No matter what the polls say, the GOP will win or lose the
2008 election based on, not its popularity, but its criminal skills. Indeed,
with corporate America placing its bets - and that means campaign money - on
Democrats this time around, the Republicans will need to work every gangster
trick in the book to pull off a repeat of the 2000 and 2004
election heists.
Stealing a national election is a massive crime, but the Bush men are more
ruthless than Al Capone and better organized than Hollywood's Ocean's Eleven.
The key to the caper is having one's goons in place, before Election Day, to
knock off the opposition. And, as always, the main opposition to perpetual
Republican rule is Black folks. For the GOP to win, literally millions of Black
and Latino votes and potential votes must be suppressed.
Central to the scandals at the U.S. Justice Department is
that agency's role as the GOP's Murder Incorporated., the liquidator of Black
voting rights. Since stealing office in 2000, George Bush has placed his hit
men in pivotal positions, in a largely successful effort to turn the Justice
Department into a Confederacy of hostility to Black voting rights. A Florida
political gangster named Hans von Spakovsky,
who went to the mattresses for Bush in the two previous Great Election
Robberies has served as "the point person for undermining the Civil Rights
Division's mandate to protect voting rights," according to former
employees. Now Bush wants to put Spakovsky even closer to the action, in
preparation for the 2008 election robbery, through an appointment to the
Federal Election Commission. The appointment must be approved by the Senate,
which is supposedly controlled by Democrats. But you'd never know it from the
way Senate Democratic honcho Harry Reid has been playing games with Republican
vote thieves.
Reid cut a deal that would have allowed the career
criminal, Spakovsky, to sail through the confirmation process as part of a
"package" arrangement. The record shows Democrats seldom get anything of value
in these deals with George Bush; certainly, Black folks never do.
"ColorOfChange has
launched a petition drive to force Democrats to act like they have spines, and
oppose Spakovsky."
Individual senators, however, have much greater powers to
gum up the works than do members of the U.S. House. It only takes a few
determined senators to hold up a nomination or legislation - if they have the
guts. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who often shows more guts than his
Democratic colleagues, has been joined by the disappointingly shaky and flaky
presidential candidate Barack Obama in vowing to stop Spakovsky's confirmation.
It's a shame that doing the right thing appears heroic, these days, for
Democrats, but something is better than nothing.
Our most heartfelt praise goes to the Black organization
ColorOfChange, which through its website has launched a petition drive
to force other Democrats to act like they have spines, and oppose Spakovsky.
ColorOfChange.org used the same strategy to spoil the Congressional Black
Caucus's plans to co-sponsor presidential debates under the auspices of the
vicious Fox News Network. Sign their petition. As Frederick Douglass said,
"Power relinquishes nothing without a demand."
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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Dr. Nicole Price is the Forbes Books author of Spark The Heart: Engineering Empathy In Your Organization.
Nick Encalada-Malinowski is Director of the Civil Rights Union campaign at Vocal-NY.
The climate emergency won't end because of heartfelt pleas to the people and the interests who created the crisis. Ecocide will stop when capitalism ends.
To mark the last days of Black August, we reprint below Freedomways’ 1975 editorial about Joanne Little, a Black woman indicted for killing her white prison guard and would-be rapist.
Somali nationalists claim victory and raise the Somali flag above the city of Las Anod.
