Larisa Alexandrovna : Paranoid.

Ms Alexandrovna in alternet (go read the whole thing):

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I am therefore amused at the Monday-night quarterbacking going on -- still -- as though with only a week left, the outcome of this upcoming election is still somehow debatable. Karl Rove -- aka Bush's colon -- might have his math, as he so arrogantly chirped recently, but the rest of the science-abiding world can still add and subtract, and it is quite obvious to anyone with the ability to dress themselves in the morning that there are simply not enough members of the hate constituency to deliver this election to the Republicans. There are not enough homophobes, bigots, and criminal braggarts left to offset the massive exodus of the recently awakened from the rotting base of the GOP.
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Then again, Rove has never been a strong chess player, or strategist even. His success comes simply from his willingness to act outside the law, an endless amount of money with which to do it, and connections that will keep him safe from legal prosecution. That is not genius, it is simply power crank. Because he is such a weak strategist, Rove tends to play the same game over and over and over. But his favored divide-aggravate-focus strategy is not working this time; it is simply far too visible, and the GOP is far too corrupt for even the most faith-based of their base.

So then why have I been in near panic for the last few weeks?

Because all things are not equal, or even barely Constitutional, and they have not been for some time now.

Distilling panic

Because I play chess, I can see that (a) the Republicans must hold the House to avoid impeachment, (b) yet because it is simply not probable that the GOP can hold the House, then (c) the game must be altered to favor the GOP in some way.

There is no question that the Republicans must keep the House, if they are to avoid criminal investigations which will no doubt land many of them in prison. More importantly, the unprecedented abuse of power by the White House cannot be allowed to be examined or investigated, because there is enough evidence to not only impeach this administration, but also to convict them of serious, criminal, even treasonous acts.

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But how?
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Since the House must be kept under GOP control at all costs, thereby assuring a safe haven for the blue chip mob, how can such a miracle be pulled off in the face of simple math?
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Karl Rove's recent deployment of a "question the polls" edict to his minions shows that the argument is already being planted by which to minimize the shock of an impossible GOP win. But that alone is not nearly enough when real math is to be Republicanized.
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The answer is, quite simply, that if you are going to fix an election, you have to show that the exit polls are wrong, an argument that tends to cause mass riots in other countries, but in the math-impaired States seems to have no effect.
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Karl Rove's recent comments about his own private math system adds to the fuzzy math suspicions, because other than to monitor in advance what adjustments need to be made for each district, why does he need to watch polls so closely? Remember, these are people who claim over and over that they don't pay attention to the polls to begin with.

I have never heard Howard Dean say he watches all the national polls to this extent, or even the number of polls he pays attention to. Rove's assertion that he has access to roughly 65 polls and claims he is privy to polls that the public is not privy to, should have sent shockwaves through our brave new Democracy. Is Howard Dean privy to this same information, or is Karl Rove just the lucky one?
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And the early-vote coupled with the "ease-of-technology without paper" concept together make U.S. elections now the best hacked open secret in the world.
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Someone has to set the tone: Enter the media

None of the GOP's contract on America can happen, of course, without the help of an obliging fourth estate, who will always deny accusations of election fraud while trying to make funny math seem like a logical explanation for the improbable.

Remember the "sore-loser" theory as a way to explain away anyone who questioned the math of the 2004 Ohio miracle? Or what about myth of the "values voter," who suddenly appeared in large numbers to give the Bush-Cheney cabal a mandate? The right wing targeted (also as part of the distraction mechanism) anyone who relied on logic and reason, labeling him or her a lunatic, idiot, or bad sport. The right had help from the mainstream media, of course, and from the label-phobic liberals who embraced this foolishness for whatever reason.

