Fayetteville Citizens For Fair Elections

Because DEMOCRACY Is Not a Spectator Sport!

 

 

WE ARE OUTRAGED: Sign two petitions protesting the US Supreme Court blow to democracy. 1 and 2

Read the December 8th Florida Supreme Court Decision.... Don't be spun to death! Read it for yourself.
Orange Ribbon Campaign
Free Faxing online and the most extensive fax list I've ever seen,including all Florida contacts...(please excuse the source)

       MEDIA LINKS:  CLICK HERE TO EMAIL ARKANSAS MEDIA!! MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD! 

Boycott Florida Citrus and Disney Until Reason and Liberty Prevail!

Statement Against Unethical Media Coverage

Million Voter March Jan. 20, 2000

View the 11/21 Supreme Court opinion here

SECTION 1. Political power.-- All political power is inherent in the people

Email Florida Legislators and urge they use Reason to guide their actions in the days to come

Click Here to view violent messages from rightwingers headed to Florida with guns... and pray to whatever deity you choose.

Email the United Nations and ask that they investigate the US presidential election and report on the state of democracy in America.

Contents

·        Purpose

·        Events

· 11/18 Pro-Democracy Rally Photographs

· National 11/18 Pro-Democracy Rally WebSites

·        Useful Links

·        Contact Us

"The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation among people, mediated by images” (Debord, The Society of the Spectacle).

 

Purpose

For now… the speech read at our 11/18 Pro-Democracy Demonstration… to be shortened and refined in the near future…

 

            Thru the duration of what’s to come and what’s transpired, I think we should not lose sight of the fact that elections in this country are fraudulent even if every eligible voter's vote is tallied correctly. 'Two corrupt corporation-friendly parties in conjunction with the corporate-run media control which candidates get wide public exposure and what kind of exposure they get.'   We can hope and act to see that focused attention on this un-democratic partnership will be the most significant victory that comes from this contested and evenly split election.   However, this week these same corporate owned media networks have continued to fixate on the bureaucratic red tapes surrounding “chad” while ignoring the federal investigation into irregularities and voter intimidation brought to light at the NAACP hearings last Saturday, steering public attention in particular directions.   As the rhetorical maneuverings intensified and the legal cases intertwined, I sensed, perhaps only because of my personal reactions, the hopes of America deflate… I for one will not sit helplessly transfixed and hand over my will, my hope, or my idealism.                   

More than thirty years ago, Herbert Marcuse wrote of Modern society:  “As the great words of freedom and fulfillment are pronounced by campaigning leaders and politicians, on the screens and radios and stages, they turn into meaningless sounds which obtain meaning only in the context of propaganda, business, discipline and entertainment.”  The ideals of democracy and liberty, he said, have been brought down from the sublimated realm of the soul or the spirit or the inner self and translated into operational terms and problems.  

As we stand here, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands stand with us in cities around the country demanding a reasonable conclusion to this fiasco.  We stand here acknowledging and defining the role   WE   play in the process, and in doing so we AFFECT the process.   We stand here to express a shared desire for new and improved election accountability and for the abolition of an archaic and elitist electoral college that makes no sense in the age of information.  We stand here for democracy, because, as simple as it sounds, we’re told democracy stands for US… And we stand together, for the disenfranchised and disillusioned voters and non-voters across the nation… Herbert Marcuse called for a great refusal of intolerable actions that curtail liberty and justice for all.  Today we stand together to voice our own great refusal.

 

Each one of you who has sacrificed this hour of your day should be proud of this stand you’ve taken.    The contradictory values that have defeated so many in our country are overcome in our gathering together to acknowledge a fundamental shared belief that’s been challenged most acutely this time:  we are a country OF, BY AND FOR  THE  PEOPLE .  The next president of the United States must be the president chosen BY the people and work FOR all people.   Thousands of African Americans, Haitian’s and Jews in South Florida have not been allowed a voice in this presidential election, and corrupt politics stand to shut down an accurate recount of contested votes in other areas.   We stand here to express our patience and desire for the voters of Florida to be heard.   We stand here for reasonable discourse as opposed to confusing intentionally loud rhetorical maneuverings that insult our intelligence and mystify the process.  In sociology, we learn much about the irrationalities of bureaucratic rationality in Modern Society.  Bureaucratic thinkers calculate paths and options unreflectively in terms of efficiency and predictability.”  The outcome is often quite irrational.  Reason, on the other hand, “involves the assessment of means in terms of the ultimate human values of justice, peace, and happiness.”  We stand here and join with others around the nation to demonstrate our desire for a reasonable resolution to this historic election.  And reason dictates an accurate count and unbiased investigation and reporting in Florida.  We stand here because our election process is far from reasonable, and we would really, really, really like our voices to be heard!  We can all celebrate the victory of an increased awareness of an incredibly flawed and unreasonable process, and a critical mass demanding that reason prevail!

