The Lies And Propaganda About How Working Americans Have It So "Great" Have Never Been More Pronounced

The mind boggling stat from The Sunday Denver Post (p. 11A) that the U.S. is the only nation in the OECD that mandates no paid vacation days was hard to swallow.   Even more difficult,  when employers (91 percent) do offer such time off, only 70 % of workers take advantage.

Recall here that according to surplus value theory proposed by Karl Marx in his work, Kapital, if the labor value sold as a product or service is L, and V is the labor value embodied in the production of the item or service then the surplus value S is:

S = L - V

If an employee then earns $36,000 a year for generating a service or whatever other labor, and yields 6.2 days of his vacation time to the Boss Man, this translates to roughly $150 per working day assuming 20 such days per month. Then 6.2 days given up per year on average amounts to $930.

Then, by this reckoning V is the yearly paid labor or $36,000 and S is the unpaid labor or $930 per year. . The amount of labor expropriated per year is therefore equal to $930. Now, add in possible employee extra costs of $1,000 - say for health care or unpaid sick days - and you have $1,930 of labor exploited. 

Meanwhile, the rate of surplus value per year, or the rate of yearly exploitation is:

S/V = ($1,930)/ ($36,000) = 0.053

In other words, the company or Boss Man is extracting 5.3% more work per year out of his forlorn employee than that employee is being remunerated.  It was computations similar to these that led a statistics outfit called Hotwire to conclude American workers were leaving nearly $126 billion total "on the table" - and that was 7 years ago. 

Those who do take their paid vacation days too often remain willing hostages to their email or cell phones - effectively working even on vacation.  But this is small potatoes compared to the other indignities paid labor is having to withstand in the country - even when the economy is "doing great' according to Donnie Dotard.  Alas, too many American workers aren't aware of the bill of fake goods they've been handed because, well, most do not read the financial press.  (Which may be just as well given the gigabytes of pure propaganda and hog swill peddled therein, which we'll get to.)

But a bit of perspective first. Probably no truer a statement ever appeared than barely 21 years ago, in an issue of Psychology Today no less (July-August 1998, p. 10. Includes graph):

"Starting in the mid-1970s, the nation's quality of life parted company with its wealth, and the gap between social health, and GDP is now bigger than it's ever been."

A graph of 'quality life indices' vs. GDP (ibid.) shows the measured divergence. More recent data also suggests that we are currently a much sicker society than at that (PT publication)  time and beyond what anyone imagined. The marginalization of the workforce is surely one major barometer of that: the inability of so many millions to secure enough remuneration from one job to afford rent in most U.S. cities. The GINI coefficient is also trending worse (i.e. greater inequality), and there's more recent research disclosing how it portends social and economic upheaval..

Have things really changed for the better since the 2008 financial crisis? Well, the recession finally gave way to a tight labor market with many jobs, but alas too many of these jobs don't pay the freight.  By that I mean that one such job will not earn you enough to pay for rent in a decent place, say here in Colorado Springs.  That rent now approaching $1,100 a ,month,  whereas the average worker's wage here is just above $20/ hour.  Do the math and it does not favor the lower wage renter!  (Rent or mortgage should be no more than 30 % of total monthly expenses.)

According to a recent TIME article  ('Living on Tips'',  Sept. 2-9, p. 40)  food service (wait) jobs now number 12.2 million and continue to proliferate across the country even as manufacturing  jobs  (currently at 12. 8 million ) continue to suffer attrition.  Mainly owing to Trump's ongoing, relentless trade war with China, which will see further high end wage losses to the service-gig sector.

  Perhaps as many as twice that number of  12.2 m cited in the TIME article  are either stuck in Amazon- controlled warehouse jobs or gig jobs like Task Rabbit, Task Easy, Uber, Grub hub etc..   Worse, those workers who've lost manufacturing or coal mining jobs are often tossed headlong into the expanding gig  or service sector which pays 40-50% less than their original jobs - which also had benefits. We also learn (p. 42) that those who lose jobs in a recession usually move down the income scale and seldom move back up.  They are stuck in positions like "personal care aide ($24,020 median wage)",  "food prep worker ($21,250 median wage" and "wait staff ($21, 780 median wage)" - none of which is adequate to pay for rent in most areas of the nation now.

