Ends,
Means, and Party Membership
By
Uncle Bill Warner
Americans
love a good scandal. Look at all the folks that people "know"
are guilty after hours and hours of the media beating their cases
to death. Michael Jackson, O.J.Simpson, Robert Blake and Gary Condit
were all found "guilty" in the press, only to be found
"not guilty" by juries who were prevented from reading
the press.
Wouldn't it
be nice if the press focused its attention on the people whose crimes
hurt us all, the arrogant and corrupt folks who operate behind the
scenes in our political process? Wouldn't it be dandy if these cases
were actually investigated and taken to court? The public would
have a real reason to get to know the intimate details of these
cases.
Thomas Noe
of Toledo (where the Democratic Party HQ's were burgled and their
computer records stolen before the election), for instance, may
not be quite so well known to you, since his involvement with the
Republican Political machinations in Ohio during the past Presidential
election have hardly been mentioned by the Press at all. Noe, a
big Republican campaign supporter called a "veritable lawn
sprinkler," was roundly thanked by G. W. Bush for his help
last October for the over $100,000.00 he raised. Recently, it has
come to light that $50 million of Ohio's Workers Compensation funds
have been invested in Noe's coin business. Unfortunately, this investment
seems to have come up over $12 million short. Oops, the rare coins
that the state had invested in have disappeared. Some of the state's
money was also used to buy really secure things like an autographed
Mickey Mantle poster and vintage comic books. Nobody seems to care,
except perhaps an Ohio worker who gets injured on the job and then
finds out that his worker compensation fund has been looted to fund
the Republican candidates. And "Coingate" appears to just
scratch the surface.
One of the
recipients of Noe's largesse was Kevin Blackwell, Ohio's blatantly-partisan
Republican Secretary of State, who should be labeled "Public
Enemy of Democracy Number One" for his shameless efforts to
swing the election for the Republicans by any means available to
him. He's the same Blackwell, who coincidentally happened to be
Bush's re-election chairman in Ohio, the same one who voided thousands
of Democratic voter's registrations and set it up so that voters
in black (mostly Democratic) precincts had to stand in line for
hours to vote.
In addition
to Noe's manipulations of election finances, Walden O'Dell, the
CEO of Ohio's Diebold's voting machine concession, stated in a fund
raising letter asking $10,000 each from rich Bush contributors that
he "hoped to deliver Ohio" to Bush in 2004. There are
allegations that he indeed did just that with the paper-trail-free
Diebold voting machines with privately-counted votes that were widely
used in Ohio in 2004. I suspect that Noe and others, who have been
involved in alleged corruption of the election process in Ohio may
be investigated, maybe even indicted, but maybe not. After all hasn't
Kevin Blackwell invited our new Republican Attorney General Alberto
Gonzalez to investigate? An old cliché' about the "fox
guarding the chicken coop" comes to mind.
In Ohio, Florida,
California, and all over the country, Americans need to start being
interested in what is going on. We need to demand that the Press
do its job as the watchdog of democracy and shine light on ALL those
who are accused of wrongdoing. We need to demand that all corruptions
of our election process be publicized as thoroughly as the celebrity
trials.
As a former
Ohioan and former Republican, I am ashamed of the Republicans in
Ohio for allowing the brazen repudiation of Democracy and the public
interest by a corrupt and arrogant few in their Party. Were I a
Republican today, I would demand better or drop my affiliation.
Will our corporate-controlled
media ever deem it worthwhile to devote as much intense scrutiny
to the shady characters who are stealing our democracy from us as
they give to celebrity scandals? Oh, occasionally you hear mention
about Florida's notorious Katherine Harris (Secretary of State who,
like Blackwell, bent all the rules to elect Bush in 2000) running
for the Senate, or maybe the bribes and money laundering involving
Tom DeLay, Republican Majority Leader in the House, but alleged
political criminals never stand in the spotlight for very long.
If most Republicans knew what was going on through media attention
to their party's "ends-justify-the-means" policy, they
might just consider demanding that their party reform and live up
to its stated ideals of honesty.
Visit us at
ProgressiveWritersBloc.com.
|