*ELECTION VIVISECTION*

*WHAT WAS NOT REPORTED*

*THE PROTOCOLS ARE BACK*

The headline this morning sums it up: “GOP TAKES CONTROL”

How did it happen? How could it happen? Here we are, a country poised for a war that many do not support and millions fear worldwide. The economy is in recession with no immediate prospects for revival. Corporate abuses remain unchecked. The electorate (a declining percentage of the citizenry) is shrinking. Protests are growing in size and scope.

And yet,

“GOP TAKES CONTROL”

CNN.com reports: “In a big victory for the GOP and President Bush, Republicans early Wednesday took and maintained control of the House and picked up a couple governor’s seats. The election marked only the second time since 1934 that a president’s party didn’t lose House seats in a midterm ballot — the first time ever for a Republican.”

*WHAT WAS MISSING IN THE COVERAGE?*

Even the Comedy Channel offered little relief last night as the networks did their thing, enhanced with even catchier graphics, rousing music and shallow commentary. There was NO running ticker under the screen to remind us about the pathetic size of the turnout, or any electronic tallies to add up how much was spent in each race shown and where most of the money came from.

There was NO explanation of what that money bought–either in terms of numbers of campaign workers and what is now the business of politics on TV in bought spots and airtime.

There was NO rundown on how much money America’s TV stations took in from all the negative spots they ran. We will have to wait months for the next report from the Alliance for Better Campaigns which issued a report in 2000 that showed the stations hiked their rates and fleeced the campaigns, in violation of federal law. There was no official investigation, no prosecutions to show how the media have MERGED into our political system and is complicit in the permanent campaign finance scandal.

The New York Post is crowning El Presidente Bush as George the Second. Don’t they remember what happened to that sovereign and how his grip on this country was dislodged? It is clear that Bush and his master strategist, Karl Rove, understood what needed doing and how it do it. As Alexander Cockburn explains in his column this week, it comes down to three words:

“CHANGING THE SUBJECT.”

What this involves is a well orchestrated effort to refocus popular attention on the issues that ensured the “GOP TAKES CONTROL” outcome. Look at page one story in the New York Times today about the resignation of Harvey L. Pitt as SEC chairman. The piece explained how the White House feared that “the growing crisis at the agency…would remind voters of Washington’s response to corporate scandals.”

Here’s Cockburn:

“Got to hand it to Karl Rove and whoever the other responsible agents are. This has been one successful Republican campaign drive, and as it came down to the wire, even a last-minute effort by the North Koreans couldn’t pull it out for the Democrats?. It changed the subject from the economy and Harken and Halliburton. It got the Democrats rearing and plunging till Gephardt panicked and rushed to the White House to enlist in the great Crusade.

“The Democrats are a party of ghosts and revenants, not the most convincing battalion to put against the party of property and oil, of fundamentalist Christians now in coalition with warmongering neocons ranging from Wolfowitz to Hitchens.”

IS IT THE MEDIA, STUPID?

You know what you saw in the media? What didn’t you see? Investigations into corporate crime and what to do about it; there were no hard hitting assessments of the war on terror; no hard-nosed probes of the Administration’s claims about Iraq. (The current and most credible Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reports that many are not letting the facts get in the way of a good war.)

“IRAQI NUKES: NO EVIDENCE YET

Despite repeated news reports that Iraq is close to developing a nuclear weapon, the evidence so far indicates that most of Iraqí³ efforts to get the bomb have ended in failure.By Linda Rothstein in the bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 2002http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#nukes”

FLORI-DUH FALLS (AGAIN)

We watched First Brother Jeb Bush exult in victory, and learned that the woman who mismanaged Florida’s election, Katherine Harris, was elected to Congress in a “safe seat.” Oy, And the coverage on Florida? I heard snickers on NPR about all the election observers who were falling over each other at the polls. There was no mention of the continuing felon-purge that prevented legitimate voters from casting ballots last year. The State admitted it was wrong but, given all the pressures they are under, will not get around to fixing the system until next year.

Yesterday morning, I was on the Democracy Now radio show with Amy Goodman, Greg Palast and others. It was a broadcast that is also telecast on some public access stations and on free speech TV. Amy spoke with people at polling places, and heard about charges of electoral abuses. (See below for a link so you can listen in if you have the stomach to.) That news all but disappears when the network wonks get on the air.

DRUDGE: YES, AGAIN

Gone were stories like this — which may or may not be true reported by the hardly reliable Matt Drudge on Election Day:

“XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX

TUE NOV 05, 2002 09:41:08 ET XXXXX FLORIDA TALKSHOW CALLERS CLAIM MACHINES ‘BROKEN’, VOTED FOR MCBRIDE, MARKED IT AS BUSH

“I voted for McBride, but the machine counted it as Bush. It did this three times. The polling worker finally said, ‘We have to reprogram this machine. Another person was having the same trouble while I was there.’”

“So claimed a caller to Southern Florida’s WQAM-AM and the highly-rated radio talkmatch, the NEIL ROGERS SHOW. ?I pushed the screen for McBride and it marked Bush. They called over a technician, he reset it,’ claimed a second caller.

“‘I’ll tell you right now, this election is fixed!’ roared Rogers, who has been in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market for more than 25 years. ?Based on a few early calls, it is going to be a wild, wild time.’

“‘You have not seen anything yet,’ warned Rogers. ?It’s not even 10:30 in the morning. This is going to be one of the great disasters of all-time.’

“Comments made on the ROGERS SHOW early on Election Day 2000 foreshadowed the voting chaos that fully engulfed the state.