And yet we are informed by the likes of WSJ op-ed columnists Phil Gramm and John Early ('Americans Are Richer Than They Think', Aug. 22, p. 15A)  that if the pointy- headed gov't statisticians and economists just stopped "overstating inflation" all would be well given such "overstatement leads to understatement of America's well being".  In other words, hell, you'd then actually be richer than you've been led to believe!  And indeed this would be dramatically reinforced if "consumers always bought the same amount of goods and services."

Which make one wonder what planet (in what alternate cosmos)  these two nattering nabobs inhabit, because it sure isn't the US of A on this planet Earth.  I mean,  if I purchased pork chops one week and they were priced (at Safeway or King Soopers) at $.1.50 /lb. then came back the next week and found them at $2.75 a pound, there is no way I am purchasing the same amount. I may then elect to decrease my purchase from 3 lbs. of chops to 2 pounds.  The same, obviously applies to other goods  such as shoes, jackets, shirts or shorts, and services - including haircuts.  Speaking of the latter, those were once $10 per haircut for a senior here in the Springs and I usually went once per month. They are now $13 per cut, and so I go every two months.  My point:  only an independently wealthy person like Gramm would always buy the same volume of goods and services irrespective of costs.

The claptrap of the two WSJ writers was also corrected in a followup letter ('The BLS Strives To Track Inflation Accurately',  Aug. 30, p. 12A) written by one William W. Beach Ph.D., Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  In the reply he writes:

"In constructing the (price) indexes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics follows the guidance of the International Labour Organization's  consumer price index manual, an internationally recognized authority on price index theory and practice. In fact, the U.S.  CPI not only meets the best practices recommended in the manual, it exceeds many of them.  Thus we take issue with the authors' notion that the BLS produces ;bad measures of inflation'"

But, of course, that is Gramm's and Early's intention. To muddy the water on inflation indexes to try to snooker American workers that they really have it much better than they believe. Hell, don't go buy those high-priced pork chops or chicken thighs! Don't believe your lying eyes or pocket book! Just believe our codswallop!  You'll be richer for it!

Another letter writer (Jim Smedra) actually pulls up the two propagandists directly, writing:

"Messrs. Gramm and Early state that inflation readings (about 2 %) are overstated. I disagree. The Journal has published several articles describing how Americans are struggling with higher costs for homes, rent, health care, college and vehicles.".

A third WSJ letter writer clobbers the pair from a different direction, that rising debt is the real culprit, not overstated inflation, i.e.

"The measure of inflation today isn't rising prices but rising debt - the opposite side of the ledger. Debt is nothing more than collapse of purchasing power, or 'what your money buys'."

Which, of course, is why so many young Americans can't afford rent or even a first mortgage in Denver, or Colorado Springs.  Their purchasing power simply isn't enough to buy in.  Plus, most are already saddled with enormous student loan debt. So they either have to rent  chintzy rooms at $550 a month, or share an apartment with 3 or 4 others. Those are the choices granted.

But let's remind ourselves Messrs. Gramm and Early tried a similar stunt back in May when they churned out 'The Myth Of Wage Stagnation', (WSJ, May 18-19, p. A15) trying to argue that if we just added employer benefits to the wages actually earned everyone would be seen to be paid much better.   But that increment, or any other tack-ons the pair propose, is still not going to get those Denver workers a new home or apt.   As we learned (Denver Post, May 15, p 2A):

"A middle of the road home in metro Denver now costs more than five times the median household income, a record. "

Again, a lack of purchasing power, which then leads the buyer to have to take out more debt than he or she can afford - if they can afford a down payment at all.  But looking all through the median household worker economy this is what we see: exploding debt because the wage standards have collapsed to the point they can't support current purchases, whether of homes, special services, or even medical care.  The Fed's recent stat showing that nearly half of most middle income earners can't even afford a $400 emergency expense was one of the biggest shockers in the past 4 months.  Then there was JP Morgan's prediction that U.S. households will pay an extra $1,000 this year thanks to Trump's trade war.  Yet Gramm and Early don't mention any of this.   They also would be taken more seriously if they'd referenced the WSJ piece of August 1: 'U.S. Workers' Wage Growth Levels Off' (p. A2) which noted that even the pitiful little increment increase in compensation gains of American workers had "leveled off"

Wage stagnation a myth? Propaganda!  Americans are really richer than they think? Even more propaganda designed as a kind of  'opiate' for the masses to imbibe.

Another reality needle puncturing the fantasy balloons of Gramm and Early appeared August 30, on page A3, e.g.

