FTR #470 Democracy Imperiled

Posted August 19, 2004 by FTR, in Category: For The Record

Recorded July 25, 2004
REALAUDIO

As the title indicates, this broadcast examines grave threats to what remains of American democracy. Much of the first half of the program examines the issue of electronic voting. Controlled by a small group of interconnected far-rightists, companies like Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia have proved notoriously unreliable in past elections. Significantly, the people in charge of these firms are also closely connected to the covert operations milieu of the 1980’s that spawned the Iran/Contra and Iraqgate scandals. The program reviews the possibility of a man-made earthquake affecting the election. In the context of the Machiavellian nature of this administration, it is worth noting that Machiavelli counseled that a leader destroy a society with democratic traditions, lest it regroup and restore those traditions. The program concludes with an examination of the profoundly anti-democratic attitudes of Paul Weyrich and those in power in the Bush administration.

Program Highlights Include: The Urosevich brothers and their profound influence on the development of both Diebold and ES&S—two of the companies at the epicenter of electronic voting; the relationship of the Urosevich brothers to the far-right wing Ahmanson family; the Ahmanson family’s links to Paul Weyrich’s Council on National Policy; the presence on the Council on National Policy of Iran/Contra players Oliver North and Gen. John Singlaub; the close relationship of Diebold, ES&S and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel; Diebold’s apparent role in helping to swing the calling of Florida for Bush in 2000; the suspicious performance of Diebold machines in the 2002 off-year elections; the suspicious death of Athan Gibbs (who developed a viable alternative to Diebold machines); General Tommy Franks’ prediction that a terrorist incident with WMD’s could lead to the imposition of a military-style government in the U.S.; the explicitly anti-democratic views of Paul Weyrich and his milieu; a statement by the secretary to former President Gerald Ford that the US entered World War II on the wrong side.

1. Beginning with a subject touched on in FTR#’s 466, 468, the program discusses the issue of electronic voting and the small cabal of extreme right-wingers at the foundation of the companies that manufacture these machines. One of the most important of these is the Diebold company. Headed by Wally O’Dell—an ardent Bush supporter—the company makes a number of automated devices such as ATM machines. Interestingly, Diebold’s voting machines are the only ones that do not have produce a verifiable paper trail. “ . . . If Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has his way, Diebold will receive a contract to supply touch screen electronic voting machines for much of the state. None of these Diebold machines will provide a paper receipt of the vote. Diebold, located in North Canton, Ohio, does its primary business in ATM and ticket-vending machines. Critics of Diebold point out that virtually every other machine the company makes provides a paper trail to verify the machine’s calculations. Oddly, only the voting machines lack this essential function.”
(“Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” by Bob Fitrakis; The Free Press; 2/24/2004; p. 1.)

2. “State Senator Teresa Fedor of Toledo introduced Senate Bill 167 late last year mandating that every voting machine in Ohio generate a ‘voter verified paper audit trail.’ Secretary of State Blackwell has denounced any attempt to require a paper trail as an effort to ‘derail’ election reform. Blackwell’s political career is an interesting one: he emerged as a black activist in Cincinnati supporting municipal charter reform, became an elected Democrat, then an Independent, and now is a prominent Republican with his eyes on the governor’s mansion.” (Idem.)

3. The issue at the forefront of this discussion has come into sharp focus as a result of the electoral irregularities in the 2000 election. The 2002 Help America Vote Act may have actually contributed to the problem by mandating that electronic voting machines should take the place of punch card machines. “A joint study by the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology following the 2000 election determined that between 1.5 and 2 million votes were not counted due to confusing paper ballots or faulty equipment. The federal government’s solution to the problem was to pass the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. One of the law’s stated goals was ‘Replacement of punch card and lever voting machines.’ The new voting machines would be high-tech touch screen computers, but if there’s no paper trail, how do you know if there’s been a computer glitch? How can the results be trusted? And how do you recount to see if the actual votes match the computer’s tally?” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)

