Skip to main content

Florida Election Scandal

A Zimbabwe politician has been quoted as saying that children should
study this year's U.S. presidential election closely, because it shows
that election fraud is not only a third world phenomena. In that spirit,
consider the recent proceedings from a slightly different perspective:

1. Imagine that we read of an election occurring anywhere in the
third world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former
prime minister and that former prime minister was himself the former
head of that nation's secret police (CIA).

2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but
won based on some colonial holdover (Electoral College) from the
nation's past.

3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's 'victory' turned on
disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother.

4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a
district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led
thousands of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.

5. Imagine that members of that nation's most despised caste,
fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to
vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's
candidacy.

6. Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste
were intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating
under the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.

7. Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province
and that the self-declared winner's 'lead' was only 300 votes. Fewer,
certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.

8. Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party
opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the ballots
in the disputed province or in its most hotly disputed district.

9. Imagine that the self-declared winner was himself the governor
of a major province, which had the worst human rights record of any
province in his nation and which actually led the nation in executions.

10. Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared
winner was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime
positions on the high court of that nation.


Few of us would deem such an election to be representative of anything
other than the self-declared winner's will-to-power. All of us, I
imagine, would wearily turn the page thinking that it was another sad
tale of pitiful pre- or anti-democracy peoples in some strange
elsewhere.


THIS REMINDS ME OF GANDHI'S REPUTED RESPONSE TO A QUESTION POSED BY A
BRITISH JOURNALIST AFTER GANDHI RETURNED FROM A TOUR OF EUROPEAN
CAPITALS.

"What," he was asked, "do you think about Western Civilization?"

"I think," he replied, "it would be a very good idea."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bohol's Che Delos Reyes Avoids Drug Test, Sparks Public Suspicision

by Sunday Post Bohol Gov. Chatto negative for drugs but where's Che? Is she a false accuser? Gov. Edgar Chatto has tested negative for illegal drugs or any dangerous substances in separate credible examinations to which his falsely accusing political opponent did not submit herself. Not even a shadow of gubernatorial contender and Carmen Mayor Conchita De los Reyes did turn up for the twin drug tests at the state hospital and police crime laboratories on Monday. Many thought should she refuse examination for reason she only could tell, her mere presence would have saved her from inexcusable flak for her own dangerous gimmick that the governor is "engaged in illegal drug activities." Both the laboratory analyses of the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital (GCGMH) and Philippine National Police (PNP) Crime Laboratory at Camp Dagohoy proved Chatto to have not indulged in prohibited drugs. As a consequence, the moral authority and ascendancy of the reelectionist govern...
Post a Comment
Read more

Workers’ Party of North Korea Kim Jong-un

First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of North Korea Kim Jong-un came out with two speeches at the party's plenary session here on Sunday. The session focused "on tasks the party faces in making a decisive turn in the process of accomplishing the Juche revolutionary course." The party's strategic priorities will embrace "reconstruction of the economy as well as a qualitative and numeric strengthening of nuclear delivery forces for self-defence purposes," the North Korean leader said at the session after visiting the mausoleums of his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sun in Kumsusun Palace. He was accompanied by members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and of the Central National Defence Commission. North Korea "is not eager to use the nuclear weapons as goods for buying American dollars or as a bargaining tool for receiving humanitarian aid," he said. "W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Panglao Island Environmental Problems

By Romy Teruel One environmental and tourism issue that will keep on cropping up unless decisive actions are done is the issue of easement along beaches as prescribed by the Water Code of the Philippines.  This has cropped up before and now it is here again.    The conference that Gov. Erico B. Aumentado held with the hotel and resort owners of Panglao and Dauis last Friday is an example of laws wanting in implementation. While the laws are clear and guidelines are prescribed, willing compliance has remained a problem.  The Water Code of the Philippines prescribes a 20-meter easement from the high water mark on the beach towards inland where no permanent structure can be constructed whatsoever.  We need not send experts however to know that compliance is more in the breach than observance.  This prompts observers to ask "What happened to Bohol's thrust on eco-tourism and environmental conservation and protection?"  And this is usually followed by "They are killing...
Post a Comment
Read more