On electorate manipulations

[Ivo Skoric]

"TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 31 (New York Times) - The presidential campaign 
was coming to a close in an epic cacophony of advertisements striking 
notes of hope and fear, patriotism and betrayal as the candidates 
headed Sunday into a two-day sprint to sway an electorate that 
remained stubbornly deadlocked."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/politics/campaign/01camp.html?th

"During elections, our people are not normal citizens who are voting,
because they were poisoned and manipulated so much with fear through
television that they are not free beings any longer. In such an
atmosphere, it is so difficult to work. There are many people who
see that, but it is so difficult to reject it. "
- Fra. Ivo Markovic (Bosnian Franciscan priest speaking on how fear 
was used as a form of political manipulation during elections in 
Bosnia and elsewhere in the Balkans)
(http://www.peacevox.com/spoken_music_pontamina.htm)

Democrats and Republicans have 150,000 field workers on the ground in 
Ohio. Republicans mostly placed theirs in low income minority 
neighborhoods with the sole purpose of intimidating local residents 
against showing up at polls and voting (because as conventional 
wisdom goes, those people would vote Democrat if allowed to). 
Democrats, in response, should send rapper Eminem and angry youth 
troops in neighborhoods where rich white people vote. That would keep 
the posh at home for sure.

It is not yet known whether it would be necessary to drive up to 
Washington from rural Arkansas on a backhoe to dig Dick and George 
out of the White House, as it happened to be necessary to do in 
Serbia's elections in 2000 with Milosevic (the protesters drove up 
from Cacak). But, it is already clear that the U.S. elections 2004 
will not end on November 2. Both parties are fully prepared for the 
recounts and legal battles that will consume the country for most of 
the Christmas holidays.

The other candidates (there are 48) are mostly not mentioned. Those 
who collected enough support to even merit mention are regularly 
referred to as spoilers in mainstream media. They spoil this 
beautiful, perfectly functioning rule of two well entrenched moneyed 
elites, that media tout as the "Democracy" for consumption at home 
and abroad.

More amusing than the campaign itself is the relative absence of it 
in the most of the country, safe for so-called swing states, about 11 
of them, where most of the ad money is spent, and where candidates 
and their minions spend all their time right now. In the end, due to 
the antiquated U.S. electoral system, the choice of the most 
important of the world's leaders, will be decided just by the 
fraction of U.S. population. Effectively it may boil down to just 
three states (those of 11 that carry the largest number of electoral 
votes, nearly 8%): Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The candidate who 
wins 2 of those 3, will win the overall elections - that's what one 
can conclude watching electoral analysis on the US TV networks.

Hence the Republican pit-bulls in Ohio...

ivo---------------------------------------------------------
Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org