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Volume
7 Issue 41…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 15, 2004
Democracy's @ a Crossroads
By Drew Dellinger
Democracy's at a crossroads
of lost dreams and lost votes!
So yes, I'm contesting the election
requesting
the rejection of invalid blocks at the
ballot box.
Weakass leaders speak as cheaters seek
to eke out victory; bend the laws in their
favor
and reality bites like the jaws of a
gator.
And, the corporate, right-wing, pathetic,
mainstream media tries to confound it
when the issue at hand is thousands of
votes
that couldn't be cast or haven't been
counted.
The combination of this and the lies meant
disenfranchisement!
And, it’s hard to be awed by how far we've
come
when we are still crossing that bridge
from Selma to Montgomery.
With respect to these inequities,
all the Supreme Court can say is too bad,
so sad and leave me hangin' like chad.
I need a reprieve and you better believe
I think this court is out of order
I'm doubting Thomas, Scalia, Rehnquist
I take issue with pre/judicial officials
because their heart is in the partisan
all out war voting 5-4 to deprive Gore.
What I saw was raw politics
putting the fix in like Nixon
with tricks in the sleeves of their black
robes
to back those that lack votes.
We need some citizens for some sit-ins
again!
I say we all meet on Wall Street and lock
down
lock the whole block down
I'll storm the White House right now for
real.
I ain't havin' it!
I'll uproot Bush and overturn the cabinet!
Then, let's go to death row.
Let's close every jail in the nation,
free a whole generation plus Mumia!
I'm not joking, we'll end in Oakland
with some sit-ins on the dock of the Bay
like the Doc, MLK
watching the apartheid roll away.
I'm settin' precedents the planetary
poet-in-residence
Call all the Justices and the President
- tell 'em Drew's comin' to get ya!
No, not to hurt ya, but to give you a
lecture:
You can't elect yourself that's rule one
you're done son so let's go
(We'll have your mom and your dad
come get you in the limo)
because democracy's at a crossroads
I get down at times
I'm surrounded by hypocrisies,
but I took an oath to diagnose like
Hippocrates.
And, democracy's at a crossroads
of lost dreams and lost votes.
About Me: Drew Dellinger is founder of Poets for
Global Justice and author of the book of poems Love Letter to the Milky Way. Contact Drew at 1-866-poetics or email drew@poetsforglobaljustice.org.
The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is like a sponge. He has watched the debates and is on top of
the issues and controversies surrounding the major political parties'
presidential candidates. He has
opinions on the state of the nation and the war on terror. Curious, I asked, if you could vote, what
would you do on November 2? With
aplomb, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro declared, "I won't be so dumb as to say
undecided!"
Election 2000: The Florida Debacle
Prior to the November 7, 2000 election, the state of Florida used
felons' lists to purge thousands of black Democratic voters from its voter
registration rolls. On election day,
they were not allowed to vote. Coupled
with harassment, intimidation and efforts to suppress the vote, chaos and
confusion reigned until the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v Gore ended the
legal battle over Florida's 25 Electoral College votes and decided which
candidate would be the nation's 43rd president.
On November 8, 2000, the Florida Division of Elections reported
2,909,135 votes for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and
2,907,351 votes for Democratic candidate Al Gore. Under Florida election law, the margin of 1,784 votes resulted in
an automatic machine recount; Bush's margin fell to 327 votes. Pursuant to Florida's election protest
provisions, Gore sought manual recounts in Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and
Miami-Dade Counties, where there were thousands of ballots not counted by
machines.
A dispute arose over the deadline for submitting county vote
totals. Florida's secretary of state Katherine
Harris declined to waive the November 14 deadline and certified Bush the winner
while Palm Beach County manually recounted its ballots. Republican protesters disrupted a manual
recount in Miami-Dade, and the state legislature threatened to take the
selection of electors out of the hands of voters, if the recount favored Al
Gore.
Gore and Palm Beach filed suit.
On November 21, the Florida Supreme Court in Palm Beach County
Canvassing Board v. Harris found Harris had abused her discretion and
determined the recount should proceed, setting a November 26 deadline for
counties to submit their vote totals. On
November 22, Bush appealed to the US Supreme Court. On December 4, the Court remanded that case to the Florida state
supreme court for clarification of the legal basis for its rulings.
On November 26, with recounts incomplete, the Florida Elections
Commission certified the results and declared Bush the winner. On November 27, Gore filed a complaint in
Leon County Circuit Court contesting the certification on the grounds that a
sufficient number of legal votes to change or place in doubt the result of the
election had not been included in the final tally. The Circuit Court denied Gore relief; he appealed to the First
District Court of Appeals, which certified the matter to the Florida Supreme
Court. On December 8, 2000, the Florida
Supreme Court affirmed and reversed in part Gore v. Harris. It ordered a manual recount in Miami-Dade County,
where there were 9,000
"undervotes" on which machines failed to detect a vote for President,
as well as undervotes in all Florida counties.
