Fanciful Thoughts

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-<>- my account was locked without warning, and without justification,
you fixing riggers of mortis-webbed skulking trolloids striking closer to
the home of your heart... [unintelligible transmission] ...whiny
spluttering leap at the moooooooooooon. bx.

--------- Forwarded message ----------
http://www.zmag.org
====

FANCIFUL THOUGHTS
ON A STRANGE ELECTION
By Robin Hahnel,

A hundred million votes, and a hundred million non-votes
later, it’s all come down to what to do about a few thousand
retired Jewish Americans in Palm Beach Florida whose
misleading ballots led them to vote for Pat, “The US should
not have joined in the war against Hitler,” Buchanan when
they thought they were voting for Leiberman/Gore. In the
meantime we have no President elect. Which reminds me of the
lesson of 1519 and makes me think fanciful thoughts.

“The lesson of 1519,” you say? “What lesson of 1519?” Why
the lesson that there are rare opportunities when a small
band of desperate but determined men (excuses to gender
neutrality) can achieve impossible dreams. In 1519 two
brothers in what is now called Peru were locked in a dispute
over who would become the new Inca and ruler over one of the
mightiest empires in the history of the world. At that very
moment a lunatic named Pizarro and his small band of crazed
Spaniards arrived on Peruvian shores with a few horses.
Result? The greatest empire in the history of the Western
Hemisphere collapses and a new era of peace, prosperity, and
spiritual clarity begins in the New World. Which starts me
to thinking: “Shouldn’t I be trying to round up a few
hundred black block comrades as soon as they’ve recovered
the strength from driving people to the polls?” There is a
total power vacuum. No General Alexander Hague is appearing
on our television screens announcing “I am in charge!” The
media is distracted because it is obsessed with a public
display of self-flagellation over its mistaken projections
on election night. Bush and Gore are distracted because they
are busy trying to beat each other on the phones to vote
fixers and Generals. We black blocks could flash some
plastic, rent a few Haul vans here in DC, drive to Harper's
Ferry West Virginia, and storm the Federal arsenal. Sure
John Brown didn’t fare too well at Harper's Ferry, but that
was then and now is now. Timing is everything. That is the
lesson of 1519!

There’s no predicting what the people of West Virginia might
do. They’re obviously terribly disturbed about something.
They just voted for a Republican for President for the first
time since God knows when! Who knows how they would respond
to our call for all to rally around the black flag of the
“Anarchist Republic of America” -- whose first act would be
to cancel all private debt so we didn’t have to pay the
credit card bill on the UHauls.
And when is Jimmy Carter going to show up in Florida heading
a team of International observers to tell us whether or not
our election passes muster?

It’s just a quick stroll across the border for Jimmy.
Whenever there are irregularities in elections anywhere else
in the world Jimmy has to go and tell those bumbling
apprentices in the craft of democracy whether their efforts
were good enough, or if they have to try again until they
get it right. It’s all well and good for Al to send former
secretary of State Warren Christopher and for the Shrub to
send former Secretary of State James Baker to represent
their interests in big brother Jeb’s playground. But Jimmy’s
the man. Jimmy’s the fixer. No botched election can be made
good unless Jimmy says so. So where is he? Is there a
problem for Georgians to get visas for Florida?

As for the United States being the leading exporter of
democracy, I see a problem on the horizon. This isn’t the
bad old days when any country can just export a sow’s ear as
a silk purse and get away with it. In the new global economy
we have a WTO to monitor exports to make sure they are what
they purport to be. What if some jealous little third world
country, smarting from a recent spanking over its own
democratic inadequacies, files suit in the WTO to have US
democracy declared an adulterated commodity? It’s not just
the special ballots for Jewish voters in Palm Beach. It’s
not just that we hold elections on a working day instead of
on Sunday when everyone would find it equally easy to get to
the polls. There’s the larger problem that in the US version
of democracy it’s quite all right if the candidate who got
more votes does not win. As a matter of fact, according to
US democracy, if Bush’s lead in Florida holds up, giving him
the majority of the electoral votes, it would be WRONG if
the man with the most votes, Al Gore, was declared the
winner. If you don’t believe me, ask Al Gore. He’ll explain
it to you. Those who are relatively new consumers of the
commodity “democracy” in the rest of the world simply do not
seem to comprehend this “self-evident truth.” Maybe they don
’t understand because they are lesser developed countries,
or because they still have a hang over because they used to
have kings. Or perhaps they don’t appreciate the beauty of
the “electoral college” because they do not comprehend
another key concept, the omniscience of “founding fathers.”
In any case, no matter how superior our brand of democracy
is to foreign brands, there is no guarantee that we would
prevail before a WTO tribunal. That’s the whole point of WTO
tribunals. We are not judged by our own chosen institutions
and by our own people -- who would never be confused about
what is a superior or inferior brand of democracy. We are
judged by faceless bureaucrats from other countries behind
closed doors in far away cities who hear whatever testimony
they choose to hear. What if they were convinced that the
electoral college, non-uniform ballots, and voting on a work
day were adulterations of democracy, rather than the
perfections we know them to be? Others might be permitted to
raise tariffs against US exports of democracy, leaving the
US with only a comparative advantage as the world’s most
efficient arms merchant to rely on to keep our trade deficit
from increasing even further.

Finally, I would like to nominate my twin daughters who
recently moved west to Greeley Colorado for the “vote early
and often” prize in this most strange of all US elections.
Five years ago we sent Sara Hahnel to Guilford College in
Greensboro North Carolina with instructions to be sure to
register and vote there. When the TV reported that Jesse
Helms had been re-elected Senator we called and asked Sara
why she hadn’t voted. She insisted she had registered and
voted, to which we responded that she had obviously not
voted often enough. Last night after the polls closed in
Colorado Sara called me from Greeley where she is teaching
junior high school and her twin sister, Ilana, is working
for Colorado PIRG. Sara said Ilana wasn’t home yet from
Denver where she had been working all day getting Nader
voters to the polls. Sara said she voted after school
herself. Then when Ilana wasn’t back from Denver and the
polls were due to close in Greeley where Ilana was also
registered, Sara said she changed her clothes, went back to
the polling station, and voted again as Ilana. Not only did
she vote often, she avoided the anxiety that plagued all of
us Naderites this election. She voted once for Nader and
once for Gore, the “yellow dog” – just in case the election
were close in Colorado. She wouldn’t tell me which twin
voted for Nader and which twin voted for Gore because she
said any father who answers inquiries about how he tells his
twins apart: “It doesn’t matter. If it’s not one it’s the
other,” doesn’t deserve to know. Ain’t it wonderful when
your children do you proud!
 

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