The exit polls simply could not account for the sudden influx sometime around 10 p.m. EST of these mysterious values voters, who inexplicably and suddenly moved Ohio into magical number territory. That did not stop the press from using this nonsense to explain away those who dared to question the supposed Christians of America. The exit polls told us who really won and have been accurately predicting elections all over the world for ages. But since Bush and the Republicans took over America, exit polls have suddenly become faith-based.
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This time around, however, the real Christians in America have pushed back against the hate constituency and exposed not only their duplicity but also their small numbers. Sure, there are some small voter pockets of the pedophiles-for-God clique, but they are hardly a force of any import.

Enter now

What then will be our current distraction, and how will it be delivered to a public finally wide awake and paying attention? My near-panic mode almost entirely hinges on this one question.

The fuzzy numbers game is obvious and a given, for me anyway, at this point. But it is the distraction mechanism that keeps me awake at night.

To really understand the full implications of the distraction question, it has to be cut into pieces and digested slowly for the full flavor of my concern to register.

What would a morally bankrupt, criminal, and arrogant person with a casket full of millions do in order to retain power? What would a person who is willing to violate the Geneva Conventions, torture and degrade people, and watch as an entire American city slowly drowns on live television do to retain power? And what would someone like this, with an endless supply of resources and money, with the highest security clearances and running a campaign from the national seat of power, be able to achieve?

Does this not frighten you? It frightens me greatly. What can be done that would occupy a no-longer friendly media and silence an outraged public when the election results come down and, once again, show up as imaginary numbers and mysterious calculations?

And this is where my usually logical, measured self begins to see the sheen of tin-foil. One scenario, especially, has kept me swimming in liquid foil for weeks, hoping to be wrong and hoping against hope to prove that history need not repeat itself.

In case of an emergency

The possibility of something sinister delivered as a diversion is not unthinkable, given this crowd and what they have already done. But how far would they be willing to go in order to retain power and thus avoid prosecution for crimes already committed?

If recent developments are any indication, we may be looking at something so drastic that I am fully ready to attire myself from head-to-toe in all manner of paranoia. There is logic here, and it is measurable, adding fuel to my near panic.

When the President recently signed the Military Commissions Act (better known as the Stalin “No Man, No Problem” Decree), amounting to the end of habeus corpus, my panic became palpable. This law is so antithetical to the principles of democracy, that to even put pen to paper in order to sign this farce of a bill into law amounts to treason, in my humble opinion.
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For whom was this law really passed, and why was it so urgent before the election? Add to the MCA the passage of HR 5122, which has buried in it authority for the president to federalize the National Guard. Again, for what purpose is this law needed, and why was it so urgently needed before the election? Are there not other, more pressing, more obvious issues to deal with?

My panic continues from my initial question to what, for lack of any real answers, my imagination addresses.

If there is no insurrection, then why suspend habeus corpus? Unless it is a contingency plan for a possible insurrection. Why pass this before the election, urgently, as though the country were on fire and despite the begging of the world? Perhaps the contingency planning for an insurrection is taking into account what the exit polls will once again fail to deliver. Perhaps the answer is as simple as it is historically supportable: (a) if the GOP cannot give up control of Congress, (b) and there is ample proof that they will retain control of Congress through election fraud, then (c) faced with a no longer sedated public, this brave new America of the GOP might require extreme measures in order to secure peace in the event of an uprising, (d) perhaps through something like domestic policing measures.

This may be my Soviet-background paranoia coming into play. Or it may be the shiny-happy tin foil that has grown on my skin over the course of this presidency.

But as a chess player, I too am watching the game and attempting to calculate well in advance the strategy and the desired outcome of my opponent. I have to play out each possible scenario to its end and find the most logical and probable solution, even if it is possibly the most morally challenging one. I have to assess my opponents from top to bottom and calculate what they are planning to do based on what they have already done.

All that said, in the end, the most frightening aspect of the brave new American election system is that it appears to move in the ether, with stage-craft, far removed from us citizen-voters, despite its direct effect on every facet of our daily lives. It is that sense of having no voice that frightens me to no end, and it is the fear that attempting to reclaim that voice might cause an already deadly animal to go on the defensive. But since when has fear ever stopped a revolution?

great piece. (except fear stops revolutions all the time)