Thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement, millions of Americans are finally shaking off their depression and torpor of the past decade, heeding the mass-consciousness call to take back power from corporatist forces that have hijacked our country, our planet, and our future. We may not all have taken to the streets yet, but we will. Or we'll contribute in other creative, subversive, personally liberating ways, pitching in with prison-break fervor to unblock the channels of revolutionary energy. Despite the sneering and jeering of the corporatist-controlled media, the Occupy movement is not going away, not going to burn out, and not going to be crushed like the radical movements of the 60s and 70s.

The Occupy Movement is going to change the world.

But is bloodshed inevitable? Not if we prepare now, in this pre-revolutionary phase, for Occupy Elections 2012. Because the closer we get to taking back our power, the more certain we can be that our elections will be rigged.

Anarchists and many younger activists may feel conflicted. Do elections even matter? Is democracy even possible? Americans under 40 have never known a time when electoral politics was much more than a charade.

Wherever you are on the revolutionary road, whoever you are in your mind and soul, regardless of your personal politics, we ask you to please listen to the message we're conveying today.

American elections are rigged, and we can take them back.

For over 40 years, our elections have been increasingly controlled and manipulated by corporatist forces, in four specific ways:

  • Corporate personhood and the legal determination that money=speech
  • Corporate campaign financing (billions to buy our elected representatives)
  • Corporate control and restriction of candidate access to the media and televised debates
  • Corporate control of computerized voting machines

For the purposes of this call to action – we're going to focus on the last, and least understood bullet point: How the bastards have been rigging our elections for decades without us knowing it.

Like an undiagnosed cancer spreading through our bones, centralized election rigging has been undermining the health of our democracy, eating away at it from within, leaving us exhausted and hopeless – though unsure of why we're so sick.

Let us get one thing clear up front: Every election is not rigged. So don't be confused by the few good guys, like Bernie Sanders, or Al Franken, or Dennis Kucinich, who managed to get into office.

Ask yourself this question: Have they stopped the corporatist take-over?

The answer is no. The balance of power is what matters, and centralized, computerized election rigging has been used when needed to keep the overall balance tipping ever further toward the corporatist/fascist side of the scale.

And, most importantly, the illusion of democracy is absolutely vital to maintain a pacified public. In other words, they're going to let some of "our" people in, sometimes.

Some elections are easier to rig than others, and some are more important to rig. Like most things in life, we're dealing with a complex situation. But there is one constant in the equation:

Every election can be rigged. Undetectably

If this is news to you, hang on to your hat. Once you understand how the American voting system actually works, you're going to feel a little stunned, as if you came home from a three month vacation to discover you left your keys hanging in the front door.

 

Over the past 40 years our elections officials have sold us out. Secretaries of State and Election Supervisors are the treasonous parties. Instead of overseeing the safety and veracity of our elections, they literally sold our democracy to a small criminal cadre of extreme right-wing ideologues who manufacture the voting machines that secretly count our ballots.

Let me say that again: A small, criminal cadre of extreme right-wing ideologues manufacture the voting machines that secretly count our ballots.

Let it sink in.

Yes, you have every reason to have lost faith in democracy, but you need to understand why. You need to know how we lost our power before you can hope to take it back. Then you can take democracy back into your hands – literally.

Paper ballots, properly designed and counted by hand, in public, on election day, is the only acceptable system. Any attempted fraud can be detected, and prevented. Computerized election theft is accomplished secretly, undetectably, within the "proprietary" software owned by the corporations who manufacture the machines.

For over four decades, a small but dedicated group of Americans–citizens and journalists–have been compiling a mountain of evidence on the criminal histories and extremist ties of these manufacturers, exactly how the machines are rigged, and how the corporate media and the Department of Justice has withheld the evidence from the American people.

See the list of resources at the end of this article for more information. Get informed. Wake up.

Democracy is our birthright. It has never been truly realized. Though many, especially younger activists, might idealize earlier times– pre-industrial, tribal, communal–we can't go back, only forward. What do we want? What does the Occupy movement want?

We want our goddamned democracy back.

A great battle is coming. The 2012 elections are our chance to turn the tide, but we must begin immediately. Only by organizing for a real democratic revolution now, can we break the hold of corporate criminals over our elections and take real power in 2012, legally, legitimately, and non-violently.

Join the conversation and strategizing at Occupy Elections on Facebook, started by activists responsible for the historic occupation of the State House in Madison, Wisconsin earlier this year. They are organizing now to secure the election to recall the Koch brother puppet and now Governor, Scott Walker, in 2012.

 

To learn more:

http://www.votescam.org

http://www.blackboxvoting.org

http://www.bradblog.com

http://www.countedascast.com/home.php

http://www.handcountedpaperballots.org

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org

http://www.electionintegrity.org/about

http://www.richardcharnin.com

http://www.markcrispinmiller.com

 

 

 

On Facebook:

Occupy Elections

Occupy Voting Booths 2012

Election Integrity

WI Citizens for Election Protection