A Tempest in the Dust Storm

or Tempest in a Teapot Dome

Moderates, neo-cons and right-wingers all are wringing their hands over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "Fuck You!" to President Obama and Vice Toad Biden. There was Biden making all nice nice at the feet of Bibi and the Big B takes a well-beshat shoe to Biden's forehead. Now everyone's in a tizzy. The right-wing zealots who cum every time IDF forces obliterate Palestinians are the most put-out. Obama and Biden have actually used something resembling harsh language. That's something of a shift from the normally obsequious American grovelling.

Frankly, I don't think there's much in this. Obama will do some saber-rattling, try to save face, but he's proved pretty well that he has no spine. And if, as all past American action suggests, the US has no real objection to Israeli settlement construction (except to call it "not helpful"), then what does it matter that the Israelis announce today or tomorrow? Even if the Israelis were working to heed US 'language', Obama's a master of the mixed message. One minute, he and Biden sound like they're green-lighting Israeli construction, next minute they having a fit. If you think the colonization of the West Bank is okay (I don't), then second-guessing the Americans comes second.

But, for reasons I don't really understand, this tempest has blown up into a storm. Politicians certainly have egos. Obama has a massive one, with a tiny bit of justification. Biden has an even more massive one, with no justification at all. And my guess is that this is also related in the minds of the Israel-idolaters to the Goldstone Report. The Israel Lobby has been attacking the report on all fronts. Now comes another blow to their facade of moral superiority.

John Podhoretz has raised the spectre of a Jewish revolt in Democratic ranks. I think Podhoretz is a little behind the times. Most Americans are ill-informed, maybe most American Jews . . . who knows? (It would be interesting to do a thorough study comparing how people self-identify, how they stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how well-informed they actually are.)

One way or another, fewer than normal can have entirely missed Israel's blitzkrieg in Gaza last year and not wondered what the hell the Israelis were doing and why — and that despite the "Go for it!" from Obama, The New York Times and most American 'leaders'.

Moreover, Americans have a habit of proving themselves wise to the Great Leaders' bullshit. We may be short on the facts, thanks to the 'reporting' of CNN, The New York Times and NPR, but we see the big picture better than our Masters would like. We saw what was really happening with the bailout and now with health care reform. As Marx would have said, we feel the sense of alienation — dissatisfaction, anger, rage — without being fully able to identify the cause. In a nation conditioned for fanatical adoration of Capitalism or Religion, many misidentify the cause.

But when thousands of Israeli troops, aircraft and artillery rain hell upon 1.5 million people, caus and effect are fairly obvious. It's pretty easy to see that it's Israeli fighter-bombers, tanks and heavy artillery leveling Palestinian villages — not the other way round, despite the best propaganda efforts of the Israel government and the US news media and politicians. (New York's Mayor Bloomberg just happened to pick the month of Operation Cast Lead to head over to Israel.)

Nevertheless, Podhoretz might have some kind of point. I'm just not sure what point.

It’s no secret that a wildly disproportionate part of the Democratic donor base is Jewish. While Jews are almost certain to continue to vote lopsidedly for Democrats, that doesn’t mean Jewish donors are going to open their checkbooks as widely as they have in the past three election cycles. A diminution in Jewish enthusiasm for Obama and the Democrats is a problem for them. This is not a good moment to be picking fights on an issue of major emotional concern to a key Democratic constituency, even if you know that many of its members are not disposed to support the building program.

Is Podhoretz saying that a disproportionate number of donors to Democrats is Jewish or a disproportionate percentage of donors is Jewish? Those are two different claims. Or is Podhoretz saying that a disproportionately large percentage of the dollars donated are donated by Jews? That’s still another claim.

The largest donors in lump dollar amounts were institutions like Goldman Sachs, Harvard, etc. But as some point out, a huge percentage of donors and donor dollars to Obama were little folks, like us, here. And Obama has done squat to appease us. No public option, kowtowing to health insurers and big pharma, a huge bailout to billionaires at our expense, huge sums to the military at our expense, a thorough “fuck you” to labor, . . .

So if the Big O is concerned about donors bailing on him, he’d be trying some new tactics to appeal to US. But he ain’t. He’s waving his hands behind the curtain, get the Great and Powerful O to try to convince us he’s comin’ down hard on Big Health, Big Pharma, Big Banks. But we don’t even need little Toto to pull that curtain aside. We are Wise to the Ruse, Oh Mighty O. Worry about us and US.

If hardcore pro-Israel wingnuts want to bail for the Republicans, let ‘em go. The GOP will drive us and Israel into the ground so deep, even the best IDF bulldozer won’t be able to dig us out.

Rational people, however clueless on the nitty gritty details, aren't blind. Israel has overplayed its hand, and to mix metaphors, bitten the hand that feeds it.

If You Don't Build It, They Won't Come

The joke in the Soviet Union used to be that if you saw a line, better join it. At the end might be toilet paper, milk, some necessity. Here, if you see a line, people must be trying to vote. And it's no joke. On this Election Day (emphasis on singular), how many people will turn away, give up, not vote because the lines are absurdly long, because there is barely any organization, barely any instruction?

At my voting place in Brooklyn's Crown Heights (a largely black, middle class and poor area), the poll workers were phenomenal — helpful, outgoing, patient. And they were overwhelmed. When I arrived with my 6-year-old daughter (hoping to share with her the excitement of this election), there must have been nearly one thousand voters, weaving this way and that in six lines. Two lines for each election district represented. Ask three people where to go, you got four answers. I gave up waiting with my daughter and went back later.

