Not that it particularly mattered—John Forbes “Skull and Bones” Kerry promised, if elected, he would out-Bush Bush, send 40,000 additional troops to Iraq, and pursue in earnest the “war on terrorism,” that is to say attack “rogue nations” with the gall to go their own way, rejecting neoliberal mandates and demands (or in the case of Iraq and Iran, the mandates of the Israeli state). Kerry, who is a traditional neolib, simply (and foolishly) listened to his advisors, who told him to mimic Bush’s false machismo.

It is, however, interesting Rolling Stone would publish such an article, as the corporate media has assiduously avoided the issue, and Kerry himself put it to rest after he refused to challenge the Republicans in the wake of the election, as Gore did when the Supreme Court appointed Bush. Now Al Gore is calling Bush a right-wing fanatic—cynically playing right into the false left-right paradigm, per usual—and there are rumors he will run again in 2008, maybe with the monstrosity Hillary as his mate.

Meanwhile, the background, the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” plays at length.

Kennedy concludes by stating: “If the last two elections have taught us anything, it is this: The single greatest threat to our democracy is the insecurity of our voting system. If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded, they will abandon the ballot box. Nothing less is at stake here than the entire idea of a government by the people.” In fact, as the founders envisioned, we are not intended to have “a government by the people,” a form of mob rule, as Plato understood, but rather a republic limited by a constitution. In fact, our “democratic” system is wide open to abuse by corporate oligarchy (more accurately, a plutocracy, or rule by the rich, or in the current context, mega-wealthy corporations legally designated as persons).

It is ironic Mr. Kennedy would criticize the Republicans for stealing the election when in fact his family has done likewise. In 1960, Kennedy operatives fixed the election in Texas and Illinois, delivering to John F. Kennedy those states’ 51 electoral votes and a majority in the Electoral College. “Even before Election Day, rumors circulated about fraud, especially in Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley’s machine was known for delivering whopping Democratic tallies by fair means and foul. When it became clear how narrowly Nixon lost, outraged Republicans grew convinced that cheating had tipped the election and lobbied for an investigation,” writes David Greenberg. Now, as the cliché runs, the shoe is on the other foot, although most Democrats are not lobbying for an investigation, as they will do the same if given half a chance.

In essence, Mr. Kennedy’s article expresses a bad taste from sour grapes. Liberal Democrats are outraged the Republicans would throw an election while ignoring the fact such fraud is epidemic. However, during the 2004 election cycle, the Democratic leadership ignored and even punished the anti-war and so-called progressive wing of their party and set-up Howard Dean for a rather embarrassing fall (i.e., his primal scream, looped ad nauseam by the corporate media) as the plutocrats were not ready for his brand of internet generated contrived populism, although Dean is a consummate insider, Yale graduate, former Dean Witter Reynolds top executive, and stock broker. Paul Street comments:

[A Wall Street Journal article, January 5, 2004] provided some interesting social-historical context. It approvingly noted that “Mr. Dean’s roots on Wall Street stretch back four generations to Issac Dean, a Manhattan sugar broker in the 1870s. As a child, Howard Brush Dean III took the bus from his family’s Park Avenue apartment to the private Browning School, where one of his classmates was Winthrop Rockefeller, grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller Jr. and now Arkansas’s Republican lieutenant governor.” Dean’s father “thrived on a Wall Street that valued bonhomie and connections.” It is true, the Journal noted, that Dean angered his father by choosing medicine over investment banking. Nonetheless, the Journal happily observed that “Mr. Dean’s upbringing and frugality were evident when” the new Vermont Governor “adopted “ his Republican predecessor’s “deficit-reduction” and “austerity program as his own.” Further: “one of his first acts as governor was a trip to Wall Street to woo bond-rating agencies. The agencies were ‘pleasantly surprised,’ says Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, then a top aide to Mr. Dean.”

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice—won’t get fooled again.

In fact, Howard Dean, generally considered too radical for the Democratic party, even as he serves as party chairman, is simply a stylistic neoliberal and represents more of the same, albeit his neoliberalism is of the billionaire financier George Soros variety, that is to say of the “New Democrat” stripe. Soros is opposed to the neocon approach to neoliberalism (unabashed and unapologetic military aggression, while traditional neolibs, such as Clinton, prefer a kinder and gentler approach with more smoke and mirrors, never mind that bombing the former Yugoslavia with depleted uranium was not exactly kinder and gentler). Even though we are told Soros is viscerally opposed to Bush, the so-called “philanthropist” did business with Bush in 1986 when his Harken Energy bought Spectrum 7, an oil company that merged with Bush’s Arbusto Energy in 1984.

