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The
Silence of the Scams: Psychological Resistance to Facing Election Fraud
April 11, 2005
BY DIANE PERLMAN
Invisible History
Few Americans know about the historic event that happened on
January 6, 2005, the official date for counting electoral votes. For the first
time since 1877, congress members challenged the electoral count.
Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio, accompanied by the lone senator,
Barbara Boxer of California, led the challenge to the Ohio vote count. Although
massive fraud was reported around the country, only Ohio was officially cited.
It is curious that an issue so profound and consequential is
barely on the radar screens of most Americans, especially those who supported
Kerry.
Though we are not certain of the actual outcome,
statistically impossible discrepancies exist between results of exit polls and
official counts in counties without paper trails. Also documented are patterns
of anecdotes about corrupted procedures and accounts of strange behaviors,
phenomena and illegal interventions in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and other
places. Many say there is fraud in every election, but there was far more in
2004 than in any previous year, and if the errors were random, about half would
go in Kerry's favor. Virtually all went in Bush's favor.
But rather than demanding a thorough investigation, the many
Americans seem eager to forget the incidents and put the election behind them,
thus implicitly supporting such corruption. In my conversations, I observed
that white, US born males were more emphatic about accepting the outcome and
the futility of challenging it, while others were more willing to recognize being
dominated and open to questioning what happened. White males may be more
susceptible to obeying patriarchal authority, and the fish does not know it is
swimming in the water. This difference was reflected in congress. Women and
members of the Congresional Black Caucus were most active. Representative John
Conyers lead the investigation and press conferences, and women, Stephanie
Tubbs Jones in the House and Barbara Boxer in the Senate led the historical
challenge.
A Political Psychological Puzzlement
Under what conditions do millions of allegedly
"free" people knowingly acquiesce to being deceived, dominated and
deprived of their own political will? How is it that even those who were
politically engaged for the first time resign themselves to an unjust fate,
refusing even to consider what happened to our country? Why do progressive
citizens actively dismiss and even malign a small group of courageous, devoted
people working day and night on their behalf to uncover, calculate, analyze,
and evaluate the extensive, varied forms of criminal sabotage that undermined
their democracy? How are Americans becoming complacent with escalating
fraudulent activity? In other words, how do so many people live with the
knowledge that they have been tricked before, were just tricked again--and then
submit to life under the power of those who tricked them?
Why were hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians out for days in
the freezing cold, refusing to accept fraud, while Americans helplessly
colluded with forces of domination? Granted, we face a conspiracy of silence in
the media, a propaganda campaign discrediting exit polls (which are accurate in
counties with paper trails and other countries), and a dismissal of those who
challenge the vote as nuts, sore losers and "conspiracy theorists."
Censorship, brainwashing and intimidation create an environment of passivity
and fear in subtle yet powerful ways that keep the system going with the
complicity of those who have been robbed.
Another significant reason, pointed out by readers
commenting on an earlier version of this article, was that Yushchenko himself
was bold and courageous about challenging the vote. Unlike Gore, who
discouraged a challenge, and Kerry who backed down easily after Edwards
promised to count every vote, Yushchenko, who was poisoned and scarred,
provided a powerful model of leadership, inspiring his supporters to be brave
as well. The Democratic party itself, except for the few who lead the
challenge, acted cowardly, hardly inspiring the public. Why should they rise to
the challenge if theier maligned leaders wimped out?
Another reason is that citizens of the Ukraine know their
history of oppresive, deceptive government. Unlike Americans, they are not
inclined to trust the integrity of their leaders and system, and hunger
instensely for justice and the freedoms that we have enjoyed.
Even with these explanations, we must still wonder what is
going on in the collective psyche that allows mass submission to the systematic
and progressive usurpation of power.
The Dance of Domination
The psychology of electoral domination has two parts--what
is being done to people and how they allow it.
