Doubt, Cynicism, or Paranoia?

I have never in my politically conscious life seen the level of doubt about our government as I am witnessing now - not even during the Vietnam war. There is a level of suspicion (and I'm not saying undeserved) that is present, and a questioning of every governmental action. Trying to find reality and truth in all of this is virtually impossible, and interpretation rules the day. But whose interpretation?

There is great skepticism about the Presidential election in 2004. At this point, every piece of news must be examined for spin, but even the corporate media is raising the spin issue with "July surprises" and "October surprises" - meaning things such as unveiling bin Laden, or invading somebody else (even Sudan has issued a warning to the US about thinking twice about "regime change" there).

I have been wondering if the skepticism is from the 2000 selections, where the Supreme Court chose our President, or if it is the events that have followed. In 2000, for the first time in US history, the Supreme Court decided who the President of the US would be. To complicate the issue, two of the deciders (Scalia and Thomas) did not recuse themselves for conflict of interest - even though they should have done so.

After that selection was past, the knowledge of the voting irregularities in Florida came to light - and I'm not talking about hanging chads, though that plays into this. I am talking about the invalid purging of the voter rolls, the last minute closing of polling places, and the police barricades and intimidation at other polling places in Florida. Since Florida was the deciding factor, irregularities there achieve high priority.

From the "hanging chads" came the push for electronic voting (with no paper trail) which has cast even greater doubt on the 2004 elections. And once again, Florida is purging its voter rolls, and somewhere around 1200 people purged have already been determined to have been purged due to errors. It looks like 2000 with three times the worries, but the worries don't stop there.

This last winter, Congress started engaging in discussions about how to replace themselves and keep the government running in case a terrorist attack took most of them out of play. Over a month ago, DeForest B. Soaries (chair of the brand spanking new US Elections Assistance Commission) requested direction from Tom Ridge regarding postponing the election in case of terrorist attack. Now we have the announcement from Homeland Security that they are investigating options and legalities. That announcement is making BIG news - even though the original Sories request made barely a blip. Now we have corporate media swarming the story such as Newsweek - Exclusive: Election Day Worries.

So if 9-11 and Afghanistan, Iraq, and the "war of terrorism" had never occurred - would folks be worried about the upcoming elections being honest ... or happening at all? I don't know.

But all that did happen, and on one hand it seem perfectly reasonable for Congress to discuss plans in case of its destruction, and election officials wanting clarity on possible postponement of elections. It is a sane thing to do. However, one has to wonder why it hasn't already been done, and long before 9-11 was even conceived. We went through the constant threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union (or attack by Cuba) for most of my life. Such a threat, one would have thought, would have prompted law makers to look at all possibilities. In fact, there is an extensive chain of succession.

One would expect that the corporate media would bring such dire concerns to our attention. That too is reasonable. But there have been many dire considerations they have seen fit to not tell us about - such as the real questions about Hussein's ability to launch an attack against the US. The evidence was there well before Bush launched us into war. I read it, and if you were reading Uncommon Thought at that time, you were aware of that as well. These were not "speculations." It is the same evidence that is now being brought forward to show that there was credible doubt of what we were hearing. The corporate media has variously apologizing for not following up.

So to add to the doubt of what is real and what is not real is the reporting that makes the headlines. I know that is always the case, but the questions raised now are more alarming. Such as why is the media playing this up at this time? Whose purpose, or what purpose, is being served?

Is the Bush administration trying to prepare us for a possibility, warn us of a legitimate threat, fear mongering, or warning us that the election will indeed be "postponed?" Beats the hell out of me. What I do know, is that even interpretting these things is getting damnably difficult.

Posted by rowan at July 12, 2004 11:50 AM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |