Subject: Sales down

Reported on the noon news: For the second straight month, retailers have posted lousy sales.

Thanksgiving and weeks before Christmas have traditionally led to higher sales for retailers. Supermarkets are the only stores in which I see appreciable customers.

Hey, it looks like corporations can lead consumers to water, but they can't make them drink! I wonder if Bush and his corporate buddies will ever figure that out. Outsource some more jobs Bush cronies and import more foreign goods...way to go! Maybe those foreign countries can buy their own goods now.

A BuzzFlash Reader

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Subject: Pat Tillman

So now the military is changing its tune as to the death of Pat Tillman. It seems that the initial reports were not quite accurate. Gee, what a surprise. The military, the pentagon or Rumsfeld himself, exaggerating or outright lying about a military operation. After all, the public can't handle the truth about anything that might make the military look bad, so let's only tell them good things. As a product of the 60's (and YES I did serve) we learned that our government was not always truthful with the people and started to question what was going on within the administration. However, that was a time when we had a free press that asked questions and investigated until the truth was uncovered.

John Kerry's testimony when he returned from Vietnam was spun to death and the media just blah, blah, blahed the republican talking points so most people have no idea the context or accuracy of Kerry's testimony. The shame of the whole gop spin is that the weak kneed dems never pointed out that history shows Kerry was correct regarding everything he said about Vietnam. Just ask Robert MacNamara.

I have all the respect in the world for Pat Tillman and grieve his death as I do all who served. If the country had more Pat Tillmans, we would all be better off. However, I wonder if the republican attack machine will question the validity of Pat Tillman's silver star as they did Kerry's. Somehow I think not.

Bob Lambert
Northridge, CA

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Subject: Florida fraud

Dear BF,

One aspect of the Florida vote fraud that Republican defenders say justifies the current vote count anomalies is that the Dixiecrat counties went for Bush in 2000 so why not go 75-25% for Bush in 2004 even if they are still 75% registered Dems now? (Why they wouldn't change parties is beyond nearly everyone.)

Well maybe they didn't vote for Bush in 2000 either. Only 70% of all counties in Florida ever recounted even once in 2000, never mind lying Jim Baker's protestations to the contrary. And if they weren't recounted then, perhaps it's because the same optical scanning fraud equipment was used then. It isn't as though we KNOW anything about what Jeb Bush and Catherine Harris were capable of especially given the help of retired CIA officers and any number of other political operatives whose lives depend on going along.

Evidence of fraud in the 2004 election, which is nearly incontrovertible, is more likely to mean there was fraud in 2000 and elections past than that it means the contrary, i.e., that there was no fraud then.

If possible, what it means is that previous vote counts should also be reviewed, not that we should stop looking at this one.

Tom Earls

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Subject: We are not anything like the Republicans so why try

I see so many letters to you saying we should be like the Republicans and fight dirty as they do, or pull the same stunts they do, but I disagree.

There are so many people who feel all politicians are alike, they all lie and don't care about the middle income people. And they don't vote. I saw a lot of it this year. Perhaps Senator Kerry could have won with their votes.

I do agree we need to speak up when they lie, we need to expose them with no hesitation, but make sure we don't do what Dan Rather did with that phony document that may have been invented by the Republicans in the first place.

Remember the saying; When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

I don't know if you will print this in your mailbag, but I know I'm right, and I'll bet someone there will agree with me. In that case, feel free to borrow from my letter anything that suits you.

Judy Walsh

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Subject: Senator Reid

Fellow BuzzFlashers:

As a native Nevadan reading the many comments about our Senator Harry Reid I
figured it might be helpful to forward you the link to his website so you can voice your outrage as I have (read below).

Harry is not exactly "ultra-conservative" and Nevada is not exactly "ultra-conservative" (compare Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, et al.) since Kerry actually won this state this time around (see exit polls). We are much more in line with California, Oregon and Washington but have been branded a "red state" because of election chicanery. We should be blue. In Nevada the medicinal marijuana bill passed, for example. We tend to follow California in social issues with the glaring exception of gay marriage.

So here's the link: http://reid.senate.gov/ and here's what I wrote:

Give him a piece of your mind. I did.

Steve in Reno

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Subject: It is very easy to write programming code that steals votes

Dear Buzz,

I am not a software developer but I am a technical writer and I can read "code" (programming languages) moderately well. People who don't work in the software industry may not realize that it is very easy to write programming code that does the following kinds of things:

Every third time the voter selects Kerry, increment Bush Total by 5.

OR

If voter selects Kerry, print receipt that says Kerry and increment Bush Total.

In fact, these are easy problems to solve in a first programming course. Now, this kind of calculation is easy to detect when the code is inspected--but since the code is proprietary, we don't get to inspect it.

Furthermore, you don't necessarily have to write code such as this. I read more than a year ago that Diebold's voting machine programs are based on that well-known database application that is used by small businesses, non-profits and individuals. I am not completely certain that the notorious voting machines are based on this product. However, the majority of counties and towns cannot afford to buy an industrial-strength database management system, nor can they afford to employ a database administrator, so I would not be surprised to find out that this product is used in the voting machines.

I have worked a great deal on this type of database and, as far as I know, its security is based on username/password maintenance, which are optional features--you don't have to use the username/password feature to use the program. Any elections supervisor who is determined to change the vote totals in the database can do so regardless of whether a username/password is used or not.

This is one way that you could have a certain number of registered voters, on the one hand, and a total number of votes that exceeds the number of registered voters by thousands. This kind of discrepancy happened a great deal in numerous counties.

Leslie
Winchester, MA

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Subject: Maureen Farrell

The new GOP...The blind leading the Blind...The NOT SEE party...Unfortunately it is already done...I hope I escape this "Christian Nation" in time...I am thinking maybe Aruba...If there really is a GOD now would be a good time to make its presence known...Remember, sHE did allow for Hitler and many other fine young cannibalisms, torturers etc....I guess God helps those what helps themselves or some such blather...Bless you and yours...

KM33

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Dear BuzzFlash,

I just wanted to share with your readers my latest letter to that great paper the NYTimes who seemed to have just stumbled upon the Ohio recount story.

As Questions Keep Coming, Ohio Certifies Its Vote Count (NY Times, 12/7/04)

Gary Floyd
Medford, MA

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Subject: "Leader"

A propos to your leadership link today, did you know that Hitler espoused the "Fuhrerprinzip" or Leadership principle? This was his preferred style of governance!

Jay Hatheway, PhD
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of History
Madison, WI

[BuzzFlash Note: More on this: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Fuhrerprinzip;

http://www.shoaheducation.com/befehl.html.]

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Subject: How To Steal the Enchanted State of New Mexico

I hope that even the mainstream media will recognize the gravity of this issue. The Chief magistrate, Mr. Bush, is slated to serve 8 years in an office he was never elected to. That will be his historical legacy--and our shame. If mainstream journalists would look at the data in New Mexico, they would get a glimpse of how Bush stole the election. It's very simple.

The strong Kerry counties, all E-Voting jurisdictions, had bizarre turnout "blackouts."

Examples 1) Cibola 55%, San Miguel 56%, McKinley 49%, and Rio Arriba 63%. In each county, the partisan shift moved dramatically - and quite improbably - to Bush on the magnitude of 5-10% over 2000.

On the other side, the strong Bush counties often employed OP-SCAN machines. There the turnout was turned into overdrive.

Examples: 1) De Baca 73%, Eddy 73%, Union 75%. Bush increased his share of the vote in these counties by 9%, 7%, and 5% respectively. These shenanigans allowed Bush to overturn a 50%-48% Kerry lead in the exit polls. He "won" New Mexico 50%-49%.

To explain the unexplainable, Rove made much of his boy's breakthrough among Latinos (Kerry 53% - 44%). That myth has been partially exploded by NBC News which, begrudgingly, admits that the Hispanic vote was won by Kerry 58%-40% nationwide. In fact, they're still counting too many "ghost Latino" votes.

There were no Bush gains among Latinos from '00 to '04 - according to the Velasquez Foundation, which conducted an Exit poll of Hispanic voters taken nationwide on 2 November. This means there was no Hispanic surge in New Mexico - recorded to be 12% by the "adjusted" NEP "exit poll." The "surge" is explained, in part, by the anomalous election results in cherry-picked counties outlined above.

