FURTHER THOUGHTS AND LINKS ON US ELECTION 2004
By Tom Atlee / The Co-Intelligence Institute
November 7, 2004

http://www.co-intelligence.org
http://www.democracyinnovations.org
http://www.taoofdemocracy.com

I find myself in an odd position reporting on the U.S. election. That's
where so many of us understandably have our attention. But I find my heart
isn't fully in it.

As most of you know, I have a progressive past and progressive leanings when
I engage in politics-as-usual. But I am trying to journey into a political
worldview that doesn't take sides, but rather creates spaces -- personal,
interpersonal, community, political -- where sides can soften or dissolve --
or not show up at all -- and people can encounter each other as human beings
who share certain problems and certain hopes for their lives, their
children, their communities, and their world -- forums where they can speak
truly and be fully heard about "what has heart and meaning for them" (as
Juanita Brown <http://www.theworldcafe.com> likes to say).

In such environments, ordinary people -- truly diverse people -- demonstrate
over and over again that they can work together.

I'm still trying to understand the conditions that make that possible and
fruitful. Many methods -- such as the Public Conversation Project
<http://www.publicconversations.org> -- bring adversaries together to
discover each other as human beings. They seldom change their views on the
issue that divides them (such as abortion), but they end up treating each
other so much more resectfully, often with real caring. Other methods --
such as Future Search <http://co-intelligence.org/P-futuresearch.html> --
bring together people from all over "the system" (the organization,
community, problem, etc.), some of whom view each other as adversaries and
others of whom don't -- to acknowledge and set aside (not address) their
differences in pursuit of common aims. Still other methods -- such as
citizen deliberative councils
<http://co-intelligence.org/CDCUsesAndPotency.htm> -- usually bring together
people simply as citizens, often through random selection, in which they
don't come identified as members of "sides" in a debate but as peers to
reflect together about community or national issues.

All these methods -- and dozens of others like them
<http://co-intelligence.org/CI-Practices.html> -- have excellent track
records. They work really well, each in their own way. Their successes raise
the question (at least in my mind) of how useful this whole adversarial,
positional mode of relating really is. My book, THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY: USING
CO-INTELLIGENCE TO CREATE A WORLD THAT WORKS FOR ALL, envisions a democracy
grounded in using our differences creatively, rather than to beat each
other.

Some democracy scholars -- like Jane Mansbridge in BEYOND ADVERSARY
DEMOCRACY -- suggest that where common interests are identified or naturally
predominate, a consensus- or trust-based form of democracy is appropriate.
On the other hand, where conflicting interests are assumed or clear,
majoritarian, embattled forms of democracy are most appropriate, with
institutional safeguards against unfair use of power.

What I suspect is that the new social technologies and dialogic methods that
I noted above make possible a far greater realization of common interest
which, if we actively pursued it, would allow us to progressively reduce the
number of issues that we have to address through the horserace and the
gladiator pit.

In the meantime, there is the world as it is, in which adversarial win/lose
gamesmanship is built deeply into many of our cultural systems, not the
least of which is electoral politics. In that realm, I can try to be
neutral, but my biases show through, and some of you have called me on them.
That is fine, and I am taking this opportunity to be clear about that. I am
not totally above the fray, but I am slowly moving out of it.

So the rest of this message is somewhat partisan, but not very militant. I
try to offer an outside view that considers dangers to our democracy, but it
is inevitably lopsided. Furthermore, it barely scratches the surface of
what's going on. Those of you who are conservative may be miffed at my
progressive leanings; those of you who are radical progressives will be
miffed at my failure to take a solidly principled stand against the dangers
of the System. (Note: I checked a number of conservative sites like the
American Conservative Union <http://www.conservative.org> and the Christian
Coalition <http://www.cc.org> but didn't find much substantive commentary on
the election so far. Perhaps the conservatives are getting down to business
and don't find a need to talk about the elections publicly yet...)

I encourage you all to check out the many postings to the Election Questions
Dialogue that I put online
<http://www.quicktopic.com/28/D/LxzG8aUr2kNn.html>, and to add you own two
cents. It has turned into quite a document.

After this message, I will scale back my election coverage, except for
subscribers to my Hi Volume List*, who will receive election-related and
movement-related articles** by others with no commentary from me (which I
can send easily without distracting from my co-intelligence work). However,
if you are hungry for a lot of great progressive election/politics coverage,
you can subscribe to these mailing lists:

Election Fraud Interest Group <amy@informproductions.com>
Tim Seitz <tandjseitz@kos.net>
Political List <craig@heartlandinstitute.com>
TRUTHOUT Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org
and check out http://www.commondreams.org often.

