members offered safe crash space, camping gear, and a bucket we passed around that quickly filled up with money. It was a VFP-56 meeting, after all, so I would expect nothing less.

Hugh told us he was walking away from the military with two confirmed kills on his conscience, plus the memory of seeing the violent death of Alex, the buddy with whom he had enlisted. Hugh thoughtfully put himself in the shoes of Iraqis, pondering what we would be doing if a foreign force invaded and occupied our country. The war is illegal and based on lies, he said. Understanding the risks of both returning to Iraq and refusing to do so, Hugh said earlier that day he had attempted to go public with his story but the local TV station told him he was not a credible source (is that the pot calling the kettle black?).

Following the meeting I waited my turn to have a few words with Hugh. Handing him my business card, I offered to help him get his story out if he decided to continue trying to go public (he has not reached out to take me up on this offer, which still stands). On the back of the card I wrote www.CourageToResist.org, the website of a group dedicated to helping those who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The seeds of Courage To Resist were first planted in the Bay Area in February 2003 when Marine L/Cpl Stephen Funk became the first military serviceperson to publicly refuse to fight in Iraq. By May 2005, CTR launched more formally and now operates as a 13 member collective with three paid staff, over 2000 donors, and services including "political, emotional, and material support to all military objectors critical of our government's current policies of empire."

In addition to supporting the well-known Lt. Ehren Watada, the CTR website also features profiles of Cliff Cornell, Robin Long and dozens of other people whose names and stories should be known throughout the broader peace movement. According to CTR:

"In the past few years, tens of thousands of service members have resisted illegal war and occupation in a number of different ways - by going AWOL, seeking conscientious objector status and/or a discharge, asserting the right to speak out against injustice from within the military, and for a relative few, publicly refusing to fight."

Tens of thousands. Let that sink in. 10,000 x ? We are always so much stronger than we realize. I'm reminded of the excellent documentary Sir! No Sir! Perhaps it is time for VFP-56 to sponsor another screening?

CTR Project Coordinator Sarah Lazare says their message for soldiers is "if you have the courage to resist, we have your back." Hugh heard the same from VFP-56, that he should regard us as family, and that if he is in our area he is welcome at our future monthly meetings.

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http://www.times-standard.com/ci_12357883
Stop pretending
Letters to the Editor
Posted: 05/13/2009 01:15:31 AM PDT

I agree with the general sentiments of your April 26 editorial, "Better Together," saying that "together we all stand a better chance of getting through this penniless season than we do apart," and "money can never replace a community's soul."

Of course you are also correct that recent news has made it impossible not to notice the "economic meltdown," and that the "nation's headline writers" are "prone to hyperbole," while "understating the magnitude" of our current financial crisis.

What a rare and welcome treat to see you acknowledge that the media typically does not offer an accurate portrayal. This admission makes your opening paragraph seem downright silly -- nobody is looking to this or other newspapers for "leadership in how to navigate treacherous waters."

The public would be well served and content if we could merely rely on you for an accurate depiction of reality, one which recognizes the fiscal collapse has been (inevitably) coming and visible for years, far longer than "the past several weeks." With bankruptcies everywhere and newspapers disappearing, you stand little chance of survival by continuing to pretend things are mostly normal.

Dave Berman
Eureka

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Video: Change The World by Op-Critical

2009-04-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Brett Kimberlin from Justice Through Music checked in this weekend to let me know the music remake idea I gave him last February has now been recorded by his band Op-Critical and there is a video at YouTube. The original seed of my idea was to turn the 1971 Ten Years After song "I'd Love to Change the World (But I Don't Know What To Do)" into an encouraging and empowering anthem "I'd Love to Change the World (And I Know Just What To Do)." This is an example of a "yes, and..." response.

I think they did an excellent job on the music and lyrics, and on the video. Toward the end there are several websites displayed that all aim to get people involved in public service. Of course it is great that more people are volunteering, and in various ways building community.

When thinking about how to get involved, it is worth considering whether we are better served working through or with government created projects or instead on our own in autonomous citizen organized efforts. This may not be an all or nothing choice, though I personally prefer the latter. To follow news about such work, there is a new category called DIY in the GuvWurld News Archive. This too was created in the spirit of "yes, and..." when GuvWurld contributing editor Jane Allen recently sent me a CNN story she found inspiring:

Island DIY: Kauai residents don't wait for state to repair road

By Mallory Simon
CNN
updated 3:44 p.m. EDT, Thu April 9, 2009

(CNN) -- Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free.

Polihale State Park has been closed since severe flooding destroyed an access road to the park and damaged facilities in December.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had estimated that the damage would cost $4 million to fix, money the agency doesn't have, according to a news release from department Chairwoman Laura Thielen.

"It would not have been open this summer, and it probably wouldn't be open next summer," said Bruce Pleas, a local surfer who helped organize the volunteers. "They said it would probably take two years. And with the way they are cutting funds, we felt like they'd never get the money to fix it."

And if the repairs weren't made, some business owners faced the possibility of having to shut down.

Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble.

MORE...

Please contact me if you see an article that would fit in the DIY archive category, or can tell me about work happening in your community where people are collaborating to meet the needs government won't or can't address.

On a related note, Naomi Klein's latest article at The Nation (and here at Huffington Post) offers a new "lexicon" for Obama supporters facing cognitive dissonance about the President's mixed performance thus far. Examples include Hopeover, Hoper coaster, Hopesick, and ultimately a more optimistic (para)phrase channeling legendary broadcaster and author Studs Terkel, Hoperoots: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots."

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My Present Path Toward Advocacy Journalism (aka Reflections On Independence, Volume 6)

2009-04-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

This is the sixth essay in my not quite annual series of Reflections on Independence. In the past I've published these thoughts around July 4. By that time this year, however, I'm expecting my advocacy journalism to be in a whole new place, to which this begins the transition. I will probably only make a few more posts here at the We Do Not Consent blog. Then, as with the suspension of my prior blog, GuvWurld, another free e-book compiling the most essential pieces from WDNC will serve to promote the launch of my next site, a video blog.

For the last six plus years I have done this public service work while assiduously avoiding reference to my wife and the business we built together. At the end of last year I exited our professional partnership, and our divorce will be final soon. This has given me time and space to create the life I'd like to lead now, a natural extension of the communication strategies and organizing experiences I've blogged about, and most definitely a new debt-free era of multi-faceted independence.

Friday morning I'll be embarking on an extended road trip, itself a reflection of my new independence. I'm hoping to have a new video camera by next week and possibly to begin posting content by the end of the month. The reunions I'll have between now and then are all with people who have greatly supported and deeply affected this part of my life. I eagerly anticipate the opportunity to explore the nature of my future collaborations with these folks.

In addition to the emphasis on video, I can also say at this point that my next blog will launch with a glossary I have already written to summarize and define the dozens of terms and concepts I have coined and cultivated over the years. I intend to continue developing these ideas, using them to create a talk show based on the Project-Based Format (see Time To Check Your Least, 11/24/07). In the long run, the glossary will grow and expand, providing a frame of reference companion piece for the program.

The launch will also include publication of a proposal detailing how the show would work, to be followed later this spring by a demo of the program. In a nutshell, I am going to be seeking out people and organizations doing public service to ask: If you had unfettered access to media to promote your work, what would you do? How would you use this exposure to achieve your goals? This is where the content will begin to come from for the talk show. I welcome e-mail from those ready to participate. Here are just a few of the topics I think we can advance:

Helping returning veterans re-adjust to society; Understanding environmental implications of diet; Building sustainable local economies; Triple bottom line; Green building; Alternative energy and transportation; Emergency preparedness; Identifying edible plants; Supporting conscientious objectors and war resisters.

Basically, if your work empowers people at the grassroots, I want to hear from you. If you are a citizen journalist making independent media, let's work together. If you are about manifesting positivity, building the better world the corporate/military/government/media juggernaut doesn't even want us to imagine - we are on the same page. E-mail me.

Meanwhile, independence has already allowed me to volunteer on several other projects, including the art site BARDoodle; the future wilderness therapy retreat now called Veterans Spirit at Incopah; the media committee of Vets For Peace Chapter 56; and the next edition of the independent magazine The Steelhead Special, due out July 4. This issue of the Steelie will demonstrate multiple examples of advocacy journalism through interviews with various Humboldt community organizers, including one that Tom Pinto and I will conduct in May. By the way, I recently learned that Wikipedia has an entry for advocacy journalism and this 2004 essay of mine is cited as the first reference source.

I can't say any of this will be in a context that is more or less political than I've been until now, but I can say my changed circumstances and personal growth will be evident. For now I'll just recommend two books I've recently gotten a lot from. First is Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," a very popular book that has helped me view ego in a new way, separating my sense of self from the thoughts and emotions I have, ultimately leaving me happier, more loving, and better able to calibrate the intensity that I project (in a word, present). I have found myself discussing this book with dozens of people, one of whom recommended another powerful paradigm changer, Rob Brezsny's "Pronoia," which essentially is the belief that the universe is conspiring on your behalf.

This is quite a departure from my previous Reflections on Independence, all of which were written during the Bush regime, all harkening to the Declaration of Independence as the master change manual bequeathed to us by the nation's founders. In keeping with tradition, I have posted the historic document in full below and encourage you to read or hopefully re-read what may be humanity's most hopeful and inspiring expression of freedom.

When we remember that our rights are unalienable; that government exists only to secure, not create or grant, these rights; that government legitimacy derives entirely from the Consent of the Governed; when we Reflect on Independence, we realize our Life, Liberty and Happiness are birthrights to preserve and never give up, never allow ourselves to be denied; we realize our Consent must no longer be taken for granted lest we sabotage ourselves through complicity in the harm being done to us all; and we realize that nothing less than "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" are at stake - both what we stand to lose and what it will take to survive, sort of a cosmic use it or lose it.

* * *Read past installments:

Reflections On Independence 2002
Reflections On Independence 2003
Reflections On Independence 2005
Reflections On Independence 2006
Reflections On Independence 2007

* * *http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/decind.shtml

July 4, 1776

The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united* States of America.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them and formidable to Tyrants only.

HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and the Convulsions within.

HE has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migration hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislature.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to Civil Power.

HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

FOR depriving us in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burned our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

HE has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the Inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is undistinguished Destruction of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

· New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
· Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
· Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
· Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
· New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
· New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
· Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
· Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
· Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
· Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
· North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
· South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
· Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton.

Note

* Although this capitalization of "united" differs from the images of copies of the Declaration of Independence viewable at the Library of Congress's Web site (*http://www.loc.gov/), it follows the capitalization found on the images of the Declaration of Independence held by the National Archives and Records Administration (*http://www.nara.gov).

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Please Help Save The Peter B. Collins Show

2009-03-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

Peter B. Collins announced on his syndicated talk radio show this past Friday (.mp3 via BradBlog.com) that his last show in its current "configuration" would be next Friday, March 20. Listeners are rallying to reverse this decision, and what I'm writing is an urgent plea for your help. Below is an explanation from Peter's website explaining this "tough decision", but first let me tell you the why and how to save the show.

Peter's reporting, coverage and exploration are unmatched on topics such as election integrity, 9/11 truth, depleted uranium, grassroots activism (more properly called public service), and others distorted or blacked out by the corporate/military/government/media juggernaut. Of all the talk show hosts I've heard, PBC is the most respectful of listeners, guests and callers, who are rarely interrupted and never shouted down, always allowed to make their point even when in disagreement with "the humble host." This show smartens us up rather than dumbing us down.

On Sunday night I made a bunch of phone calls adding up to $1,160 in pledges and donations to keep Peter on the air. Others are doing similar outreach and so I ask what is the least you can do? Can you pledge $10 per month for six months? At this rate just 500 regular sustaining contributions would keep the show on the air. This is how we vote with our dollars, and put our money where our mouths are. Click here to visit Peter's donation page (scroll to bottom for donation button).

We all know that not everyone can afford even $10. So maybe the least you can do is tell a friend who perhaps donates and/or tells another friend. Perhaps you own a business, or know a business owner you can encourage to advertise to a very smart and conscious audience. Speak up for (and on) our supposed public airwaves. We're past use it or lose it - we must reclaim what is ours, support and protect it dearly.

Try this: Imagine the PBC show as our after school club where we get together to stay informed and involved, a rare progressive media forum that supports real world work for change. If you can, pay some monetary dues. For the rest, dues means participating. Listen live all this week (and hopefully beyond) from 3-6pm PT via www.PeterBCollins.com.

I've mentioned my respect, appreciation and admiration of Peter B. Collins on the We Do Not Consent blog many times these past few years, often referring to my appearances as a guest or caller on the show. I was honored to be part of two live broadcasts from here in Humboldt, CA, and even one visit to the secret PBC studio location in the Bay Area (when he signed on to the open letter to the media from the media). Brad Friedman at BradBlog.com has been a much more frequent guest, contributor and even fill-in host, and has posted his own reflections that have prompted much fan-to-fan discussion of how to save and subsequently sustainably support this vital program.

* * *http://www.peterbcollins.com/i-made-a-tough-decision

"I made a tough decision..."

On Friday, I delivered the news of my decision to end the daily broadcasts of the PBC Show.

Our last live broadcast will be Friday, March 20, which will replay on some stations through March 22.

Since we started on KRXA in 2005, I've been covering the costs of producing the show and delivering it to our affiliate stations by satellite. With phone bills and the other expenses, it adds up to more than $5,000 a month. We get a little advertising revenue and some generous listeners contribute, but most of it is absorbed by my small business, Collins Media Services. Until last summer, I was able to cover the costs from my work as a radio producer and consultant. Like everyone else, the Bush recession has hit me hard.

To make money in syndication, we need to be on 20+ stations and at least one of the big 3, NY, LA, Chicago. As an independent, self-syndicated show, we've had to compete with Air America, Dial-Global and Nova M programs, and for various reasons, the PBC Show didn't break through. Air America is the brand that most people connect with progressive talk radio, and their bankruptcy and sequence of blunders has, unfortunately, defined our collective efforts in a negative way that has provided an easy target for the non-liberal media. As a result, the total number of stations offering progressive talk in the US peaked at about 105 in 2006, and is now around 70. Miami, DC, and even Ann Arbor have lost their progressive stations in the last month.

Over the past 3.75 years, I've tried it all. I pitched all of the Air America programmers except the current one, who never returned my calls or emails. I was offered a deal by Nova M, but they reneged in a bizarre story I'm saving for my talk-n-tell book. Air America just announced that Montel Williams will be their new offering in the Thom Hartmann time slot, which tells us that Jerry Springer's flameout was just their first attempt to retread a tabloid TV host as a "progressive" radio host.

As I said on Friday, I'm very proud of what we've done here, and grateful to my partner, Kathee Shatter, for indulging my risky business, and to two exceptional producers: Matt Renner (now DC editor at Truthout.org) and Katrina Rill. Katrina was with me when we euthanized my satellite radio show, and I'm sorry she has to go through it again.

I'm grateful to every listener, even the ones who think I'm full of it, for taking the time to listen. And to those who called and emailed and sent letters and checks, I couldn't have done this without you. To the many fine guests who spent time on the show, and especially to the regulars, I thank you for your immeasurable contributions to my program and to the knowledge base of my listeners.

Thanks for all the emails in response to this news, I will try to answer as many as I can, and all will be saved so we can notify you of future plans. I'm not going away, and may launch a podcast and/or weekend radio show after I take a break to recharge and re-wealth. Special recognition to generous individuals who have clicked on "You Can Help" and made contributions, including the whopper from Seattle. Your contributions will be used to retire some debt, pay off the bills and give Katrina and Nick something extra for their dedication. No pressure, no guilt, but if you can help, you have my gratitude.

Many people who heard the $5,000 monthly cost figure have emailed to pledge $10 a month and said, "how do we find the other 499?" We have tried that to some extent, but I don't want to turn the show into a pledge-a-thon, 'cause I listen to the radio, too, and don't like them. Plus, I'm well aware that many of my listeners can't even spare $10 a month right now. Overall, I don't think we can shift to a voluntary subscription plan to produce a reliable funding stream.

If you disagree, email me: fullofit@peterbcollins.com Tell me if you're willing to subscribe for at least 6 months, and how much you can pay. If enough people respond by Monday night 3/16, I will make a final review of this decision. Dave Berman in Eureka, Tom McAfee in SF, and Aldous Tyler in Madison have offered to coordinate this kind of effort, but I need to give them your names and emails.

Keep listening this week, call in when you can–we'll try to get allof our favorite guests to check in, too.

warmly,

pbc
# # #

Please help save the Peter B. Collins Show...

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Funding Frozen For Proposed Humboldt Voting Machine Switch

2009-01-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

According to the agenda, this Tuesday the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal from Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, who seeks approval for the purchase of Hart InterCivic eScan optical scanners to replace the similar Diebold/Premier equipment used to "count" votes here since 1995. Linked from the agenda is a 22 page .pdf called Voting Modernization Project Plan Phase II. From page two:

Because of the current fiscal crisis in the State of California, the voting Modernization Bond funds designated to cover this project were frozen by the State Treasurer on December 19, 2008. We will return to your Board for change order and funding plan approval once the funding plan is developed and approved by the Secretary of State. The delay in obtaining these funds should not impact the approval of the concept of this plan.

As previously reported at WDNC, the Registrar has created a sense of urgency around this proposal (reinforced by quotes in a Eureka Times-Standard Sunday cover story that is oddly absent from the paper's website). But how can she expect the Supes to hurry up and approve a proposal for a purchase requiring funds that are not currently available and which would be based on a contract that has not been made public? Further calling this urgency into question, from page 6 of the same agenda attachment:

Because there is currently no county-wide election scheduled until November 2009, full implementation of the system will be possible before the next election.

One other quick point about this implementation plan. On page 9 it calls for "sleepovers," a period of two days prior to the election when precinct inspectors will have the eScans in their private possession. This is despite myriad warnings, even in the California Secretary of State's own Top To Bottom Review of Hart voting systems. From that report:

Conclusion (p.16):
Although the Red Team did not have time to finish exploits for all of the vulnerabilities we discovered, nor to provide a complete evaluation of the Hart voting system (System 6.2.1 [now proposed for Humboldt]), we were able to discover attacks for the Hart system that could compromise the accuracy, secrecy, and availability of the voting systems and their auditing mechanisms. That is, the Red Team has developed exploits that – absent procedural mitigation strategies – can alter vote totals, violate the privacy of individual voters, make systems unavailable, and delete audit trails.

No procedural mitigation defeats unfettered access to machines that can be undetectably manipulated. In addition, deletion of audit trails occurred in this past November's election, as revealed by the Election Transparency Project (ETP). Volunteer Parke Bostrom commented on this in a quote previously posted here at WDNC and also found in this December 8 article at Wired.com:

This means the audit log is not truly a "log" in the classical computer program sense, but is rather a "re-imagining" of what GEMS would like the audit log to be, based on whatever information GEMS happens to remember at the end of the vote counting process.

Bostrom is referring to the Diebold central tabulation program responsible for the 197 secretly deleted ballots, though the point is the same with Hart's equipment. Beyond undetectable manipulation, the system can cover its tracks, destroying assurances of built-in memory redundancies and making a mockery of logic and accuracy testing.

The We Do Not Consent blog on Friday posted an announcement from the Humboldt County Republican Party that it has adopted a resolution in support of a public discussion process prior to a vote by the Supervisors on Crnich's proposal. In Sunday's (so far) print-only T-S article, Eureka City Councilman Larry Glass adds, "I think that's an issue that I'd like to see get some more public dialogue, and I'm going to try to make a point of contacting the supervisors and expressing that." Another member of the Council assured me he will attend Tuesday's Supes meeting to make this point in person.

The Voter Confidence Committee, which I co-founded nearly four years ago, distributed an e-mail newsletter on Sunday evening encouraging supporters to attend Tuesday's meeting, or at least to call Supervisors with some or all of the following messages:

--We want and are entitled to have a choice and a say in how we count our votes;

--This plan calls for $600,000+ of public money to be spent, and any expense this size deserves careful public scrutiny;

--Prior to voting on the proposed plan, the responsible thing is for the Supervisors to invite the public to participate in the decision making process;

--In any case, there is no reason to rush this decision as the funds for this purchase have been frozen by the State Treasurer;

--The proposed replacement equipment are still secret corporate vote counting machines (a "false alternative");

--State-sponsored reviews of the proposed replacement machines have revealed many problems; we do not want to repeat the past mistake of investing in flawed technology despite knowing of the risks and warnings;

--The manufacturer of the replacement machines has withdrawn from the federal certification process, meaning no software or security updates of any kind will be possible, and no newer versions will be available.

There has been other recent media coverage of this developing story. In the third hour of Friday's Peter B. Collins show, I spoke with PBC and Brad Friedman about the day old announcement of a second discrepancy found by the ETP, showing 57 ballots were scanned twice into the official certified results.

After a commercial break (edited out of linked recording), we got into discussing Tuesday's upcoming Supes meeting and were then joined by a surprise phone call from Crnich. She has appeared on PBC's show many times before, and this is not the first time she has called in immediate response to my presence on the show. There was an unusually long and uninterrupted segment where Friedman challenges Crnich in ways that just have to be heard, including telling her flat out in the end that she should slow down and allow more public input. Overall, I come on the show at about 16:30 into the recording; Crnich joins around the 24 minute mark.