Bush filed an emergency application for a stay of this decision.
On December 9, the US Supreme Court granted an injunction stopping the recounts
pending the outcome of their ruling based on the possibility of
"irreparable harm" to "George Bush's reputation as the
legitimate winner." In taking this
case, the Court discarded its strict states' rights philosophy.
On December 12, 2000, a narrow 5-4 majority of conservative
justices-- Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, Antonin
Scalia and Clarence Thomas--ended the vote recount. The decision stated, "the individual citizen has no federal
constitutional right to vote for electors for President of the United States
unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as a means
to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College." It also made clear the state legislature can
reclaim its right to select electors.
In remanding the case back to the lower court, it ruled the absence of
uniform standards in determining voter intent in recounting
"undervotes" violated the US Constitution's equal protection and due
process clauses. (Sources: www.dcbar.org
and www.nationmaster.com/)
Soul Journey's October Performances
Soul Journey: Where Will Your Soul End Up? is a non-traditional expression of faith
and praise to the Most High. It is part
of an ongoing effort to expose the Christian community to spoken word. With its powerful message of faith and
redemption, Soul Journey connects and relates people of all ages one to
another.
Two Soul Journey performances are scheduled for
October. On October 29, 2004, Soul
Journey will be performed at the Cole Street Baptist Church, 159 Cole
Street in Marietta, Georgia. The performance
begins at 8:00 PM. The second
performance is planned for October 30, 2004 at St. Paul AME Church, 989 Morrow
Avenue in Macon, Georgia. This
performance time has not yet been determined.
For more information and bookings, email SoulJourney2004@aol.com or call Leatrice
Ellzy at 404-626-8139.
The November Surprise
Fearing Al Gore would win Election 2000, the Florida legislature
asserted Article 2 of the US Constitution which sets out how the president is
to be elected. "Each State shall
appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of
Electors." The legislature openly threatened to "choose Electors that
would vote for George W. Bush no matter who won the popular vote." The
Florida debacle allowed the Supreme Court to strictly construct a 5/4 decision that
disregarded legally cast votes thereby selecting George W. Bush president. For the first time in the United States'
history, judges became electors.
Election 2000 made it clear that the people's vote for president
is no more than a tradition and does not have to be recognized by the Electoral
College. That constitutional directive
denies the people any right to elect presidents, which means Electors in 2004
can vote to elect George W. Bush even if John Kerry, as Al Gore, wins the
popular vote. This is exactly the
rabbit election magician Karl Rove plans to pull out of his bag of dirty tricks
as a "November
surprise." Rove has taken a page
out of Florida's playbook and is running it nationwide.
Republican governors and legislators have agreed to appoint only
Electors to the Electoral College that promise to vote for Bush even if he does
not win the election. Backed by
corporate media, Bush campaign strategists are using political polls to give
the illusion that the race is too close to call. They are helping Bush paint
John Kerry as "soft on terrorism" and a "flip flopper," who
cannot be trusted. Therefore, Kerry is too dangerous to have in the White House
in a time of war. Rove, a political
dirty trickster trained by Donald Segretti of "Watergate" fame, has
used the "swift boat veterans" to create a smokescreen to hide his
real maneuver. Stampeded by Florida's
election fiasco of "hanging, dimpled and pregnant" chads from punch
card voting machines, the nation has been hoodwinked by companies like
Diebold. Leaping before they looked,
states purchased voting machines that do not provide a paper trail or printout,
ruling out manual recounts.
Set to pull off the slickest election theft in history with the
help of these machines, Rove has eliminated the possibility of a recount
challenge. Going from a confusing vote
recount like that in Florida to machines without any means to verify which
candidate actually won, Rove has Democrats right where he wants them. Looking at states like Ohio, Iowa, Florida
and Missouri already embroiled in controversy because Democrats have registered
thousands of new voters, Rove's plan is to use public doubt and chaos to demand
that Electors vote their conscience.
Remember the riotous crowd of Republicans that overran the vote
counting station in Miami-Dade and stopped the manual recount in 2000? Then, media talking heads described that
riot as "good ol’ boys in Brooks Brothers suits and tasseled loafers just
having a little fun." The media's role
in Rove's "November surprise" is to convince people to accept the
Electoral College vote that will send Bush back to the White House as the
"best thing for the country."
Disgruntled feels: Passionate! After Election 2000, passions ran high. Many Democratic voters felt the election was stolen. For some, the events of 9-11 redirected that
anger and passion to Osama bin Laden and radical Islamic terrorists. Some believed Bush when he claimed Saddam Hussein
was part of the terrorist plot and posed a grave and gathering danger to the US
and its allies with his stockpiles of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
of mass destruction. For these lies,
many continue to die. The war on terror
is a subterfuge; the real game is controlling the world's oil supply; this is
the US national security interest of the Bush administration. It is difficult to see how an Afghani
pipeline and reserves in Iraq can make us passionate enough to send our sons
and daughters to die for oil.
