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That leaves three ways that the November election can go:1) The Republicans win, the Democrats scream foul, get called sore losers, there are a few street protests, various groups file a few lawsuits, and torture continues as usual.
2) The Democrats win, the Republicans explain that it is mostly due to liberals being soft on terror, and torture continues as usual.
Of course with rigged elections, the only way the Democrats can "win" is if the Republicans don't program the voting machines to flip Democratic votes to Republicans, "lose" Democratic votes, register "negative votes" for Democrats, and all the rest of their dirty tricks. And there has been such great loss of faith in voting machines that they just might do this. Since the Democrats have already gone on record as supporting the war, unwilling to impeach Bush, and not opposing torture, the Republicans have nothing to lose by allowing a Democrat-controlled Congress. Bush would still have his veto power and signing statements to negate anything Congress does short of impeaching him. And Democrats would be so elated at their "win," that they would see no need to get rid of the voting machines before 2008.
So this election is a win-win situation for the Republicans. Either they "win," or else in a calculated sacrifice play, they "lose" but retain control of the voting machines that will allow them to "win" in 2008.
There is, as I mentioned, a third option:
3) We Don't Buy It! Whichever way the election goes, if we cannot observe the vote tallies (they take place inside computers, so nobody can observe them, all you can see is what is on the computer screen, not what is going on inside the computer), we do not have free, fair, open, verifiable elections. What we have instead are faith-based elections where we don't believe it when the other guy "wins," but will accept the same flawed system when we "win." So the third possible outcome, which I do not see as very likely to happen, would be if no matter who wins, people said, "We Don't Buy It!" and commenced a general boycott of luxury consumer goods during the holiday season. This would cause a sharp drop in the consumer confidence index. If, when questioned, people explained that their lack of confidence stemmed from the legalization of torture, the abolition of habeas corpus, the war, the inability to observe and verify the election process, and the country's leadership, regime change would be immediate. The big corporations cannot allow anyone to head this government who cannot maintain consumer confidence. So they'd insist that Bush and Cheney resign, that the voting machines be banned, that the war end, that habeas corpus be restored, that torture be made illegal again, and anything else that was needed to encourage us to go shopping again.
It is a simple effective solution. It does not involve bloodshed. There is no way to counter it. Bush can't send out the national guard to escort everyone to Wal-Mart and force them to do some Christmas shopping. Bush wants you to keep shopping because that's the only thing that allows him to stay in office. A Democratic win in November won't force him out. You're the only one who can do that. Will you?
