Where Is the Biggest Gain?

In a recent post, I criticized the negative reactions of A-list bloggers to the RFK, Jr., article on vote fraud in the 2004 election. I said at one point that it was short-sighted and stupid, but the flow of my piece didn't let me elaborate then. I will now.

Let's make this clear. As I said, NEITHER SIDE has the clear-cut evidence to claim victory in the debate, no matter how strong their faith, and that's all it is, that they are right. Barring sudden honesty hitting Diebold officials, this will always be another JFK assassination debate, with the "official" side, which requires belief in the honesty of government officials who have things to cover up, even if not direct involvement, and the "conspiracy mongers" (has anyone ever actually seen a monger?), who say, rightly, that essential questions haven't been answered but then often leap, wrongly, to "here's what really happened." It is very unlikely that either controversy will ever be settled to history's satisfaction (not "historians," those professional wastrels who have so let this country down in so many ways).

If that is the case, then where does that leave us? We can bitch and moan on both sides or we can accept that "the truth is out there somewhere" but nowhere we will ever see. The first option is clearly dysfunctional and crippling, but that seems to be where we're headed, and that's one reason it's short-sighted and stupid.

Let's look at it from this perspective. No one will ever be proven right or wrong, so why not use it to our advantage? Just think what the Repubs would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot here. O'Really???, Osama bin Limbaugh, the man known as Coulter. The constant screaming into the Congressional Record. Well, actually we don't have to imagine it. It's called the 2000 Florida recount, another 100% undecidable (word?) controversy. We know how they turned that whole thing into a strong political issue for themselves, so what has ever been the harm in doing the same with the 2004 results?

Oh, no, Kos and his mindmelds say. That would make us conspiracy freaks, it would waste our time and energy, we know better, we know better, we know better. Sorry, bunko, but you're wrong, and not for the first time. Sure, you don't have the same PR apparatus the Repubs did in 2000, but, good God, you're KOS, the man who, rightly, has earned a place in American political history for your technological innovation in politics (not for analysis, unfortunately--when Joe Klein has a book with the same thesis, and you admit you stumbled on it while trying to write another book, you really shouldn't laud your insight and brilliance). You guys can get the press to back down on nonsense, you can get Lieberman on the run, you can collect thousands of dollars for unknown candidates, but you couldn't keep this issue on the front burner? And then, when all the lies about Iraq and all the Republican corruption and, most of all, Katrina hit the fan, think where you would have been with the credibility of the case you had at the ready. At the very, very least, you could have added to the factors pulling Bushnev down into the 20s in his polls and improved even more the chances for gains this fall, assuming the machines aren't corrupted at points in electronic transmission and computation.

But that wasn't done. Yet another opportunity to let history come back to the Dems on an issue gets passed up because people who might have made a difference have bought into the "there's no such thing as conspiracy" BS that certain types of intellectuals and wannabes get slammed into them in college and other superior circles. Short-sighted and stupid.

And here's another way that position is s-s and s. Kos and Marshall both depend on their increasingly cultish communities to generate opposition or support on issues and candidates for their own influence in the political system, despite the generally mundate nature of the actual advice they give. (Steve Soto has been better for a long time.) They and their online acolytes have apparently decided that the best way to max out those numbers when needed is to piss off a substantial proportion of possible participants. All they had to do, instead of dissing and threatening the equally smart and concerned people espousing the opposite position, was to adopt the very real "no one knows for sure what happened, so let's get either straight paper ballots or electronically completed but voter-verified paper ballots installed before November 2006 and blast the hell out of opponents to that" position. And set aside a special section for the comments of people on both sides to let them vent and vilify. As it is, Firedoglake, Suburban Guerilla, and others, including Atrios, who has wisely kept his mouth pretty much shut, which was another option for them, can mobilize the necessary action without crapping on the people needed to max out the participation. There's a reason why Greenwald is selling much better than you did in the progressive online community, Markos and Jerome.

Unless you can accept that these folks are not the strategic wizards that they think they are, you might not see how they could get themselves into this lose-lose situation. Social movements historically usually reach a point where one side starts to splinter because its leaders get too cocky and too self-absorbed in their wisdom and righteousness. It's sad to see it happening, especially before an important election. But, as I've said before, because of their inaction, if they are wrong in their beliefs about the manipulability of vote totals once electronically cast, we may see outcomes that no amount of online networking of contributions and strategy could overcome. I'll be glad to be proven wrong or to be shown proof that RFK, Jr., is wrong. But there's too much at stake here to be as complacent and assured as the A-listers have been. I hope the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday in November, there's not a cause for recrimination.