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amaebi"When fascists or Nazis or communists did well in elections in the 1930s or '40s, what followed was some combination of spectacle, repression, and salami tactics-- slicing off layers of opposition one by one. Most people were distracted, some were imprisoned, and others were outmatched.
"The hero of a David Lodge novel says that you don't know, when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that. Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not. Some of the Czechs are Slovaks who voted for the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1946 probably realized that they were voting for the end of democracy, but most assumed they would have another chance. No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country's history, which (thus far) it has been. Any Election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote….
"We believe that we have checks and balances, but have rarely faced a situation like the present [of 2017]: when the less popular of the two parties controls every lever of power at the federal level, as well as the majority of statehouses. The party that exercises such control proposes few policies that are popular with the society at large, and several that are generally unpopular-- and thus must either fear democracy or weaken it....
"Much needs to be done to fix the gerrymandered system so that each citizen has one equal vote, and so that each vote can be simply counted by a fellow citizen. We need paper ballots, because they cannot be tampered with remotely and can always be recounted.... Any future elections will be a test of American traditions."
- - Timothy Snyder (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books: 28-29, 30-31.
This administration counts on its destructions being irreversible or reversible only at tremendous cost, whatever the courts may say ex post.
We need universally available vote-by-mail and an efficient and operational post office for this election. Where there is machine voting, we need a distribution of functioning voting machines that is not dictated by party or racial bias. We need paper ballots to make election results verifiable.
We need these things before elections whose last day is November 3 open.
I demand these institutional tools toward free and fair elections.
I call on you to demand them.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Mary Ann Dimand
“…choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve….”
- Joshua 24:15
"The hero of a David Lodge novel says that you don't know, when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that. Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not. Some of the Czechs are Slovaks who voted for the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1946 probably realized that they were voting for the end of democracy, but most assumed they would have another chance. No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country's history, which (thus far) it has been. Any Election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote….
"We believe that we have checks and balances, but have rarely faced a situation like the present [of 2017]: when the less popular of the two parties controls every lever of power at the federal level, as well as the majority of statehouses. The party that exercises such control proposes few policies that are popular with the society at large, and several that are generally unpopular-- and thus must either fear democracy or weaken it....
"Much needs to be done to fix the gerrymandered system so that each citizen has one equal vote, and so that each vote can be simply counted by a fellow citizen. We need paper ballots, because they cannot be tampered with remotely and can always be recounted.... Any future elections will be a test of American traditions."
- - Timothy Snyder (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books: 28-29, 30-31.
This administration counts on its destructions being irreversible or reversible only at tremendous cost, whatever the courts may say ex post.
We need universally available vote-by-mail and an efficient and operational post office for this election. Where there is machine voting, we need a distribution of functioning voting machines that is not dictated by party or racial bias. We need paper ballots to make election results verifiable.
We need these things before elections whose last day is November 3 open.
I demand these institutional tools toward free and fair elections.
I call on you to demand them.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Mary Ann Dimand
“…choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve….”
- Joshua 24:15
