Crappola. I want to be a regular old empty nest blogger and non-political writer, but I am cursed with awareness of events and the power that single voices can have. So instead of writing about Pinterest posts that serve as #ff or Follow Friends or Follow Fridays or Friend Feed or whatever the heck it stands for, I am writing about the theft of elections in Arizona and how they are being accomplished in at least one county, Pima County. Pima County, the county in which I happen to reside, is supposed to be a bastion of liberal sense in a sea of Christian/Mormon and Wingnut Libertarian Wack-a-doodlery.
I've posted this clip with a simple introductory sentence on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to attempt to get the word out for the original Election Integrity folks, Audit AZ, not to be confused with Rovian election “integrity” folks who usurped the phrase and applied it to their thugs who were challenging voters throughout the U.S., possibly as a decoy to distract from the real way provisional ballots were planned to be created.
Rove and his smarmy cadre of Machevelian actors steal from the best. The old confuse a cat routine of distraction coupled with boredom works. It is a variation of the desensitization experienced when someone cries wolf so often that real information is lost. No one pays attention to Arizona because of the Right wing wacko reputation of the state. What better place to test out manipulation and theft tactics than a place no one takes seriously anyway? This reputation exists in spite of the huge Latino and First Peoples populations, the fact that Raul Grijalva, the Congressional Progressive Caucus leader, and massive bipartisan cooperative recall efforts, such as the one that recently removed the, now former, President of the Arizona Senate, Russell Pearce. A rather large progressive community in Arizona is far less credible than it should be by the caricature that has taken hold in the mind of most people in the U.S.
I wrote a Master's Thesis in Anthropology about cultural incorporation of the elements most threatening to the status quo by the larger “governing” cultural system so as to maintain its primacy. I believe that some of the left's most effective protests against the Rovian machinations of the Bush II's administration were absorbed, probably consciously, but possibly unconsciously, by the Kochian Right that continued the Bush assault on democracy after the Bush administration. I see potential for the early borrowing and reframing of progressives memes that the Right shaped into the Tea Party that began in the likes of progressive and cooperative street theater such as that done by CODEpink and Yellow Cake groups.
I witnessed early Tea Party-esque protest memes put together at a Convergence Center for the Phoenix Presidential Debate 2004. This was when I was helping put together an Arizona presense for CODEPINK in 2004 was the model for the Right Wing's Tea Party theme. We progressive to downright leftist groups (all the way from early players in what was becoming the Progressive Democrats of America, to environmental groups, Nadar supporters, anarchists of several stripes, and the general dissatisfied voice of youth) chanted, “We're Joe Six Pack and we've come to take our Country back,” while a “let them eat cake” Cake Street Puppet danced by the dangerous fretful and antsy hooves of Phoenix P.D. cavalry, when we were caught between the Darth Vader armor clad and shield weilding Phoenix Arizona Storm Troopers and the aforementioned calvary.
Many folks here in Arizona have been attempting to out the massive manipulation of elections as well as the testing of public sentiment manipulations and desensitization tactics for years. I understand that no one wants to believe this. It is extremely disturbing. But it is happening, and once again I have to say, “I'm reserving my right to tell you, 'I told you so!' when, down the line, this becomes widely known and accepted.”
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