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Sunday, May 27, 2012

They died for THIS?
Posted by Jill | 7:49 PM
As we head into this year's Memorial Day, a day when we remember those who gave their lives in the service of what this nation is supposed to stand for, the whole exercise seems somewhat hollow. Oh, there will be parades tomorrow, and veterans will march, and people will attend the parades, and my little neighbor next door, who loves all things military, will wave his flags and try to get his parents to let him sell cups of water to raise money for the soldiers. And the guy at my local post office yesterday who was in the Army band in World War II and feels terrible saying that he has no idea what we're doing in Afghanistan, and if we can't figure it out we should just leave will also attend the parade and remember all the guys he served with long ago who never came home.

But most people will skip the parades. They'll go to Best Buy and pick up a new air conditioner, or they'll pick up a new bathing suit at the mall, or get the tomatoes planted. They'll catch up on housework, or spend one last hot humid day at the beach before heading back to work. But there's one thing they won't do, and that's think about how the stage is being set for this November's election to be a sham, a banana republic election that Saddam Hussein would have been proud of, one in which everyone that Republicans can't rely on to vote for them will be prevented from voting, either by rigging the voting machines, or providing inadequate machines to precincts, or by voter ID laws, or simply by purging people from the voter rolls for no reason. This latter tactic was perfected by Republican hero Jeb Bush in Florida in 2000, and convicted criminal and now-Governor Rick Scott is continuing Jeb Bush's grand tradition of disenfranchisement:
Maureen Russo was born in Akron, Ohio. For the last 40 years she’s operated a dog boarding and grooming business — Bobbi’s World Kennels — with her husband in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Maureen is 60 years old and has been a registered voter in the state for the last four decades. She regularly votes at the church around the corner from her home.

Two weeks ago she received a letter from the State of Florida informing her that they had received information that she was not born in this country and, therefore, was ineligible to vote.

She was given an option to request “an administrative hearing to present evidence” disputing the determination of the State of Florida that she was ineligible to vote. Unless Maureen returned a form requesting such a hearing within 30 days, she was told, it would result in “the removal of your name from the voter registration rolls.”

She immediately sent off a registered letter to the State with a copy of her passport. She hasn’t heard anything back.

Florida will be stolen again through voter roll purges of anyone who is a threat to vote Democratic. And so will Pennsylvania and Virginia -- three swing states that could decide November's election. Funny how DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is utterly silent on this, as are all the other Democrats, even after Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, which leads me to ask the question: Do the Democrats WANT to lose, or they simply that fucking stupid? This is how democracy ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

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Blogger Ahab said...
Soldiers enlist to serve their country, but their trust and hard work are too often abused by leaders. The claim that those veterans suffered and died for our "freedom" is a sick joke. All too often, the military is dispatched to do the bidding of corporate interests rather than to protect freedom. Sadly, real human soldiers sustain injuries or die for that.

Meanwhile, what about real threats to freedom at home, as you observed? It's so surreal.
5/28/12, 1:08 AM  
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