A Dark Day For Democracy

On January 6, 2001, nineteen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a joint assembly of both houses, rose one by one to issue a challenge to the Electoral College votes from the state of Florida.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts stood silent. Senator Edward Kennedy stood silent. Senators Bob Graham, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein stood silent. The honorable Senators Robert Byrd, Joe Biden and Charles Schumer stood silent while the President of the Senate, Vice President Albert Gore, scolded Representative Maxine Waters on the rules of decorum and went about his business, the business of delivering the presidency to George W. Bush.

The election had been stolen. Never in the history of this nation has there been a more compelling or better documented case of election fraud than that confirmed by the United States Supreme Court in December of 2000. The glaring example of that election gave testament to every nation on the planet that America’s boastful and arrogant call for democracy was nothing but fluff and hypocrisy. In Haiti, Venezuela, Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine our advocacy is a joke.

With our own democracy on the line and all the chips on the table, the Congressional Black Caucus stood alone in the halls of government but they stood with the people outside the hallowed doors. They stood for every man and woman old enough and wise enough to know the value of a vote. They stood for every landless laborer and every descendent of slavery who struggled through the ages for the right to cast their ballots. They stood for all women, whose right to vote is only two generations old. They stood against every crooked regime, every military junta and every ruthless dictator who ever put on an election for show.

The Congressional Black Caucus stood with us for democracy while the silent leaders of this nation stood for decorum and order. They stood in defense of political corruption and the Machiavellian games of operatives. They stood for the way of power and against all that democracy is and aspires to be.

It is rare in life to have a second chance at something so important as integrity or honor but that is exactly what our leaders in the United States Senate will soon have. They will be given the chance to challenge the validity of the 2004 election until all the votes in Ohio are counted and accounted for. They have a second chance to stand up for democracy. They have a chance to question a system that casts perpetual doubt on the legitimacy of our electoral process and the viability of American democracy itself. They have a chance to do now what they failed to do in 2000.

If you still believe, at this late date, that this is all an exercise in futility, you have not been following the story. Reporters Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, as reported in the Columbus Free Press (December 15, 2004), have compiled sufficient evidence of fraud to threaten the outcome of the election. In addition to 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president and 155,000 rejected provisional ballots, there is damning evidence of gamed voting machines calibrated to tip the balance by a decisive margin. An objective review will reveal that the exit polls were right and the wrong man is preparing his inaugural address.

Sadly, it is unlikely that any single Senator will stand because, at its root and core, the Senate is very much like its parliamentary precursor: the House of Lords. In the Senate (as in the Lords), protocol is of greater value than cause and form is more important than substance. In the Senate, seniority and privilege take precedence and democracy (the stuff of commons) is little more than an afterthought.

Until the American people begin to demonstrate the outrage that is rightly ours, our leaders will never feel obliged to offer up even token resistance. We are losing our democracy because we no longer love her enough to defend her. We are losing our rights because we are willing to sell them off for security. We are losing our sovereignty, the sovereignty of the people, because we are willing to abdicate our authority to corporations and generals and the powerful people who perhaps ought to know better but rarely do.

In the Ukraine, the very idea of democracy is fresh enough to be valued. In the Ukraine, they are willing to fight for the right that most Americans no longer bother to exercise. When their election was stolen and their sovereignty denied, they took to the streets at great risk and peril and there they remained until their voices were heard and their rights restored. They stopped the operations of government and camped on Independence Square until the government finally yielded to their demands.

If there is a lesson in contrast here, it is this: Perhaps we need to lose our democracy, our privacy, our rights and freedoms as individuals for only then will we begin to value what we once had.

The battle now, as it was in January 2001, is for a single Senator to stand in the cause of democracy. They failed us then but we failed them as well by failing to rally the cause.

Let the halls of Congress be rocked with the voice of a million patriots. If we do our part and the Senators still fail then the myth of a two-party system balancing the forces of governance can safely be laid to rest. Then we shall know beyond all doubt that the answer lies beyond mainstream politics.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS COMMENTARIES ARE POSTED WIDELY.