Finally, borrowed from the VCC newsletter, a summary of recent related links:

North Coast Journal, 12/4/08, Election Results: Wrong
http://ncjournal.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/election-results-wrong/#comments

Eureka Times-Standard, 12/5/08, Software glitch yields inaccurate election results
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11145349 (archive)

Eureka Times-Standard, 12/7/08, Local elections office commended
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11161383 (archive)

Eureka Times-Standard (editorial), 12/7/08, A glitch that should never have been
http://www.times-standard.com/editorials/ci_11161384 (archive)

Wired, 12/8/08, Serious Error in Diebold Voting Software Caused Lost Ballots in California County
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/unique-election.html

Wired, 12/8/08, Unique Transparency Program Uncovers Problems with Voting Software
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/unique-transpar.html

Eureka Times-Standard (Letter to the editor), 12/10/08, Who Dares Defend Diebold?
http://www.times-standard.com/letters/ci_11183863 (archive)

We Do Not Consent blog, 12/17/08, Humboldt's False Alternative to Diebold
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/12/humboldts-false-alternative-to-diebold.html

North Coast Journal (Letter to the editor), 12/18, Has Humboldt Hit a Tipping Point?
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2008/12/18/vote-smart/

Eureka Times-Standard, 12/22/08, Registrar of Voters considers dumping equipment
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11287543 (archive)

Eureka Times-Standard, 12/29/08, Federal election commission eyes Humboldt
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11328669 (archive)

We Do Not Consent blog, 12/6/09, Exclusive: Humboldt's Secret Hart Attack
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2009/01/exclusive-humboldts-secret-hart-attack.html

We Do Not Consent blog, 12/9/09, Humboldt Republicans Call For Public Discussion of Proposed Voting Machine Switch
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2009/01/humboldt-republicans-call-for-public.html

Eureka Times-Standard, 1/10/09, New error found in county election results
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11422921 (archive)

Eureka Times-Standard (Editorial), 1/11/09, Thank you, Humboldt County Transparency Project
http://www.times-standard.com/editorials/ci_11428478 (archive)

* * *
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Humboldt Republicans Call For Public Discussion of Proposed Voting Machine Switch

2009-01-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

This is the second of two breaking stories from the Humboldt County, CA election integrity scene on the evening of January 8...

The county Republican Party has issued a press release, shown in full below, announcing their adoption of a resolution in support for a "public discussion process" before the Board of Supervisors votes on the proposal from Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich to switch from Diebold/Premier "election" machines to similar equipment made by Hart InterCivic.

The We Do Not Consent blog broke the news of the Registrar's proposal in a December 17 exclusive. A subsequent WDNC exclusive ran earlier this week revealing Crnich had previously divulged her plan at a public meeting of the Election Advisory Committee, requesting that attendees keep it secret.

In those articles, as well as my letters published in the Eureka Times-Standard and North Coast Journal, I have been advocating for a public process to evaluate multiple alternatives to the Diebold system currently used in Humboldt. Of course, I don't think we're going to see anyone cry or even resist giving up on Diebold. In fact, we ought to have a damn party! The way I see this unfolding situation is as a giant victory slathered in opportunity.

Parke Bostrom, who has been involved in most if not all developing Humboldt election integrity stories in recent months, authored a petition featured in my last post that outlines a specific public process for the county to consider.

The Republican resolution below stems from their Thursday night meeting, which Bostrom attended as part of a broader outreach effort to media, community groups, and local elected officials aimed at creating more support for encouraging the Board of Supervisors to take this path next Tuesday, January 13, when the Registrar's proposal is expected to appear on their agenda. If you can lend your voice, please be at the county courthouse at 5th and I Streets in Eureka at 9am. You can also scroll to the bottom of this page to find phone and e-mail info for the Supes. Let them know:

We love the idea of getting rid of Diebold but we must slow down and have a public evaluation of alternatives rather than rushing into another secret corporate vote counting system as the Registrar of Voters, Carolyn Crnich, is recommending - secretly, at that.

Bostrom is also a pivotal player in the Election Transparency Project, a volunteer citizen-developed and Registrar supported audit project that uses an off the shelf office scanner and open source software to make images of all the ballots cast in an election. An initial review of the data from this past November's election revealed that Diebold's central tabulation program, GEMS, had secretly deleted 197 ballots, causing the Registrar to certify inaccurate results. The news became a national story. The ETP has now found another discrepancy, the second of the two breaking stories...

* * *
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: M. Parke Bostrom, 707.733.4201, parke.707@gmail.com

At the January 8th meeting of the Republican Party of Humboldt County,
central committee member M. Parke Bostrom moved that the following
resolution be passed:

----

Resolved

The Republican Party of Humboldt County calls upon the Humboldt County
Board of Supervisors to delay voting on the proposed plan to purchase
new elections equipment until there has been a reasonable period of
time for a public discussion process.

----

Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich was present at the
meeting to swear in all the committee members. Crnich stayed for and
participated in discussion with Bostrom regarding his resolution.

Prior to a vote on the resolution, party chairman Patricia Welch left
the chair and said, "As a Republican, I believe that anytime the
taxpayers' money is spent, it is important that there is an
opportunity for public discussion, and therefore I urge committee
members to vote in favor of the resolution."

The resolution passed in a nearly unanimous vote. The Republican
Party of Humboldt County is the first organization to pass a
resolution on this very important matter.

Additional contact info:
Patricia Welch
Chairman, Humboldt County Republican Party
Northwest Regional Vice Chairman, California Republican Party
707-227-6562 Cell
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Humboldt Election Transparency Project Identifies Another Discrepancy In November's Reported Results

2009-01-08T23:50:00.000-08:00

This is the first of two breaking stories from the Humboldt County, CA election integrity scene on the evening of January 8...

In a message posted just before 5pm Thursday at the Democracy Counts blog, Mitch Trachtenberg and Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich made a joint statement announcing the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project (ETP) has found a second discrepancy in the results of November's election, which Crnich certified as accurate in early December, just prior to discovering the Diebold central tabulation program, GEMS, had secretly deleted 197 ballots from the total count.

Joint Statement on the November 2008 Humboldt County Election Results

Carolyn Crnich,
Humboldt County Clerk and Registrar of Voters

Mitch Trachtenberg,
Humboldt County Election Transparency Project volunteer

January 8, 2009

As we've compared the results from Humboldt County's official count with the independent count Mitch has conducted with his Ballot Browser independent vote counting software, we've found two additional issues.

First, the Election Transparency Project had scanned the front side of 63 ballots twice (once upside down); these duplicate scans will be removed from Ballot Browser's counts.

Second, the Elections office appears to have scanned 57 ballots into the Diebold GEMS system twice -- these duplicates need to be removed from the GEMS results.

The numbers from the two systems are now extremely close, though not identical.

We believe many of the remaining variations may be a result of differing vote sensitivity between the Diebold system and Ballot Browser, with Ballot Browser's totals approximately 0.05% higher than those from the Diebold system (approximately one added vote per 2,000 counted vote opportunities).

The variations that remain do not affect the outcome of any races.

That last line about no outcomes being affected, while I don't doubt it, seems almost obligatory to the point of cliche in these types of stories, like many a government-issued denial ("the US does not torture," or even, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"). Even given the benefit of the doubt, things look very wrong and smell foul. But hey, what's a little secret vote counting among friends, right?

Since the news of the original GEMS failure, the We Do Not Consent blog has twice broken stories of the Registrar's rushed and hushed plan to replace GEMS and the county's Diebold optical scanners with similar eScans made by Hart InterCivic. Crnich told the Eureka Times-Standard "This plan that is proposed pre-dates any of the problems that were found to exist in this election."

I personally confirmed this quote with Crnich on Tuesday when she acknowledged having shared her plan in November with volunteers of the ETP, who were asked to keep it a secret.

Even prior to learning this, I had already written a series of articles and letters calling for a public process to evaluate multiple alternatives to the current Diebold system, which of course I'm thrilled we'll finally be done with. With cooperation from Parke Bostrom and others, an outreach campaign is underway aimed at getting the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to create such a process at their January 13 meeting, when Crnich's proposal comes up for their approval. We are beginning to receive support from some perhaps unexpected places. That's the other breaking story, coming soon...

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Exclusive: Humboldt's Secret Hart Attack

2009-01-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

On December 17 the We Do Not Consent blog broke the story that Humboldt, CA Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich had announced to the Election Advisory Committee (EAC) the previous evening her intention to replace Diebold/Premier "election" junk with comparable secret vote counting computers from Hart InterCivic. I've posted a few times about the need for a public due diligence process around multiple Diebold alternatives, including a letter published in the Eureka Times-Standard and another that ran in the North Coast Journal. Both letters were based on the recent news of a Diebold programming failure that secretly deleted 197 ballots and led to inaccurate election results being certified here. Both letters were also written prior to learning about Crnich's proposed switch. Efforts to spark such a community dialog are happening today in multiple forms, and on the heels of a major new development.

In a phone call this morning, Crnich acknowledged that in November she discussed the planned changes with a small number of volunteers who were asked to keep it a secret. Parke Bostrom is an EAC and ETP (Election Transparency Project) volunteer who has also worked closely with Crnich as an election day poll worker and overall observer of the Elections Department. Yesterday Bostrom posted The "Spend Pork Wisely" Petition that begins:

Petition calling for public discussion of Humboldt County's plan to purchase $600,000 of Hart InterCivic eScan election equipment.

WHEREAS, at the November 18th monthly public meeting of the Humboldt Election Advisory Committee, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich announced the Elections Office's plan to stop using the county's Diebold/Premier AccuVote/GEMS elections equipment and replace it with similar Hart InterCivic eScan equipment.

And WHEREAS, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Crnich then asked those attending the public meeting to keep this plan secret until at least mid-December, thereby minimizing the opportunity for public discussion of the plan prior to receiving approval for the plan from the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.

The full petition text appears here and at the bottom of this post. Crnich has now tried twice without success to get the matter on the Supes agenda. As I noted on 12/17, her first attempt was for the December 16 Supes meeting, which would have done the deed even before fully revealing the secret at that night's EAC meeting - at which Crnich also said she had hoped to take delivery of nearly 80 new machines the next day in order to get a $28,000 discount offered by Hart if the deal could be completed by year's end.

The Humboldt Board of Supervisors met again today without taking this on, leaving us planning for a January 13 agenda item, but taking action now with outreach to media as well as the Supes and various local City Councils, whose members we hope will encourage the Supes to have a public process. Eureka Councilman Larry Glass encouraged such an approach when I spoke with him this past Saturday evening in his Old Town music store. (Also worth noting: Glass recently made news for heroically rescuing a would-be suicide jumper into Humboldt Bay).

My 12/17 exclusive landed as the top story on that day's Daily Voting News, compiled by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org. Two days later, BradBlog quoted me heavily and advanced Gideon's observation that Hart InterCivic had withdrawn from the federal certification process. Bostrom's petition puts a fine point on this:

And WHEREAS, the version of the Hart InterCivic eScan equipment the Elections Office is planning to purchase is also an old version of the eScan system, as Hart InterCivic has been unable to receive certification from the California Secretary of State for the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system.

And WHEREAS, Hart InterCivic has withdrawn from the certification process and is not currently seeking certification for use in California of the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system; and consequently, so long as Hart InterCivic remains disengaged from the certification process, it will not be legally possible to apply any software upgrades that may be necessary to prevent future invisible failures of the old version of the eScan system

The Times-Standard has followed up twice since I broke the story of the proposed switch. In a quote of note in the December 22 article (archive), Crnich says, "This plan that is proposed pre-dates any of the problems that were found to exist in this election."

The same article also reports Congressman Mike Thompson sent a letter to "federal elections officials," about his concern over the invisible failure. I wonder if he knew then or even knows now that some votes for him were among those deleted (as Bostrom notes in the petition). I am awaiting a call back from Thompson's office in Eureka.

The T-S followed up again on December 29 (archive) reporting Thompson's letter got the attention of Election Assistance Commission Chairwoman Rosemary Rodriguez, who claims her horribly ineffectual board "doesn't have the authority or capacity to launch independent investigations." She does pledge, and seem to want a gold star for, her intention to "disseminate the contents of the Humboldt County report to elections officials from coast to coast [to] prevent similar problems from occurring elsewhere." What a good idea. If only it weren't the repeatedly unfulfilled yet HAVA-mandated purpose for her existence.

Also check out the first half of hour three of the December 19 Peter B. Collins show when I called in to discuss all this with PBC, Brad Friedman, and Harvey Wasserman.

Happenings in the Humboldt Elections Department have been making national news for a while now. Generally speaking, Crnich has earned lots of fans for her willingness to work with the great team of citizen volunteers that have made the ETP happen. In addition to Bostrom, credit, praise and thanks also rightfully go to Kevin Collins, Mitch Trachtenberg, and Tom Pinto.

With such involved interactions and access to Crnich, these guys have gained her trust and confidence, resulting in candid sharing of information. However, Crnich's request for secrecy, and the volunteers' granting of this request, is not the kind of transparency we deserve from our local government, particularly in the context of a so-called Election Transparency Project.

Asked to comment on Bostrom's petition, Crnich told me she is "ready to move forward," and the idea of slowing down for a public due diligence process would be a "serious impediment to progress" because it puts needed training on hold. While Crnich calls the lateral move from Diebold to Hart "progress," I see it as a false alternative.

I have been unable to reach Collins and Trachtenberg for comment on the petition and secrecy issue, however, Pinto provided the following in an e-mail early this morning:

In my opinion, citizens are being offered a disappointing menu of choices with regards to election systems. I really hope the CA Sec. of State will offer us the option of using an election system that incorporates open source technology. However, that option is not being offered at this time.

I think that CC [Carolyn Crnich] has made an acceptable decision to purchase Hart eScan based upon what is being offered by the State and based upon the age and problems of our existing software. I think CC has researched it sufficiently and she expects it to save [Elections Manager] Kelly [Sanders] a HUGE amount of time. I'm glad the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project is in place to the catch poll worker errors and software bugs (regardless of which proprietary system we're using). I hope that more citizen volunteers will participate in the next audit.

I think CC has done a first rate job of reaching out to citizens to participate. She has given interested persons, such as the ones who attend the EAC meetings, sufficient opportunity to voice any concerns about the eScan. She has also invited the public to inspect these machines. I respectfully question whether there is sufficient need for creating a formal time period for additional public participation. I also doubt that the conclusion of such a comment period would result in any difference the current plan. However, I do not object to the creation of formal public comment period.

I concede that I missed several consecutive EAC meetings at which Hart equipment was apparently discussed and even demonstrated (Crnich even chided me for this when I arrived at the December meeting). However, I do not think that these small and largely undocumented meetings, of a committee with no formal mandate from the county, constitute a sufficient public process. Pinto notes that "interested persons" have been given an opportunity to weigh in, but not enough has been done to make the community at large aware of the proposed switch to Hart, let alone interested.

Bostrom's petition at least seeks to bridge this gap, also noting that the contract for the proposed switch to Hart has not even been made public yet. That aspect alone deserves rigorous public scrutiny. I'll have more on this developing story in the days ahead.

* * *http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/humboldt2009/index.html

Petition calling for public discussion of Humboldt County's plan to purchase $600,000 of Hart InterCivic eScan election equipment.

WHEREAS, at the November 18th monthly public meeting of the Humboldt Election Advisory Committee, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich announced the Elections Office's plan to stop using the county's Diebold/Premier AccuVote/GEMS elections equipment and replace it with similar Hart InterCivic eScan equipment.

And WHEREAS, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Crnich then asked those attending the public meeting to keep this plan secret until at least mid-December, thereby minimizing the opportunity for public discussion of the plan prior to receiving approval for the plan from the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.

And WHEREAS, on the evening of December 16th, at the next monthly public meeting of the Humboldt Election Advisory Committee, after 197 ballots had been invisibly deleted by an invisible failure of the AccuVote/GEMS equipment, when asked what the planned response to the invisible AccuVote/GEMS failure would be, and having been bumped from the overfull agenda of the Board of Supervisors meeting that very morning, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Crnich publicly announced the plan to purchase the eScan equipment.

And WHEREAS, the invisible failure of the AccuVote/GEMS system deleted 114 votes for Representative Mike Thompson; 102 votes for Assembly Member Wes Chesbro; 76 and 148 votes for, respectively, City of Eureka Councilpersons Linda Atkins and Frank Jager; 110 and 84 votes, respectively, for and against California's Proposition 8; 83 and 113 votes, respectively, for and against City of Eureka Measure J.

And WHEREAS, the invisible failure of the AccuVote/GEMS system is believed to be due to a bug in the old version of the GEMS equipment that is claimed to be fixed in the most recent version of GEMS available for use in California.

And WHEREAS, the version of the Hart InterCivic eScan equipment the Elections Office is planning to purchase is also an old version of the eScan system, as Hart InterCivic has been unable to receive certification from the California Secretary of State for the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system.

And WHEREAS, Hart InterCivic has withdrawn from the certification process and is not currently seeking certification for use in California of the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system; and consequently, so long as Hart InterCivic remains disengaged from the certification process, it will not be legally possible to apply any software upgrades that may be necessary to prevent future invisible failures of the old version of the eScan system.

And WHEREAS, the cost to purchase the old version of the eScan system will be in excess of $600,000 of taxpayer money.

And WHEREAS, as of January 5, 2009, the proposed contract with Hart InterCivic has not been publicly disclosed, and consequently there has not been any open public discussion of the specific plan to purchase the old version of the eScan system.

And WHEREAS, open public discussion of the plan to purchase the old version the eScan system is a reasonable step to take to reduce the likelihood of future invisible failures of election systems.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned concerned citizens call upon County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, and also upon the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to take the following steps to promote public confidence in the outcome of future elections in Humboldt County:

1. The county SHALL issue a press release containing the proposed contract with Hart InterCivic and inviting the public to submit written questions, comments and concerns regarding the planned purchase and use of the old version of the Hart InterCivic eScan system.

2. Following the publication of the press release, the county SHALL give the public at least 2 weeks to submit such written questions, comments, and concerns.

3. At the end of the submission period, the county SHALL publish, in an electronic format, all the questions, comments and concerns submitted by the public.

4. Within a reasonable period of time thereafter, the county SHALL prepare written responses to all the public's questions, comments, and concerns. In preparing said responses, the county may, if it so wishes, consult with Hart InterCivic and/or any other parties.

5. When the county finishes preparing written responses, the county SHALL publish, in an electronic format, the public's questions, comments and concerns together with the county's responses.

6. Following the publication of the county's responses, there SHALL be a period of reflection. The period of reflection of SHALL be at least one week long.

7. Prior to the conclusion of the period of reflection, the Board of Supervisors SHALL NOT approve the purchase of the old version of the eScan system.

8. After the conclusion of the period of reflection, the Board of Supervisors may create an agenda item for an open public hearing of the request to purchase the old version of the eScan system.

9. Additionally, if the Board of Supervisors is interested in considering, in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, alternatives other than the purchase of the old version of the eScan system, we recommend to the board that now, prior to the purchase of the old version of the eScan system, is a very good time to consider any such alternatives.

Sign the Petition
# # #

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Humboldt Envy?

2008-12-18T00:58:00.000-08:00

Last week I posted a letter to the editor I had published in the Eureka Times-Standard (archive). It was written quickly on the morning of December 5, in the midst of the breaking news that the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project had revealed a failure in Diebold's GEMS central tabulator causing the County's certified election results from November to be proven inaccurate.

I sent the same letter to the North Coast Journal since there was also a breaking story on their website about it, even though it hadn't yet appeared in their weekly print edition. When that came out last Wednesday, I wasn't too surprised the letter wasn't published or that editor Hank Sims had editorialized about the story. So I used his column as the basis for yet another letter, which the Journal has published in this week's paper:

North Coast Journal
Mail Box
12/18/08

Dear Editor:

Hank Sims now says Humboldt's official method of counting votes is an outrage ("Town Dandy," Dec. 11) and the Diebold/Premier folks "should be shunned. Maybe indicted." He may be late to the party, but the top hat and tails are always welcome.

Yes, Humboldt has joined Florida, Ohio, and towns and counties across the land who have experienced the failures of electronic voting. Our certification of inaccurate results has made national news and broken down some of the local wall of denial.

A December 7 editorial in The Times-Standard said local opponents of Diebold "were right to make noise, and right to complain about a company that has been less than responsible." Humboldt Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich told Wired.com in a Dec. 8 article, "this has sort of put a cloud over any confidence that I had in the Premier equipment that's been in this department since 1995."

Has Humboldt finally reached a tipping point? Are we ready to consider alternatives to Diebold? If so, a careful evaluation of the possibilities and input from a well informed community would be both appropriate and desirable.

I'd like to see more consistency in Sims' election integrity advocacy. And bottom line, I hope he'll push for a thorough examination of our options. A lot of work has already been done to facilitate evaluating hand-counting paper ballots, though Election Transparency Project volunteers may have other preferences and ideas to contribute to what could become the most envied process and dialog in the country.

Dave Berman, Eureka# # #

It is tough to be timely in a weekly paper when commenting on a fluid situation. See my exclusive report from Wednesday morning about Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich announcing her intention to dump Diebold scanners in favor of similar secret corporate vote "counting" machines from Hart InterCivic. It is a major advance of the narrative above and has been republished at OpEdNews and Scoop.

