Greg Palast: Corporate Control of Privatized Voter Registration Databases?
Did Florida make yo0u cringe in 2000? Ohio in 2004? Well, get ready for Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2006.We know about the privatization orgy that is the basis of the Republican agenda, but are you aware of just how far this is going? Have you heard of the "Help America Vote Act" (will this Orwellian free-for-all never cease)? This legislation requires the "privatization of all state-wide centralized voter registration databases". Additionally, it requires all states to complete this process within the next three months. Yes, this means that the information used to determine who votes where, and who is an eligible voter, will be compiled and held by Corporate America, not your local registrar or elections board.
Interesting to me that we, as a nation, blow so hard about "bringing democracy" to everyone else on earth, while we close our eyes as they snatch it away from under our noses here at home.
Greg Palast, investigative reporter for The Observer, brings us the story.
LINK
posted by Steve Gaghagen at
2:10 PM
2 Comments:
Government contracts out a significant amount of work to the private sector, usually at overinflated prices that come out of where? Your pocket.
So what is the argument for privatization? Privatization returns the power back to the people and takes the power out of the hands of government. Now that may not quite sound as anti-democratic as one should think, but you have to hang on with me for a sec.
It's easy to kick Corporate America in the nuts unabashedly because they are arguably faceless. But this entity without a face is an entity that is composed of hard working people who rally behind a specific goal: beat their competition. These faceless organizations are composed of friends, neighbors and family. Remember, businesses can, do and will go out of business or be bought or sold wholly or piecemeal. Our government can not fail - our government won't let it. When it does something that could be considered a failure, what do we do? We throw more tax money at it. We add more laws, add more people to the federal payrolls and all at the expense of who?
Free markets with limited input from government will naturally weed out companies and businesses that fail significantly.
Think about it: if I have a private business who wants to win the business of a state or county, why would I intentionally seek out to do a crappy job and thus ruin my chances to find work in other areas of the marketplace? (that is a bit of a rhetorical questions)
What I don't understand is the ballyhooing over Corporate America when the alternative is what? What is the only method, providing that there is government in our country, to accomplish what it appears that you want? Socialism? State control of everything? We already know it doesn't work. It didn't work for the Russian block and China is a beautiful example of what Capitalism and private industry can do: boost an economy. Notice that China has relaxed regulation and look at what their economy has done. So is the only alternative to where we are more government control?
The United States Constitution was written as a means to protect private citizens from the federal government. It was designed to limit the powers of government and look where the Constitution is now... locked up in a glass case, unused since the turn of the 20th century. Maybe if we would collectively and sincerely look at how our government has subverted the foundation of this country and set up this "tent democracy" off to the side, we could accomplish something. But too many people are content with letting civil liberties slide at the expense of everyone and anyone who has an agenda and the right political connections. Both the left and the right are guilty and they've led us astray for far too long. It is becoming far to convenient to trade our souls for protectionism and "security".
By
Anonymous, at 10:57 PM
In answer to your question concerning Socialism: YES. I am a Socialist, and the arguement citing the Soviet Union and China, falsly dumping Socialistic, Communistic, and Totalitarian forms of government into one big bin is a specious and misleading one. All it does is associate a word with other words we know we don't like, while doing nothing to refute any ideas. We KNOW that the Soviet manifestation of COMMUNISTIC philosophy didn't work. We also know that what the Chinese liked to refer to as Communism was bullshit. However, neither of those was in any way a serious representation of Socialism, and anyone who wants to look into it in an objective manner can verify that for themselves.
Instead of looking at those two, far from accurate, comparisons, we should look rather to the governments of countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland, and The Nederlands for guidance as to how
Socialistic ideas can be incorporated into democratic societies. Confining ourselves to the two examples given is the same debate tactic as the demonization of the word "Liberal" that began in the Reagan years. It had nothing to do with truly "Liberal" ideas, such as those that guided the founders of our nation. It was simply a PR tactic designed to influence those of somewhat lazy intellectual habits.
Now, as to Corporate America. Yes, it is faceless. And because of that it is also heartless and unaccountable. The laws of incorporation in the US grant to the corporation all rights enjoyed by an individual citizen of the nation. At the same time, these laws also exempt the corporation from almost all of the duties and obligations of the individual citizen. I see nothing wrong with the idea of a corporation, but it should be accountable for its actions and obligated by law in the same manner as any individual citizen, and it's board members should be accountable, likewise, for their individual actions on behalf of that corporation. Without this accountability, as the situation stands today, a corporation can become nothing more than a vast money pit available to the few and used to purchase the same government which should be serving the greater good, but is now brought to heel at the use of the priviledged few.
This Corporate America thing is a swinging pendulum. My feeling is that it's now swung WAY TOO FAR RIGHT. That doesn't mean that I don't see the value of a market economy. It does mean that I feel the balance has swung too far in that particular direction. Because a corporation is faceless, heartless, and much less accountable than you or I, it will take and take, as much as it can get, regardless of the well being of the citizens it purports to serve. That's where I think we are, and that's why I attack that particular entity right now. If I truly thought that the power of Labor Unions was undoing the social contract of this nation, I'd rail against them. It just so happens we're on the other extreme of the pendulum swing.
I totally agree with your assessment concerning civil liberties, and am constantly reminded of Franklin's statement, and I'm paraphrasing here, "He that would trade his freedom for a little security deserves neither." Right now, we've got neither. And I fear that's exactly what we deserve. Until we adjust at least some parts of our economy so they work from the bottom up, such as universal health care similar to every other advanced nation on the globe (that's just one example), we will remain in an ever deepening hole.
By
Steve Gaghagen, at 5:19 PM
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