Disgruntled says: From electronic voting machines to
provisional ballots, Election 2004 is shaping up to be as hotly contested and
potentially problematic as the Florida debacle. One of the most interesting issues surrounds Colorado's Amendment
36, which could circumvent the winner take all aspect of the Electoral College
system. Amendment 36, if it passes and
it’s applied retroactively, will divide the state's nine Electoral College
votes on a proportional basis. Like e-voting
without paper receipts and potential provisional ballot issues, Amendment 36 could
result in a legal battle, giving us another presidential election year of high
drama. Of course, odds are in Bush's
favor, if any of these prospective cases reaches the high court. With a majority of partisan, strict
construction justices making the decision, Bush is a sure bet for re-selection.
Disgruntled wants to know: Blinded by a narrow divisive agenda, George W. Bush's first act as
newly selected president was jawboning down the economy. A declining economy became the pretext for
massive tax cuts that disproportionately favored the wealthy. Claiming everyone that paid taxes would
benefit, he used the Social Security surplus, which he had promised not to touch,
to partially finance his tax cuts.
While a disproportionate share of low wage earners' income is paid into
Social Security, they pay no income taxes and so received nothing from Bush's
tax cuts. Now, Social Security is
practically bankrupt, the federal budget has gone from surplus to record
deficits. The US balance of trade is a
sea of red ink, the dollar and real wages are tanking and the nation is
fighting two wars for oil, which is above $50 a barrel. Given the sorry state of the US economy and
the precipitous decline in US prestige and credibility on the global front, how
can US media and people pretend Bush has not been a dismal leader?
By John Burl Smith
Bogged down in the Civil War and faced with repeated Union loses,
the question in everyone's mind as Abraham Lincoln pondered the Emancipation
Proclamation was, "would slaves fight for their freedom?" Slaves not only fought, they fought with
honor and distinction. Election 2004 presents
Africans living in the United States with a similar challenge. Supporting Senator John Kerry is not as
compelling as emancipation, but the choices are just as clear.
Following emancipation, slaves did not achieve the same degree of
freedom as whites, and relatively speaking, that socioeconomic and political
gap traps blacks today in a chasm of inequality. As such, the 3/5 Compromise of Article 1 Section 2 of the US
Constitution is still intact and looms large with George W. Bush in the White
House. Blacks understand this election
is not about Kerry/Edwards; it is about us. It is about Bush's pledge to turn
back the clock on affirmative action and gains blacks made after Brown v Board
of Education by appointing judges that strictly construct the Constitution.
It is about watching the standard of living of all US households
struggling to achieve middle class status erode over the last four years. Blacks, the last hired and first fired, are
experiencing depression level unemployment.
Last year over a million slipped into poverty and although home
ownership is up, foreclosure rates are at an all time high, which means
homelessness is rampant. Bush's tax cuts destroyed Social Security and Medicare
as we know them, leaving millions of citizens that paid for them, without
retirement assistance and healthcare coverage.
It is about how under the Bush administration young people have been
forgotten. Black youth unemployment is
5 or 6 times the national average. In
September, the black teen unemployment rate was 33.0%. Rules put in place by
Bush's "No Child Left Behind" fast track minority youth out of school
and into the juvenile justice system. Three strikes, zero tolerance and
mandatory minimum sentencing have replaced rehabilitation and made juvenile
institutions a feeder system for filling state-run and private prisons. Keeping these prisons full of black and
Hispanic youth functions as job programs in rural white communities.
The outcome of Election 2004 is about the black community. It is another opportunity for blacks to make
a statement about their future. Will
they allow whites like Bush to define them and relegate them to a status of
their choosing or turn out big time?
Much like the question before 1863, then blacks North and South took up
arms in the name of freedom. On
November 2, 2004, blacks are faced with another call to arms. Only this time rather than bullets, we are
fighting with ballots. The implications
are no different from the early days of the Civil War, when the Union was
losing battle after battle and needed slaves to save the nation.
Blacks understand that we are the moral conscience of the USA. We stood up in the 1960s and forced this country
to live up to its creed of freedom, justice and equality. Today, the burden rests on our shoulders and
again we must lift the sagging fortunes of liberty. Blacks have always stood against the forces of hatred, whether
they wore sheets and hoods bearing fiery crosses or suits and ties hiding
behind the American flag. Blacks died
getting the right to vote and continued to died exercising the franchise. Whether it is the deaths of freedom fighters
like Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Richard L.
Kirksey, Jr., or the determination of Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary McLeod Bethune,
Ida B. Wells and many others that gave us the courage to continue our drive to
freedom, we will never let Bush or those of his ilk turn the clock back to
slavery! See you at the polls!
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