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Humboldt's False Alternative to Diebold

2008-12-17T03:04:00.001-08:00

After missing several consecutive monthly meetings of the ad hoc volunteer Election Advisory Committee (EAC), convened by Humboldt County, CA Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, on Tuesday night I rejoined the group to learn Crnich has at last given up on Diebold/Premier's optical scanners and GEMS central tabulator as our official vote counting method. After years of opposing Diebold, this might seem like a dream come true. But that's only the beginning of the story.

Crnich informed the group that we will continue to use paper ballots and precinct based scanning with Hart InterCivic's eScan system (complementing Hart's eSlate machines already in use for HAVA compliance). A distinction was made between Diebold's optical scanners and Hart's so-called digital scanners, though a similarity worth noting is that rather than counting the actual ballots both technically count the images of the ballots internally created within black box technology.

Whatever the supposed relative merits may be for Hart compared to Diebold, this is the epitome of a false alternative, the appearance of choice in a no-win situation. We will still be using an accuracy-challenged proprietary and secret system found vulnerable to undetectable manipulation by California's Top To Bottom Review, Ohio's EVEREST study, and Colorado's Secretary of State.

Humboldt County has made news lately for its Election Transparency Project, which revealed a failure in GEMS that caused Crnich to certify inaccurate results from last month's election. Crnich later told Wired.com:

Crnich told Threat Level the issue has made her question her confidence in the voting system because, even though the company provided officials with a workaround, the problem indicated a fundamental flaw in the company's programming. She said she'd heard a lot of stories from other election officials about problems with voting machines, but never thought they applied to California.

"I've always sort of listened to those anecdotal incidents with a jaundiced ear because California has some very stringent requirements of election systems that are in use here as well as some very strict security procedures and I didn't think those things affected us here," she said. "But this has sort of put a cloud over any confidence that I had in the Premier equipment that's been in this department since 1995."

Crnich has been widely praised for working with citizen volunteers to create the audit mechanism that identified the problem, which was entirely the fault of Diebold and not at all of Crnich's doing. Certainly some credit is due there, though as I explained last week, this has been exaggerated in an unhelpful way that now will likely make it more difficult to challenge her decision to switch to eScan. Indeed, at the EAC meeting I was accused of "casting aspersions" for raising questions of timing and public input. Yet check out how this almost went down...

At Tuesday's EAC meeting, Crnich said she has the sole authority to choose our vote counting method and had already done so. In fact, she had hoped to take delivery of nearly 80 new machines on Wednesday in order to get a $28,000 discount offered by Hart if the deal could be completed by year's end. The total cost is estimated to exceed $600,000 and would be paid entirely out of the County's unused HAVA and Proposition 41 funds. Procedurally, Crnich said she needs the County Board of Supervisors to approve her plan, and then approval of the CA Secretary of State for the use of funds.

Crnich said she attempted to get a spot on the agenda at Tuesday's Supes' meeting. An unusually long list of business items prevented that and has likely created a reprieve until January 6. However, that isn't guaranteed as Supervisor Jimmy Smith, in attendance at Tuesday's EAC meeting, suggested the possibility of a short-noticed special Supes meeting that could possibly occur this year if it would still allow the $28k savings.

Crnich told the EAC the next scheduled election is not until November 2009, though there is talk of a possible statewide special election as early as March. In that regard, she did not express urgency for the Hart transition to begin. If anything, she said she looked forward to having the time to evaluate candidates for an open position within the elections department. She lamented the delay between the announced opening in July and her recent receipt of the qualified applicant list.

The intent here is not to attack Crnich. These are the things she has done and said, which fairly raise the following questions.

Has the public been adequately informed about all the alternatives to Diebold and been given an opportunity to have input?

Do we have a right to expect that?

Can those who adore Crnich for her leadership in working with citizen volunteers of the Election Transparency Project at the same time oppose this rather hushed rush job to switch to a system equally detestable?

Can we point out that Crnich appears to be repeating the exact pattern of behavior she admitted to in the Wired quote above?

There is an element of deja vu here. In 2005 I wrote about efforts to prevent Crnich's flirtation with going touchscreen, though it certainly wasn't presented as an argument for the status quo. Crnich periodically receives heaps of praise for nixing the switch, typically without reference to the public resistance.

I can only think to call this a bittersweet irony. After years of urging the immediate abandonment of Diebold equipment, now Humboldt County can't drop the hot potato fast enough. The glow of the Transparency Project is currently blinding and seems to shield the sense of embarrassment for not only certifying inaccurate results but also defending the continued use of equipment known to be flawed all along. Who else will make clear that one laudable achievement does not mean complete deference on important questions of public policy?
* * *Previous WDNC report on Hart's eScan, quoting from the Top To Bottom Review:

p.11

The Red Team, working in close conjunction with the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team, discovered that the Hart EMS software implicitly trusts all communication coming from devices appearing to be Hart-branded and neither authenticates the devices nor performs adequate input validation on data transmitted to it by the devices. This allows for the possibility that a compromised device, such as an eScan that had been tampered with at a polling station, could infect the EMS systems. In particular, the Source Code Team discovered a weakness in the code that would allow an eScan to perform a buffer overflow attack and execute arbitrary code on the computer running SERVO.

...

The team was also able to access device-level menus that should be locked with passwords but were not. This access could allow an attacker a vector for altering configuration settings and/or executing a denial of service on the eScan.

Some of the findings from previous studies on precinct count optical scanners were replicated on the eScan, and they allowed the Red Team to maliciously alter vote totals with the potential to affect the outcome of an election. These attacks were low-tech and required tools that could be found in a typical office.

The Red Team implemented an attack devised by the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team that was able to extract election-sensitive information from the eScan and issue administrative commands to the eScan. The leaked information would allow an attacker the ability to execute further attacks, while administrative commands issued to the eScan could erase electronic vote totals and audit records from an eScan while putting it out of service for the remainder of the Election Day. For more details on these attacks, please see the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team report.

Here are some key observations from Harri Hursti and others about Ohio's EVEREST study:

3.2 Insider Defenses

Attack Class 6: eScan Manipulation – We were able to exploit a number of vulnerabilities in the eScan that could give election insiders the ability to compromise election results and voter privacy. Some of these were a result of a lack of physical security. We were able to replace the eScan's internal flash memory card containing the eScan executable and configuration file with only a screwdriver in about 2 minutes. After replacing the card, we were able to boot the eScan into the Linux operating system. This simple attack gives a single poll worker with a few minutes of unobserved access to the eScan the ability to undermine all votes cast at a precinct (EVEREST 20.3.1).

While opening the eScan to replace the memory card, we broke three tamper evident seals. While such seals may prove that a machine was opened, a preventative measure is preferable. A poll worker may intentionally break these seals in order to cast doubt on election results. It has also been shown that tamper evident seals do not always correctly show that tampering occurred [14].

Insiders may also wish to use their access to ballots to determine voter choice. This can be done with the eScan due to the design of its ballot box (EVEREST 20.3.4). The eScan's scanner sits on top of its ballot box, which is essentially a plastic tub. When a ballot is scanned, it is subsequently dropped into the box. No measures are taken to disturb the order in which ballots fall, allowing a malicious poll worker to note the position in which certain votes are cast and then relay these positions to an election official with access to the ballots. We observed ten numbered ballots as they were cast with the eScan, and verified that the vote order was preserved.

...

Attack Class 14: Open Audit Interfaces – Both the Hart JBC and eScan have open interfaces that allow for the erasure of votes and audit log records. As detailed in Issue 3 of the CA TTBR, the eScan is managed through an accessible Ethernet port that listens for connections on TCP port 4600. This port is normally used for sending and receiving commands from SERVO, such as file transmission and reading images of the eScan's memory. No cryptographic tokens are required for these operations to occur.

We discovered that with a handheld device such as a Palm computer, an attacker with an Ethernet cable can mimic the actions of SERVO to the eScan during a live election, and cause the vote records and audit logs to be erased from both the eScan's internal memory and the MBB inserted into it (EVEREST 20.3.7). Any voting that had occurred on the eScan to that point would be erased, necessitating a manual recount.

...

Attack Class 19: Autovoting – A final example of unsafe features intentionally added to the Hart systems is the Ballot Now’s "Autovote" feature (EVEREST 20.7.2). Autovote allows for the creation of pre-filled-in paper ballots. Once again, this feature is enabled through Windows registry entries. Once these entries are enabled, Ballot Now displays the Autovote menu option when started.

The Autovote menu allows the Ballot Now user to choose the number of pre-filled-in ballots to print. The user has no control over the selected filled in entry for each contest, however, the selected entries are uniformly distributed. This allows an arbitrary number of ballots with the desired results to be printed with the overhead of some ballots with undesired results that may simply be discarded.

Paper ballots generated by Autovote initially say "Autovote" on the front and back, making them conspicuous and easy to detect in an audit or recount. We were able to overcome this by installing a PNG printer driver on the Ballot Now machine. This driver allows ballots to be printed to PNG image files as opposed to paper. We could then open the files in an image editor, remove the Autovote label and print them. Aside from the label, Autovote ballots are identical to regular ballots. We conducted a normal election and an election with Autovote ballots, and could not identify any differences in the eScan unofficial printout, the audit logs, or the cast vote records on the eScan's MBB.

Autovote could be used in tandem with the eScan's duplicate ballot feature to perform a ballot stuffing attack. Using Autovote ballots is advantageous over using photocopies, as each Autovote ballot has a unique serial number, and thus cannot be differentiated from legitimate votes in an audit.

For more see this 2006 report from VotersUnite.org, the same site's Election Problem Log 2004 - Present, as well as BradBlog.com.

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Humboldt At The Tipping Point: Who Dares Defend Diebold?

2008-12-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

Here in Humboldt County, CA a local story of national interest broke last Thursday on the websites of the Eureka Times-Standard (archive) and North Coast Journal. The next morning I wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in today's T-S (archive). I'll let this serve as a summary then provide links to much of what's been published already and add some further reasons for optimism at the bottom.

Any defenders?

Letters to the editor

Posted: 12/10/2008 01:15:38 AM PST

First I'd like to congratulate Kevin Collins, Tom Pinto, Mitch Trachtenberg, Parke Bostrom and all the volunteers of the Election Transparency Project.

Their work revealed a discrepancy caused by Humboldt's electronic voting equipment last month.

Over the last few years I've made many different arguments for getting rid of the Diebold (now Premier) equipment used to count votes in Humboldt County. Somehow it wasn't enough that they “count” in secret, can be easily manipulated without detection, and report results impossible in a legitimate election.

Somehow local decision makers weren't deterred from doing business with a company that admitted to illegally installing uncertified software here and elsewhere; that was sued in class action suits filed by company shareholders; and whose then -- CEO said he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes” to Bush in 2004.

Now we learn that Humboldt has finally experienced what is euphemistically called a “glitch.” In reality it was a bug in Diebold's central tabulation program, GEMS. This caused the results of November's election, already certified as accurate by Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, to be proven inaccurate.

Worse still, Diebold knew about the bug at least four years ago and never fixed it. Other counties were made aware of the problem and told how to work around it. Crnich says she never knew, and I believe her.

This raises many questions, most important among them: Who dares defend the continued use of these machines and the county's relationship with Diebold/Premier?

Dave Berman
Eureka# # #

So here's a summary of links from the past several days, then I've got a few more observations.

T-S, 12/5/08: Software glitch yields inaccurate election results (archive)
T-S, 12/7/08 Local elections office commended (archive)
T-S Editorial, 12/7/08 - A glitch that should never have been (archive)

Wired - two Kim Zetter articles from 12/8/08:
Serious Error in Diebold Voting Software Caused Lost Ballots in California County
Unique Transparency Program Uncovers Problems with Voting Software

Election Transparency Project volunteers:
Parke Bostrom - http://hum.dreamhosters.com/etp/news/20081204.html (main site)
Mitch Trachtenberg - http://www.mitchtrachtenberg.com/ourvotes.html (main site)
Tom Pinto - http://humtp.com/

John Gideon & Brad Friedman at BradBlog.com, 12/8/08 - 'Humboldt Transparency Project' Reveals Diebold, U.S. Federal E-Voting Scam

The BradBlog piece includes this link to an .mp3 of Crnich with Brad on the Peter B. Collins show on the afternoon of 12/5/08.
* * *Hopefully it is already clear why this is a story of national interest. BradBlog's 12/8 article points out:

The fact that Diebold/Premier did not take the action to recall the systems, actually puts them into a situation where they may very well have violated federal law. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 Title III Section 301(a)(5) mandates an acceptable error rate for voting systems in use in federal elections. That error rate, not counting any error caused by an action of the voter, cannot exceed 0.00001%.

However, in the case of the Humboldt County vote count, the error rate was 0.31%.

We have asked both the Secretary of State of California and the EAC if they plan to take action by asking the US Attorney Office to investigate this seemingly clear violation of federal law. Neither the CA SoS, nor the EAC has yet replied to our queries on that matter.

Parke Bostrom's post above describes how "deck zero" became the batch of ballots that were handled properly by the elections department, and yet vanished from the final certified total. He comments further that the audit log for the Diebold GEMS central tabulation software matched the wrongly decreased total:

This means the audit log is not truly a "log" in the classical computer program sense, but is rather a "re-imagining" of what GEMS would like the audit log to be, based on whatever information GEMS happens to remember at the end of the vote counting process.

This demonstrates the system will cover its tracks when reporting an inaccurate result, destroying assurances of built-in memory redundancies and making a mockery of logic and accuracy testing. Not just here, everywhere. Frankly this is just another example of something we've known a long time.

Crnich herself has been very interesting through all of this. In the "Serious Error..." article above, Zetter reports:

Crnich told Threat Level the issue has made her question her confidence in the voting system because, even though the company provided officials with a workaround, the problem indicated a fundamental flaw in the company's programming. She said she'd heard a lot of stories from other election officials about problems with voting machines, but never thought they applied to California.

"I've always sort of listened to those anecdotal incidents with a jaundiced ear because California has some very stringent requirements of election systems that are in use here as well as some very strict security procedures and I didn't think those things affected us here," she said. "But this has sort of put a cloud over any confidence that I had in the Premier equipment that's been in this department since 1995."

Crnich losing confidence of course should be music to our ears. She also said a great thing in the interview with Peter B., explaining why she's been willing to work with citizen volunteers. As Humboldt County Clerk/Recorder and Registrar of Voters, Crnich is an elected official and I'm glad she acknowledged a responsibility to listen to constituents.

In all, the media coverage above practically lionizes Crnich, which I think goes too far. Consider this analogy. Someone builds a fire in the middle of their bedroom and burns down the house. Would this person be praised for the wisdom of having an insurance policy? Using secret corporate vote counting computers, whether by Diebold or any other vendor, is playing with fire.

I've been unable to reach Crnich by phone in the past two days, repeatedly getting voice mail that could not accept more messages.

Also today, The North Coast Journal came out with Hank Sims' "Town Dandy" column called Deck Zero. Sims writes in reference to the known failure of the GEMS central tabulation software:

The fact that Diebold/Premier let it stand for over four years, potentially undermining the first principle of American democracy, is an absolute outrage. These people should be shunned. Maybe indicted.

Throw in a little validation from the T-S editorial board...:

They were loud, and they were strident in proclaiming that they didn't trust election technologies as much as they trust the ability of actual human beings to count votes.

The recent discovery, thanks to the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project, of a discrepancy in election results due to flawed software reveals that these activists were right to make noise, and right to complain about a company that has been less than responsible in dealing with the problem.

...and it is starting to sound like we may be at a tipping point here. You might expect me to be frothing about hand-counting paper ballots right about now. You'd be wrong. Thinking as an organizer, I would hope now to establish three things that would be widely agreeable throughout the community:

An alternative to Diebold is needed
A careful evaluation of the possibilities would be appropriate and desirable
The input of the fully informed community would be appropriate and desirable

That said, if this is the nature of the opportunity now, I will re-offer to the community the materials I've developed to evaluate hand counting, most notably the forecast tool (spreadsheet) for estimating time, cost and labor needs for hand-counting in the precinct on election night. Back in the summer of 2007, when I first made this public, Sims noted: "Initial twiddling with the numbers suggests that it wouldn't be all that time-consuming or costly -- and wouldn't you rather wait a few days and spend a little more for a trustworthy count?"

I'd like to see more consistency in Sims' election integrity advocacy. And bottom line, I hope he'll push for a thorough examination of Diebold alternatives, as I'm sure Transparency Project volunteers will have other preferences and ideas to contribute to what could become the most envied process and dialog in the country.

This is all another way of saying "what would be better" is an inclusive and engaging community dialog aimed at literally defining "better" than Diebold.

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TV Humboldt Offers Election Integrity Videos and More

2008-10-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

For at least the past two years or so Paul Benson has been working on an indy media project that is now TV Humboldt, currently allowing Humboldt County media makers to upload video shorts to be included in a one hour loop that refreshes each week. At least that's a part of it and just where this part happens to be at now. It is a fluid, evolving project with big ambitions I don't fully know yet.

Backstage TV Humboldt is a companion site that is more of an interactive environment for media makers and audience alike. I've only met Benson a few times, but I can see he's coming from the right place. This paragraph is currently on the the Backstage home page:

HELP CHANGE MEDIA AS WE KNOW IT

All of our projects, are in line with our long-term strategy to help move media away from bottom-line corporate economics and toward a media system where everyone has a chance to get their work out to the world, without selling their souls. Let the WORLD decide who gets recognized, not some C.E.O...

Yesterday I met up with Benson and his video camera to shoot this three minute video about the open letter to the media, from the media, challenging the industry to recognize "federal election results are unprovable, even though the media reports them as fact." You'll catch it in this week's hourly loop, plus here at YouTube:

For other recent posts related to the letter, see "How to Disarm Weapons of Mass Deception" and "Telling No Lies and Still Not Telling the Truth."

Five more truth-tellers signed the letter today including the influential Danny Schechter, who posted the letter at Media Channel and included it in his daily e-mail newsletter. Also the venerable Sam Smith of The Progressive Review, author Allene E. Swienckowski, Lisa Finerty, Chair, Democrats Abroad - Rome Chapter, and Dave Stancliff, freelance journalist whose writing has appeared in various Humboldt publications. He recently wrote "Your vote faces challenges like never before," (archive) which may have been the furthest the Eureka Times-Standard has ever gone in condemning electronic voting machines outside of guest columns they've let me publish.

Today I also found the letter posted on the website of the Progressive Democrats of Sonoma County, who once invited me to speak about my book, We Do Not Consent (free .pdf). The local Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 also published my "Disarm" piece in their November newsletter (.pdf).

Rounding out the link-fest here, I want to get back to TV Humboldt, which has posted "Stealing America - Vote by Vote" as an "election week bonus" video. According to Benson this plays in a "a specially-designed player that allows the whole movie to play continuously -- If you watch it on YouTube, you have to watch it in 10 separate parts, which are not always so easy to find and navigate to." It's great for the movie to have all the exposure it can get, though at the film's own site you can also watch it uninterrupted and grab the embed code as I've done below.

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Telling No Lies and Still Not Telling the Truth

2008-10-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

In January 2004 I wrote an open letter to Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Congressman and then-presidential candidate. I have reprinted the letter at the bottom of this post. The gist was you can tell no lies and still not tell the truth. Here is the closing:

Americans reading this letter should begin expecting--causing--the very context of our national debate to be broadened. Dennis Kucinich, you have a deeply held belief that your destiny is to lead the world. Please recognize that the only way to fulfill this magnificent potential is to change the system with truth telling.

Even at that time, before I ever started blogging, my writing exhibited what I later proactively embraced and described as advocacy journalism, defined as writing whose success can only be judged by its ability to produce the real world change being written about. With that in mind I have documented my community and online organizing efforts in more than 500 essays in the GuvWurld and We Do Not Consent blogs. I have developed various memes and recurring themes, though this truth-telling frame had been somewhat dormant before recently storming back in yet another open letter, this one to the media, from the media.

What a difference four more years of fascism makes! This time dozens of people as well as organizations are signing on to the call for truth-telling: "federal election results are unprovable, even though the media reports them as fact." Some notable names added since my last posting: filmmaker David Earnhardt, economist Catherine Austin Fitts, Co-Executive Directors of VotersUnite.org John Gideon and Ellen Theisen, BlackBoxVoting.org founder Bev Harris, and scholar Steven F. Freeman, PhD. I'm trying to keep WDNC current and in sync with (or ahead of) Scoop's tremendous effort.

The next thing I hope to see is supporters of the letter using their media access to expose and explore the central question and themes of the letter: are federal election results provable?, and if not, should we accept corporate media reporting unprovable results as fact?

Let's be clear. The open letter from the media to the media states its intention "to change the corporate media narrative." By my definition this is advocacy journalism, though you can call it whatever you want.

As I wrote last Friday in How To Disarm Weapons of Mass Deception, if we recognize the corporate media as harmful weapons of mass deception, then our strategies have to account for dealing with a weapon. If we are ruthlessly honest, we recognize the necessity and correctness of protecting ourselves, and where possible, using the media weapon to our advantage ("beat the media at their own game"). It is a classic self-defense justification, though another key reason also supports this approach.

