However, come 2008, the internet may be well on its way to becoming cable television with 500 channels and nothing on, as powerful corporate forces are angling to both control and sanitize the medium of its “cacophonous and chaotic” nature. For now, however, net neutrality is likely ensured, as a massive grassroots operation coordinated by MyDD.com and MoveOn.org has “helped put enough pressure on Judiciary lawmakers to ensure a comfortable victory [for passage of the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act]. Members of Congress heard from plenty of their constituents about the importance of this bill and not one Democrat voted against it,” explains Congressman John Conyers.

Regardless of this reprieve, the internet is hardly an effective tool for reforming our “dumb” election system, a process not as clunky as Alter and the corporate media would have us believe. For instance, the “cacophonous and chaotic” internet was unable to prevent the theft of the 2004 election, thanks to Diebold computerized voting, although the internet served up valuable resources ex post facto (see the work of Bev Harris and Black Box Voting).

Moreover, for the elite in firm control of the “dumb election system” in America, the internet is for now irrelevant, although certainly a minor thorn in its side. It’s a well established fact global elites hand-pick presidents, as Clinton was introduced “to world leaders at their annual Bilderberg gathering in Germany in 1991,” as Marc Fisher wrote for the Washington Post in early 1998. “All recent presidents, except the current George W. Bush, have been linked, either directly or by involvement with Bilderberg’s brother group, the Trilateral Commission. The two groups have interlocking leadership and a common agenda. Here are some past presidents who have been connected…. Jerry Ford, Bilderberg; Jimmy Carter, Trilateral; Ronald Reagan, a critic of the Trilateralists until entering the White House, where he held a reception for them; Bush the Elder, Trilateral; and Bill Clinton, Bilderberg,” notes James P. Tucker Jr. for the American Free Press.

As the “election” of 2004 demonstrated, the “dumb system” is so malleable and open to abuse a gaggle of Straussian neocons, with more than a little help from Republican operatives, were able to throw the election. Bush and the Straussian neocons may not be strictly aligned with the traditional globalists (instead, the latter are neoliberals, proponents of neoliberalism, who are in fact not “liberal,” in the sense of classic liberalism, i.e., John Locke and the founders), but at the end of the day their objectives are more similar than divergent—global economic and political control (Straussians fantasize more about the military aspect of this than the neolibs, who prefer back room deals and “color” revolutions a la George Soros, who may be considered an emblematic neolib).

Jonathan Alter may hold out hope for an effervescent future, where elections are reformed and democratic from the bottom up, and assign special significance to the role of a “cacophonous and chaotic” internet. However, the globalists—who incidentally own the propaganda, er news organization where Alter draws a paycheck—are not about to accept serious tampering with the “dumb system” and allow sincerely open and free elections. Alter has it wrong, as should be expected—the role of the internet is to provide a platform for the dissemination of information, sans corporate filter, and also provide a vehicle for activism, as the above example of the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act demonstrates. In addition to monopolizing the internet, corporate interest are keen to sanitize it of truth seekers and alternative voice.

No, the internet will not reform the “dumb” election process, not directly. It may, however, be utilized as a highly effective communication and organizational tool in any effort to finally depose and oust the globalists of both stripe, be they Straussian neocon or “free market” (unhampered thievery) neoliberal.

Of course, this will necessitate a significant change in the population at large, as most people are more interested in American Idol contestants and the meaningless debate centered around Britney Spears and if she did or did not drop her baby. Short of marching en masse on Washington with pitchforks and buckets of tar and feather in hand (as our ancestors were wont to do), nothing will change, or rather little will change, and we will realize but small and temporary victories, as in the probable passage of the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act.

It’s going to take more than a million man (and woman) march—it will take tens of millions. Make no mistake, however—our rulers, when push finally comes to shove, are as ruthless and murderous as their counterparts in China, rolling troops into Tiananmen Square, busting heads and slaughtering innocents.