Blog: Consensual Political Intercourse
By Mark E. Smith
Ever get the feeling that your government is screwing you? Legally, of course, that's something that it is not allowed to do unless you give your consent. Without your consent it isn't a consensual relationship and becomes rape. So my question is, did you give your consent or not?
"Of course not," my friends tell me indignantly. "Why would we consent to having our own jobs outsourced, our homes repossessed, our children's futures mortgaged to pay for wars based on lies, and allowing big corporations to poison our food?"
"I don't know why you'd consent to things like that," I tell them, "but I'm not so much concerned about your reasoning – I just want to know if you did or did not give your consent."
"No!" they answer angrily. "We did not consent!"
And I hear their echoes everywhere I go.
"We did not consent!" shout the peace activists.
"We did not consent!" scream the 9/11 Truthers.
"We did not consent!" holler the downsized and repossessed, young and old.
I hear them, but I'm not sure I'm buying it. If they didn't consent, how could things like this have happened? What if they actually had consented but are now ashamed of it and are trying to frame a perfectly innocent government for rape?
Now I'm not talking about implied consent, I'm talking about affirmative consent. Not just the failure to resist or to say no, but the act of saying, "Yes! I want it! Screw me! Take me for everything I've got! I'm yours!"
You see, our government may be aggressive abroad, but here at home it is not a rapist. It always asks you clearly and politely if you want to be screwed. And the process in which it asks is called the electoral system. Every four years our government asks us if we want to be screwed, and every four years we say yes. It even holds off-year elections every two years, and in most places citizens are asked to give their consent, at least to being screwed by state and local government, every year or several times a year.
"But we didn't say yes," people tell me. "We voted no!"
Ah, but we have secret vote counting in this country, so how can you prove that you said no? When votes are counted in secret is it the same as when intercourse takes place behind closed doors. It's your word against theirs and they say that you said yes.
"No," they tell me," it so happens that the whole thing was caught on videotape and we can prove that we said no." And sure enough, there are CD ROMS with the poll tapes, the register books, and the actual ballots, proving that the citizens did not consent. But alas, the statute of limitations has run out and it is much too late to file charges now. "Why didn't you bring this evidence forward at the time?" I ask.
"Because it was withheld from us," they whine. "The government wouldn't let us have the proof until we'd spent years in court forcing them to release the records."
"You're telling me," I say, "that you had a few drinks with them, went up to their room, they asked you politely if you wanted to get screwed, and you said no, clearly and distinctly, but that they raped you anyway, and that when you tried to get the tapes to prove it, they wouldn't give them to you until it was too late for you to file charges?"
"Uh," they respond, "we thought that as long as there was a verifiable record of what happened, it would be perfectly safe."
If I hadn't seen the evidence with my own eyes, I don't think I'd believe that there had been any rape. People that dumb are so easily seduced that it isn't usually necessary to rape them. But I have seen the evidence and they were indeed raped.
In 2000 the people clearly said no, but the Supreme Court didn't consider the evidence (the vote count, the illegal voter purges, the voter suppression, and the rigged ballots and voting machines) to be admissible, so an unelected President was installed against the express will of the people. That's rape. But by the time the government released the evidence, it was too late to do anything about it.
In 2004 the people again clearly said no, but this time the government had become so adept at withholding the evidence that Supreme Court intervention wasn't necessary. Once again the evidence was withheld and the unelected President was installed for a second term. And once again by the time the people were able to prove they'd been raped, the statute of limitations had run out and the damage could not be repaired..
So now we are approaching the 2008 election. The same crooked elections officials are in control. The same secret vote counting machines will be used. Once more the government will ask you politely if you want to get screwed, and once more you will shmooze with them, have a few drinks together, and then go into their voting booth and say no. And once again you are going to get raped and be unable to prove it until it is much too late to do anything about it.
And yet people still berate me when I suggest that they not go to the polls this time.
"If we don't vote, we can't complain," they say.
Were they able to complain when they did vote?
"If we don't vote, the bad guys will win," they tell me.
Did the good guys win when they did vote?
"It's our civic duty and responsibility to vote," they claim.
In rigged elections with secret vote counts? Give me a break!
"This time it might be different," they say.
Well, the first time somebody tells me that they've been raped, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I will ask how it happened and if it seems to me that they were engaging in risky behavior, I'll suggest that they be more careful in the future.
The second time that somebody tells me they've been raped, and they explain that it happened in the exact same way because they ignored my advice, I begin to feel that they are at least partially to blame themselves.