And I am very lucky. Imagine a single parent of two or three kids, holding down two jobs, trying to vote on a day when the kids have no school. In many respects, the voting system seems calculated to deter less-advantaged voters. The voting apparatus is discriminatory.

In New York State, most people still find themselves using ancient machines which are notorious for breaking down or not working at all. Couple this with the one-day-only voting opportunity in New York, the deplorable Board of Elections web site and phone service, and the anti-deluvian voter registration scheme of New York and voting becomes a massive inconvenience. (It must be noted that when I have gotten through to people, they have been great — offering more information than I needed. Hats off to them.)

With regard to one-day-only voting: When we see a "One Day Only" sale, we know it's a gimic, a bait and switch scheme designed to lure us through the door. But, One Day Only Voting is supposed to be a triumph of the democratic process, if you believe the Michael Bloombergs and George Bushes of this world.

Despite all this, I saw lines many times today. People determined to vote. Whether their votes will actually be counted, if they actually manage to vote, is an open question, given the state of New York's electoral machinery. And across the country there are many many comparable stories.

So inconvenient (at best) is the American electoral process that we must ask whether the intent is to deter people from voting. Republicans have stopped just short of expressly admitting that they dread massive voter turnout, knowing that most Americans are indeed Democratically inclined.

What the Democrats' excuse is for acquiescing in disenfranchisement by inconvenience is anybody's guess. In machine states like New York, perhaps incumbent Democrats dread a large turnout just as much as Republicans do. We know that two powerful New York politicians — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn — do indeed oppose the democratic process when it threatens to deprive them of longer political careers and, in Quinn's case, when it threatens to deprive her of the multi-million dollar slush fund scheme she has contrived with others on the City Council.

What is to be done?

It seems to me the time has come for a constitutional amendment forcing standardization across the country and stipulating that a right to vote means a right in law and in fact.

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The Facts

News of problems is to found in most media outlets, so far less than a pessimist like me would expect. The best yet? Actor Tim Robbins was turned away from his polling place in Manhattan. Reason? He had been struck from the voter rolls. He, unlike many sharing his problem today, knew his rights and knew what to do.

The Indianapolis Star reports that two Republican election workers were removed from an Indiana polling site "for using improper methods to challenge voters' rights to cast a ballot".

MSNBC reports that in two of the most important swing states, Virginia and Pennsylvania, voters have complained of problems. Florida, Ohio, and Colorado are also plagued by problems. Pennsylvania is particularly troubling because problems seem to center on Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, both of which are Democratic strongholds.

Greg Palast describes on Truthout.org how McCain could win as a result of Republican criminal activity:

Swing state Colorado. Before this election, two Republican secretaries of state purged 19.4 percent of the entire voter roll. One in five voters.
Swing state New Mexico. One in nine voters in this year's Democratic caucus found their names missing from the state-provided voter registries. And not just any voters. County by county, the number of voters disappeared was in direct proportion to the nonwhite population.
Swing state Indiana. In this year's primary, ten nuns were turned away from the polls because of the state's new voter ID law. They had drivers' licenses, but being in their 80s and 90s, they'd let their licenses expire.... But what isn't cute is this: 566,000 registered voters in that state don't have the ID required to vote. Most are racial minorities, the very elderly and first-time voters; that is, Obama voters. Twenty-three other states have new, vote-snatching ID requirements.
Swing state Florida. Despite a lawsuit battle waged by the Brennan Center for Justice, the state's Republican apparatchiks are attempting to block the votes of 85,000 new registrants, forcing them to pass through a new "verification" process. Funny thing: verification applies only to those who signed up in voter drives (mostly black), but not to voters registering at motor vehicle offices (mostly white).
The Ugly Secret. Here's an ugly little secret about American democracy: We don't count all the votes. In 2004, based on the data from the US Elections Assistance Commission, 3,006,080 votes were not counted: "spoiled," unreadable and blank ballots; "provisional" ballots rejected; mail-in ballots disqualified.

The long and the short of it is that the United States has a deeply corrupt electoral process, jury-rigged repeatedly to serve political ends, especially, after years of conservative government, Republican ends.

What Nobody Dares Discuss

There is still an electoral race on. McCain is still fighting for North Carolina, Ohio, and most importantly, Pennsylvania.

Here's the beast: There seems little if any doubt that Obama will overwhelmingly win the popular vote. But, that doesn't matter. The Electoral College will elect the President. Just as there is no doubt that the popular vote is strongly for Obama, there is little doubt that the electoral vote is far closer.

What if there is an overwhelming popular vote for Obama but an electoral victory McCain?

We all remember this happened in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote. But then it was fairly close. What if the two — popular and electoral — are grossly out of balance?

Wouldn't it be something if we add a constitutional crisis to the financial one already under way?

Scope out FiveThirtyEight.com for a better look at the electoral/popular breakdown than you'll find in the Times or on CNN.

The November Not-So-Surprise

2000 — The Republicons, through one of two or three worst Supreme Court decisions in American history, successfully pulls off a Very American Coup.

2004 — Diebold and the Ohio Secretary of State deliver the state of Ohio's electoral votes to the Bush imperium.

2008 — Across the country, the Republicon Party is working to intimidate voters, strike voters from the rolls, and otherwise set the stage for another coup.

Steal Back Your Vote. We can combat the Republicon campaign to destroy the Constitution and democracy.

Believe it. Check former Republican LA District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi's essay in The Nation.

See also:

Bruce Ackerman. "Anatomy of a Constitutional Coup", London Review of Books. 8 February 2001.