Historic Asset Boom Passes by Half of Families - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/historic-asset-boom-passes-by-half-of-families-11567157400

Wherein we learn the decades long economic boom has effectively passed by nearly half of American families who "still have 32 percent less wealth than they had in 2003 adjusted for inflation".  Americans ricer? Only the top 1 percent who saw the value of their assets soar with the over heated, cheap money infused Stock market.

Lastly, bear in mind when the glowing jobs numbers and low unemployment stats are trotted out, they don't tell the full story. That is,  "The BLS official unemployment rate only counts as unemployed those who are available to work and actively searching over the past 4 weeks" to find a job.  Not counted are the 2.3 million -plus between the ages of 25 to 54 who have basically dropped out since 2000.

What becomes of these, what has become of hem? Most likely they live mainly in debt - as one of the WSJ letter writers pointed out - but this isn't being wealthy or rich.   Then there is the underemployment rate for those who are working. Especially forlorn are those with a B.A. or B.Sc. degree and working in an Amazon   Those who may have aspired to get a decent job with benefits that makes use of their degree- but to no avail.

Well these workers definitely need to read the book The Winner Take All Society -to explain  why the U.S. has a narrow 'pyramid' of jobs with quality conditions.   At the very narrow peak or top (Google engineers, software testers, etc.) are the few winners in terms of salary and benefits.  

Thus the observed asymmetry in the U.S. job market(Ch. 6, 'Too Many Contestants?', p. 102):

"Market incentives typically lure too many contestants into winner take all markets, and too few into other careers. One reason involves a well documented human frailty: the tendency to overestimate our chances of prevailing over our competitors."

Adding:

"The decision to compete in a winner take all market is akin to buying a lottery ticket. If you win you win many times more than if you were in a less risky career. If you lose, you earn much less."

The takeaway in terms of newly minted Ph.D.s  for example,  is don't obsess over getting into a university teaching job for status - because that is a winner take all market - too many competing. So you are as likely as not to lose the lotto and end u an adjunct on food stamps, e.g.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/


Better by fare to snatch a good paying job at a private or STEM high school, where the students' caliber often compares favorably with 1st, 2nd year university students. 

As for one way workers can correct the imbalance between capital and labor, well take all your paid vacation days! Don't leave any on the table which amounts to a de facto pay cut for you.  Also don't take cell phones or activate emails on holidays.  To do so merely keeps playing into the exploiters' paws.

See also:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/9/2/1883053/-Something-interesting-happened-at-a-Labor-Day-Parade-in-Trumpland?detail=emaildkre

And:

Corporate America | Worker's Rights

The 5 Biggest Corporate Lies about Unions

Can Billions Eat Without Destroying The Environment? NO.

Much attention has been focused on the recent IPCC report on the dire manifestations of even worse global warming by 2040, e.g.

Climate report understates threat

That report, in the words of Erik Solheim - quoted by WaPo writer Margaret Sullivan in a recent piece ('Earth's Fate Is All That Matters Now') :

"Is like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen. We have to put out the fire."

But will we? CAN we?  With the deniers still in full dispute mode, that may be too big an ask.

Another report - bearing an equally grave message -   published last Wednesday in the journal Nature,  has received far less attention. The report featuring 23 authors hailing from Europe, the U.S., Australia and Lebanon - reviewed the many components of the global food system and how they interact with the environment. One of the primary takeaways was that transformation of the existing food system is just as critical as controlling the increase in CO2 tied to climate change. This is given that the planet will hold as may as 9.5 billion to 10 billion people by 2050. Right now the population is  7..6 billion, meaning we are talking about an additional 2 billion mouths at least.

Will they get enough to eat? Will the existing system be able to deliver given what we know about it? Not really!  As in the case of the IPCC report there is the chasm between what needs to be done to save a dire situation and what most likely will be done.  Many are preaching the need for carbon taxes given the ominous United Nations report — prepared by The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.  But this still isn't enough to stave off the worst warming,  likely to be closer to 4 C more by 2050.  That will require putting 500m autos out of commission in the next two years. Anyone likely to do that? Any nation?  Hardly!

Similar constraints and plain human cussedness and obstinacy stand in the way of having the food to feed an additional 2 billion or so by 2050.