Classic tenets of journalism call for objectivity and neutrality. These are antiquated principles no longer universally observed, especially by the corporate media component of the fascist apparatus - the weapons of mass deception. We must absolutely not feel bound by them. If we are ever to create meaningful change, I believe advocacy journalism will be a crucial element to enable the necessary organizing. It is therefore very important that we learn how to be successful advocacy journalists, whether embracing the label or not.

In fact, it hardly matters if other people self-identify with or adopt my definition of advocacy journalism. What counts is the ruthless honesty, ensuring consistency between how we say we see something and how we act about it. We can disarm weapons of mass deception by supplanting its fabricated reality with what is really going on.

The burden is two-fold, falling to truth-tellers both inside and out of the media. If you don't work in the media, use your voice to encourage those who you watch, listen to, or read to use their platform to address the content of the open letter to the media, from the media. Remind the truth-telling media makers of things they have said or written to help make sure they remain consistent (ruthlessly honest) now.

Media truth-tellers who have enjoyed support and popularity among progressives have reached a sort of "put up or shut up" moment. Nobody is suggesting they be silent. Putting up means telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the ruthlessly honest truth. Those who recognize electronic voting machines have brought us secret vote counting know federal election results are inherently inconclusive and unprovable. Say this now and don't stop. Your audience, your country and your planet need this leadership and will follow as we crash through the finish line of this presidential horse race next week.

Those who can't go there may be telling no lies and still not telling the truth.

* * *I was in San Francisco last weekend and spent part of Saturday passing out the leaflet below. I offered it to passersby with the greeting, "Will you help us take down the corporate media...from the inside?"

Click for printable version (4 per page)
* * *An Open Letter
1/31/04

To Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH:

Congressman, I admire the positive vision you have articulated as the basis for your presidential campaign. Compared to other candidates, the positions you have taken most closely reflect my own. Most importantly, you have taken to re-framing issues as when Ted Koppel inasmuch as told you to drop out of the race or when Wolf Blitzer recently asked if you would consider being a Vice Presidential candidate. The corporate media of America has done the world a disservice by injecting its own agenda, shielding us from the truth, and perpetuating lies that manipulate public opinion. You are courageous and wise to address this.

While I am sincere in offering these compliments, they do not represent grounds on which I can support your campaign. Your stated positions may reflect my views, but what you are not saying ensures that America will continue to ignore many of the root causes of her dysfunction. When I talk with progressive Americans volunteering on your behalf, there is an emphasis on convincing people you are electable. I want to believe. But sir, there is a system in place to ensure you lose. The only way for you to win is to change the system. This must not be a euphemism.

The lack of truth telling is an obvious place to start. This problem pervades the White House, Congress, the media, and even the very premise of America. We are supposed to be about democracy and capitalism, Darwinian free markets where the "fittest" ideas get elected and survival means competing for more market share. The idea of a free market is central to both our political and economic systems. But to tell the truth, in America today, there is no free market and both democracy and capitalism are a myth.

Unless this stark assessment becomes part of our national dialog through your campaign, you may not be telling lies, but you won't be engaged in truth telling either.

If democracy, the free market of ideas, genuinely existed in America today, third party candidates could be taken seriously and their ideas would compete fairly in the arena of public opinion. Even as an elected member of Congress, anti-competitive treatment is hindering the exposure that you and your platform need (and are entitled to!). Election methods have clearly become both unreliable and untrustworthy, with disenfranchisement rampant and major campaign donors running voting machine companies. This description applies to America but does not depict democracy.

On the economic side, fraud riddles Wall Street in collusive stock and bank deals; Halliburton gets no-bid contracts; mergers that kill jobs and consumer choices are rubber stamped for approval; industry leaders cycle between top lobbying positions and Cabinet appointments; and then there's the media. Consolidation has limited the breadth of viewpoints aired and promoted bald-faced lies to launch wars. It's no wonder democracy and capitalism have both corroded when media companies have financial stakes in topics of their coverage.

None of this has been an accident. George W. Bush and the Republican takeover of Congress have accelerated the demolition of American ideals in the last three years. But the Democratic Party is complicit. Of the many ways this is true, the most important is found in the way Democrats and Republicans openly and aggressively seek to maintain the two-party system. Such a contrived power-sharing model violates the spirit of anti-trust laws. It cannot be more plain: the Democrats are harmful to America.

The "Anybody But Bush" crowd is large and vocal right now, indicating the inherent potential energy behind a genuine system changing movement. It is imperative that these people (especially the editors of BuzzFlash.com) come to recognize that electing any of the current Democratic candidates will not bring the restoration of democracy but rather perpetuate the myth that it exists. This message must resonate through their defensive gesticulation that this is no time for division among progressive voices for change in America. I keep hearing the phrase "how much change are you ready for?" It has to be enough to change the system.

Congressman, discussing the myth of democracy and capitalism is only an introduction. This shift will re-frame progressive dialog from a focus on symptoms to a genuine examination of the disease. Extended further, Americans engaged on this topic makes for a great first step towards changing the system, a prerequisite for you to win the White House.

The central theme returns: not telling lies is not the same as truth telling.

Jolting America’s perception of reality will require busting other myths. Tell us the whole truth: corporations have more rights than humans and we must abolish corporate personhood; the Earth has exhausted its capacity for yielding profitable oil, and the calamitous destiny of "Peak Oil" must be addressed to be avoided; the obstruction of a complete 9/11 investigation shields the unsupportable collection of lies that comprise the official narrative; and no society has ever been able to trade freedom for security.

Be the leader we need and help America come to terms with the facts. Demonstrate that we need more than just a regime change, we need to re-calibrate our national compass to pursue rather than destroy the ideals of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Use these powerful documents. It is remarkable what a reading of the Declaration reveals. Our Founders didn't just predict future revolutions, they outlined the grounds that should trigger them. As Americans accept Orwellian contradictions, virtually all of these conditions exist today.

Americans reading this letter should begin expecting--causing--the very context of our national debate to be broadened. Dennis Kucinich, you have a deeply held belief that your destiny is to lead the world. Please recognize that the only way to fulfill this magnificent potential is to change the system with truth telling.

In Respect and Peace,
Dave Berman
Eureka, CA
# # #
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/10/telling-no-lies-and-still-not-telling.html

How To Disarm Weapons of Mass Deception

2008-10-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

The phrase "weapons of mass deception" is a well recognized play on "weapons of mass destruction," and is well understood to refer to the corporate media. As a fascist state, it is really the corporate/military/government/media juggernaut that bombards and assaults freedoms and liberties, dumbing-down, propagandizing, manipulating, and feeding us The Big Lie. We have to protect ourselves, not only from our government's lawlessness, but also from weapons of mass deception. Kill your television, yes, a good place to start. Now we are going further...

Yesterday I appeared as a guest on the Peter B. Collins syndicated talk radio show (part 1, part 2). We talked about an open letter, published yesterday at We Do Not Consent, New Zealand's Scoop, as well as other progressive news sites (known list of x-posts below). PBC added his name to Mark Crispin Miller, David Swanson, Lynn Landes, Rob Kall, and more than 15 other media truth-tellers so far who have begun to disarm the weapons of mass deception.

George Orwell: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

My rally cry has long been "Peaceful revolution is necessary, NOW!"

Put the two together and we have media telling the truth to their colleagues and industry, questioning how federal election results can be reported as fact when they can not be independently verified or even proven, and come from only one conflicted source, the very government whose grip on power is at stake.

The power of weapons of mass deception emanates at full strength unless we challenge the phony narrative and distracting drama portrayed as the important stories of the day. But the challenge alone is not enough. To disarm weapons of mass deception we must also supplant its fabricated reality with what is really going on.

The letter itself is only a first step. The list of signers, while meaningful, is static even as it grows longer. The impact of this truth-telling comes in telling it repeatedly and seeing those who encounter it begin to tell it yet again.

The default response of the weapons will be to ignore. The truth-tellers challenge will be mostly won merely by engaging with the weapon, insisting on not being ignored. Members of the reading and thinking public can and hopefully will self-identify as truth-tellers, rather than externalizing that label onto the courageous early adopters of the letter.

Confronting The Big Lie means calling out simple truths hiding in plain site. Consider it converting unconventional wisdom to conventional wisdom. That implies enormous reach and explicitly calls us all to action. How hard can it be to call a talk show host or e-mail an opinion writer and have them address this, from the open letter:

There are three very simple basic facts about the way US federal elections are conducted now, and we think they lead to an inescapable conclusion that must be addressed.

See if you agree:

1. We have secret corporate vote counting computers counting more than 95% of the votes cast in the United States;

2. The absence of paper ballots, and in some cases state's law, prevents meaningful re-counts throughout much of the country;

3. These electronic voting machines frequently produce results impossible in a legitimate election, such as John Kerry's negative 25 million votes in Youngstown, OH (Nov. 2004), or Palm Beach County's 12,000 votes in excess of the number of voters (Aug. 2008).

To us this suggests the conclusion that federal election results are unprovable, even though the media reports them as fact.

Can you draw any other conclusion?

Weapons of mass deception are a powerful force working against We The People. This common phrase is so well known, yet rarely considered in a way I would call ruthlessly honest. Ruthless honesty requires that we match up the way we see something with the way we act about it. We already see the corporate media as a weapon of mass deception. Ruthless honesty calls for disarmament.
* * *
Known cross-posts of the open letter as of now:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/We-Do-Not-Consent--Open-L-by-Press-Release-081024-862.html

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/37087

http://usacoup.scoop.co.nz/?p=835

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00360.htm

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/24/202910/15/310/641419

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x509838

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4304200

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) also has a blurb about the letter here.

Permalink:
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Open Letter to the Media from the Media

2008-10-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND DISTRIBUTION TO ALL MEDIA

Current Signatories 2 November 11pm (PT): Dave Berman - Mark Crispin Miller - Alastair Thompson - Peter B. Collins - Michael Collins - Ernest Partridge - Bernard Weiner - Rob Kall - David Swanson - Rady Ananda - Lynn Landes - Dan Ashby - Linda Milazzo - Jan Baumgartner - Cheryl Biren-Wright - Amanda Lang - Joanne Lukacher - Andi Novick - Paul Lehto - Mark A. Adams - Catherine Austin Fitts - John Gideon - Ellen Theisen - Bev Harris - John Chuckman - Bernie Ellis - Steve Freeman - John Russell - Jason Leopold - David L. Griscom, PhD - David Earnhardt - Carolyn Zaremba - Ron Baiman, PhD - Donna Norton - Josh Mitteldorf, PhD - Kathy Dopp - Allene E. Swienckowski - Lisa Finerty - Dave Stancliff - Sam Smith - Danny Schechter - Eric Holland

Dear Media Colleagues,

You are receiving this message because you are known to American progressives as a truth-teller. In this presidential campaign, despite the typical horse-race coverage, we also see the overall corporate media narrative influenced by daily debunking efforts from candidates' rapid response teams, the blogosphere, and the reality-based coverage and reporting that you provide.

We need to take this to the next level.

There are three very simple basic facts about the way US federal elections are conducted now, and we think they lead to an inescapable conclusion that must be addressed.

See if you agree:

1. We have secret corporate vote counting computers counting more than 95% of the votes cast in the United States;

2. The absence of paper ballots, and in some cases state's law, prevents meaningful re-counts throughout much of the country;

3. These electronic voting machines frequently produce results impossible in a legitimate election, such as John Kerry's negative 25 million votes in Youngstown, OH (Nov. 2004), or Palm Beach County's 12,000 votes in excess of the number of voters (Aug. 2008).

To us this suggests the conclusion that federal election results are unprovable, even though the media reports them as fact.

Can you draw any other conclusion?

It will surprise nobody this November when the outcome is a spoiled mess, riddled with controversy. In fact, we can already say the results--based on the conditions--are guaranteed to be inconclusive, unknowable and unprovable.

We must challenge our industry to refuse to report as fact what can't be proven and hasn't been independently verified, particularly when the only source of the information is the government itself.

The reality is that the media should be the greatest advocates of hand counting paper ballots because this method of counting allows media greatest access to observing and documenting the process, affording the reported results the greatest credibility.

Transparent coverage of a transparent counting process would create a basis for confidence in the reported results where none currently exists.

As we all know, there is a vibrant community of engaged citizens across the US who collectively self-identify as the "election integrity community." They are asking us truth-tellers to challenge our industry, essentially reframing the debate.

Many of them have appeared on our shows and in our columns over the past few years, and they are eager to be sources for us now. But they are also counting on us to take this message forward and we don't see how we can be truth-tellers without doing that.

Please join us in this concerted effort to use truth-telling yet again to change the corporate media narrative of this presidential campaign.

Respectfully yours,

Dave Berman, WeDoNotConsent.blogspot.com; Voter Confidence Committee of Humboldt, CA

Mark Crispin Miller, Author, www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com

Alastair Thompson, Co-Editor/General Manager, www.Scoop.co.nz

Michael Collins, "The Money Party," usacoupscoop.co.nz/?tag=michael-collins;electionfraudnews.com/MichaelCollins.htm

Ernest Partridge, Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers www.crisispapers.org/

Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers www.crisispapers.org/

Rob Kall, Executive Editor & Publisher, www.OpEdNews.com

David Swanson, Co-Founder, www.AfterDowningStreet.org

Joan Brunwasser, Election Integrity Editor, www.OpEdNews.com

Rady Ananda, Senior Editor, www.OpEdNews.com

Lynn Landes, freelance journalist, www.thelandesreport.com

Tom Courbat, Founder, SAVE R VOTE, www.savervote.com

Dan Ashby, Co-Founder and Director, www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org

Linda Milazzo, OpedNews Senior Editor; HuffingtonPost blogger, www.OpEdNews.com

Jan Baumgartner, Managing Editor, www.OpEdNews.com

Cheryl Biren-Wright, Managing Editor, www.OpEdNews.com

Amanda Lang, OEN Managing Editor, www.opednews.com

Joanne Lukacher, Communications Director, Election Transparency Coalition, www.re-mediaetc.org

Andi Novick, Legal Counsel, Election Transparency Coalition, www.re-mediaetc.org

Valerie Lane, Chair, SAVElections Monterey County

Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor, Author of Election Law Encyclopedia articles

Mark A. Adams JD/MBA founder of http://www.ProjectVoteCount.com

Catherine Austin Fitts, Scoop “Mapping The Real Deal” Columnist, solari.com

John Gideon, Co-Executive Director, VotersUnite.Org

Ellen Theisen, Co-Executive Director, VotersUnite.Org

Bev Harris, founder and director,Black Box Voting (Web site http://www.blackboxvoting.org)

John Chuckman, Columnist & Cartoonist More Websites: Postcards, Trading Cards, Places

Bernie Ellis Organizer, Gathering To Save Our Democracy (Tennessee) and Convener, National Election Reform Conference Nashville, TN April, 2005 - http://www.votesafetn.org

Steve Freeman, author, academic and founder of ElectionIntegrity

John Russell (FL-5) D - www.johnrussellforcongress.com

Jason Leopold, investigative journalist, author - TPR: The Public Record

David L. Griscom, Ph.D., impactglassman.blogspot.com; Co-Founder, AUDITAZ; Member Coordinating Committee, Election Defense Alliance.

David Earnhardt, filmmaker, "UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections"

Carolyn Zaremba, Socialist Equality Party

Ron Baiman, PhD, Economist/Statistician, Vice President National Election Data Archive/U.S. Count Votes

Donna Norton, Member Elect, Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee; Member, Progressive Democrats of America, Sonoma County

Josh Mitteldorf, PhD, statistician for Election Integrity and Election Defense Alliance

Kathy Dopp, MS Mathematics, Executive Director, US Count Votes

Allene E. Swienckowski, author http://www.whenmeangirlsgrowup.com

Lisa Finerty, Chair, Democrats Abroad - Rome Chapter

Dave Stancliff, freelance journalist

Sam Smith, The Progressive Review

Danny Schechter, http://www.mediachannel.org

Eric Holland, MA Media Arts, Emerson 2002; Editor 1938music.com

SEND THIS EMAIL TO THE MEDIA

(Note: you can find an email address at this link)

A current list of this letter's signers can be found at http://usacoup.scoop.co.nz/unprovable. If you would like to add your name, please use the form on that page or submit your name and affiliation via e-mail to: unprovable@scoop.co.nz.

# # #
LAST WDNC UPDATE: 11/2/08 11pm PT

Permalink:
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Peter B. Collins, Dave Berman to Discuss Unprovable Federal Election Results - 10/23 5pm PT

2008-10-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

Listen live through PeterBCollins.com Thursday at 5pm PT as I'll be on this great talk radio show to discuss whether the accuracy of federal election results can be proven.

For a long time I have argued federal election results are inherently inconclusive, unknowable and unprovable - based entirely on the conditions under which "elections" are conducted. There is simply no basis for confidence in the reported results, that is, no reason to believe them.

As I hinted last Friday, when I wrote about the Nation's John Nichols coming around to describing the 2000 and 2004 elections as "inconclusive," during tomorrow's interview we will begin to hear a louder chorus taking up this message and calling out the media.

Why should we be expected to believe reported election results that media have not and can not independently verify, which can't even be proven, and which come from only one source - the very government whose grip on power is at stake?

In fact, for as long as I've written the We Do Not Consent blog there have been others making this point. In the back of my book, We Do Not Consent, (free .pdf), there are testimonials that have permanently appeared in the sidebar of the blog as follows:

"This is an important collection of essays with a strong unitary theme: if you can't prove that you were elected, we can't take you seriously as elected officials. Simple, logical, comprehensive. 'Management' (aka, the 'powers that be') needs to get the message. 'The machines' are not legitimizers, they're an artful dodge and a path to deception. We've had enough...and we most certainly DO NOT consent."

— Michael Collins covers the election fraud beat for "Scoop" Independent Media

and...

"If in the future we have vital elections, the "no basis for confidence" formulation that GuvWurld is popularizing will have been a historically important development. This is true because by implicitly insisting on verification and checks and balances instead of faith or trust in elections officials or machines as a basis for legitimacy, it encourages healthy transparent elections. It's also rare that a political formulation approaches scientific certainty, but this formulation is backed up by scientific principles that teach that if you can't repeat something (such as an election) and verify it by independent means, it doesn't exist within the realm of what science will accept as established or proven truth."

— Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

Over the years, these points have been made in countless ways. Tomorrow we will unveil perhaps the most impactful expression yet. In the meantime, here's another that I submitted last week as a letter to the editor of the North Coast Journal. I'm posting it now because their new issue came out today without it.

Dear Editor:

Thank you for the even-handed run down of state and local ballot issues (Oct. 9). Perhaps you could also devote a little space to both sides of a national question: are federal election results provable?

One side says: we have secret corporate vote counting computers in more than 95% of the country; about 30% of the country doesn't even use paper ballots to allow a serious re-count; and these electronic voting machines frequently produce results impossible in a legitimate election, such as John Kerry's negative 25 million votes in Youngstown, OH (Nov. 2004), or Palm Beach County's 12,000 votes in excess of the number of voters (Aug. 2008).

These self-described "election integrity advocates" say there is no way to prove federal election results. They further allege that media is abandoning its most basic principles by publishing election results as fact, when the information has not and can not be independently verified. Worse still, they say, is that media reports of election results rely on only one source--the government--even though the government can not prove the reported results.

Opponents argue federal election results are provable because. Just because.

While this is fairly convincing, the Journal could do a genuine public service in affording more space for elaboration of this point of view. The Journal could also encourage the media industry at large to advocate for hand counting paper ballots, reasoning that this method of counting allows media greatest access to observing and documenting the process, affording the reported results the greatest credibility, and demonstrating that the reported results have been proven to the satisfaction of the thousands of ordinary Americans who would be involved in counting ballots.

Dave Berman
Eureka, CA# # #

Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/10/peter-b-collins-dave-berman-to-discuss.html

John Nichols: 2000, 2004 Elections "Inconclusive"; Humboldt Dems to Show "Uncounted" This Sat

2008-10-17T01:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the split headline, but it is time to do some dot connecting.

First, a note for Humboldt readers. The local Democratic Central Committee will be hosting a free screening of "Uncounted" beginning at 7pm this Saturday (10/18) at 129 5th Street, Eureka. The film is a "documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 - and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election."

I'll be there and anticipate a lively group discussion (read: confronting Dems' cognitive dissonance) following the film. If you've ever met me or read anything else I've written, you may already have a sense of what I'll be saying, especially now that others are saying the same thing. Say what?

I was both pleased and bemused last week when John Nichols posted to The Nation website a piece called "No More Stolen Elections." Two key excerpts (emphasis added):

"...[Bush campaign co-chair and Ohio] Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, made it possible for the Republican ticket to secure an election night "result" that was of dubious legitimacy, and circumstances taht [sic] made the ensuing recount an inconclusive exercise in frustration."

(snip)

The bottom line from both 2000 and 2004 is this: Smart, engaged activists from across the country were caught unprepared for monumental struggles over not just clean elections and electoral votes but, in a very real sense, the future of the republic.

Good people tried to intervene. But it was too little, too late. Mistakes made in the hours and days after the presidential elections in each of those two years would haunt the process to its conclusion -- or, to be more precise, to an inconclusive moment when power would be allocated without legitimacy.

Certainly I am pleased to see a major American journalist take the position I've held for years, that the Bush regime claim to power is illegitimate, and was made possible by election conditions that ensured inconclusive results (see: Voter Confidence Resolution, adopted by Arcata, CA City Council, 7/20/05).

But Nichols has two major disconnects that I'd like to put back together here. First, he attributes the inconclusive results to the election conditions - which are largely the same in 2008. To look back and say the previous results were inconclusive requires a degree of honesty which could only be called ruthless honesty if it acknowledged that the same conditions will always and again produce inconclusive, unknowable, unprovable results. "Too little, too late" last time means take a different approach this time.

The second disconnect is Nichols' call to action:

What should smart activists be doing?

Preparing to say, without caution or compromise, that they will not sit idly by and allow another presidential election to be gamed.

That's what the Rev. Jesse Jackson, populist leader Jim Hightower, author Barbara Ehrenreich, singer Holly Near, activist Tom Hayden, Rabbi Michael Lerner and other activists, academics and writers -- including this author -- were thinking when we signed on to the call to action for the "No More Stolen Elections!" campaign that launches this week.

The campaign asks Americans to take a simple pledge:

"I remember Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, and I am willing to take action in 2008 if the election is stolen again.

I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 4th.

I pledge to join nationwide pro-democracy protests starting on November 5th, either in my community, in key states where fraud occurred, or in Washington, D.C..

I pledge: No More Stolen Elections!"

If we already recognize that election conditions guarantee inconclusive results, waiting until after the "election" to protest is not what smart activists would do because it would again be "too little, too late." In fact, the same well-meaning progressive leaders behind "No More Stolen Elections" put forth a similar pledge that I wrote about just prior to the 2004 "election."

"I remember the stolen presidential election of 2000 and I am willing to take action in 2004 if the election is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 2nd. If that right is systematically violated, I pledge to join nationwide protests starting on November 3rd, either in my community, in the states where the fraud occurred, or in Washington DC."

It has become cliché to cite the definition of insane as doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Does it make me a bad writer to use a cliché or a smarter activist to say let's do something different?

The original link to the first "No Stolen Elections" pledge no longer works, but I found it archived here. That's a page on the site of the Liberty Tree Foundation, one of the sponsors of the new pledge. There is a lot of other great work happening there, but I can't consider either of these pledges as good examples. It is counterproductive to reinforce the frame: "if the election is stolen again." We all know already the "election" is a charade. We also all know more than enough to conclude with certainty that the "election" results will be inherently uncertain, inconclusive, and unprovable.

Even though I've been making this point for more than four years, it has morphed and sharpened somewhat in the past several weeks. For reference, read here and here, and listen here (.mp3) as I spoke at a Constitution Day rally in Eureka last month, and here (.mp3) for a few minutes with Peter B. Collins and Brad Friedman.

While my blog posts have not been frequent, I have been doing other writing that I'll soon make available. It will be another, bigger example of others saying what I'm saying we should say. If you get it, you need to pass it on to the media. Don't be shy about expressing disbelief or even disdain that media would expect us to accept their reporting of election results as fact when the results have not and can not be independently verified by media, can not even be proven, and come from only one source -- the government whose power is at stake. If we buy that, we really are insane by any definition.

Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/10/john-nichols-2000-2004-elections.html

No Flag Large Enough

2008-10-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/10/no-flag-large-enough_16.html

Slacker Uprising? Not in the Charlie Brown Nation.

2008-09-27T03:25:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore released a new film this week called "Slacker Uprising." After watching the free download tonight I realized nobody would have paid to see this had it been released in theaters.

"Slacker Uprising" chronicles Moore's 62 city "get out the vote" tour in the weeks leading up to the 2004 "election." He drew huge crowds, controversy, and media coverage in cities and towns of all sizes. His affable personality, quick wit and good humor were shown in abundance. And as Rady Ananda observed in her own review of the film, the events were depicted as anti-war and anti-Bush but no so much on selling positive attributes of John Kerry or the Democratic (sic) party.

Frankly, this movie was painful to watch, but not in the way that it hurts see a mom talking about losing a son to war (which was a sad and moving moment in fine Moore movie making tradition). This was painful--for me--in the same way even conservative pundits describe cringing during Sarah Palin interviews. I doubt that everyone will respond to "Slacker Uprising" this way, though perhaps you can understand my reaction through the prism of the words I was writing at the time these rallies were happening:

The GuvWurld Blog is Back, September 4, 2004

...I think there needs to be a planned response to the inevitable election uncertainty. We have disaster contingencies for all sorts of emergencies so why not a Constitutional crisis? It behooves us to know what we'll be calling for and that we have some harmonized voices in a chorus. I think it also makes sense to encourage elected officials to pledge a response. They must be held accountable for their responsibility to hold others accountable.# # #
Simulated Competition, October 12, 2004

The real competition occurs in these [court] battles while Bush vs. Kerry is simulated competition perpetuating the myth of democracy. This is the only point that now really needs to be made on behalf of the No Confidence Movement - if both major parties are preparing and planning for the uncertainty, so too must we plan and prepare.# # #
Bush Lawyer Anticipates Delay in Tally, October 16, 2004

More validation for the premise of No Confidence:
President Bush's top campaign lawyer said yesterday that the winner of next month's presidential vote may not be known for "days or weeks" after Election Day if the contest is close.
Full story from today's Washington Post (in GuvWurld News Archive, links to original)# # #
NYTimes Ponders Uncertain Election Outcome, October 16, 2004

I still have not read or heard of anybody making the argument that they have absolute confidence that the election will be 100% legitimate with a universally accepted outcome. This is an untenable position because there is NO BASIS for such confidence. From today's NYTimes:

(snip)
Some observers see potential for lasting benefits from another disputed election, at least once the dust has settled: they say it may finally rouse the country to overhaul the presidential election process.
While I recognize the election cannot and should not be pre-empted, I find this final excerpt to be highly motivational:
One thing that seems certain, though, is that there is no certainty about how the nation will handle the aftermath of a disputed election.
We can't know how the nation (or the world) as a whole will respond, but there is no reason for us not to be gathering in our communities to determine appropriate expressions of rejection for the impending sham.# # #
Post-"Election" Planning October 28, 2004

So what else, let's see...the GuvWurld News Archive has several recent stories about expecting an uncertain outcome:

San Francisco Chronicle - Various Controversies Expected To Delay Election Outcome - 10-23-04
FindLaw - The Coming Post-Election Chaos - 10-22-04
GovExec.com - Justice Dept Not Prepared To Document Election Aftermath - 10-19-04
NYTimes - Imagining the Danger of 2000 Redux - 10-17-04# # #

In general, I like Moore and his films. But watching "Slacker Uprising" was like seeing the Charlie Brown Nation running up to kick the football that is always pulled away at the last moment. Will Charlie ever learn? Will we?

Here we are four years later and my last two blog posts were "The Real Election Math," proving election results will again be unprovable this November; and "Hey Media! - Don't Report As Fact What Can't Even Be Proven (Federal Election Results)," in which linked to this speech (.mp3) I recently gave outlining a new campaign calling for the grassroots, progressive politicians, and progressive media to confront the corporate media in the simplest of terms.

Despite Moore's gung-ho "get out the vote" attitude, or perhaps because of it, he is now a must on the media outreach list for this campaign. I stuck my toe in that water Friday afternoon with a call to the Peter B. Collins show during Brad Friedman's regular guest spot on election integrity. Listen to the excerpt in the GuvWurld News Archive, or catch the full hour in PBC's podcast archive.

"Slacker Uprising" had no potential to come anywhere near Moore's box office financial successes, so I can see keeping it out of the theaters. What I'm struggling with is why anybody thought there was a good time to show this dated and painful reminder billed in the opening as "one filmmaker's failed attempt to turn things around."

Permalink:
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The Real Election Math

2008-09-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Paperless electronic voting +
Corporate vote counting guarded as proprietary secrets +
Nonsensical results such as negative vote totals =

"Election" results are UNPROVABLE.

Tell the media not to report as fact what can't even be proven and what hasn't been independently verified. The media should be the greatest advocates of hand counting paper ballots because this method of counting allows media greatest access to observing and documenting the process, affording their reporting the greatest credibility. Transparent coverage of a transparent counting process would create a basis for confidence in the reported results where none currently exists.

Listen to this .mp3:
http://tinyurl.com/3sppbd

I'm cross-posting this widely and encourage you to do the same.

Permalink:
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Hey Media! - Don't Report As Fact What Can't Even Be Proven (Federal Election Results)

2008-09-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

On August 17, 2005, I published an essay at the GuvWurld blog called "Why Old Election Numbers No Longer Matter." When I spoke at today's Constitution Day event at the Eureka courthouse, I read the beginning part of this essay:

This apocryphal parable contains only true facts. I know because I made them up myself.
The date was Sept 33, 1965. Samdy Kouflax ate eight live pigs, a new record among those in his Pagan cult. This sign of virility and luck soon paid dividends as Kouflax threw one of golf's most memorable games. Going all nine chuckers, Kouflax completed a no-hitter to lead his Chicago Whitehawks to the Super Bowl with a victory over the Boston Celtics. Kouflax's solo grand-slam leading off the first inning was all the offense needed that season. Many also remember this game for the unusual brawl that broke out between two Celtic mid-fielders. The ensuing power play enabled the 'Hawks to expand their zone defense with 20 men on the ice. All in all, it was a fabulous year for Samdy and his wife Whora.
Can you imagine yourself getting into a debate about who won this game or what was the final score? Any such discussion would validate the legitimacy of the idea that there was an actual game with a winner, a loser, and a knowable point tally. If you were asked who won, or what was the final score, the only reasonable answer is that it cannot be known from such nonsensical reporting. There is nothing in this story to suggest that a real game of any sort was actually played.

U.S. federal elections are held under conditions that are equally farcical. At this point, any discussion of the numbers, or the outcome, is only serving to reinforce that an actual election took place.

After the reading, I ad-libbed pretty faithfully by the outline I posted yesterday. In all I spoke for just under seven and a half minutes. Since there were only about 30 people at the rally, this .mp3 in the GuvWurld News Archive will be (needs to be!) heard by exponentially more people, including the government and media types I'm recommending we aim our message at:

Hey Media! - Don't Report As Fact What Can't Even Be Proven (Federal Election Results).

The media should be the biggest proponents of hand counting paper ballots because this allows for the greatest coverage of the process - transparent coverage of transparent counting creates a basis for confidence in the reported results, a reason to believe where currently none exists. I didn't get into the HCPB message today, though I was followed by Bob Olofson who did cover that on behalf of the Voter Confidence Committee.

I was not the only speaker today to utter the phrase "Consent of the Governed." This reminded me that I had recently subscribed for Google alerts on this phrase. In the first seven days I've had 38 alerts. That compares with an average of about five per week that I've been getting for the phrase "We Do Not Consent." I encourage everyone to use both of these phrases and let's drive those numbers up.

Another plug is due for the GuvWurld News Archive, brimming with recent articles on the economy. There is also a category called Revised Truth where I filed a Monday Washington Post article "The Power of Political Misinformation." The piece cites research indicating many people cling to mistaken beliefs more strongly when presented with information that debunks their erroneous belief. I find this interesting, but not surprising, as it would seem to support the description of ruthless honesty found in A Blueprint For Peaceful Revolution. Some of the specific suggestions of that paper are a bit dated now, but the overall concepts and strategy are still central to the We Do Not Consent blog and even today's rally.

Finally, since I forgot at the courthouse I'd like to mention here that Velvet Revolution has launched a campaign to encourage and support candidates who raise challenges to election results.

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Constitution Day and Citizenship Day

2008-09-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

Since I have been asked to speak Wednesday at a Constitution Day rally I Googled the phrase and learned from Wikipedia:

Constitution Day (or Citizenship Day) is an American federal holiday that recognizes the ratification of the United States Constitution, and also recognizes all who have become citizens due to either coming of age or naturalization. It is observed on September 17, the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in 1787.[1]

The law establishing the holiday was created in 2004 with the passage of an amendment by Senator Robert Byrd to the Omnibus spending bill of 2004.[2] Before this law was enacted, the holiday was known as "Citizenship Day". In addition to renaming the holiday "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day," the act mandates that all publicly funded educational institutions provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day.[3] In May 2005, the United States Department of Education announced the enactment of this law and that it would apply to any school receiving federal funds of any kind.[4] This holiday is not observed by granting time off work for federal employees.

When Constitution Day falls on a weekend or on another holiday, schools and other institutions observe the holiday on an adjacent weekday.[4] This was the case in 2005, when Constitution Day was generally observed on Friday, September 16[2] and 2006 when the holiday was observed on Monday, September 18.

A guy (or even a country) could be forgiven for not remembering the creation or past celebration of this sort-of holiday. After all, a well-known dangerous man is said to have characterized the Constitution differently: "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" It sure has been treated that way.

So Ellen Taylor has assembled an array of rabble-rousers to speak at the Humboldt County Courthouse in Eureka tomorrow at noon+15. This will be my first public speaking event in several months, likely since I very quietly took my leave of absence from the Voter Confidence Committee (VCC). It was a sabbatical, and it is now ending. I've been talking with members of the group over the past several days and next weekend will attend my first VCC meeting in five or six months.

It is not a done deal, but the odds look good for a shift in the group's emphasis over the next seven weeks. Tomorrow I'll be speaking about what I'd like to see happen, whether with the VCC or not, and not just here but everywhere citizens are organizing for election integrity. Frankly, it will not be much of a new message, just a different presentation based on timing. What follows is basically a stream of consciousness outline preview...

It is well understood that federal "election" results are unprovable...

Nothing that can be done here in Humboldt or in any other single given location can make federal "election" results provable...

The government and media will tell us the results and expect us to accept them, which is exactly what we should not do...

We need not and should not wait until after the "election" event to make our opposition known to accepting unprovable results (the objection is not to any particular result, but rather the claim that any result is even knowable)...

In towns across the country, we need swelling groups of citizens to appeal to anyone claiming to represent the People, starting at the most local level, city councils on up, asking for a commitment to reject unprovable federal "election" results...

The requested commitment may need to be conditional in some cases, going beyond the premise of secret vote counting necessarily producing unprovable results, spelling out familiar scenarios expected to repeat (electronic voting machines switching or losing votes, counting backwards, showing more votes than registered voters, etc.)...

A further potential condition should be expressed, namely the twin prospects of the "election" being canceled, or a subsequent refusal to allow an orderly succession of power...

Some may not be willing to commit to standing up against unprovable "election" results, but would finally make their stand if the Bush regime will not yield power...

This scenario is not guaranteed to happen, of course, but at the same time nobody can credibly argue about anything at all by saying "they'd never do THAT"...

So in one way or another we are looking for buy-in from the People and our representatives (sic), amplifying two messages...

First, that WE DO NOT CONSENT to "election" results that can't be proven, and which attempt to assume our consent and take it for granted; but also...

We must stand up to the media and insist they do not report as fact what can't even be proven, a sentiment repeatedly expressed here at WDNC for more than two years, as shown below in a June 2006 Humboldt Advocate article I called at the time "Best Election Protest Signs Ever."

Photo credit: Elaine Weinreb
Well this is a start anyway. I'll be ad-libbing around these themes and hope to post at least audio tomorrow...

Permalink:
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Unemployment Rises, Media Act Surprised

2008-09-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

The word "unexpected" should not be used when referring to much anymore, but especially not an increase in unemployment numbers. First the Eureka Times-Standard caught my eye with this AP story:

Jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week
The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 09/04/2008 09:07:35 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly-laid off workers seeking unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week, the government said Thursday, reversing three weeks of declines.

That instantly sent me to Google news where I found similar stories all using the word "unexpected" in Forbes, Times UK, Hartford Courant, and of course many others advancing the official narrative.

In contrast, here is what we all see and feel around us, acknowledged last month at Global Research:

Ann Taylor closing 117 stores nationwide.

Eddie Bauer to close more stores after closing 27 stores in the first quarter.

Cache, a women’s retailer is closing 20 to 23 stores this year.

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines closing 150 stores nationwide

Talbots, J. Jill closing stores. Talbots will close all 78 of its kids and men's stores plus another 22 underperforming stores. The 22 stores will be a mix of Talbots women's and J. Jill.

Gap Inc. closing 85 stores

Foot Locker to close 140 stores

Wickes Furniture is going out of business and closing all of its stores. The 37-year-old retailer that targets middle-income customers, filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Levitz - the furniture retailer, announced it was going out of business and closing all 76 of its stores in December. The retailer dates back to 1910.

Zales, Piercing Pagoda plans to close 82 stores by July 31 followed by closing another 23 underperforming stores.

Disney Store owner has the right to close 98 stores.

Home Depot store closings 15 of them amid a slumping US economy and housing market. The move will affect 1,300 employees. It is the first time the world's largest home improvement store chain has ever closed a flagship store.

CompUSA (CLOSED).

Macy's - 9 stores closed

Movie Gallery – video rental company plans to close 400 of 3,500 Movie Gallery

and Hollywood Video stores in addition to the 520 locations the video rental

chain closed last fall as part of bankruptcy.

Pacific Sunwear - 153 Demo stores closing

Pep Boys - 33 stores of auto parts supplier closing

Sprint Nextel - 125 retail locations to close with 4,000 employees following 5,000 layoffs last year.

J. C. Penney, Lowe's and Office Depot are all scaling back

Ethan Allen Interiors: plans to close 12 of 300 stores to cut costs.

Wilsons the Leather Experts – closing 158 stores

Bombay Company: to close all 384 U.S.-based Bombay Company stores.

KB Toys closing 356 stores around the United States as part of its bankruptcy reorganization.

Dillard's Inc. will close another six stores this year.

MORE
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20080802&articleId=9728

Unemployment is on the rise. Who knew?

* * *I posted a similar reality check with four links in two comments at the end of this terminally optimistic Eureka Reporter editorial from August 29. All four of these links are recent additions to the Economy section of the GuvWurld News Archive, now back online and continuing to compile "a growing record of stories the U.S. government would probably prefer history not record at the start of the 21st century."

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Hurricane Gustav, Shock Doctrine and "Election" Events

2008-08-31T16:42:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Gustav bearing down on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, expected to hit Monday, has already affected the presidential candidates' campaign calculus, and completely altered the media's telling of the campaign narrative. The NY Times reports the Republican convention scheduled to start tomorrow will be held in a very scaled back form and that the storm has also deflected media attention from both Obama's Thursday night acceptance speech (YouTube) and McCain's Friday veep announcement (YouTube).

If there is destruction and chaos on the Gulf Coast, this could easily become the pretext for triggering federal martial law, as reportedly occurred locally in some places following Katrina. Only now the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive has modified succession of powers, enabling any event to trigger consolidation of all government under the executive. See Naomi Wolf's "End of America" for various historical precursors to this "echo," a repeating pattern in which the rise to absolute power comes through a series of superficially legal maneuvers, including funking up elections.

Because November's "election" event, if it is even conducted, cannot produce a conclusive and verifiable outcome, the People's huge preference must be undeniably evidenced prior to that. 84,000 were in attendance for Obama's outdoor stadium acceptance speech, which saw all tickets accounted for in a one day application process. On Friday, McCain announced the relatively unknown yet scandal-plagued Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate at a rally that couldn't fill a 10,000 seat venue. Lost in the equation are compelling visual examples of Obama's clear and commanding lead. Instead, the media perpetuate the false narrative of a close race.

Let me be clear that I endorse no candidate. I'm a fair election supporter. Though I don't think he'll be a revolutionary agent of change, if Obama has the votes to win then he should win. But first he should become outspoken about the process. Part of addressing the process, from my view, in this case, is something Obama supporters could do. I'm not usually in the position of offering advice to this seemingly massive and growing majority, but this is what I can see as the most likely way to ensure the outcome of the "election" event reflects the will of the People.

As with the juxtaposition of the numbers above, there must be constant and overwhelming collective displays of public Obama preference beyond individual expressions such as buttons, bumper stickers and lawn signs. There must be aggressive efforts to ensure the media depiction, including reporting on opinion polls, shows comparisons of candidate support are unequivocal. In this way, just having the "election" event becomes a formality. The inherent uncertainty of the unverifiable results may be neutralized without the suspense and doubt of a seemingly close race, a facade created for the power play necessary to funk up the results.

In addition, these pre-"election" displays need to directly address what will be done should the outcome be funked up. For that matter, such demonstrations of People power also ought to address rejecting the final dictatorial power grab looming over us, threatening the prospect of even having an "election" event. Velvet Revolution has launched a campaign to encourage and support candidates who raise challenges to election results. They also have a prosecute Karl Rove campaign.

Lest anyone think my suggestions or perspective are partisan, I reiterate my view that this is all simulated competition and Obama is in many ways a false alternative. That is not to say Obama and McCain are identical, but rather that Obama's talk of change is woefully inadequate at busting the myths of democracy, capitalism, free speech, free press, free markets and the rest of The Big Lie. However, while McCain appears ready to use the storm backdrop for political theater, Obama is pledging to wait and see, then organize, inspire and motivate citizen volunteers to assist in the aftermath.

