Prepare for Civil Disobedience

Huffington Post
Paul Abrams
Prepare for Civil Disobedience

It may be that the polls tighten, exit polls confirm a close election, and Democrats take a narrow victory in the House and do not gain control of the Senate. Under those circumstances, sustaining public outrage because of voter fraud may be difficult. Warranted, but perhaps difficult.

More likely, the polls will remain more or less as they are, or even tilt a bit more in the direction of the Democrats.

If the election results are, nonetheless, a narrow Democratic victory in the House and failure for the Democrats to take control of the Senate, then the likelihood of massive voter fraud---from intimidation, to voter roll purging, to electronic hacking---is high. Under those circumstances, small "d" democrats, that is, anyone concerned about our democracy, must take to the streets.

In '00 times were relatively good, and few understood the implications of the neocon agenda that usurped the Presidency. Hence, there was no big issue to move the public. In '02 the Administration manipulated 9/11 by pivoting on a Homeland Security Department (they had been against it, because it would become subject to Congressional oversight, whereas they wanted it all secret) and rolling out the Iraqi threat that, strangely, a year earlier Cheney had told us had been "contained". [One can only wonder what the Bush Administration did in that year that allowed Saddam Hussein to escape containment.] Fear stilled scrutiny.

By '04, much to the chagrin of Bush and Cheney, the country began to emerge from its fear. To reinforce it, however, they found old, discredited "intelligence" data and trotted them out to raise the terrorist threat every time the Kerry/Edwards campaign was catching momentum. Strangely, once the election was over, few elevated terrorist announcements occurred. Nonetheless, the extent of voter fraud required to retain the White House exceeded that in '00. In Ohio in '04, like Florida in '00, the Secretary of State (in charge of elections) was also the State Chair of the Bush/Cheney campaign. Had the Kerry/Edwards campaign challenged in Ohio, there was a 100% guarantee that the terrorist threat would have been immediately elevated, and remained elevated, to make those whose only sin was to want their votes counted seem unpatriotic for perpetuating uncertainty in time of war.

Today, the country is a powder keg. An election result differing from the exit polls that keeps the House close and denies the Senate to the Democrats is the spark that will re-ignite the flames of democracy that is our birthright. The Administration has cynically calculated that the American people do not really care about their rights, do not really care about our system of government, do not really care about the humiliation visited upon them by the lies, the incompetence, the corruption and the coverups.

They are wrong. At a time when 103 US soldiers were killed in one month in Iraq, when we are losing a battalion per month to death and injury in Iraq, when soldiers' families have to suffer through multiple redeployments (while the neocons' children, including the Bushes, do not even have the honor to volunteer to relieve that pressure), when veterans' care and benefits are being simultaneously cut, when a failing national security team is valued over the nations' security, when people who vote for Democrats are told they are helping the terrorists, the American people shall not sit idly while the Administration, whose pursuit of power exceeds their sense of decency and public responsibility, acts with such utter contempt for the interests of 300 million citizens.

Thomas Jefferson described the balance perfectly: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

As Saddam Hussein, and others of his ilk, have shown, no illegitimate government opts to act properly when it feels threatened; rather, it increases its abuses. Perhaps this Administration will, at long last, surprise us, but we cannot expect it. Too many times they have broken faith with the American people.

The day of reckoning approaches. If they again abuse our elections as they have abused our patience on so many matters, their "long train of abuses and usurpations" must be resisted. Be prepared.