And now I leave you with a many-edged question, useful for anyone, to ask
among yourselves and your associates. It was inspired by David Isaacs
(thanks, David):

What may now be possible at last, that seemed unlikely before this election?

Take it where you will.

Coheartedly,
Tom

* You can subscribe free by writing me at <cii@igc.org>, with "CII HI LIST"
in the subject line.

** Much of the progressive commentary (such as on the Common Dreams site
<http://www.commondreams.org>) focuses on grieving and moving on. For those
who want to do some reflective work in that space, check out
<http://www.findhorn.org/connect/Aipaper2.doc>. There is also Joanna Macy's
"despair and empowerment work" described briefly at
<http://www.wiki-thataway.org/index.php?page=DespairAndEmpowermentWork>. If
anyone knows of good ONLINE instructions people could use for despair and
empowerment work, let me know.

----------

Two rich sources of info on the election are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._election_in_progress

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/national.php?f=0

A more nuanced red-and-blue map, by county, can be found at:

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2000/

More factors are surfacing for the unexpected Bush win. There is no way I
could track or analyze all the stuff that's being talked about. But here are
some highlights:

a. Get out the vote activities. A number of commentators, including a few on
the Left, have suggested that the Republicans simply were better and more
massively organized and committed in this classic factor (for example, see
URL below). In fact, both sides did an unprecedented job. While Republicans
are crowing that Bush was elected with more votes than anyone in U.S.
history, some Democrats are pointing out that more people voted against him
than any other incumbent president in U.S. history, as well. The simple fact
is, more people than ever came out to vote -- although even that was
considerably less than 60% of those eligible. So that reminds us that a
candidate being chosen by a third of those eligible to vote would be
considered a landslide victory in the U.S.
<http/www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04reconstruct.html>


b. Voter suppression. Most of what I've seen on this are reports of
suppressing likely Democratic voters. Arcane laws challenging the
qualifications of voters or voter registration paperwork (e.g., the
registration has to be submitted on a particular weight of paper!) have been
selectively applied by Republican authorites in ways detrimental to
Democratic voters. A Republican-hired voter registration company had its
registrars weed out liberals with "survey questions" beforehand and then
threw away Democratic registrations that managed to get filled in. Absentee
ballots were delayed. Democratic neighborhoods were given fewer polling
places than Republican neighborhoods, resulting in longer waits to vote.
Fliers were passed out in black districts saying you couldn't vote if you
had parking tickets or had missed child support payments. The list goes
on... How much of this was officially arranged or authorized by the
Republican Party and how much was arranged by eager volunteers seeking
victory or political strokes, we may never know. The Democratic Party
couldn't complain too loudly, though, since its hands are far from clean on
this score, as well, at least historically.

Voting Incidents Map:
<https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapNation>
Greg Palast:  Kerry Won
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm
Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1105-25.htm>
Election Protection Voter Intimidation and Suppression Stories
<http://www.electionprotection2004.org/archives/cat_voter_intimidation_and_s
uppression.html>
Election Protection news items from Ohio
<http://www.electionprotection2004.org/archives/cat_ohio.html>


c. Voting machine problems and possible fraud. There were reports of
touch-screen machines changing people's votes, which were dismissed by most
election officials, claiming that voters must have touched the wrong part of
the screen accidentally (even though the problem apparently happened
repeatedly as some voters tried to "correct" their vote). I only saw reports
of Kerry votes being changed to Bush votes, not the other way around.
Bloggers are noting that in states with touch-screen machines which don't
provide a paper ballot printout, vote tallies for Bush exceeded exit polling
numbers by an average of five percent, whereas in other states exit poll
numbers matched the vote tallies. Critics say that the exit polls referred
to were from earlier in the day, were premature, and should not have been
released. Critics of those critics say the pollsters changed their numbers
at the last minute. Pollsters say their early data proved false and needed
to be changed Some people are trying to research this in more depth, thank
goodness. Few things could undermine the franchise more than vulnerability
to untraceable electronic voting fraud. On top of this, we had thousands of
ballots disposed of as "wasted" because of hanging chads and confusing
markings -- again mostly in minority districts. This apparently happens
every election, so it seems odd that more research has not been done on its
impact on elections. Those who want to explore all this further can check
out:

<http://www.blackboxvoting.com> and <http://www.blackboxvoting.org>
as well as the following articles:
Electronic voting: The trouble with technology
(includes a map of voting equipment used in the US)
<http://www.economist.com/World/na/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3195821>
Broward County Machines Count Backward
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110704V.shtml>
Exit polls and 'actual' results don't match; Evoting states show
greater discrepancy
<http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/031104dontmatch.htm>
Exit Poll and Machine Tally Comparison Graphs, by state
<http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4175>
Report Says Problems Led to Skewed Surveying Data
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05poll.html>
Top 10 Ways to Rig a Voting Machine
<http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=4>
Was the Ohio Election Honest and Fair?
<http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm>
The Ghost Votes in the Machine
<http://counterpunch.org/harrison11032004.html>
Evidence Mounts that the Vote was Hacked
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1106-30.htm>
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm>
You Voted Republican, Trust Us
<http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00147.htm>
A powerful 30-minute documentary is available free at
<<http://www.votergate.tv>http://www.votergate.tv>


d. Use of deep values-based concerns (and religious passion) to mobilize
constituencies. Again, this was done by both Republicans and Democrats, but
apparently the Republicans were particularly successful, strategically. Many
Christian fundamentalist first-time voters came out to vote specifically for
the gay marriage ban initiatives and, in the process, also voted for
Republican candidates. The much commented-on "morality issues" that came up
in exit polls as a motivation for voting are explictly about that. Democrats
were still working on the assumption that voters (especially working class)
would vote their economic self-interest. Wrong. The Left is now talking
about the need to explicitly address moral issues, values and spirit. Again,
thank goodness, because the public discourse on this subject has become
sadly lopsided.

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04wills.html?th>
"Democrats Need a Religious Left" By Rabbi Michael Lerner
(posted to the Tikkun listserv, and picked up by a blogger)
<http://www.liquidlist.com/archives/2004/11/politics_one_po.html>
Simple Framing
<http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/perspectives/simple_framing>


e. A clear, consistent message, mixing fear, optimism and brilliantly simple
PR framings (both positive and negative). Rationalistic progressive policy
analysis, facts and critiques -- and nuanced, complex appreciation of a
complex and changing world -- do not speak to many voters who are afraid and
desperate for hope, security and certainty. The Republicans did a good job
of sticking to simple (Democrats might say simplistic or even false)
messages that had gut impact. The Enlightenment ideal of rational citizens
seeking their common good together is only a small part of what goes on in
the kind of democracy the U.S. has. (My predictable comment: If liberals
want to have more of that Enlightenment ideal play out, they could change
their political culture in ways that empower inclusive, informed dialogue
and deliberation, rather than just pushing their arguments into the public
airways.)

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04wills.html?th>
Framing the Issues
<http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml>
Cheney Speaks to the Reptile Brain
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0817-13.htm>


f.  Bad Democratic strategy.  The Democrats lost because they were
either too mainstream (Bush lite)
<http://www.alternet.org/story/20412>
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1105-32.htm>
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1105-28.htm>
or too liberal (Kerry as #1 liberal in the Senate)
<http://www.kniff.de/cgi-bin/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.cgi/010110A/http/www.nytimes
.com/2004/11/06/opinion/06kristof.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20
Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fNicholas%20D%20Kristof>


g. Candidate appeal. Bush is a master at presenting himself as a nice,
ordinary working Joe (working at his ranch), despite his wealth and
privilege. Kerry came across more as part of the elite (windsurfing at his
nice vacation home), distant from ordinary people. The Republicans then
framed him as that. So much of this is image and spin (distorting
realities), but these images of leaders will probably play an increasing
role as times get harder and people reach out more and more desperately for
inspiring, caring leaders who they can personally identify with (and thus,
they think, trust).


Of course a number of issues were not part of the mainstream campaigns this
year because neither major party was or is interested in raising them. These
include possible government complicity in 9/11, corporate power, our
imperial foreign policy, and many other issues which are supported by people
on both the Left and the Right but are largely invisible in the mainstream
press. Any candidate raising such populist issues gets sidelined rapidly by
the media and the other powers that be (note the behavior of the press with
the Democratic challengers in the primaries and with Patrick Buchanan).
Those who want to raise such basic issues might take this opportunity to
reflect on what changes in our political culture and institutions would make
it possible to successfully bring hot populist issues like that into the
mainstream dialogue and keep them there.