Re: 6/17 Daily Camera editorial/ERC report; cooperating with the enemy

[kellen carey <kcarey636@xxxxxxxxx>]

Though I might sympathize on some level w/ the assessment, "moral cowardice" is a strong term, and since it applies to about 95% of people living in Boulder County (on various voting issues) and about 85% of the human race (on any given public policy issues), I'm not sure it usefully describes the reality.

 

I think the lack of action by so many citizens has at least as much to do w/ a more or less rational assessment that the benefits of pushing for change are unlikely to have any public result or personal reward.  (Not original -- Italian political philosopher Bobbio elaborated on this a couple of decades ago.) 

 

I would like to know how to instil in the people a greater degree of power (relative to the government), so that it doesn't take an outraged, overwhelming majority to effect even minor change in this county or country.

 

But of course, too many blindly praise our country and constitution, while the truth is that the Founding Fathers quite consciously created a national system that by its very structure strongly militates against change, and that mindset has been copied on down the state, county, and city lines.

The people need more than moral outrage -- the people need power.  The question is how to galvanize that latent power and keep it simmering.

 

kell

Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Amen!

On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

> Dear friends:
>
> In a different context, Butler Shaffer is reported
> (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000731.html) to have said, "...
> We would be better advised to confront our own existential cowardice.
> Political leaders amass power only through our moral exhaustion; they are
> strong only because we have allowed ourselves to become weak."
>
> To plod along cooperating with the powers-that-be weakens us. The only way
> to effect change is to work from the outside applying enormous pressure.
>
> To apply enormous pressure requires enormous outrage since this is the only
> pressure available to a disenfranchised electorate.
>
> God bless Joe Pezzillo. If we only had another 10,000 like him then maybe,
> just maybe, this stupid system would change for the better.
>
> Resistance may be futile. Cooperation, though is definitely futile. I
> prefer resistance.
>
> Ralph Shnelvar
>
>
>
> On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:57:40 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
>
>> But of course there will be no accountability for the mistakes: the people who recommended the purchase of Hart will plod along in their jobs (though one showing a degree of integrity did resign); those who endorsed and signed an offensively flawed contract will plod along in their jobs, too.
>>
>> kell
>>
>> Doug Grinbergs wrote:
>> http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/editorials/article/0,1713,BDC_2489_3860994,00.html
>>
>> Making lemonade
>> Recommendations on voting will help - for now
>> Daily Camera
>> June 17, 2005
>>
>> It was distressing to learn, in a report by Boulder County's Election
>> Review Committee released this week, that the county's new,
>> $1.4-million Hart InterCivic optical scanning system would, under
>> "optimal" conditions, yield general election results in "24-28 hours."
>>
>> In other words, working as intended, this "high-tech" system is a day
>> late - on a good day - and short of ideal. According to Hart
>> InterCivic, the system wasn't designed to handle a precinct-based
>> general election.
>>
>> It looks like taxpayers may have bought a bit of a lemon.
>>
>> Nevertheless, for now, it's the system we've got. The county's old,
>> relatively reliable punch-card machines were essentially nixed by the
>> federal Help America Vote Act, which required counties to turn to
>> different technology or lose funding.
>>
>> The committee found that many factors contributed to the November
>> debacle, in which the county took three days to count the vote. The
>> biggest bug was ballots that were unreadable by the new machines, in
>> part because the printer - Eagle Direct Inc. - did not have proper
>> specifications. But a shortage of trained volunteers, a contingency
>> plan in case of problems and other factors contributed.
>>
>> The committee made some sound recommendations for the coming November
>> vote, including: Using a mail ballot; rental or purchase of
>> additional scanners; providing ballot specifications to potential
>> printers; and better training for election judges.
>>
>> Unrelated to the November delay, the committee also wisely urged the
>> county to develop a legal, accurate system for a manual audit process.
>>
>> The committee did good work. But even if it works perfectly, the Hart
>> InterCivic system will be unacceptably slow in a general election.
>> That's a real problem for the future.
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> Yahoo! Sports
>> Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football
>

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