And what can we expect this to look like? There is already a heavily armed military and law enforcement presence, while the war criminal enterprise Blackwater seeks to hire more mercenaries for the scene. The Department of Homeland Security (sic), FEMA (sic), and the Department of Defense (sic) will of course interfere with the command of state governors. And in a recurring theme here at WDNC lately, Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" illustrates the pattern of exploitative security and privatization responses to disasters.

Pulling that thread just a little further, the North Coast Journal recently published Shane C. Brinton's book review of "Shock Doctrine," followed by my letter to the editor based on the review (the letter was given the great title of "Fascists!"). This week's Journal includes another wonderfully titled letter "Mas Fascismo" based on my letter.

The Journal is a free weekly paper with a focus on local Humboldt County, CA events. I always enjoy seeing them publish letters from readers outside our area, and in this case from an H.M Johnson coincidentally located in Redwood Falls, Minnesota, just under 100 miles from the partly aborted Republican convention, where some blatantly fascist police tactics have been used on protesters. See Uptake.org for lots of video, and also Twin Cities Daily Planet for some additional reporting.

Between Gustav and two potential flash points to create excuses for declaring martial law, this is shaping up to be a dangerous week.

* * *Bush jokes of staying in power
October 17, 2007
Official White House Transcript

Q Mr. President, following up on Vladimir Putin for a moment. He said recently that next year when he has to step down, according to the constitution, as President, he may become Prime Minister, in effect keeping power and dashing any hopes for a genuine democratic transition there. Senator McCain --

THE PRESIDENT: I've been planning that myself. (Laughter.)

* * *
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Fascists! (NC Journal Prints My LTTE re Shock Doctrine Book Review)

2008-08-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

Friday night I posted a brief comment about a review of Naomi Klein's book, "Shock Doctrine," published in the North Coast Journal. I mentioned that the post was a variation on a letter to the editor I was about to submit, which the Journal published this week, at newsstands now but not yet online (though I predict this link will work tomorrow, and if not I'll post an update). Dig the title, including punctuation!

North Coast Journal
Mailbox
August 14, 2008

Fascists!

Editor:

Thank you for publishing Shane C. Brinton's review of Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" (Aug. 7). The most important point Brinton makes is at the very end: "Klein hasn't discovered something new so much as she has explained how a very old strategy is manifesting itself in even more atrocious ways."

I had a similar thought reading Naomi Wolf's "End of America" (see Journal book review, Oct. 25, 2007), and John Perkins' "Confessions of An Economic Hitman." Historical patterns, or echoes, are revealed through myriad examples in each of these books, which all lay bare what we seem to be collectively trying to deny.

But what's that old saying about if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck? Around the world and throughout time, this is what has been called fascism. I'm not discovering anything new either - just reminding my good American neighbors that it can happen here and it is.

Dave Berman
Eureka, CA# # #

The only thing edited from how I submitted that letter is the un-capitalized G in good Americans. The expression Good Americans has been used increasingly in the past few years, serving as another historical echo to the fabled Good Germans who failed to stop Hitler's rise. Actually, after browsing some links, I see that the phrase is not always capitalized, so perhaps I needed to put it in quotes. At any rate, good on the Journal for publishing the book review, and now the letter in response.

Permalink:
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Distributed Power

2008-08-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

An article posted at Forbes.com last Thursday describes Denmark's decentralized and decoupled energy system, billing it as "The Answer To The Energy Problem."

Denmark has done what other countries only dream of doing: achieved energy independence. While Europe's overall energy imports rose 2.4% in 2006, Denmark's energy imports fell to -8%. In fact, the European Union as a whole scores 54% on the scale of energy dependency. Denmark scores -37%.

"Denmark is the model that the United States should be following," said Steve Pullins, executive director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Modern Grid Initiative.

How'd they do it? Distributed energy.

Unlike traditional "centralized" systems, distributed energy relies on small power-generating technologies like solar panels or ultra-efficient natural-gas turbines built near the point of energy consumption to supplement or displace grid-distributed electricity.

Consumers can not only draw power from the grid, but can feed power into it as well. For instance, homes equipped with solar-power panels could feed unused electricity back into the grid, adding to the total available supply.

Somehow this arrangement seems so obvious. We all need energy and can have it clean and renewably if we treat it as the commons rather than a commodity. Forbes continues:

The change has taken Denmark nearly two decades to implement, but the most critical step was the introduction of smart- or net-metering, which required utilities to buy back electricity from consumers at 85% of the price. Denmark's success has convinced a growing number of policymakers and energy executives to follow suit.

In the U.S., the movement faces constraints from a familiar place: power companies. Distributed energy aims to decouple profits and consumption so that power companies have a greater incentive to invest in energy-efficiency technologies that drive distributed-energy networks. Changing that relationship is even more critical than technological innovation.

"Very little can happen without having the utilities involved in the process," said Ron Pernick, a founder of clean-technology consulting firm Clean Edge. "Regulators need to give utilities the tools they need to get involved, which basically means decoupling."

It is no accident America has the opposite of distributed power. Corporate control of the government/military/media juggernaut, the fascist backbone, subjugates the population, in part through manipulation of the type, amount and cost of available energy. On top of that is the sabotage of the environment (pollution for profit).

Paul Krugman, in last Thursday's NY Times, glibly wrote about "Know-Nothing Politics," inventing a de-facto slogan for the Republican party: "Real men don't think things through." This followed Obama's Tuesday remark that McCain is "proud to be ignorant," when it comes to energy and the environment.

The truth is we are generations late in realizing the virtues of clean and renewable energy. This isn't a debate to even be had in the present. Perhaps in a parallel universe the Industrial Revolution occurred with full observance of the triple bottom line, balancing profit with environmental and societal impact. Instead of disaster capitalism, is conscious capitalism even conceivable or just a paradoxical slogan?

I always thought one of the all-time greatest things to make you say "huh" was Reagan removing Carter's solar panels from the White House roof. The Forbes article above ends with another along these lines:

Last year, the U.S Army Corps of Engineers installed more than 1,000 solar-powered street lights in Fallujah, a predominantly Sunni city in central Iraq that was the scene of a brutal battle between insurgents and U.S. soldiers in 2004.

During the day, the lamps store energy from the intense desert sunlight in batteries large enough to keep them lit from dusk to dawn. Now, the streets are lit every night--in a country which, in the last five years, has probably spent more hours without electricity than with it.
* * *

A phrase came to mind the other day and I thought for sure it would turn up more than four Google hits: We need the Earth more than the Earth needs us.

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Adventure Therapy For Veterans Coming to Incopah

2008-08-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

Another great project I've learned about through Vets For Peace is called Incopah, a rural retreat for veterans transitioning back to life at home. This is something in the making, that isn't yet launched, at least not this chapter of a burgeoning nationwide network at VeteransVillage.org. Other similar campuses have opened across the country, no two exactly alike but all offering adventure therapy for vets.

Adventure therapy, via Wikipedia (excerpt): "Adventure therapy approaches psychological treatment through experience and action within cooperative games, Trust activities, Problem Solving Initiatives, High adventure, outdoor pursuits, and wilderness expeditions."

Google adventure therapy and you can find various counselors offering to facilitate such a process, as well as research and books on the topic.

I have been hearing about this over the past year or so as efforts have picked up here in Humboldt County, CA, where Incopah is planned near Willow Creek. My friend Marc Knipper is spearheading this local effort and has started getting some press for it. On Friday evening, KMUD radio aired an almost 8 minute interview (listen .mp3) that I excerpted for the GuvWurld news archive.

And this is from the July 21 Eureka Times-Standard (archive):

The program, a 22-acre retreat in the hills near Willow Creek, called "Incopah," would help transition vets using adventure therapy, non-denominational spiritual ceremonies and meditative work with the land, Knipper said.

Drug- and alcohol-free, the veterans would make pottery, raise bees, garden and do other therapeutic, tactile work, while participating in ceremonies based on indigenous philosophies.

"One day they're in Iraq killing people, and the next day they're home. One day you're a warrior and the next day you're not -- native people know you have to bring your warriors home, nurture them and prepare them," Knipper said.

Knipper said he envisions the veteran-built retreat offering veterans a place to reflect and recover, off the grid and solitary in the forest "to bring our warriors back into the tribe."

Incopah could house between 20 and 30 veterans at any given time, and would be open to the public for guided adventure tourism -- like rock climbing or white water rafting -- six months out of the year.

Knipper said by opening the resort to tourism, the program could be financially self-sustaining, and would teach the veterans skill sets that could benefit them in the job market after they leave.

This is such a great project and I'll be looking for ways to provide support. Fundraising is underway with sights set on January to begin clearing the 22 acres. The T-S article concludes:

Donations can be made to Incopah, or Veterans Village, through Knipper: Mknipper@VeteransVillage.org or phone 707-498-6937 for more information.

Here is a link to the Incopah page on the Veterans Village website. The umbrella group was created by Nadia McCaffery whose son Sgt Patrick R. McCaffrey was killed in Iraq on June 22, 2004.

Because a commercial airliner brought Patrick's flagged-draped coffin to Sacramento and hundreds of waiting friends, media captured one of those rare administration censored visuals of fallen heroes. Since that day, an apolitical mother has publicly questioned the war and searched for a "totally new, better way to involve ourselves in the world."

The names of both mother and son are quite well known now, and each returns thousands of Google hits. Like the family of Pat Tillman, Nadia McCaffrey has been tenacious at compelling exposure of a full accounting of her son's death at the hands of Iraqis he was training. I can't help wondering if that is its own form of adventure therapy for the grieving?

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North Coast Journal Reviews "Shock Doctrine"

2008-08-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Shane C. Brinton reviews Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" in this week's North Coast Journal. I've mentioned this book a few times here at We Do Not Consent, but since I never got around to writing a review, I'm glad to see the Journal run this. I will be sending a letter to the editor thanking them, and making a variation on just the one point I want to make here now. Brinton's review concludes:

If this book has a weakness it is, perhaps, Klein's apparent belief that the "shock doctrine" is something new and that she has cracked the case. While Milton Friedman's cold, calculating brand of capitalism is especially disgusting, the use of collective trauma for political and economic gains was around long before he was. Klein hasn't discovered something new so much as she has explained how a very old strategy is manifesting itself in even more atrocious ways. Still, this is an extremely well written, enlightening book, one of the best by a left-wing author in the last decade.

Brinton is totally right on about Klein not discovering something, but rather showing us more repeating patterns, or "historical echoes," to use Naomi Wolf's term from "End of America." I think this is a very effective way to create context and aids us in re-framing the way we discuss many of America's myths, such as so-called "free markets," "free press," and "free speech." Brinton didn't go there, unfortunately, and perhaps even lazily reinforced the shallow and unnecessary paradigm of Klein as "left-wing." I wish instead he had pointed out that the current echoes playing out have always defined what has been called fascism.

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Vets For Peace Anti-Recruitment Guide, The Golden Ticket For The Arcata, Eureka Youth Protection Act

2008-08-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

Late last year I posted about the terrific anti-recruitment guide published by Veterans For Peace Humboldt Bay Chapter 56. They have now printed a second edition (with a third in the works) so I want to offer the link again to the updated version:
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE .PDF
While the guide was developed independent of the Stop Recruiting Kids campaign, now that the Youth Protection Act (full text below) has qualified for the November ballot in both Arcata and Eureka, I dare say the effort to keep military recruiters away from those under 18 has pretty much the best campaign literature ever.

* * *
YOUTH PROTECTION ACT

AN ORDINANCE TO PROHIBIT THE MILITARY RECRUITMENT OF ANY PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN

To protect the welfare of our youth, the People of Arcata Ordain as Follows:

No person who is employed by or an agent of the United States government shall, within the City of Arcata, in the execution of his or her job duties, recruit, initiate contact with for the purpose of recruiting, or promote the future enlistment of any person under the age of eighteen into any branch of the United States Armed Forces.

Authority:

This Ordinance is adopted and enacted pursuant to the authority guaranteed to the people of Arcata by the California Constitution (Article 2, Section1) and the U.S. Constitution (Amendments IX and X) which guarantee political power to the people and recognize the right to exercise that power through initiative and referendum (California Constitution Article 4, Section I).

Findings

1) Military Recruiters Target Teens.

Military recruiters target teens through ad campaigns, mailings, telephone calls, email, and direct personal contact. They promote enlistment by glorifying military service and exaggerating the educational and career benefits, while ignoring the dangers. Recruiters are rewarded for meeting enlistment quotas and risk reassignment if quotas are not met. College and business recruiters lack equivalent resources and incentives to promote non-military careers to teens.

2) People under the age of eighteen are not permitted to vote.

As a society, we believe that people under eighteen lack the life experience to make informed choices; they cannot vote, sign contracts, or make medical and other legal decisions. Although people under eighteen cannot enlist in the military without parental consent, sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in our community are routinely urged by recruiters to commit themselves to future enlistment after their eighteenth birthdays. Those who do enlist in the military may be ordered to participate in actions that violate Constitutional and International Law including bombings of civilian targets, invasions and occupations of sovereign nations, or illegal detention and mistreatment of suspected terrorists. Young soldiers risk their lives and sanity without a developed ability to comprehend the consequences of their actions. Unlike civilian employees, military enlistees may be prosecuted and imprisoned if they refuse to obey an order, or if they change their minds and want to quit their jobs in the military. If we believe that people under the age of eighteen lack the experience and maturity necessary for voting, then they should not be subjected to the highly sophisticated and well-funded efforts of military recruiters to enlist them in the armed forces.

3) The First Amendment protects the free speech of people, not the government.

While some may argue that recruiting is "speech" protected by the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of people from the excesses of government.

4) This Ordinance does not violate provisions of No Child Left Behind.

The No Child Left Behind Act (PL 117-110, Section 9528.3) mandates that: "Each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide military recruiters the same access to secondary school students as is provided generally to post secondary educational institutions or to prospective employers of those students." This Ordinance is to be approved by the voters, not by any local educational agency. Under the Ordinance, schools may still provide access to military recruiters, but recruiters are prohibited from recruiting or promoting the future enlistment of any person under the age of eighteen.

Specific Purpose:

The specific purpose of this Ordinance is to protect youth under the age of eighteen from military recruiting.

Statement of Law:

No person who is employed by or an agent of the United States government shall, within the City of Arcata, in the execution of his or her job duties, recruit, initiate contact with for the purpose of recruiting, or promote the future enlistment of any person under the age of eighteen into any branch of the United States Armed Forces.

Nothing in this Ordinance shall prevent any person from voluntarily visiting a military recruitment office or specifically initiating a request to meet with a recruiter.

Nothing in this Ordinance shall prevent individuals who are not employed by or agents of the U.S. government from encouraging people under the age of eighteen to join the military.

Enforcement

The City of Arcata shall inform all local military recruiters and their commanding officers of this Ordinance, which prohibits military recruiting of any person under the age of eighteen within the City of Arcata. Any military recruiter who violates this Ordinance, as well as his or her commanding officer, shall be held responsible for said violation. Both shall be deemed guilty of an infraction and shall be subject to the penalties stated in the Arcata Municipal Code. (A.M.C. I-3-1200) A citizen complaint of any unsolicited military recruiting activity involving people under the age of eighteen shall initiate investigation and possible citation by the Arcata Police Department for violation of this Ordinance. If recruiters violate this Ordinance five or more times within one month, military recruiting of persons under the age of eighteen shall be deemed a public nuisance and shall be summarily abated.

(A.M.C. I-3-1201)

Severability

The provisions of this Ordinance are severable. If any section or provision of this Ordinance is determined to be illegal, invalid or unconstitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction, such decision of the court shall not affect or invalidate any of the remaining sections or provisions of this Ordinance. It is the express intent of the people of Arcata, California that this Ordinance would have been adopted if such illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional section or provision had not been included.

Effective Date

This Ordinance shall take effect thirty (30) days after adoption by the voters.

Interpretation

In the event this Ordinance requires interpretation (by courts, county officials, or anyone else), it is the express intent of the people of Arcata that this Ordinance be construed in such a manner to carry out the original intent of this Initiative, which is to prohibit military recruitment of any person under the age of eighteen within the City of Arcata.

* * *
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Prosecute Bush For Murder

2008-08-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

If there is a single hallmark of my writing it has been the pursuit of strategies for Americans to adopt on an individual or group basis on the local level in order to cause large scale change. It is from this point of view that I take an interest in legendary prosecutor and best selling author Vincent Bugliosi's new book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder." I'll come back to that hook after some context.

While I just ordered the book from Amazon and have not yet read it, the title conveys the simple premise, the basic details are amply explored online, and the book is already a best-seller despite a near media blackout. On this last point it is interesting to see the NY Times interview Bugliosi, as well a CNN video clip focusing on the media's disinterest posted at Raw Story.

The shortage of coverage is primarily on the TV talk show circuit, which has previously featured Bugliosi promoting his earlier books. It has also been reported that ads for the book have been rejected, including by ABC Radio for the Don Imus show. The book's exposure has come mainly through radio interviews, online ads, and significant word of mouth. Here is a transcript from Democracy Now! and a brief interview with The Nation.

On July 25, Bugliosi was also one of the witnesses who testified before the House Judiciary Committee (C-SPAN video via YouTube below). The Committee's business that day was instigated by the single article of impeachment against Bush introduced July 10 by OH Congressman Dennis Kucinich (not part of his previous 35 articles against Bush or his three articles against Cheney from April 2007). In typical false alternative fashion the hearing into the "Imperial Presidency" had some limited parameters mentioned here and in the opening of Bugliosi's statement below:

Bugliosi has been adamant that his proposed prosecution of Bush is not hypothetical or rhetorical. He claims the book establishes jurisdiction for hundreds of state and federal prosecutors as well as thousands of district attorneys throughout the US in any community that has seen a military member die in Iraq. Copies of the book have been sent to many such prosecutors, and really, all it takes is one.

So here's the thing. As justified as impeachment is, I'm not the only one to offer an explanation for why it hasn't and won't happen. But even if somehow all the reasons were rendered moot, it is still a strategy that depends on convincing a large number of people to do something. On the other hand, at least to get the ball rolling behind Bugliosi's idea, all it takes is one. That makes it much more appealing from the standpoint of transformational strategy, lower hanging fruit that can be pursued not only by individuals and small groups, but both independently and in tandem simultaneously across the land.

I would think that the way to start in any community is first finding family members of fallen soldiers who are willing to encourage their local district attorney. This surely requires a high level of tact and sensitivity, though perhaps Gold Star Families For Peace may represent a head start in any given location. I welcome referrals to or direct contact with any such people.

Yes, this is still a long shot and I'm not anticipating dropping everything to focus on it. However, as I said here at WDNC as recently as two night ago, all pretenses of progress will be mere illusions (and slogans of hope and change unfortunate delusions) unless and until we restore justice and the rule of law.

It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now

--Rage Against The Machine, "Guerrilla Radio"

* * *
Permalink:
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Bush In Prison - Wish You Were Here

2008-08-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

More than six years ago I had the idea for the image below. It actually came to me as a flash animation, but I've neither acquired those skills nor been able to persuade anyone to complete the project. Finally a few weeks ago I found this stock photo and used my rudimentary PhotoShop skills to add the caption. Below the image is the original (2002) storyboard for the full concept.

* * *
What I'd like to see in Flash or some other computer animation:

1. opening frames have heartbeat sound effects from the outro to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon

2. the beating coincides with an image coming in and out of focus, near to viewer, then further away

3. image turns out to be "US" and a sideways Enron "E", in the form of a flag on the lapel of a headless torso dressed in a traditional blue suit (note: that was the original idea; the lapel pin could say something else, such as "anti-fascist" or "war criminal" or...?)

4. with the buttoned down torso clearly in focus, the sound effects segueway via a scream from another Pink Floyd song (a few to choose from)

5. this scream coincides with prison bars coming into focus, from near viewer perspective to further, pinning the torso in a prison cell

6. music switches again, quoting the line "exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage"

7. this line plays while the head of George W. Bush comes bouncing into view from the right, landing on the headless torso

8. the full body now appears with Bush's arms raised slightly above his head, hands gripping the bars, shaking them

9. music segueways again, still within the same song, now mentioning the title "oh, how I Wish You Were Here"

* * *
I put this out there openly for anyone willing to take the next steps. Contact me to collaborate, or just have at it!

Here are the full lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" (listen .mp3):

So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil,
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead-role in a cage?

How I wish, How I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl, year after year
Running over the same old ground. What have you found? The same old fears
Wish you were here

(Waters, Gilmour)

* * *
Permalink:
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Naomi Wolf: Dear world, please confront America

2008-08-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

I've blogged about author Naomi Wolf several times before. On Friday, Daily News Egypt (archive) published her op-ed called "Dear world, please confront America." Yet again she has struck a chord I can't ignore:

But, while grassroots pressure has not worked, money still talks. We need targeted government-led sanctions against the US by civilized countries, including international divestment of capital. Many studies have shown that tying investment to democracy and human rights reform is effective in the developing world. There is no reason why it can't be effective against the world's superpower.

We also need an internationally coordinated strategy for prosecuting war criminals at the top and further down the chain of command - individual countries pressing charges, as Italy and France have done. Although the United States is not a signatory to the statute that established the International Criminal Court, violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes for which anyone - potentially even the US president - may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions. The whole world can hunt these criminals down.