4. Many critics have focused on the irregularities that have plagued Diebold machines in the past. “Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot tampering in the 21st Century, argues that without a paper trail, these machines are open to massive voter fraud. Diebold has already placed some 50,000 machines in 37 states and their track record is causing Harris, Johns Hopkins University professors and others great concern. Johns Hopkins researchers at the Information Security Institute issued a report declaring that Diebold’s electronic voting software contained ‘stunning flaws.’ The researchers concluded that vote totals could be altered at the voting machines and by remote access. Diebold vigorously refuted the Johns Hopkins report, claiming the researchers came to ‘a multitude of false conclusions.’” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

5. “Perhaps to settle the issue, apparently an insider leaked documents from the Diebold election Systems website and posted internal documents from the company to Harris’ website. Diebold went to court to stop, according to court records, the ‘wholesale reproduction’ of some 13,000 pages of company material. The Associated Press reported in November 2003 that: ‘Computer programmers, ISPs and students at [at] least 20 universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology received cease and desist letters’ from Diebold. A group of Swarthmore College students launched an ‘electronic civil disobedience’ campaign to keep the hacked documents permanently posted on the Internet.” (Idem.)

6. Irregularities in the Volusia County (Florida) Diebold machines appear to have led to the premature media call of Florida as having been won by Bush. (For more about the Florida electoral irregularities, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 259, 268.) “Harris writes that the documents expose how the mainstream media reversed their call projecting Al Gore as winner of Florida after someone ‘subtracted 16, 022 votes from Al Gore, and in still some undefined way, added 4000 erroneous votes to George W. Bush.’ Hours later, the votes were returned. One memo from Lana Hires of Global Election Systems, now Diebold, reads: ‘I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16,022 [votes] when it was uploaded.’ Another hacked internal memo, written by Talbot Iredale, Senior VP of Research and Development for Diebold Election Systems, documents ‘unauthorized’ replacement votes in Volusia County.” (Idem.)

7. “Harris also uncovered a revealing 87-page CBS news report and noted, ‘According to CBS documents, the erroneous 20,000 votes i

n Volusia was directly responsible for calling the election for Bush.’ The first person to call the election for Bush was Fox election analyst John Ellis, who had the advantage of conferring with his prominent cousins George W. Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush.” (Idem.)

8. In examining the issue of electronic voting, it is essential to note how a small cabal of closely connected, extreme right-wingers dominates the few companies involved in making these machines. The main names are: Bob and Todd Urosevich, the Ahmanson family, Carolyn Hunt, Chuck Hagel, Diebold, ES&S. Note the relationships between these individuals and companies that dominate the electronic voting market. “Increasingly, investigative writers seeking an explanation have looked to Diebold’s history for clues. The electronic voting industry is dominated by only a few corporations—Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Sequoia. Diebold and ES&S combined to count an estimated 80% of U.S. black box electronic votes. In the early 1980’s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.” (Idem.)

9. Deeply involved in the capitalization of the companies that evolved into ES&S, the Ahmanson family is closely connected to the Council on National Policy, an institution dominated by far-right wingers closely identified with the covert operations of the 1980’s, such as the Iran/Contra and Iraqgate scandals. “In 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported, ‘ . . . primarily funded by evangelical Christians—particularly the wealthy Ahmanson family of Irvine—the [Discovery] Institute’s $1-million annual program has produced 25 books, a stream of conferences and more than 100 fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research.’ The chief philanthropists of the Discovery Institute, that pushes creationist science and education in California, are Howard and Roberta Ahmanson. According to Group Watch, in the 1980’s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

10. “ ‘On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades to political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster),’ wrote The Independent last November. The Sunday Mail described an individual as, ‘ . . . a fundamentalist Christian more in the mould of U.S. multi-millionaire Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who uses his fortune to promote so-called traditional family values . . . by waving fortunes under their noses, Ahmanson has the ability to cajole candidates into backing his right-wing Christian agenda.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

11. Note the role of Chuck Hagel in the development of ES&S, one of the companies deeply involved in the electronic voting business. The company grew considerably when it purchased BRC, founded in part by the far-right wing Hunt family of Texas. (The Hunts assisted in the founding of the Council on National Policy.) “Ahmanson is also a chief contributor to the Chalcedon Institute that supports the Christian reconstruction movement. The movement’s philosophy advocates, among other things, ‘mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards.’ The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.” (Idem.)

