On the 2002 Midterm Elections
Editor From The Wilderness
Nov. 7, 2002, 12:00 PST (FTW) -- There are a multitude of dangling questions about Tuesday's election results.
Widespread anecdotal accounts of voting irregularities, disenfranchised voters and absolutely accurate and, in many
cases, understated criticisms of abysmal leadership from Tom Daschle and the Democratic Party are not difficult to find.
While pundits are trying to spin that the Republicans don't have a blank check, the fact is that they do and will now
use every ounce of leverage they can squeeze onto it. I totally agree with James Carville -- a less than likeable,
ruthless, crusty, hard-ball operative from the Clinton years -- who said last night, "The American people just don't
have a clue as to what's coming."
As I write, the biggest transport ships operated by the Navy have already or are now setting sail for the Middle East,
laden with main battle tanks and all the equipment necessary for invasion. At Ft. Hood, Texas elements of the III
Armored Corps and the 1st Air Cavalry are quietly leaving in small detachments.
I have no doubt that the Homeland Security bill will be passed -- by any means necessary -- during the lame duck session
of Congress which commences on Nov. 12. At that moment the government will enshrine a $37 billion bureaucracy that will
have no other mission -- for the rest of its life -- than to find and destroy enemies of the state. For that reason
alone -- a law of bureaucratic existence -- the list of enemies of the Homeland is compelled to forever grow as the
definition of "enemies" is revised, and new evidence is found to justify their destruction. How else does a bureaucracy
justify bigger budgets?
The Democratic Party is a shameful and laughable disgrace. In a world of hope the Green Party would seize this
opportunity to enshrine and claim as its own all of the issues which the Democrats left unaddressed and laying in the
dust of this election. I will not hold my breath.
The fear that exists in Washington must also be addressed. Sens. Leahy and Daschle got anthrax letters. Many, including
this writer, believe that Paul Wellstone was murdered. Cynthia McKinney was removed in a well orchestrated conspiracy
which will be addressed in my forthcoming book, "Across the Rubicon."
On Aug. 27 I published an essay titled "No Way Out" in which I wrote, "And most of the American people, with their
bankrupt and corrupt economy, will welcome cheap oil, while it lasts, and they will engage in a multitude of
psychological and sickening rationales that will, in the end, amount to nothing more than saying, 'I don't care how many
women and children you kill. Just let me keep my standard of living.'" As the Empire embarks on the occupation of the
Middle East, to control the largest reserves of oil remaining on a planet that is coming to grips with the fact that oil
is finite and depleting, the American people are on the threshold of getting a taste of what real sacrifice means.
The military occupation of Iraq (and Saudi Arabia) may come fairly quickly and be hailed as successes. But the prices
that will be paid in casualties, economic expense and global hostility will be bitter and permanent pills for this
Empire and its people. Homeland Security will provide Caesar with the means to permanently suppress any restlessness at
home.
There was one other great message from this election. On Wednesday morning I watched a crawl on the bottom of the CNN
news screen. It said, "Proprietary software may make inspection of electronic voting systems impossible." It was the
final and absolute coronation of corporate rights over democracy; of money over truth; and of man's self-destructive
fears over the best parts of the human heart.
I note with irony the fact that much of the new software to resolve voting issues is either created by Microsoft and/or
the companies that own and sell the voting machines, including one with investments from the Rothschild family. These
are the same firms connected to the election debacle of 2000. Some even have Bush family connections. And here we see
the final purpose of the 2000 Florida voting scandals: In order to prevent the same kind of hanging-chad confusion, we
now have electronic machines so the problem won't occur again, and the results have been forever totally removed from
public scrutiny.
And wasn't it convenient that Voters News Service decided at the last minute that there would be no exit polling this
year. Exit polling was a reliable standard against which the numbers from the voting machines could be compared.
Some will take issue with me and say, "Mike, how can you blame the American people and say that the voting machines are
rigged at the same time?" Easy, I answer. Today there was nobody in the streets. There was no public outcry. There was
no revolt or outrage. All that has happened is that one more time a people has avoided responsibility and retreated in
the hope that some other half-measured, half-willed, half-hearted, childish tactic will produce results in a world that
no longer exists ... and probably hasn't for a long, long time.
- Mike Ruppert
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- Michael C. Ruppert is the editor and creator of From The Wilderness Publications