Psychological techniques, used deliberately, allow many
tricks to go unnoticed and unchallenged. For example, "mystification"
is a plausible misrepresentation of reality in which forms of exploitation are
presented as forms of benevolence. Like magic and the use of distraction, the
issue of voting reform was manipulated and misrepresented, so people felt
calmed by the illusion that the problems from the 2000 election were being
corrected. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Elements of the Help America
Vote Act, HAVA (a name as Orwellian as the Clear Skies Initiative, should be
more accurately called "Hide America's Voting Anomalies"), includes
intrusive identity checks, the introduction of the "provisional
ballot" most of which were not counted, and the use of electronic voting
machines. Each of these was brilliantly misused for the opposite intention--to
corrupt and deny votes to Kerry in ways people wouldn't notice.
The subterfuge was successfully accomplished with use of
censorship, illusion, distortion, brainwashing, propaganda, misinformation,
disinformation, mystification, intimidation, shaming, and domination. As Bush
might say, it was a "catastrophic success."
These techniques combine to form something like a collective
hypnotic induction, which creates an illusion of a consensus that cannot be
challenged. Few have the insight, training, or tools, to see through the manipulation.
Even fewer have the courage to take on the challenge. For many, responses to
domination may include disbelief, learned helplessness, psychic numbing, fear,
cowardice, conformity, denial, cognitive laziness, avoidance, and submission to
authority. These items are inter-related and the list is not exhaustive.
Before the psychological explanations, it is necessary to
acknowledge a basic factor: the overwhelming ignorance of the facts . This can
be exacerbated by a lack of desire to know the facts, and an avoidance of the
awesome responsibility that comes with this knowledge. Of course if the facts
were accurately reported in the mainstream media, the collective psychological
climate would be conducive to a healthier public response. People accept fraud
for reasons which may be conscious or unconscious. Some of the ways that they
do this are described below.
Confusing Outcome with Process
Many don't want to deal with the corruption because they
believe that challenging fraud won't change the outcome, so there's no point.
This might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It represents a kind of immature,
black-and-white thinking, as the outcome is a separate issue from the process.
Even if it doesn't affect the outcome, voter suppression is criminal.
Paradoxically, refusal to examine the process prevents
discovery, which might change the outcome. The Ohio vote challenge required
two-hour debates in the House and Senate. Most Democrats who supported the
challenge, emphatically stated that they didn't expect it to change the
outcome, as if they were intimidated into making that point first or they would
be ridiculed and dismissed. Most Republicans ignored their actual words and
made emotional, even hysterical accusations of them not accepting the outcome,
being sore losers, and worse. Republicans ignored the issue of voter
suppression and praised Kerry highly for not making a big deal out of this.
Numbers, Imagery and Perceptions
People believe that Bush won by 3,500,000 votes--a margin
too large to challenge, compared to Gore's 500,000. They are not aware of the
long list of dirty tricks, and knowing of one or two, don't believe they can
add up to 3,500,000. To bring the popular vote to a tie, it only has to add up
to half that, 1,750,000, or an average of 35,000 votes per state, Correcting
for Ohio's fraud could change the electoral vote. People may believe
subliminally that even if Ohio went to Kerry, the difference in the popular
vote is too great. The report of the Conyers Committee may be the best single summary
that we have at this time to suggest estimates of the numbers affected.
Ignorance of Extent of Dirty Tricks
If people knew about the amount and extent of dirty tricks,
3,500,000, or 1,750,000 may not seem so unsurmountable. Some of the tricks
documented include throwing out of Democrat voter registration forms, broken
machines, misplaced machines, machine errors, reduced numbers of machines in
Black and predominantly Democratic areas, less than in 2002, causing long
lines, unmailed absentee ballots, absentee ballots requesting 86 cents,
insufficient postage, which were returned, certification of more votes than
registered voters in some areas, reversal of percentages of registered
Democrats and votes for Bush in many counties, modem connected voting machines
and tabulators, different standards for provisional ballot recounts in
different areas, many provisional ballots, also called "placebo
ballots", not counted at all, voting machines defaulting to a Bush or
'jumping' by recording a vote for Bush when Kerry's button was pushed, phony
companies registering voters and then tearing up the registrations of Democrats
but not Republicans, exit polls not corresponding with reported votes in
counties with no paper trail, while exit polls matched reported votes in
counties with paper trails, voting elections officials creating what look like
phony election machine poll tapes and tossing original, signed tabulations in
the garbage, people posing as technicians coming in and tampering with
machines, Republicans posing as Democrats, a lock down, refusing to let
observers in, with the excuse of terrorist alert to observe the counting of
votes in a country in Ohio, misinformation about the date and location of
voting in Black neighborhoods, threats of arrest for voters with traffic
tickets or any record, unusual discrepancies between numbers of votes for Kerry
and Democratic candidates on same ticket, and widespread refusal of media to
report on any of these, and a media campaign trashing exit poll data with made
up reasons. And these are just the ones we know about.
