Bart,
This is the first thing I have written since the
day of the election.
I'm a Vietnam Vet (USMC '65-'66) who came back
to work against the war effort,
and I am gratefully a survivor of a near forty
year battle with post traumatic stress disorder.
I've managed to reach a livable compromise with
it but I know its symptoms. Had I tried to
write anything prior to this it would have amounted
to little more than a mindless cry of pain
and rage benefiting no one, least of all myself.
So I've waited until I felt a bit more confident
of my rationality before I sat down at the computer
and started looking at email.
It is fitting this should be my first post election
act because yours is one of four websites I have
visited daily since the 2000 election, and data
from your site, and from links you've posted,
has been critical to my becoming and staying
an informed activist working against the current
corporate-theocratic-police-state attempts to
suborn our future as a free nation.
Now, I have a favor to ask of you. Not in return
for my subscription, because I believe your work
to be important and valuable and worthy of support
in its own right. But as one warrior to another
-- and make no mistake, we are in a real war
for the survival of the democratic and constitutional
ideals our ancestors fought and died for. The
favor I ask of you is this. Indicate the proper communication
channel and allow me the opportunity to make
a written argument to you that
1. Kerry won this election and it was stolen from
the American people; and
2. that computerized vote recording and counting
is the single most important issue in the survival of American democracy.
My credentials for making the argument are as follows.
First, I am a small businessman, a jewelry designer
and crafstman. Since becoming aware of the issue of
computerized vote counting fraud shortly after
9/11, based on the hourly rate I charge as a jeweler (and
factoring in the number of hours I took away
from my work to research and act in this area) I have invested
somewhere in the neighborhood of $175,000 worth
of my time in this issue.
Second, I organized and chaired the Pima County
(AZ) Democratic Party Committee on Computerized
Vote Counting Procedures and Safeguards and co-wrote
the report which was until recently still available
on the county party website (copy available on
request). I organized and led an effort to stop the state of
Arizona from spending $141 million on Diebold
machines. I managed to get legal action started with the
party as plaintiff and then they withdrew support
for the action. As a Vietnam vet I am fully cognizant of
the deadly outrages and deceptions our government
is capable of when evil men get their hands on the
levers of power. I know both the reality of conspiracies
and the use of term "conspiracy theory" as a
psyops weapon used since the 50's to discredit
and silence dissidents of all stripes.
Finally, I spent a good portion of my life as
a journalist and novelist, and in the novel I wrote after coming
back from Vietnam, the protagonist who has just
returned from Nam is sitting late at night in a park talking to
an old friend about the war, says:"...All these
asshole intellectuals haven't got the first damn idea what it's all about.
Maybe I don't either, but I'll tell you one thing,
Jim -- something in America's psyche made it necessary for us
to be in this screwed up war. And if we pull
out without either winning or losing, if we pull another messed up
scene like Korea, something's going to die in
this country, man...That's what I'm afraid is going to happen.
We're just going to quit and spend the next fifty
years trying to pretend like it never happened. If we do that,
something important in her soul is going to dry
up and blow away and the fucking computers will eat out hearts for appetizers."
I didn't know at the time I wrote that that the brand name on those computers would be Diebold.
I've taken up way too much of your valuable time
now.
Thanks for being there, Bart. Keep swinging that
Hammer.
Let me know if you want to hear more.
I'll give you the choice between the long argument
complete with pages of mind numbing figures,
or the short overview version with pointers to
supporting evidence.
In any case, it is an honor to fight alongside
you.
Gordon
Gordon, a shot of Chinaco for you.
I look forward to your next e-mail.