12. Did Hagel’s ES&S connection help with his “stunning” electoral upset? “In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and [in which] he maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s Es&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a ‘stunning upset’ by one Nebraska newspaper.” (Idem.)

13. “Hagel’s official biography states, ‘Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy and Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Chairman of the Board of American Information Systems.’ During the first Bush presidency, Hagel served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7 Summit).” (Idem.)

14. Again, note the incestuous structure of Diebold, ES&S and both firms’ relationship to Hagel and the Urosevich brothers. “Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States.” (Idem.)

15. “Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s systems. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board.” (Ibid.; pp. 3-4.)

16. More on the highly suspicious track record of Diebold and ES&S: “Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.co of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were ‘fixed by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies.’ The scoop investigation concluded that: ‘The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.’ Those machines were supplied by Diebold.” (Ibid.; p. 4.)

17. Note that Diebold machines returned identical vote counts for three Republican candidates in Texas in 2002. “Wired News reported that ‘ . . . a
former worker in Diebold’s Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machine before the state’s 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.’ Questions were raised in Texas when three Republican candidates in Comal County each received exactly the same number of votes—18,181—on ES&S machines.” (Idem.)

18. Diebold installed uncertified software in machines in 17 California counties using their equipment. Manipulating vote counts was a key feature of the foreign covert operations of the Reagan and Bush (I) years. Recall that the Ahmansons (deeply involved with the development of the companies that make electronic voting machines and their software) were associated with people like Oliver North and John Singlaub—prime movers in many of those covert operations. “Following the 2003 California election, an audit of the company revealed that Diebold Election Systems voting machines installed uncertified software in all 17 counties using its equipment. Former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell writes that one of the favorite tactics of the CIA during the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980’s was to control countries by manipulating the election process. ‘CIA apologists leap up and say, ‘Well, most of these things are not so bloody.’ And that’s true. You’re giving politicians some money so he’ll throw his [sic] party in this direction or that one, or make false speeches on your behalf, or something like that. It may be non-violent, but it’s still illegal intervention in other countries’ affairs, raising the question of whether or not we’re going to have a world in which laws, rules of behavior are respected,’ Stockwell wrote. Documents illustrate that the Reagan and Bush administrations supported computer manipulation in both Noriega’s rise to power in Panama and in Marcos’ attempt to retain power in the Philippines. Many of the Reagan administration’s staunchest supporters were members of the Council on National Policy.” (Idem.)

19. Athan Gibbs and his TruVote International machines provided one ray of hope for those concerned about the perils of electronic voting. “Ohio Senator Fedor continues to fight valiantly for Senate Bill 167 and the Holy Grail of the ‘voter verified paper audit trail.’ Proponents of a paper trail were emboldened when Athan Gibbs, President and CEO of TruVote International, demonstrated a voting machine at a vendor’s fair in Columbus that provides two separate voting receipts. The first paper receipt displays the voter’s touch screen selection under plexiglass that falls into a lockbox after the voter approves. Also, the TruVote system provides the voter with a receipt that includes a unique voter ID and pin number which can be used to call in to a voter audit internet connection to make sure the vote cast was actually counted. Brooks Thomas, Coordinator of Elections in Tennessee, stated, ‘I’ve not seen anything that compares to the Gibbs’ TruVote validation system. . . .’ The Assistant Secretary of State of Georgia, Terrel L. Slayton, Jr., claimed Gibbs had come up with the ‘perfect solution.’ . . .” (Idem.)

20. HR 2239 is one piece of legislation that would require a paper voting trail for all electronic voting machines. “ . . . U.S. Representative Rush Holt introduced HR 2239, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 that would require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail so that voters may verify that their screen touches match their actual vote. Election officials would also have a paper trail for recounts. As Blackwell pressures the Ohio legislature to adopt electronic voting machines without a paper trail, Athan Gibbs wonders, ‘Why would you buy a voting machine from a company like Diebold which provides a paper trail for every single machine it makes except its voting machines? And then, when you ask it to verify its numbers, it hides behind ‘trade secrets.’ Maybe the Diebold decision makes sense, if you believe, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, that democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.” (Ibid.; p. 5.)

21. The broadcast then reviews (from FTR#468) the death of the aforementioned Athan Gibbs, a critic of computer voting machines that do not provide a paper trail. Gibbs, who (as noted above) had developed a technology that assured a viable accounting of votes, was killed in a car/truck collision in Texas. “The subject line on yesterday’s e-mail read: ‘Another mysterious accident solves a Bush problem. Athan Gibbs dead, Diebold lives.’ The attached news story briefly described the untimely Friday, March 12th death of perhaps America’s most influential advocate of a verified voting paper trail in the era of touch screen computer voting. Gibbs, an accountant for more than 30 years and the inventor of the TruVote system, died when his vehicle collided with an 18-wheeled truck which rolled his Chevy Blazer several times and forced it over the highway retaining wall where it came to rest on its roof. . . .” (“Mysterious Death Benefits Bush” by Bob Fitrakis; Coastal Post; 4/2004; p. 1; accessed at: http://www.coastalpost.com/04/04/10.htm .)

22. Reviewing (from FTR#468) an emphatically speculative item, the program examines recent forecasts of earthquake activity for California later this year. This information is presented in the context of a number of past broadcasts in which it has been established that technology exists for the deliberate triggering of earthquakes, where sufficient slippage exists on a fault system to produce such an event. (For more about this, see FTR#69. FTR#’s 434, 440 discuss the possibility of a man-made quake in California calculated to affect the election results.) The possibility that a major quake occurring shortly before the election might have a significant impact on the outcome should be carefully considered. Such a disaster could lead to the delay or cancellation of the election in California and would have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. as well. If the quake were severe, it could lead to an imposition of martial law in the U.S., due to the far-reaching economic and ecological consequences attendant upon such an event. A major California quake would also hand political center stage to the Terminator and George W. They could be packaged as the saviors of California. The grateful citizens’ [delayed] votes would go to Bush, even though Schwarzenegger will be the one who garners most of the action. Such an event could well be used to position Schwarzenegger for a run for national office. “Scientists have found striking evidence of a three-year cycle of earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault, a development that might lead to the first practical short-term earthquake forecasting in central California. The new research, which one expert called a tour de force of geoscience, suggests that the next peak of the cycle is likely to come late this year. . . .”
(“San Andreas Quakes Show Cyclical Pattern: UC-Berkeley Study Finds Fault Slipping in Periodic Bursts” by Keay Davidson; San Francisco Chronicle; 1/9/2004; p. 1.)

23. Yet another prediction of a quake for California for later this year. “A US geophysicist has set the scientific world ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction, and warning that a big one will soon hit southern California. A Russian-born University of California at Los Angeles professor Vladimi

r Keilis-Borok says he can foresee major quakes by tracking minor temblors and historical patterns in seismic hotspots that could indicate more violent shaking is on the way. And he has made a chilling prediction that a quake measuring at least 6.4 magnitude on the Richter scale will hit a 31,200-square-kilometer (12,000-square-mile) area of southern California by September 5. . . .”
(“Expert Warns California to Brace for Big Quake by September” (AFP); Yahoo.com; 4/15/2004; pp. 1-2.)

24. The program notes that Schwarzenegger recently replaced the head of the California National Guard with a Republican. This may, or may not be of significance. Certainly, the National Guard will be centrally involved in any major disaster response in California. Whether or not this is coincidental or of any significance at all remains to be seen. Schwarzenegger also recently replaced the head of the California Highway Patrol—another institution that would be pivotally involved in a major emergency response by the state’s infrastructure. “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger abruptly removed Maj. Gen. Paul Monroe as commander of the California National Guard on Tuesday and replaced him with Maj. Gen. Thomas Eres, who has served as director of the guard’s office of homeland security. . . . His [Monroe’s] replacement, Eres, 59, takes over immediately. Eres rose through the ranks during 35 years of service in the National Guard. In civilian life, he is senior partner in the Sacramento law firm of Nossaman, Gunthner, Knox & Elliott. He is a Republican. Monroe is a Democrat. . . .”
(“Schwarzenegger Removes National Guard Commander” by Carl Nolte; San Francisco Chronicle; 3/4/2004; p. A19.)