Discomfort with Numbers
The best evidence for fraud in the 2004 election is
statistical, according to Josh Mitteldorf of Temple University's Statistics
Department. Many are uncomfortable with numerical and statistical science that
quantifies judgments about likelihood. For example, statistician Dr. Steve
Friedman of University of Pennsylvania, and graduate of MIT found that the
discrepancy between exit polls and the actual vote count in each of three states,
Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, is 1 in 1,000,000, but the likelihood of all
three states being discrepant in the same direction is 1 in 250,000,000. What
people heard in the news was a smear campaign invalidating the credibility of
exit polls, even though they are considered highly accurate, are used in many
countries as indicators of fraud, and that exit polls in counties with a paper
trail matched the official vote count, and in counties where there was no paper
trail and evidence of computer irregularities, the official count was different
than the exit polls and always favored Bush. They even made up fake reasons for
this discrepancy regarding response bias--which did not exist where there were
paper trails.
Disbelief
Many people don't believe the allegations of fraud because
they didn't read about it in the New York Times or hear it on CNN. (The only
mainstream media to report it was Keith Olberman on Countdown, MSNBC.) We might
wonder about the media censorship on this story and intentions to promote
disbelief in the populous, in addition to ignorance.
Conformity and Herd Mentality
Because of the media blackout, ignorance, and emotional tone
of reporting, Americans have a false perception of consensus about objective
reality. The majority conforms to this misperception and most do not have the
psychological make-up to challenge the status quo. The few that are
courageously addressing this are not heard, or else they are severely shamed,
ridiculed and viciously accused of causing problems. Thus, even the thought of
questioning is suppressed.
Learned Helplessness
Psychologist Martin Seligman's theory of learned
helplessness explains how when one's repeated actions have no effect, people
learn that what they do doesn't make a difference and give up, even in
situations where they can potentially make a difference. People worked hard on
this election and believe that they lost. They are burned out. They feel all
their hard work, time, energy and money didn't help so they don't want to deal
with it. Learned helplessness is also associated with elevation of levels of
cortisol and immune suppression--suggesting it is ultimately not adaptive or
healthy to give up. Conversely, taking action in the face of injustice is a
sign of health, enhanced immune response and can be an antidote to depression.
Cowardice
It is reasonable to fear sticking one's neck out and
challenging the powers that be. There may be legitimate reasons to be afraid of
individual action, but this becomes part of the problem and rewards domination.
As long as people remain silent and isolated from one another, we don't realize
the safety implicit in concerted collective action. The safety in numbers can
reduce fear.
Denial and Psychic Numbing
We are comforted with the belief that our leaders are good
people who are protecting us. Many decent, well-meaning people believe the best
about our system of government and democracy and can't believe that corruption
is going on. It is frightening, unsettling, and intolerable for many Americans
to question these core beliefs about our leaders and to accept the reality of
extensive fraud. Also, ignorance is bliss, but for the moment, and knowledge
implies responsibility, which may be feared and avoided.
Denial and numbing--not knowing and not feeling--protect us
from this painful awareness in the present, but they cannot protect us from the
real effects of these hidden realities which render us vulnerable to increasing
domination and danger in the long term. If one is in an impossible situation,
these habits serve as survival mechanisms to avoid the pain of awareness.
However, if one can do something to make a difference, then psychic numbing and
denial are maladaptive.
