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Good Riddance to Decade That Began With Theft of the Presidency
It is an amusing pastime that has some value, but only if we're focused on identifying the root cause of what made the Noughties such a miserable decade.
If we are serious about the task, there is not much mystery.
The original sin of the good-riddance decade came in December of 2000, when the United States Supreme Court intervened to stop a complete recount of the votes in Florida and then declared George Bush to be the president.
This extreme judicial activism was not merely a devastating assault on American democracy. It set in motion the Bush presidency, and with it the pathologies that the Bush-Cheney administration imposed on the country in the form of unnecessary wars, failed economic policies, assaults on civil liberties and crudely divisive and hyper-partisan governance.
Bush, Dick Cheney and aides are surely to blame for much of what ailed America during the 2000s, and for what will ail America for decades to come.
But it was the U.S. Supreme Court's unprecedented meddling in the presidential election process – an intervention that would have horrified the founders of a republic that was supposed to enjoy a separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers – made the Bush-Cheney interregnum possible.
Bush, it must be remembered, did not win the popular vote nationally.
In fact, the American electorate favored Democrat Al Gore over Republican Bush by more than 540,000 votes.
Of course, because the United States has a convoluted electoral system that does not award the presidency to the candidate who wins the most votes, the contest came down to a fight between the Bush and Gore camps for Florida's decisive 25 Electoral College votes.
Florida ran a confusing and disorderly election on November 7, 2000, and then conducted a ridiculous review of the close result that followed no standards except those imposed by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush campaign co-chair.
When the Florida Supreme Court finally ordered a full and consistent recount of all 6.1 million ballots cast by the state's voters, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the process and then declared Bush the winner of Florida's electoral votes and the presidency.
The problem with this unprecedented move by a conflicted high court was that more Floridians went to the polls with the intention of electing Gore than Bush.
This is not some radical notion, not some conspiracy theory.
It is the reality that was evident to scholars of voting behavior from the start.
As University of California at Irvine political scientist Anthony Salvanto, who conducted some of the first and most exhaustive examinations of contested ballots, noted: "There's a pretty clear pattern from these ballots. Most of these people went to the polls to vote for Al Gore."
Salvanto was not an outlier.
Media outlets that looked beyond the partisan spin to the reality of what the ballots revealed.
As The Associated Press noted, "Under any standard that tabulated all disputed ballots statewide, however, Gore erased Bush's advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42 to 171 votes."
The Washington Post was even more blunt, stating that, "If there had been some way last fall to recount every vote -- undervotes and overvotes alike, in all 67 Florida counties -- former vice president Al Gore would be the White House."
The Palm Beach Post, which conducted its own review of the ballots and also participated in a review by a consortium of media outlets, concluded: "Uncounted ballots and voter confusion cost Gore the election."
Actually, that's not quite right.
The Supreme Court's blocking of the full and consistent recount that could have sorted through the confusion cost Al Gore an election. But the consequences were far greater for the republic, which lost a decade of its promise and possibility to the excesses and abuses of George Bush's illegitimate presidency.
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126 Comments so far
Show AllMcoyote -
Confessing, first off, I didn't read your entire post I would like to ask? Don't you hold your own opinions? Your very own?
For after all, if you can enjoy this independence, and actually think for yourself, may it not be possible others do too? Including those who disagree with you? That there may be a variety of approaches, opinions out there? Though some may appear very foolish?
Now I may be another mere dupe too but there are many in our Congress who actually have a point of view. All kinds of people, including liberals, progressives, conservatives, religious fanatics, on and on. And they tend to represent the majority of opinion in the districts they represent, no matter how ill informed and wrong headed they may be. Ie, how much they may see the world differently. That has to be expected in a democracy which spreads across an entire continent. One with more than three hundred million people.
I see you like to make it personal. Ie, that you prove your point by pointing out the personal failings of those you disagree with. There are many examples of that in your post. Such personal attacks divert from the issues. They deflect disagreement from the brain to put them in the gut. Hitting the gut you actually hit the person, not what he believes. And the issue itself becomes lost. For, after all, having provided a shot to the solar plexus there is no need to face what he said. It all simply becomes combat. And victory is based on who is the superior person.
That is no way of solving a problem. But you're only interested in winning, aren't you?
Oh, oh, I see I have made it personal. But that is what I gather from your post, that you simply want to attack and destroy the person who offered an opinion, not the opinion itself by dealing with its lack of worth. It would help, if you have the patience, to point out what is wrong with the thought. We really see too many ad homonyms around here.
You dig?
Yes you are a dupe.
You think America is a 'democracy' so you've proved your dupedness.
Not all opinions are equal. Nichols article is a facile piece of liberal wishfulness. It bears no resemblance to what has actually been the historical reality. Wake up.
Oh, I love it when they say "wake up!"
As if everyone who doesn't agree with them are dreamers.