For example, with the current demand for meat and animal protein, some 70 percent of the world's fresh water is already used for agriculture - much of it for meat consumption, Already, half the planet's ice -free land surface is devoted to livestock or the growing of food for those animals - not humans.  This is an area equal to North and South America combined, according to Katherine Richardson, Director of the Sustainable Science Center at the University of Copenhagen.

To give an idea of the water intensity of typical livestock based production, A 1/3-pound burger requires 660 gallons of water. Most of this water is for producing beef. Meanwhile,  one pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water, which includes irrigation of the grains and grasses in feed, plus water for drinking and processing.

It doesn't take a Mensa member to see this is totally unsustainable in a world faced with 25% more humans in barely 30 years.

This is critical given the current demand for food is increasing more rapidly than the population. So by the time the population hits even 9 billion we will be in serious trouble.

Added to the problem is the fact that one of the primary reservoirs for CO2 - rain forests - are inexorably being cleared for more crop land. So while more space is rendered to feed human livestock, and humans, less is available for CO2- absorbing trees in forests.

Not even mentioned yet is the amount of current food waste which translates into massive water waste we can ill afford.

Seven years ago a  study released  by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). showed roughly 1.3 billion tons of food was either lost or wasted globally due to inefficiencies throughout the food supply chain.  According to the report, industrialized and developing countries wasted or lost roughly the same amount of food each year – 670 million and 630 million tons respectively. But while rich countries wasted food primarily at the level of the consumer, the main issue for developing countries was food lost due to weak infrastructure – including poor storage, and inadequate processing and packaging facilities that lack the capacity to keep produce fresh.

 At the time it had been made evident that food losses mean lost income for small farmers and higher prices for poor consumers in developing countries. Now we also know the exent to which food waste and losses mean wasted water resources as well. 

According to a report  published in Plos One  6 months ago, Americans alone wasted over 25 percent of their food between 2007 and 2014.   Researchers at the US Department of Agriculture analyzed eight years of food dat  to see where food is wasted and also what members of the public say they do at meal times.  About 150,000 tons of food is tossed out in US households each day, equivalent to about a third of the daily calories that each American consumes. Fruit and vegetables were the most likely to be thrown out, followed by dairy and then meat.

This waste was also found to have an environmental toll, with the volume of discarded food equivalent to the yearly use of 30 m acres of land and 4.2 trillion gallons of irrigated water. Rotting food not only denies nutrition to a vast population that needs it but also clogs up landfills and releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Let us also note, for the record and in terms of the new Nature paper, that ruminants such as cows are prodigious generators of methane as they digest food.   Thus, the Nature report notes that greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system could be reduced significantly if people curb red meat consumption and instead follow a diet based on fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.

In effect, the report emphasized a "synergistic combination of measures will be needed to limit environmental damage" especially as the world population dramatically increases.

But can this be done? One contributor to the Study, Johan Rockstrom, insists:

"Feeding humanity is possible. It is just a question of whether we can do it in an environmentally responsible way."

To which I concur, for the present population, but not for the one projected in 2050.  If we keep eating heavily protein -based diets, especially now in the U.S. and China (which has derived a new taste for pork and beef amongst its middle class millions) there is no way in hell that 9.5 billion can be adequately fed in 2050. Far less doing so without terminating whatever is left of the environment by then.

Interestingly, the Nature report is mostly agnostic on the issue of GMO crops and foods in the food supply. This is incredible given now even another physician - Dr. Erika Schwartz - has weighed in against them in her book, 'Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You'.  Well, in her particular chapter it could have been headed 'Don't Let Monsanto Kill You', i.e. with its glyphosate -riddled GMOs that engender all manner of cancers, other health issues.

Curiously, the report also takes no position on population growth - which is remarkable in itself. That is given that unless global population is stabilized no change in food production or efficiency will be able to feed the additional billions.  We may not like to admit it, but in terms  of adequate resources this planet does have a human carrying capacity.

The projections now are for at least 9.5  billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The graphic below puts this into perspective;                                               

The interpretation of the graph (upward) is straightforward. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is,  the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.7 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate.

Given the report's omission of such hard realities it is evident to me that no, billions cannot eat without destroying what's left of the environment - and by 2050 the extra billions may not have enough to eat, period.

See also:

Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits | Nature

Is The US of A Fated To Remain 'Comedy Central' in Terms of Holding Elections?