Submission to Authority
The thought of challenging powerful, dominating authority
with the prospect of losing is overwhelming. Increasing authoritarianism
reinforces this dynamic in gradual, subtle ways. Some may also be afraid of
challenging a president during a war and falsely believe it will harm national
security.
Political Egocentrism
Many feel that there is no action that they can personally
take on this level. It is too big for them, so they don't even seek out
information or support or value the work that others are doing on their behalf.
Avoidance and Compartmentalization
People want to retreat, to focus on their own survival,
family, daily life and pleasure, which are manageable. They are less focused on
the scary bigger picture. This is completely understandable and even enviable.
Furthermore, those struggling with high unemployment, lower wages, and other
hardships created by the Bush administration are too preoccupied with their
survival issues to pay attention to politics. In this way, disempowerment of
certain segments of the population works to the administration's advantage.
The Spiral of Silence
I am grateful to readers of an earlier version for informing
me about Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann's theory,The Spiral of Silence, which
describes the spread of public opinion. All of the elements described above can
be understood as interacting and potentiating this spiral. It refers to
preceptions of public opinion, and when people perceive themselves to be in the
minority, their sense of pressue to conformity, fear of isolation and the tendency
to conceal one's views, and the role of the mass media in feuling this spiral.
Evolution, Adaptation and Survival
All of these reactions are understandable, but all become
part of the problem. In the short run, they may minimize pain, but in the long
run they are counterproductive and serve to magnify and multiply problems that
are not being faced. Such avoidance mechanisms are not adaptive, as they play
into the game of the destructive forces, allowing them to dominate. The
continuation of the processes of systematic domination requires the ignorance,
passivity and complicity of the majority of decent people, including the
millions who supported Kerry. These people are colluding with their own
domination.
The Courageous Minority
The reactions listed above are completely natural. Carl Jung
said that consciousness is a work against nature. To go against the collective
tide of ignorance, conformity and cowardice is a work against nature taken on
by the courageous few. This collective, archetypal drama described by Jung was
popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Hero's Journey. The Hero is the one who
is willing to take on challenges that most people fear. According to Jung, the
hero archetype represents the progressive force in society.
The people I have witnessed working intensely to investigate
and challenge voter fraud, have a particular psychological profile. They are
courageous and willing to face pain and fear. They call up their strength to
challenge authority, as our lives, our freedom and democracy depend on it. They
are unable to deny what is going on or remain silent. They are heroes in our
mythical, archetypal Hero's journey, willing to face the dragons who are
guarding our "National Treasure."
They are acknowledged in a piece by William Rivers Pitt
called "Heroes" on Truthout.org. Pitt quotes Bob Dylan: "I think
of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes
with his freedom."
Only by facing the pain can we transcend it. Consciousness
is the first step. Action is an antidote to depression. It would be a sign of
health, freedom, and conscious evolution if more people could muster up the
courage to face the painful truth of what is happening in our country and
support the great work of those courageous souls--who are not nuts or
conspiracy theorists, but evolved, conscious, healthy leaders taking personal
risks and sacrifices to elevate our democracy, restore our integrity and
ultimately to increase our security on the world stage ... if we let them.
**********************************
Some Links for Detailed Accounts of Voter Fraud
For a proper psychological understanding of suppression, it
is necessary to recognize the quantity and quality of information being
suppressed. The extent of fraud and ignorance of it are mind-boggling. Below
are some links with detailed information.
Links for detailed information about voter fraud
http://www.auditthevote.org/briefing.jsp
A Guide to Ohio and New Mexico Recounts: Statistical
Anomalies and Evidence of Voting Machine Malfunction and Fraud in the 2004
Presidential Election January 5, 2005
By: Audit the Vote and Help America Recount
http://www.helpamericarecount.org/election.html
Analysis of 2004 Election Irregularities
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123004B.shtml
TV Networks Officially Refuse to Release Exit Poll Raw Data
By Gary Beckwith, The Columbus Free Press, 22 December 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0103-32.htm
Thom Hartmann in "Dialing for Democracy—Now Is Critical
January 3, 2005, CommonDreams.org
http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
http://www.votersunite.org/info/mapflyer2004.htm
Partial list of incidents reported in the news
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1065
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
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