An outlaw America is a global problem that threatens the rest of the international community. If this regime gets away with flouting international law, what is to prevent the next administration - or this administration, continuing under its secret succession plan in the event of an emergency - from going further and targeting its political opponents at home and abroad?

We Americans are either too incapable, or too dysfunctional, to help ourselves right now. Like drug addicts or the mentally ill who refuse treatment, we need our friends to intervene. So remember us as we were in our better moments, and take action to save us - and the world - from ourselves.

Sad but true, and once again reminding me of an old essay of mine I've oft quoted here at the We Do Not Consent blog. I wrote these words during the indeterminate period following the 2000 "election":

If any world leaders are indeed scrupulous, shouldn't *they* contest the legitimacy of the recent U.S. Presidential election? Could you imagine if impartial voices of reason from around the world helped us to hold up the mirror displaying our own ridiculous image?

In the final analysis, either foreign powers will choose not to recognize our next government or the entire world will be complicit in our illegitimacy. Either way, it would not only serve us right, it will be what we deserve.

Of course when I wrote that it was not inevitable that Americans would roll over (and over and over) for the march to fascism. I don't claim prescience either, though I'll also quote not for the first time Rage Against the Machine, from their 1992 song "Settle For Nothing":

"If we don't take action now, we settle for nothing later. We'll settle for nothing now, and we'll settle for nothing later."

Americans have been doing that repeatedly despite one egregious injustice after another. We're past realizing they don't represent us; we're past plainly calling them liars; we're past even revealing enough to prove war crimes. Maybe we Americans have more in common with average Iraqis than we realize - both our peoples have become subjects of the same occupiers, another point I've made previously.

I'm struck now by the thought it is no wonder I've been posting so infrequently. When I do I'm barely more than repeating myself. Then I'm reminded of my friend Paul Lehto, who is fond of reminding us that early American pamphleteer Thomas Paine noted that not all people will simultaneously conclude revolution has become necessary. Those of us who figure it out earlier on bear the responsibility of bringing others on board, serving as teachers to repeat our message as often as needed. And so, at least right now, I'm back at it, dear WDNC readers:

Peaceful revolution is necessary, NOW!

And kudos to Naomi Wolf for indefatigably reiterating and updating her lesson (see her book "End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot; and my North Coast Journal book review). We need to expand the ways we consider transformational strategy.

And one more thing. Another part of what's been keeping me quiet is the maxed out noise factor of being a news follower - and I don't even own a television! Just from online reading, some radio, and an occasional youtube video, I can't escape the sense that Americans are trapped within the parameters of a public dialog that goes nowhere near the relevant issues necessary to deliver us out of fascism. As I said in So-ing The Seeds of Change, all pretenses of progress will be mere illusions (and slogans of hope and change unfortunate delusions) unless and until we restore justice and the rule of law. Let's not be too proud or stubborn about how we help ourselves.

Permalink:
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Breaking: Rep. Kucinich Reading Impeachment Articles Against Bush

2008-06-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

Watch C-Span.

Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/06/breaking-rep-kucinich-reading.html

So-ing The Seeds of Change

2008-05-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy

"So?" -- Dick Cheney

* * *
Two months ago, on the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, ABC News asked Dick Cheney to comment on "recent polls that show about two-thirds of Americans say the fight in Iraq is not worth it." With a chuckle and a smirk (video), Cheney famously replied, "so?"

As infuriating as this may be, it comes as no surprise. In fact, this quip - "so?" - should feel familiar to millions of Americans ardently working for peace, justice, the rule of law, election integrity, and a host of other supra-issues, each another path to understanding the illegitimacy of the power behind such dismissiveness.

This illegitimate power flaunts itself virtually unchecked, reinforced by mass media and enabled by the learned helplessness of the American people. Ever since the indeterminate period following the 2000 "election," I have drawn attention to this odd paradox of helplessness, from which it is past time we learned:

Having cast a vote, each of us is supposed to know that we did our part to elect our next set of leaders. Yet we are in fact helpless to influence the outcome of events in Florida. Will the election be determined by legal wrangling or concession, vote totals or fraud? No matter which seems to be the ultimate basis for declaring a winner, many will scream injustice. Doesn't this uncertainty cast doubt on the legitimacy of any eventual outcome?

This impenetrable defense against logic ("so?") appears to be contributing to a widespread public emotional and/or mental condition, on the order of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Because I am not immune from these and related forces, I will share the rest of my Cheney-induced flashback...

[S]hortly after 9/11, I saw a newspaper photo of a limp woman being dragged by police officers at a UC Berkeley Middle East peace rally. Passive resistance appeared to me as a classic activist technique. With images of picket signs, sit-ins, marches and strikes all popping into my head, I stared at the woman in the picture and couldn't help feeling that her attempt at noble sacrifice left the world no different the next day.

Six years ago I concluded traditional American activism was futile. Now with much of the country awake, a wealth of great online organizing experience under our collective belt, and personal opportunities that allow my writing to reach far larger audiences...despite all that, we've continued to lose our most basic fundamental and unalienable rights, we've learned many times over (or should have) to protect ourselves from our so-called government, and we've seen any pretext of accountability run into a wall of "so?" (think Bolton, Miers, Addington, and Rove all ignoring Congressional subpoenas; or worse, open admissions of torture and illegal spying).

I'm reminded of the Blueprint For Peaceful Revolution, which I wrote over the summer of 2005 and circulated just prior to my participation in the National Summit to Save Our Elections, held in Portland, OR that fall:

· The introduction of paperless electronic voting machines has resulted in "elections" whose unverifiable results are inherently inconclusive. In November 2004, roughly 30% of the votes cast could not be recounted using physical ballots touched by voters. This is blatantly illegal in the many jurisdictions where a close race automatically triggers a recount. It also means we cannot possibly reconcile the results of so-called "glitches" such as machines losing data, counting backwards, or reporting more votes than registered voters. These conditions ensure inconclusive outcomes that will never receive unanimous acceptance (more inherent uncertainty). As the City Council of Arcata, CA attested in adopting the Voter Confidence Resolution, "When elections are conducted under conditions that prevent conclusive outcomes, the Consent of the Governed is not being sought."
Failing to seek the Consent of the Governed has created a situation where such Consent is assumed. Allowing this assumption to stand is the great collective sabotage* of We The People. The very legitimacy of the U.S. government must be questioned and challenged for it is based not on democratic principles or even laws, but rather the textbook aspects of fascism. Within the reality-based community, these 14 characteristics of fascism are familiar thanks to Laurence W. Britt's widely circulated essay describing commonalities among seven different fascist regimes throughout history.

* Sabotage is the human nature tendency to make trouble for ourselves. Sabotage is yin to the yang of Progress – the result that occurs when we stop making trouble for ourselves.

Naomi Wolf has since written an even more compelling book, End of America, which defines fascism by common practices of many past regimes, seemingly a template for America's transformation. The North Coast Journal published my book review:

Extensively footnoted, this book draws out astounding parallels between Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet and more. Laid against the backdrop of 21st century America, Wolf shows those currently in power have followed the playbook closely.

Wolf refers to "historical echoes" when describing such recurrent totalitarian manifestations as: secret prisons, mercenary or paramilitary forces, surveillance of ordinary citizens and infiltration of their organizations, restrictions on the press and speech in general, arbitrary detainment and release of citizens, evocation of a constant internal and external threat, allegations of espionage and treason at critics and dissenters and subversion of the rule of law.

To paraphrase an old proverb, people plan, god laughs. I'm not religious and I'm not saying Cheney is god. I'm saying every worthwhile progressive cause can only advance "so?" far until justice and the rule of law are re-established and we deliver ourselves from the illegitimate fascist powers that have taken control of the US government.

Back at the Portland conference I was not able to sway the three dozen or so assembled election integrity advocates who I had hoped would stop treating election integrity as the end goal and begin seeing it as a tactic toward peaceful revolution, a shift in the relationship of power between the People and government. Then as now, it needs to be understood that general acceptance of bogus elections is the juncture at which we either allow our Consent to be assumed and taken for granted, or we make clear that WE DO NOT CONSENT, and prevent power from being usurped by anyone claiming to be so entitled. Upon returning home from the conference I wrote "Peaceful Revolution Is The Elephant In The Room":

I took comfort in observing that most if not all in attendance understand empirically, logically and emotionally that there is no rational basis for confidence in the results reported from U.S. federal elections. There was a lot of discussion about what has happened in recent "elections." But even more important were the projections, made with certainty, that future elections held under these conditions will guarantee inconclusive outcomes and fail to produce unanimous acceptance of the results.

(snip)

Looking at the real elephant in the room includes these questions: where is the movement going? What will it look like when it succeeds? How can we develop and facilitate the implementation of a cohesive national strategy? And how can we make the phrase "peaceful revolution" socially acceptable? This is why I went to Portland. There was some progress made but we did not get to the core of this matter.

I continued to lead down this path as much as possible, and at times felt great support, including in June 2006. That's when Congress seated and swore in Brian Bilbray as the Representative of California's 50th District, based on a preliminary fax from an assistant Secretary of State of CA, who later acknowledged 65,000 ballots had not yet been counted. In response to the CA-50 power grab I wrote a resolution adopted by the California Election Protection Network, which also received the support of other groups as well as influencing the language of additional separate resolutions:

Therefore, be it resolved that to warrant the Consent of the Governed, and the authorization of the transfer of power to winning candidates, a full hand count of all legally cast ballots shall first be conducted. This hand count shall reflect the only official result and not be regarded as a recount in any way, including relieving voters of the obligation to pay for said count; and

Therefore, be it resolved that until such a hand count has been verifiably conducted and a conclusive outcome determined, We, The People, DO NOT CONSENT to transferring power and authority to candidates claiming victory in this illegitimate election. We will do everything within our Constitutional and Human Rights to protect and preserve possession of this power that is inalienably Ours to be given but never taken away.

The collective outcry in this case was channeled into a lawsuit brought by voters. Attorney Paul Lehto correctly called this election nullification, a term that is apt for all so-called "elections" held under unverifiable conditions. His point was that if the outcome of an election could be determined this way then it defeats the purpose of voting and having an election in the first place. So? The judge dismissed the case on the premise that the Constitution gives Congress the final say in seating members, and not even a large number of uncounted ballots could give the court jurisdiction to order counting, whether by hand or otherwise.

Right about this time I also challenged the media to follow its own most fundamental ethics and not to report as fact what simply can't be proven and confirmed (unverified and unverifiable "election" results). This is a perfect example of a tilt target, an untenable position that can be maintained (by the media, in this case) only for the lack of being pointed out and challenged. This was among a series of talking points I published and circulated for progressive media. It also spawned two published op-eds and two radio forums on media accountability. So? Without louder sustained pressure upon this Achilles' heel of media credibility, the situation remains unchanged today.

Even progressive stalwarts such as Thom Hartmann and Peter B. Collins continue to devote substantial radio air time to discussing the candidates and campaigns even though we see widespread consensus that this will have no bearing on how "election" results will be determined. The message of this essay must reach beyond my friends and respected colleagues in the election integrity movement and sink in to the minds of the millions volunteering for and donating to candidate campaigns (for any office, really, not just president). I'd like to think the former can manifest the latter.

So how should Americans react in November after the climax of this never ending campaign results in the predictable spoiled mess with an inherently inconclusive, unknowable outcome that won't be unanimously accepted? I posed this exact question to former Georgia Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on May 9, when she appeared at Humboldt State University on her campaign for the Green Party nomination for President.

She spent nearly five minutes in response (listen here - .mp3), acknowledging many aspects inherent in this situation, but without saying how we can reject the phony results or how her campaign would address this in advance. So? McKinney is articulate, knowledgeable, and brave enough to discuss many things the media and other candidates won't touch. However, she resembled the many polished authors that stop by on book tours, and not someone advertising leadership we were urged to follow.

To McKinney's credit, without my having uttered the word "confidence," as in "no basis for confidence in election results," or the Voter Confidence Committee, in the audio linked above you will hear her say "we can't have confidence in the election results...we are participating in blind faith voting." So? She knows her campaign is part of an "election" masquerading as a legit election and yet she acts without direct challenge to the charade. This also encourages others to look past it, feeding that society-wide PTSD contagion.

McKinney credited the widely used phrase "blind faith voting" to Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris. Recently Harris submitted written testimony to the federal Election Assistance Commission. Here are some important excerpts:

We do not consent to any form of secret vote counting, administered and controlled by government insiders and their vendors...Citizens are never allowed to view the original input in order to compare it to the output, and are relegated to trusting circumstantial evidence controlled by insiders. Such a system is, in fact, a transfer of power...The people were never asked to approve such a transfer of power, have never consented to it, and indeed cannot consent, because the right of sovereignty over the instruments of government which we have created is an inalienable right, one which cannot be given away, nor can this right be removed through legislation...Not only does my organization, Black Box Voting, refuse to participate in the design of such systems, but we will do our utmost to inform the populace that such systems must be revoked, by whatever means necessary.

Harris concluded with the following salutation: "We do not consent."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Here's a question I used to ask a lot: Has the Consent of the Governed been withdrawn, YET?

This question grew out of my work writing the Voter Confidence Resolution, successfully lobbying for its adoption by the Arcata City Council, and promoting it as an advocacy journalist blogging at GuvWurld and subsequently We Do Not Consent.

The point of the YET? question is to create a frame of inevitability. Make it viral and watch it build a growing and cumulative impact. This approach constructs a path to the tipping point.

So please, promote the WE DO NOT CONSENT meme all you can, and remember to empower those you meet with the confidence that our Consent most surely can and will be withheld. Let's start talking about what that looks like. Brother Thom? Peter B.? Peaceful revolution won't happen by accident. Your attention and intention is requested. This surely has day to day ramifications, but then November's "election" is also something specific around which to organize.

America needs to click its heels three times and rediscover that we've had the power all along. Peaceful revolution is necessary, NOW!

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy

* * *I am putting my own symptoms on display here, reviewing and reliving my struggle to convey the same point for years on end, hoping with each new example to transcend to a higher order of resistance. No doubt I have slipped back many times myself. For example, investing so much energy in the local effort for hand-counting paper ballots. All along I knew that even our success would have no bearing on the certain uncertainty to follow November's "election." This factored in my recent decision to take a sabbatical from the Voter Confidence Committee.

* * *
I think the answer to "so?" may be an equally disdainful "you're not the boss of me." Think about it.

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Activists chanted for voter confidence

2008-03-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

I've got a lot of stray threads to pull together here so let's start with this great quote from the Eureka Reporter's coverage of Saturday's Peace March in Eureka, CA:

Hundreds gather to march in peace rally
By ASHLEY BAILEY, The Eureka Reporter
Published: Mar 15 2008, 11:57 PM · Updated: Mar 16 2008, 12:00 AM
Category: Local News
Topic: Community

Hundreds of Humboldt County residents united in a peace march from the Eureka Municipal Auditorium to the Old Town Gazebo on Saturday.

It wasn't just about being against the Iraq War or being against the military's recruitment of minors — nothing seemed to be off limits.

Activists chanted for voter confidence, increased public monitoring of police, and promoting peace and ending violence. (emphasis added)

MORE:http://eurekareporter.com/article/080315-hundreds-gather-to-march-in-peace-rally

You take the good with the bad sometimes. The Reporter's e-paper from Monday March 10 (published only online, see page A2) contained a barely edited version of the Vets For Peace Chapter 56 press release announcing their support for hand-counting paper ballots. The edits attributed factual statements to me, rather than sourcing the basis for considering the claims factual, thus making the facts appear to be matters of opinion. This is a known pet peeve of mine.

So, I submitted a letter to the editor about this, which spawned quite an e-mail exchange with Reporter Managing Editor Glenn Franco Simmons. Typically he requests such exchanges be kept off the record (out of the blogosphere), though this time he did not. I won't post all that now, but perhaps later. I'm told to expect the letter in the paper, and will post that here at WDNC once it has been published.

At the Peace March on Saturday, I shared a moment on stage with John Mulloy from VFP-56. I believe this was what inspired the "chanting" for voter confidence. Mulloy has a cameo in the WDNC Photo Gallery from the March, tucked into the top right corner of the photo of the VCC table at the Gazebo. Here's one where he's the star:The full collection of my Peace March photos can be found here. I also cross-posted the WDNC Gallery at OpEdNews.com.

At the Peace March we got a little over 100 people signed up for the willing hand-counter list that now hovers around 350. A VCC e-mail newsletter went out to the newly expanded subscriber list, encouraging letters to the editor, and also the introduction of hand-counting as a campaign issue in the three County Supervisor races on the June ballot.

One last note about the March. I posted a photo of Peter Aronson, captioned with a reference to his tremendous dedication to the topic of depleted uranium. I have since added to the GuvWurld News Archive a January 10 interview (.mp3) Aronson did on the Peter B. Collins show. The dude knows his stuff!

There is a lot of new content over at GuvWurld. In particular, I have been posting a lot of grim economic news, primarily because there isn't any other kind right now. I also want to direct your attention to a recording (.mp3) from last Thursday night. It begins with my presentation to the Humboldt Republican Party, followed by Humboldt Registrar Carolyn Crnich making a presentation of comparable length, and then about 20 minutes of discussion (43:33 total).

To summarize, citing from the VCC Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County, I ran through historical problems with Diebold locally and around the country. I also brought in two new reports: the NH Primary recount study I've previously mentioned by the We The People Foundation; and last week's release from the University of CT, in which the Department of Computer Science announces more and new ways to tamper with memory cards (the same ones used here in Humboldt), including what they described as a "time-bomb" attack.

I spoke about efforts to build support for hand-counting paper ballots, but I didn't have time to get into a lot of detail about our work around forecasting cost, time and labor needs. Despite my preparation, I didn't at all get to preemptively address concerns about the Humboldt Transparency Project, which I knew the Registrar was there to promote. Fortunately, I did speak to this briefly during the discussion.

Perhaps most worthy of note, the Registrar misstated an important aspect of the VCC's position on how hand-counting would be done here in Humboldt. As stated in the VCC's Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County, and in direct communication with the Registrar on multiple occasions, the VCC advocates fresh voters be brought in to count, relieving the poll workers who have been working since before dawn. The Registrar went out of her way to suggest that hand-counting is not favorable because tired people have already worked a long day that would be even longer.

There's a bit more to say about this but I'll hold it back for the day down the line when I'll publish the follow-up letter I sent thanking Patricia Welch, Humboldt Republican Party Chairman, for enabling me to share information with the group.

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Photo Gallery: Eureka, CA Peace March 3/15/08

2008-03-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

I took lots of photos today. You can view the whole collection here. Below are just a few of my favorites (very tough to choose!).

Love it! Dave Keniston on the right, with his son Clay; and on the left, an unidentified woman with a beautiful smile.

The next several are some of my favorite people...

Jack Nounnan, primary organizer of the event,
and indefatigable force for peace.

(L-R) Carol Brannan, Nezzie Wade, and Mark Knipper

Martha Devine, aka "Granny Green Genes"

Peter Aronson holds the DU sign (really carries the torch for this crucial issue). Fellow Vet For Peace Steve Robinson on his right. Linda Sorter in blue and Carol Brannan again to her right.

The young girl's sign says: "Teach violence prevention and mediation to America's school children." Just wow.

Yup.

Jon Koriagin at the VCC table. This is at the Gazebo in Old Town, the end point of the march.

The view from the Gazebo.

One of many 9/11 Truth signs today. There are several others shown in the full photo collection. There was quite a diverse array of issues reflected in the signs carried throughout the crowd.

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Surging Support For Hand-Counting Paper Ballots in Humboldt

2008-03-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

First, let's be clear that there has never been more support than there is right now for hand-counting paper ballots (HCPB) in Humboldt County. The Voter Confidence Committee (VCC) has led the charge, with recent support coming from the Redwood ACLU, Democratic Central Committee and Veterans For Peace Chapter 56.

I'll be joined by members from each of these groups in a Thursday afternoon meeting with Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich. This isn't about lobbying her that day. We are seeking information that will further our ability to create tangible forecasting of time, cost and labor needed to conduct a fully hand-counted election here.

This emerging coalition will also have an opportunity to display solidarity at this Saurday's Peace March in Eureka. The VCC will be tabling at the Gazebo in Old Town, and we will have several to many people roaming the crowd in pursuit of sign-ups for our list of willing hand-counters (the VCC site also allows sign-ups).

An e-mail newsletter circulated yesterday by the VCC asked volunteers to print this page and bring it on a clipboard on Saturday to help us gather more names. In almost an afterthought, the VCC also issued this press release yesterday documenting some of the problems we observed during the February Primary. Bob Olofson took point on this one and he will be interviewed on KMUD radio later in the week.

Following the Peace March, it is conceivable we will have a sufficient number of volunteers willing to hand-count. Even at only 50% or more, the surging support suggests next week will begin another new phase of the Humboldt Hand-Count Campaign where we will begin presenting information to the County Supervisors during public comment. We will also target outreach to the current candidates for Supervisor seats up for election in June.

As if all this momentum isn't exciting enough, I have also been booked to speak to the Humboldt County Republican Central Committee on Thursday night. Read about my first date with the Republicans, speaking to them right after Hurricane Katrina. As with the Registrar, I don't perceive this so much about winning them over to supporting HCPB, and will instead focus on sharing information and building a bridge.