Scenes like this  in Florida, have revealed the US of A to be Comedy Central in terms of conducting national elections

To the point: Even if you were elated at Obama's resounding victory you have to be embarrassed at what fellow citizens endured to get their votes counted in assorted states across the country. Let's cut to the chase right now and dismiss immediately any nonsense that such shameless inefficiency of operation yielding the absurd long voting lines  "had to be expected" or was in any way "normal". It was not. Rather it was a monumental travesty! What gives?

Even as the comedians ramped up their jokes again about Florida, people are wondering. The election long since over  (by FOUR DAYS) pathetic Florida - "the Sunshine state" - is still left counting ballots thanks to the crass actions of Governor Rick Scott - in severely limiting early voting days, and the actions of a Repuke legislature in fabricating and adding at least a dozen amendments to some districts, increasing voting times on their own,

While Rick Scott's state blew its chance to help determine the presidency, it did win a fabulous booby prize: a starring role in late-night laughs. Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's popular 'Daily Show', looked on the bright side Wednesday night, noting that unlike during the infamous 2000 Bush-Gore race, the entire nation wasn’t waiting on Florida to figure out who won.


“Here’s the good news: The election was decided without them,’’ Stewart said, drawing a rousing cheer from his studio audience. “For once, Florida’s clusterfuckery is irrelevant

Obama's victory, welcome as it was, was thereby marred by the extreme suffering so many millions had to undergo to cast their votes. Even Obama, acknowledging this, noted that "We have to FIX that!" Yes, we DO - because the conduct of national elections at the state level is now more than a sorry joke - it's an ongoing threat to our democracy. There is not one iota of evidence, not one, that in any other major election year voters will stand and wait as long as they did in this election. Give credit to Barack Obama for inspiring so many to sacrifice so much. (Including one Hispanic woman in Florida who attempted THREE poll visits, for a total of 12 hours of waiting in Miami-Dade, before finally joining a line at 5 p.m. Tuesday and getting to vote by midnight.)  This is a damned disgrace.

But it isn't just Florida! Rachel Maddow in her Nov. 7 show, documented these other gaffes:

- In Arizona,  Gabriel Palanco made 4 trips to the polls, since Poll workers could not find his registration and they wouldn’t accept his ID


- In Chicago, hundreds of frustrated voters were shuffled from polling place to polling place – then asked for identification, and when they couldn’t exactly comply to specifications were yelled at by aggravated election assholes….errrr judges…and left holding the wrong ballots


- In Orangeburg County,  South Carolina, voters at one poll were asked their party affililation even though voters in that state don’t register by party.

- In Pennsylvania, one guy voted for Barack Obama but the machine kept yielding Mitt Romney (See e.g. http://wonkette.com/488754/watch-this-pennsylvania-voting-machine-hilariously-refuse-to-accept-a-vote-for-barack-obama  )


- In Racine, WI they ran out of ballots at several locations.

- Back in Florida, early voting went late into the night Tuesday. In Miami-Dade for example, voters had to wait until clerks printed out several pages of new ballots for each voter – and many ended up still waiting in line at 1:30 a.m.


Meanwhile, waits of 7 hours or more were common.  and to employ Rachel's parlance, "lines of Odyssean length were seen in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Maryland and North Carolina"  – to name a few.  According to many observers this was the ‘stay in line’ election with many political operatives tweeting those in line : “As long as you were in line when the polls closed you can still vote” with messages sent to #stayin line


This pathetic array of events has made the US of A the joke of the world. A supposed technocratic nation that can’t even execute efficient voting.  By all accounts, as Maddow and also Chris Hayes have noted, casting a ballot ought not take more than maybe ten minutes! And no one ought to be waiting in line more than fifteen, if that!


Voting, moreoever,  is a federal issue but elections are state affairs. To the extent these foibles are the result of state decisions (i.e. to cut short early voting dates as Rick Scott did in FL)they translate into state mistakes, too lengthy lines, etc. Hence, the upper level state instigators - i.e. governors, Secretaries of State, must be held accountable for these fuck ups.

But these things can be fixed! According to Richard Hasen ('The Voting Wars', Electionlaw blog), the problems of the long lines were largely due to Republican legislators cutting back on the days and hours of early voting. NO such problems existed in 2008 when ample early voting dates were available, hence it is passing silly to blame voters in Ohio, Florida, Virginia or anywhere else – for example- for “not getting to the polls early enough”. Case in point: A voter in Michigan, cited on Maddow’s Wednesday night show, arrived at her polling station at FIVE A.M. to find 200 already ahead of her. Clearly, the problems inhere in the flawed state electoral SYSTEMS not in the voters!


