hopelessness begins at home, part four.

Just as bad, or worse than, the flawed electoral voting process is the fact that our election process is becoming increasingly corporately owned and operated. It is hard enough to trust that the count is accurate when it is the Federal Government tallying the numbers. But, as it is, not only the machines that register the votes are themselves owned, operated, and even designed by private corporatons, but those very same companies are in charge of tallying the votes. We are thus guaranteed inaccuracy in our voting process. Anybody who looks at this situation, and thinks that the person who designs and finances this system is being completely objective is either ignorant, or choosing to be ignorant. Nobody, when given that kind of power, would not take advantage of it at least to some degree. I'm not saying that rigged electronic voting machines are being cranked out by the thousands. That would be too obvious. Plus, with our current all or nothing electoral voting system, they don't even need to put faulty programming in all of them. A few strategically placed machines will do the job just fine. For instance... a few machines swinging votes one way or the other placed in key positions in Ohio or Florida can guarantee a win for the chosen candidate. All you need is for the machine to take, literally, several votes cast for one guy, and simply record them for the other guy. And since Republicans in Congress have fiercly battled againsts a physical receipt after you place a vote (argued in Florida before electronic voting machines were placed in the swing state for the '04 election), there is absolutely no way to contest which person the machine... excuse me... the COMPUTER says is the winner.

A machine that uses a lever to cast a physical ballot is not tamper-proof by any means. But it does mean that a bi-partisan group of actual human beings is required to physically count the votes. This leaves more of a margin of error than using a computer, but that is counteracted very heavily by the fact that it also brings more checks and ballances into the equation. A computer can be programmed to do anything the programmer wants it to do. This includes changing, or simply deleting certain votes. Because many members of Congress don't want people to get a receipt after casting a vote at an electronic machine, a re-count after a computerized election is simply not possible. The fact of the matter is that most of these members of Congress happen to be Republicans, whether you want to admit it or not. Not to say the Dems are completely honest, but not wanting people to have proof they voted wreaks of fraud.

I truly believe that these things give Americans, particularly the younger, left-leaning generations, a feeling of extreme hopelessness. My generation, to a large degree, has lost faith in its government. We know full well that we have little to no control. Not with an unfair, corrupted voting system, and not with a corporately-funded Congress and Senate. The scary part of all this isn't just America's future loosing faith in its nation. It is detrimental to the very existence of America itself. A nation is not a tangible object. It isn't a deck of cards or an ocean that simply exists whether we want to believe in it or not. A nation is a dream that survives on the willingness of its members to continue believing in it. When people loose faith, they stop believing. When people stop believing, the nation no longer exists. Right now, America is doing what many great nations of the past have done: It is taking its own existence for granted. Americans just believe their Nation will always be there. But if a large number of Americans stop caring, it won't be.

This is the end. If you have read this first, you must go back to the post entitled "Hopelessness Begins At Home, Part One" and then work your way through consecutively until you find yourself back here. If this alone made sense to you as it is, pick up the phone book, look under "psychotherapists" and call the first one. That was not funny. I'm sorry.