But when it happens a third time, I have no more sympathy. Unless you enjoyed it the first two times, you wouldn't allow it to happen a third time. That's not rape – that's consensual political intercourse, so don't come crying to me.
Sources:
Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election by Richard Hayes Phillips (Hardcover with CD ROM, Canterbury Press, March 2008
How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (Paperback - Sep 21, 2005)
What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman
Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman (Paperback - May 30, 2005)
Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count by Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss (Paperback - Jun 19, 2006)
HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America - 11 Experts Expose the Truth by Abbe Waldman Delozier and Vickie Karp (Paperback - Sep 5, 2006)
Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz (Hardcover - 2001)
A Badly Flawed Election: Debating Bush V. Gore, the Supreme Court, and American Democracy by Ronald Dworkin (Hardcover - Sep 2002)
Irreparable Harm: The U.S. Supreme Court and The Decision That Made George W. Bush President by Renata Adler (Paperback - Jul 2004)
Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform by Mark Crispin Miller (Paperback - Jun 2007)
Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 20002008 by Mark Crispin Miller (Paperback - April 1, 2008)
Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Best Legal Whorehouse in Texas, The Scheme to Steal Election '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Investigations by Greg Palast (Kindle Edition - Mar 3, 2007)
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Freedom Doesn't Live Here Anymore!
Freedom Doesn't Live Here Any More
by Mark E. Smith
Inspired by the Freedom Riders and others who braved hatred and violence to advance the cause of civil rights, activists have been calling upon people to demonstrate at the Democratic Party convention in Denver. They want to protest the war, the loss of habeus corpus, the infringements on civil rights, and all the other tragedies of the Bush administration that the Democratic Party has supported, including their refusal to impeach Bush and Cheney. They are courageous people and their cause is just. But they don't seem to have thought things through.
Congressional Democrats have about a 20% approval rating among Democratic voters. Many Democrats are so unhappy with their party's support for the Bush agenda that they don't even plan to vote. What is it about the Democratic Party's convention that makes activists think that it is important enough to be worth protesting?
I spoke with one of their organizers who was here in San Diego and I emailed the organizing group, but got no response. They're like people determined to vote. All their protest will do is recognize the authority of the system and invite more abuse. I believe that the convention should be boycotted and ignored except for stuff in the alternative media pointing out that it has no legitimacy. What if they held a convention and nobody thought it was important enough to protest? Instead they could fill the alternative media with criticism about why it is irrelevant.
A large planned protest gives Homeland Security and local law enforcement a chance to test out all their crowd control gear. They really need a way to justify all the money that has been spent on crowd control when there were no unruly crowds to control. Protesting the convention is like a battered wife saying, "I'm going to confront him and tell him not to hit me any more. I have rights," instead of going to a shelter and getting away from the batterer. It's asking for more brutality.
They want a repeat of old convention protests with much brutality and a lot of press coverage, and they'll get it. And spend the next few years in court trying to get compensation for injuries and false arrest for the ones who aren't killed. So sad. Such brave young people with such creative minds and they aren't open to doing things differently. They have all the right ideas about democracy, but they are still thinking in terms of violent revolution.
Of course the ones who get hurt won't be the wealthy organizers with bail money. They'll just get arrested to prove their authenticity so that nobody suspects that they're provocateurs. I've been around a long time, and I've seen this stuff before. The ones who get severely injured or killed will be the poor and the innocent, as usual. This isn't a revolution. It's an exercise in crowd control. It will give law enforcement the opportunity to use all their nets and tasers and tear gas and all the other gear they've been practicing with, and to justify buying more.
Do they really think that when ordinary Americans see them being beaten and maced and arrested on TV, see the pregnant woman being kicked in the stomach by the cops, see the elderly person in a wheelchair being tasered, they'll rush out of their homes and come to the defense of the protesters? That has happened in other countries, but the average American has long since been desensitized to violence and sees more brutality than that with a lot more blood in any single night of relaxing in front of the TV.
I don't watch TV but a neighbor told me that there's a popular program that features a loveable serial killer. He only kills bad guys, so there's nothing wrong with that. Of course the protesters will be labeled bad guys, just as the Afghans and Iraqis and all indigenous peoples everywhere have been labeled bad guys. We're all bad guys or terrorists or Communists or anarchists or rebels or potential rebel sympathizers. The only good guys are the wealthy elite and their cops, their armies, their mercenaries, and their death squads.
Do they think that if the President sees the bloodshed, he'll be moved, as President John F. Kennedy was, to send in the National Guard? Bush isn't Kennedy and the Guard is in Iraq. More likely he'll send in Blackwater with some serious assault weapons and some additional helicopters to mow down the protesters.