 

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Events

            Like thousands around our country, citizens in Fayetteville plan to stay active on both the local and national level, collaborating with others to see that reasonable improvements are made to our obviously flawed election procedures.   Though we have yet to meet as a group, at the Pro-Democracy rally November 18, 2000 we began to organize as a group committed to the long-term goal of election reform, and several short-term goals regarding the 2000 election in months to come.  Our local group came together via web-based grassroots nation-wide efforts following the November 7th election

( www.countercoup.org ) and ever watchful members of  the University of Arkansas  Campus Democracy Collective.   Our first rally, held on Saturday November 11th attracted about 40 people, and received good coverage in the media.  On November 18th about 15 of us came together again to demonstrate our pro-democracy (to sum up) sentiments.   We compiled an email list and will continue sending updates on the Arkansas Trust the People discussion list (until further notice).

 

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Useful Links

                       

            Web Resources for Concerned Citizens

 
Local Links of Use and Interest
               http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/media.pl?dir=lchr&command=searchzip&_azip=72701
Want to send a letter or press release for an upcoming event in the area?  This page allows you to email all the media at once… very useful resource.
 
http://www.oocities.org/prodemocracyar
Little Rock demonstration efforts on November 11th and 18th for election reform
 
 
Articles and Research 
 
      http://www.oocities.org/social_theory
               U of Arkansas Sociology graduate student Tree Mangione's incredible Social Theory web-source... Great reference for any activist!!

      http://www.fair.org/index.html
               FAIR - Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

      
http://www.salon.com/
               Salon magazine... a great daily news source.

      http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/bush-n20.shtml
               World Socialist Web's excellent November 20th article, "Florida presidential recount: Bush campaign makes an appeal to military and extreme right"

      http://www.commoncause.org/publications/florida/lessons.htm
               Common Cause analysis of the Lessons learned during the Election 2000 (E2K) carnival . . .

 

      
http://www.oocities.org/dearkandb/page12.html
               Florida statutes...

            http://www.pfaw.org/issues/right/rwwo/rwwo.001116.shtml

  People For the American Way Analysis of Right-wing rhetoric and accusations surrounding

  Florida voting irregularities

http://www.slip.net/~knabb/PS/joyrev1.htm

The Joy of Revolution informative and helpful publication by the Bureau of Public Secrets

 

http://www.naacp.org/other_links.asp

Great Site by maintained by NAACP – many useful links to other groups concerned about voting and election issues among others.

 

            http://www.pfaw.org/news/fl_hearing.shtml

Hearing to investigate wide-spread allegations of voter intimidation and racial profiling in Fl.

 

 

Petitions and Web-Action

 

            http://www.trustthepeople.org

            Web-Based action for E2K fiasco and continued, persistent organized efforts.

http://cgi.teleport.com/cgi-bin/mailmerge.cgi/%7Ebbrain/reno1

Email Janet Reno to urge timely federal investigation into Florida voter irregularities

           

 http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=9237

  Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Should Recuse Herself

 

              http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=9312

              George W. Bush: Accept Offer to Count Every Vote in Florida

 

            http://www.actforchange.com/electionintegrity

            Working Assets “Act for Change” Web Updates and Information about E2K

 

            http://www.michaelmoore.com

This week Michael Moore’s message regards E2K, however, his wit and articulate observations will keep you coming back for more.

 

           

 

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Get Involved - Contact Information

E-mail address

mailto:jlm07@comp.uark.edu

Phone

501-587-0883

 

 

 

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Last revised: Date 12/9/00