- It's been awhile since I've passed out my two cents,
citizen-style (to one person at a time, since not even a small-town "official"
paper's editorial section would print what I, or many of us who have looked,
have to say).
-
- How interesting that the Bushes are getting slammed with
negative-sounding whitewash, now that it appears that John Kerry has got
the Democratic nomination in his pocket. Why, just tonight I read an article
in the Los Angeles Times about the history of vested interests the Bush
family has had in weapons, oil, and other odds and ends, since the beginning
of the century.
-
- AND! This article was only about one-half misleading!
Democracy rides again! But when are you, my friends, going to quit mussing
up your thoughts with this "Times" or that, this big-haired TV
show or that, this "PBS" report or that? When finally they tell
you that the material on the 'net is NOT "sensationalized"? THEN
will you finally, obediently, go look up some of that "sensationalized"
stuff, because some dead-eyed bastard with a big salary tells you it's
okay? When do you think this new directive will come?
-
- Just to make a point: was the LA Times porridge indicating
Bush family interests in weapons and oil footnoted and independently verifiable?
As are various "sensational" accounts one finds on the internet?
No. But quite a lot is -- which seems to take years to surface in pablumized
form on big-hair news concessions -- to the point that the appellation
"Bush international crime family" no longer seems like the ravings
of some bug-eyed bozo in a tinfoil hat.
-
- If the LA Times is doing you seriously-want-to-know readers
such a big service, why wasn't this editorial printed 13 years ago? As
was a certain book available on the 'net, warning people about the disastrous
consequences of re-electing the elder Dubya? Why is it important only just
now? Why wasn't it important when Dubya senior infested the White House
as Vice President, 20 years ago?
-
- This Times bit was only one of a barrage of wrist-tappings
poor Dubya is now receiving, all of which, so curiously, come at the exact
heels of the moment that John Kerry seems destined to capture the Democratic
nomination to run for President. Isn't that an amazing coincidence? Isn't
it also amazing that Kerry's in-the-pocket deal comes at the heels of days
and days of running deliberately faked film footage of Howard Dean looking
like an idiot, and days and days of big black newspaper headlines shouting
"POLLS SHOW KERRY CAN BEAT BUSH"? Had any of you thought to take
a poll about who -- or even what french poodle -- could also beat Dubya
Bush? Had you wondered whether the poll takers had even asked?
-
- I asked -- not poll-takers, who get paid peanuts, but
real people in my home town here. I spent a month, six days a week, going
door to door, talking to real registered Democrats, asking them who they
planned to vote for in the Arizona primary, February 3. It, too, was interesting.
-
- I'm not a registered Democrat. I had no intention of
voting in the primary in the first place. I told each and every person
this to whom I spoke, day after day. I wasn't working for the Dean campaign
-- I volunteered to canvass for a local union, who felt Dean had the best
chance. I'll never join any political party, or even register myself that
way for some imagined convenience. The only reason I did it was because
Dean was the only one running on whom I hadn't found some serious dirt.
I wanted to talk to REAL people about their politics, to learn for myself,
rather than from the damned papers or TV or radio. I told people this AFTER
they told me who they planned to vote for in the primary. Mainly, I let
them talk. I wanted to hear. Bush is certainly a despised character here.
-
- I trudged, on foot, to between fifty and one hundred
houses a day. I went to precincts in every part of this county, from the
poorest (fenced in to keep constant burglaries down) to the richest (high
gates to complement their zillion-buck homes) and in between; to people
who moved here from all over this country -- as most residents one may
meet in big Arizona towns are. I talked to about five-hundred people in
all, otherwise leaving the little billets from the union in their doors.
I spoke to many of those five-hundred people at some length.
-
- In that month of six-day weeks daily speaking to people,
exactly SIX (6), s-i-x registered Democrats told me they planned to vote
for John Kerry in the primary. Two of those happened to be from Massachussetts,
and so, sport-like would vote for their imagined home-boy. I spoke to FOUR
(4) f-o-u-r registered Democrats who "were thinking about" voting
for Wesley Clark. I spoke to ONE (1) o-n-e registered democrat who "liked"
Jonathan Edwards.
-
- I spoke to about 225-250 who very assuredly planned to
vote for Howard Dean -- including a household of a Vermont couple, Republican
husband, Democrat wife (the Republican husband had glowing things to say
about Dean's residency as governor).
-
- It is easy to count numbers when they go only up to six.
Otherwise, counting up my results daily, I found Dean and "undecided"
about neck-and-neck, sometimes a few more for Dean. Dean had half the vote
or more. Kerry didn't even have peanuts.
-
- After the deceitful hack-job done on Dean at Iowa by
your favorite big-haired news-mongers, TWO people I spoke to, across two
days, on their doorsteps, mentioned having been somewhat put off by it.
True, a presidential candidate ought be mindful that he shouldn't let his
voice crack and squeak while trying to be heard over the noise of the crowd
(which had been thoughtfully blotted out by your "authoritative"
news crews). There may be people stupid enough to see that as some kind
of moral failing. I haven't met them yet, although one of those two was
close.
-
- On the last day, voting day, I called a list of numbers
of those who, from mixed lists, had said "yes" to Howard Dean
previously that month. I got ONE who said he planned to vote for Kerry,
and wondered how he'd got on that "yes" list. I got ONE who planned
to vote for Clark, who wondered the same. All the rest which had been "yes's"
said they'd already voted for Dean that day, or were about to. ONE voter
said he'd changed his vote to Dennis Kucinich. Of 50 people who answered
the phone, 47 said "yes." the rest were answering machine messages,
156 people. So Dean still looked quite high, where poll samplings are concerned.
-
- Imagine my surprise when I heard that Kerry had taken
this county with 42% of the vote and Dean not even half that. What happened?
Had I, by one of the more stupendous coincidences in state history, stumbled
across only the little handful of voters that intended to vote for Dean?
-
- I doubt it. Ten years ago I worked for a poll-taking
company called Quantum Consulting of Berkeley, California. I sat there
two years, listening to people on either side of me deliberately faking
the answers -- watching them put in answers on their computers before questions
were asked, and so on. Apart from "loaded questions," I can say
as an eye-witness (and so would in court) that phone poll-takers can be
as dishonest as the day is long, so long as they divine what kinds of results
their bosses want. Furthermore, a senior analyst at the company confessed
to me that "we're throwing out 60% of our results, and we're not telling
our clients that we're doing this."
-
- By some wild coincidence, did I happen to stumble across
the single, only dishonest poll-taking company ever to insidiously infect
this our Great United States of America?
-
- I doubt that, too.
-
- I'm not ready to point fingers. But from this perspective
-- the only honest perspective you ARE going to get, which is, go talk
to people yourself and let THEM tell you what they think -- it seemed to
me that Howard Dean was a shoo-in in the primary in this county. Now, would
this county be so utterly different in character from the rest of the counties
in Arizona? A high percentage of retired people, and retired military,
for instance? A high percentage of people with spanish last names, for
instance? I doubt that, too.
-
- I have two alternatives to consider. Either "people"
are so gullible that they take newspaper headlines and TV ploys as post-hypnotic
commands, or else there were just lots and lots and lots of "hanging
chads" in the ballot boxes here, as it were.
-
- I won't go into it here, but I've noticed John Kerry
has begun lying more frequently. Of course this wouldn't be in the papers
until a few years after he's done the kind of damage the Bush concerns
have done. But very presidential, to get an early start on lying and misleading,
don't you think?
-
- And that's the way it is, this date, etc.
-
- Tom Dark
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