As for the obvious, that the United States is a republic, well, yeah. But folks still make a trek to the polls, and who they choose still affects what we get from our government. And if we chose better representatives might it not be possible we would have a better government. For that's where that pesky democracy thing comes in again. People choose.
And if we chose more wisely the lobbyists, corporate influences and the like would have less of an influence.
Oh I just love the dogmatic self righteous left. Those who believe anyone who disagrees with them are dupes who need to "wake up." As if the world were that simple.
Anyway, why stick to arguments when you can make it personal?
Yes, Bush did steal the 2000 election, and he was an awful President, but Nichols is falling into a trap that is common among Democrats. Bush is not the problem; he is only a small part of it.
Bush did nothing about health care, but universal health care has been getting shot down for nearly a century now, and the current bill is not the answer.
Bush did nothing about global warming, but CO2 emissions have been rising regardless of which party is in power.
Bush did nothing about the financial excesses that gave us our current economic problems, but the deregulation that made them much worse was passed by bipartisan majorities and cheerfully signed by Bill Clinton.
Yes, VA, Nichols joyously rails against the Bush decade, as conservatives have criticized the Clinton decade, and will criticize the Obama decade (assuming he is even reelected).
However, while Nichols blithely wishes "Good Riddance" to the immediate past decade, and various neocons and neolibs do the same for the past three decades (as well as the future one), 'damning Decades' and celebrating 'good riddance to decades' is not going to do one bit of real good.
What we really have to work to achieve "Good Riddance" to is EMPIRE ---- this GD ruling-elite Global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE which controls our country (and the world) by hiding behind the facade of its two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy and 'American Exceptionalism'.
Until we can honestly confront, defeat, and wish "good riddance" to Global EMPIRE we will merely be patting ourselves on the back for switching one Empire controlled party of political 'front-men' and guileful whores for the other, without addressing anything but the symptomes of Empire, rather than the underlying tumor of Empire.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
A Global People's Movement (and revolution) against this Global Empire is the only path toward something truly worthy of celebrating.
The real debate, as opposed to such journalistic 'he said, she said' fair and balancediness, is about a term which neither Nichols’ piece (nor any right of center media) raises, namely Empire.
Nichols’ article couldn’t very well raise the issue of Empire, because Obama has never said anything about Empire --- and certainly not the ruling-elite Global corporate/financial/militarist Empire that is right under his nose, and, in fact, put him (and every Dem. or Rep. President in the last three decades) in office.
Nothing can be said, or even whispered, about this Empire because it guilefully controls our country by hiding behind the façade of its two-party ‘Vichy’ sham of democracy, and saying anything of that sort would surely disabuse us of our pride in our supposed ‘American exceptionalism’, not to mention questioning the motives of the former nation-state that we still call America.
So, neoliberal defenders, apologists, or propagandists can not maintain political correctness by going around and debating the uncomfortable reality that the American people sometimes experience ‘blowback’ from the periphery of an Empire which jabs the ‘tip of its spear’ in the faces of those ‘others’, and does so in our name, despite the fact that we do not know its name as Empire.
Neocons also have to avoid the discussion of anything to do with Empire because --- while they are masters of ‘fear’ propaganda --- they are fearful themselves that Americans might be less fearful of those ‘others’ if they became aware of a greater fear right here in River City. In fact, good, old fashioned, honest, poor/working/middle-class Americans might predictably become un-hinged (or worse) if they even suspected that they were living in the belly of a well disguised Empire rather than the warm heart of their democratic Republic.
Neither the neolibs nor neocons, are going to open the Pandora’s Box of discussing or debating whether America, our country, has morphed into Empire.
Fortunately, in an increasing number of places that polite people don’t talk about, and which the media never reports, editorializes, nor prints op-eds about, there are people, serious people; political-economists, social philosophers, ex-journalists, humanists, and even religious people who do discuss and debate what’s going on in America. It’s just that these serious discussions are beyond the media --- either the traditional print media or the supposedly alternative media.
This very open and candid public discourse and debate is no longer limited to reading supposedly radical leftists like Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Gabriel Kolko, etc, nor supposedly radical right libertarians like Justin Rainmondo, Jacob Hornberger, Ron Paul, and Paul Craig Roberts.
If there were only three books to be read and absorbed to get real insight, if not fair and balancediness, on the state of our former democratic nation-state, I would recommend theologian and former NYT journalist Christopher Hedges’ “Empire of Illusion”, former West Point Army officer and BU professor of international relations Andrew Bacevich’s “The Limits of Power”, and the late CIA agent, Yale chaplain, and ‘Skull and Bones’ fellow member to both Bush presidents Rev. William Sloan Coffin’s “Credo”.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Right on the money" Alan. Thanks for your cogent analysis and recommended reading list. I'll check them out.
Your recognition of the "serious people; political-economists, social philosophers, ex-journalists, humanists, and even religious people" who don't make it past the gatekeepers brings much needed attention to the adventitious root of human social evolution. I happen to be one of the above mentioned, hardly published in the US after eighteen years of photojournalism, though in Europe my writing and films are more widely appreciated.
In my view, the most obvious "litmus test" of integrity and the capacity for leadership, for any politician, is their willingness to consider reintroducing organic, industrial hemp agriculture. Hemp would allow the US to realize a truly free market economy for the first time in our lives. Dennis Kuncinich, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader... those are some of the people we need to listen to and support if this nation chooses to recover our moral compass.
Right now the world is angry at the US, and rightly so. Obama had better take an informed, objective position on industrial hemp soon, or he too will soon be relegated to the scrap heap of "drug war" dinosaurs. As soon as the nutritional value of hemp seed becomes common knowledge, the true cost of 'marijuana' prohibition will be revealed. Pot was prohibited because hemp is a sustainable, evenly distributed source of complete nutrition and sustainable biofuels -- from the same harvest. This cannot be said of any other agricultural resource. It's good news that's being stubbornly over-looked by the "alternative media."
A fundamental shift in values, inclusive of real spirituality, is what's needed to wrest control from the grip of the chemical agricultural/industrial/military consortium. Our species will die before the end of this century unless a sincere connection between agriculture, respect for Nature and gratitude is re-established and reflected in our economic system.
And, oh-by-the-way, we all knew that Bush was planted into the presidency illegally by the so-called "Supreme Court" the first time, but he wasn't even eligible the second time because it was known that he wasn't truly elected the first time. As far as I'm aware, there was very little discussion about this, even by the far left.
Anyone interested in "An Inconvenient Solution" to climate change and the economic disparity that afflicts human society can Google "global broiling," find the projectpeace channel on You Tube or go to www.cannabisvsclimatechange.com
There is a way out of the mess we're in, but time is running out for no good reason.
If you want to read about the extremely pertinent issue of EMPIRE,peruse the EIR website. This is the Executive Intelligence Review website. I've been following it closely for 6 or 7 years now, & find it VERY enlightening. It's the website of that "lightning rod" Lyndon LaRouche. He's the recipient of much verbal abuse, which, for me, nowadays, just means he must be saying something truthful, useful, & THREATENING to the Oligarchy. He appears ,to me, to be the victim of character assassination. Anyway, I've never been disappointed in any of his pronouncements.He has correctly named the tune, to which we are compelled to dance, IMHO.As best as I can tell, he represents the REAL revival of "FDR"-ism, which I'm totally on board with that. He also has a VERRRY different take on history, which I find extremely fascinating.If you are new to EIR-ism, it's almost too late to catch up, as we are in the end stage of a global civilizational breakdown crisis worse than the Depression(more like a new DARK AGE).
EMPIRE works best in a dark age-type setting, with no competition from nation-states with gov'ts of, by, for, the people, according to mr. LaRouche.
Clinton didn't win a majority of the popular vote in either '92 or '96. Why'd we leave that out? Not to mention that with the number of eligible voters staying home in every election only about 22-25% of American adults vote for ANY winner of a US presidential contest.
We all know the GOP cheated in 2000, but the Dems let them.
Compare the servile reaction of the Democratic Party to the GOP theft of a national election in 2000 to the extreme anti-democratic measures they took against the Greens and Nader in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
Let's not get all in a smug huff over the GOP when the Dems help them cheat and viciously attack and remove actual left candidates. It's two wings of the Corporate Party.
You're right.
Next time the Supreme Court tries to steal a Presidential election, we should kill them.
Does seem like they are one party with lots of "dog and pony shows".
It was shocking to me that the Senate leaders of the Democratic Party didn't let the Representatives speak and protest the fraud in the Florida election (other states too such as North Carolina, New Mexico, Tennessee, etc).
They manipulated the process so Bush could win. The Supreme Court was allowed to hold up the process (even though they are unelected) which was not their business. States control elections and the government may investigate the fraud.
Nancy Pelosi and Tubbs Jones of the House declared Bush the winner before all votes and fraud was investigated. They negated all our votes along with the Supreme Court judges.
Elections since 2000 have been manipulated and controlled during the primaries. They steal it before the final vote. 2000 was stolen right before our eyes on TV.
Presidents are like girl friends - we don't really know them until we live with them for a while. All too often we see what we want to see & are disappointed to later learn that we were mistaken. I wonder how many guns are pointed at Obama's head. He seems to be very obedient to the ruling elite. It's not hard to imagine some horrible person saying something like 'Gee Barack, it'd be a shame for you to end up like JFK.' These days we seem to vote for more for images created by advertising experts than anything else.
Hopefully Obama will come around.
We need a revolution - all who are sick and tired of it all need to take to the streets in force! So who's got the plans?
Given that Obama would bring military force immediately to bear upon any movement dangerous to predatory capitalism, I think targeted assassinations of the rich much better than "revolution."
The money would just fail into other and maybe cleverer (and better protected) hands. This is once again a top-down false solution to what requires systematic change from the bottom up.
Gary
Are you guys serious?
..and we still haven't got it back despite the delusions of all the "progressives".