Kennedy may complain about vote fraud. However, he is not likely to admit the entire system, Democrat and Republican, is but a one party system essentially representing the same corporate plutocratic financial interests. “We only have one political party in the U.S., and that is the property party, which essentially is corporate America, which has two right wings, one called Republican and one called Democrat,” Gore Vidal told USA Today in 2003. Vidal takes this formulation from Ferdinand Lundberg.

As Vidal comments elsewhere, the thesis of G. William Domhoff, a C. Wright Mills disciple,

is straightforward. The country is governed by a small elite which knows pretty much what it is up to and coordinates its various moves in foreign affairs and the economy. Most academics dispute this theory. They tend to be Jefferson I types who believe that the United States is a pluralist society filled with all sorts of domination and powers constantly balancing and checking one another. To them, anyone who believes that an elite is really running the show is paranoid. But as the late Delmore Schwartz once said with the weary lucidity of his own rich madness, “Paranoids have real enemies, too.” Admittedly, it is difficult at first to accept the proposition that the owners of the country also rule it and that the electorate is nothing but a quadrennial chorus who function is to ratify with hosannahs one or the other of two presidential candidates carefully picked for them by rulers who enjoy pretending that ours is really government of, by, and for the you-know-who. In the same manner, Tiberius always respectfully consulted a Senate to who irrelevant ranks his heir nicely added a race-horse…

Domhoff accepts the Ferdinand Lundberg formulation there is only one political party in the United States and that is the Property Party, whose Republican wing tends to be rigid in maintaining the status quo and not given to any accommodation of the poor and the black. Although the Democratic wing shares most of the basic principles (that is to say, money) of the Republicans, its members are often shrewd enough to know that what is too rigid will shatter under stress. The Democrats have also understood for some time the nature of the American empire. While the Republicans indulge in Jefferson I rhetoric and unrealities, including isolationism, the Democrats have known all along that this is a Jefferson II world.

Thus Soros, a “liberal” money man who supports the likes of MoveOn.org, is opposed to Bush, primarily because the Jacobin neocons are “rigid” and the tension they create “will shatter” the system. Traditional neoliberals are aghast at the seemingly out of control neocons, who are Straussian radicals embracing a reformulated version of Leon Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” with an unhealthy dose of Zionism, as many Straussian neocons (at least in the rarified air of their leadership) are reactionary Jews espousing the “clash of civilizations” dogma targeting Muslim society and culture, an agenda that portends serious problems for the neoliberal order.

Vote fraud is of course an organic element of the plutocratic system, as the neoliberals are running a shell game on the easily duped and distracted masses. In 1980, Bertram Gross wrote his seminal book, Friendly Fascism, where he argued that a veneer of democracy is required to obfuscate what is essentially textbook fascism (Mussolini, after all, defined fascism as corporatism). Elections thus serve an integral purpose. “Even in the past, national elections have provided what Murray Edelman has described as ’symbolic reassurance.’ According to Edelman, elections serve to ‘quiet resentments and doubts about particular political acts, reaffirm belief in the fundamental rationality and democratic character of the system, and thus fix conforming habits of future behavior,’” writes Gross. The “subversion of constitutional democracy is more likely to occur not through violent and sudden usurpation but rather through the gradual and silent encroachments that would accustom the American people to the destruction of their freedoms” (see Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, Bertram Gross), thus for the traditional neolibs Bush and crew, establishing the unitary presidency and decimating the Constitution, are moving too quickly.

The traditional neolibs understand such “gradual and silent encroachments” are threatened by the rambunctious neocons, bandits who have taken over the government (and of particular importance, the Pentagon) and are now attempting to implement their destructive “clash of civilizations” agenda and its attendant Straussian domestic social project. The Straussian neocons came through the back door of the Republican party and captured the flag, so to speak, and if the oligarchic or plutocratic system is to remain in place, they will need be deposed (the hope is this may happen at first during the 2006 mid-term election and the process will be complete after the 2008 presidential election, when the “environmentalist” Al Gore, with his running mate Hillary Clinton, will take back the government and deliver it to a far less wild-eyed neoliberal faction servicing the corporate plutocracy).

Once again, the public will be duped, although the election will likely not be so obviously hijacked, as the neocons don’t care if the masses realize they are fascist snake oil salesmen, thus revealing their utter and poisonous contempt. Traditional neolibs share this contempt, however they go to lengths to hide it (Bill Clinton, who declared to feel our pain, was a master at this). If the system is to survive with any semblance of its former, partially obscured exploitative character and the “gradual and silent encroachments” are to continue, the neocons, who are unabashed fascists, will need to be deposed during the next election cycle, that is to say the next time the plutocrats decide who will fill Congress and the White House.

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Read from Looking Glass News

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
by Robert F. Kennedy
http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=6227

The Looking Glass News collection of news articles concerning "Voter Integrity"
http://www.lookingglassnews.org/index.php?topic=2