The model in New Mexico was used all over the nation, including in states Bush lost (Mich, Pa, Wisc, MI) and states he won easily (OK, TX, Neb). Unlike '00, Bush wanted a majority of the vote (51%) and a clear 3.5 million vote plurality. He got it, and now we're stuck with him.

Brad F.

[BuzzFlash Note: NM turnout numbers are reported in Harding, Los Alamos Had Highest Voter Turnout Rate (AP/Albuquerque Journal).]

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Subject: re Maureen Farrell's 12/7 article on neo-conservatism

Thank you and thank Maureen for this enlightening and provocative editorial.

While many may be put-off by the shock of Maureen's title, references to fascism, and the more confrontive side of this piece, Maureen's excellent research and sources regarding neo-conservatism, its origin, and its dangers to democracy need to be understood beyond the shock value of comparison with its sister ideological pathology; fascist Nazism.

In fact, Maureen's editorial and quoted sources raise the less emotive question of whether neo-conservatism and fascism are not so close in the nature of their ideological pathologies as to be essentially indistinguishable--except by intuiting to them the unknowable distinctions of intent, purpose and goal.

I find it instructive to view neo-conservatism and fascism as entirely common in most externally observable and testable facets: They are both ideological pathologies which attack and are of great danger to any and all forms of democracy. They both amalgamate and misuse the emotive powers of all three; religion, state, and corporate economics. They both cynically deceive and use centralized authoritarian powers, while preaching the 'values' of patriotism, nationalism, religious faith, free markets, democracy and many other values that the masses believe in. They both believe in and set-up hierarchical, and anti-democratic elite power structures for their leaders, in direct contradiction to the 'values' they ask the masses to worship. Naturally, they both operate on entirely separate and secret levels of core 'insider' knowledge/reality, while carefully controlling popular fantasies of the values and actions of the 'outsider' masses with propaganda.

In fact, it might well be suggested that neo-conservatism could have been designed, by Leo Strauss (because of his special sensitivity toward the gathering dangers of fascism), either consciously or sub-consciously, as a powerful antidote to fascist Nazism. Aware of the power of the ideological pathology of Nazism, Strauss might well have designed an equally powerful counter-force, a vaccine if you will, that used many of the same traits as the Nazi disease to potentially battle it. However, Strauss was wrong if he assumed that it would take as virulent an ideological pathology to battle fascism as fascism itself.

History proved that fascism was defeated by just the type of benign, safe, middle-class popular democracy which Bush so often pays lip service to (while actually attacking it with his neo-conservative cabal). Fascism did not require an equally dangerous, secretive, and mutatable ideological pathology to confront and successfully battle it--it required healthy democracy.

Now, we are left with the strong, but unproven, drug invented by Dr. Strauss (presumably to battle the awful threat of Nazism); a dangerous ideological pathology which today has escaped the lab and is being tested against the awful threat of 'terrorism.' But the very concept of a dangerous, pathological antigen like neo-conservatism (or under the Israeli prescription label, 'Likudism') to battle terrorism seems to be proving so dangerous to the patient of democracy that the phrase "we needed to destroy the city in order to save it" might well be applied to democracy itself.

It seems that there are two great dangers in employing the untested but powerful drug of neo-conservatism against the ideological pathology of terrorism: the first is that neo-conservatism never proved its efficacy against the last great battle with the disease of fascism, and secondly, that the drug of neo-conservatism (regardless of its designers' and prescribers' real intent) is not shared with the patient.

Is neo-conservatism a strong drug with which to fight terrorism, or is it an equally dangerous ideological pathology of its own; that may well mutate into fascism itself (because it shares so many of the same characteristics and genes)? There can be no independent and popular democratic peer review, because the practitioners of neo-conservative medicine operate in secrecy--they place themselves in a secret cabal of elite beyond the review of popular debate. And thus, the claimed benefits of this powerful, but unstable and dangerous neo-conservative drug are suspiciously likely to metastasize into a cure as bad as the disease on two scores: firstly, because a safer and proven drug already exists in the form of democracy, and second because, like Merck and the FDA in dealing with Vioxx, those applying the tests have already conspired to lie, deceive and hide dangerous results from their self-serving test regime.

Sincerely,

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

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