The Reason the Ohio Recount is important

This one cuts deep.  From the diaries over at Daily Kos, here is an amazingly well-written piece about the importance of the 2004 recount efforts in Ohio, the cousin of the 2000 Florida recounts, and the refusal of the mainstream media or, really, Democrats in general to put any substantive time and effort into it.  Money quote:

IMO, the collective Democratic silence about what happened in Ohio demonstrates conclusively that Democrats are no better, morally, than the very Republithugs they condemn.  They certainly have less of a spine, when it comes down to fighting for what they say they believe in.  I don't care how many times liberal folks ooh and ahh over Martin Luther King, Jr., and how much they love him.  If you knew anything about Dr. King and what he was fighting for other than the 30 seconds of "I Have a Dream" we've all been spoonfed you'd know that this beloved man would have been out in the streets protesting THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION once it became clear that our people had to SUFFER to vote - again. Well, here's a newsflash:  Just because folks are not shooting at us or throwing bricks or blocking schoolhouse doors or turning water hoses on us means little in the arena of voting rights.  The KKK wears suits now, and sits in corporate boardrooms now.  The Citizens Council buys politicians -- of all races, since after all easy money has a way of de-colorizing the best of folks -- who conveniently forget to have enough machines on hand for voters; realign precincts and voting places immediately before the election; issue rules locking down public records, or even petty ones about the weight of paper for a valid ballot.  Policians who take care of their massas because their massas take care of them, by permitting thugs to challenge legitimate voters en masse without a whimper, forgetting to send absentee ballots, forgetting to count ballots that are actually there.  All far more genteel and "intelligent" than the methods of old, wouldn't you agree?

It is important stuff.  You should really read the whole article.  I railed against the President during the campaign when he had the audacity to insinuate that the African-American community should rethink voting for a Democrat because the party has consistently taken them for granted.  While the President's insinuation that the better vote would be for a Republican leaves much to be desired and little with which to back up such a claim, perhaps the idea that the plight of African-Americans in our community gets largely ignored in the larger picture deserves a bit more scrutiny.

Comments

[Erin D.]

I don't feel that I'm nearly smart enough to jump into political conversation here. I am merely posting in order to wish a very warm & happy holiday season to an old friend! Drop me a line if you have the time. Otherwise, take care Dylan!

[Rusty]

The lack of support for this recount effort versus 2000 in my eyes comes primarily because Kerry lost the popular vote pretty resoundingly nationwide. For all the talk of fraud, I still don't think the GOP could fake 2 or 3 million votes. If they could, we've got bigger problems than just this one past election.

[Dylan]

I agree with you, Rusty, but that is the point that this particular article makes. Go read it all. Her point is that, regardless of the overall outcome, this recount is important not because it would reverse the outcome of the election, but because it is just another example of blacks having to "suffer" just to execute their right to vote, and on a moral level the party is obligated to do more about it than offer the lip service we've done in the past and are currently doing in Ohio.