25. In his introduction to the portion of the program dealing with California quake predictions, Mr. Emory notes that this information falls in a gray area that hovers between “reality” and “paranoia.” In that same vein, a [hopefully] humorous comment by Florida Governor Jeb Bush may well be nothing more than the tasteless joke it appears to be. Let’s hope so, anyway. “ . . . Gov. Jeb Bush joked during a Florida Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the people of San Francisco may be endangered and, ‘That’s probably good news for the country.’ The subject was environmental land and Bush was looking at a map showing locations with a lot of different wildlife. ‘It looks like the people of San Francisco are an endangered species, which may not be a bad thing. That’s probably good news for the country.’ People in the room broke into laughter. ‘Did I just say that out loud?’ the governor asked.’”
(“Jeb Bush Says People of San Francisco Are Endangered Species” by Jim Sparkman; ChronWatch; 11/17/2003; p. 1.)

26. Among the factors mandating discussion of these troublesome and (to some) far-fetched ruminations concerning possible seismic subversion of the electoral and democratic processes is the overtly Machiavellian nature of this administration. One of the stratagems that Machiavelli counseled in The Prince was the deliberate use of annihilation to interdict a population’s renascent democratic instincts. “Indeed, there is no surer way of keeping possession than by devastation. Whoever becomes the master of a city accustomed to freedom, and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed himself; because, when there is a rebellion, such a city justifies itself by calling on the name of liberty and its ancient institutions, never forgotten despite the passing of time and the benefits received from the new ruler. Whatever the conqueror’s actions or foresight, if the inhabitants are not dispersed and scattered, they will forget neither that name nor those institutions; and at first opportunity they will at once have recourse to them, as did Pisa after having been kept in servitude for a hundred years by the Florentines. . . .But in republics there is more life, more hatred, a greater desire for revenge; the memory of their ancient liberty does not and cannot let them rest; in their case the surest way is to wipe them out. . . .”
(The Prince; Niccolo Machiavelli; Penguin Classics [translated by George Bull]; ISBN 0-14-044107-7; pp. 48-49.)

27. There has been widespread speculation about the possibility of a terrorist incident that might affect the election. General Tommy Franks gave an interview in late 2003 in which he weighed the grave danger to American democracy that a terrorist incident with WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) would pose. Those who see Al Qaeda and related organizations as simple agent-provacateurs controlled by the Bush administration are making a serious mistake. Both Al Qaeda and the Bush administration are tools of the Underground Reich—Bush & co. do not control Al Qaeda. Nonetheless, many in this administration would welcome another deadly terrorist incident as a vehicle for eliminating what remains of American democracy. (As discussed in—among other programs—FTR#’s 372, 412, 441, 471—this administration and its allies might be more closely compared with the French power elite in the pre-World War II period. They actively welcomed the German victory in World War II, which they saw as the ideal vehicle for eliminating French democracy. The relationship between this administration and Al Qaeda is analogous to the relationship between the French power elite and the German invaders. The German invasion of France in World War II was not a provocation intended to expand French influence. Nonetheless, it was anticipated and greatly aided by the French power elite, who collaborated enthusiastically with the Third Reich.) “Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government. Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Afficionado. In the magazine’s December edition, the former commander of the military’s Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form of government.”
(“Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack” by John O. Edwards; NewsMax.com; 12/21/2003; p. 1.)

28. “Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that ‘the worst thing that could happen’ is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties. If that happens, Franks said, ‘ . . . the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.’” (Idem.)

29. “Franks then offered ‘in a practical sense’ what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack. ‘It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Weste

rn world—it may be in the United States of America—that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.’” (Idem.)

