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so really how can we fight the rigging of an election? What is it that we can do about that? Our elections are not verifiable and they know it so why would they not tamper with them after all they seem willing to do just about anything... rigging an election is small potatoes? In my recent primary vote (Colorado has both caucuses and primaries) I was given the choice between a paper ballot (which I believe gets counted by a maching) which was a 'fill in the box completely with a pen' kind of form or the machine. I opted for the paper so that it could at least be counted again. Seriously we need some way to verify our elections and we don't seem to have an answer to that.

so really how can we fight the rigging of an election?

There is plenty you can do, although results are far from guaranteed. You can get organized and let your LOCAL officials know that your organization will will challenge any politician, or either party, who doesn't support verifiable election procedures. This can have an effect by making it more expensive for these folks to ignore your group.

You can meet personally with your LOCAL leaders and let them know how you feel. This can have an effect .

Most importantly but most difficult, you can encourage anyone you can to stop voting slavishly for a single party. The current bifurcated political landscape encourages corruption, makes it easier to tamper with "ballots" because both of the biggies have an interest in keeping the biggies big.

None of this is likely to have any real effect, though. You have to resign yourself to fighting a guerilla war for the sake of your children and know that you are unlikely to see the results in your lifetime. Maybe things will be better a generation or two down the line.

For me the killer quote. Channeling Theda Skocpol.
This election isn't about Obama.
This election is about us

“The Congress, especially with regard to matters related to national security policy, has thrust power and authority to the executive branch. We have created an imperial presidency. The Congress no longer is able to articulate a vision of what is the common good. The Congress exists primarily to ensure the reelection of members of Congress... As the Congress has moved to the margins, as the President has moved to the center of our politics, the presidency itself has come to be less effective...
Because of this preoccupation, this fascination with the presidency, the President has become what we have instead of genuine politics, instead of genuine democracy... We look to the next President to fix things and, of course, that lifts all responsibility from me to fix things. So one of the real problems with the imperial presidency is that it has hollowed out our politics and, in many respects, has made our democracy a false one. We’re going through the motions of a democratic political system, but the fabric of democracy really has worn very thin.”

“Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.”

Mark Twain

We are herded like sheep. Most of us are so busy conforming to what MSM and it's corporate masters dictate that we are oblivious to the path we are being pushed down. Really enjoyed listening to a conservative that wasn't a goose-stepper! Be reminded that he had sacrificed a son to Bush's insane scheme.

Father Bacevich offers a most intriguing psychological question insofar as it presents issues of what lawyers call "bias" and "interest" all stemming from his understandably conflicted response to the death of his only son, 27-year old 1st Lt. Bacevich, who followed his father into the officer corps, was put at risk of death for years, and was finally killed in Iraq on May 13, 2007.

To what extent is Bacevich's critique of the American style-of-living really a rationalization excusing him for having brought up his son on a myth -- the myth that the United States military exists to defend American freedoms.

Think about it as Bacevich must have! To die defending American's right to shop?

It can't be Bacevich who let his son -- the person he was most responsible for protecting -- down! No, it was America who let them both down!

Poor, poor Bacevich.

With all respect, I cannot let Ellen's comment go unanswered. Bacevich did not just "catch a ride in this morning on the vegetable truck."

He has spoken "truth to power" for many years-- long before his son was killed in Iraq.

Back in the late 80's he and three other Lt Colonels in the Army, while doing post-graduate work at Harvard, wrote and published a pretty scathing monograph on U.S. policy in El Salvador called "American military Policy in Small Wars" that actually jeopardized their respective military careers and probably explains why he retired as a Colonel and never picked up a star.

His more recent books discuss how Americans are "seduced by military power" and point out the "consequences of American diplomacy and policy." He latest heralds the "end of American Exceptionalism" even as its demise is being played out in Georgia!

His son's death was not some sort of philosophical epiphany, and his current views are not a defense mechanism to insulate himself from his grief.

Like the late General Odom, Professor Bacevich is an extraordinarily patriotic and knowledgeable American who clearly sees what is wrong with our country and is not afraid to talk about it.

I just wish he were just a little more favorably disposed to Obama's candidacy for president. tks rich

"We are governed by fools
Armed and dangerous"

Yes, this is true, but can the Democrats resist the same lure of unprecedented power?

So far, I say no although they are not quite as greedy and unabashed at it -

It's probably wishful thinking, but I think Obama can. I'm pretty sure Clinton would have eagerly grabbed it with both her fists.

McBush is the same as Bush:
The proverbial useful idiot. And then some.

Say What????
Ellen:
I was responding to this language in your post:

"To what extent is Bacevich's critique of the American style-of-living really a rationalization excusing him for having brought up his son on a myth -- the myth that the United States military exists to defend American freedoms."

"Think about it as Bacevich must have! To die defending American's right to shop?"

That is what you said. If you really believe this: you are wrong--and not just about Bacevich, but about the military and the "American Way of Life" as well.