Do they think that if they have enough people and protest loudly enough, the Democrats will hear them? It was the Democrats who wanted the Denver "free speech zone" moved out of earshot.
What, exactly, apart from having a good time with their friends, are their potentially achievable goals?
The organizers have also been saying, "No in November," but they don't understand what it means. It doesn't mean recognizing the authority of this fascist regime and protesting it. It means refusing to recognize its authority, refusing to vote for it, withdrawing our consent and our mandate from it, and working towards the dream which the protesters share, of citizen-owned transparent participatory democracy ourselves, instead of asking a fascist tyranny for help or trying to persuade it to be more democratic.
I've heard some pretty wild rumors. In addition to the helicopters and the crowd control plans, a friend tells me there is talk of a 20-story underground prison at the Denver airport. Whether it exists or not, this protest will be a boon for the prison-industrial complex, clog the courts for a long time, and do nothing whatsoever to sway the Democrats, any more than the protest planned for the Republican convention will change the Republican agenda.
As I told that organizer, I don't understand how someone else going to jail makes me any more free.
So I'm not going to Denver. I'm not only a coward, I'm a person who likes to think things through, to have at least the possibility that any sacrifices I make might contribute towards a positive outcome, and I also consider myself a creative thinker. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just a coward, but this isn't 1961 or 1968. We've been there and done that, and we've all got the t-shirts. Those who were in Miami to protest GATT and in Seattle to protest the GTO might stop and ask themselves what their valiant efforts have accomplished. I admire them, I respect them, but I'm not going to join them.
Those who are parents are familiar with how kids try to get their way. First they'll ask you sweetly. If you say no, they'll cry. If you still don't give in they might throw a tantrum. But when they grow up, they become independent and you can't make their decisions for them any more. They don't have to ask you for anything or throw a fit to get what they want. They work for it, earn it, and get it for themselves. I think it is time that we as a nation grew up.
Don't vote in rigged elections.
Don't delegate your power to those who have abused it.
And don't do Denver. It isn't going to help and it will justify more repression. Is that really our goal?
Here's how a non-protest works:
What if they spent a billion dollars on crowd control gear and training, had SWAT teams prepared to act as provocateurs, and then no crowds showed up?
MSM News: Only seven protesters showed up to demonstrate against the political convention. All were arrested, posted bail, and released. Independent news agencies photographed them leaving the police station and identified them as members of a local SWAT team. Tim Turtle, the spokesperson for a large peace group, said that since his group knew that there would be provocateurs at the convention, they had decided not to protest and that all the other local groups had agreed. Asked why they had arrested their own people, the local police chief had no comment. His department had gotten $3 million in crowd control gear in preparation for the convention and had no opportunity to use any of it. This could adversely impact their ability to obtain new homeland security anti-terrorist funding for subsequent years. Poopy Putter reporting for MSM News.
by Mark E. Smith
Inspired by the Freedom Riders and others who braved hatred and violence to advance the cause of civil rights, activists have been calling upon people to demonstrate at the Democratic Party convention in Denver. They want to protest the war, the loss of habeus corpus, the infringements on civil rights, and all the other tragedies of the Bush administration that the Democratic Party has supported, including their refusal to impeach Bush and Cheney. They are courageous people and their cause is just. But they don't seem to have thought things through.
Congressional Democrats have about a 20% approval rating among Democratic voters. Many Democrats are so unhappy with their party's support for the Bush agenda that they don't even plan to vote. What is it about the Democratic Party's convention that makes activists think that it is important enough to be worth protesting?
I spoke with one of their organizers who was here in San Diego and I emailed the organizing group, but got no response. They're like people determined to vote. All their protest will do is recognize the authority of the system and invite more abuse. I believe that the convention should be boycotted and ignored except for stuff in the alternative media pointing out that it has no legitimacy. What if they held a convention and nobody thought it was important enough to protest? Instead they could fill the alternative media with criticism about why it is irrelevant.
A large planned protest gives Homeland Security and local law enforcement a chance to test out all their crowd control gear. They really need a way to justify all the money that has been spent on crowd control when there were no unruly crowds to control. Protesting the convention is like a battered wife saying, "I'm going to confront him and tell him not to hit me any more. I have rights," instead of going to a shelter and getting away from the batterer. It's asking for more brutality.
They want a repeat of old convention protests with much brutality and a lot of press coverage, and they'll get it. And spend the next few years in court trying to get compensation for injuries and false arrest for the ones who aren't killed. So sad. Such brave young people with such creative minds and they aren't open to doing things differently. They have all the right ideas about democracy, but they are still thinking in terms of violent revolution.