30. The program takes a look at the ideology of Paul Weyrich. It is worth noting the close relationship between Weyrich’s Council on National Policy and the developers of Diebold, ES&S etc. (Weyrich is also the founder of the Free Congress Foundation, one of the focal points of FTR#465.) As we look ahead to the elections, we should not fail to note the enthusiasm with which the far-right elements associated with the Bush administration view the elimination of the institutions of American democracy. Their French counterparts in the pre-World War II period held similar attitudes. It remains to be seen whether the “Vichy Americans” of the Bush administration facilitate the destruction of our democracy. “On January 28, 2002, The American Prospect, Inc. published ‘Fair-Weather Friend; Going Down as it Came Up; School Sprays; They’re Back!’ a brief excerpt reads: ‘Two years ago, ur-conservative Paul Weyrich stunned the religious right by calling for a retreat from temporal concerns. ‘Conservatives have learned to succeed in politics,’ he wrote in an open letter that’s still available on the Web site. ‘But that did not result in the adoption of our agenda. The reason, I think, is that politics itself has failed. And politics has failed because of the collapse of the culture.’ The right no longer had a ‘moral majority,’ he wrote. The solution? ‘To look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture.’ In essence, he said, the religious right should espouse cultural and political separatism—by setting up its own schools, television networks, and even courts of law. The rest of the country breathed a sigh of relief. No more silly Disney boycotts by southern Baptists. No more flaky school-board members, pushing creationism. No more Paul Weyrich!”
(“Paul Weyrich’s Teaching Manual?”; pp. 1-2.)

31. “ ‘The whew, alas, was premature. It turns out that what Weyrich and his folks really had in mind was less separatism than guerilla warfare—a ‘New Traditionalist’ movement that, according to its manifesto, written by Weyrich protégé Eric Heubeck and bearing the grandiose title ‘The Integration of Theory and Practice: A program for the New Traditionalist Movement,’ would seek ‘to advance a true traditionalist counter-culture based on virtue, excellence, and self-discipline.’ The New Traditionalists—who sound a lot like the Old Traditionalists—will ‘reject the materialism, hedonism, consumerism, egoism, and the cult of self-actualization which permeate modern life.’ Heubeck elaborates: ‘We will not try to reform existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] We will endeavor to knock our opponents off-balance and unsettle them at every opportunity. . .’” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

32. “ . . . The Bush administration is apparently quite cozy with Weyrich. This quote from a Time magazine article is apropos, Time magazine wrote this: ‘Each Wednesday, Rove dispatches a top administration official to attend the regular conservative-coalition lunches held at Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation. When activists call his office with a problem, Rove doesn’t pass them off to an aide. He often responds himself. When Weyrich heard a few weeks that Bush’s budget slashed funding for a favorite project called the Police Corps, which gives scholarships and training to police cadets, he complained to the White House. To Weyrich’s surprise, Rove called back, ‘We’ve taken care of it,’ Rove said. ‘The problem is solved.’” (Idem.)

33. Concluding with an anecdote illustrative of the anti-Democratic, pro-fascist views present in the American political establishment, the program presents an encounter a Washington lobbyist had with a prominent Southern reactionary His views were echoed by the private secretary to then House Minority leader [and later President] Gerald Ford. “In January 1968, Haden Kirkpatrick, publisher of racing’s bible, Thoroughbred Record, and his wife gave a small dinner party at the Pavillon Restaurant in New York. During dinner, we all started discussing the state of national and international affairs. Haden turned to me and said: ‘The trouble is and always has been Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He got us in the Second World War on the wrong side.’ I was speechless.”
(The Washington Pay-Off; by Robert N. Winter-Berger; Copyright 1972 by Robert N. Winter-Berger; Lyle Stuart, Inc. [HC]; ISBN 73-185421; p. 297.)

34. “Several days later, back in Washington, I recounted this story to Mildred Leonard, for many years Jerry Ford’s private secretary. [This refers to former House Minority Leader, Vice-President and President Gerald Ford.] Before I could add my personal reaction to Haden’s remark, Mildred looked up at me and said: ‘You know, he’s right, Mr. Winter-Berger.’ I was even more amazed, hearing this in the Capitol of the United States from the secretary of the House Minority Leader.” (Idem.)

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