Hasen, on Maddow’s program the same night, notes that the Constitution gives congress the power to set the rules for congressional elections (such a the ‘Motor Voter’ law in 1993) and when they do so, the states basically all come along and change their rules with it. It's basically 'Follow the Leader' writ large.

As he notes: “The problem is not one of constitutional power but of political will.”

But what many of us can’t understand, is why congress fails to exert its will here, and is instead content to allow partisan political hacks in the states to turn our elections into fodder for comedic jokes, and comparing states like Florida to "flaccid male organs". This need not be so! Hasen has several recommendations, all of which could originate with some kind of federal legislation, including:


- Simple level: Congress could stipulate money for the states as incentives to implement early voting.

- Better: Just use a federal ballot for national elections which lists the choices for president along with the choices for Senator(s), congress.

- Congress can also mandate which form of tabulation and machines are to be used. It can also mandate regulation of standards for these machines. There is no excuse for not doing so, and it is yet another travesty that states such as New Jersey and Nevada can have commissions which set regs for slot machines but NOT voting machines!  If this were done we wouldn't have absurd situations such as a machine yielding the opposite choice to a voter's will, as shown in the link above.

- Finally, congress can set up a non-partisan agency to administer our elections – such as done in Canada, Australia, and the UK.


Thus, we let the federal government take over all voter registrations, and ensure the standards are met. For myself, I totally concur with Hasen's last endorsement of a non-partisan agency as manifest in other advanced nations, as opposed to leaving critical elections in the hands of party-partisan hacks like Rick Scott, John Kasich, Scott Walker, Jan Brewer or any other miscreants.

The states, then, can have at it with their local ballot choices, including their ‘books’ full of state amendments- which also contributed to long lines, in states like Florida. (Interestingly, many FLA voters took a swipe at the repukes for adding all those amendments, by rejecting most of them). Meanwhile, a single page national ballot - with just the presidential candidates and Senate-House picks can be tabulated in seconds by a regulated machine.

Interestingly, the 'Help America Vote Act' of 2002 was to have allocated nearly $4b to expediting streamlined standards in the states, but as Deforest Soaries pointed out on Chris Hayes' UP this morning, its advancement was torpedoed by the Reeps. Instead of getting the money and go ahead to implement it in 120 days, it turned out to be TWO years! This was then, January, 2004. By the time they got the money, only $400,000, they only had 6 months for the implementation and it wasn't enough to effect anything. The rest as they say is history, including the 2004 thieving of Ohio by Rove and Co.

Make no mistake that Obama's victory in Ohio this time doesn't mean Rove and Co. were not at work. After all, Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!  As Harvey Wasserman has noted (see also  www.harveywasserman.com):

"The simple truth of Barack Obama's victory is that if it had just come down to Ohio, Mitt Romney might have won. The gears of the election theft machine were well-oiled and running at top speed….until an "October Surprise" named Hurricane Sandy intervened.

Those now rejoicing over the Obama triumph should know that there is absolutely no excuse for leaving this sinister apparatus of electronic election theft in place. Election reform should be at the top of the progressive movement's list, led by the non-negotiable demands for universal hand-counted paper ballots and universal automatic voter registration. As Obama said in his victory speech in reference to the long lines in Florida: "We need to do something about that."

This year, as in 2004, the Rovian blueprint was simple if not clean: keep the election close enough that Ohio and Florida would be the deciders…and then do the deciding."


So what now? We need to work ourselves out of complacency and push congress to enact John Lewis "Voter Empowerment Act", which places the burden for correct registration where it should be, on the federal government. It also clears the path for other positive voting rights' changes, including giving felons back the right to vote after they've done their time. In terms of expediting correct voter information, Lewis' proposed system would use a high speed computing network similar to that implemented under the Patriot Act (i.e. connecting all police forces in a web across the country). Effectively ensuring rapid and accurate transfer of voting info to each state and between states (say if a voter's moved). No need for photo IDs, and no fuck ups regarding processing his or her information.

There is simply no excuse at all to allow our country to contine to be 'Bozo Central' when it comes to voting and citizens exercising their franchise. If our politicos aren't willing to make the needed changes to materially push for streamlined elections like other nations have, then we the People need to take on the mantle and push ourselves. And push hard!