A few slight disappointments warrant mention here as well. The press release and position statement supporting HCPB previously posted at the Redwood ACLU blog has apparently gone missing from their site. Fortunately it has been archived here at WDNC (plus here).

The HCPB resolution adopted by the Democratic Central Committee can be found here on their site. Oddly, on March 1, the Eureka Times-Standard ran a brief mention of this in their recurring feature "Election Roundup," found on page A2 of that day's paper, but absent from the T-S website. I submitted an inquiry to editor Rich Sommerville and web editor James Faulk but received no response.

Then there is the Vets For Peace resolution which was sent to the media with a press release that the Eureka Reporter printed almost verbatim, applying edits only to make factual statements into matters of opinion. To wit:

Last summer, Berman said, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen conducted a top-to-bottom teview [sic] of voting systems used throughout the state. He said her security experts were able to compromise every system tested, including Humboldt County's Diebold optical scanners.

Berman said the same equipment was used to count approximately 80 percent of the votes in the New Hampshire primary in January.

"The other 20 percent of New Hampshire's ballots were hand-counted," the news release stated. "According to a report by the We The People Foundation, a statewide recount found the error rate was significantly higher where the scanners did the initial count, and that the scanners' error rate exceeded the limit allowed by federal law."

The "article" gave the VFP and VCC websites but omitted the link that was provided for the We The People Foundation study of the NH primary. I'll mention that too when I write a letter to the editor about this. If you get that we have to confront the challenge of inherent uncertainty, I encourage you to submit your own letter to editor@eurekareporter.com. You can point to Bowen's study here and NH precinct info in the tables found here, "Berman said."

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Press Releasee: VCC Documents Problems In Humboldt's February Primary

2008-03-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Bob Olofson, 707-444-8764 rwolofson@sbcglobal.net

Voter Confidence Committee Documents Problems In Humboldt's February Primary
Election Watchdog Repeats Call For Hand-Counting Paper Ballots
March 10, 2008 -- During the recent 'Super Tuesday' primary election, the Humboldt Voter Confidence Committee sent observers to selected precinct polling places. While the election process was mostly free off technical and human glitches, the following problems were noted:

Several Accu-vote ballot scanners at different polling places jammed. Two were repaired within a few minutes with no further problems noted on those machines. A different scanner was reported by a poll worker at 12:30pm as having jammed about 10 times at that point in the day, while another poll worker referred to the same machine as jamming once every 2 - 3 ballots.

One poll observer reported that two different 'e-slate' voting machines showed a ballot count of two on the readout, while the printer tape said zero ballots, and the poll workers said that no one had voted on the machine. There were also two voting machines returned to election headquarters without having been first closed out per operating instructions.

Several instances were observed of paperwork being put in the wrong bag, one instance of an official seal being left unsecured (which could theoretically be used to re-seal the container after tampering with ballots inside,) and several instances of minor problems and delays in setting up or closing down equipment.

In the main vote counting room at County election headquarters (where the paper ballots are scanned and tabulated) between approximately 8:15pm and 10:50pm, the doors were left open and the room and access hallway unattended for periods of several minutes at a time.

A machine from a McKinleyville precinct was left overnight at the precinct rather than being returned to election headquarters.

All data from the e-slate voting machines was tabulated by an employee of the contractor that supplied the equipment, on a laptop brought by the employee.

There was apparently no specific time frame for the 'hash test' on the memory cards of the Accu-vote scanners. (This test is to assure that the secret proprietary code supplied by the vendors of the scanners has not been tampered with since it left the custody of the County elections office. The longer the hash test is delayed, the greater the possibility that a hacker could successfully re-program the card and then erase any signs of tampering with it.)

The VCC again acknowledge the dedication and competence of the County election office staff and the poll workers.

The VCC again called for an end to the use of all optical scanners (for counting paper ballots) and paperless voting machines, and a return to the more verifiable, transparent and secure practice of hand counting all paper ballots. The public are invited to obtain more information on election integrity issues at www.voterconfidencecommittee.org.
# # #

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VFP-56 PRESS RELEASE: Supporting hand-count paper ballots; "No justice in secret vote counting"

2008-03-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Jim Sorter, (707) 826-1781; and Dave Berman (707) 845-3749

Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 Reiterates Support For Hand-Counting Paper Ballots
Peace Group Says No Justice, No Peace, and No Justice With Secret Vote Counting
(March 8, 2008) -- Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 has adopted a resolution (below) calling for Humboldt County to abandon its Diebold optical scanners in favor of hand-counting paper ballots beginning with the June 2008 primary election. VFP-56 joins the Voter Confidence Committee (VCC), Redwood ACLU, and Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee (HCDCC) in an emerging coalition that also boasts more than 250 individual community members who have signed on to indicate their willingness to hand-count paper ballots on election night once the County makes the change.

"We have a saying that goes 'No Justice, No Peace; Know Justice, Know Peace,'" said VFP-56 Secretary Jim Sorter. "There is no justice in secret vote counting."

VFP-56 support of election reform goes back as far as 2004, when the earliest versions of what became the Voter Confidence Resolution were being circulated. The Arcata City Council later adopted that resolution in July 2005.

"We are repeating and amplifying our past calls for election reform," said Sorter, "by joining with these other groups in calling for hand-counting all the paper ballots."

The VFP-56 resolution for hand-counting is nearly identical to the statement adopted by the HCDCC on February 13. VCC co-founder Dave Berman brought the resolution to both groups and hopes to see this coalition displaying solidarity at the upcoming Peace March in Eureka on March 15. (Disclosure: Berman is also an associate member of VFP-56.)

"Big public events are a great time for us to get willing hand-counters signed up," said Berman, "and to help make it sink for people, as they look around the crowd, that we have a lot of people power on our side. Why is it even acceptable to be defending secret vote counting with totally discredited machines?"

Last summer California Secretary of State Debra Bowen conducted a Top To Bottom Review of voting systems used throughout the state. Her security experts were able to compromise every system tested, including Humboldt's Diebold optical scanners.

The same equipment was used to count roughly 80% of the votes in the New Hampshire primary in January. The other 20% of New Hampshire's ballots were hand-counted. According to a report by the We The People Foundation*, a statewide recount found the error rate was significantly higher where the scanners did the initial count, and that the scanners' error rate exceeded the limit allowed by federal law.

To read the VFP-56 resolution, visit www.vfp56.org.

For more information about election conditions in Humboldt County, read the free report at www.VoterConfidenceCommittee.org.

* http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/MISC/NH-Recount/FF-NH-Report-Feb-2008.pdf

# # #

Resolution In Support of Hand-Counting Paper Ballots
Adopted By Veterans For Peace Chapter 56
March 6, 2008

Whereas elections in Humboldt County rely on Diebold's (now Premier) precinct-based optical scanners, and Diebold's GEMS central tabulator program to combine all precinct results; and

Whereas computer security experts have repeatedly demonstrated and documented the ability to tamper with this equipment, changing election results without leaving behind a trace of evidence; and

Whereas academic studies have repeatedly demonstrated and documented that security flaws in this equipment exist by design, and cannot be remedied with "procedural mitigations," or new security methods; and

Whereas claims of "trade secrecy" prevent citizens, the media, and even elections officials from observing the inner workings of this equipment, denying everyone the right to see their vote counted as cast; and

Whereas elections conducted under these conditions require blind trust, or faith, to accept unverifiable and inherently uncertain outcomes that provide no rational basis for confidence in the reported results; and

Whereas the County of Humboldt is free to choose not to use Diebold's equipment, and is likewise not prevented from choosing to hand-count paper ballots at poll sites on election night; and

Whereas hand-counting paper ballots provides transparency, security, and verifiable accuracy that creates a rational basis for confidence in reported results;

Therefore be it resolved, Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 hereby calls for Humboldt County to discontinue use of Diebold equipment and to introduce hand-counting of all ballots no later than the June 2008 primary election; and

Therefore be it further resolved that Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 will support educating the community about the benefits of this change, and to recruit registered voters to serve as poll workers and/or vote counters.

# # #

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Vets For Peace Chapter 56 Reiterates Call For Hand-Counting Paper Ballots

2008-03-07T00:47:00.001-08:00

Following recent announcements by the Redwood ACLU and the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee (HCDCC), on Thursday night Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 adopted a resolution calling for Humboldt County to switch to all hand-counted paper ballots by the June 2008 primary election. The statement, shown in full below, is nearly identical to the one adopted February 18 by the HCDCC.

There is no question we now have momentum in this, what I call the Humboldt Hand-Count Campaign. See the Voter Confidence Committee website for materials easily adapted for similar campaigns elsewhere. I know there is interest in this in other parts because I keep getting asked to do radio interviews. Here is one (.mp3) I did recently with Dan Ashby and Marj Creech of the Election Defense Alliance.

The local VFP group has repeatedly given support to VCC initiatives that I have brought them. As an associate member, I am grateful for the forum and time shared with these extraordinary people. They will have a press release out soon and I expect the resolution will make it onto their website. Meanwhile, here it is...

* * *

Resolution In Support of Hand-Counting Paper Ballots
Adopted By Veterans For Peace Chapter 56
March 6, 2008

Whereas elections in Humboldt County rely on Diebold's (now Premier) precinct-based optical scanners, and Diebold's GEMS central tabulator program to combine all precinct results; and

Whereas computer security experts have repeatedly demonstrated and documented the ability to tamper with this equipment, changing election results without leaving behind a trace of evidence; and

Whereas academic studies have repeatedly demonstrated and documented that security flaws in this equipment exist by design, and cannot be remedied with "procedural mitigations," or new security methods; and

Whereas claims of "trade secrecy" prevent citizens, the media, and even elections officials from observing the inner workings of this equipment, denying everyone the right to see their vote counted as cast; and

Whereas elections conducted under these conditions require blind trust, or faith, to accept unverifiable and inherently uncertain outcomes that provide no rational basis for confidence in the reported results; and

Whereas the County of Humboldt is free to choose not to use Diebold's equipment, and is likewise not prevented from choosing to hand-count paper ballots at poll sites on election night; and

Whereas hand-counting paper ballots provides transparency, security, and verifiable accuracy that creates a rational basis for confidence in reported results;

Therefore be it resolved, Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 hereby calls for Humboldt County to discontinue use of Diebold equipment and to introduce hand-counting of all ballots no later than the June 2008 primary election; and

Therefore be it further resolved that Veterans For Peace Chapter 56 will support educating the community about the benefits of this change, and to recruit registered voters to serve as pollworkers and/or vote counters.

# # #

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Kool-Aid Reference Conjures Varied Meanings

2008-02-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I posted a crude photoshop job superimposing the face of Senator Barack Obama over the classic red pitcher icon representing Kool-Aid. My comments were very limited. I thought the message was clear: a news article quoting Obama saying Bush and Cheney do not warrant impeachment shows the crazed or delusional thinking that is implied when saying someone drank the Kool-Aid. I received some comments about this in private e-mail that warrant exploring here.

First, Dave Migliore, perhaps my oldest friend, wrote to caution me about this image. He said that Black people may find this reference offensive or even racist. I was incredulous and had never heard of such a connotation before. He sent me a link to the urban dictionary. I was sensitive to having set off his radar and definitely wanted to know if I had misstepped. However, the listings at that link did not make his case.

I then Googled Kool-Aid and offensive, and Kool-Aid and racist, and still found nothing that supported his concern, though I did turn up at least two good reads that reinforced my intended usage. From last February, see AlterNet's "No One's Drinking Bush's Kool-Aid on Iran". Then there is Michael Fauntroy, a prominent Black media figure who just last month wrote that he was "Lambasted for Not Drinking the Obama Kool-Aid":

It's hard out here for Black pundits/analysts/commentators who haven't come around to drinking the Barack-Obama-is-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread-how-
did-we-ever-exist-as-a-nation-without-him-this-is-our-last-best-
chance-to-elect-a-Black-president-so-we-better-support-him-see-I-told-you-
racism-is-dead Kool-Aid. I have learned an unfortunate lesson in observing the Democratic presidential nomination fight: In too many segments of the country – Black and White – to express any skepticism about Barack Obama is considered political heresy. I'm blown away by this discovery, because it suggests a dangerous group think: Obama is the only agent of change and to not praise him at every opportunity is to support the status quo (And, oh, by the way, Hilary is the devil!).

This passage was the closest together I could even find the words Kool-Aid and racism, and the author is in no way claiming the Kool-Aid reference is racist or offensive. I would say he is using it in the exact same way that I did.

OK, breathing a little easier. Maybe kick back and enjoy a cold glass of, no wait a minute.

Along comes Tom Sebourn, program director/newsdude from local progressive talk radio station KGOE. By the way, check Tom's new blog. Tom was pissed off when he wrote to me, though not necessarily pissed at me. He needed to know that my posting was only coincidentally timed with another Obama Kool-Aid reference that had appeared in the Eureka Times-Standard. There was no connection and I had not even seen the image. He sent this link.

If you click that you'll see a cartoon with a sea of faces looking up at a pitcher of Kool-Aid in what is obviously Obama's hand. The cartoon has Obama asking "Drink the Kool-Aid?" and the crowd responding with Obama's tag line "Yes We Can." This image is in color, but the T-S had printed it in black and white. In the paper, Tom said it looked like the sea of faces were all non-white people. He mentioned to me that he and his father both found it "repugnant." The T-S has since printed a letter from Sebourn the senior.

As Tom and I delved a little deeper, he came to hypothesize that there is a generation cap dividing our association of the Kool-Aid reference. While I was just six at the time, Tom is a bit older and actually remembers seeing the Jonestown massacre on the news.

Tom said his association when hearing the Kool-Aid reference is always about a group event where people were forced at gunpoint to commit suicide. Because it was such an atrocity, Tom said, anyone old enough to remember may find more flippant references in bad taste, or worse. However, Tom did allow that the crazy/delusional implication has become sufficiently widespread and common that it should not cast a pall of racism on those who use it.

So I feel absolved of concerns I may have inadvertently made a racist post, however I think it would be interesting to read more opinions on Tom's theory of an age-based difference in perception of what the Kool-Aid reference means. Comments are welcome.

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Optical Scan Error Rate Exceeds Federal Limit in NH Primary Recount

2008-02-24T23:38:00.000-08:00

In a study published by the We The People Foundation, the NH Primary Election recount revealed error rates in machine counted votes far exceeded the error rate for hand-counted votes. Further, the machine error rate was also greatly in excess of federal limits. OpEdNews has a good summary, or go here for the full report. Principal findings:

Of the 347, 905 total ballots processed during the recount 305,207 (87.7%) came from towns and cities that use machines to count the votes, and 42,619 (12.3%) came from towns that use People to count the votes.

New Hampshire's vote counting machines violate federal accuracy standards. New Hampshire's machines experienced an error rate approximately 163 times greater than the error rate allowed under federal Election Law.

The probability that an individual's vote was accurately counted during the Primary was much greater if his vote was counted by hand than by machine.

Statewide, taking into consideration all the ballots that were included in the recount, the number of machine counts that were in error by more than 2 votes was 9.81 times greater than the number of hand counts that were off by more than 2 votes. The number of machine counts that were in error by more than 1 vote was 3.37 times greater than the number of hand counts that were off by more than 1 vote.

Has there ever been a better environment from which to draw such comparative data? This is very useful information.

* * *
Coming up this Tuesday between 5-6pm PT I will be making my second appearance on the Election Defense Alliance radio show broadcast through Toginet.

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Noticing New Hampshire

2008-02-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, and from out of my peripheral vision, the New Hampshire Primary Election recount got my attention. Republican Presidential Candidate Albert Howard continues to press ahead, revealing much about what went wrong on January 8th. Excerpts from his most recent communique, a Petition of Appeal filed with NH Secretary of State William Gardner, are shown below. But first, let me take you back to the 11/29/07 post here at WDNC, talking about impeachment coming out of NH:

With a few weeks gone by now, I don't really see that Kucinich's welcome bravado did anything to shift control of the impeachment issue. Worth noting, though, is this statement by New Hampshire State Representative Betty Hall. While I don't consider her endorsement of Kucinich's presidential candidacy to be too relevant, she goes much further by introducing her own impeachment resolution in the NH House.

At least two things are significant about this. First, while it may take a few months, NH law guarantees this resolution will get a full floor vote - it cannot be killed in committee. The other important part of this development is that Hall's resolution was drafted primarily by Paul Lehto, election protection attorney, co-founder of psephos-us.org, and the author of the Foreword to my book, We Do Not Consent (free .pdf download). The genius Lehto displays here is connecting the necessity of impeachment with the absolute destruction of legitimate elections. The final paragraph of the resolution:
That, for directly harming the rights and manner of suffrage, for suffering to make them secret and unknowable, for instituting debates and doubts about the true nature of elections, all against the will and consent of local voters affected, and forced through threats of litigation, the actions of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney to do the opposite of securing and guaranteeing the right of the people to alter or abolish their government, being a violation of an inalienable right, and an immediate threat to Liberty, is good cause for impeachment to be immediately granted.
Of the dozens if not hundreds of good causes for impeachment, this one may be the oldest chronologically if we go back to November and December 2000.

I had a voice message from Lehto earlier this evening saying he was en route to NH to testify for Rep. Hall. He also pointed me to this DU thread containing this video about the resolution and its courageous carrier.

Truly outstanding! Both above and below...

* * *

Excerpts from:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_nancy_to_080216_gop_candidate_albert.htm

Petition of Appeal, noted violations and weaknesses in NH recount cited below

Petition of Appeal to the Ballot Law Commission
c/o Office of the Secretary of State, William Gardner
State House
Concord, New Hampshire 03301

by Albert Howard, Republican candidate for President of the United States
New Hampshire Primary Election of January 8th, 2008
Date: February 15, 2008
Petitioner: Albert Howard, Pro Se 710 Apple St. Ann Arbor, MI 48105-1750

Subject of Petition: Appeal of results of the Presidential Primary recount completed February 11, 2008; examination of contested ballots in that recount.

Relief Requested: That the Ballot Law Commission and the Secretary of State's office disclaim any opinion on the accuracy of the Presidential primary election AND the statewide Republican recount because checks and balances to maintain the integrity of the ballots and the total counts were either not followed, or not in place.

(snip)

VIOLATION #1: Machine failures were handled improperly -- and possibly altered the outcome of the election.

(snip)

Town clerks have told Dori Smith, a journalist from Connecticut, that memory cards were "switched out" in some towns by LHS employees, counter to state election laws, calling into question the chain of custody of these critical "electronic ballot boxes".

(snip)

VIOLATION # 2: Machine failures render equipment non-compliant with HAVA regulations.

Fact: HAVA requires that the error rate of machines used be no greater than one error in 500,000 ballot positions. In one of the most recent tests, at the University of Connecticut, the Diebold Precinct-Based Optical Scan Accuvote 1.94W system (AV OS), demonstrated a failure rate of roughly 3.4 %. This puts New Hampshire in an unfortunate situation and the integrity of its election results in question. I urge the Ballot Law Commission and the Secretary of State's office to seriously consider restoring elections utilizing 100% hand counted paper ballots. The fundamentals are in place for a meaningful and transparent election. The Diebold Optical Scan equipment you currently use is indeed problematic due to its proven vulnerabilities and inaccuracies. Diebold itself issued a Product Advisory Note about this machine on January 25, 2008 describing a known failure.

REMEDIAL ACTION REQUESTED: The very best thing New Hampshire could do is decertify the current equipment and find alterative means of vote counting. I strongly recommend hand counting all of the ballots. New Hampshire has established such an excellent system for community vote-counting, and the hand count method - especially the sort and stack method as was used for the recounts --that has time and time again proven to be the most accurate and by far the least costly method of counting citizens' votes.

(snip)

VIOLATION #3: The location of the memory cards post-election were reported "unknown".

(snip)

VIOLATION #4: The boxes of ballots were not picked up for the recounts by State Police.

(snip)

VIOLATION #5: Ballots were not stored and transported in boxes provided by the Secretary of State's office.

Fact: Boxes arrived at the State Archive Building for the recount in non-uniform boxes, with various methods of taping, many not properly sealed. One jurisdiction sent their ballots in bundles wrapped in newspaper. Others came wrapped in brown paper. Some boxes came with no tape. Many ballots were returned in the same boxes in which they were received from the printer/Secretary of State's office, but this led to some ambiguity about when and by whom openings in the boxes had been made.

(snip)

VIOLATION #6: Many ballot boxes were not properly sealed, and what were referred to as "seals" would not safeguard the ballots from tampering.

Fact. "Seals" meant to secure the boxes were in fact "labels"; they did not stick securely to the boxes, could be easily removed and re-attached, and left no evidence of having been removed and reattached from the box on which they'd been placed. As such they were not "seals" to the boxes; in order for the ballots to be secure, real tape was needed to bind the boxes. Many ballot boxes were delivered to the State Archive Building for recounting with tops not secured and with slits in them large enough for a hand to fit through.

(snip)

VIOLATION #7: The uncounted ballots were not always kept overnight in the security of the "ballot vault."

(snip)

VIOLATION #8: Ballots were not always delivered in an open and public manner.

Fact. On many days of the recount, ballots were delivered after the recount had ended for the day, after dark, when most of the employees were gone from the building, and their delivery was not witnessed by any member of the public or citizen monitors.

# # #

Wow. Just wow. It is time we all start noticing New Hampshire.

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