Of course the ones who get hurt won't be the wealthy organizers with bail money. They'll just get arrested to prove their authenticity so that nobody suspects that they're provocateurs. I've been around a long time, and I've seen this stuff before. The ones who get severely injured or killed will be the poor and the innocent, as usual. This isn't a revolution. It's an exercise in crowd control. It will give law enforcement the opportunity to use all their nets and tasers and tear gas and all the other gear they've been practicing with, and to justify buying more.
Do they really think that when ordinary Americans see them being beaten and maced and arrested on TV, see the pregnant woman being kicked in the stomach by the cops, see the elderly person in a wheelchair being tasered, they'll rush out of their homes and come to the defense of the protesters? That has happened in other countries, but the average American has long since been desensitized to violence and sees more brutality than that with a lot more blood in any single night of relaxing in front of the TV.
I don't watch TV but a neighbor told me that there's a popular program that features a loveable serial killer. He only kills bad guys, so there's nothing wrong with that. Of course the protesters will be labeled bad guys, just as the Afghans and Iraqis and all indigenous peoples everywhere have been labeled bad guys. We're all bad guys or terrorists or Communists or anarchists or rebels or potential rebel sympathizers. The only good guys are the wealthy elite and their cops, their armies, their mercenaries, and their death squads.
Do they think that if the President sees the bloodshed, he'll be moved, as President John F. Kennedy was, to send in the National Guard? Bush isn't Kennedy and the Guard is in Iraq. More likely he'll send in Blackwater with some serious assault weapons and some additional helicopters to mow down the protesters.
Do they think that if they have enough people and protest loudly enough, the Democrats will hear them? It was the Democrats who wanted the Denver "free speech zone" moved out of earshot.
What, exactly, apart from having a good time with their friends, are their potentially achievable goals?
The organizers have also been saying, "No in November," but they don't understand what it means. It doesn't mean recognizing the authority of this fascist regime and protesting it. It means refusing to recognize its authority, refusing to vote for it, withdrawing our consent and our mandate from it, and working towards the dream which the protesters share, of citizen-owned transparent participatory democracy ourselves, instead of asking a fascist tyranny for help or trying to persuade it to be more democratic.
I've heard some pretty wild rumors. In addition to the helicopters and the crowd control plans, a friend tells me there is talk of a 20-story underground prison at the Denver airport. Whether it exists or not, this protest will be a boon for the prison-industrial complex, clog the courts for a long time, and do nothing whatsoever to sway the Democrats, any more than the protest planned for the Republican convention will change the Republican agenda.
As I told that organizer, I don't understand how someone else going to jail makes me any more free.
So I'm not going to Denver. I'm not only a coward, I'm a person who likes to think things through, to have at least the possibility that any sacrifices I make might contribute towards a positive outcome, and I also consider myself a creative thinker. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just a coward, but this isn't 1961 or 1968. We've been there and done that, and we've all got the t-shirts. Those who were in Miami to protest GATT and in Seattle to protest the GTO might stop and ask themselves what their valiant efforts have accomplished. I admire them, I respect them, but I'm not going to join them.
Those who are parents are familiar with how kids try to get their way. First they'll ask you sweetly. If you say no, they'll cry. If you still don't give in they might throw a tantrum. But when they grow up, they become independent and you can't make their decisions for them any more. They don't have to ask you for anything or throw a fit to get what they want. They work for it, earn it, and get it for themselves. I think it is time that we as a nation grew up.
Don't vote in rigged elections.
Don't delegate your power to those who have abused it.
And don't do Denver. It isn't going to help and it will justify more repression. Is that really our goal?
Here's how a non-protest works:
What if they spent a billion dollars on crowd control gear and training, had SWAT teams prepared to act as provocateurs, and then no crowds showed up?
MSM News: Only seven protesters showed up to demonstrate against the political convention. All were arrested, posted bail, and released. Independent news agencies photographed them leaving the police station and identified them as members of a local SWAT team. Tim Turtle, the spokesperson for a large peace group, said that since his group knew that there would be provocateurs at the convention, they had decided not to protest and that all the other local groups had agreed. Asked why they had arrested their own people, the local police chief had no comment. His department had gotten $3 million in crowd control gear in preparation for the convention and had no opportunity to use any of it. This could adversely impact their ability to obtain new homeland security anti-terrorist funding for subsequent years. Poopy Putter reporting for MSM News.
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