“There is no official confirmation of the new alleged tech trick glitch as described on WQAM. Touch-screen and other new century voting machines made their full-scale debut today.

“Mid-state, problems have been reported in at least three polling locations.

“Local 6 News reported that the scanners were not working at the Central Florida Gotha Precinct #101 in Orange County. Voters were putting their ballots in a box to be hand-counted, according to the report.

“The scanners also are not working at the Port St. John precinct #159 in Brevard County or at precinct #116 in Seminole County at the St. Albins Church on State Road 426, according to reports. Developing….”

“Developing” or dead?

There were also questions raised in Internet postings I saw on computer security, but none of this made any network show I saw. (John Stewart’s “news” on the Comedy Channel did touch on this. I laughed until I cried. Here’s the concern: “Avi Rubin, a technology security expert and researcher at AT&T Labs in New Jersey doubts the integrity of the new voting method. ?These systems are largely untested.’ Critics decry the proprietary nature of the machines, pointing out that there is no public scrutiny of the machines allowed. Without scientists being able to freely analyze the systems, election officials may be leaving themselves open to the possibility of hacking, vote tampering or incorrect calculations.

“No outside examination or auditing of the inner workings of the machines is permitted. Why? Isn’t voting a public trust? Don’t we have a right to know what is inside those machines? Now only a handful of ?Specialists’ can open up those machines and see what’s going on inside.”

WILL YOU CONCEDE?

The losing candidates all conceded–but should we concede and just give up on what passes for democracy?

Last night a handful of the faithful turned up at the Puffin Foundation in Teaneck New Jersey for a screening of our film COUNTING ON DEMOCRACY. They watched it as democracy seemed to going down for the count. Our distributor ITVS.org received quite a few comments on their website. Ham Fish of the Nation wrote me to say that it is time for another film. Agreed, but who will fund it and distribute it? (My next talk and screening takes place in Philadelphia on Nov 13 organized by Media Tank. Details to come. Anyone else interested?

“The good news is that the film aired in Los Angeles on KCET in prime time last night, but who was watching an old election when the new one’s results were unfolding on the networks down the dial? The LA Times did not comment on that when it ran an article by Donna Perlmutter in their calendar section. It focused not on our findings, but on the controversy, natch, of PBS’s unwillingness to distribute. It begins:

LA TIMES DISSECTS DISSECTOR

“Los Angeles will see it. The same goes for San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia and many other U.S. cities. But PBS stations in most markets won’t be showing “Counting On Democracy,” a pointed documentary on the 2000 presidential election mishaps in Florida that is being shown tonight on those select PBS stations. PBS chose instead to carry “Who Counts,” featuring “Saturday Night Live’s” Darrell Hammond and others, hosted by former CNN bureau chief Frank Sesno. It explores the election breakdown by making light of it.”

I am glad they covered it — unlike the NY Times or Boston Globe — BUT they referred to the debacle in 2000 as a “mishap” and feel the need to label me politically as a veteran of left-wing politics and media.” Oddly they don’t label my colleague, lawyer and pundit Faye Anderson–who researched and wrote the film as a “veteran” of Republican politics and the first Bush Administration. After all, that is what she is. I wrote a letter to the editor about this loaded selective identification. Let’s see if they print it.

(There’s a link to the LA Times story below)

THE ZAPPING OF AL QAEDA?

Two different ways to report a story. The Mail and Guardian carries this take on the CIA assassinations of Al Qaeda suspects yesterday in Yemen:

“US wages war by remote control

“The US was accused last night of summarily executing the six alleged al-Qaida members killed in Yemen on Sunday by the first act of what experts say could be a new age of “robotic warfare.” http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=13&o=11592

By the time the same story hit the New York Times, it was cleansed of this critical tone:

“Yemen Killing Based on Rules Set Out by Bush

“The strike that killed a suspected Al Qaeda leader in Yemen was carried out under broad authority that President Bush has given the C.I.A. over the past year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/06/international/middleeast/06YEME.html?todaysheadlines

EGYPT’S PROTOCOL TELEVISION

Israel-based Palestine Media Watch is calling attention to the broadcast of a TV series based on the discredited antisemitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” on Egyptian TV: They write:

“The new Egyptian 40-part TV series connecting the State of Israel’s founding to the principles of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion has sparked worldwide interest and outrage. This series may be one of the most widely watched Arab productions, as it will be broadcast every evening during the month of Ramadan “.on 22 Arab stations, among them Egypt 2, Syria, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab states.” [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 1, 2002]

Scenes from the Egyptian film can be viewed on our website by clicking thefollowing link:

www.pmw.org.il/video/egyptprotocols.asx

I would like to hear from Egyptian TV people and journalists about this series. Here’s how it is described:

“This depiction of the infamous libel as a true Jewish conspiracy is not new to the residents of the Palestinian Authority [PA], where the ?Protocols’ has been presented as the reason for the creation of the State of Israel and the guide for Israeli policy. The Egyptian production likewise depicts the ?Protocols’ as the Zionist guide creating the State of Israel, as stage in ruling the world. The production describes how an Arab fighting the British discovered ?The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and realizes ?that the true enemy is not the British.’ Zionist groups in Egypt learn that the book is in his possession and attempt to murder him in order to retrieve the book and prevent its distribution.” [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 1, 2002]

To make matters worse in what is already a dark day for democracy and victory for mediaocracy, we have this development in from the Times of London: “Disney strikes deal with Winnie the Pooh heirs and gains sole rights to the character.”

Pooh!

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